[transcriber's note: obvious printer's errors have been corrected. hyphenation and accentuation have been standardised, all other inconsistencies are as in the original. the author's spelling has been maintained.] the autobiography of sergeant william lawrence, _a hero of the peninsular and waterloo campaigns_; edited by george nugent bankes, author of "a day of my life at eton," etc., etc. london sampson low, marston, searle, & rivington crown buildings, , fleet street [_all rights reserved_] by the same author. _square mo, cloth extra, s. d. each._ a day of my life at eton. about some fellows; or, odds and ends from my note-book. cambridge trifles; or, splutterings from an undergraduate's pen. a cambridge staircase. _crown vo, cloth, s._ written to order: being some account of the journeyings of an irresponsible egotist, and of how he enjoyed himself thereon. london: sampson low & co., , fleet street, e.c. preface. sergeant william lawrence died at studland in dorsetshire in the year , bequeathing the manuscript of the accompanying autobiography to the family one of whose members now submits it to the notice of the public. circumstances, which perhaps may be too often interpreted as really meaning an unfortunate tendency to procrastination, have hitherto prevented it being put into shape with a view to publication: one thing after another has intervened, and the work has been passed on from hand to hand, until after these long years a final effort has been made, and the self-imposed task completed. the book is simply sent forth on its own merits in the hope that there are yet some, if not indeed many whose hearts are never weary of the tales of england's glory in the past, and seek to find in them reason why that glory should be perpetuated. many an account have we already had of the victories of the peninsula and waterloo, and this but adds one more to the list: though perhaps it may be regarded in somewhat of a supplementary light, as treating of the campaigns neither from an entirely outside and _soi-disant_ unprejudiced standpoint, nor with the advantages possessed by one who may have had access to the councils of the authorities, but as they were seen by one who came and went and did as he was told, and was as it were nothing more than a single factor in the great military machine that won our country those battles of which she has so much right to be proud. what criticisms of the conduct of the war our veteran occasionally does indulge in are of course chiefly founded on the camp gossip current at the time, and in reading them it must always be borne in mind that events at the moment of their happening often do not present the same appearance as when viewed from the calmer security of after years, and they must be judged accordingly. as to the style. lawrence, though he never betrayed the fact to the authorities during his whole military career, being possessed of a wonderful aptitude for mental calculation, and always contriving to get some assistance in concealing his deficiency when his official duties necessitated his doing so, and though he has carefully avoided all direct allusion to it in this work itself, never learnt to write, and the first form in which his history was committed to paper was from dictation. the person who took down the words as he spoke them, one of his fellow-servants, was but imperfectly educated himself, so that it may be imagined that the result of the narrative of one illiterate person being written down by another was that the style was not likely to aspire to any very high degree of literary merit. still, to preserve the peculiar character of the book, it has been thought better to leave it as far as possible in its original shape: some emendations have perforce had to be made to render it actually intelligible--for instance, in the original manuscript there is scarcely any punctuation from beginning to end, with the exception of at those places where the amanuensis evidently left off his day's work; but the language, with its occasional half-flights into a poetry of about the standard of an eton boy's verses, its crude moralizings, and imperfect applications of old proverbs and fables, has not been altered, nor, so far as there can be said to be one, has the method. it is trusted, therefore, that, remembering that the main object in the editor's mind has been to let the venerable hero tell his story in exactly his own words so far as his meaning can be thereby made out, no one will take any unnecessary pains to count up how often the words "likewise" and "proceed" are repeated in these pages, or to point out that the general style of the book combines those of tacitus, caesar's commentaries, and the journeyings of the israelites. nor, it is to be hoped, will any one be too severe in his comments on the fact that to the mind of a man in lawrence's position the obtaining of a pair of boots was apparently quite as important an event as the storming of badajoz, or the finding of a sack with a ham and a couple of fowls in it as the winning of the battle of waterloo. interesting perhaps the book will prove as giving some of the details of what our soldiers had to undergo in those old times of war. hardships they now have to endure, and endure them they do well, but all must be thankful to know that they are far better off than their forefathers; who, unsuitably clad, half starved, and with their commissariat such even as it was disgracefully mismanaged, and yet forbidden very often under pain of death to pick up what they could for themselves, submitted on the shortest notice to punishments which would nowadays call forth the indignant protests of hosts of newspaper correspondents; and still in spite of all fought stubbornly through every obstacle till they had gained the objects for which they had been sent out. what wonder can there be that under all these circumstances we should find our hero somewhat hardened in his estimate of human sympathies, and not altogether disinclined to view everything, whether it concerned life or death, or marriage, or parting or meeting, all in one phlegmatic way, as occurring as a matter of course? what ought to strike us as more curious is that he was only reduced to that level of intellect where he thought even that much of anything at all besides his actual eating, drinking, and sleeping. but to go on further would be to depart from the original intention of letting the book speak for itself. to conclude therefore: there is much to wade through, though it is all more or less relevant to the progress of the story: some readers may like one part and some may prefer another; and if the pruning-hook had once been introduced it would have been difficult to decide what to leave and what to take, or whether it would not be better to publish another volume of the things pruned, since it had been determined to publish at all. but if the reader will accomplish the wading to the end, there will he find summed up in one simple paragraph the autobiographer's own ideas about the merits of his work. may it be received in the same spirit as it is sent forth! contents. chapter i. page starting in life chapter ii. enlisted and ordered abroad chapter iii. the river plate expedition--monte video chapter iv. the river plate expedition, continued--colonia chapter v. the river plate expedition, concluded--buenos ayres chapter vi. the peninsula, --vimeira--lisbon chapter vii. talavera chapter viii. --busaco chapter ix. torres vedras chapter x. --pombal, redinha, &c. chapter xi. siege of badajoz--albuera chapter xii. --ciudad rodrigo chapter xiii. badajoz chapter xiv. invalided--promotion chapter xv. --vittoria chapter xvi. the pyrenees--villebar chapter xvii. the nive--further promotion chapter xviii. san sebastian--nivelle chapter xix. --orthes--the adour--toulouse chapter xx. end of the war chapter xxi. to america and back--napoleon's escape from elba chapter xxii. waterloo chapter xxiii. paris--matrimony chapter xxiv. return to great britain chapter xxv. family matters chapter xxvi. pensioned and discharged the autobiography of sergeant william lawrence. chapter i. lawrence's parentage -- birth and early training -- apprenticed -- he falls out with his master -- is beaten and resolves to leave -- a few words to masters in general -- finds a companion -- precautions against being forgotten too soon -- to poole _viâ_ wareham -- engages for a voyage to newfoundland -- recaptured and sent back, but escapes again on the way -- receives some good advice, and starts to dorchester, picking up some fresh company on the way. as i have been asked to furnish as complete an account as i am able of my own life, and it is usual when people undertake to do so to start at as early a period as possible, i will begin with my parentage. my father and mother were of humble means, living in the village of bryant's piddle, in the county of dorset. my father had been formerly a small farmer on his own account in the same village, but having a large and hungry family to provide for, he became reduced in circumstances, and was obliged to give up his farm, and work as a labourer. i was born in , and, being one of seven children, found myself compelled at a very early age to seek my own livelihood as best i could, so that i had not much opportunity for education, though i cannot say that i thought that much hardship at the time, being fonder of an open-air life. i was employed for some time in frightening the birds off the corn, for which i received the sum of twopence a day; after which i was advanced to sixpence a day as ploughboy, in which situation i remained until i was fourteen years of age. my father then obtained twenty pounds from a friend, with which he apprenticed me to henry bush, a builder living at studland, a village in the same county, for seven years, the agreement being that my master was to find me in food, lodging, and clothes, and i was to receive no wages. i had not been with him very long before i found that he did not suit me as a master at all well. things went on pretty smoothly for the first month or so, that is, while the money for my apprenticeship lasted; but after that he became rather difficult to please, and besides took to allowancing me in food, which was a much more serious matter both to my mind and palate. however, i rubbed on for about nine months, until one sunday, when i had gone out to church in the morning and had happened to stay in the village all day, on my return home at last after dark i found the house locked up. i accordingly proceeded to swanage, the nearest town, and called on my master's sister, who lived there, who took me in and was giving me some supper, when my master chanced to come in himself, and was very angry with me and told me to come along with him, declaring that he would pay me out in the morning. when we got home he ordered me to see if the garden gate was closed, which i thought rather strange, as it was a thing i had never had to do before; but meanwhile he slipped upstairs with a horsewhip, which he produced suddenly in the morning, and gave me a good thrashing before i had well got my clothes on. i bundled downstairs pretty much as i was, and out of the house as quick as i could, saying to myself, "this is the last thrashing i will ever receive at your hands;" and sure enough it was, for that same week i planned with another apprentice near the same place, who was under very similar circumstances to myself, to take our departure on the following sunday; so that was the end of my apprenticeship. and i should like here to warn any master whose eye may fall on this story not to treat any lad who is put under his care too harshly, as it is very often the means of discouraging him in the occupation he is intended to follow, and of driving him from his home, and even from his country, and to his ruin. thus even in my case it will be seen that it was all my master's want of kindness that forced me into a very different sort of life to that which my parents intended for me; into one which, though it was not altogether so ruinous, was perhaps more perilous than many others, and on which i can only now look back in wonder that i have been spared to tell my story at all. but i must go back to the day on which myself and my companion had resolved to leave our homes, which as i have before stated was a sunday, no better opportunity appearing by which we might get a few hours' start unbeknown to our employers. we met early in the morning, but finding that neither of us had either money or food, and i likewise wanting to get hold of my indentures, we waited until the family had left the house as usual to go to swanage to chapel, when i made my entry into the house by the back door, which was only fastened by a piece of rope-yarn. i could not find my indentures, but in the search for them i came upon a seven-shilling piece, which i put into my pocket, as i thought it might be useful. i also cut about three or four pounds off a flitch of bacon that hung in the chimney corner, nicely marked to prevent any being lost on account of my late allowanced state. i did not study that much at the time, however, but took what i thought we should require, and when i had put it into a bag with the necessary amount of bread, we marched off together up to a place near called king's wood, where we put a little of our bread and raw bacon out of sight, for we were both hungry. then we went on to wareham, a distance of about ten miles, where we changed our seven-shilling piece, and had a pint of small beer to help us in again lightening our bundle; and, after about an hour's rest, proceeded on for poole, about nine miles from wareham. we felt very tired, but still walked on, and gained our destination at a very late hour, owing to which we had some trouble in obtaining a lodging for the remaining part of the night; but at last we found one in a public house, where we finished our bread and bacon, together with some more beer, the best day's allowance we had had for some time past. we slept very soundly, and in the morning went round to inquire for service on board the newfoundland packets. we soon found a merchant of the name of slade, who engaged us for two summers and a winter, myself for _l._ and my companion for _l._ for the whole time, and our food and lodging till the ship left the harbour. but we were not long in finding that our destination was not to be newfoundland, for on the very next day my companion's master came to poole in search of us, and meeting his own boy wandering about the market, soon wished to know what business he had there, and took him into custody. he likewise asked him if he had seen anything of me, and the boy told him i was in poole, but he did not know where. i at the time was at work on board the ship, but in the evening, having fallen in with the mate, he asked me where i was going. when i said to my lodgings, beginning rather to shake, for i thought by his manner that there was something up, he told me that i had better come with him. i did so, and presently found myself with my companion's master, who finished up for the night by having me put into gaol. next day we were both taken on board the swanage market-boat to go back, but when we had got as far as south deep, near brownsea castle, we had to anchor, as the wind was contrary. a number of stone-boats were lying there at the time, and one of the boatmen, named reuben masters, took charge of me to convey me back to my master's house, as he was going by it; so we landed, and proceeded towards home. when we were about half a mile off it, however, we met my mistress, who, after inquiring where i had been, told me that her husband would have nothing more to do with me, but would send me to prison. i could have told her i did not want to trouble him any more, but i thought i would leave that for them to find out; so i went on with the man to the next gate, when, seeing an opportunity to bolt; i took it and popped over to the other side; and all i heard the man say was, "well, you may go, and your master may run after you for himself if he likes;" so i knew there was not much to fear from him. i ran down into the common, to a place called agglestone, which i knew had once been a great place for foxes, and there i crawled into a hole and remained till dusk. then i came out of my den, and again made my way to wareham. i called this time at the "horse and groom," where, having related my story to the landlady, she kindly gave me food and lodging for the night, advising me to go back to my parents and state my master's behaviour. so next morning, after she had provided me with breakfast, and some bread and cheese to eat on the way, i set off for dorchester. on the road i met with two boys who were going to poole to try and get a ship bound for newfoundland. i wanted some companions on my journey, so i told them not to go to poole, as the press-gang was about, and, when i had been there myself a few days before, had fired a blunderbuss at me, but i happened to pop round the corner and so had escaped. the boys did not seem fit for soldiers, or sailors either, for they looked as if they had lain in the sun for some time, and one of them was warped. when they heard my story, they turned back and kept with me. they soon began to complain of hunger, but when i asked them if they had got any money, they said they had only one shilling and a farthing, with a hundred miles to travel before they reached their home again; so i took out my bread and cheese and divided it amongst us. we were very tired and hungry when we arrived at dorchester, and i tried to persuade them to change the shilling, but they would not. however, they gave me the farthing; it was not much certainly for a hungry boy, but it served to purchase a cake for me to devour; and then i and my companions parted, and what became of them afterwards i do not know. chapter ii. lawrence's forlorn state of mind in dorchester -- he meets with a friend in need, who takes him to enlist -- is discovered and recovered by his parents, and ordered back sharp to his master -- his military spirit proves too strong for him on the way, and carries him, through the agency of a friendly soldier, first to bridport, and then to taunton -- various further attempts at enlisting, slightly influenced by the disinterestedness of his friend, and ending in his joining the fortieth regiment -- subsequent changes of quarters, and final orders for foreign service. dorchester was only about eight miles from my parents' house, but i had never really had one serious thought of going to them. i seemed to myself to be completely friendless, and wandered through and through the town, watching the preparations for the fair, which was to take place the next day, not being able to make up my mind what to do or where to go. at length, more by instinct than aim, i wandered into the stable-yard of one of the principal inns, where i was brought nearer to my senses by hearing the ostler sing out sharply, "hullo, my man, what is your business?" i told him i was a friendless boy in search of some employment by which i might get a livelihood, as i was very hungry and had no money, or something to that effect; to which he replied that if i would brush about a bit, and help him rub over the horses, he would find me plenty to eat. i soon went to work, and finished the task he gave me; and sure enough he fulfilled his share of the bargain by bringing the requisite article in the shape of a lump of bread and beef enough for two or three meals. after eating as much as i wanted, as i felt very tired, i made up a bed for myself with some straw, and putting the remainder of my meal into my handkerchief to serve as a pillow, laid myself down, and the ostler having given me a rug to pull over me, i slept soundly there the whole night. in the morning, after i had done a little more in the stable, i walked out with my new friend into the street, where seeing some soldiers, i told him i should like to become one. he said he knew where he could enlist me, and took me straight to the rendezvous, which was in a public-house, where we met a sergeant of artillery, who gave him two guineas for bringing me and myself five for coming, and when my measurement had been taken, a proceeding which was accompanied with no small amount of joking, i was put into an old soldier's coat, and with three or four yards of ribbon hanging from my cap, paraded the town with other recruits, entering and treating some one or other in almost every public-house. it almost seemed, however, as if my hopes were again to be blighted, for in the very first house i entered, there sat a farmer from my home who knew me very well, and exclaimed on seeing me, "hullo, young fellow, as you make your bed so you must lie on it." i entreated him not to tell my father and mother where and how he had seen me, and made my exit as quickly as possible; but later in the day i encountered another man, my father's next-door neighbour, who also recognized me immediately. i offered him the price of a gallon of ale not to say anything, and he promised, taking the money, but as soon as he got home he went to my father and acquainted him with what i was up to. how i was spending the rest of the night meanwhile can better be conceived than described; but next morning, as i was going up to the town hall with an officer to be sworn in, who should meet us but my father and mother. on their telling the officer that i was an apprentice, he gave me up to them without any further trouble, except that he asked me what had become of my bounty money, and on finding that i had only seventeen shillings and sixpence left out of my whole five guineas, kindly took the care of even that off my hands. then we marched off home, and my father went to find out what was to be done in the matter from a magistrate, who advised him to take me back to dorchester to be tried at the next sittings; which advice being acted on, i was severely reprimanded by the bench, and given my choice of serving my time or else going to prison. of course i chose the former, and they gave me a letter to take with me to my master. when i got downstairs i met the officer who had enlisted me, who told me that if my master was unwilling to take me back, he would enlist me again; and finding on asking me if i had any money that he had taken all i possessed, he gave me a shilling and wished me well. my father sent me off at once with strict orders to get back to studland as quickly as i could, and that was all i received from him either in the way of blessing or anything: so with a heavy heart i set out on my retreat from dorchester. i had not gone very far when i was overtaken by a dairyman's cart, in which the owner gave me a lift, asking me where i was bound for. i told him a little of my story, and showed him the letter, that he might open it and see what was inside: which, when he had done, he said i could go back quite safely, for my master would not be able to hurt me. that put me into rather better spirits, though i did not intend to go back all the same. i rode along with the man as far as he went, and then continued on foot to a village called winfrith, where i went into a public-house, and feeling hungry, ordered some bread and cheese. a soldier happened to be in there, who was on furlough, bound for bridport, and the very sight of him again revived my old spirit and made me long to be like him. i got into conversation with him, and said how much i wished to be a soldier, to which he straightway answered that he could enlist me for the fortieth regiment foot, which gave sixteen guineas bounty. i thought that was a great deal, and that if i got it i should not want for money for some time, so i quickly accepted his proposal: i soon found out, though, that i was very mistaken in my views about the money lasting. i was rather afraid of finding myself in dorchester again, so tried to persuade him to go round another way, but we at last slipped through at night, and got to winterborne, where we put up, going on next morning in the coach to bridport. i was again baffled for a time on arriving there, for the coachman knew all about me, and remarked in a way that was no doubt meant well, that it was but yesterday that my father had got me out of the artillery. the soldier then asked me if i was an apprentice, and i thought there seemed nothing to do but to tell him i was: on which he promptly made me get down, and taking me across some fields to his home, kept me there quietly for three days. it seemed best after that to go on to taunton in somersetshire, where we went to the barracks and saw the colonel, who on the soldier telling him that he had brought me up as a recruit, asked me of what trade i was. i replied that i was a labourer, which he said was all right, for labourers made the best soldiers: but he could only give me two and a half guineas bounty: at which point we parted from him, and went to try the recruiting sergeant of the marines, who promised us sixteen guineas bounty when i arrived at the plymouth headquarters. this did not suit my conductor, however, as there was nothing for him after paying my coach expenses, so he asked me what i intended to do, and for his part advised me to go back to my master, saying he would not mind the expenses he had gone to for me. but as i had by this time destroyed the letter, i preferred going back to the fortieth regiment, so we went and again saw the colonel, who gave my companion two guineas, and sent me into barracks. next day i received my clothes, and in about a week more was sworn in before a magistrate, receiving my bounty at the same time. very shortly afterwards orders came for the regiment to march to winchester, where we remained for about a month without anything of any note occurring. i began to drill twice a day directly i joined, and soon learnt the foot drill, after which i was put on to musketry drill. from winchester we removed to portsmouth, where we lay for a week, and were then ordered to bexhill barracks in sussex, where our first battalion was lying, and on our arrival a number of men were drafted out of our battalion, which was the second, into the first, to make it a thousand strong, myself being one of the number. then orders came for us to proceed to portsmouth to embark on foreign service, our country being at the time at war with france and spain. chapter iii. embarkation of the regiment at portsmouth -- lawrence's feelings at the time beginning to be rather mixed -- heartrending partings witnessed and somewhat moralized upon by him -- a few more words of advice, this time intended for apprentices -- ample opportunity for self-introspection afforded during the first week of the voyage -- incidents while becalmed -- arrival at rio, and entertainment of the troops by the queen of portugal -- monte video -- disembarkation and first brushes with the enemy -- barbarity of the spaniards -- lawrence's feelings at last definitely uncomfortable -- sir samuel auchmuty's dislike to finery in soldiers -- the town invested and subsequently stormed -- lawrence in the forlorn hope -- surrender of the citadel. we passed the night before our embarkation in the town: a night to many perhaps the bitterest they had ever experienced, but to myself, on the other hand, one mainly of joy, for i felt that i had at last outwitted my pursuers. but though i cannot say that i was yet at all repentant, it must not be thought that i felt altogether comfortable on leaving my country with all my friends and relations in it, so young as i was at the time: more especially when i considered the errand we were on, and thought that i might never return to see them again, knowing that they had not the slightest idea of where i was. i naturally felt rather timid, as all young recruits must feel on entering so soon on foreign service as i then found myself obliged to do. but the worst and most disheartening spectacle of all was in the morning when the bugle sounded for the assembly of the regiment; for only about six women to a company of a hundred men being allowed to go with us, many who were married had to leave wives and children behind, with the thought that it might never be their lot to see them again. when the order was given to embark, the scene was quite heartrending: i could not see a dry eye in portsmouth, and if the tears could have been collected, they might have stocked a hospital in eye-water for some months. husband and wife, father and child, young man and sweetheart, all had to part, and perhaps none were more affected than the last, though with least cause: it indeed was dreadful to view. i myself was much affected, but it was at the woes of others, for i had not one to throw so much as a parting glance at myself; and thus, amid the cheers of the crowd, and with the band playing the tune of "the girl i left behind me," we embarked. then i felt quite freed from my pursuers; but in getting out of the frying-pan i soon found myself into the fire, for as it afterwards proved i had many men to deal with more difficult than even my old master had been. thus it is that many are apt to dislike and leave their employment through trifles, and in the search for a better often only get a worse one, much to their disappointment. the next day we drew out of portsmouth harbour on our route to south america, and sea-sickness soon commencing on board, i was, the worse luck for myself, one of the number that succumbed to it. this lasted for nearly a week, during the whole of which time we scarcely ate anything; but when we got better, i think our appetites were such that we could have readily finished a donkey with a hamper of greens. we had good weather until we reached the tropics, when a dead calm followed for a fortnight. as we were nearly upon the equinoctial line, the usual ceremony of shaving took place, which was no doubt very amusing to those who escaped by treating the sailors to a bottle of rum, or those who had crossed the line before; but to us on whom the barber, who was the sailor who had crossed the line most often, operated, it was not so pleasant. for the satisfaction of some who may not quite understand the method of that interesting custom, i will give the routine, at least as it happened on board our ship, though i cannot altogether say whether the same is pursued universally, a large tub of water was placed on deck, and each one who was to be performed on, sat in turn on the edge; then the barber stepped forward and lathered his face all over with tar and grease, and with a piece of iron hoop as a razor scraped it off again; after which he pushed him backwards into the tub, leaving him to crawl out anyhow and sneak off to clean himself. all passed off very well, however, as there was plenty of rum provided to drink from those officers and men who were more disposed to join in the pay than the play. during the calms, we amused ourselves fishing for dolphins, and practising for the first time with ball-cartridge, a bottle being corked and flung overboard as far as possible to serve as a target, and a dollar being offered to the first man who could break it, each one firing once. no one broke it, but i got a glass of grog from the major for being the nearest; so near that i made the bottle spin round. the major remarked that if i went so close as that to a spaniard i should make him shake; and he likewise asked me what trade i was in before i joined the army. as i knew i was too far from england now to be sent back, i told him that i was a builder's apprentice; and he only said, "well done, my boy, so you prefer knocking down houses in the enemy's country to putting them up in your own?" certainly at this moment we were having an easy place, but there was many a time afterwards when i should like to have been given the choice of laying bricks again. after spending about a fortnight in this way, a fair wind blew up, and we proceeded on our voyage. we called in at rio janeiro, the capital of the brazilian empire, lying upon the western side of the entrance to a fine bay which forms the harbour. our chief object for putting in there was to take in water and provisions; and whilst we were anchored there we went on shore, and the queen of portugal reviewed us. next day she sent a quantity of onions and pumpkins on board as a present, which we found very acceptable. we stayed there about a fortnight, sailing on next further south to maldonado, the rendezvous of the fleet, whence after being joined by five thousand troops under sir samuel auchmuty, the whole fleet moved on to monte video and anchored. we lost no time on our arrival there, but early the next morning boats were ordered alongside the troopships to convey us on shore, which movement, as the enemy was on the banks about fifteen thousand strong to receive us, put rather a nasty taste into our mouths, there seeming nothing but death or glory before us. the signal was hoisted from the admiral's ship, and we started for the shore amid the fire of the enemy's artillery. they killed and wounded a few of our men, and sank some of the boats, but as soon as we struck the shore, we jumped out, and forming line in the water, fired a volley and charged, soon driving them from their position on the bank. we found even as early as then that spaniards were not very difficult to encounter. in case of a retreat, our boats were still within our reach, but having gained the victory, we had no need of them, stopping where we were on the banks all night. some field-pieces were next sent on shore, and likewise a number of sailors with drag-ropes to work them, as we had no horses with us, and up to this time no artillery. the country was rather favourable for the sailors, being very level and mostly green pasture, so that they kept along pretty easily, seeming just in their glory, all this being new work to them. after some little firing from the cannon the enemy retreated into the town, which was well fortified. we placed an outlying picket of some three hundred men to watch the enemy's manoeuvres, while the body of our army encamped in the rear in a line stretching from sea to sea, so that the town standing upon a projecting piece of land, all communication from the mainland was cut off. the country around meanwhile abounded with ducks, geese, turkeys, fowls, and plenty of sheep and bullocks, which it may be made sure our men found oftentimes very providential. on the third day of our encampment the spaniards sallied out of the town to surprise our picket, which being overpowered was obliged to retreat, leaving two grenadiers wounded on the field, whom the spaniards much to our horror deliberately cut into pieces. but on the body of our army coming up and charging them, a terrible slaughter ensued on their retreat to the town, which amply repaid us for our two grenadiers; as far as i am able to state, there could not have been less than three thousand killed and wounded, for the next day we had actually to bury two thousand of them. our loss was a mere nothing. i remember that i happened to be placed that night on sentry at the road leading to the town, and not far from a hole where we had buried five or six hundred of the enemy. it was the most uncomfortable two hours' sentry i had ever spent as yet, and i kept my eyes more on the place where the dead were than on the road i was placed to watch, not having altogether forgotten the absurd ghost stories of my own country. i in a way began to think, too, that i had done a good many things i should have liked not to, and to regret for the first time leaving my apprenticeship, my father, mother, and friends, to follow a life so dangerous as i now found this to be, with nothing to expect, as i thought, but to be myself numbered with the slain. i soon became more hardened, however, as i was more and more mixed up in similar or worse affairs than these slight brushes with a weak enemy had proved to be. however, at this juncture i took the opportunity to send my first letter home, so as to satisfy the folks there of my whereabouts, though i kept from them the more perilous part of my story. we reported to the general the circumstances of the spaniards' barbarity to our wounded comrades, and the answer he gave was that we were to repay them in their own coin. i may mention here that we all thought sir samuel a most excellent commander. he always delighted most in a good rough-looking soldier with a long beard and greasy haversack, who he thought was the sort of man most fit to meet the enemy. it was chiefly owing to his dislike to dandyism that wearing long hair with powder, which was the fashion then for the smart soldier, was done away with soon after we landed in the enemy's country; of course also partly because it was so difficult to get the powder. we never found the spaniards sally out of the town after this to engage us, as i expect they did not much like the warm reception they had received. we set to work building up batteries and breastworks, some three hundred of us being sent to cut down a copse of peach-trees that was near to make gabions and fascines to form them with. when our fortifications were completed, which was in a very few days, we began bombarding the town, for which purpose we had brought up our twenty-four pounders from the men-of-war. after about four days' play we made a breach by knocking down the gate and part of the wall, which was six feet thick, and though the enemy repaired it at night with a quantity of bullocks' hides filled with earth, next morning as early as two o'clock we advanced to storm the town. captain renny of ours commanded the forlorn hope. the ladders were placed against the hides of earth, and we scaled them under a heavy fire from the spaniards. we found the earth better stuff to encounter than stone, and though our poor captain fell in the breach whilst nobly leading on his men, we succeeded in forcing our way into the town, which was soon filled with the reinforcements that followed us. we drove the enemy from the batteries, and massacred with sword and bayonet all whom we found carrying arms: the general's orders being not to plunder or enter any house, or injure any woman, child, or man not carrying arms, or fire a shot until daylight. on our approach to the gunwharf of the town, we found some twenty or thirty negroes chained to the guns, whom we spared and afterwards found very useful, chiefly in burying the dead. when the heat of the fighting was subsided, the drums beat to assembly in the square, and orders were then given for the massacre to be stayed, but that all the prisoners were to be taken that we could lay our hands on. our troops were accordingly despatched to the forts and batteries, and nearly three thousand prisoners were taken; the governor of the town giving himself up with all the forts except the citadel, where there was a separate general in command. the governor said he had nothing to do with this, so sir samuel sent a flag of truce to know if the commander would give the place up. the answer being "no," three or four riflemen were placed on a tower sufficiently high and near to the citadel for the purpose of, if possible, picking out the general and shooting him. this was soon effected, for on his appearing for a walk on the ramparts in his full uniform, one of the men shot him dead: and when the spaniards found that they had lost their commander, they soon became disheartened, and lowering the drawbridge, came out of the citadel and gave themselves up. part of our troops immediately took possession, pulling down the spanish colours and hoisting the english flag from the town and citadel in their stead. we took about four thousand prisoners in all, who were sent on board ship; but where they were taken to afterwards i am not able to state. chapter iv. incidents during the stay at monte video -- the beguiling of goodfellow -- a man hanged and then condemned to be transported -- matrimonial designs of a spanish father frustrated -- advance to and occupation of colonia -- heroic conduct of a tallow chandler -- he proves of service in more ways than one -- expedition to san pedro -- a battle with a hot breakfast at the end -- narrow escape of lawrence from being shot -- unfortunate results of a combination of booty. now that we had got possession of a fine town, we could lie up comfortably, only having to put out three or four hundred men on picket round the walls and see that the gates of the town were closed every night at sunset and not opened till daylight in the morning, and then feeling that we could make ourselves quite at home. the inhabitants were meanwhile not altogether deprived of their livelihood, as our general issued a proclamation that they should open their shops and carry on their business as usual: and if any declined to open, he was kind enough to send parties to do it for them. during the time that we lay there, which i should think was at least five months, the only things that occurred that could be called out of the way were, i am sorry to say, of rather an unpleasant nature. one thing was that a sergeant and corporal of the spanish army came in disguise and tried to enlist any of our men who would join their service; and unfortunately a sergeant named goodfellow, one of my own regiment, accepted their proposals, tempted by the heavy bounty they offered. but while passing out of the town in disguise with the spaniards, he was met and recognized by the general himself and his staff: a most unlucky encounter for the three runaways, for they were brought back again and put under charge immediately, and a court-martial ordered on them next day. our colonel, however, implored so hard for our sergeant's life on account of the regiment's late good conduct in the field, that the general granted it, and changed his sentence to one of transportation for life: but the spaniards were not quite so leniently dealt with, for they were tried and hanged, to make sure that they could not repeat their mischievous practices. we also found among the prisoners an irishman who had somehow got away from us over on to the wrong side, and had been fighting against us. he was tried and sentenced to be hanged, and we all had to march up next day to witness his execution and take example from it. but his life was not destined to end here, for the rope was not altogether a strong one, and he was fortunate enough when he fell to break it. directly his feet touched ground, he begged hard for mercy: and the rope had made such a terrible mark on his neck that i suppose the general thought he had been hanged enough: so he was sent into hospital, and when he recovered, transported for the rest of the life that had thus been given back to him. while he was on his way down the town to go on board the vessel, i should think that if he had one dollar given him, he had at least half a peck, though i do not expect they would be much use to him where he was going to. i never heard any more of him, but i don't suppose many men could say that they had been hanged and then transported afterwards. another case of desertion was that of an officer's servant, who went away with the greater part of his master's clothes, taking with him likewise a spanish lady; he was lucky enough to get off safe, and nothing was heard of him afterwards. this was not at all a rare temptation, though, that was put in our soldiers' way; for i was myself offered a fortune by a spanish gentleman, together with his daughter, if i would desert and remain in the country. whenever he met me about he would treat me to anything i liked to name, which i sometimes found very acceptable, and he would often give me money as well, in hopes of gaining me over in time. he had more chances of making up to me, for i forgot to mention that i had received a slight wound in the left leg in storming the town, which kept me limping about and partially disabled from duty for nearly a fortnight; but i don't think he would have minded his daughter not marrying me in particular, so long as he could persuade some one. but he happened one day to leave his horse tied up close to our main guard while he went into a kind of public-house, and occupied himself treating some of our men; and the fact being discovered by those outside that his stirrups were of solid gold, when he came out again one of them was missing. it must have weighed at least a pound, so naturally he thought it worth while reporting the circumstance to the colonel, and a search was made; but no clue could be found to the missing stirrup, so he had to ride away as best he could with only the other one; so he only came off a loser in the end, and he never got his daughter married after all. after staying in the town for the time stated, a thousand of us were despatched up the river rio de la plata to a small place called colonia, where an army of spaniards about four or five thousand strong was lying. we landed with ease, and the enemy retreated out of the place after firing a few shots, leaving it in our hands, so that we again found ourselves for a time in comfortable quarters. we placed pickets of two or three hundred men round the place, and fixed a _chevaux de frise_ in the gate, formed of very sharp and pointed swords stuck very thickly into a beam which was made to turn on its axis: rather an awkward instrument to face if one is not used to it. duty at this place was rather hard, owing to there being so few of us, and such a number on picket or at work building some batteries for our better protection. at the picket-house, which was some distance from the town, there lived a soap-boiler and tallow-chandler, who was very kind to us while we were there on duty, killing a bullock almost every night for our use, as he only required the skin and tallow, and any one may suppose that two hundred hungry men knew what to do with the rest of it. an incident took place during our stay at his house which will show how well disposed he was towards us. we had passed a very quiet week there, when one night the spaniards passed our picket secretly in the darkness, fired a volley into the town, and then immediately retreated. our picket only just managed to get through safely into the town, leaving one of our men asleep in the picket-house, and he must certainly have met his death if he had been caught there singly; but the tallow-chandler, though himself a spaniard, concealed him under a quantity of dry hides while the enemy were scouring the place in search of stragglers, and so saved his life. in consequence of this surprise, still heavier duty was afterwards put upon us, the picket having to be augmented to prevent further annoyance. two or three days after this had occurred the tallow-chandler was sent for to join the spanish army, no doubt because their general suspected him of favouring the english; but he would not go until he had obtained our colonel's advice, which was that he should go by all means, and if he could conveniently come back with full particulars of the enemy's strength he should be rewarded. as far as i can remember, he had been away about ten days, when he again made his appearance with the requisite information. what reward he got i cannot say, but as the result of his tidings, about two or three days afterwards we were called under arms at midnight and supplied with half a pound of beef for each man; the order then being given to return to our lodgings for two hours, and at the end of that time to fall in again. meanwhile a number of sailors came from on board our ships to take charge of the town during our absence, we being now bound for some place as yet unknown to us. a little after two in the morning we left the town with an indian for our guide. we asked in the best manner that we could where we were going to, but all we could understand from him was that we were on the way to fight some spaniards, which of course we had pretty well guessed before, and that we should have some four or five thousand of them to encounter. this last bit of news made us think that we were going to have hard nuts to crack, but we found them a very cowardly sort of folk to deal with, for after marching some five or six miles, we despatched skirmishing parties, who fell in with their picket and took a few prisoners, and soon made the others retreat without doing anything further than to send up some rockets to alarm the body of the enemy. we marched on still further till we came nearly up to them, when we found a river in our way; fortunately it was not very deep, so we waded through it under a fire from the spanish cannon, which killed two of our men while in the act of crossing; and as soon as we were over we formed line and advanced towards the enemy, who lay on some fine rising ground in our front. they had some few pieces of cannon with them, and opened the first fire with both cannon and musketry, but every shot seemed to rise over our heads, and i don't think that volley killed a man. we were up and at them like dragons, wounding and taking their general with about a hundred and fifty other prisoners; likewise a stand of colours, three pieces of cannon, and their baggage. moreover, we found a nice breakfast cooking for us in the shape of fowls, geese, turkeys, beef, rice, and _calavancos_, (though the latter were rather too warm with cayenne pepper and garlic,) all of which the enemy had had to leave in his hurry, and which came in very acceptably at the end of a long march. the colonel ordered everything to be taken from the prisoners we had made, as that was how he had been served himself when he had been taken prisoner at buenos ayres, so we set to clearing them of all they possessed, their money, which amounted to about two thousand dollars, their clothes, and even their boots. i had a very narrow escape while the plunder was going on. i entered one of the enemy's storehouses, at one end of which a quantity of bullocks' hides were lying, at a sufficient distance from the wall to allow a man to pass or hide behind them; and there beside the heap stood a spaniard whom i knew well, as he had sold cakes to us while we were at colonia, and who now offered me a pot of honey to eat. i had my misgivings, however, so made motion for him to eat first, for fear of poison; and at the same time, casting my eye to the left, i saw a spaniard emerge from between the hides and the wall with a pistol, which he levelled at me. i became pretty active, as may be supposed under the circumstances, and managed to guard it off; but the shot whizzed very close to my head nevertheless, which made me very much enraged with the man, and determined he should not escape. unfortunately for him, one of our dismounted cavalry, an irishman, came in, and on my telling him there was a spaniard behind the hides, who had just fired a pistol at me, "tare an' 'ounds," says he, "i'll fetch him out; you stand at one end to stop him with your bayonet while i drive him out." so paddy went round with his sword, and after a little exercise behind, "look out comrade," he sang out, "he's coming;" and sure enough i skewered him to the wall by driving my bayonet right through his body, while paddy came out and finished him by splitting his head nearly in two with his heavy sword, remarking as he did it, "bad luck to ye, i don't think ye'll ever shoot another englishman, or irishman either." the other man had meanwhile made off. we had taken amongst other things about twenty barrels of gunpowder and a quantity of cigars, which latter, owing to the carelessness of one man, proved to be more plague than profit; for whilst most of us were smoking, one of the company, going near the powder, happened to let a spark fall from his cigar, which resulted in twelve men being blown into the air: and though none were killed on the spot, they were so frightfully burnt that several died on reaching colonia. i believe all that we lost actually killed by the enemy's hand were the two men who fell in crossing the river. we gave ten dollars to each of the widows of the men killed, and the rest of the prize-money was divided. chapter v. return to colonia -- general whitelock assumes the command of the army in the plate, and a movement is made on buenos ayres -- studied insolence on the part of certain indian natives -- remarkable value attached by them to a british head -- their eventual punishment -- the troops effect an easy entrance into buenos ayres, but, for reasons unknown to the narrator, retreat almost immediately and not very creditably -- return to monte video and final departure from the plate -- terrific storm on the way home -- inconvenient mishap to a soldier -- christmas in cork cove. as we had effected all that was wanted at san pedro, which was the name of the place where we had been carrying on these operations, we returned to colonia, dragging back the guns laden with our wounded, and taking with us the prisoners, who had to walk along barefooted, as we had availed ourselves of their boots. on our arrival at colonia our sailors saluted us when they saw the number of our prisoners and the three pieces of cannon we had taken, giving "three cheers for the brave soldiers." the prisoners were then sent on board a ship that was lying in the river, and an outlying picket having been posted as usual, the rest of us remained comfortably in the town. next day the colonel gave orders for everything belonging to the prisoners, such as clothes, &c., to be brought out, offering a fair price for them to be returned to their proper owners, which showed of what a good disposition he really was: only he had allowed us to take the things before as an example. we remained here about a month this time, when general whitelock came out with a reinforcement and took the command from sir samuel auchmuty, and soon afterwards, some troops being left in charge of monte video, the rest proceeded to buenos ayres, calling at colonia on the way to pick up our little squad. we landed some miles before coming to buenos ayres, intending, if possible, to storm the back of the town, as it was strongly fortified on the side towards the coast. we were thus obliged to march inland and form encampments, the first of which was situated a little way from where we landed. an incident took place here, which was attended by the death of two men, a corporal and a private, and likewise the very narrow escape of a second private. they were engaged in plundering one of the indian huts, when the inhabitants fell on them armed, and, catching the corporal round the neck with a lasso, soon dragged him away, at the same time knocking the private down and stabbing him; the other private only escaped back to the regiment after receiving a sabre-wound which carried the skin and hair off the back of his head. this was a great glory to the natives; they stuck the corporal's head on a pole and carried it in front of their little band when on the march. they also made use of the rifle and ammunition they had taken from him to fire at times into our camp, but fortunately it was a very harmless sort of practice. next day we again resumed our march, encamping again at night. i remember that night was very foggy, and an officer and some men having gone out in search of bullocks for the supply of the army, the officer was very nearly lassoed by an indian who came on him suddenly in the darkness. fortunately he had the presence of mind to ride after him, which saved his life, for so the indian could not pull him over; and then he managed to cut the lasso with his sword. as we marched along on our next day's journey, about two hundred indians kept following us, the foremost of them wearing our dead corporal's jacket, and carrying his head--i do not exactly know for what reason, but perhaps they thought a good deal more of a dead man's head than we should feel disposed to do. we went on for some distance through a great many orange-gardens, till we came to a lane thickly hedged in on both sides, which was entered by a gate, and there, after the body of our army had passed through, some few men, including myself, waited in ambush for the indians, having a reserve placed a short distance down the lane in case of a combat. the indians soon approached, but seemed to have some misgivings, though we could not exactly understand what they said. there being only a few of us, not quite twenty in all, i rather shook in my shoes on seeing their number; but we soon found there was very little occasion for this, for on our firing directly the front party had passed the gate, killing two of them and wounding and capturing their chief, who was the one who was so proud of his head, the rest fled for their lives, not liking the smell and much less the taste of our gunpowder. we picked up the wounded man and carried him, and left him, more dead than alive, in a neighbouring village. on nearing buenos ayres the light brigade was ordered on in front, under the command of colonel pack, who soon succeeded in taking the bull ring battery; for buenos ayres was much more easy to take than monte video, as it was very slightly fortified towards the country. there were some cannons placed at the end of each street, but they proved a very small difficulty to be overcome, as there seemed nobody efficient to work them, and after passing these, our soldiers were soon in possession of the city. then they hoisted the king's flag on a convent and waited, expecting every minute that the body of our army would come up; but instead of this, general whitelock encamped about a mile out of the town and remained there. if he had attended properly to his business he would have followed up and relieved the brigade; but as it was, the spaniards rallied and overpowered it. i was with the main body, and so was not able to enter the city to see what was going on. we all fell under arms when we heard the muskets at work, waiting for the general's orders to advance: but there we lay the whole night, not doing a stroke, and next day we re-embarked for monte video, having come to some terms, though we were ignorant of that at the time. we remained at monte video some two months longer, during which interval the ships taken in the harbour were offered for sale, but the inhabitants refusing to buy them, we loaded some ourselves with hides, tallow, and cocoa, and the rest, which were not worth bringing home, were towed out to the mouth of the harbour and set on fire. the spaniards had previously blown up a very fine frigate to prevent it falling into our hands. part of our army was then embarked for the east indies and the cape of good hope, whilst we others went on an expedition about a hundred miles up the rio de la plata to get fresh water, and when we returned proceeded on our way homewards from that part of the world. the first part of our voyage was very pleasant, the troops in general keeping very healthy; but when we had sailed some distance, we had a dead calm for a considerable time, which made us much longer on our voyage than we had thought for, and consequently our water supply ran very short, and had to be served out in allowances of half a pint a day. a small supply, however, fortunately came before long. our captain, seeing a cloud in the distance, foretold that we were going to have a thunderstorm, and ordered the scupper-holes to be stopped, and all except the watch to remain below. i happened to be one of the watch at the time, and well i remember how it very shortly after began to thunder and lighten, the rain falling in torrents for two or three hours; it was the heaviest thunderstorm i had ever witnessed. we baled up some twenty or more casks of water, which was none the better, perhaps, for there being pigs, fowls, geese, and turkeys all over the deck, but still was very acceptable to us in our parched state, as till that we had had to cook our food and wash ourselves in salt water only. during the storm our mainmast was struck by the lightning, which split a piece off it from top to bottom, but fortunately did not disable it; but a sad mishap befell one of our men while sitting at mess at the time, for he was struck dead, his shirt being burnt in places like tinder, and his mess-tin being likewise turned black, while the top of a bayonet that was standing close to the unfortunate man was melted like lead. the blow had shaken our little bark so terribly that the captain ordered the pumps to be tried; fortunately there was no leakage to be found, but the lightning must have got well down below, for on opening the main hatchway the sulphur came up enough to suffocate any one. after the storm, the calm still continued, and we had to amuse ourselves as best we could with fishing; a few days after a breeze sprang up, but it was foul for england, and we had to knock about till a more favourable one blew up, which finally landed us in the cove of cork. we spent the christmas of on board, sending on shore for raisins, flour, fat, and beer, and so being enabled to enjoy ourselves very comfortably. chapter vi. the troops kept in ireland -- ordered to spain to fight new opponents in behalf of their late ones -- land in mondego bay and advance to vimeira -- a light repast interrupted by a heavy battle -- battle of vimeira -- preliminary skirmishing -- lawrence's first experience in fighting the french -- a good front-rank man -- defeat of the french and advance on lisbon -- the french evacuate the city -- lawrence's impressions of lisbon -- sir arthur wellesley made commander-in-chief -- the regiment invalided for a time -- attempt to join sir john moore frustrated -- seville -- lawrence's first offence -- he is court-martialled for it and flogged -- moral reflections on the same. we had already laid in our sea stock in preparation to start for england, when we found ourselves disappointed of our hopes, for orders came for us to land in ireland; and we had to march to cork and thence to various other places for six months, nothing of any particular note happening during the while; and at the end of it, orders again came for us to embark for portugal, to drive the french from there, and from the spanish dominions. thus after we had been in open war against the spaniards, who for the time had been in alliance with the french, or rather had been forced to be so, now that buonaparte had overrun their own country and kindled hatred against himself, these same spaniards had made peace with us, and sent to us for assistance to drive him out of their country: so that we had to go and fight for the very nation we had been a few months before opposing in monte video, buenos ayres, and colonia. after we had all embarked we had still to lie in cork harbour, waiting for the english fleet, and then we sailed from the irish coast, about twelve thousand strong, under sir arthur wellesley, on the th of july, . we first touched at corunna to make arrangements with the spaniards, and their advice being to land in portugal, we went to mondego bay, near the town of figueras, where we landed, leaving our baggage on board. after about five days' march we were joined by general spencer, and next day our advanced guard had a slight engagement with the enemy at rorica. thence we marched on to vimeira, and were joined by generals anstruther and acland with more reinforcements, and sir hugh dalrymple took the head command from sir arthur wellesley. the village of vimeira stood in a valley with a fine range of hills to the westward, and a ridge of heights to the east. our brigades were stationed on the mountains to the west, whilst our cavalry was posted in the valley, and general anstruther's brigade lay to the east. on the first night of our encampment there, two of my comrades and myself were strolling over the hills together, when we fell in with a hive of bees, weighing i should think at least a hundredweight, which we carried back into the camp: not without difficulty, however, for we found them very uncivil passengers to carry, and our faces and hands were fearfully stung; but our honey and grapes, for we had profited too from being encamped in some very fine vineyards, paid us for this a little. next morning we proceeded to make our breakfast off the same materials, but we were not destined to finish very quietly, for in the midst of our meal we were disturbed by the near approach of the enemy, and were immediately ordered under arms. the right of our line was engaged at least two hours before a general engagement took place on our side, which was the left, but we were skirmishing with the enemy the whole time. i remember this well, on account of a frenchman and myself being occupied in firing at each other for at least half an hour without doing anyone any injury; but he took a pretty straight aim at me once, and if it had not been for a tough front-rank man that i had, in the shape of a cork-tree, his shot must have proved fatal, for i happened to be straight behind the tree when the bullet embedded itself in it. i recollect saying at the time, "well done, front-rank man, thee doesn't fall at that stroke," and unfortunately for the frenchman, a fellow-comrade, who was lefthanded, came up to me very soon afterwards, and asked me how i was getting on. i said badly, and told him there was a frenchman in front, and we had been trying to knock each other over for some time, without either of us having been able to succeed; on which he asked me where he was, that he might have a try at him. i pointed out the thicket behind which the frenchman was, and he prepared his rifle so as to catch him out in his peeping manoeuvres, but not without himself, as well as i, being well covered by my old front-rank man. by-and-by mr. frenchman again made his peep round the bush, but it was his last, for my comrade, putting his rifle to his left shoulder, killed him at the first shot. after we had been thus employed in skirmishing for some time, a large body of french made their appearance in our front. our artillery greeted them pretty sharply, ploughing furrows through them with ball and throwing them into a confused state, after which our columns advanced under general spencer, our cannon still playing over our heads, until we got within a short distance of the enemy, when we fired and charged them, driving them from the position they had occupied after some very severe fighting well kept up for some time on both sides, and capturing about seven pieces of cannon, with ammunition waggons. the loss of the french at this place could not have been much less than two thousand, though some have reported it less and some more; but it is very hard to arrive at a just calculation. our loss was reported to have been about seven hundred. after the battle was ended we marched on towards lisbon, passing on our way about a hundred and fifty carts laden with the enemy's wounded. when we arrived at lisbon we encamped, so that the french had no means of communication with the city; as, our fleet lying in or near the mouth of the harbour, and our army stopping all approach from the land, the french in the city were blocked in. on the first night of our encampment the inhabitants illuminated the part where we lay. we were not destined, however, to be outside the city long, for on the leaders of our army and the french coming to some terms, the french left with the honours of war, and gladly embarked from the harbour in september. these were the very troops with whom at a later period we had to contend. when the enemy had left lisbon we took up our quarters in the city, amid the joy and enthusiasm of the inhabitants, who shouted in triumph as the french left, and held illuminations even on the vessels in the harbour for several successive nights afterwards. lisbon then on every side still exhibited marks of that terrible earthquake which almost completely destroyed it in the year . it was situated on the right bank of the tagus, near its mouth, which forms a very fine harbour; and it stood chiefly on very precipitous hills, of which the highest was occupied by the fine castle of saint george, which was indeed the principal object that attracted the eye anywhere from the city. the great squares contained some magnificent edifices, noteworthy for the fineness of their pillars. the streets were narrow and winding and dirty, and indeed after the french had left the whole city was in a most desolate state; but the general view of the city and its environs from the harbour at a distance was very beautiful, the sides of the hills being clothed with plantations and numberless vineyards, and the buildings extending for a mile and a half or two miles along the coast. sir hugh dalrymple, sir arthur wellesley, and some other of the chief leaders of our army were then recalled to england to communicate the circumstances of the terms that had been arrived at in portugal between the two armies: as the rulers, and indeed all classes in england received the first reports of them with indignation. this was the reason that the inquiry was made, of which the fruits were that sir arthur wellesley was decided on as the proper person to take the head command of our troops in the peninsula. during our stay in lisbon our regiment fell ill and was obliged to be returned unfit for service, which state of things lasted about two months. but as soon as sir arthur wellesley returned as commander-in-chief, we were ordered into spain, in company with five thousand spaniards, to join sir john moore's army. we had a long and tedious march until we reached a place called seville, where we encamped for several weeks, on account of sir john moore having been obliged to retreat; and the french cutting off our communication, we had to proceed to cadiz and there embark again for lisbon. i must here relate a circumstance which took place before i proceeded from seville, which, although not very creditable to myself, is of too great importance as an event in my life to be omitted. i absented myself without leave from guard for twenty-four hours, and when i returned i found i had jumped into a fine scrape, for i was immediately put into the guard-room, and a drum-head court-martial was ordered on me. it was the first offence to cause one to be held on me, but that did not screen me much, and i was sentenced to four hundred lashes. i felt ten times worse on hearing this sentence than i ever did on entering any battlefield; in fact, if i had been sentenced to be shot, i could not have been more in despair, for my life at that time seemed of very little consequence to me. my home and my apprenticeship days again ran in my head, but even these thoughts soon lost themselves as i neared the spot where my sentence was to be carried out. i found the regiment assembled all ready to witness my punishment: the place chosen for it was the square of a convent. as soon as i had been brought in by the guard, the court-martial was read over me by the colonel, and then i was ordered to strip, which i did firmly and without using any of the help that was offered me, as i had by that time got hardened to my lot. i was then lashed to the halberds, and the colonel gave the order for the drummers to commence, each one having to give me twenty-five lashes in turn. i bore it very well until i had received a hundred and seventy-five, when i became so enraged with the pain that i pushed the halberds, which did not stand at all firm, on account of their being planted on stones, right across the square, amid the laughter of the regiment. the colonel, i suppose, thinking then that i had had sufficient, ordered, in the very words, "the sulky rascal down," and perhaps a more true word could not have been spoken, as indeed i was sulky, for i did not give vent to a single sound the whole time, though the blood ran down my trousers from top to bottom. i was unbound and the corporal hove my shirt and jacket over my shoulders and conveyed me to the hospital, presenting about as miserable a picture as i possibly could. perhaps it was as good a thing for me as could then have occurred, as it prevented me from committing any greater crimes which might have gained me other severer punishments and at last brought me to my ruin; but for all that it was a great trial for me, and i think that a good deal of that kind of punishment might have been abandoned with great credit to those who ruled our army; for it is amazing to think of four hundred lashes being ordered on a man young as i was, and undergoing all the privations of a most sanguinary war, just for an offence, and that the first, which might have been overlooked, or at any rate treated with less punishment and a severe reprimand. chapter vii. lawrence transferred into the grenadier company -- the regiment embarks at cadiz for lisbon again in consequence of sir john moore's defeat at corunna -- hospitality of an english merchant -- march to join sir arthur wellesley at castello branco -- the spanish troops reviewed -- lawrence's opinion of them -- battle of talavera -- lawrence's opinion of the spaniards justified -- severe fighting on the second day of the battle -- friendliness between the wounded -- final attack and repulse of the french -- horrible fate of some of the wounded -- advance to oropesa -- the spanish general cuesta deserts the wounded at talavera -- march towards badajoz -- privations on the road -- fresh supply of clothes at badajoz -- lawrence invalided to elvas -- is cured chiefly by reflecting on his manner of burial -- returns to badajoz -- sir arthur wellesley made viscount wellington -- end of . i remained in hospital about three weeks, and on coming out i was transferred from the light into the grenadier company. as i before said, on leaving seville, which i did in a pretty well marked state, of which i bear the remembrances on my back to this day upwards of fifty years since, we marched to cadiz and encamped there, intending to embark for lisbon, sir john moore's army having been by that time repulsed by sheer force of numbers, and himself killed at corunna. on that night an english wine-merchant asked permission to give each man in our regiment a pint of wine and each woman half that quantity, with a pound of bread apiece; and accordingly we were all drawn up in line, and marched into a tremendous cellar, big enough, had they been so disposed, to have admitted the whole regiment, with two doors one at each end, at one of which we entered to receive our share, and went out by the other. he likewise invited the officers to dine with him; and so that night, after drinking the merchant's little kindness, as we most of us did to pretty quick time, we slept a good deal sounder. next day we embarked for lisbon, and after landing there we proceeded some miles up the country to join sir arthur's army in castello branco, making up altogether about twenty thousand english and sixty or eighty thousand allies. we then advanced across a fine plain, which i should think was more famed for hares than anything else, for i never saw any place that swarmed so with that kind of game. they were running in all directions, and often even right into our lines, for they are stupid animals when frightened, as they then were by the noise our men made; and i managed to kill one with the muzzle of my musket, and sold it to the captain of my company for a dollar. the bands played each before its own regiment as we crossed the plain, and sir arthur wellesley took the opportunity of reviewing the spanish troops as they passed. they looked a fine enough set of men, but they were fit for scarcely anything except to fall into disorder and confusion, as we had already found when we had taken the field against some of them at monte video, colonia, and buenos ayres, the smell of powder often seeming to cause them to be missing when wanted, either from not having been properly disciplined, or else because they had not good officers to command them; this, of course, now bringing the brunt of most of the battles on us. we often passed marks of the enemy's encampments, and even encamped at or near the same places ourselves, as close as possible to some river or large supply of water, a small quantity being of little use for the purposes of a large body of men like our army, accompanied as it was, too, by horses and wagons and such things. we never caught sight of the enemy, however, till we got to talavera, where we came to an engagement with the french on the th and th of july, . the whole of our line there extended for about two miles, and at times the whole of it was joining in the general engagement, which came more hot upon us for the reason before described; a great number of the spaniards even throwing down their arms and fleeing, for which conduct their general, cuesta, ordered them to be decimated; but eventually, on the entreaty of sir arthur wellesley, only about forty of them were killed. general cuesta, however, really wanted quite as much leading on as his men, as he was often very obstinate, and refused to fight when called upon by sir arthur wellesley. after the first day's battle we encamped on the ground we then occupied, but the french made another and unexpected attack on us at night, and at one time had almost gained the heights; but we repulsed them at last, though after that we had to lie on our arms, expecting every minute to be again attacked. some little altercation occurred with the spaniards very early in the morning, but it only lasted a short time; however, about five or six o'clock the french columns were seen in motion towards our left, and very soon afterwards they ascended the height to attack us, and were only driven back by the heavy fire of our musketry, leaving the ground strewn with their dead. at eleven or twelve o'clock in the day the firing ceased, and a period of truce was allowed for both armies to collect their wounded, and convey them to the rear, where, as they lay often intermixed, a friendly intercourse sprang up between them, the allies and french often going so far as to shake hands with each other. at one or two o'clock the enemy again advanced and recommenced with a heavy cannonade and an attack on the whole british lines, but after some very brisk fighting on both sides we repulsed them for the third time, and obliged them to retreat with a loss of some thousands and a few pieces of cannon, the british loss being about a thousand killed and three or four thousand wounded. a very dreadful occurrence happened after the battle, for the long dry grass in which many of the wounded were lying caught fire, and many were scorched to death before assistance could be brought to convey them to hospital in talavera. we lay that night in much the same state as on that previous, expecting to see our noble enemy again, but we were mistaken, for most of them took themselves off during the night, and in the morning only their rear-guard could be seen. next month commenced by sir arthur wellesley leaving the spanish general cuesta in charge of talavera and the wounded, while on the rd he proceeded to oropesa, where he expected to come up with and engage soult's army. but he had not been there long before he found the obstinate cuesta, upon hearing that the enemy was on his flank, had abandoned talavera, thus leaving nearly the whole of the british wounded unprotected. the conduct of cuesta in thus retreating and abandoning the position and the charge entrusted to him, was almost too much for sir arthur to bear, particularly as it was afterwards found that there was no need for it, as the enemy was at some distance off, and not in the least interfering with the spanish army's movements. so in this case we would have been much better without his services altogether. from oropesa we advanced through a country abounding with difficulties, the army suffering much during this march from the heat of the weather, the long exposure, insufficient food, and bad roads, and illness being very prevalent. our provisions rarely exceeded two pounds of meat a day; and sometimes a pint of wheat took the place of one of the pounds of meat, with occasionally, but very rarely, a little flour. our way of cooking the wheat was to boil it like rice, or sometimes, if convenient, we would crack the kernel between two flat stones and then boil it, making a kind of thick paste out of it. this having so little bread or other vegetable substance to eat with our meat was one of the great causes of illness. we halted at or near val de la casa as our next stage for oropesa, and two days after that at deleitosa; and from there we were marched to xaracego, whence, through lack of provisions, we were obliged to proceed to badajoz, arriving there after being about a fortnight on the road. on leaving talavera our clothes had been completely threadbare, and now, through having no change for so long we were smothered with vermin. when we had been a little while in badajoz, however, we were supplied with new clothes, linen, blankets, and great coats, our old ones being burnt; and more live stock was destroyed in the process than there were troops in the country at the time. whilst we were staying at badajoz, numbers of us fell sick daily, and amongst them was unfortunately myself. we were conveyed to a portuguese town some four leagues from badajoz, called elvas, which was the strongest fortified town in portugal, being very little more than two leagues from the frontier of spain. it was situated at the summit of a lofty hill, and at the other side of a valley was a still higher hill, on the top of which was built another strong fort, the two together being called elvas. we invalids occupied the convents of the town. our loss here through the sickness, which was some kind of fever, and was increased through the want of doctors and medicine, was very great, cartloads of the dead being carried out of the town every day for interment in the ground kept for the purpose outside the fortifications. i recovered sufficiently after about six weeks to be able to get out a little on the ramparts, and there a fearful spectacle often met my gaze, for the dead were brought out of the convents completely naked, and after they had been pitched into carts like so many pieces of wood, were carried out and put into holes scarcely large enough to admit of such a number. this unpleasant office of burying the dead fell chiefly on the portuguese convicts, and it was surprising to see with what readiness these men went to work. they carried one body at a time, having the legs over their shoulders, and the head dangling down behind them, and when they came to the graves, on account of the piece of ground appropriated for the burials being so small, they had to pack their burdens with the greatest nicety. this sight soon cured me, as i thought what a narrow escape i had had of being handled by these same men; and i was glad to get back to my regiment at badajoz as soon as possible. thus ended the proceedings of . sir arthur wellesley was, after the battle of talavera, raised to the rank of viscount wellington. chapter viii. the regiment billeted at olivencia -- curious astronomical conjunction -- lawrence exemplifies the truth of an old proverb at the expense of his hosts, and draws down the wrath of the church on himself -- succeeds more satisfactorily in the case of his comrade -- the army shifted to the valley of the mondego -- lord wellington's hopes in almeida and ciudad rodrigo being disappointed, it falls back still further to busaco -- battle of busaco -- lawrence makes a capture, which may be regarded by some readers as emblematic. at the beginning of we proceeded from badajoz to olivencia, and were there billeted on the inhabitants, two or more in a house, as the circumstances would permit. i remember one very curious thing which occurred at this time, which was that the names of the drum-majors of the three regiments that were collected in this place were sun, moon, and star, our regiment having the moon, the fifty-third the sun, and the ninth the star, so that if having the sun, moon, and star fighting for us was any help, they were there all ready. i happened to be billeted with a comrade of the name of lewis phillips, a welshman, in a house occupied by a respectable but poor man and his wife, whom we found on the whole very kindly meaning towards us. their occupation was that of labourers, and at this particular season of the year they were employed in picking olive-berries. before going out to their work in the morning they would prepare their supper; which, as it was then lent, and they were not allowed to eat meat, consisted, as far as i was able to observe, of a mixture of greens, oil, cayenne pepper, and salt, which they would leave on the embers in an earthenware jar to be cooked by the time they came back; and as generally either myself or my comrade was in the way, they would ask us to occasionally give it a stir. one day after i had been there some little time, i was left as cook, and feeling in rather a mischievous mood, i cut some of my meat up very small--not much indeed, as may be supposed, out of the pound, which was all that we then received--and put it into the jar; and by nighttime it was so boiled and stirred that even i, who knew it was there, could scarcely recognize it. on their return they were very hungry and soon partook of their _caldo_, as they called it, pronouncing it to be very good, and praising me as the best cook they had had for some time, little suspecting what that same best cook had put into it. i was foolish enough, though indeed i did not expect what a bother i should throw up, to ask them then what they thought was in their _caldo_, and when i told them there was meat in it, they exclaimed they had eaten the devil, or words to that effect in their language, which we were beginning to understand pretty well by that time after being so long in the country. when they had been and got rid of all they had eaten for supper, they reported me to their priest for making them eat meat in lent contrary to the laws of their religion; and on the priest coming to the house he condemned me for ever, and prayed to them telling them not to take any notice, as it was done against their will and by an ignorant protestant. they never liked me much afterwards, nor set me to watch their _caldo_, and, as they were obliged to have me there still, managed to make me rather uncomfortable; but this did not altogether debar me from continuing my jokes, and more as i thought it was pretty well time for lewis to have his turn of it. it happened that lewis particularly disliked olive oil, and i was myself very fond of it, and as we were very seldom on duty together, it used to fall to the one off to cook and bring the other his meals to the guard. so one day i pitched upon a plan by which to take mr. taffy in, he being on guard and i the cook that day. i asked him what he would have for his dinner, and he said some potatoes fried in butter, a piece of bread, and his usual pint of wine: so i got some olive oil, and fried the potatoes in that instead of in butter; and when his turn came for him to be relieved for a time off sentry, took his meal to him, which, coming as it did when he was very hungry, he was not long in lapping up. i then asked him how he had enjoyed it; and he answered he had never had a better meal in his life. i said, "lewis, i thought you did not like oil." "no, no more i do; there was no oil there." i told him i had fried the potatoes in oil, but i could not make him believe it, so at last i said if he was agreeable i would make another mess in the same manner when we were both together at liberty. he consented, so the first time we were both together to dinner i commenced my frying, he being witness to the whole operation, and i found that i succeeded better in my experiment with lewis than with the worthy people of the house, for after that he could eat as much oil as i could. after we had stayed at olivencia for some weeks, chiefly in order to refresh ourselves after the long and tedious marches, warfare, and illness to which for the last two years we had been subjected, lord wellington removed his headquarters to visen, and the army went for the most part into cantonments on the valley of the mondego. lord wellington knew that his troops were then only strong enough for defensive operations, and was therefore determined, unless strongly reinforced, not to take rash measures; but on the enemy's fresh invasion of portugal he again shifted his headquarters to celorico. after that we moved on to another small place, called, as far as i am able to remember, guarda, near almeida, about eight or ten leagues from ciudad rodrigo. almeida was at that time garrisoned by some portuguese troops commanded by an english officer. the french had invested it, but lord wellington expected that it would have been able to baffle the enemy until the commencement of the rainy season, and would thus retard the enemy's movements. almeida was a town of very great strength, but massena opened fire on it about the rd of august, and it was obliged to capitulate as soon afterwards as the th, a magazine containing most of the ammunition having blown up, taking with it great part of the town and the fortifications; the governor being thus disappointed of his desire to detain the french any longer. in this sad accident hundreds of the inhabitants and the soldiery, with many of the enemy, who were assembled outside to watch the effect, were launched into eternity either by the explosion itself or by the huge falling masses. and not only did this misfortune occur, but ciudad rodrigo meanwhile had fallen into the enemy's hands, and thus a way was opened for a fourfold contest. owing to these repeated disappointments of lord wellington's plans, we were again obliged to fall back into the valley of the mondego, crossing that river and taking up our position on the heights of busaco, situate about six leagues north-east of coimbra. our march was one of great difficulty, owing to the heavy rains and bad roads; but lord wellington did his best to provide against these as much as possible by taking the best road; while, on the other hand, massena, who was following us up on his way to lisbon, had taken the very worst; and what was more, owing to ignorance of the country, had little expected to meet a range of heights with, above all, us on the top of them, ready to retard his progress as much as possible. we arrived at busaco about the centre of september, and on the th our line was formed. our division, under general cole, occupied the extreme left of the line, looking down on a flat country, where the british cavalry were drawn up in reserve. the divisions of generals hill, leith, and picton occupied the right of our line, with the first division, commanded by sir bryant spencer, in the centre. in the meantime the french had taken up their position in front, and a splendid view we had of their encampment from busaco heights for a time; but it was not destined to be for long that we were to witness this fine sight, without mingling some of their best blood with ours, for early on the morning of the th they were in active stir, evidently in the full intention of storming our heights. we were immediately ordered under arms, and ready, if necessary, to go into action. early in the morning the french made their appearance. the action commenced on our right and centre, the heaviest fire keeping there the whole time that the battle lasted, as the division i was in had but slight brushes with them. the french must have lost in this engagement some four or five thousand men, while we lost little more than a thousand: but it must be borne in mind what an immense advantage we had over them, as, being situated as we were on the heights, we could witness their every movement. that night they retreated to their old position, disheartened at the little success they had gained, or rather at the actual defeat they had suffered, and not feeling inclined to renew the contest next day: and some very slight engagements were all that ensued, chiefly on the left where the light infantry were. whilst strolling about one day on these heights i caught a fine cock, which i tamed by tying him to my knapsack by the leg and carrying him about with me, much to the amusement of my comrades; for after i had had him about a fortnight, he became so tame that he would sit on my knapsack quite quietly, without even the string to his leg. we named him tom, and i took to carrying him about everywhere, even on to the battlefield; wherever my knapsack went, tom went too, and when the balls were whizzing about, which he did not seem altogether to like, he would make that curious noise which many may have observed as such which a bird like this would make when pursued or frightened. he served, however, to while away many a long and dreary hour pleasantly by his peculiar little ways, and we all became very fond of him: and he grew quite fat on the many tit-bits he received from my comrades and myself during our mess, it being quite marvellous to see how regularly he went to each in turn for his contribution. and it was still more curious to see how tom was always ready for action on any move of the knapsacks, and not only that, but how very seldom he made any mistake as to which was the right one. however, certain it was that after he had inhabited my knapsack for a little time he had made sufficient marks on it that i could never mistake it for any other, so perhaps he went by them as well as myself. chapter ix. march to leiria -- liberation of nuns -- retreat before the french to within the lines of torres vedras -- general flitting on the part of the population -- pitiful scenes on the road -- lawrence and his comrades cantoned in a cellar at patamara -- they find a treasure -- the owner doesn't, and makes a disturbance -- lawrence as an interpreter -- a game of cunning between officers and men, ending in a victory for the latter -- massena compelled to retreat to santarem for want of supplies -- the regiment receives its south american prize money, and is promptly put in the way to spend it. on lord wellington finding that the french intended to alter their route, and so escape this formidable height, he retreated towards lisbon himself, passing coimbra, at which place the portuguese took some thousands of the french sick and wounded, together with some few effective troops, who had been left to protect the hospital. from coimbra we proceeded farther south, having again to cross the mondego, which we did in the latter end of september, reaching leiria on the nd of october. on the march we passed a nunnery, where we halted for about a quarter of an hour. a great many of the nuns were crowding the balconies to watch us, and as the french were following us up pretty close, the colonel ordered the doors to be broken open by a body of grenadiers, which was soon done, myself being among the number told off for the purpose. this was not carried out, however, without an accident, for one of the women meanwhile fell from a balcony, owing to the crowded state in which they were packed on it. the poor women seemed very glad to get their liberty, for they came out as thick as a flock of sheep, and a great many of them soon passed us bound for lisbon, being fearful of consequences if they took any other direction: as the french were after us so near as to skirmish with our rear-guard, which chiefly consisted of cavalry. lord wellington had indeed issued a proclamation ordering all the inhabitants to fall back on the approach of the enemy, and destroy any articles that they might possess and were not able to carry with them, that were at all likely to be of any use to the enemy; and so thousands of the population of the country that seemed about to fall within the bounds of the enemy's marches were to be seen flying from their dwellings, and our army during its retreat was accompanied by crowds of miserable men, women, and children, all eager to reach the capital, as they knew that if they fell in with the french, they would be treated as some had been before, with all the barbarities of an atrocious enemy. i have often heard talk of "moving" in england, and have seen a cart or wagon with a man driving a load of furniture, at the rate of three miles an hour, with a woman and perhaps several children sitting on the top, or at the back; but i never before or since saw such a wholesale move as this was, for every one seemed anxious to carry as many of his effects as he could find room for. the farther we proceeded the more confused our retreat appeared, for multitudes were obliged to rest weary and exhausted by the roadside, and often, though made eager in their endeavours as they heard of the enemy's approach to again renew their tedious journey, were found dying or even dead from their hard exertions, and the road was everywhere strewn with pieces of all kinds of furniture, which the poor fugitives had vainly attempted to get forward. from leiria we went on further to torres vedras, which we gained after a long, tedious, and impressive march; and there we took up our position at some fine breastworks which lord wellington had for some time previous ordered to be thrown up by the portuguese peasantry in case of the retreat of our army. now we found how much we needed them, for on the th of october the french came in sight of our strong position, where we had drawn up, determined that they should not proceed one step farther towards lisbon. massena was rather surprised at our strength, which was quite unexpected by him. he had thought of driving the english into the sea, but he now found his mistake, so encamped about a mile and a half from our position. on the th, however, he attacked our lines near sobral, but was repulsed; and on another occasion a slight skirmish took place on the right of the line, in which the french general, st. croix, was killed by the fire from our gunboats; but on account of our strong position, the french did not come to a general engagement. the cold and rainy weather having now set in, lord wellington had provided as well as possible for the best reception of his troops, who were mostly now in cantonments, whilst those of massena's army were subject to hardships of the worst description, owing to the cold, wet, and above all insufficient food and raiment, for they were far away from all supplies from their own country, and there were guerillas or mountain rebels always on the watch to intercept such as were sent, while our army was so near lisbon that it could always get abundance. our regiment was situated in a village called patamara, in the front of our works, where we lay as comfortably as if we had been living in peaceful times; though we were so near the enemy that we very often wandered into the same vineyards, and exchanged compliments by shaking hands. we were cantoned in a large cellar, but it was unfortunately empty, or at least there was no wine in it, and though there was a quantity of wheat in a vat, we had no need of that, as we had plenty of our own supplies. the owner of our cellar generally visited us every day, and we could not help thinking after a time that he seemed to take particular notice of a large box or bin that two of our men were using to sleep in, so we moved it one morning, and found that the ground underneath had been disturbed. of course we thought that there must be some treasure concealed there, so we went to work with our bayonets, having no other tools at hand, and soon we came across a large jar, which we found contained bags of dollars, about two hundred and fifty in each bag; which treasure we distributed privately among the cellar company, carefully breaking the jar and returning the earth to its proper place, with the chest on the top of it, so that a minute eye could not have told that it had been disturbed. next morning as usual the owner came, bringing with him two labourers, who set to work filling the chest with wheat from the vat, evidently with the intention of making it weighty, he little suspecting that his treasure, which he supposed was underneath, had been divided amongst his tenants. after that we thought we were pretty right from detection, but we were mistaken, for in the morning our restless owner again made his appearance with the two labourers. i should think that that night he must have dreamt of our manoeuvre, for he now shifted the wheat back again into its place, moved the chest, and raised the earth and the broken jar, but found the bird had flown. i shall never forget the rage the man was in. i thought he would have torn the hair off his head; in fact, he did tear some up by the roots, but he must have found that a poor way of showing his spite. he cried, "_ladrone! ladrone!_" which was his way of expressing "thief! thief!" but finding that we did not take much notice of him, he reported his loss to the colonel, or rather went off to him with that intention; but as the colonel did not understand his language, i was sent for, as by that time i was pretty well acquainted with it; and on my replying to the question as to what the portuguese wanted, that he required a corporal and three privates to guard a stack of wood, the colonel told me to let him know that he had nothing to do with it. i told the portuguese that it was no use his making a noise about the money, as it must have been only a little change that he could not conveniently recover, unless he could bring proper witnesses to prove he had put the money there. that only appeased him for the night, however, for he came bothering the colonel again next morning. the colonel again sent for me and asked me what on earth this man wanted now, so i was then obliged to admit the truth. i asked him if he would forgive me for telling him an untruth overnight, and on his consenting, i told him the portuguese had lost a quantity of money, which he put down at seven thousand dollars. the portuguese's answer to the question who had placed the money there was that he had himself, but he could bring no witnesses to show that he had really done it, so the colonel said he could have nothing to do with the affair. however, the following morning the plague again appeared, so the colonel to quiet him told him that the grenadiers had some prize money which was expected in a few days, and which he should receive in lieu of what he had lost, which sent the old man off seemingly as satisfied as if he had already got the money in his possession, shaking hands with us all round, and bowing and scraping as if we had been so many kings. the matter did not altogether rest here, however, for the colonel suspecting that we were implicated, next day we were ordered as if for marching, just as if we were going to leave the place that very day, but the men being quite up to that trick, knowing that the french were still in front, concealed their shares of the money in and around the cellar. i remember well the manner in which my own and one of my fellow-comrades' shares were hidden: there was a heap of pumpkins in the cellar, and in one of these we enclosed our money, cutting a piece out of it of sufficient size to admit the dollars, and after closing it up with the top of the original piece, mixing it again with the remainder of the heap. the company was then marched out into a field, and all our knapsacks and pockets were searched, but even the little money that some must have had before was missing. the colonel did not mind being baffled so much as the major did, who told the colonel that if he left it in his hands he would endeavour to find the money, to which the colonel replied that he was just the man the portuguese wanted. the manner in which this cunning major went to work might have succeeded with men less artful than he found us to be, but every one in the cellar had part in it, so it was to the interest of all to keep the affair secret, and not only that, but every man's share in the prize happened to amount to more than the sum which the major offered to any one who would reveal it. he came to one of the sergeants of the grenadiers and told him to pick out ten of the men who would be most likely to inform, but instead of doing so, i think the sergeant must have chosen the ten worst rogues in the company. these were then all marched off to the major's quarters, and had in one by one to see him, as he sat with five guineas lying on his table, which he offered to the first who should reveal the mystery: but finding, after he had interviewed about three of them, that he was being duped, for they all told the same tale, that was that they knew nothing about the money, he was so enraged that he told them all to go about their business, saying that they were all a set of thieves, and next time he saw the colonel he had to own, much to the amusement both of the latter and of the whole regiment, that he had been beaten in his knowing undertaking. massena remained a little more than a month in his position in front of torres vedras, when, owing to want of food and ammunition, he was compelled to retrace his steps, not being able to get supplies through spain, as the guerillas--who were the most warlike and independent race of the spaniards, being chiefly offenders who had escaped to the mountains and there formed themselves into one strong body amounting to some thousands--were always on the watch for any supplies that they might catch hold of, more especially from the enemy, and appropriate to their own use. much credit is due to lord wellington for thus drawing the enemy to a place such as torres vedras, where they could get no supplies, and further, could gain no advantage, but on the other hand must have lost some thousands through want, cold and wet. from torres vedras massena's army proceeded to santarem, about ten leagues from torres vedras, and there took up his position on the tagus, whence foraging parties were sent out to scour the country for provisions, who committed horrible excesses on the inhabitants, carrying away their cattle, or any provisions they could lay their hands on. it was this that chiefly infuriated the inhabitants against the french, and caused them to retaliate on any of their stragglers or wounded whom they came across butchering and using them in a most awful manner; and even then, after all this work, this method of gathering provisions for so large an army as massena's was soon exhausted. when the french had retreated from torres vedras, lord wellington left some troops in charge of his lines there, and followed to santarem, but no general battle took place, only small engagements. the enemy seemed pretty firm to their ground, so lord wellington moved his army into cantonments again. our detachment was lying some distance from santarem on the tagus; the actual name of the place is blotted from my memory by lapse of years. it was rather curious that while there we received our south american prize money; money taken from the very people we were now allied with, so that a great part of it was spent amongst them again. each private received eight dollars, and i believe the serjeants sixteen. the lisbon traders must have got scent of this, for a quantity of boats laden with little requisites and luxuries ascended the river from lisbon to trade amongst the soldiers, and so we were soon enabled to rid ourselves of our little spare cash. our colonel was very considerate to these people, and being determined as far as possible to prevent all plunder, had their boats or stalls guarded by sentries. this, however, did not altogether hinder some of the more daring from getting things on the cheap now and then, but they were so trifling that they are hardly worthy of mention. chapter x. opening of the year -- surrender of olivencia and badajoz to the french under soult -- the french followed up in their retreat from santarem -- engagements on the route -- pombal -- redinha -- condexo -- casal nova -- fatal results of having too large a head -- miranda de corno -- poz de aroce -- halt at moira while the french take refuge in celorico -- the fourth division ordered to badajoz -- halt at portalegre -- shameful instance of plunder and sacrilege by lawrence and his comrades -- campo mayor -- outrageous theft from an unprotected female -- a stolen bird turns evidence against its purloiner. the remainder of the year was spent in these cantonments, the french still lying in their position at santarem. but the beginning of brought on us more and fatal work, for soult's army had invested olivencia and badajoz, and obliged them, not being garrisoned by the british, but only by the spaniards, to surrender. the way was thus paved for one of the worst engagements in the whole peninsular war; i mean the storming of badajoz. the french did not move from santarem till the beginning of march, which we discovered on the th, and lord wellington, having received fresh reinforcements from england, determined on following them up. they had taken three routes, and consequently our army had to be divided too. our division, which was the fourth, with the first and sixth divisions, commanded by marshal beresford, was to follow by way of thomar, and the main body of the army by way of leiria and pombal, and so again to unite. on our route we came up with the french at thomar, but on our appearance they retreated to espinal, a short distance off pombal, and took up a strong position between these two latter places. we followed them up and combined ourselves again into one body. at pombal the french had tried, but in vain, to retain the old castle situated there, and some slight skirmishing had taken place between them and some of our light troops. at redinha the third, fourth, and light divisions attacked the enemy's left, and after a stout engagement we compelled them to retire upon their main body, and being likewise attacked on the right, their whole body was thrown into retreat on condexo. on our appearance there, they set fire to the place, and again retreated; their object in burning such a little town being probably to prevent our cavalry, cannon, and ammunition from following them up too closely. we were, however, delayed but a very short time, for we marched through the burning town, certainly not letting the grass grow under our feet, as the ground was much too hot. it appeared once to have been a beautiful town, but after this it was one sad mass of ruin. the french proceeded from this place to casal nova, but were so quickly followed up that picton's division overtook them and nearly captured their leader. next day we came up with the enemy, posted in a strong position at casal nova, and on the th of march the light division attacked them and obliged them to retreat to a neighbouring height, whence after another attack they again found it best to retire on miranda de corno. part of our division was in this engagement, and i never saw cannon play with better or more deadly effect on any body of men than ours did on the enemy, situated as they were on the heights of casal nova. yet they left very few dead or wounded on the field; i think they must have carried most of them away, as the ground was strewn with muskets and swords. the thing i noticed most particularly in this fight was the singular death of a man in our regiment, who was named william halfhead, but considering the size of his head, which must have gone a very great way towards filling half a bushel measure, it was wrongly so, and he was the sport of the whole regiment, who named him bushelhead. his head was indeed so large that he had to have two caps to make him one. this poor fellow was standing within five yards of me when a shot from the enemy's cannon took this same head clean off. i heard one of the men exclaim, "hullo, there goes poor bushelhead," and that was all the sympathy he got. one division, under general cole, proceeded after the enemy to panella, where it was joined by another, under general nightingale, and on the enemy seeing how closely they were followed they retreated from miranda de corno, setting fire to that town also. we again fell in with them on the banks of a river near the village of poz de aroce, where a brisk attack was made on them by the british, and they were driven from the river in great confusion with a loss of some four hundred men or more. it has been reported that numbers were even killed by their own side, through the darkness of the night and the confusion arising from their not having expected an attack then. we encamped there one day, and then again pursued the enemy, coming up with them where they were posted behind the river alva. there they had sent out four or five hundred foragers in search of provisions: and indeed they must have wanted them badly, for even we that had come from the land of plenty at torres vedras were at that time in great want. we did not, however, let them stay there long enough for the suppliers to return, for we opened fire on them, and forced them to retreat to moira, leaving their foraging parties to the mercy of the english and portuguese, most of them sooner or later falling into our hands. we crossed the alva on a floating bridge and halted near moira, as the enemy had now retreated to celorico; but here lord wellington was obliged to stay the pursuit through want of provisions. on hearing of the state of badajoz he had already determined to send reinforcements to that place, so our division and one of the portuguese under general hamilton, with a brigade of cavalry, were directed to march southward again and invest badajoz before that place's defences could be repaired by the enemy. accordingly, on the th of march, our divisions crossed the tagus at tancos, whence we advanced to portalegre, halting there for about two days. here i think i ought to relate an incident just to show that the english often committed depredations on the inhabitants almost as bad as the enemy. we are often too prone to see other people's and nations' faults, whilst if our own had but the light thrown on them, they would often come up to, if not exceed, those of our adversaries. we, at least my company, were billeted in a chapel, at night lying on straw, which in the morning had to be rolled up neatly in our blankets so as to make the place look comfortable during the day, a separate lot of straw being allowed for every two men. very close to this chapel there was situated a farmyard, inhabited by a quantity of pigs: and pork being a thing which the company had not tasted for some time, we made up our minds to have a treat. so one of our number was chosen to steal a pig, being, i suppose, one whose fingers were thought well adapted to the purpose. he pitched on a very novel plan of proceeding, for, taking a sergeant's pike, he stuck the pig with it, and then escaped till the poor animal had died; on which, not being long afterwards, we conveyed it to the chapel. we thought that we had done this all unobserved, but the farmer had either watched our movements, or must have seen the blood and gone to count, and so missed the pig, and we soon saw that all was not to pass off so nicely as we expected, for presently he put in an appearance at the chapel too. finding, however, that we were too strong for him, and seeing nothing of the missing pig, he went off and reported the circumstance to our colonel. meanwhile we lost no time in making our plans for a place of security for our prize. at first we thought of our straw beds, that is, of wrapping the pig in the blanket, but our afterthoughts told us that that would not be safe. at one end of the chapel, however, there was a large statue of the virgin mary, having on a robe with a long train, and it was under this train that we concealed our prize in the best possible manner, so as to baffle any chance of detection by the appearance of the train being altered. and sure enough, it proved to be the safest place we could have hit upon for our desired end, for very soon in came the farmer with a priest, and the first thing they did was to make their obedience to the monument, whilst we were all the time laughing in our sleeves to think how they were likewise honouring the pig. something more serious was soon to happen, however, for a very few minutes afterwards the captain and colonel both came in and ordered every berth to be examined; but they searched in vain, and pronounced it to be some mistake on the farmer's part, as in that short time we could not have cooked, eaten, or otherwise got rid of the pig. the farmer, however, still felt certain that we had it, but it could not be found anywhere in the chapel, so he was obliged to retire without any compensation for his unfortunate pig. then we breathed a little more freely at last, for if we had been found out, we most likely should have had our grog stopped for some time, and that goes in such times very much against the heart of a soldier. early next morning our kettles were at work in the usual way, cooking our breakfasts, but that particular morning every man of the chapel company had a small extra portion in the pot, being his allowance of the pig, not much certainly, when it came to be divided amongst so many, about one pound for each man; but even that, and the more especially as it was pork, was thought no little of in such times of short diet, for we were not over abundantly stocked with provisions. in fact it was chiefly for that reason, and to refresh ourselves from the long continued marches, that we were now delaying on our southward route. on again resuming our march, we arrived in four or five days at a place called campo mayor, where we caught sight of the enemy, but only in marching order towards badajoz. here i have again to relate another shameful instance of plunder which happened on the same march. we were encamped near a village of no particular note, and of which therefore i did not arrive at the exact name: and a party of men, perhaps to the number of about twenty, including myself, were out on the forage, when we arrived at the house of a poor woman, who evidently kept a kind of general shop, though we could not see any other houses near. four or five with myself went into the shop and asked the woman if she had any bread for sale, to which she replied that there was some baking which would be done in about an hour, if we could wait, which we consented to do; but meanwhile a signal was given to the remaining part of our company, who, observing that the oven was built out from the house, immediately set to work to make a hole with their bayonets so as to be able to get the bread out. while this operation was going on out at the back we were amusing the woman with some of our peninsular tales in front until the hour had passed; when, on her going to draw the bread she found much to her amazement that every loaf was missing, and daylight gleaming in on her through a hole in the back of the oven. the poor woman was then in a terrible stew, and we did all we could to reconcile her to her loss, making out that we knew nothing of the sad business; but this pity did not detain us long, for we pretty quickly made for the camp and made a first rate meal off the bread, which was to us then a greater luxury than meat, as we were very seldom supplied with bread, more especially so fresh as this, which was smoking hot, though not very well done; but if it had been dough we could have eaten it at that time. on another occasion, on the same march, i caught another cock, or rather took it from a farmyard; but not feeling inclined to be troubled with a second live one, as i had still got tom campaigning with me, i gave it three swings by the head, which i thought broke its neck, and put it away out of sight in my high cap. on my return to camp, the company had just fallen in on parade, and no sooner had the captain passed close to me, than my cap-tenant crew, or made a terrible noise of some sort, much to the astonishment both of myself and the captain, who said, "hullo, lawrence, what have you got there?" i told him a cock, which i had bought when out foraging. "yes," he said, "you offered four, but took it with five," meaning, i suppose, my fingers. he was perfectly right, but i did not think it would have passed off quite so smoothly, as many in the peninsula were hanged for plunder; all we were allowed to forage for at this place being provisions for the horses and mules. chapter xi. commencement of the siege of badajoz -- sortie by the garrison repulsed -- lawrence takes a prisoner, who proves difficult of persuasion -- lawrence poses as champion of the regimental grog, and is indulged in return with an uncomfortable spell of sentry -- he eventually triumphs -- move to, and capture of olivencia -- separates from a faithful friend -- return towards badajoz -- battle of albuera. from campo mayor we went on towards badajoz, some slight skirmishing with the enemy's rear-guard taking place on the way, but with very little success on either side. we made a stay at elvas until preparations had been made for crossing the guadiana, and then we proceeded to badajoz, the town that so pestered the allies during the peninsular war. our brigade took up its position on the north side of the town and river, and commenced throwing up batteries. during our operations the french sallied out of the town, crossed the river, and attempted to destroy a part of our work, thus actively engaging about three hundred of our covering party, together with a small reinforcement of grenadiers, which latter, however, soon made them beat a retreat into the town again. i succeeded in capturing a straggler here, but was not able to get him into our lines by myself, on account of his lying down and refusing to come; so i broke his musket, but not feeling inclined even then to leave him, i knelt down to protect myself a little from the enemy's shot, and waited for some assistance. this was not long in coming, for the colonel, seeing my position, allowed a man, towser by name, who had volunteered, to come and lend me a hand, and thus we were enabled to get my captive safe at last to the lines: not, however, without some risk to our own lives, as the enemy were firing at us all the time from a fort situated a short distance from the river. the man was not at all willing at first to walk, so we dragged him by the leg along the ground for some way; but owing to the roughness of the road, he soon found that he preferred walking. we searched him and found a doubloon and a half on his person, which towser and i divided equally between us. the colonel reprimanded me for running such a risk for one prisoner, but he was satisfied with my answer, which was that perhaps the man had been on the alert to fire at some of us, which might have terminated in the colonel's own death, or maybe in mine. the colonel had already been slightly wounded in the leg, which obliged him afterwards to go into the hospital at elvas, and some thirty-eight of my comrades unfortunately met their deaths in this affray. the colonel sent a quantity of rum from elvas to be divided amongst those men who were in action at the time he received his wound, but the officer then in charge of us, whom nobody in the regiment liked, only served out the half of it, which only came to about half a pint for each man, much to the discontent of all. i spoke out and said that we ought to have it all, as the colonel had sent it, and we had had to fight hard for it; which so put out the officer that he said i should not have any at all. the sergeant, however, gave me a half a pint with the rest, unbeknown to the officer, and immediately went and asked him if i was to have any. the officer then told him to "let the rascals have the lot, and then they would be satisfied," so thus i came in for another half pint, which i put into my canteen with some water to drink when i might next be on sentry. this came to my turn on the very night following, and as it chanced, i was commanded by the same officer that i have been alluding to. it was not often that the major went round with the picket, but that night, having taken the colonel's command, he did so, and saw me placed on sentry. i was placed as outlying sentry, and ought to have been relieved in three hours, instead of which, out of spite for the rum job, the officer never came near me all night; in fact, i never saw a man from the time i was put on till i came off myself in the morning. i will give some details of the coincidences of that night, which was dark but starlight, so that i could just catch a dim glimpse of the enemy's before mentioned fort, and, owing to the heights, was able to see the town very well. the place where i was on sentry was in a field of standing wheat in ear, amongst which i sat down and was fairly comfortable for about an hour; after which the enemy seemed to have made out my position, and kept dabbing at me with their muskets for a long time. i could not make out how it was they had caught sight of me, but after they had continued firing for some time, i at last found out the cause. on my cap there was a large bright brass plate, which no doubt made a slight reflection either from the stars or the light from the town, and so drew their attention to me. so much for bright dress and brass plates, thought i, though fortunately they had done me no harm; and now for the remedy that i proposed. i took the loading-rod from my musket, and stuck it fast into the ground, and placing my cap upon it, i proceeded about ten yards to the right and sat down; and it was fortunate that i did so, for during the night they put two shots through my cap, and that would have been awkward if my head had been inside. it is not to be supposed, however, that i sat there bareheaded all night, for i put on my slop or foraging cap, and then sat hearkening to the sound of chimes and bells pronouncing the hours of eleven, twelve, one, two, three, and four, and the occasional whizzing of shells and shot over my head. at length, after hearing the bells strike the last-named hour, and seeing the dawn, too, beginning to peep over the distant horizon, knowing that my turn to be relieved had long since passed, i put back my loading rod into its place and my cap on my head, and decamped to the body picket. there i met the major, who seeing me return, and knowing that it was my turn for rest, asked me where i had been. i said, "were you not with the officer when he placed me on sentry last night?" he replied; "yes, has he not relieved you since?" on which i told him no, and that i thought it was time to relieve myself, likewise showing him my cap for him to judge what a hot night i had had of it. i also gave the reason that i thought for the officer's spite, which put him out terribly, so much so that he immediately called up the officer, who had retired to rest some hours, and told him that if they had not been so near the enemy, he would have had him tried by court-martial for his neglect: which might have ended by his being cashiered out of the service. that was the first and last time that he ever left me on sentry all night. our stay here, however, was of short duration for we proceeded further towards olivencia, which was garrisoned by about four hundred of the enemy. we crossed the guadiana near that place on a bridge constructed of empty casks and planks, and sat down before the town about the th of april. in a few days our batteries were all ready for action, and on the garrison refusing to surrender, we commenced firing, and soon made a breach; but at that point the governor, fearing an assault, immediately surrendered, and he and his garrison were all taken prisoners. it was at this place that i parted with tom. for being bothered by the colonel's servant to let him have my pet, i foolishly consented, though my comrades did their best to persuade me to keep him. he told me he wanted to take him to england, and gave me a dollar for him, but i afterwards found out that he had killed him for his master's dinner. i think i felt as sorry for that as i ever did for anything, for i dearly liked tom. from olivencia we marched again towards badajoz, but owing to soult's army being on its way to relieve that town, beresford had occupied the heights of albuera, about thirteen miles southeast of badajoz, in order to check the enemy if possible in their intended object. general cole therefore advanced to albuera as well, and the action had just commenced when he arrived. the allies had taken up their position on a fine ridge of heights, and the french under marshal soult made their appearance on the th of may. on the following morning they made an attack on the right, which was occupied by the spaniards, who soon gave way in great disorder, again leaving the brunt of the battle to the british; and not only that, but also thus allowing the french to gain part of the heights. a noble attack, however, was made by the second division, the first brigade of which in trying to gain the ridge was met by the fierce polish lancers, who slaughtered a tremendous number of them; in fact, the battle was at one time thought to have been gained by the french, and most likely would have been, had not colonel harding hurled part of our division and a reserve portuguese brigade against the enemy, and so renewed the fight. general cole himself led our fusiliers up the hill. six british guns and some colours were then already in the enemy's possession, but cole's troops soon dispersed the lancers, and, recapturing the guns and colours, drove the french down again in confusion. it is useless for me to give any further details of this celebrated battle, for it has been already depicted so many times and so much more ably than i could do; but the allies could not have lost less than seven thousand killed, wounded and missing, while the french loss was stated to be nine thousand. it was seldom, however, that we arrived at the correct estimate of the enemy's loss, it being generally the custom to state it as greater than ours, and my opinion is that in this battle the allies lost quite an equal number to the french. the spaniards especially must have sustained a great loss in their confusion. it was always a bother to get them to stir forward during a battle, but retreating was what they were best at, and then it was always in confusion; at the battle of albuera indeed whilst they were in this state they even fired at random, and several shots went amongst the english. general cole was himself wounded in this engagement, which resulted so sadly for both parties; for it could hardly be termed a victory for either side, and if so it was a very dearly bought one. still it was we who remained on the field in the end. chapter xii. the siege of badajoz converted into a blockade -- move to guinaldo -- lord wellington as a general -- a slight digression on the horrors of war -- instances of cruelty by both the french and the inhabitants -- the english not wholly blameless -- private depredations of lawrence and his comrades -- siege of ciudad rodrigo -- capture of a troublesome convent -- a successful assault made -- scenes in the town afterwards -- incidents during the cantonments -- putting it out of sight proves not to be the best way of keeping grog -- being too sparing to one's beast not always advantageous. for the remaining part of the year both armies were inactive. the batteries had been at work at badajoz and breaches had been made, but these had proved impracticable, twelve forlorn hopes and storming parties having advanced into them with no better result than that many met their deaths and the remainder had to withdraw owing to obstacles. the siege was therefore converted into a blockade, and lord wellington, who after taking almeida and driving the french out of portugal, had come southward with two divisions to reinforce beresford's army, moved the general south army into cantonments and encampments near the river caza, a tributary of the guadiana. there we remained till july, when we were marched northward again across the tagus, and took up our position at guinaldo. while there no particular engagement ensued; the enemy indeed falling on another part of our line, but no success being obtained on either side. although lord wellington had now driven the french clean out of portugal, he had still other work to do; work that praised him more than he had been before, work that raised him to higher honours than he yet possessed, but likewise work that sacrificed more thousands of human beings than had been through the whole three years. there can be no doubt that if he had had as many troops as the french, he would long before this have driven them out of portugal and perhaps spain as well; he seemed to understand their every movement, and was thus always ready waiting to receive them; and they on their part seemed to think they had more than found their match in him, and had become very cautious in contending with him. but he actually had only half their number, or even less, that he could depend on, and these were sometimes not fit for service from want or other privations, as these tales of the hospitals or rather deadly convents go to prove, where so many of my comrades passed the end of their lives, and their remains were carried out with no more ceremony than i described as at elvas. the portuguese themselves were mostly exempt from the actual slaughter, but their country had already been left by the enemy in about as bad a state as it could; for if it had been infested with swarms of locusts, the devastation could not have been paralleled. the war could not have left one family quite untouched by its destructiveness or by misery and grief irrecoverable for many years; and indeed, in some cases, for ever, for many a child was deprived of its father or mother, or even of both parents, and many were the parents who had lost their children; and if any had accumulated a little fortune then it must have been lost, being ever liable to be plundered by the soldiery. it must be said, however, that certainly the spaniards and likewise the portuguese behaved on their part very cruelly to the enemy's wounded, prisoners, or stragglers. i myself was witness to one of their barbarous acts. they had laid a ring of straw round a wounded frenchman and set fire to it, and when the poor man tried to crawl out, he was only received with a pitchfork which sent him again into the centre. we soon made the portuguese fly by firing in amongst them; but when we came up to the poor man, his hair, fingers, and face were fearfully burnt already. he implored us not to leave him, but we were obliged to, and no doubt either the portuguese returned and killed him, or else he died of the injuries he had sustained at their hands, or from the wounds that had before disabled him. these barbarities, however, the enemy brought on themselves by dealing out the same coin, for they would go on foraging parties, and perhaps find a whole family or more together trying to protect their very subsistences, when they would kill the males, serve the females not much better, and carry off everything they could lay their hands on if of any value. sometimes, however, they were overpowered in these freaks, and then they suffered just as bad a fate as i showed just now; which, after all, is not much to be wondered at. i am sorry to say, however, that we ourselves were not quite free from the charge of depredations, though we did not carry them on to the extent of bloodshed. an instance of this in which i was myself mixed up happened during our stay at this very place guinaldo. we were quartered nearly twenty in number in two upper rooms of a house, of which the family inhabited the lower part. our beds, as usual, consisted chiefly of straw. an irish comrade of ours, by name harding, whom we named pig harding, owing to his always being on the look out for any cheap pieces he could lay hands on, was quartered in the same house, and we had not been there many days before he found about thirty pounds of sausages curled round the bottom of a large earthen jar that contained at least ten or twelve gallons of olive oil, the sausages having evidently been placed there either to keep, or to be out of our sight. pig, however, who was up to many of the spanish movements, was not long in finding them; he soon had tried the bottom with his bayonet, and found a prize worth fishing for; and he came running into our room carrying the sausages, which owing to their oily state did not fail to leave a trace of their whereabouts. we soon repaired this defect so as not to be noticeable on the floor, which was not kept so clean as it might be, and which our stay there had not improved much, and then we had a fine meal off our sausages, which, to use pig's own words, "blood and 'ounds, _were_ good, very," and soon there were very few left. after all in the house had eaten sufficient, the rest were given to some of our comrades in another house, our policy being always to get rid of any plunder as quickly as possible so as to bar detection if it was found out. there were always plenty to help eat it, and in this case every one of the sausages were gone before the woman found out her loss, which was not till next day about dinnertime, when no doubt she expected to cook the family meal off them. the sausages in that country were generally made of cooked meat flavoured with garlic and cayenne pepper, so that they were fit for eating at all times without cooking. when the poor woman found them missing, she soon thought of the right parties as the thieves; and with her fingers all dripping with oil, for she had evidently been feeling for them in the jar, she rushed in crying, "_ladrone, ladrone_ (you thieves, you thieves), the french are bad enough, but you are worse!" we only laughed at her, so she reported us to our major, who immediately came to our room and said, "then you are up to your prigging tricks again," and asked the woman how much the sausages were worth. she did not fail to ask enough, for she said sixteen dollars, which he paid at once, saying he would deduct it from our pay. the major never did as he said he would, however, and we heard no more either of the sausages or of our money; but still we did not know that at the time, and the threat only had the effect of sending pig off again in search of something that would at least give us the worth of our money. he waited till just before we were going to shift from these quarters, and then he found out a trap-door, through which he got himself hoisted up, and found eight sides of bacon there, with one of which he descended, thinking that would be as much as we could conveniently eat at that place, and so at any rate we had the worth of the sixteen dollars, for this last affair was not found out before we started. on another occasion, whilst we were at the same place, some spaniards came into our camp with wine for sale, contained in pigskins carried across mules' backs, one on each side, and whilst the spaniard was measuring it out of one skin, a hole had been made in the other with a penknife, which lightened both burdens at once considerably, much to the discontent of the spaniard on finding it out. but i think that all such lesser manoeuvres as this, though bad in themselves, can be perhaps looked over in considering the frequent hungry state that so large a body of men were in during this war. we remained in this neighbourhood till the latter end of . the beginning of opened with the siege of ciudad rodrigo, where we arrived and began to break ground on the th of february. we had to commence throwing up our batteries and breastworks under a particular annoyance from three guns, situated on a fortified convent a little distance from the town, near where our brigade's operations were in progress, so our colonel for one volunteered to storm the convent, which offer was accepted. several companies, therefore, including my own, advanced under him unobserved by the enemy in the darkness of the night, and succeeded in effecting an entrance into the convent, the garrison being taken by surprise, but managing to decamp. i then volunteered with a few men to march on up to the tower where the guns were situated, a priest being made to show us the way, as the path which we had to tread was so winding. when we arrived at the top, which must have taken us at least ten minutes, we found no french there, but the three shattered cannon still remained, which we were ordered to pitch down, not much improving their condition thereby, and so we gained the object for which we had come. all the french that were left in the convent, or at least all i saw there, were two of their wounded, but they were good enough to leave us a room full of cabbages, which came in very handy. after this affair we took up our quarters in the convent, but still continued our ground work. once the enemy sallied out of the town and attacked us during these operations, and a smart brush ensued, but they were soon obliged to retire again. now and then the garrison would greet us with a cannon-ball, which often did some little mischief; a sergeant was killed by one, which at the same time took another's arm off, and i myself had a narrow escape one day whilst in the breastworks, from a six-pounder which having struck the convent, rebounded and caught me in the chest. luckily it was nearly spent, but as it was it knocked me down, and it was some time before i could recover my breath, and that not until my comrades had poured some rum and water down my throat. my chest was much discoloured and swollen, through which i was ill for nearly a week. by the th of january two practicable breaches were made in the walls of the town, and an attack was ordered. our colonel volunteered for the forlorn hope, but it was put under other commanders, being chiefly composed of the rifles. the main breach was committed to general picton's division, and the brigades of general vandeleur and colonel barnet were ordered to attack the smaller breach, headed by a storming-party of three hundred men and a forlorn hope, under major george napier of the fifty-second regiment. the forlorn hope assembled between seven and eight o'clock under the walls of the convent we were then occupying, which protected them a little from the enemy's shot. all was deathly silent amongst those men, who perhaps could not help thinking that it might be their last undertaking: in fact, this is much the worst business a soldier can enter upon, as scarcely anything but death looks him in the face. there they were watching with intense anxiety for the to many fatal signal; and at length the order was given to advance. the assault was to be conducted on all sides at once, and in double quick time the troops were at the breach, although the ladders, which were being carried by the portuguese, when wanted had disappeared. our troops nevertheless pushed onwards and gained the breach, when either through accident or the neglect of the train-man, a mine was sprung before the french were clearly off it, and both french and english were suddenly blown into the air and buried together in the ruin. after the smother had fairly cleared away, our troops met with very little difficulty in mounting the breach and scouring the ramparts, the french throwing down their arms and retiring into the town itself, where after a brief contest in the streets, the whole surviving garrison surrendered; but it was not without the loss of many of the bravest men on our side in the first assault. this successful achievement was attended with all the horrors of the soldiery, excesses, riot, and drunkenness taking place on every side. houses were plundered of their contents, cellars broken open and emptied, and many houses were even set on fire, amid the yells of the dissipated soldiers and the screams of the wounded. thus the night passed, but in the morning order was a little restored, and those men who were sensible enough returned to their own regiments. about forty-one pieces of cannon, some stands of arms, and a quantity of provisions were taken, besides which the enemy must have lost quite a thousand men, besides the prisoners. amongst these latter were six or seven deserters belonging to the allied army, who were sent to their respective regiments and probably shot: fortunately there were none belonging to our division. the allies' loss was very considerable, being upwards of a thousand also. after the reduction of ciudad rodrigo, lord wellington put it under garrison and ordered the breaches to be repaired. then he marched south to watch the proceedings at badajoz, whilst we again went into cantonments near rodrigo. some muleteers halted under the protection of our troops at this place, laden with rum and biscuits for the supply of the army, over which sentries were placed on guard, but instead of guarding, they took so much rum, which being there generally carried in pigs' skins was easily got at, that they died in consequence next morning. likewise one of our cavalry men was here flogged for making away with his horse's corn to selfishly buy himself grog; and well deserving of punishment he was, for the poor horse was miserably thin. in fact, the horses in general were the same, and it was thought that many were served the same; but this man being the first that was caught, was tried by court-martial and sentenced to fifty lashes as an example. the man asked the colonel to look over it as it was his first offence, but the colonel said, "the horse's looks tell a different tale from that; he has long had the bitters, and you the sweet, and now it is time things should be the other way round." certainly the horses' forage could not at all times be procured, and especially in the winter, but for that very reason they had more need of it when it could be. the best horses i saw during the whole peninsular campaign were the german hussars': those men were not so fond of drink as ours, which might perhaps account for the condition of their animals, as they had no more chance of gaining forage than our men had. chapter xiii. lawrence's division marched south to invest badajoz -- small choice allowed by the fortunes of war -- in the trenches -- a fort taken -- the town walls breached -- refusal of the garrison to surrender -- an assault ordered -- lawrence in the forlorn hope -- a somewhat premature assignation -- fighting in the breach -- lawrence wounded -- fearful scenes on his way to the rear -- he reports on the state of affairs to lord wellington -- the story of filer -- the castle carried after severe fighting, and the english enter the town -- dreadful excesses on the part of the victorious troops -- great losses on both sides in the assault -- the end of lawrence's assignation. our stay at rodrigo was of short duration, for we were soon ordered south to invest badajoz, which gave us another long and tedious march of a hundred and fifty miles or more. we arrived there at the beginning of march, and the third, ours, that is the fourth, and the light divisions, under the command of marshal beresford and general picton, invested the town. we soon broke ground before the town by commencing to throw up breastworks and batteries. very heavy rains had just lately set in, but our troops still pursued their undertaking and persevered in the trenches. a cannonade was kept up from the town, which fortunately, however, did not do much damage; but on the th of march the garrison attacked us, and were only driven back with a loss on our side of a hundred men killed and wounded, and a still greater loss on their part. i killed a french sergeant myself with my bayonet in this action. i was at the time in the trenches when he came on the top and made a dart at me with his bayonet, having, like myself, exhausted his fire; and while in the act of thrusting he overbalanced himself and fell. i very soon pinioned him to the ground with my bayonet, and the poor fellow soon expired. i was sorry afterwards that i had not tried to take him prisoner instead of killing him, but at the time we were all busily engaged in the thickest of the fight, and there was not much time to think about things. and besides that, he was a powerful-looking man, being tall and stout, with a beard and moustache completely covering his face, as fine a soldier as i have seen in the french army, and if i had allowed him to gain his feet, i might have suffered for it; so perhaps in such times my plan was the best--kill or be killed. about eight hundred of us were every night busily engaged in the trenches, whilst a large number, who were called the covering party, were on the look out in case of an attack from the enemy. the rain poured down so fast that balers were obliged to be employed in places, and at times the trenches were in such a state of mud that it was over our shoes. we were chiefly employed during the day in finishing off what we had done in the night, as very little else could be done then owing to the enemy's fire. we had not been to work many days before we got within musket shot of a fine fort situated a little distance from the town, and garrisoned with four or five hundred of the enemy, who annoyed us rather during our operations. one night as i was working in the trenches near this place, and just as the guard was about to be relieved, a shell from the town fell amongst them and exploded, killing and wounding about thirty. i never saw a worse sight of its kind, for some had their arms and legs, and some even their heads, which was worse, completely severed from their bodies. i remember my comrade, pig harding, who was working near me at the time, and had, like myself, become hardened to the worst of sights during our sojourn in the peninsula, saying as a joke, "lawrence, if any one is in want of an arm or a leg he can have a good choice there;" little thinking, poor fellow, that soon he would himself be carried out, numbered with the slain. on the morning after this explosion a terrific scene of our mangled comrades presented itself, for their remains strewed the ground in all directions. of course our next thought was how to clear ourselves of this troublesome fort. some suspicions were entertained that it was undermined, so in the dead of night some engineers were sent between it and the town to search for a train, and finding that the earth had been moved, they dug down and found the train and cut it off. then, on the next night, the eighty-seventh and eighty-eighth regiments were ordered up to storm the fort, and succeeded after a brisk action in gaining the place, the most of the garrison escaping into the town. next morning i entered the fort with the rest, where we found the wounded frenchmen lying. we relieved their pain a little by giving them some of our rum and water, and then conveyed them to the rear; most of their wounds being bad, evidently from the bayonet, but not mortal. owing to the success of taking this fort we were enabled to carry on our works much nearer to the town, and by the beginning of april two batteries were formed within three or four hundred yards of the place: and in about five days, through the effects of our twenty-four pounders, three practicable breaches were made in the walls. lord wellington then ordered the town to be attacked on the night of the th, having previously sent to know if it would surrender: and the answer being "no," he asked for the inhabitants to be allowed to quit, as he intended to take the town by assault. in consequence of this some thousands of the inhabitants quitted the city. a storming-party was selected from each regiment, and each of the third, fourth, and light divisions was told off to a breach. i joined the forlorn hope myself. before, however, that i proceed further in my account of this sanguinary affair, i will relate an engagement that myself, pig harding, and another of my comrades, george bowden by name, entered into before we even started on our way, of which the result showed what a blind one it was. through being quartered at badajoz after the battle of talavera, all three of us knew the town perfectly well, and so understood the position of most of the valuable shops: and hearing a report likewise that if we succeeded in taking the place, there was to be three hours' plunder, we had planned to meet at a silversmith's shop that we knew about, poor pig even providing himself with a piece of wax candle to light us if needed. but all this was doomed to disappointment. we were supplied with ladders and grass bags, and having received and eaten our rations, and each man carrying his canteen of water, we fell in at half-past eight or thereabouts to wait for the requisite signal for all to advance. during the interval our men were particularly silent: but at length the deadly signal was given, and we rushed on towards the breach. i was one of the ladder party, for we did not feel inclined to trust to the portuguese, as we did at ciudad rodrigo. on our arriving at the breach, the french sentry on the wall cried out, "who comes there?" three times, or words to that effect in his own language, but on no answer being given, a shower of shot, canister and grape, together with fire-balls, was hurled at random amongst us. poor pig received his death wound immediately, and my other accomplice, bowden, became missing, while i myself received two small slug shots in my left knee, and a musket shot in my side, which must have been mortal had it not been for my canteen: for the ball penetrated that and passed out, making two holes in it, and then entered my side slightly. still i stuck to my ladder, and got into the entrenchment. numbers had by this time fallen: but the cry from our commanders being, "come on, my lads!" we hastened to the breach; but there, to our great surprise and discouragement, we found a _chevaux de frise_ had been fixed and a deep entrenchment made, from behind which the garrison opened a deadly fire on us. vain attempts were made to remove this fearful obstacle, during which my left hand was dreadfully cut by one of the blades of the _chevaux de frise_, but finding no success in that quarter, we were forced to retire for a time. we remained, however, in the breach until we were quite weary with our efforts to pass it. my wounds were still bleeding, and i began to feel very weak; my comrades persuaded me to go to the rear; but this proved a task of great difficulty, for on arriving at the ladders, i found them filled with the dead and wounded, hanging some by their feet just as they had fallen and got fixed in the rounds. i hove down three lots of them, hearing the implorings of the wounded all the time; but on coming to the fourth, i found it completely smothered with dead bodies, so i had to draw myself up over them as best i could. when i arrived at the top i almost wished myself back again, for there of the two i think was the worse sight, nothing but the dead and wounded lying around, and the cries of the latter, mingled with the incessant firing from the enemy, being quite deafening. i was so weak myself that i could scarcely walk, so i crawled on my hands and knees till i got out of reach of the enemy's musketry. after proceeding for some way i fell in with lord wellington and his staff, who seeing me wounded, asked me what regiment i belonged to. i told him the fortieth, and that i had been one of the forlorn hope. he inquired as to the extent of my wounds, and if any of our troops had got into the town, and i said "no," and i did not think they ever would, as there was a _chevaux de frise_, a deep entrenchment, and in the rear of them a constant and murderous fire being kept up by the enemy. one of his staff then bound up my leg with a silk handkerchief, and told me to go behind a hill which he pointed out, where i would find a doctor to dress my wounds; so i proceeded on, and found that it was the doctor of my own regiment. next after me lieutenant elland was brought in by a man of the name of charles filer, who had seen him lying wounded at the breach with a ball in the thigh, and on his asking him to convey him from the breach, had raised him on his shoulders for that object. but during his march a cannon-ball had taken the officer's head clean off without filer finding it out on account of the darkness of the night, and the clamour of cannon and musketry mingled with the cries of the wounded. much it was to filer's astonishment, then, when the surgeon asked him what he had brought in a headless trunk for; he declared that the lieutenant had a head on when he took him up, for he had himself asked him to take him from the breach, and that he did not know when the head was severed, which must have been done by one of the bullets of which there were so many whizzing about in all directions. some may doubt the correctness of this story, but i, being myself both a hearer and an eyewitness to the scene at the surgeon's, can vouch for the accuracy of it. certainly filer's appearance was not altogether that of composure, for he was not only rather frightened at the fearful exposure of his own body at the breach and across the plain, but he was evidently knocked up, or rather bowed down, by the weight of his lifeless burden, which he must, if he came from the breach, have carried for upwards of half a mile, so that, under these disadvantages, the mistake might easily have been made even by any one of harder temperament than his. but the tale did not fail to spread through the camp, and caused great laughter over filer, sentences being thrown at him such as "who carried the man without a head to the doctor?" &c. after lord wellington had found it useless to attempt to face the breach with the _chevaux de frise_, he altered his plans of attack. more success had fortunately been achieved in the other breaches, so he withdrew the men from our fatal breach to reinforce the others, but not till at least two thousand had been killed or wounded in this single assault. he had ordered the castle to be attacked, and a quantity of troops had been supplied for the purpose with long ladders, which had been raised against the walls and filled with men: but the enemy showered down a mass of heavy substances, such as trees and large stones, and amongst all a number of deadly bursting shells, and thus broke the ladders and tumbled the men down from top to bottom, crushing still more underneath. yet more men were found ready to push on to the sanguinary scene. more ladders had indeed to be procured, which caused another great delay, but as soon as they arrived they were quickly hoisted, and the precaution was taken this time to fix them farther apart, so that if more beams were waiting to be rolled over, they might not take such a deadly sweep. the second attempt was more successful, for the ramparts were gained and the french driven back: and a single piece of ground being thus gained, a footing was soon established for many more, who succeeded in turning round some guns and firing them along the ramparts, soon sweeping the enemy off them. fresh reinforcements on both sides shortly arrived at this for us successful spot, but the garrison was soon forced back into the town. the ramparts were then scoured, the breaches cleared, and the _chevaux de frise_ pulled down, and the main body of the english entered the town. some opposition had to be overcome in the streets, but that was soon cleared away, and the french escaped to fort san cristoval. our troops found the city illuminated to welcome them, but nevertheless then began all the horrors that generally attended a capture by assault--plunder, waste, destruction of property, drunkenness, and debauchery. i was myself exempt from all this, owing to my wounds, which kept me in camp at the time the town was taken; but though i was at least a mile off, i could distinctly hear the clamour of the rabble, as the guns and musketry had ceased; and next morning i hobbled as well as i could into the town with the help of the handle of a sergeant's pike chopped up so as to form a stick, and there sure enough i found a pretty state of affairs. pipes of wine had been rolled into the streets and tapped by driving the heads in, for any one to drink of them who liked, and when the officers tried to keep order by throwing all of these over that they could, the men that were in a state of drunkenness lay down to drink out of the gutters, which were thus running with all sorts of liquors; doors were blown open all through the city, both upstairs and down, by placing muskets at the keyhole and so removing the locks. i myself saw that morning a naked priest launched into the street and flogged down it by some of our men who had a grudge against him for the treatment they had met at a convent, when staying in the town before. i happened to meet one of my company, and asked him how he was getting on, to which he replied that he was wounded in the arm, but that he had got hold of something that compensated for that a little, showing me a bag of about a hundred dollars that he had succeeded in obtaining, and saying that i should not want whilst he had got it. but whilst all this debauchery was going on amongst some of our soldiers, i will give a word of credit to a great many of the more respectable, who were trying as much as lay in their power to stop the ferociousness of the same. that morning i met many about, who said they were sorry to think that the soldiers could not carry it on without going to such excesses as they did, respectable houses being ransacked from top to bottom, with no regard to the entreaties of the few inhabitants who remained within the walls. things that could not be taken were often destroyed, and men were threatened if they did not produce their money, and the women sometimes the same. comparatively few murders were, i believe, committed, but some no doubt occurred. it was not till the drunken rabble had dropped into a sound slumber or had died in consequence of their excesses, that the unhappy city became at all composed; but in the morning some fresh troops were placed on guard, and a few gallows were erected, but not much used. two or three officers had been killed in the act of keeping order, and i have been given to understand that some of the fifth division, having arrived after most places had been ransacked, plundered their drunken fellow-comrades, and it was likewise reported that a few were even murdered. lord wellington punished all offenders by stopping their grog for some time; but in these times such scenes as these were generally found to occur after a place had had to be so hardly fought for. no doubt in the present day, at least half a century later, more discipline is observed in similar circumstances, which must be owned as a great improvement. this same morning the garrison surrendered. before the assault it had numbered about five thousand, but we found that some twelve hundred of these had been slain, and now the rest were prisoners; while upwards of one hundred and fifty guns, eighty thousand shots, and a great quantity of muskets and ammunition were taken in the place. ours was a much severer loss, for nearly five thousand of our men, including three or four hundred officers, were either killed or wounded. but it must be observed that with the circumstances under which our troops had to fight it was a wonder that they entered the town at all that night, every obstacle that a cunning enemy could devise being there to be overcome. every kind of combustible deadly in its action was thrown amongst the men; placed in readiness along the ramparts were trees, stones, and beams; and the worst of all was the fearful _chevaux de frise_; in fact nothing had been wanting to discourage the men, who, however, pushed on, being as anxious as lord wellington himself to get into the town. all being now over, thoughts of pig harding, george bowden, and our engagement, ran in my head, and how it had all failed, poor pig having received seven shots in his body, and george bowden having had both thighs blown off. both must have met with instant death, and i myself had four wounds and was disabled for some time from getting about. i resolved then that i would never make any more engagements under the same fearful circumstances. we missed poor pig more than any man of the regiment, for he passed many an hour away pleasantly with his jokes, being a thoroughbred irishman, and not only that, but he supplied us with many an extra piece of tommy by his roguish tricks. chapter xiv. six weeks in hospital at estremoz -- a new way to keep up the spirits -- lawrence allowed to go on to salamanca at his own risk -- he catches the fever there, and has to go into hospital again at ciudad rodrigo -- at last rejoins his regiment -- cessation of hostilities on both sides, and the british army goes into cantonments -- lawrence made a corporal -- the cat's paw comes in for its share of the booty, and gets the chestnuts into the bargain -- a romantic episode to relieve the monotony of war. a day or two after these events, the wounded were all conveyed to hospital, some to elvas and some to estremoz. i was amongst the latter, as was likewise my comrade whom i mentioned as meeting me in the streets of badajoz, as we were considered better able to stand the longer journey, the distance on from elvas to estremoz being about six leagues the other side from badajoz. on our arrival at hospital, we were allowed to take in no spirits or wine, which, as we had lately had so much of them, seemed to be more of a hardship to us than our wounds: but we were not long in working a system by which we were enabled to procure something to drink. the window of our ward looked out into one of the streets, on the opposite side of which was a wine shop, which for some time tormented us horribly: it was something like the fable of the fox and the grapes, sour because it was out of reach. the man of the house was often at his door on the look out, the natives there seeming to suffer from that general complaint as much as in our own country villages, where if there is anything fresh in the streets, perhaps only a strange man, or even one of the inhabitants in a new coat or hat, the whole place works itself into an uproar. we soon devised a plan to gain our desired end. there was in the ward a tin kettle, holding nearly two gallons, and having procured a long string we put our money into this, and lowered it to the portuguese, who soon getting used to our plan would put the money's value in the shape of wine into the kettle and again tie it to the string, so that we could hoist it up to the window again. after that we arranged for our ward to be pretty well supplied with grog too in the same way. some suspicions being entertained by the doctor on the inflamed appearance of our wounds, he told us two or three times that he knew we had been drinking something we ought not, and blew the sergeant of the guard up for not being more strict in his search at the door, little dreaming how we had contrived another way to get this aggravator of our wounds in. but the appearance of our wounds did not stop us from lowering the kettle, which soon went down twice and sometimes three times a day, for the neighbouring wards got scent of the affair, and sent money to be lowered as well. thus i passed about six weeks before i recovered sufficiently to get out of the hospital; but many were in a much worse state than myself, some losing their arms, some their legs, and some even dying of their wounds. one of the slug shots, however, could never be extricated from my knee, having settled into the bone. i felt it for some time, but in the end it ceased to trouble me, the bone having probably grown over it. i was let out of the hospital as a convalescent, and billeted in the place at a house occupied by a widow and her daughter, who were very kind to me during my stay there, which was for about a fortnight. then i received intelligence that a hundred and fifty others were well enough to rejoin the army, so i asked the doctor if i might accompany them. he told me that my wounds were not yet sufficiently set for me to undertake the journey; but i was by this time sick of hospitals, physics, estremoz, and the lot of it, and was mad to get back to my regiment, so i went to the captain, who was still lying wounded in the hospital, and asked him to speak to the doctor to let me go. the result was that next morning i again saw the doctor, who said i could go, but i must abide by the consequences myself, as he would not be answerable for my safety; so about three days after that our little group started on the way to the army, which had meanwhile moved northward from badajoz to salamanca, about two hundred miles distant, which we found rather a tedious march in our then condition. i had not been many days at salamanca before a fever broke out, which i caught very badly, and so was ordered back into hospital at ciudad rodrigo, along with a number of fellow troops who were troubled with a like malady with myself. on my arrival at the hospital, my hair was cut off by order of the doctor, and my head blistered; and i had not been there many hours before i became quite insensible, in which state i remained more or less for three months, which brought on great weakness. i received kind treatment, however, from the doctor and our attendants, and was allowed to eat anything my fancy craved, and amongst other things, without having to resort to any contrivance as at estremoz, i could get wine. after being in hospital nearly two months longer, my strength had come back enough to allow me to be removed out of the town to a convent, the very one before mentioned which i had helped to storm when we were throwing up batteries for the assault of the town. there i found a number like myself who had lately recovered, and amongst them some of my own comrades of my own regiment, which made the time pass more lively than if we had been all strangers. by the time my strength was sufficiently recruited to again permit me to go on active service, november had again come round, so that from the time of receiving my wound at badajoz, at least seven months had passed away before i was free from sickness and in a proper condition to again join my regiment. the army, including my regiment, had been all this time actively employed at salamanca, madrid, and burgos, and after going through many long marches and retreats, had again formed at salamanca, up to which place the enemy had closely followed them. but owing to the season being too bad now to carry on the war, both sides felt more disposed to remain inactive for the remainder of , so lord wellington determined on putting his army in cantonments; and in proceeding to carry out that design, for the enemy had now abandoned following up his retreat, he touched at ciudad rodrigo, which afforded a fine opportunity, which i willingly took, of rejoining my regiment. i found that our regiment had taken at the famous battle of salamanca a splendid drum-major's staff from the enemy, which was stated to be worth at least £ , and it must have come in very useful, for ours was terribly worn and knocked about, being very old, having been itself taken from the french in holland, during the commandership of the duke of york. soon after i rejoined, we crossed the agueda into portugal again, to take up our winter quarters in that country. although it was not many leagues from ciudad rodrigo to where our cantonments were to be, yet that small march seemed to be almost going to knock me up, for my leg did not seem altogether strong enough to bear much marching, both of the slug shots having entered the sinew under the knee, and while we were engaged in this march it was kept constantly on the move. however, after we had settled down for about three weeks, i began to feel more like myself, and was therefore enabled to take my regular amount of duty. but after we had been in cantonments some four or five weeks, i was on sentry one day, when to my great surprise, a comrade came to relieve me some time before my usual time had expired, which made me think something must be wrong: so, of course, wishing to know something of the matter before i felt disposed to leave guard, i asked the man what it was all about, and he told me that i had been made a corporal in the seventh company. i would at the time have much rather remained a private in my own company than be made a corporal and be transferred to the seventh; it was certainly better as far as pay went, for i received seventeen pence, whilst before i had received only thirteen pence per day; but i was far from feeling at home in this company, as i lost all my old companions; and not only that, but i then stood six feet one inch high, whilst not one man in that company stood more than five feet seven inches. i made my complaint to the captain, who promised that as soon as there was a vacancy, i should go back to my old company, and that cheered me up a little, but made me look with intense anxiety for the change back again. until it occurred, however, i had to change my abode, and live with four privates of the same seventh company in a private house, the landlady of which kept as nice a pig in her sty as i had ever seen in the peninsula. close by our quarters was the officers' mess-room, the sergeant of which had offered our landlady sixteen dollars for her pig; but the old woman would not take less than eighteen; so instead of giving that he offered the four men billeted with me the sixteen dollars to steal it for him, in return for the old lady's craftiness, as he had offered quite the fair value. the deed was done that very night, the pig being conveyed out of sight to the mess room; and in the morning, when the old lady had as usual warmed the pig's breakfast, she found to her surprise the sty empty. she soon made a terrible noise over the affair, and immediately suspected the man who had offered to buy it; which soon got to his ears, and obliged him to make away with it for a time, for fear of being searched; so he got some of the men to heave it over a wall at the back of the mess-room. the four men who had stolen it soon got scent of this, and wishing to serve the sergeant out for his meanness, and likewise have some of the pig, they went, unbeknown of course to him, and cut off about a quarter of it, which they appropriated to our own use, and brought back to be cooked in the old woman's house; so that the sergeant had better have given the two more dollars, and come by the whole pig honestly after all. some difficulty was experienced by my fellow-lodgers in cooking their portion, as the landlady had generally before got their food ready; but this was at length accomplished in our own private room, with a kettle that we had borrowed from the old lady herself. i likewise had a taste of the poor woman's missing pig, which we found to be very good and acceptable. fortunately, she never suspected us at all, but often talked to us during our stay there, of her sad loss; and indeed she was in general very kind to us, often going so far as to give us some dried chestnuts, of which she had an abundance, for a treat. after about three months' stay in this place, during which time my captain to my great satisfaction found an opportunity of putting me back to my own company, we marched to other quarters about three leagues off, in a village which had been for the most part deserted, and there we were cantoned, chiefly in empty houses. whilst we were here, a very interesting piece of excitement took place, in which one of the officers of our company, a lieutenant, was the chief actor. he was an irishman, and being likewise a catholic, had been in the habit whilst staying at our late quarters of visiting a catholic chapel; and there he had seen and fallen in love with a portuguese general's daughter. correspondence and meetings had followed, unbeknown to the girl's parents, but owing to our shifting our cantonments, some difficulty had arisen in the way of their engagements, and so i suppose they thought it best to arrange one final one, or at any rate one of which the memory was to last some time. one night, therefore, he proceeded with two of our company to the lady's house, where all arrangements had been previously made for conveying her from her private window into her lover's arms, ready to elope with him. these arrangements consisted of a ladder to be placed at a window, and the goods that she intended taking to be ready on the back of a horse, and were all carried out by two of the domestic men-servants who had been bribed, and who also undertook to keep a good look-out until the eloping party had got quite clear. but, as it proved, a worse set of people could not have been entrusted with the matter, for no sooner had they received their money, and the little company had set out from the house on their way to the officer's quarters, than the two foolish portuguese servants immediately raised an alarm, and a party of six, including these very servants, was sent in pursuit. they soon overtook the travelling party, which was obliged to walk slowly owing to the horse laden with the goods; and the pursuers being armed with sticks, an altercation consequently took place, in which the portuguese succeeded in capturing the horse and baggage; but the officer fought bravely for his spouse and was well backed up by his men, so that he succeeded in carrying her off at any rate. one of the portuguese, however, lost two fingers in the affray, which was an unfortunate circumstance, and after things had come to this crisis, they left off their pursuit and went home contented in having captured the horse and baggage. the lieutenant then succeeded in getting the lady to the cantonments without any further molesting, and on the following morning he took her to a neighbouring chapel and married her. but the matter was not to rest here; for next morning the old general wrote to our colonel on the subject, and said he intended to take proceedings against the lieutenant for stealing his daughter, as he called it. our colonel informed the lieutenant that he was to consider himself a prisoner, as in such times as these he ought to be thinking of something else but marriage; but after a fortnight's consideration the general gave in, and made it all up with his new son-in-law, who was released and likewise had his wife's horse and baggage given back to him. in return for his good luck he treated the whole of his company to a pint of wine, which was drunk in toasts to the happy couple. chapter xv. breaking up of the cantonments and march into spain -- battle of vittoria -- lawrence's private performances in the fight -- rout of the french -- fatal blunder on the part of the officers -- lawrence refits himself with boots -- buonaparte's carriage with its contents captured -- a fine take of mutton -- a good meal and night's rest after the battle -- paddy's new ingredient for dough-boys. we lay quite inactive in our cantonments until may, when preparations for the ensuing campaign commenced in good earnest; and about the middle of that month we left portugal, bidding adieu to that kingdom for ever, for we now hoped that the enemy would very soon be compelled to quit the two shattered countries of the peninsula, where we had done so much, and of late done it with such success. much more yet, however, we found had to be accomplished before that hope could be fulfilled, as i am now about to relate to the best of my ability. we first commenced our march in a northerly direction, crossing the river douro in portugal; and after about a fortnight's procedure through almost insurmountable difficulties we arrived at zamora, a town in spain, situated not more than twenty miles from the portuguese frontier on the north bank of the said river. the enemy had been occupying it lately, but had abandoned it on our approach, so from zamora we followed them to a place called valladolid, about seventy to eighty miles off, and thence to vittoria, a still longer march of at least a hundred and sixty miles, during which some slight skirmishing took place between the retreating and pursuing armies. on nearing vittoria we came up with the main body of the french posted on some admirable heights, which they had made great use of to prepare for a stubborn resistance: they not only having the advantage of the heights, but we the attacking party having to cross a river below by means of only narrow bridges, which was a great impediment to our progress. we arrived and encamped here on the th of june. on reconnoitring the enemy's strong position much doubt was entertained as to our success, our army being much fatigued after its tedious march and likewise being very short of provisions. this latter circumstance caused many to set off that night in search of something to eat; but the only thing i with several comrades could find was some broad beans, and those we had to gather for ourselves: we got a good many, but we were certainly not out for them more than an hour altogether, as nearly the whole of my party had to go on duty that night, and as it happened at the general's own quarters, which were in a house which had been deserted by its inhabitants. we occupied a kind of outhouse adjoining, and having lit a fire in the centre and found a kettle belonging to the house, we set to work and cooked a quantity of wheat that we found stowed away there, and on that made a very good night's meal. i likewise preserved a quantity and put it into my knapsack for a favourite comrade who had been left in camp in charge of our beans; but when i returned i found i need not have done that, for he had had just as good a meal off the greater part of the beans as we had off the wheat. next morning orders came to fall in under arms ready to advance and attack the enemy's strong position. our division, together with the third and seventh, was ordered to advance against the centre of their lines, so we had to bundle the remainder of our beans into our knapsacks, for to use my comrade's expression, "it went hard to have to leave any tommy behind in such times as these." before we could get at the enemy we had to cross a narrow bridge, which gave us some trouble owing to the enemy's cannon, which played pretty sharply on us: and a shell pitching into one of our ammunition waggons, it immediately blew up, carrying with it two horses and the unfortunate driver. but once on the other side of the river and formed into line we were up and at them in spite of a murderous fire which they kept up from their cannon. we soon neared them, fired, and then charged, and succeeded in driving the centre over the hill. a column of their body still appeared on our right, and we immediately received orders to wheel in that direction; but the sight of us, together with the play of our artillery on them, was quite sufficient to make them follow their centre over the hill, whither we pursued them, but were unable to come up with them. i came across a poor wounded frenchman crying to us english not to leave him, as he was afraid of the bloodthirsty spaniards: the poor fellow could not at most live more than two hours, as a cannon-ball had completely carried off both thighs. he entreated me to stay with him, but i only did so as long as i found it convenient: i saw, too, that he could not last long, and very little sympathy could be expected from me then; so i ransacked his pockets and knapsack, and found a piece of pork ready cooked and three or four pounds of bread, which i thought would be very acceptable. the poor fellow asked me to leave him a portion, so i cut off a piece of bread and meat and emptied the beans out of my haversack, which with the bread and meat i left by his side. i then asked him if he had any money, to which he replied no, but not feeling quite satisfied at that, i again went through his pockets. i found ten rounds of ball cartridge which i threw away, and likewise a clothes-brush and a roll of gold and silver lace, but those i would not give carriage to. however, i found his purse at last, which contained seven spanish dollars and seven shillings, all of which i put into my pocket except one shilling, which i returned to the poor dying man, and continued on my way up the hill. there i saw a french officer come out of a low copse close by, and instantly fired at him, but without doing him any mischief. he made his way up the hill as quickly as possible, using his sword as a walking-stick, but a german rifleman who had been on the look-out cut off his communication and succeeded in taking him prisoner. i did not take any further notice of him, therefore, but proceeded along with my company still in pursuit of the french, who were retreating in all directions in a very disorderly state. we might have taken hundreds of them prisoners had it not been for our officers, who in their flurry had mistaken them for spaniards; for lord wellington had previously ordered the spaniards to wear a piece of white substance round their left arm to make some distinction between the french dress and theirs, which was very similar; but the french had got knowledge of this, and a great number of them, who were obliged in their hurried retreat and on account of the difficulties of the road to pass near our lines, had adopted the spanish white band. still we fired at them both with muskets and artillery; but when the officers perceived the white on their arms, without bestowing any more consideration as to whether they were the enemy or the spaniards, they immediately stopped us from doing so. as soon as the french in passing observed this, they sunk into the valley and piled arms as if they were allies; and directly an opportunity afforded itself, they again took up their muskets and fired right into our lines, doing terrible mischief. i never in all the days of the campaign saw men in such a rage as ours were with the officers. i really thought that some serious consequences would ensue, but as it was, all fortunately passed off as well as could be expected after such a mistake. for if this trick had before been observed, we might have taken the whole body prisoners by a direct movement of our right flank, as no other way lay open to their retreat without their encountering great difficulties; but the chance was now thrown away, and repairs could not be made of the damage done; many in our line having lost their irrecoverable lives, and others being more or less injured. we had only to make what consolation we could from beholding the almost express pace of the party as it retreated from where lay our comrades, either as groaning, wounded, or shattered corpses. after their signal defeat at vittoria, scarcely anything was left open to the french but to cross the pyrenees into their own territory on the other side. numberless quantities of warlike instruments were captured, such as cannons, muskets, cartridges, and all kinds of ammunition, besides supplies for the army, food, clothing, and the like, which were considering our need at the time of great benefit to the allies. i myself had my feet new rigged after this affair, and it was certainly not before i wanted a covering for them; there was certainly a part of the upper leathers of my old pair of boots left, but the chief part of the sole was my own natural one belonging to my foot. i had some little difficulty in procuring them, however; i happened to see a shoe-wagon that had been captured from the enemy and was being fast emptied by a number of our men, so i asked the captain to let me fall out, as my shoes wanted replenishing. he only answered, "no, not until the enemy is fairly away, and then you may do as you please;" so i had to disobey orders again, and on the next halt step off to the wagon to see what i could find. there were, however, such a number on the same errand that i began to despair of getting any boots, but at length i succeeded in getting into the wagon, and i hove out a hundred pairs or so to the mob, while i took up six or seven pairs for myself, or rather some likewise for some of my comrades, in hopes of making off with them quietly. my hopes, however, were far from being fulfilled, for no sooner was i off the wagon, than i was completely smothered with parties that wanted and craved for boots equally with myself; so i had to let all my lot go, finding that i could not get clear, and got back into the wagon. then i threw out another stock to the barefooted mob, and replenished my own lot, this time, however, only getting five pairs, and of these i did not succeed in getting off with more than three after all. i made back to my company thinking to be unobserved, but in that i was again mistaken, for the captain himself seeing me called out, "you will disobey orders then, will you? and what are you going to do with all those shoes?" i told him i was going to put on a pair as soon as possible, to which he replied, "very well, sir, mind you give the rest to your comrades;" which i did, as that had been my intention from the first; if not, i should not have troubled to get more than one pair, as on such marches as ours it was not likely that any man would care to carry a change in boots, or of anything else but food, which, though seldom denied to us, was more seldom obtained. at vittoria, too, buonaparte's carriage was captured with some ladies in it. the french army had retreated to pampeluna, so lord wellington sent a sergeant and twelve men under a flag of truce to escort these ladies into the french camp at that place, in return for which buonaparte behaved very well, for he gave the sergeant a doubloon and each of the men one-half of that sum, and had them escorted out of his lines by a french officer. our army meanwhile pursued the enemy until night put an end to our proceedings, when we encamped two or three miles west of vittoria, there remaining two nights and one day busily engaged on the forage for ourselves. happily thousands of sheep were found, that the enemy had been obliged to abandon on their retreat. i had been fortunate enough to get one and bring it into camp, and was proceeding to kill it by putting my bayonet through the neck, when lieutenant kelly of our company happening to pass, "hullo, lawrence," he said, "you seem a capital butcher." i said, "would you like a piece of it?" "i certainly should very much," he answered, "for i am devilish hungry;" so i took out my knife and cut off one of the quarters just as it was, without even skinning it, and gave it to him, saying, "there, sir, you must skin it yourself." he thanked me and said, "never mind the skin, i will manage that." not only myself, but several of my comrades had likewise managed to get a share of these sheep, so that night a general cooking ceremony commenced: our first movement being to go round and gather all the odd sticks we could lay our hands upon, including gates, doors, chairs, tables, even some of the window-frames being knocked out of the many deserted houses and gathered together in one heap for this great purpose; and in a very short time both roast and boiled mutton were seen cutting about in all directions. nor had we altogether forgotten our former experience of the beans which were growing plentifully at that time and place, and we found that night's meal as good a one as we had tasted for some weeks past. after it was over we lay down for the night,--a body picket having previously been sent out to guard against any surprise from the enemy; but we lay very comfortable without being disturbed the whole night, and as our fires did not cease burning we kept very warm as well. next day was likewise chiefly spent by those off duty in search of food, some returning with one or more of such articles as wheat flour, cabbages, turnips, carrots, and beans. a fellow-corporal of mine seeing this, and neither of us having been out, said, "lawrence, i'll go and try my luck too, and if the drums should beat for orders, you go and get them for me, and then we can share the profits of my search." i consented, and he soon went, and was gone for at least two hours before he returned loaded with his findings, having taken his shirt off and tied the sleeves and collar up, and then filled his impromptu sack quite full. he had evidently carried his burden no small distance, for on his return the perspiration was running down as big as peas. "tare an' 'ounds," poor paddy said, for he was an irishman, "i've got a fine lot of flour, but am as tired as a dog, and as hungry as a hunter." "well done, burke," said i, for that was his name, "we will soon have a blow out of dough-boys and mutton." i accordingly got a tin dish which i took from a frenchman at vittoria, and having filled it with our supposed flour, i poured some water on it, intending to make some balls of dough for the pot; when i suddenly found paddy had been making a great mistake and that it was nothing more or less than lime that he had brought instead of flour. i said, "i'll be bothered if you haven't brought home lime for flour;" but paddy would not believe it, saying it was the best white flour, till i told him to come and see it boiling and smoking in the pot, which quite confounded him, and taking up the remainder in his shirt he hove it out, saying, "well i'm blessed, comrade, if i ain't off again, and i'll take good care not to come back again this time till i have some good flour." he had been gone about an hour when he returned with at least half his shirt full, for he had got on the same scent as a great many who had been before him and were now fast returning already loaded. i then commenced making the dough-boys by mixing a little salt and water with the flour, and put them into a kettle swung over a fire on two sticks placed perpendicularly on each side with a cross-bar on the top, gipsy fashion, and by night our supper was hot and well done. as is perhaps well known, dough-boys cannot be very greasy without fat or suet of any kind, but they were quite passable in the hungry state we were then in, and as we had no bread, we used some more of the mutton to help them down. our fires were then made up the same as the night before, and at the proper time we again retired to rest comfortably and were soon lost in a profound slumber. chapter xvi. advance to the pyrenees -- capture and destruction of a provision train -- unpleasant episode during sunday service -- the regiment takes up its position on the heights of villebar -- the enemy's attempts to dislodge them all successfully repulsed -- sad death of a straggler -- lawrence goes to get a watch-chain and has a narrow escape -- exchange of wounded prisoners -- the french finally driven off the mountains -- the captain of the regiment presented with a testimonial at the french expense. on the day after the adventure of the dough-boys we were again ordered to march, and advanced towards pampeluna; but that town being garrisoned by the french, we passed it on our left, and proceeding for some distance further west, encamped near some hills with strong fortifications on their summit. there we lay a few days, and thence arrived on the heights of villebar in the pyrenees in the latter part of july, where we took up our position. lord wellington had extended his army in a line along the pyrenees which must have exceeded thirty miles from the extreme left to the extreme right, and which would owing to the difficulties of the mountain barriers have made it very hard to combine in case of an attack in force by the enemy on any particular part of our line. thus in warfare such as has now to be described we ran more risk than the french, who being able to form in their own country and drive their body on any part of our line, had a considerable advantage over us. our division, with a brigade of the second and another division of the spanish, occupied the extreme right, covering pampeluna. very shortly after our arrival the action commenced on our left; and meanwhile suspicions were entertained that soult intended to attack, so as to reinforce and throw supplies into pampeluna, which was being blockaded by the allies and in danger of capitulating owing to shortness of provisions. lord wellington accordingly sent our division to a particular pass of the mountains in search of the said supplies, and after marching over hills, mountains, and valleys for at least thirty miles, we at length fell in with about three hundred carts laden with provisions and ammunition. they were guarded, however, by a strong body of the enemy, who soon attacked us; but they met with a strong reception, and after a severe altercation on both sides we succeeded in capturing the booty. owing, however, to the difficulty of the country, and our not having proper means of transportation, we were obliged to set fire to the bread, of which there was a great quantity, although it was the very substance of which we were so much in need. it went very much against our will, but that being the order it had to be attended to; not, however, before some of our men had stocked themselves with a portion that could reasonably be moved. then having placed the ammunition together and extended a long train so that at any time it might be easily blown up, we retired some distance and waited for the reappearance of the enemy, who, most likely thinking we had abandoned some of the carts, were not long before they came back in strong force; and on their nearing the fatal machine the train was fired and a great number of them were soon launched into the air. we retreated after that as quickly as possible to pampeluna out of reach of the enemy, falling back that day at least twenty miles; a hard day's work indeed, but not thought much of in those times, when equally hard days were so often passed through, especially in a hasty retreat or on a well-fought battlefield. we again encamped for nearly a week, during which time we amused ourselves in throwing up huts for officers' quarters, cooking-houses, and the like; and we had settled down so nicely that we had almost begun to think we were to be stationed there for at least six months. but on the very next sunday we found that we were mistaken and that our hopes were to be disappointed. a square had been formed into which a parson entered to read prayers and preach, and a drum being placed for his books and a knapsack for him to kneel on, he had proceeded with the service for some little time, when all of a sudden up he jumped with his traps and made a bolt, before any one had hardly time to see the cause, amid the applause and laughter of the whole of the troops at his running, which was as fast as his legs could carry him, and looked then as if the poor man might be going on even till now. they used to say that the three scarcest things to be seen in an army were a dead parson, drum-major, or a woman: the explanation of this was to be found in the fact that they were none of them often to be seen on a battlefield; and i think in this case our parson must have told and frightened all the others in the kingdom, for never after that did we have any service in the field. but the cause of the sudden flight on the part of the parson proved not to be one entirely of enjoyment, for a large body of the enemy appearing, we likewise found ourselves running about pretty smartly and preparing for immediate action. the affair lasted hotly till dusk, our division losing some four or five hundred men. when night fell we were obliged to retreat still further towards pampeluna, leaving the wounded, with the exception of two grenadiers who had been shot in the thighs, and whom we took turns to carry in two blankets, in the enemy's hands. we had to get through a very thick wood of quite three or four miles in extent, which took us the whole night to accomplish; and in the morning when we were finally through, we lay down like so many loaded donkeys; still obliged, however, to remain in readiness, as we expected to be pursued. and soon enough we found we were, for we had not lain down very long before the enemy came up and charged us hotly, again forcing us to follow up our retreat, without even thinking this time of our two wounded burdens, who were left to the mercy of the enemy. in a few hours, however, we again joined the main army, or rather got into its line; and pleased enough we all were to get back. we were then posted in a strong position on the heights of villebar with the spanish troops on our right. the french soon made their appearance and attacked the spanish corps, who fired at them long before they came within bounds of shot, not having proper officers to guide them; those that ought to have been leading them on having instead placed themselves out of the way, leaving their men to do the dirty work; and of course these latter soon decamped too. our regiment, however, was soon on the scene; and hastening in that direction, we managed to get there before the enemy had gained the summit of this important ridge. orders had been issued by our officers not to fire till we could do good work; but this soon came to pass, for the french quickly sallied up and fired first, and we returned it in less than a minute. i never saw a single volley do so much execution in all my campaigning days, almost every man of their two first ranks falling; and then we instantly charged and chased them down the mountain, doing still further and more fearful havoc. when we had done we returned to our old summit again, where the captain cheered and praised us for our gallantry, saying that he had never seen a braver set of men, and that he hoped we would always succeed in preserving our ground equally well. our likewise brave enemy tried again two hours later to shift us and take possession of our ground; but they were again received as before and again sent down the hill. we were again praised by our commander, who said, "i think they have got enough of it by this time, and won't make a third attack in a hurry;" but we were mistaken, for four hours had not passed before they were up again with fresh reinforcements. some of our men then seemed to despair, for i heard them even say to the officers who were so bravely leading us on, "we shall have to be off this time." "never mind," replied the officers, "keep your ground if possible, and don't let yourselves be beaten;" which we did like bricks, for on their arrival and trying to outflank us, so that we were obliged to wheel round to the left, the right flank opened fire as they were close upon us, and instantly charged right into them with the bayonet, forcing them to retreat. they again fell up to support their other companies, who were attacking our other flank; but we reloaded and were then ready to meet them, again pouring another of our deadly volleys into their ranks and then going at them again with our bayonets like enraged bulldogs. the fight that ensued was most sanguinary, but we succeeded again in driving them down the mountain at last. i should think they must have numbered five to our one; in fact the whole of our fourth division was attacked, but all assisted equally bravely in retaining our position on the heights and earned great praise from our commanders. i do not myself think, however, that we could ever have routed so large a number of the french had it not been for our advantageous ground. some portuguese troops likewise behaved very well, but as for the spaniards, i can safely affirm that after their first retreat i did not see any more of them again that day. we encamped that night on the same ground that we had so well defended. our captain, who was as nice a man as ever commanded in the peninsula, always seeming to share everything with the men and bear the blunt as well as the smooth, and the losses as well as the profits, now said, "come, my brave men, turn to and cook yourselves something to eat, for you have earned it well;" an order which we soon set about to obey. a quantity of rum had been sent up for us, so we were able to sit down tired as we were and enjoy ourselves as if nothing extraordinary had occurred that day. we then sent out a picket and prepared to take our rest for the night, the french not seeming inclined to sally up any more to engage us on those heights. when the returns were called off the list, we found our killed and wounded amounted to seventy-four, but one more of our number was soon to be added to the sum total. a comrade of my own company went in search of sticks to liven up our fire: i told him to be careful and not get in sight of the enemy's picket, or they might have a pop at him, and he replied never fear, he would be careful; but the foolish fellow had been gone but a few minutes, when he was shot through the neck. instead of keeping his own side of the hill, he had diverged on to the other close enough to be observed by one of the enemy's riflemen, who shot him as i have described. i happened to hear the shot, and found that it had been at him, so i went and dragged him back, pretty quickly as may be supposed, for i was fearful lest i should be shot likewise myself. the poor fellow was not dead, but exclaimed, "o corporal, i am a dead man!" when i had got him out of the enemy's reach and near our own lines, i took his stock from off his neck and he expired directly; so i had to leave him and rejoin our company with the news that another of us was gone, making seventy-five in all. on the following morning i happened to observe an officer of the french army moving at some distance in front of our lines, having hanging from his pocket a fine watch-guard, which particularly took my attention and which i thought at the time would look very well on me; and being more daring than wise, i crawled towards him with my musket loaded, and when near enough as i thought to him, i fired; but it did him no mischief and only made him take himself off at once. i nearly got into a scrape through it, however, for i was fired at myself in return, the bullet fortunately only taking the butt end off my musket. i turned to run off, and another shot hit the knapsack on my back, but i soon got out of reach of their shot again, luckily, as it happened, without any injury; but it must have been a near thing, for when i next opened my knapsack, i found the ball had gone through the leather and my thickly-folded blanket and had at last been stopped by the sole of a shoe, and was lying there as flat as a halfpenny and about the same size. the same day we were joined by the fifty-third regiment lord wellington having sent it on to relieve us in case of another attack from the enemy. they offered to occupy our heights, so that we might fall back to the rear, but our captain would not consent to that; "for," as he said, "my men have fought well to defend their position, and i think they will be strong enough to keep it." he proposed, however, that they should keep out an outlying picket, so that we could take our rest, which would be the best way of relieving us, and their commander readily agreed to do so. thus we passed two or three days, both armies remaining inactive. then one day a french officer was seen coming up the mountain, having laid down his sword, so our captain sent a lieutenant who could talk good french to meet him and see what he wanted. he found that he wished to know if we would allow him to send for their wounded, so an agreement was entered into that we should take all their killed and wounded halfway down the mountain, and that they should meet us there with ours in return. this plan was soon carried out; and when we had buried our dead, the wounded were conveyed to hospitals appropriated to them at the nearest convenient place. all was still quiet on the following morning, but later in the day the whole body of our line appeared in motion, and we were ordered in company with the fifty-third regiment to attack the enemy's post near us, acting in conjunction with the other front of our line; and this being done, we soon drove them right off the mountains. the portuguese troops in our division fought well in this action. we followed up the retreating french to a village situated in a valley of the pyrenees, where they were delayed owing to having to cross a river. general cole immediately ordered our regiment up to stop them if possible; so off we went in quick time to the river, and on their seeing they were so quickly pursued and that there was no hope of escaping, they threw down their arms and gave themselves up prisoners to the number of about seven hundred. we took a gold-mounted sword from their commander, and a gold plate out of his cap with an eagle engraved on it, which were given to our captain by the regiment as a present, as he was a universal favourite for his behaviour to the men in general. the prisoners were then sent to st. jean de luz to be put on board ship, and so conveyed to england. chapter xvii. continued retreat of the french -- narrow escape of lord wellington -- lawrence volunteers to remove the danger -- is successful, and earns the praise of lord wellington -- repeated engagements with the enemy -- lawrence, like most people who try to hedge, nearly comes to grief -- capture of a bridge and village -- lawrence, becoming lame, is left on guard over a portuguese cottage -- surprises and discomfits a french intruder -- sad end of a hungry corporal -- lawrence made sergeant. we marched slowly on, following up the enemy as closely as possible, often even having them in sight: and both armies were sometimes encamped for a week at a time, and employed meanwhile in skirmishing with each other. at one of these halts the enemy by some means or other got three pieces of cannon on to the top of a steep mountain, probably by men dragging them up with ropes, as it was impossible for horses to have done it; and on our entering the valley, lord wellington happening to be with us, a shot from one of these carried his cocked hat completely off. our colonel remarked to him, "that was a near miss, my lord;" to which he replied, "yes, and i wish you would try to stop them, for they seem determined to annoy us." our colonel immediately said he would send some of the grenadiers up for that purpose, so i, being a corporal and right-hand man of the company, volunteered with a section to undertake the job. six men were accordingly chosen besides myself; rather a small storming-party for the object in hand, as they numbered twenty-one artillerymen and an officer, according to my own counting. i led my little band along the valley and approached the mountain whence they were tormenting us. the artillerymen kept up a fire at us from the cannon, which consisted of light six-pounders, but owing to our movement they could not get the elevation. we slowly scaled the hill zigzag fashion to baffle their aim, until we got so close that the cannon could not possibly touch us, owing to a slight mound on the hill. we were then within a hundred yards of them, and i took their number, and found at the same time that they had no firearms with them but the cannon, which were of not much use at close quarters for such a few men. i should say we lay there on the ground for at least ten minutes, contemplating which would be the best mode of attack, while they were anxiously watching for our reappearance. at last when ready i said, "now my men, examine your flints and priming, so that all things may go right." they did so, saying, "all right, corporal, we will follow you;" so i too sang out, "now for a gold chain or a wooden leg!" and having told them what to do and to act together, we jumped up, and giving them a volley, we charged them before they had any time to take an aim at us, and succeeded in gaining the cannon and driving the men down the mountain to a body of their infantry that was stationed at the foot. i immediately made a signal with my cap for our brigade to come up, for they were all ready and on the watch, but we found that the enemy's infantry was likewise on the move for our height. fortunately, our brigade was the first to arrive, and reinforced us on the mountain, and on seeing this the enemy decamped. by great luck not one of my men was injured, whilst our volley killed or badly wounded five of the artillerymen. after the enemy's retreat, the colonel came up to me and said, "well done, lawrence; i did not think you were half so brave, but no man could have managed it better." he likewise praised my six fellow-stormers, and a short time afterwards lord wellington himself came up and asked me my name, and on my telling him, said, "i shall think of you another day." these three cannon, which were composed of brass, were now the only ones we possessed, as owing to the difficult nature of our route our own had been obliged to be left behind; even the cavalry being of very little use in this mountain warfare. soon after this daring feat of ours, the enemy again commenced their retreat, we still following close up to them; but after proceeding some two miles, we found they had again halted and were occupying another mountain; so we sank into the valley, and made ourselves as comfortable for the time as we could under the circumstances. we had no tents, and even if we had, we could not have pitched them so close to the enemy, so at night we curled ourselves well into our blankets and retired to rest on the ground. finding next morning that they apparently did not mean to renew their retreat without being made to do so, we tried the experiment; but that day we were defeated in our object, for again, like the fatal fox and grapes, we could very well look at them but could not get them down. we accordingly brought up by the mountain again that night, and those who were not amongst the number told off for picket, which was large as we were so near the enemy, again retired to rest in their blankets. but next morning, not feeling contented with their prolonged stay, or with our attack of the day before, which had only failed to move them, we again assailed them; this time with success, for we drove them from that mountain and pursued them till they again halted. we followed their example, and then we lay again for several days, getting good and undisturbed rest every night, and only having to send out a picket so as to guard against any surprise from the enemy, this duty, of course, falling equally on all in their turn. i think it was about the third day that we were put into advancing order and were again led on to the attack. when we got within a few paces, we gave them our usual volley, and made our charges, which they did not long stand against before they again started on a slow retreat, we always keeping pretty close to their heels and being very often occupied in skirmishing with them. i was engaged myself in one of these affairs that happened during a short stay that we made. a small body of us were out under a sergeant, an irishman named ryan, and observing a large force with some of the enemy lurking around the premises, we made towards it and drove these few off the place, after which four or five more came out of the house on our approach and decamped. we entered and found a pig there just killed; but the butchers had evidently not had time to open it, so we set about taking our turn to do so, but were not allowed time to finish the job, for we now perceived a large body of french fast coming up, and we in our turn were obliged to retreat. sharp enough work it was for us, too, for they had got within bounds of shot, and certainly did not fail to make use of it, following us up and firing at us across a meadow, which i can well remember was surrounded by a very thick thorn hedge, which delayed us very much, as we had to jump over it; and i not being much of a jumper myself, managed to find myself in the middle of it. it was a very prickly berth, and became more so when our sergeant, who had got clear himself, came to my assistance to pull me through. i got scratched all over, but that was not so bad as the thought of the bullets that were peppering through the hedge on all sides of me; however, i was extricated at last, though i left most of the back part of my uniform behind, and we proceeded at full speed on our way. we had not gone far, however, when our poor sergeant was shot down. he appeared quite dead, but i did not stop, for they kept on stoutly pursuing us until they began to be afraid of getting too close to our line, which by this time had made a forward move, both our army and the enemy likewise being still on the march, and we skirmishing with their rear. at one time we came on about two hundred of their stragglers, and we fortunately numbering very strongly, were enabled to engage them and drive them back. soon after this i had another very narrow escape. one of the enemy had lain in ambush in a thicket at the top of a mountain where i myself was straggling. i had no one near me at the time, and this fellow in the bush fired at me. the shot first took the ground and then bounded up against my brass breastplate, which was fixed on my cross-belt, and probably served on this occasion to save my life. the frenchman, as soon as he had spent his shot, bolted; i had my own musket loaded at the time, but i did not think of firing, but proceeded after him with all my speed till i came up with him. i did not think i could run so fast. i have made frenchmen run before, but it was generally after me. when he saw he was outdone he showed very poor pluck, for he immediately threw down his arms and gave himself up to me. if he had had any spirit he would not have done that so easily; though certainly i was loaded, while he was not, having, as i before said, exhausted his shot, owing to my plate, however, i am happy to say, without doing me the slightest injury. i then began to strip him of his accoutrements and ransacked his knapsack, but i was sadly disappointed in finding nothing about him; so i took his musket and broke the stock, and left him, not feeling inclined to be troubled with a prisoner, or to hurt the man in unfair play. and i likewise felt quite pleased at my narrow escape, as those sort of things often served as topics of conversation during our night lounges when we were in pretty quiet quarters. the man himself seemed very grateful that i did not hurt him after his offence; and the more so when i returned him his not-fit-for-much kit in his knapsack, nothing of his, in fact, being damaged except his musket; and he walked away with an air of assurance, without appearing to be in any hurry or afraid of being overtaken by any other of our men. i then went on in search of my comrades, who had by this time left the mountain for the neighbouring valley, and after running down the slope, i found them posted in a house situated at the bottom. they had been in search of provisions, but all they found was a cask of sweet cyder, the french having evidently been there before us and the place having been ransacked of everything but this. we drank as much as we wanted and put the rest into our canteen, but we were greatly disappointed in not finding anything to eat, for we were dreadfully hungry and very short of provisions. however, after we had refreshed ourselves with the cyder, at which our officer helped us, he ordered us to be getting on, or rather led us on himself to a small village about half a mile off, which we knew was occupied by some french. we found that a river intervened between us and this village, with a bridge over it guarded by about two hundred of the enemy; and a long lane had likewise to be traversed before we got up to them, in passing through which several of our men were wounded either by some of the enemy lying in ambush or by stragglers. still we did not take long altogether in arriving at the bridge, and when there, having our firelocks all ready, we opened fire and then charged; but our attack was in vain, for we were met and overpowered and obliged to retreat behind a large hill at a short distance from the bridge. in the course of this short action i saw the french officer's horse shot from under him, but whether he was injured himself i cannot say. we rested a short time behind this hill, and came to a determination to make another attack on the bridge. this time we met with more success, for though we only effected it after a long and severe brush, we made them retreat, leaving the hard fought for but really insignificant bridge in our possession. we found nearly thirty of the enemy lying there killed and wounded, while we only lost about fifteen in all. but we did not delay over our captured bridge, for the blood of victory once in our veins, we pressed on for more and traced them down, continually firing as we passed through the village. unfortunately i sprained my foot here, which disabled me from following, and a portuguese inhabitant having asked our officer to let one of our men stay in his house to guard it from plunder whilst we remained in or near the village, the officer said to me, "corporal lawrence, you may as well stay with the man as you are so lame, and it will do to give you a rest." the company was to go back to the house where the cyder had been found, so i was rather glad of this occurrence, as i calculated i should get more attention paid me than if i had been with my comrades. i accordingly seated myself near the door of the man's house, and he soon brought me about a pint of wine with a piece of bread, for which i was very grateful, as i was very hungry and the wine proved to be much more to my taste than my previous ration of cyder. i had not been sitting there long, however, before i heard a heavy footstep descending the staircase of the house, and on looking up, found it belonged to a frenchman who had been up there for the purpose of plunder, and was now coming away with a good-sized bundle of clean linen under his arm. when he saw me he immediately bolted out of a back door which led into a field. i made a desperate plunge at him with my bayonet, but owing to my bad foot i could not get near enough to him to hurt him; still i managed to stop his burden, for he had forced that against the bayonet to shield himself from it. as soon as i could extricate my musket, i hobbled as quickly as i could to the back door and sent a bullet after him; but he had got some distance away, and i cannot say exactly whether i hit him; though i think it broke his arm, for i saw it drop immediately, and his motion became more slackened as he passed out of sight, which contented me as much as if i had killed him. i then went back into the house and blew the portuguese up for not keeping a better watch than to let a frenchman find his way upstairs, as he might have killed us both. the portuguese said he did not know how he got up there, neither did he very much care so long as he was gone now. i told him i thought he was a very easy-going customer, and pointed out that i had saved his linen for him, and his wife took it upstairs again as if nothing had happened, he likewise remarked that there was no fear of the frenchman having taken any money, for he had none. he then gave me some more bread and wine, and when i had stopped two or three hours longer, during which time i drank the wine and stowed the bread into my haversack till i should feel more inclined to eat it, i left them, not feeling altogether safe there, as the enemy might very likely fall back. i returned over our well-deserved bridge to the cyder-house, as we had named it after the barrel we had found there. on my arrival my comrades seemed to smell out my bread, and they came and hovered round me like bees while i divided it as well as i could, for i was not hungry myself, and it was soon devoured. we only stayed about two or three hours longer at this house until the army came up, and we again joined our different regiments. we halted near this place for the night, and our butchers commenced work killing bullocks for our supply. i think scarcely a drop of blood was wasted, for even that was caught in our kettles and boiled and eaten, and was found to be very good. each sergeant had to send in his return for the meat required for his company, at the rate of two pounds for each man; and when he had received it, the cooking immediately commenced. this was the last cooking that my fellow-corporal burke, whom i have referred to before, ever took part in. but before relating how that happened i may as well mention that the butchers were entitled as a sort of perquisite to the bullocks' heels, which they sometimes sold. burke bought two of these at this place for fifteenpence, and began cooking them in a somewhat peculiar manner, being either too hungry or too impatient to cook them properly by boiling. what he did was to put them on the fire to fizzle just as they came from the butcher, not even cleaning them, or taking any of the hair off; and every now and then he would gnaw the portion off that he thought was done, in order to get the underdone part closer to the fire. in this way he finished both the hocks, and for a time seemed satisfied, evidently thinking he had had a good supper. but he had not counted on his digestion, for having eaten so much on an empty stomach, and that too almost raw and mixed with a fair amount of soot, for the fire was not altogether clear, it was not long before he felt it begin to disagree with him, and he commenced to writhe about and was in fearful agonies all night. the doctor of the regiment was sent for, but he could do nothing for the man, and in the morning he was no better. we were then ordered to follow up the enemy, so that he had either to march on in this state or be left behind. he chose the former, so i got him along by helping him for about a mile, when he suddenly without saying a word to any one fell out of the ranks, lay down on a bank by the roadside, and expired in a few minutes. i was very much hurt at this, for he was one of my best comrades, but there was no help for it, and we had to leave him and march on. we did not come in contact with the enemy at all that day, and encamped for the night, as we thought, but it afterwards proved to be for nearly a fortnight. towards the end of that time, our captain, who was my best friend in the whole regiment, rejoined us, having been left behind owing to a slight wound which he had received while on the march three or four weeks previously, but of which he had now quite recovered. our company was at that time very short of sergeants, for which i shall afterwards account, so he recommended my promotion to fill one of the vacancies to the colonel, who gave him a written order for the purpose, and i was put into the place of poor ryan. i of course was very proud of my new title, and not only that, but i received one shilling and elevenpence pay per day, being an additional sixpence on what i had formerly. chapter xviii. the regiment refitted with clothing and provisions at st. jean de luz -- comments by lawrence on the shameful behaviour of certain sergeants of his regiment -- marches and countermarches in the mountain passes -- lawrence temporizes as cook in behalf of his officers, and is rewarded with an extra allowance of rum -- a wet night -- fall of san sebastian -- lawrence acts as medical adviser to his captain and gets more rum -- battle of the nivelle and the french driven well into their own country. very shortly after my promotion we were ordered to st. jean de luz, where we received new clothes, and high time it was that we did so too, for our old ones were scarcely worth owning as rags and fearfully dirty, the red of them having turned almost to black. i ought to have received a sergeant's suit, but owing probably to the quartermaster's obstinacy i only got a private's, the same sort as i had had before. here we likewise received a good supply of bread and rum, which seemed to us like a new and even a luxurious diet. i may as well here give the details about the sergeants of our regiment. i was the only one in my company where there ought to have been six when i was promoted, so the whole duty fell heavily on me. the rest had been wounded at some time or other before, and then never pushed on much to get back to their regiment; many when recovered preferring to skulk in the hospitals in paltry situations such as doorkeepers or ward-masters, so getting a little extra pay, and then, as i shall again have occasion to show, being too ready to make their appearance when the war was over. fortunately, however, they then met with no great encouragement. they had really plenty of opportunity to follow up the regiment if they had chosen, but i suppose they thought they were best off out of the smell of powder, and probably they were, but still that does not throw a very creditable light on them. after we had received our clothes and provisions, we did not lie long at st. jean de luz, but again started on our marches, cruising about in the pyrenees. for some time nothing of any particular note occurred until we again fell in with the enemy, who were stationed in huts which they had erected in the various valleys. we attacked them, and some sharp work ensued, for they did not seem to like the idea of abandoning their houses, which were much more comfortable than the open winter air, but we at last drove them off and took possession of their habitations, which a part of our army occupied. as for our regiment itself, we marched up the side of a mountain and encamped there. we again found ourselves very short of provisions there, and besides that the rain was falling in torrents all night. we had nothing over our heads at first to cover them, so we set to and gathered a quantity of grass, sticks, stubble, and like things, and made a kind of wall to keep off a little of the wind and beating rain; and then we tried to make up our fires with anything we could get together, but owing to the wetness of the substances, they were not very lively, and it was a long time before we could get them to burn at all. our captain asked me if i could boil him a piece of beef, so i told him i would try and see what i could do to make the best of the bad circumstances, and accordingly i and a corporal of my company at once set to work, first placing our hanger over the fire and then swinging the kettle on it with the beef. the beef nearly filled the kettle, and though it was pouring with rain, it was a very awkward place to get water, as there were no springs near and no tanks to catch the rain in; consequently we had only about a quart of water in the pot, which had all boiled away before the beef was done. however, the captain was impatient for his supper, so it was taken up to him as it was, the pot-cover serving as a dish and a wooden canteen as a plate. i put it before him with salt on the edge of the canteen, and i likewise got him a piece of bread, which by the time he had it was nicely soaked by the rain--indeed we had not a dry thread on us by this time. the next bother was for a fork: i had a knife myself, but had lost the fork, so i got a stick and sharpened it at one end and gave him that as a substitute, and was rewarded by his praising me for my good contrivance. colonel thornton coming up meanwhile, he was invited by the captain to partake of some of the beef, and he gladly accepted, as he said he was very hungry; so another plate, knife, and fork were wanted. i borrowed my comrade the corporal's canteen and knife, and manufactured another fork like the former to serve for the colonel, and they both said the beef was very good, but not very well done, which it certainly was not, for though it went down sweet like most things in those times, the inside was certainly hardly warm. the colonel sent me to the quartermaster for a canteen of rum, which was equivalent to three pints, for which purpose another canteen had to be borrowed, but when i returned to him with it he said, "that's right; now go and drink it." i took it off to my comrade, and we both sat down under our artificial wall close by our fire to try and enjoy ourselves as best the inclemency of the weather would allow us, keeping, however, near our officers' green-carpeted nature's dining-room, so that if we were wanted we could hear them call. but when they did so, which was in a short time, it was for us to clear away, with orders at the same time to keep the remainder of the beef for ourselves; so we removed our dinner traps, passing a good many remarks in a jocular spirit on our green pasture, wet cloth, and our scientific dishes, plates, knives, and forks, much to the amusement of the colonel and captain who were looking on, and then sat down to our own supper, which we very much needed. i remember remarking to my comrade that we had not done so badly over our cooking after all, but perhaps it was only the hunger that made us think so. after finishing our supper and drinking the greater part of our rum, which no doubt got to a certain extent into our heads and served to keep out the cold and wet and make us generally comfortable, we curled ourselves into our blankets and lay down on the wet ground to rest. the rain descended in torrents all night and completely soaked us, but the morning broke out clear, and after we had disposed of the rest of our beef and rum, we joined all hands at work in wringing and shaking the water out of our blankets before putting them up into our knapsacks. we were obliged to do this while they were damp for fear of an attack from the enemy, it being a general rule to keep all in readiness; and, indeed, on this occasion it was not more than an hour after these preparations that the french assailed us. not being willing to show fight, we retreated on that occasion, having nothing to attend to but ourselves and our kit, for we were without baggage and cannon. after a ten miles' journey or so we again halted expecting to be attacked again very soon, for which emergency we hastily prepared, needlessly, as it proved, however, for we eventually stopped here quietly for a month. during this time that i have been speaking of the siege of san sebastian had been going on, the town having up to this time been already attacked twice, but without success. lord wellington now ordered twenty men out of each regiment of our division to act in conjunction with the besiegers, and soon after they arrived, the order being given to attack, after about two hours' fighting they succeeded in capturing the town and driving the garrison into the castle, which was likewise obliged to surrender in about a week. though there were many deaths occasioned in this siege, strange to say the whole twenty men of our regiment returned unhurt. i remember during our stay here, our captain was fearfully troubled with the toothache. at last one night, after trying in vain to endure the pain, he came to me and said, "o sergeant, i am still troubled with the pain! what can you advise me for it?" i recommended him just to take a pipe of my tobacco, for i knew that would be a good thing for him, but he never could bear tobacco, so that it wanted a good deal of persuasion to at last make him consent to prefer the remedy to the pain. as he had no pipe of his own, i supplied him with the implement and some tobacco, and he began to smoke. but he had not been at it long before he said, "why, sergeant, this will never do! the place seems whirling round. here, take the pipe, for i feel precious queer; but my tooth is much better, and after all you are not such a bad doctor." he gave me half a pint of rum, and for a long time i heard nothing more of his toothache. we stayed here, as i said before, about a month, and then again moved on after our enemy, our cavalry, pontoon bridges, and artillery coming on by the most convenient passes of the mountains. while on the march we often had slight skirmishes with the enemy, but no regular pitched battle until we came to the nivelle, where soult had taken up a strong position. there our army halted in line, determined to attack and proceed if possible into france, as nothing more remained to be done in the peninsula, pampeluna having been obliged, owing to shortness of provisions, to surrender on the last day of october. the third, fourth, and seventh divisions, under marshal beresford and their respective generals, occupied the right centres of the line. we commenced the attack early on the th of november on a village which was defended by two redoubts. one of these our division took under general cole, driving the enemy to some heights in the rear, where we again attacked them and drove them over the nivelle. after this we went into cantonments for a few weeks, but owing to the unsettled state of the french army who had attacked our left, and then, having failed, had proceeded against our right which was commanded by sir rowland hill, lord wellington ordered the sixth and our division to reinforce the right. we only arrived there, however, just in time to hear that the action was all over, the defeat of the enemy and their enforced retreat still further into their own country having been accomplished without our assistance. chapter xix. advance to orthes -- lawrence moralizes again on the vicissitudes of war -- losses of his own regiment during the campaign -- proclamation by lord wellington against plunder -- passage of the adour -- battle of toulouse -- casualties in lawrence's company -- sad death of a frenchman in sight of his home -- the french evacuate toulouse -- news arrives of the fall of napoleon -- lawrence on ambition -- the army ordered to bordeaux to ship for england. after remaining inactive for the most part during the rest of and until the february of the next year, we again made an attack on the french, who were lying near a village of which i do not remember the name, and drove them behind a river. there they took up a fresh position, but retained it only two or three days, again shifting and opening a way for us to proceed on our way to orthes. and so after nearly six years of deadly fighting, we had got clear out of spain and portugal and carried the war into our enemy's very kingdom. portugal and spain had long had to contain the deadly destroyers, but now the tide was changed, and it was the inhabitants of the south of france who were for a time to be subjected to the hateful inconveniences of war. they had little expected this turn in their fortunes: napoleon had even at one time had the ambitious idea of driving us out of the peninsula, but he now found us forcing his own army into its own country: he had at one time thought that he would subdue europe, but had while labouring under that error been subdued himself. and all this was very much to our gratification, for we had long been looking forward to this result, being entirely sick of spain. as for those places which had become so famous through us, we could not help thinking and referring back to the many comrades we had left there in their cold graves. since our regiment had left for ireland on this expedition nine hundred strong, fifty-one hundred men had joined us from our depôt, but at the time of our march to orthes we did not in spite of this number more than seven hundred. i do not mean to say that we lost all these in battle, though i can safely say we did the greater part, either killed or badly wounded: but of course many must be reckoned who fell by disease, or as some did from their own drunkenness or gluttony, assisted by the inclemency of the climate; nor must those skulkers, of whom there must have been so many through the whole campaign, be forgotten. lord wellington had watched with hatred the many excesses committed by the enemy on the portuguese and spanish inhabitants during the late campaign, and had determined, now he had carried the war into france, to set them for the future a better example; and accordingly he issued a proclamation that no plundering was to be carried on, on pain of death, which was much to the credit of our noble commander. we arrived in france at a wrong time of the year to see its beauties, but from what i could then judge it abounded in elegancies and varieties of taste, such as vineyards, oranges, pomegranates, figs, and olive-trees to any extent, not altogether unlike the productions of spain. on nearing orthes, we found the french had taken up a very strong position on a range of fine heights stretching from orthes to st. boes, and we were ordered in conjunction with the seventh division to cross a river and attack the latter place, which had one of the heights occupied by the enemy at the back of it, giving them a commanding view of the place. some delay was occasioned at the river, for there being no bridge, a pontoon was obliged to be thrown across; but this being accomplished, our divisions were soon over it, and being joined by a brigade of cavalry and artillery, we formed line and marched on st. boes. the village was stoutly defended by the enemy, who on our nearing them fired briskly at us, for a long time standing their ground and trying hard to retain their charge; but they soon found they had sharp taskmasters to deal with, for our troops of the fourth division under general cole poured in on them like lions, and forced them after a violent resistance to start out of the place and take refuge on their strong heights. we followed them up, but found that there they were for a long time more than a match for us, as they had such an advantage in the ground. we rushed up the formidable heights, but were again and again driven back by the fearful play of the enemy's artillery, the position being only accessible in a few places, and those so narrow that only a small body could move on them at once. but even with these disadvantages and the enemy's cannon playing on them our men, after receiving fresh and strong reinforcements, carried the heights; and not only this, but the whole of the army having been similarly engaged on the right, had meanwhile succeeded in driving the enemy from their lines there, capturing a great number of prisoners in their retreat, the cavalry pursuing them closely; and some field-pieces were likewise taken. the enemy then fell back on the river adour, the allied army soon following and engaging them in slight attacks in various parts of the line, till at last the french again took up a position on the heights near the town of tarbes, on the said river; but they did not stay long there, being soon driven away by the allies and retreating towards st. gaudens. thence they were again driven with great loss to themselves and a very trifling one to the allies, this time to toulouse on the garonne, where they stood on the defensive on some more heights on the right bank of the river with every assailable part strongly fortified. some difficulty was met with in our march, owing to the chief of the bridges being destroyed and having to be replaced by pontoons, and those that were not destroyed being strongly fortified. one of these was guarded by some french cavalry, whom we annoyed very considerably by our fire as we approached them, having in case of their making an attack on us a fine artificial ditch to fall back into where it was next to impossible that they could get at us; our fire was made more daring by our knowing there was a body of hussars waiting out of their sight, ready to fall on them if they moved on us. we soon enticed out a body of about three hundred, who crossed the bridge under our retreating and destructive fire, and on their near approach we fell into our ditch, while at the same time our cavalry came up, and some close shaving ensued, a large quantity of spare heads, arms, legs, as well as many horses being soon strewn about the ground. but this was not the worst part of our day's work, for after they had been tumbled back over the bridge, our division came up and we followed them right up towards their heights, keeping toulouse some distance to our right. before we reached the heights, however, we had to attack and carry a small village they were occupying. this was the commencement of the action of that bloody day which cost the armies on both sides numbers of their best men. it was fought on the easter sunday of . from the village we proceeded over some difficult ground to attack their right under a brisk fire from their artillery, so brisk, indeed, that one of general cole's orderlies had his horse shot under him; and then we formed line and dashed up the hill, which was defended by some thousands of the french, nearly half of whom were cavalry. we soon returned their fire, which at that time was a perfect storm of grape and canister, and directly we got near we charged them, but in vain, as owing to the sudden appearance of some of their cavalry we had to halt and form square: and indeed we must have been routed altogether by their combined infantry and cavalry, had not our rocket brigade stepped forward and played fearful havoc among their cavalry, driving them back. i had never before seen this rocket charge and have never either since; by all appearance it was most successful in this case, for it soon turned them to the right-about, and made them retreat. the spaniards were chiefly engaged on our right, and i never saw them fight better, for they seemed on this occasion as determined as the british: and indeed of the two they suffered most, as the french, knowing them to be cowards, thought they would be certain of some success in that quarter, but they stood their ground well, only a few of their number getting into confusion. when once we had gained this advantage and taken a part of their heights, our artillery joined us, and their play together with our action soon made the french fall back on their works at toulouse, whilst we remained on our newly won height overlooking toulouse and there encamped. i remember well the loss of a man in my company in this action, who had entered the army during the war for a period of seven years at first, and this period having expired for some time, he was mad to be out of these constant scenes of bloodshed and conflicts, but owing to the continuation of the war he had not been allowed to depart. he was not the only one in this plight, for there were thousands of others like him in the army, and several in my own company alone. sixteen guineas had been offered to each for their services for life, and many had accepted, while many had refused, and of course amongst the latter was the man of whom i am speaking. his name was william marsh, and he was a native of bath in somerset. he was by trade a tailor, and earned many a shilling at his trade in the army from various of his comrades who employed him. as i said, the poor man was sick of war, and before entering this very action had been wishing he could have both his legs shot off, so that he might be out of the affair altogether; little expecting that it might really be the case, or nearly as bad, for he had not been in action long before his wish was accomplished, as he was shot through the calves of both his legs by a musket-ball which took him sideways and pierced right through. poor marsh did begin to sing out most heartily, and i couldn't help saying, "hullo there, marsh, you are satisfied now your wish is fulfilled, i hope." he begged and prayed me to move him out of the thick of the fight, so i dragged him under a bank and there left him, and from that time till now i never saw or heard anything more of him. he was far, however, from being mortally wounded, though perhaps from neglect it may have turned to something fatal. another of our comrades in the front of our line had his foot completely smashed by a cannon-ball pitching right on to it, yet he managed to hobble to the rear in that state on his heel. i felt quite hurt for this poor fellow, who was a brave soldier, and seemed to be enduring great agonies. night having drawn in, all firing ceased, and the men set to examine the ground they had gained, chiefly to find firewood. i happened to be about when i came across a frenchman who had been badly wounded and had crawled under a bank: i went up to him and asked him if i could do anything for him. he had been shot in the stomach, and when he asked for water and i gave him some out of my canteen, which was nearly full, of which he drank heartily, in a very short time it only fell out again through his wound. but the most astonishing thing was that he pointed me out his father's house, which was as far as i could judge about half a mile off, and said that he had not seen his parents for six years, for since he had come back to this place, he had not been able to fall out to go and see them. he begged me to take him so that he might die there in the presence of his parents, but i told him i could not do that, as there were a quantity of french there. however, i got an old blanket and wrapped it round him, making him as comfortable as i could under the circumstances, and seemingly much better resigned to his fearful fate, and then i left him and returned to my own place of repose, and after eating my supper and drinking my allowance of grog, i wrapped my own blanket round me, lay down, and was soon unconscious in sleep. i woke early in the morning, and having nothing particular to do, i crept out of my blanket and put all things straight; and then, more out of curiosity than from any other motive, proceeded to the poor frenchman to ascertain if he was yet living; but his death must have taken place some hours before, as he was quite cold and stiff. the loss of the allies in this conflict was over four thousand in killed and wounded, more than two thousand being of the british, whilst that of the enemy was upwards of three thousand. but then there must be considered the advantageous ground they fought on, and the fearful havoc they made in our ranks before we were able to return a shot. lord wellington now finding that toulouse would not surrender, ordered fortifications to be thrown up for the reduction of that place, but they proved to be unneeded, for in the dead of the night the french disappeared from the place and retreated in a south-easterly direction towards villefranche. we were soon following them up, and part of our army had slight skirmishes with them, but we never again saw their main body in that part of their country, for a day or two after our move from toulouse the news came of buonaparte's overthrow and the proclamation of peace, buonaparte himself having been sent to the island of elba. this was indeed good news for most of our troops: certainly for the young officers it took away many chances of promotion, though it made death less likely as well; but ambition sometimes leads a man a long way out of his course, and very often adds tenfold to his sorrow. after the arrival of this welcome news, we encamped for three or four days longer to give our commander time to form his next plans. we were then ordered to bordeaux to ship for our isles, the spaniards and portuguese being sent to their own country. chapter xx. general delight at the end of the war -- march to bordeaux -- kind reception of the troops by the inhabitants of the country on the way -- particular good fortune of lawrence -- great attention on the part of his host -- a magnificent dinner -- singular effects of a campaign on lawrence's taste for feather-beds -- he tells of moving accidents, &c., &c., and excites the pity of his hostess -- two men sentenced to be flogged, but begged off by the inhabitants of the town -- arrival at bordeaux -- encampment on the garonne -- fraternizing of the natives and the troops -- good times in camp -- sudden influx of skulkers, who, however, receive but as poor a welcome as they deserve. things now seemed to assume an entirely different aspect, indeed to take a new birth altogether. all were in a most joyous state, and none more so than the spaniards, who were always only too ready to give up fighting. the portuguese had always shown themselves the better race in the field of action, but they likewise now enjoyed the thought of returning to their own country, although it had been so pillaged. i had many a long conversation with stragglers of both these nations before we started on our long march, and so i had an opportunity of studying their thoughts on the subject. we did not seem to be in any hurry to quit the country before everything was thoroughly arranged, and having no enemy pushing on our rear, we were often billeted at towns and villages longer than we need have been, which caused our march to take more time to accomplish, but made it much more comfortable. we were generally billeted on the inhabitants during our halts, the best billets being of course chosen for the officers, then for the sergeants, and then for the corporals and privates, the numbers being suited to the accommodation of the places; but i very seldom had more than one with me besides myself. the inhabitants could not have behaved better to us if they had been our own countrymen; and i well remember how at the last stage where we put up before coming to bordeaux two of us, myself and a private of the same company, were billeted at quite a gentleman's house, the owners of which were unusually kind to us. we found we had completely jumped into clover, and fortunately it happened to be saturday night, so that our halt was till monday morning; not that sunday in those times had been used to make much difference to us, for two of our bloodiest conflicts had happened on that day, but in this case, our haste not being urgent, it gave us a kind of sweet repose. as soon as we arrived at our house we were shown into our room, which was a very nice one and beautifully furnished; and when we had taken off our accoutrements, we went downstairs to a sort of bath-room, where we had a good wash in tubs of water that were placed in readiness for us. then the gentleman had some clean stockings brought up to us, and when we had made ourselves comfortable he sent up to our room a loaf of bread and a large bottle of wine holding about three pints, which we found most acceptable; and it not being long before the family's dinner was ready, our hostess would insist on our dining with them. for my own part, not being used to such pomp, and never having before even seen it, being more accustomed to the kind of dinners and suppers in which i have described our own colonel and captain as taking part, i would sooner have crept out of the invitation; but being pressed we consented, and having been shown into the dining-room, we sat down to an excellent repast with nobody else but the lady and gentleman. the table was laid out most gorgeously with glittering silver, which came very awkward to our clumsy hands, as we had been more accustomed to using our fingers for some years; to set off which gorgeousness our waiter, who was evidently the family footman, wore an out-of-the-way fine and ugly dress, with his hair plastered up with white powder, of which i had such an aversion during the first part of my stay in the army. a most palatable dinner was served of which i freely partook, though i had very little idea of what it consisted, and some good wine was likewise often handed round with which our glasses were constantly kept filled. after dinner was over, the white-headed gentleman entered with coffee, a fashion which then surprised us very much; but nevertheless, more out of compliment than because we needed it, we took a cup each with some sugar-candy which was also handed round to sweeten it. when that was finished, just to keep us still going, the gentleman asked us if we smoked, and on our saying we both did, the bell was rung, and the footman entering with tobacco, we took a pipe with the gentleman, the lady having previously retired into the drawing-room. then getting more used to the distinguished style, and the wine no doubt having made us more chatty, we for a time thoroughly enjoyed ourselves with our pipes, and began to feel new men with all our grandeur. we were next invited to partake of tea in the drawing-room, but being very tired, we begged to be excused; and this being granted, the bed-candles being rung for, and having wished him good-night, we went to our room and there had a hearty laugh over the evening's business; though we had not been able to understand half what the gentleman had said, not being used to the french so well as to the spanish language. we retired to rest in a fine feather bed, which being a luxury we had not seen for years, was consequently too soft for our hard bones, and we found we could not sleep owing to the change. my comrade soon jumped out of bed, saying, "i'll be bothered, sergeant, i can't sleep here!" "no," said i, "no more can i;" so we prepared our usual bed by wrapping ourselves into a blanket, and then with a knapsack as a pillow we lay on the floor and soon sank into a profound slumber. late in the morning, for we had overslept ourselves, the servant knocked at the door and said breakfast was waiting; and in a very short time the master himself came up and knocked, and on our calling to him to come in he opened the door, and looking in, found we had been sleeping on the floor. on his wanting to know if there were fleas in the bed, or what was the cause of our lying on the floor, we made him understand as well as we could, but it must have been very imperfectly at the best. he then went down again, and we soon following him, found an excellent breakfast ready, of which we made a first-rate meal, and after they had left us, for they had finished long before us, my comrade and i agreed that we had fallen on luck now, and no mistake. very soon after we had finished our breakfast, the servant entered to conduct us to the drawing-room, which was splendidly furnished, though for my own part i would rather have been down in the kitchen. we went in, however, and our hostess took down a book describing the french and english languages, so that they might understand some of our words better, and again asked us the reason why we did not sleep on our bed. i told her we had not slept on a feather bed for six years, and answered her other questions, giving her a slight description of the trials of a soldier in the time of war. she was very much touched, and could not forbear from crying, more especially when i added that two privates were to be whipped that very morning for having got drunk overnight and making a disturbance in the town, to serve as an example to the regiment. they had been tried by court-martial and sentenced to a hundred lashes, to be administered in the town and witnessed by the inhabitants. although it was sunday, the drums beat for the regiment to assemble, and the men were brought into our square; and their sentence having been read in the presence of all, the first man was led to the halberds, and the drummers got ready to begin. but five or six gentlemen of the town made their way into our square and begged the colonel so hard to let them off, as that was the general wish of the inhabitants, that at last he dismissed the victims with a reprimand. the two then thanked the colonel, but he told them not to do so, for had it not been for the timely interference of the gentlemen, he would have given them every lash. all were then ordered to disperse, and i returned to my excellent quarters, where we again received for the rest of the day no end of kindnesses in the way of luxurious meals, luncheons, dinner, and coffee, together with plenty of wine, and before we went to bed, brandy was introduced as a finish: and having taken a hot glass of that with water, we retired and slept in a similar way to the night before. on the following morning we had to assemble by seven o'clock, so no time was allowed us for breakfast; but our host had ordered our canteens to be filled with their best wine, and a parcel of sandwiches to be made up for each of us. we shook hands with the gentleman, duly thanking him for his kindness, and, rejoining our regiment, were soon on the march again for bordeaux, which being not more than a day's march distant we reached the same night. we encamped at a place two miles off the city on the banks of the river garonne, to which even large ships were able to ascend. here we lay for five or six weeks, during which time the inhabitants made many excursions from the city especially on sundays, to inspect our army, swarms of costermongers likewise visiting us every day with wine, spirits, bread, meat, fish, and fruit of every description for sale. every sunday afternoon the bands of all the regiments played, while the french amused themselves with dancing, many of them, both male and female, on stilts, which entertained us more than anything, and besides this there were all kinds of other jollities in which our soldiers freely joined. and now i will take the opportunity of saying a few more words as regards the skulkers. as soon as the peace was declared no less than seven sergeants of my own company alone had either at this place or on the march thither made their appearance from the snug dens where they had been lying, most of whom had been occupying themselves with some trivial employment in the pay of the spaniards or portuguese, but had now at this crisis abandoned whatever they had been doing, for fear of being left in the country, or perhaps because they thought that they might still come in for a share of the praise and pay. before they appeared i was the only sergeant in our company, while if the proper number had been there, there would have been six. i do not mean to say that there had been no cause at first for their staying behind, for there were some laid up like myself at elvas and estremoz, but it was their duty to follow up the regiment when they were able, as i had done myself. the captain of my company, who had been like myself through the whole campaign excepting when actually in hospital, pretended not to know them when he saw them, and asked them, "where on earth do you come from? you certainly don't belong to my company, by your appearance." he then called me to say if i knew them. i remarked, "they seem to have been in luck's way about their clothes, at any rate;" and so they did, for whilst ours were as ragged as sheep and as black as rooks, theirs were as red and new as if they had never been on, and their shoes were to match, whilst ours were completely worn out by our continual marches, the captain's being quite as bad as any private's. we found that two of these men had left the regiment for hospital on our retreat from talavera, and had never shown themselves since, the others having been away in like manner for rather shorter periods. now the whole had returned we were overstocked with sergeants, having two more than our complement, so our captain sent the two who had been longest absent to the colonel with a written request that they should be transferred somewhere else; the other five he allowed to remain, but only for as short a time as possible till he could get rid of them also, as he told them his company should not be disgraced by them longer than he could help. he likewise told them that many of his privates deserved the stripes more than they did; and indeed it was not long before he got them transferred, and their places filled up by some of the braver heroes from among such of the privates as had at all distinguished themselves in any conflict. chapter xxi. embarkation of the troops -- lawrence's regiment sent to ireland -- he receives his pay for the war and promptly spends it -- ordered on foreign service again to the west indies -- terrific storm which compels the fleet to put back into cork -- arrival at barbadoes -- death of a young captain from fever -- jamaica -- discovery of a female stowaway -- lawrence told off to deposit her on shore -- the regiment proceeds to new orleans -- a new kind of fortification to be stormed -- doings in camp on dolphin isle -- return to england -- news arriving of napoleon's escape from elba, the regiment is sent on at once to flanders -- ghent -- march to brussels. after remaining at bordeaux for five or six weeks the army embarked on board ships bound for various parts of the british isles. our regiment was again despatched to ireland, most of us being irish. we were conveyed thither by the _sultan_, a fine man-of-war with seventy-four guns. we had a very good passage, and amused ourselves very much with the sailors on board, who on their part had many a good laugh at our general ragged appearance. we landed in ireland at monkstown, near cork, and marched thence to fermoy, whence after lying two three days in the barracks there, we proceeded to athlone in west meath, where we were stationed for about two months. the regiment had never been settled with during the whole of our peninsular trip of six years, though money had been advanced to us at various places, so now while we were waiting at this place the accounts were made up, and some of our sergeants found they had as much as _l._ or _l._ to receive. my own lot amounted to _l._, i being one of the younger sergeants. when our pay had been given us a week's furlough was granted to the whole regiment, and no doubt most of the money melted away in that period--at least, i know mine did, for not having been in the british isles for so long, we were all resolved to have a spree. i never went away from athlone, however, the whole time, but slept in barracks every night, though there was no duty to be done as the militia were ordered out for that. i knew that it would be useless to cross the channel in that short time to see my parents, though i should have liked to have done so, but i did not altogether forget them, and wrote to them to ease their minds about my whereabouts; as i had written to them during my stay in the peninsula, and i thought they might have been anxious about my safety when they heard or read about the scenes that were taking place there, as parents naturally are about their children, be they ever so rackety. but we were not allowed to stay here even in peace long, for at the end of the two months we were again ordered on foreign service, and marched to a place called mallow in cork, whence, having been joined there by our second battalion, and having had all the men fit for service drafted out of that into ours, we proceeded to cork itself. this was a fine place for our captain to get rid of the remaining skulkers, and he left them behind, much to their annoyance, in the second battalion. from cork we proceeded to the cove to embark, after a stay in ireland now of about three months altogether; and when all was in readiness on board the ships, we set sail for the west indies. it can be better imagined than i can describe in what sort of spirit we began this other war, scarcely having slipped out of one field before we were launched into another; but as they were the usual thing on our embarkations, the same scenes that took place at portsmouth will serve to picture those at cork: they did not tend to enliven us much, but they were soon forgotten when we got to work talking over and telling our new comrades the many tales of the peninsula. after launching out of cork harbour, however, a terrible gale blew up, which obliged us to put into bantry bay for a time. one of our ships was lost on the rocks, but fortunately all on board were saved. they had lost all their accoutrements, however, so they were taken on board various ships, and as soon as we got fairer weather we returned to the cove to await a fresh supply, which was at least three weeks in coming. then we again set sail, amusing ourselves on the voyage as we best could; and having good weather, we arrived as soon as could be expected at barbadoes, and anchored there for a short time. one of the captains of my regiment, who had probably seen enough of war to satisfy him, had before our start sold his commission to a younger officer who gave him _l._ for it; but, singular to say, the very first night of this our anchorage this poor young man went to sleep on shore, and, catching a fever, was brought on board and a few hours afterwards was a lifeless corpse. owing to the infectiousness of his disease, he had to be immediately sewn up with two of our large shot in a blanket, and the funeral service being read by an officer as there was no minister on board, he was put into the sea. from barbadoes we sailed to jamaica, and anchored off port royal. a singular circumstance occurred during our stay there: a girl was discovered who had been concealed on board at cork by some of the sailors in a bundle of straw unbeknown to the captain of the ship. this being the best place for shipping her back to england, she was obliged to leave her accomplices at once, and i being sergeant of the watch was called to take her on shore to port royal with two privates. we took her to a kind of public-house, where, although it was two o'clock in the morning, the people were still amusing themselves in dancing to some rough music of their own, the whole of them being blacks. we asked for the landlord, and on his soon making his appearance from among the company, as black as a crow and still steaming with the dance, i inquired if the girl could have a bed there for the night. he said, "yes, for a dollar." i thought that was a stiffish price for a night considering it was two o'clock in the morning, but i paid him the sum and left the poor unfortunate girl there while we returned to our ships. i was very sorry for her, as she seemed nearly broken-hearted, but i could do no more for her under the circumstances, and i hope she got safe back to england after all. after about a week had elapsed a gun-brig arrived to convey us to north america, england being then at war with the americans, and we went on in her to the mouth of the river mississippi. there we disembarked into barges holding about a hundred troops each, and having been towed up by other small sailing and rowing boats to orleans, were put on shore near that place, our body consisting of five english and two black regiments, with a battalion of marines. we marched on the same day and encamped about two miles from the city. skirmishing was kept up with this our new enemy during the night, but without any great casualty happening. on the following morning, however, we advanced in a body to attack a battery that had been constructed near the city, chiefly out of barrels of brown sugar. we were at first warmly received with the cannon and musketry planted there, but they soon got tired of our peninsular medicines: i suppose the pills disagreed with them, for they were very quickly obliged to retire into the city and no more fighting ensued; and some terms having been hinted at, when the black regiments had eaten a quantity of the fortifications, which they seemed to be very fond of, and we had put some into our haversacks as likely to be useful to sweeten our cocoa, we returned to our boats, and dropping down the river to a piece of land called dolphin isle, there encamped again. the island was uninhabited, except that there were plenty of alligators, racoons, and oysters there; but we had plenty of provisions, that is, in the shape of meat and flour, though no bread, which inconvenience was from the want of ovens. we soon set to work, however, to construct one by burning a quantity of oyster-shells for lime, and having mixed that with sand and water we made some very good cement; after which we got a lot of iron hoops from the vessels, with which we formed the arch, and so we put one oven together; and i much doubt if it did not bake as well as any english one, considering the style of dough that we had. after it had been found to answer so well, at least twenty more were constructed on the once desolate but now busy little isle. we were constantly on the coast in search of oysters, of which there was an abundance; and some of the more industrious of us even collected them for sale among the troops who either preferred buying them to taking the trouble of collecting them for themselves, or else were unable to go on the sands on account of being on duty. they were sold very cheap, however; i have known half a bushel go for one dollar, which was certainly not much for the trouble of getting them. during our stay here a playhouse was likewise erected, and some of the more clever among the officers and men amused the troops in that way. the scenery was rather rude, to be sure; but with these and various other games and freaks the three months that we lay there passed off very pleasantly the poor blacks, however, suffered dreadfully from the cold, it being then winter, and they had to be sent back to their own country long before we left. our chief reason for lying there so long was to see all settled and to wait for orders before we proceeded back to england. when the order did come, joy was in every mouth, for this was indeed a short campaign compared with our peninsular affairs, and it may be supposed we were by no means sorry for that. we embarked on board the same ships, and again tacked to the west indies to get provisions at one of the spanish islands, where we took on board live cattle and water, and as food for the former a kind of cabbage, which on account of their size were called cabbage-trees. thence we proceeded on our route to portsmouth, and had a very pleasant voyage with fair weather prevailing; but when near england we fell in with an english frigate, which informed us that napoleon buonaparte had left the island of elba with a small force and had landed in france to collect more troops. this was indeed a disappointment to me, for i felt sure that if he again intended disturbing europe, we should have to be on the scene again. but in another way it caused no small amount of stir on board, for the young officers, who were looking ravenously forward to promotion, were so rejoiced at the news that they treated all the men to an extra glass of grog, to make everybody as lively as themselves. nothing else of any particular note occurred on our voyage, and having arrived near portsmouth a signal was raised, and we fell in on the quarantine ground, hoisting a yellow flag for a doctor to inspect us on board. when he came he found all on board our ship to be in very good condition, which was reported to the general, and the very next morning he signalled to us to weigh anchor and proceed to flanders; so without setting foot on english ground we again went on our way to meet our common enemy. this time, however, he was not in his old quarters, but in the north of france, where he had collected more than a hundred thousand troops. i left portsmouth this time with a good deal lighter heart than i had last, being now more used to war and hardships than to peace and plenty, though perhaps i would rather have landed than proceed on this errand; and, indeed, there were many of us who had left wife and children at home who went off with a very sad heart. our voyage this time was a very short one, only occupying one day; and early on the following morning we arrived in sight of flanders and there brought up at anchor. very shortly some small vessels came alongside to convey us to the quay at ostend, where we landed, and after marching about half a mile we came to a canal, where we embarked in large open barges, in which we were towed by horses past bruges, about twelve miles off ostend, to ghent, which at a wide guess might be twice the same distance further. we landed at ghent and lay there about nine days, while louis xviii. was staying in the town, he having been obliged to flee from paris by that old disturber after a short reign of about ten months. at the end of the nine days the drums beat at midnight, and we arrayed ourselves in marching order as quickly as possible. the landlord of the house where i was staying had got up, and would kindly insist on filling our canteens--that is a capacity of about three pints--with gin, giving us as well some bread and meat each, and warning us to look out, for he knew the french were coming. all having assembled at the rendezvous, orders were given to march on to brussels immediately. i could not exactly say what the distance was, but it was probably not less than forty miles, taking us two days of hard marching to accomplish it. chapter xxii. waterloo -- dreadful night before the battle -- opening of the battle -- unpleasant contiguity with a shell -- a recruit taken suddenly and conveniently ill -- the regiment in the thick of it -- rout of napoleon's bodyguards -- repeated charges of the french infantry and cavalry successfully repulsed -- lawrence in charge of the colours -- death of his captain -- gallant stand of the british until the arrival of the prussians -- lawrence on the tactics of the enemy -- the french finally driven off the field by blucher's army -- bivouac on the enemy's ground -- fatal results of trifling with a powder-wagon -- lawrence's supper in danger -- he invites a guest to supper, who, however, takes french leave -- on the march again. on the th of june, , we marched through brussels, amid the joy of the inhabitants, who brought us out all manner of refreshments. i heard some remarks from them to the effect that we were all going to be slaughtered like bullocks, but we only laughed at this, telling them that that was nothing new to us. some of the younger recruits, however, were terribly downcast and frightened at the idea of fighting, but i have often found that it is these most timid ones who when they come to an actual battle rush forward and get killed first; probably owing to the confused state they are in, while the more disciplined soldiers know better what course to pursue. from brussels we marched to about five or six miles out of the town, not far from the village of waterloo, when our commander sent his aide-de-camp to lord wellington for general orders how he was to act, or as to what part of the line we were to fall in at. the orders returned were that we were to stay in our present position till next morning, so that night we crept into any hole we could find, cowsheds, cart-houses, and all kinds of farmstead buildings, for shelter, and i never remember a worse night in all the peninsular war, for the rain descended in torrents, mixed with fearful thunder and lightning, and seeming to foretell the fate of the following morning, the th, which again happened to be sunday. the allied army had on the th and th been attacked by napoleon's large forces at ligny and quatre bras, but neither side had obtained any great success, beyond thousands being killed on both sides; during the night of the th, therefore, firing was continually going on, which i could distinctly hear, in spite of its being considerably drowned by the thunder. all that night was one continued clamour, for thousands of camp-followers were on their retreat to brussels, fearful of sticking to the army after the quatre bras affair. it was indeed a sight, for owing to the rain and continued traffic the roads were almost impassable, and the people were sometimes completely stuck in the mud: and besides these a continual stream of baggage-wagons was kept up through the night. early in the morning of the th we were again put on the march to join our lines, our position being in the reserve, which included the fourth and twenty-seventh regiments, together with a body of brunswickers and dutch, and formed a line between merk braine and mont st. jean on the brussels road. our regiment took the left of this road, but did not remain there long, for the french were seen in motion, and on their opening fire from their cannon we soon marched up to action in open column. during this movement a shell from the enemy cut our deputy-sergeant-major in two, and having passed on to take the head off one of my company of grenadiers named william hooper, exploded in the rear not more than one yard from me, hurling me at least two yards into the air, but fortunately doing me little injury beyond the shaking and carrying a small piece of skin off the side of my face. it was indeed another narrow escape, for it burnt the tail of my sash completely off, and turned the handle of my sword perfectly black. i remember remarking to a sergeant who was standing close by me when i fell, "this is sharp work to begin with, i hope it will end better:" and even this much had unfortunately so frightened one of the young recruits of my company, named bartram, who had never before been in action and now did not like the curious evolutions of this shell so close to him, that he called out to me and said he must fall out of rank, as he was taken very ill. i could easily see the cause of his illness, so i pushed him into rank again, saying, "why, bartram, it's the smell of this little powder that has caused your illness; there's nothing else the matter with you;" but that physic would not content him at all, and he fell down and would not proceed another inch. i was fearfully put out at this, but was obliged to leave him, or if he had had his due he ought to have been shot. from this time i never saw him again for at least six months, but even then i did not forget him for this affair of cowardice, as i shall have occasion to show hereafter. the right of our line had been engaged some little time before we were ordered up, and then our position was changed, we having to cross the road and proceed to the right of a farmhouse called la haye sainte. owing to the rain that had been peppering down the whole night and even now had not quite ceased, the fields and roads were in a fearful state of dirt and mud, which tended to retard our progress greatly as well as to tire us. it made it very bad too for the action of cavalry, and even more so for artillery. about ten o'clock the action of the day began at hougoumont on our right, and from there it fell on our centre, where we were attacked by a tremendous body of cavalry and infantry. the fire, however, which had been kept up for hours from the enemy's cannon had now to be abated in that quarter, owing to the close unison of the two armies. and from this time onward we endured some heavy work throughout the day, having constantly to be first forming square to receive the repeated attacks of their cavalry, and then line to meet their infantry, charge after charge being made upon us, but with very little success. at the commencement the commanding officer was killed by a musket-shot, but his place was soon filled up. on our left on the turnpike road was placed a brigade of german cavalry with light horses and men. when buonaparte's bodyguards came up they charged these, making fearful havoc amongst their number; they were routed and obliged to retreat, but the life guards and scotch greys fortunately making their appearance immediately, some close handwork took place, and the bodyguards at last finding their match, or even more, were in their turn compelled to fall back before the charge of our cavalry, numbers of them being cut to pieces. still nothing daunted, they formed again, and this time ascended at us; but of the two, they met with a worse reception than before, for we instantly threw ourselves into three squares with our artillery in the centre; and the word having been given not to fire at the men, who wore armour, but at the horses, which was obeyed to the very letter, as soon as they arrived at close quarters we opened a deadly fire, and very few of them wholly escaped. they managed certainly at first to capture our guns, but they were again recovered by the fire of our three squares; and it was a most laughable sight to see these guards in their chimney-armour trying to run away after their horses had been shot from under them, being able to make very little progress, and many of them being taken prisoners by those of our light companies who were out skirmishing. i think this quite settled buonaparte's bodyguards, for we saw no more of them, they not having expected this signal defeat. that affair, however, had only passed off a very few minutes before their infantry advanced and we had again to form line ready to meet them. we in our usual style let the infantry get well within our musket-shot before the order was given to fire, so that our volley proved to be of fearful success: and then immediately charging them we gave them a good start back again, but not without a loss on our side as well as on theirs. and no sooner had they disappeared than another charge of cavalry was made, so that we again had to throw ourselves into square on our old ground. these cavalry had no doubt expected to appear amongst us before we could accomplish this, but fortunately they were mistaken, and our persistent fire soon turned them. we did not lose a single inch of ground the whole day, though after these successive charges our numbers were fearfully thinned; and even during the short interval between each charge the enemy's cannon had been doing some mischief among our ranks besides. the men in their tired state were beginning to despair, but the officers cheered them on continually throughout the day with the cry of "keep your ground, my men!" it is a mystery to me how it was accomplished, for at last so few were left that there were scarcely enough to form square. about four o'clock i was ordered to the colours. this, although i was used to warfare as much as any, was a job i did not at all like; but still i went as boldly to work as i could. there had been before me that day fourteen sergeants already killed and wounded while in charge of those colours, with officers in proportion, and the staff and colours were almost cut to pieces. this job will never be blotted from my memory: although i am now an old man, i remember it as if it had been yesterday. i had not been there more than a quarter of an hour when a cannon-shot came and took the captain's head clean off. this was again close to me, for my left side was touching the poor captain's right, and i was spattered all over with his blood. one of his company who was close by at the time, cried out, "hullo, there goes my best friend," which caused a lieutenant, who quickly stepped forward to take his place, to say to the man, "never mind, i will be as good a friend to you as the captain." the man replied, "i hope not, sir;" the officer not having rightly understood his meaning, the late captain having been particularly hard on him for his dirtiness, giving him extra duty and suchlike as punishment. this man, whose name was marten, was a notorious character in the regiment, and i was myself tolerably well acquainted with him, for he had once been in my company; but on account of the same thing, dirtiness in his person, he had been transferred to this the fifth company, where neither this poor captain had been able to reform him, try however hard he might. still he was for all this an excellent soldier in the field. but now i must get on to the last charge of cavalry, which took place not very long after this. few as we were, when we saw it coming we formed squares and awaited it. then we poured volley after volley into them, doing fearful execution, and they had to retire at last before the strong dose we administered; not, however, without our losing more men and so becoming even weaker than before. we were dreading another charge, but all the help we got was the cry of "keep your ground, my men, reinforcements are coming!" not a bit, however, did they come till the setting sun, in time to pursue our retreating enemy; the prussians under marshal blucher having been detained elsewhere, and although long expected, only being able at this period to make their appearance at last. i must say here that i cannot think why those charges of cavalry were kept up against our unbroken squares, in spite of their being so constantly sent back. it is murder to send cavalry against disciplined infantry unless they have artillery to act in conjunction with them, in which case they might possibly succeed in routing them if they could take advantage of their falling into confusion, but not otherwise. we were indeed glad to see the arrival of these prussians, who now coming up in two columns on our left flank, advanced on the enemy's right. lord wellington, who was ever enticing his army on, now came up to our regiment and asked who was in command. on being told it was captain brown, he gave the order to advance, which we received with three cheers, and off we set as if renewed with fresh vigour. the attack was now being made by the whole line, together with the prussians, who had come up fresh and were therefore more than a match for the harassed french. they soon forced the french into a downright retreat by their fire, and the retreat becoming universal, the whole body of the french were thrown into disorder and pursued off the field by blucher's fresh and untired infantry and cavalry. we followed them ourselves for about a mile, and then encamped on the enemy's ground; and if ever there was a hungry and tired tribe of men, we were that after that memorable day of the th of june. then the first thing to be thought of was to get a fire and cook some food, which was not so easy, as wood was scarce and what there was was wet through. one of our company, named rouse, who went out in search of sticks, came across one of the enemy's powder-wagons that we had taken in the battle amongst the rest of the many things, and immediately commenced cutting the cover up for fuel; but his hook coming in contact with a nail or some other piece of iron and striking fire, as a natural consequence the remains of the powder in the wagon exploded and lifted the poor fellow to a considerable height in the air. the most remarkable thing was that he was still alive when he came down and able to speak, though everything had been blown from him except one of his shoes. he was a perfect blackguard, for although he was in a most dangerous state he did not refrain from cursing his eyes, which happened, as it was, to be both gone, and saying what a fool he must have been. he was that night conveyed to brussels hospital with the rest of the many wounded, and died in a few days, raving mad. we succeeded, however, in getting a fire at last, and then as i happened that night to be orderly sergeant to our general i went and reported myself to him. he was at the time sitting on a gun-carriage holding his horse, and when he saw me, said, "that's right, sergeant; i expect two more sergeants directly, but i wish you would meanwhile try and get some corn for my poor horse." off i went accordingly, and found two bushels or so in a sack which had evidently been left by the enemy, as it was on one of their cannon. when i opened the sack i found to my great surprise that it likewise contained a large ham and two fowls, so i asked the general if he would accept them; he, however, declined, saying he would take the corn, but that i might keep the meat for myself, advising me, however, to keep it out of sight of the prussians, who were a slippery set of men and very likely to steal it if they saw it. i prepared the hanger for the pot as quickly as possible, putting cross-sticks over the fire at a sufficient distance to prevent them igniting; but before i had finished doing this a quantity of these same prussians whom the general had been watching and warned me against passed by; and two of them coming to my fire to light their pipes noticed the ham, and remarked that it looked good. i thought it best to take my sword and immediately cut them off a piece each, and they relieved my fears by going off seemingly quite satisfied. they were evidently on the march following up the french, for the whole night we could hear the distant sound of cannon and musketry from the french and prussians, lord wellington having completely given up the pursuit to marshal blucher. i pretty quickly put my ham in the pot after that, and the two sergeants coming up, i set them to pick the fowls, and these soon going in after the ham, in two hours were pretty well done. about this time i heard a frenchman groaning under a cannon, where he was lying on a quantity of straw. i thought he was badly wounded, and perhaps as hungry as myself, so i went to him and told him as well as i was able to stop till our supper was cooked, and then i would bring him some; but when it was ready and i had cut off some bread, fowl, and ham, and taken it to the place where i had seen him, he had gone. for one reason i was not sorry, for he left his straw, which made a very good bed for us three sergeants, the ground itself being unpleasantly wet. i think perhaps this frenchman must have been a skulker, or he would not have ventured to escape. we sat down ourselves, however, and made a very good meal off our ham and poultry, and i can safely say we enjoyed our mess as much as men ever did, for i, for one, had had nothing to eat since early in the morning up to that time. after that, as the general did not want us for anything, we retired to rest on our straw, but i was too tired to go to sleep for a long time, and lay contemplating the scenes of the day. i was merely scratched on the face myself during the whole day, besides being a little shaken by the bursting of the shell i mentioned; but this scratch had been terribly aggravated by a private who had been standing next to me having overprimed his musket, with the consequence that when he fired, my face being so close, the powder flew up and caught my wound, which though only originally a slight one soon made me dance for a time without a fiddle. of the general loss on that blood-stained day i am unable to give an exact account, but it must have been enormous on both sides, for three hundred of my regiment alone were missing; and this was not so great a loss as that of some regiments, for the one on our right lost six hundred, chiefly from the continual fire of shot and shell that the french cannon had kept up between the charges. but now there was very little delay; and early next morning we were again put in motion, to prevent our enemy, if possible, from getting any breathing time. the prussians were at least twelve hours in advance of us, so that we really had not much to fear; but still some doubt was entertained as to whether the enemy would make another stand in their own territory, and in all probability such would have been the case if blucher had not been pushing so close on their heels. i very much doubt, too, if, had not the prussians come up when they did, both armies would not have remained on the field of waterloo, and perhaps have joined battle again in the morning, for the french had been expecting fresh reinforcements after their defeat; but these not arriving and we being increased in numbers, no resource was left them but to retreat. chapter xxiii. advance to paris -- lawrence on the general fickleness of humanity -- flight and surrender of napoleon -- enthusiastic reception of louis xviii. by the parisians rather snubbed by lord wellington -- lawrence assists in escorting louis to his throne -- comfortable quarters in paris -- various historical events of more or less importance -- review and sham fight -- sequel to the story of the sickly recruit -- an incorrigible subject -- flogged four times, and then drummed out of the regiment -- another very simple tale of true love, but one in which lawrence is this time more immediately concerned -- married, though not exactly settled -- departure from paris. our march now lay in the direction of paris, and being made all in the daytime, caused us very little fatigue, as we halted often, besides always encamping or billeting at night. we never fell in with the enemy ourselves, though some few collisions took place between the prussians and french after this, and likewise some towns were taken by our army; but beyond that our march was generally quiet, and we continued on to within a few miles of, and in sight of paris, where we remained for a short time, coming up here with our allies the prussians. they had already opened fire on that city of despotism, which was returned faintly by the enemy; but once the balance is turned, and once a man, however great, is defeated, all seem to forsake him, and he immediately becomes an usurper, as was shown to be true in this napoleon's case. there is not a doubt that the populace would have held to him if he had been a conqueror, but as it was, the whole city now changed its sentiments from napoleon to louis xviii., who had advanced with us with about fifty of his own guards. on our approach to the city the inhabitants soon sent a flag of truce for terms, and the firing having ceased on both sides, these were agreed upon, and the city gates were opened. napoleon buonaparte had previously flown to the coast to get a ship to america, but not finding one at hand, and fearing that if he stayed on land he might on account of his unpopularity be taken prisoner by his own bloodthirsty people, he went on board and gave himself up to the captain of one of our ships of the line, a seventy-four called the _bellerophon_. i remember that owing to that event she was very commonly known amongst us as the "billy ruff'un," and we used to aggravate the people not a little on our march into the city, by singing, "god save buonaparte, who has fled and given himself up to the billy ruff'uns," in opposition to their cry of "god save the king;" thousands of them having come out with white cockades in their hats to welcome the king. they even wanted to take the horses out of his carriage and draw him into the city, but lord wellington would not allow this, knowing well their changeable disposition, and fearing they might make their king a head shorter by the morning. the king therefore slept that night at st. denis, a few miles from paris, and on the following morning about three thousand men with cannon and cavalry were ordered to convey him into the city, amongst whom was myself. we started at about eleven or twelve o'clock, still not knowing how we should be welcomed, which was the reason for this large force being thought necessary; but as we met with no opposition at the entrance, the bands of each regiment soon struck up, and on proceeding through the streets we found flags from endless windows, and the cry, "god save the king!" resounding everywhere. our destination was of course the palace, where the king was again placed on his throne, with a strong guard to protect his person. after this we saw no more of napoleon's army, nor did we want to much, for most of us had had quite enough of it at waterloo, and now we found ourselves comfortably quartered at the different barracks throughout the city, where we remained for three months or so scarcely wanting for anything but money. during this time it became my duty to be one of the king's guard two or three times at the palace, which was a splendid place, with fine grounds and a beautiful river running at the back. nothing of particular note occurred whilst we were staying here, and on leaving it at the end of the time we encamped on marshal ney's own property in front of his residence or palace. at that time there could not have been much less than two hundred thousand troops encamped in various parts of and around paris, and those all of foreign nations: truly a downfall for that noble but despotic city. in the november of the same year marshal ney was brought to justice as a traitor. he was tried by his own country's law, lord wellington having nothing to do with the matter, and being found guilty, was shot. i believe that he was generally liked by the army he commanded through nearly the whole of the peninsular campaign. the bourbons, on their part, were evidently not liked by the french, for the next heir to louis xviii. was assassinated in the streets. his duchess however, very shortly afterwards had a son, and so there was soon another of the family in the way. still these ill-disposed french people could not rest, and the next thing was that two men were caught in the act of undermining the palace, with a view to blow the duchess and her child up. they were tried and sentenced to be guillotined, but the sentence was never carried into effect, as the duchess, in spite of her husband having been killed by the same party, begged their lives of the king, and they were transported for life instead. during our stay in the environs of paris the whole army was reviewed by two english dukes; one of them was the duke of york, but the other's name i am not able to give, as i never heard. a sham fight was likewise held, in which i should say more powder was thrown away than at waterloo itself; and i am positive i was quite as tired after it as at waterloo, for it lasted all day, and a great deal more marching took place than did there, for we were on the move the whole time, while at waterloo we did not advance or retreat more than a hundred yards during the entire action. the inhabitants kept up a continual market at the rear of our camp, which was always guarded by sentries to prevent plunder, and so we could always easily obtain supplies of every description. while we were lying there several of the wounded who had recovered rejoined the army from brussels, and with some of these bartram made his appearance, the man whom i mentioned as having smelt powder at the beginning of the th of june, and having so cowardly fallen out of his rank. as soon as i saw him i put him in the rear-guard as a prisoner, and reported him, as it was my duty to do, to the captain of my company. next day a court-martial was ordered, i being the chief but not the only evidence against him, and being sentenced to three hundred lashes as a punishment for absenting himself from the field of action, he was tied up and received every lash. this may seem to some a hard case, three hundred lashes for absenting himself, but it must be remembered that had there been many like this man, for i cannot call him a soldier, that day would most decidedly have ended in favour of the french. when taken down he was sent to hospital for three weeks and then came back to us, but even then he was not quite free, for i had orders from the captain to examine his kit to see if everything was complete, and i found his knapsack completely empty. i then searched his pouch and found all his ammunition gone. i was not much surprised at this, knowing that he did not like the smell of powder; but i reported these circumstances to the captain, who ordered him back to the rear-guard as a prisoner again; and the next day another court-martial was held on him for making away with his kit, and he was sentenced to three hundred more lashes, of which strange to say he received every one without crying out. he seemed to be a man without any feeling, for it may be pretty well taken for granted that the drummers did not fail in their duty towards such a man as this, for there is no one they feel more strongly against than a coward. he was then sent for three weeks more to the hospital, and at the end of the time again joined; but the poor fellow must after that have been very miserable, for all his comrades shunned his society and would scarcely speak to him at all; and not only that, but having had a new kit and sixty rounds of ball-cartridge supplied to him, he had sixpence a day stopped out of his money till they were paid for, his pay being only thirteenpence a day, so that after another sixpence had been stopped for his food he had only one penny per day to take. i need hardly say that he was consequently always without money, and at last we missed him for two or three days, after which he returned, having again lost his kit. we found he had been into paris and sold it for those two or three days' maintenance, so he was again sent to the rear-guard and reported, again court-martialled and sentenced to three hundred lashes, and again received the whole to the very letter and sent to hospital for the same time. when he again rejoined he went on better for a while, but on our regiment afterwards getting to scotland he transgressed and was flogged for a fourth time, and when he came out of hospital the colonel ordered his coat to be turned, and a large sheet of paper to be pinned on it with the words, "this is a coward, a very bad soldier, and one who has been whipped four times;" and he was then drummed out of the barracks, and i never saw anything of him again, which i was not sorry for, as he gave me more trouble than all the rest of my men put together. the reason of our stay in and about paris so long was to see louis xviii. thoroughly fixed again and in power on his throne. the armies being now moved into winter quarters chiefly in cantonments, our brigade took its route to st. germains, which lies ten or twelve miles to the north-west of paris on the river seine, where we remained quartered a few months. it was owing to this long stay, and my happening to see a young woman who gained my affections, that it fell out that i first then thought of marriage. for outside the barrack-gate where we were quartered was a movable stall, which was spread out in the day with fruit, spirits, tobacco, snuff, &c., and was cleared away at night. this was kept by the woman whom i afterwards made my wife. her father was a gardener in business for himself, and this was the way in which he disposed of most of his goods. my first introduction was through my going to purchase a few articles that i wanted from her, and it very shortly became a general thing for me to dispose of the chief of such time as i had to spare at the stall; and thus the attachment was formed of which i am happy to say i never afterwards repented. i happened to be at the stall one day when i saw a soldier of the twenty-seventh regiment, which was stationed at the barracks as well as ours, deliberately take half a pound of tobacco which was already tied up off the stall and attempt to get off with it. but that didn't suit me, so i pursued and overtook him, and delivered him over to his own regiment to dispose of as they thought best after i had told them the circumstances. i told them too that i didn't wish to prosecute him myself, so i never heard anything more of him. i took the tobacco, however, back to my intended, who of course was pleased, as what young woman would not have been under the circumstances we were then in? and so our courtship went on; but for a very little while, for once we were enamoured of one another we were not long in making things all square for our union. i made my intentions known to my captain, who i knew would not object, and he signed my paper to take to the colonel, whose permission i had next to get. the colonel could not understand at first my marrying a frenchwoman, but he nevertheless consented, saying that she would do to teach the soldiers french, but that he advised me to wait till i got to england. but having got the grant, it was a question of now or never for me; so i made arrangements with the army chaplain, who fixed the time and we were duly united. it cost us nothing, for neither the parson nor clerk looked for any fee, neither were we troubled with any wedding-cake, but simply took ourselves off for a day's merrymaking. my wife's maiden name had been marie louise claire, but owing to buonaparte's first wife having been marie louise too, she had been compelled to drop that name and assume that of clotilde; a proclamation having been made that no one should be called marie louise but the empress, and so by that vain freak of buonaparte's all in france who were called marie louise had to change their names. of course before marrying her i had explained to my wife the course of life she would have to put up with, and that at any moment we might have to proceed from her native place, and even might be recalled to england, but she did not mind the prospect of all this. and at length the time arrived that we had to go, for orders were given, and that on very short notice, that we were to prepare to resume our march. a farewell had then to be taken of her parents, whom we expected never to behold again, and this cast a slight shadow for a time over my wife's countenance, but it quickly passed away within the next few succeeding days. chapter xxiv. the brigade quartered near cambray -- outrage on a native farmer -- the perpetrators convicted and hanged -- lawrence sent to valenciennes to learn the sword exercise -- march to calais and embarkation for scotland -- tedious voyage -- kind reception by the inhabitants of bridlington -- lawrence finds a silk dress rather a superfluity on a campaign -- shields -- excursion over the glass-works -- final landing at leith and march to glasgow. from st. germain we proceeded to cambray. we were billeted at a village near cambray called aresne, where we had very good quarters and found the people particularly kind, and after remaining there a short time we were moved to a neighbouring village, where we got equally good quarters. but here another of those unpleasant things happened which often have to occur that proper discipline and justice may be kept up. a part of the twenty-seventh regiment was billeted at a village near where we were situated, most of whom were i believe irish; and two of the more ruffianly, knowing that a farmer who lived close by had gone to market, and would probably return laden with the value of the goods he had sold, laid wait for him with the intention of robbing him; and having met him, they fell upon him and left him in a corn-field evidently for dead, first stripping him of everything valuable about his person. there the man lay till his friends becoming uneasy at his long absence a search was made and he was tracked to his mournful bed. he was not dead when found, and so was conveyed to his house and properly attended to by a doctor, and at the end of a week he was able to give an account of the ill-treatment he said he had received at the hands of two soldiers who were quartered in the village occupied by the twenty-seventh regiment. one of the officers was consequently informed of the occurrence, and immediately went to the farmer to learn the rights of the story. the man could not tell the amount of money that had been taken from him, but he said he could recognize the men again. as soon, therefore, as he was able to walk, the officer took him down the ranks of his regiment, and certainly he proved to be correct about recognizing them, for he immediately picked out two men who were found to have been out at the time described. they were conveyed as prisoners to the guard-room, and reported to the general, who immediately ordered a court-martial, and, accepting the evidence of their sergeant, who pronounced them to be as often tipsy as not, found them guilty, and they were sentenced to be hanged. the sentence was, however, first sent to be approved of by lord wellington, who sanctioned it and returned it; and the execution was accordingly ordered to be carried out. the men were allowed a week to prepare themselves for their awful doom, and at the end of that time the brigade was called together to take warning from their unhappy fate. it was on a monday morning that we formed square round the gallows which had been erected for the occasion; and all being ready, the men were brought under the gallows in a spring-wagon guarded by a sergeant and twelve men of their own regiment, one of which latter having adjusted the ropes, the chaplain read the service. then the question usual in these cases was put, but all they had to say was that they were both guilty and hoped this would be a warning to their comrades. the chaplain then left them, and on the wagon being moved along they were left dancing on nothing. the poor fellows were not long in expiring, but they were left one hour before they were cut down, during which time we had to retain our post, and at the end of it each regiment retired solemnly to its own quarters, leaving a company of the men's own regiment to bury them. during the brigade's stay near cambray an order was received that a captain and five sergeants from each regiment should be sent to valenciennes to learn the sword exercise; so captain barnard of my own company was chosen, and amongst the five of our sergeants myself. we started accordingly to valenciennes, which was about twenty-five or thirty miles from cambray, and remained there six weeks till we got sick enough of the sword exercise, having six hours a day of it for the whole six weeks except on sundays. at the end of that time we again joined our regiment, which had been ordered to return immediately to scotland. the day after our arrival the regiment was put on the march for calais. we were quartered in cantonments every night, and at one of our sleeping-places i met a jew, and having a silver watch to dispose of, i asked him what he would give me for it. he replied fifteen francs and a silk dress, which i took, and when we arrived at calais we changed the french money into english; but since i had left my own country the coinage had been altered, which bothered me a little at first sight, and certainly did not bring me any gain. we lay in calais two nights, where i and my wife got very comfortable quarters. i may as well say here that she had borne the marches quite as well as i did, if not in some cases better. three colliers had been contracted with to convey our regiment to scotland, and from the appearance of the vessels themselves, i very much doubted, if bad weather should set in, that we should ever reach leith, the port we set sail for, they being the rickettiest old watertubs i ever saw. leith was supposed to be three days' sail from calais with a fair wind, but we had a foul one nearly the whole time, and we were seven weeks on the voyage, having to put in at bridlington in yorkshire to wait for this fair wind. my wife, who had never before seen salt water, was at first ill and found the whole voyage terribly long and tedious; but to me, who had long since learnt not to be troubled with trifles, it mattered not weather or no, and i was by this time thoroughly used too to long voyages by water after my american trips. our stay at bridlington lasted three weeks. the first night we were there, the mayor invited the officers to dine with him, and sent a quart of beer on board for each man, and half that quantity for each woman. during our stay here too, we were allowed to go on shore in the day but obliged to be on board by nine o'clock at night. the inhabitants were particularly kind to us, amongst other things offering our women their houses to wash their clothes in, which offer many accepted. and here i at last got a chance to get rid of my silk dress, which was a thing that my wife hardly required while travelling about, and i had been trying to dispose of it ever since i obtained it. i used to visit a public-house in the neighbourhood where i noticed the daughter of the place, a fine-looking girl, used to sport her silk dress, so i sold her mine for fifty shillings and a gallon of beer, which latter i gave to her customers. at last the favouring breeze sprang up, and we again attempted to proceed on our voyage. we were a whole day getting opposite shields, and a pilot was signalled for, but before he arrived we were again obliged to fall back to bridlington, which took us but nine hours to do, during the whole of which time the vessel rolled fearfully, and the women especially began to despair. our stay lasted for ten days this time, and then we proceeded again to shields, where we lay for a week, being likewise allowed to go on shore there. our walks on shore sometimes extended to the coal-mines, and we also went over the glass-manufactories, which last amused my wife more than anything. the workmen made her a smelling-bottle and me several pipes and a walking-stick of glass, for us to see the process. from shields we proceeded to leith, and landed, and all our baggage being examined at the customs-house, i thought what a capital thing it was that i had sold my dress. that night we remained in leith, and on the following morning were ordered to march to glasgow, which we reached on the third day. chapter xxv. lawrence receives news of his father's illness, and starts with his wife on a six weeks' furlough -- voyage to london -- they meet an agreeable fellow-cab-fare -- are cheated by lawrence's own countrymen -- at last reach his native place -- excitement among the inhabitants -- lawrence is received by his sister, who immediately asserts her privilege of making him tidy -- first meeting with his parents -- reception of his wife by his relatives -- the inconveniences of glory -- expeditions to various branches of his family -- general grief at his departure not appreciated at its full value by lawrence -- from dorsetshire to scotland by road -- mrs. lawrence distinguishes herself above her countrywomen and outwalks a british soldier -- return to glasgow -- the regiment presented with a new set of colours. the barracks at glasgow we found to be comfortable; and after lying there about three months, the winter of set in, and furloughs were granted for two months to a part of the regiment. as i had a wife with me and my home was so far away, i gave my furlough to a fellow-sergeant that he might go to ireland; but i wrote home and told them i had arrived in england, and very soon received an answer back from my mother to say my father was ill, and if i did not come then, perhaps i should never see him again. i consulted my wife as to the journey, and she readily consented to come with me, so i made up my mind to try for another furlough. i accordingly took the old lady's letter to the captain, who said, "well, sergeant, there are so many gone that i don't know whether the colonel will let you, but we will ask him;" so we went to him, and on hearing the nature of my case he readily consented to allow me six weeks, and signed my furlough. he likewise advanced me one shilling per day for the six weeks, and as i had lately received my waterloo prize-money which was twenty pounds, i started off with that, having previously bought some requisites in clothing and a watch, the sort of things that make one feel a little more respectable. my intentions were to proceed to leith to get a vessel bound for london, and then to walk the remaining distance, which is upwards of a hundred miles. the first day's march brought us twenty miles nearer leith, and we accomplished the remaining part on the following day; and the next morning i went in search of a vessel, and finding a leith trader bound for london, i took passage in her for two, the captain charging two guineas and a half including board. we were to sail next day, and true to time we started, but owing to a heavy wind we were obliged to run in and anchor at berwick. while there a revenue cutter which was cruising about came too close to us and knocked our little vessel's bowsprit off, disabling her for three days; but when all was put right we again set sail, and having a fair wind soon arrived in the london docks. it being night we remained on board till the following morning, when, after having had our breakfast, we started for piccadilly, which we found after a good deal of inquiry. a hackney cab then drove up to us and the driver wanted to know where we were going, and on our telling him and asking him the way, he said he would put us into the right road for two shillings. i offered him eighteenpence, but he would not take that, so we got him to show us the way and proceeded on walking. we had not got farther than hyde park corner, however, than we were again overtaken by the same cab, and the man stopped and said that he thought he could take us for the money now. he had one gentleman, an englishman, inside already, but evidently the sharp fellow was looking out for a double fare; so he asked this gentleman if we might get inside as we were going in the same direction. he politely and readily consented, and we were forked in by cabby, who then shot off as if the whole road was his own. i was under the necessity of talking french to my wife, as she could not understand english, which of course i made known to the gentleman, who replied that he knew a little of that language himself. then, noticing my waterloo medal on my breast, he said, "i see you have been in the battle of waterloo, sergeant?" "yes," i replied, "and in many other battles besides waterloo;" and so a conversation ensued and we soon became quite friends. he wished to know where i was bound for, and when i told him, he politely asked me to spend a week at his house on the way, saying i should not want for anything; but i told him the reason of my hurry, thanking him for his kindness, and his stage having expired at this period he got out. but he would insist on giving my wife five shillings and paying our fare: we then shook hands heartily and parted, he wishing us good-speed on our journey. after that we walked on some distance till we came to a village where we found the salisbury road-wagon put up, and being very hungry we entered a public-house and had some tea, and waited there till ten o'clock. i was enjoying myself over my tobacco, when at nightfall some ten or twelve customers came in and i spun them a pretty good yarn, making them shake with laughter; but what amused them most, though it annoyed my wife a little to see them laugh at what she could not understand, was to hear me and her talk french together. at ten o'clock the party broke up and i called for my bill, which was fourpence for a glass of gin for myself and eightpence for the boiling water for our tea, which was much to my surprise, as we had found our own food, tea, and sugar. i asked the landlady if it was not a mistake, and when she said no, i told her i wished she and her charges were at the other side of the moon. however, i paid her, though i gave her to understand that if we had been in the enemy's country we should have got our boiling water for nothing. we then joined the road-wagon, which was to start for salisbury at midnight. i spoke to the wagoner, who agreed to take us for two shillings and told us we could get in at once; so, as we were very tired, we did so, and lying down, soon fell fast asleep; and when we awoke we found ourselves jogging on towards salisbury, where we arrived late the next night. i paid the man his well-earned two shillings, besides which i had treated him to sundry refreshments on the way; and we remained at salisbury for the rest of the night, starting early on the following morning for blandford. we marched seven miles before breakfast, and after it did not halt again till we got to blandford, where we stayed the night; and next morning, which was sunday, proceeded on towards my native village, which is about eight miles from blandford. we arrived there during church service in the morning, and passing through the churchyard as a near cut, went up the village, inquiring at several houses where john lawrence, my father, lived. i found it was at the same house where i was born, but strange to say i did not at all hurry myself to get there. i had found from the neighbours that he was still living and much better, so i was at ease on that point. at last, however, i strolled into a house, the owner of which i well knew before i entered on my rambling life, but who was now turned into an old woman, and i asked her the same question that i had already put to others in the village, saying that i had seen my parents' son, and had got a message for them. but woman's piercing eyes are not so easily deceived, and she recognized me as a lawrence, though she did not know whether it was william or john. i certified as to that much, and she immediately ran off to bring my sister. as may be well imagined in a country place like that, we two strangers, one of us dressed as a soldier, and our entering so many houses, had already set the place all of a stir to know who we were, and now directly it was found out, it was telegraphed all through the village. before i could get to my own door my sister was upon me, and did try to kiss me, certainly, but i had not shaved since i left scotland, and now i had a long thick beard and moustache, so that the attempt was almost a fruitless task. she cried out, "come in; why don't you shave?" so i asked her if there was any barber handy. "no," she replied, "but i'll shave you, for i always do father," so in i went. my father and mother were still out at church. my wife meanwhile could hardly make out these scenes that were transpiring, not seeming to dare to interrupt the proceedings with one french word to me; and my sister not having yet thought to ask me who this mysterious woman was, she followed me indoors without any questioning and like myself sat down. i pulled off my knapsack, and the shaving-tackle was brought out; but it put me so much in mind of the ceremony with the iron hoop when we crossed the line that i became impatient, and opening my knapsack took out my own razor and finished myself. by this time church was over, and putting my head out of the door i beheld my brother, who could scarcely speak to me owing to his feelings. i found both my father and mother had stopped to take the sacrament, but when it was over i suddenly saw the old lady who had got scent of the matter coming along like a spread-eagle with the same old black bonnet and red cloak on that she had when i left her. i went to meet her, but she was so overcome with emotion that i had to lean her up against the house to prevent her falling, and then i proceeded on to the old man, who was quite infirm and hobbling along behind on two sticks, and i need hardly say that he behaved worse than any of them at my strange and sudden appearance. i led him in and got him with difficulty to a chair. none of us then spoke for a long time, but at last the old man gave utterance to, "my child, i did not expect to see you again." it was indeed sixteen long years since i had left them at dorchester. my wife, though of course she could not understand a word, was much affected by this scene. i now began to throw a word or two to her occasionally in her own language, which surprised them a good deal, and no less were they astonished when i told them she was my wife. no doubt she felt queer with all strangers round her and in a foreign land, which to her was like a new world, but by the evening we were all reconciled to each other; and by that time too we had dozens of friends and neighbours in to see us. my wife particularly wished to know what all these people wanted, as so many could not be all relations, so i told her that they had chiefly come to see her, as they had never seen a frenchwoman before; but of course she would not believe this piece of flattery. i then thought of wetting the subject a little, but there was no public-house in the village, the nearest being at piddletown about three miles off. however, i got one of my brothers to go even that distance, and he having brought back four gallons, we made ourselves comfortable till ten o'clock, when we retired to rest in the same room that i had slept in eighteen years before. after a good night's rest we rose early and found all recovering themselves, except perhaps the old lady, who had not yet done piping. after breakfast i took a walk round the village and fell in with the clergyman of the place, who would insist on taking me to his house and giving me some ale; and when he had once got me there, he kept me for at least an hour, the chief topics we talked about being the war and the religion of the countries i had been in. i was glad enough to get away from there, but i had to spend the whole of that day in visiting the people of the village; and the next day i had to occupy still worse, for my mother brought out every letter sent by me during my absence from the first to the last, and made me listen to them being read, which by the time night came on had almost sent me crazy. i advised her to burn the lot, but that only made her put them back in their place again, saying, "never, william, so long as i live." we passed the next two days visiting such of my brothers and sisters as lived more near, and then as i could not rest in one place for long, on the third morning i set out with my wife for corfe mullen, about twelve miles off, to see another brother who was a farm-labourer there. after some few inquiries for george lawrence i found out his house, and was answered at the door by his wife, who of course had no knowledge who i was, though i had known her before her marriage. she did not ask me in, but pointed out a barn, where she said i would find george. i went over and he was there threshing, so i said, "well, friend, do you thresh by the day or the quarter?" he answered, "by the quarter, but i cannot do much of it." he stared at me, for i had on my regimentals, but i did not yet make myself known. then i asked him if there was a public-house handy. he said there was one just below, so i told him that if he would go there with me i would treat him, as his must be hard work, and he thanked me and led the way. i ordered some beer and tobacco with pipes, and after that took off my shako which i could not bear any longer, and he immediately recognized me as his brother william. we then went to his home to be introduced to his wife, and we stayed there two days, after which we returned to bryant's piddle and remained with the old people for the rest of the eighteen days i had allotted for our stay out of the six weeks; the going and returning taking away above half our furlough. the morning we left was quite as bad as the morning of my appearance, my wife, who had got used to the old people, being quite as loud as any of them; till at last being sick of the whole affair i buckled on my knapsack, and bidding them good-bye, as quickly as possible took myself off, leaving my wife to follow with my brother to dorchester, he having volunteered to go with us as far as that. i had planned out a different way for my journey back, intending to find a ship at bristol to take us to scotland and with this view i proceeded westwards, parting from my brother at dorchester. we found a public-house by the roadside a little way from dorchester, and after stopping there for the night, continued through sherborne towards bristol. on the way we fell in with one of the light company of my regiment, called warren, who said he was going to london to get a ship back to scotland; but when i told him of my way of getting there, he immediately said he would go with us; only he had got no money, and hoped i would lend him some. i declined doing this as i had very little myself, but i told him that if he liked to come and live as we did, i would pay for his food and lodging till we got to the regiment, to which he consented and we marched on together. but when we got to bristol we found there was no ship going to scotland, so my wife who was an excellent walker proposed going all the way by road; and accordingly on the following day we started, doing generally two stages a day, through gloucester, worcester, manchester, and carlisle, and so to glasgow, a long and tedious march. our companion, who was anything but a pleasant one, left us at manchester. we returned to the barracks just one day before my time expired, with only twopence-halfpenny in my pocket and having had to sell my watch for subsistence on the way. after reporting myself, however, i drew my remaining tenpence per day for the six weeks, a penny being deducted from my pay per day for small-beer, which was not allowed while i was away. soon after our arrival at the barracks my wife became very ill owing to having been frost-bitten during the march, and remained so for upwards of a week. we had not been here very long before general sir george osborne, the head colonel of our regiment, came expressly to review us; he being a very old man, and not having seen his regiment for some years. after going through our facings, we were arranged in a square, into which the old gentleman entered and presented us with a new stand of colours; then he addressed us as he said for the last time, and hoped his colours would endure as well as our old ones had and be crowned with an equal amount of victory. on them were engraved in gilt letters, "the peninsula" and "waterloo." he then took a farewell leave of his regiment, as he doubted if he would ever see it again, and we returned triumphant with our new colours to the barracks. but i may as well add here that every man received sixpence from the old colonel to drink his health. chapter xxvi. reduction of the army -- lawrence sent up to london, where he is valued for his pension -- returns to his home -- thence to studland, and obtains work -- called out on service again, and sent to ireland to suppress smuggling -- ingenious devices in that line by the inhabitants of dingle -- finally discharged at plymouth -- settles down at studland again, and commends his narrative to the public. very shortly after this the army was reduced, and our regiment was made six hundred instead of a thousand strong. first all the old and disabled were discharged, and then lots were cast for the remainder, and the lot falling on me amongst the sergeants, at the end of about a month i and nine others were ordered to chatham. we marched to leith, where we embarked on the leith packet, and after some very rough weather landed at gravesend and proceeded to chatham, remaining there six weeks while we were waiting to pass the board. then we re-embarked on a small craft at gravesend and went up the river to the tower of london, whence we marched to chelsea hospital. the next morning, after we had been examined by the doctor, we were called up before the board one at a time. i was asked my age and time of service, and one of the gentlemen called out "seven!" but the doctor immediately said "nine!" as i had a wound in my knee; they evidently meaning that i should have ninepence a day as my pension, as that was what was settled on me for life. i then went to the office, where i received my expenses to dorchester, to the amount of one and tenpence for myself, and three-halfpence for my wife for every ten miles; and with that we started off for bryant's piddle again, and walked every step of the way, not, however, meeting any such kind gentleman this time as we had on our last route to the same place. when we arrived we found them all as well as when we had left; but i did not want to stay there long, so on the following morning i took leave of them and proceeded with my wife to studland, the place where i had been apprenticed, as i claimed that rightly as my parish. i put up at the public-house till i could procure a house and some furniture, which last took me about a week, and then my next undertaking was to try for work, for it may well be imagined that my wife and i could hardly live on my pension of ninepence a day. i soon obtained employment on a farm close by, for which i received ten shillings a week. i was only in the capacity of a labourer, and it certainly seemed to come very hard at first, but i soon got used to it, and i worked for this master for nine months. he had been formerly a captain in the navy, and i found him very sharp but very just. my reason for leaving him was a sudden call i received to again join the army. i started on the fifth of november, : i was ordered to plymouth, where i joined the third veteran battalion, which was about a thousand strong at the time, and from plymouth we went on to ireland, where we landed at the cove of cork and marched through cork to fermoy. we went on next day to templemore, which took us two or three days, and after staying there about a month, three companies of the regiment, myself being one of the number, were ordered to tralee in county kerry. when we arrived at tralee a detachment of a lieutenant, myself, a corporal, and seventeen men were ordered next day to go to dingle, which is situated on a large tongue of land, and here we were again stationed in barracks for about a year, our principal duty being to guard the coast against the smuggling that was at that time being carried on to a very great extent. we were chiefly under the command of the coastguard captain, whose name was collis. it was astonishing to see the many manoeuvres which the inhabitants practised in this art of smuggling. i remember once being called out by the captain to search a house that he had received information about as containing a quantity of smuggled tobacco. i went with twelve men and the captain to the house, and at the door we were met by three ruffianly-looking irishmen, whose conversation we could not understand at all: however, we passed on and searched the house, at one end of which were standing three cows, which did not seem to me at the time to be very homely guests. at first we could find nothing, so we were proceeding to search the outside, when i saw the three men laughing. not feeling at all satisfied i turned the cows out and looked under the litter, where i discovered a trap-door, under which when i had opened it i found a flight of steps leading into a cellar, which contained upwards of twenty bales of tobacco. this made the men's countenances change instantaneously. we brought this up, but still not being content we searched farther into the garden, and finding that ground had lately been moved, we disturbed it again and turned up about twelve bales more that were concealed there. these we conveyed in press-carts to the captain's house, and received a good supper for our services and extra pay, mine amounting to half a crown and the privates' less in proportion. on another occasion, when we were again out on the search, we passed what we thought was a funeral, to which we presented arms, but which we afterwards found was nothing but smuggled tobacco put into a box of the shape of a coffin with a pall over, and in this way conveyed into security. such and similar transactions were frequent during our stay here, the inhabitants being of the very wildest sort. once even a cotton-ship drove ashore, and we had the greatest difficulty in keeping them from plundering it. at last, however, we were ordered back to plymouth, so had to march to waterford harbour, whither after joining our other companions at tralee we proceeded, and embarking on board a transport, arrived at plymouth about june in the year . thus finally ended my military career, which had lasted seventeen years and seven months, the greater part of the time having been spent on active service. i was discharged on the same pension as before of ninepence a day, that having been stopped during my stay in the third veteran battalion. from plymouth i and my wife marched back to studland, where we took a house, and my master immediately took me back to work. i drifted about, however, between one or two trades, and finally took a little public-house, where i and my wife lived pretty prosperously till she died. i began to feel rather unwell, too, and thought it best to give up working and the public-house: so i wrote to the authorities at chelsea, and obtained through the influence of a kind gentleman an addition of threepence a day to my pension, making a shilling in all; and with that i am now living in a house that was bequeathed to me for as long as i live by my late master, as comfortably as these circumstances and the interposition of a few friends can make me. and to conclude i may add that i have striven here as well as my faculties will allow, though i know that is imperfectly, to sum up as it were in a small compass, so that they can be read over in a few hours by the residing populace, the leading scenes of my life, coupled as they have been with the various campaigns i served in; and though i am sorry that i cannot give the reader fuller details of the peninsula and waterloo, yet i think that if any even of my comrades themselves who went through the same campaigns, were to take up my work to examine it, they could not say that such information as i have been able to give has been wrong. the end. london: printed by gilbert and rivington, limited, , st. john's square. vanity fair by william makepeace thackeray before the curtain as the manager of the performance sits before the curtain on the boards and looks into the fair, a feeling of profound melancholy comes over him in his survey of the bustling place. there is a great quantity of eating and drinking, making love and jilting, laughing and the contrary, smoking, cheating, fighting, dancing and fiddling; there are bullies pushing about, bucks ogling the women, knaves picking pockets, policemen on the look-out, quacks (other quacks, plague take them!) bawling in front of their booths, and yokels looking up at the tinselled dancers and poor old rouged tumblers, while the light-fingered folk are operating upon their pockets behind. yes, this is vanity fair; not a moral place certainly; nor a merry one, though very noisy. look at the faces of the actors and buffoons when they come off from their business; and tom fool washing the paint off his cheeks before he sits down to dinner with his wife and the little jack puddings behind the canvas. the curtain will be up presently, and he will be turning over head and heels, and crying, "how are you?" a man with a reflective turn of mind, walking through an exhibition of this sort, will not be oppressed, i take it, by his own or other people's hilarity. an episode of humour or kindness touches and amuses him here and there--a pretty child looking at a gingerbread stall; a pretty girl blushing whilst her lover talks to her and chooses her fairing; poor tom fool, yonder behind the waggon, mumbling his bone with the honest family which lives by his tumbling; but the general impression is one more melancholy than mirthful. when you come home you sit down in a sober, contemplative, not uncharitable frame of mind, and apply yourself to your books or your business. i have no other moral than this to tag to the present story of "vanity fair." some people consider fairs immoral altogether, and eschew such, with their servants and families: very likely they are right. but persons who think otherwise, and are of a lazy, or a benevolent, or a sarcastic mood, may perhaps like to step in for half an hour, and look at the performances. there are scenes of all sorts; some dreadful combats, some grand and lofty horse-riding, some scenes of high life, and some of very middling indeed; some love-making for the sentimental, and some light comic business; the whole accompanied by appropriate scenery and brilliantly illuminated with the author's own candles. what more has the manager of the performance to say?--to acknowledge the kindness with which it has been received in all the principal towns of england through which the show has passed, and where it has been most favourably noticed by the respected conductors of the public press, and by the nobility and gentry. he is proud to think that his puppets have given satisfaction to the very best company in this empire. the famous little becky puppet has been pronounced to be uncommonly flexible in the joints, and lively on the wire; the amelia doll, though it has had a smaller circle of admirers, has yet been carved and dressed with the greatest care by the artist; the dobbin figure, though apparently clumsy, yet dances in a very amusing and natural manner; the little boys' dance has been liked by some; and please to remark the richly dressed figure of the wicked nobleman, on which no expense has been spared, and which old nick will fetch away at the end of this singular performance. and with this, and a profound bow to his patrons, the manager retires, and the curtain rises. london, june , contents i chiswick mall ii in which miss sharp and miss sedley prepare to open the campaign iii rebecca is in presence of the enemy iv the green silk purse v dobbin of ours vi vauxhall vii crawley of queen's crawley viii private and confidential ix family portraits x miss sharp begins to make friends xi arcadian simplicity xii quite a sentimental chapter xiii sentimental and otherwise xiv miss crawley at home xv in which rebecca's husband appears for a short time xvi the letter on the pincushion xvii how captain dobbin bought a piano xviii who played on the piano captain dobbin bought xix miss crawley at nurse xx in which captain dobbin acts as the messenger of hymen xxi a quarrel about an heiress xxii a marriage and part of a honeymoon xxiii captain dobbin proceeds on his canvass xxiv in which mr. osborne takes down the family bible xxv in which all the principal personages think fit to leave brighton xxvi between london and chatham xxvii in which amelia joins her regiment xxviii in which amelia invades the low countries xxix brussels xxx "the girl i left behind me" xxxi in which jos sedley takes care of his sister xxxii in which jos takes flight, and the war is brought to a close xxxiii in which miss crawley's relations are very anxious about her xxxiv james crawley's pipe is put out xxxv widow and mother xxxvi how to live well on nothing a year xxxvii the subject continued xxxviii a family in a very small way xxxix a cynical chapter xl in which becky is recognized by the family xli in which becky revisits the halls of her ancestors xlii which treats of the osborne family xliii in which the reader has to double the cape xliv a round-about chapter between london and hampshire xlv between hampshire and london xlvi struggles and trials xlvii gaunt house xlviii in which the reader is introduced to the very best of company xlix in which we enjoy three courses and a dessert l contains a vulgar incident li in which a charade is acted which may or may not puzzle the reader lii in which lord steyne shows himself in a most amiable light liii a rescue and a catastrophe liv sunday after the battle lv in which the same subject is pursued lvi georgy is made a gentleman lvii eothen lviii our friend the major lix the old piano lx returns to the genteel world lxi in which two lights are put out lxii am rhein lxiii in which we meet an old acquaintance lxiv a vagabond chapter lxv full of business and pleasure lxvi amantium irae lxvii which contains births, marriages, and deaths chapter i chiswick mall while the present century was in its teens, and on one sunshiny morning in june, there drove up to the great iron gate of miss pinkerton's academy for young ladies, on chiswick mall, a large family coach, with two fat horses in blazing harness, driven by a fat coachman in a three-cornered hat and wig, at the rate of four miles an hour. a black servant, who reposed on the box beside the fat coachman, uncurled his bandy legs as soon as the equipage drew up opposite miss pinkerton's shining brass plate, and as he pulled the bell at least a score of young heads were seen peering out of the narrow windows of the stately old brick house. nay, the acute observer might have recognized the little red nose of good-natured miss jemima pinkerton herself, rising over some geranium pots in the window of that lady's own drawing-room. "it is mrs. sedley's coach, sister," said miss jemima. "sambo, the black servant, has just rung the bell; and the coachman has a new red waistcoat." "have you completed all the necessary preparations incident to miss sedley's departure, miss jemima?" asked miss pinkerton herself, that majestic lady; the semiramis of hammersmith, the friend of doctor johnson, the correspondent of mrs. chapone herself. "the girls were up at four this morning, packing her trunks, sister," replied miss jemima; "we have made her a bow-pot." "say a bouquet, sister jemima, 'tis more genteel." "well, a booky as big almost as a haystack; i have put up two bottles of the gillyflower water for mrs. sedley, and the receipt for making it, in amelia's box." "and i trust, miss jemima, you have made a copy of miss sedley's account. this is it, is it? very good--ninety-three pounds, four shillings. be kind enough to address it to john sedley, esquire, and to seal this billet which i have written to his lady." in miss jemima's eyes an autograph letter of her sister, miss pinkerton, was an object of as deep veneration as would have been a letter from a sovereign. only when her pupils quitted the establishment, or when they were about to be married, and once, when poor miss birch died of the scarlet fever, was miss pinkerton known to write personally to the parents of her pupils; and it was jemima's opinion that if anything could console mrs. birch for her daughter's loss, it would be that pious and eloquent composition in which miss pinkerton announced the event. in the present instance miss pinkerton's "billet" was to the following effect:-- the mall, chiswick, june , madam,--after her six years' residence at the mall, i have the honour and happiness of presenting miss amelia sedley to her parents, as a young lady not unworthy to occupy a fitting position in their polished and refined circle. those virtues which characterize the young english gentlewoman, those accomplishments which become her birth and station, will not be found wanting in the amiable miss sedley, whose industry and obedience have endeared her to her instructors, and whose delightful sweetness of temper has charmed her aged and her youthful companions. in music, in dancing, in orthography, in every variety of embroidery and needlework, she will be found to have realized her friends' fondest wishes. in geography there is still much to be desired; and a careful and undeviating use of the backboard, for four hours daily during the next three years, is recommended as necessary to the acquirement of that dignified deportment and carriage, so requisite for every young lady of fashion. in the principles of religion and morality, miss sedley will be found worthy of an establishment which has been honoured by the presence of the great lexicographer, and the patronage of the admirable mrs. chapone. in leaving the mall, miss amelia carries with her the hearts of her companions, and the affectionate regards of her mistress, who has the honour to subscribe herself, madam, your most obliged humble servant, barbara pinkerton p.s.--miss sharp accompanies miss sedley. it is particularly requested that miss sharp's stay in russell square may not exceed ten days. the family of distinction with whom she is engaged, desire to avail themselves of her services as soon as possible. this letter completed, miss pinkerton proceeded to write her own name, and miss sedley's, in the fly-leaf of a johnson's dictionary--the interesting work which she invariably presented to her scholars, on their departure from the mall. on the cover was inserted a copy of "lines addressed to a young lady on quitting miss pinkerton's school, at the mall; by the late revered doctor samuel johnson." in fact, the lexicographer's name was always on the lips of this majestic woman, and a visit he had paid to her was the cause of her reputation and her fortune. being commanded by her elder sister to get "the dictionary" from the cupboard, miss jemima had extracted two copies of the book from the receptacle in question. when miss pinkerton had finished the inscription in the first, jemima, with rather a dubious and timid air, handed her the second. "for whom is this, miss jemima?" said miss pinkerton, with awful coldness. "for becky sharp," answered jemima, trembling very much, and blushing over her withered face and neck, as she turned her back on her sister. "for becky sharp: she's going too." "miss jemima!" exclaimed miss pinkerton, in the largest capitals. "are you in your senses? replace the dixonary in the closet, and never venture to take such a liberty in future." "well, sister, it's only two-and-ninepence, and poor becky will be miserable if she don't get one." "send miss sedley instantly to me," said miss pinkerton. and so venturing not to say another word, poor jemima trotted off, exceedingly flurried and nervous. miss sedley's papa was a merchant in london, and a man of some wealth; whereas miss sharp was an articled pupil, for whom miss pinkerton had done, as she thought, quite enough, without conferring upon her at parting the high honour of the dixonary. although schoolmistresses' letters are to be trusted no more nor less than churchyard epitaphs; yet, as it sometimes happens that a person departs this life who is really deserving of all the praises the stone cutter carves over his bones; who is a good christian, a good parent, child, wife, or husband; who actually does leave a disconsolate family to mourn his loss; so in academies of the male and female sex it occurs every now and then that the pupil is fully worthy of the praises bestowed by the disinterested instructor. now, miss amelia sedley was a young lady of this singular species; and deserved not only all that miss pinkerton said in her praise, but had many charming qualities which that pompous old minerva of a woman could not see, from the differences of rank and age between her pupil and herself. for she could not only sing like a lark, or a mrs. billington, and dance like hillisberg or parisot; and embroider beautifully; and spell as well as a dixonary itself; but she had such a kindly, smiling, tender, gentle, generous heart of her own, as won the love of everybody who came near her, from minerva herself down to the poor girl in the scullery, and the one-eyed tart-woman's daughter, who was permitted to vend her wares once a week to the young ladies in the mall. she had twelve intimate and bosom friends out of the twenty-four young ladies. even envious miss briggs never spoke ill of her; high and mighty miss saltire (lord dexter's granddaughter) allowed that her figure was genteel; and as for miss swartz, the rich woolly-haired mulatto from st. kitt's, on the day amelia went away, she was in such a passion of tears that they were obliged to send for dr. floss, and half tipsify her with salvolatile. miss pinkerton's attachment was, as may be supposed from the high position and eminent virtues of that lady, calm and dignified; but miss jemima had already whimpered several times at the idea of amelia's departure; and, but for fear of her sister, would have gone off in downright hysterics, like the heiress (who paid double) of st. kitt's. such luxury of grief, however, is only allowed to parlour-boarders. honest jemima had all the bills, and the washing, and the mending, and the puddings, and the plate and crockery, and the servants to superintend. but why speak about her? it is probable that we shall not hear of her again from this moment to the end of time, and that when the great filigree iron gates are once closed on her, she and her awful sister will never issue therefrom into this little world of history. but as we are to see a great deal of amelia, there is no harm in saying, at the outset of our acquaintance, that she was a dear little creature; and a great mercy it is, both in life and in novels, which (and the latter especially) abound in villains of the most sombre sort, that we are to have for a constant companion so guileless and good-natured a person. as she is not a heroine, there is no need to describe her person; indeed i am afraid that her nose was rather short than otherwise, and her cheeks a great deal too round and red for a heroine; but her face blushed with rosy health, and her lips with the freshest of smiles, and she had a pair of eyes which sparkled with the brightest and honestest good-humour, except indeed when they filled with tears, and that was a great deal too often; for the silly thing would cry over a dead canary-bird; or over a mouse, that the cat haply had seized upon; or over the end of a novel, were it ever so stupid; and as for saying an unkind word to her, were any persons hard-hearted enough to do so--why, so much the worse for them. even miss pinkerton, that austere and godlike woman, ceased scolding her after the first time, and though she no more comprehended sensibility than she did algebra, gave all masters and teachers particular orders to treat miss sedley with the utmost gentleness, as harsh treatment was injurious to her. so that when the day of departure came, between her two customs of laughing and crying, miss sedley was greatly puzzled how to act. she was glad to go home, and yet most woefully sad at leaving school. for three days before, little laura martin, the orphan, followed her about like a little dog. she had to make and receive at least fourteen presents--to make fourteen solemn promises of writing every week: "send my letters under cover to my grandpapa, the earl of dexter," said miss saltire (who, by the way, was rather shabby). "never mind the postage, but write every day, you dear darling," said the impetuous and woolly-headed, but generous and affectionate miss swartz; and the orphan little laura martin (who was just in round-hand), took her friend's hand and said, looking up in her face wistfully, "amelia, when i write to you i shall call you mamma." all which details, i have no doubt, jones, who reads this book at his club, will pronounce to be excessively foolish, trivial, twaddling, and ultra-sentimental. yes; i can see jones at this minute (rather flushed with his joint of mutton and half pint of wine), taking out his pencil and scoring under the words "foolish, twaddling," &c., and adding to them his own remark of "quite true." well, he is a lofty man of genius, and admires the great and heroic in life and novels; and so had better take warning and go elsewhere. well, then. the flowers, and the presents, and the trunks, and bonnet-boxes of miss sedley having been arranged by mr. sambo in the carriage, together with a very small and weather-beaten old cow's-skin trunk with miss sharp's card neatly nailed upon it, which was delivered by sambo with a grin, and packed by the coachman with a corresponding sneer--the hour for parting came; and the grief of that moment was considerably lessened by the admirable discourse which miss pinkerton addressed to her pupil. not that the parting speech caused amelia to philosophise, or that it armed her in any way with a calmness, the result of argument; but it was intolerably dull, pompous, and tedious; and having the fear of her schoolmistress greatly before her eyes, miss sedley did not venture, in her presence, to give way to any ebullitions of private grief. a seed-cake and a bottle of wine were produced in the drawing-room, as on the solemn occasions of the visits of parents, and these refreshments being partaken of, miss sedley was at liberty to depart. "you'll go in and say good-by to miss pinkerton, becky!" said miss jemima to a young lady of whom nobody took any notice, and who was coming downstairs with her own bandbox. "i suppose i must," said miss sharp calmly, and much to the wonder of miss jemima; and the latter having knocked at the door, and receiving permission to come in, miss sharp advanced in a very unconcerned manner, and said in french, and with a perfect accent, "mademoiselle, je viens vous faire mes adieux." miss pinkerton did not understand french; she only directed those who did: but biting her lips and throwing up her venerable and roman-nosed head (on the top of which figured a large and solemn turban), she said, "miss sharp, i wish you a good morning." as the hammersmith semiramis spoke, she waved one hand, both by way of adieu, and to give miss sharp an opportunity of shaking one of the fingers of the hand which was left out for that purpose. miss sharp only folded her own hands with a very frigid smile and bow, and quite declined to accept the proffered honour; on which semiramis tossed up her turban more indignantly than ever. in fact, it was a little battle between the young lady and the old one, and the latter was worsted. "heaven bless you, my child," said she, embracing amelia, and scowling the while over the girl's shoulder at miss sharp. "come away, becky," said miss jemima, pulling the young woman away in great alarm, and the drawing-room door closed upon them for ever. then came the struggle and parting below. words refuse to tell it. all the servants were there in the hall--all the dear friends--all the young ladies--the dancing-master who had just arrived; and there was such a scuffling, and hugging, and kissing, and crying, with the hysterical yoops of miss swartz, the parlour-boarder, from her room, as no pen can depict, and as the tender heart would fain pass over. the embracing was over; they parted--that is, miss sedley parted from her friends. miss sharp had demurely entered the carriage some minutes before. nobody cried for leaving her. sambo of the bandy legs slammed the carriage door on his young weeping mistress. he sprang up behind the carriage. "stop!" cried miss jemima, rushing to the gate with a parcel. "it's some sandwiches, my dear," said she to amelia. "you may be hungry, you know; and becky, becky sharp, here's a book for you that my sister--that is, i--johnson's dixonary, you know; you mustn't leave us without that. good-by. drive on, coachman. god bless you!" and the kind creature retreated into the garden, overcome with emotion. but, lo! and just as the coach drove off, miss sharp put her pale face out of the window and actually flung the book back into the garden. this almost caused jemima to faint with terror. "well, i never"--said she--"what an audacious"--emotion prevented her from completing either sentence. the carriage rolled away; the great gates were closed; the bell rang for the dancing lesson. the world is before the two young ladies; and so, farewell to chiswick mall. chapter ii in which miss sharp and miss sedley prepare to open the campaign when miss sharp had performed the heroical act mentioned in the last chapter, and had seen the dixonary, flying over the pavement of the little garden, fall at length at the feet of the astonished miss jemima, the young lady's countenance, which had before worn an almost livid look of hatred, assumed a smile that perhaps was scarcely more agreeable, and she sank back in the carriage in an easy frame of mind, saying--"so much for the dixonary; and, thank god, i'm out of chiswick." miss sedley was almost as flurried at the act of defiance as miss jemima had been; for, consider, it was but one minute that she had left school, and the impressions of six years are not got over in that space of time. nay, with some persons those awes and terrors of youth last for ever and ever. i know, for instance, an old gentleman of sixty-eight, who said to me one morning at breakfast, with a very agitated countenance, "i dreamed last night that i was flogged by dr. raine." fancy had carried him back five-and-fifty years in the course of that evening. dr. raine and his rod were just as awful to him in his heart, then, at sixty-eight, as they had been at thirteen. if the doctor, with a large birch, had appeared bodily to him, even at the age of threescore and eight, and had said in awful voice, "boy, take down your pant--"? well, well, miss sedley was exceedingly alarmed at this act of insubordination. "how could you do so, rebecca?" at last she said, after a pause. "why, do you think miss pinkerton will come out and order me back to the black-hole?" said rebecca, laughing. "no: but--" "i hate the whole house," continued miss sharp in a fury. "i hope i may never set eyes on it again. i wish it were in the bottom of the thames, i do; and if miss pinkerton were there, i wouldn't pick her out, that i wouldn't. o how i should like to see her floating in the water yonder, turban and all, with her train streaming after her, and her nose like the beak of a wherry." "hush!" cried miss sedley. "why, will the black footman tell tales?" cried miss rebecca, laughing. "he may go back and tell miss pinkerton that i hate her with all my soul; and i wish he would; and i wish i had a means of proving it, too. for two years i have only had insults and outrage from her. i have been treated worse than any servant in the kitchen. i have never had a friend or a kind word, except from you. i have been made to tend the little girls in the lower schoolroom, and to talk french to the misses, until i grew sick of my mother tongue. but that talking french to miss pinkerton was capital fun, wasn't it? she doesn't know a word of french, and was too proud to confess it. i believe it was that which made her part with me; and so thank heaven for french. vive la france! vive l'empereur! vive bonaparte!" "o rebecca, rebecca, for shame!" cried miss sedley; for this was the greatest blasphemy rebecca had as yet uttered; and in those days, in england, to say, "long live bonaparte!" was as much as to say, "long live lucifer!" "how can you--how dare you have such wicked, revengeful thoughts?" "revenge may be wicked, but it's natural," answered miss rebecca. "i'm no angel." and, to say the truth, she certainly was not. for it may be remarked in the course of this little conversation (which took place as the coach rolled along lazily by the river side) that though miss rebecca sharp has twice had occasion to thank heaven, it has been, in the first place, for ridding her of some person whom she hated, and secondly, for enabling her to bring her enemies to some sort of perplexity or confusion; neither of which are very amiable motives for religious gratitude, or such as would be put forward by persons of a kind and placable disposition. miss rebecca was not, then, in the least kind or placable. all the world used her ill, said this young misanthropist, and we may be pretty certain that persons whom all the world treats ill, deserve entirely the treatment they get. the world is a looking-glass, and gives back to every man the reflection of his own face. frown at it, and it will in turn look sourly upon you; laugh at it and with it, and it is a jolly kind companion; and so let all young persons take their choice. this is certain, that if the world neglected miss sharp, she never was known to have done a good action in behalf of anybody; nor can it be expected that twenty-four young ladies should all be as amiable as the heroine of this work, miss sedley (whom we have selected for the very reason that she was the best-natured of all, otherwise what on earth was to have prevented us from putting up miss swartz, or miss crump, or miss hopkins, as heroine in her place!) it could not be expected that every one should be of the humble and gentle temper of miss amelia sedley; should take every opportunity to vanquish rebecca's hard-heartedness and ill-humour; and, by a thousand kind words and offices, overcome, for once at least, her hostility to her kind. miss sharp's father was an artist, and in that quality had given lessons of drawing at miss pinkerton's school. he was a clever man; a pleasant companion; a careless student; with a great propensity for running into debt, and a partiality for the tavern. when he was drunk, he used to beat his wife and daughter; and the next morning, with a headache, he would rail at the world for its neglect of his genius, and abuse, with a good deal of cleverness, and sometimes with perfect reason, the fools, his brother painters. as it was with the utmost difficulty that he could keep himself, and as he owed money for a mile round soho, where he lived, he thought to better his circumstances by marrying a young woman of the french nation, who was by profession an opera-girl. the humble calling of her female parent miss sharp never alluded to, but used to state subsequently that the entrechats were a noble family of gascony, and took great pride in her descent from them. and curious it is that as she advanced in life this young lady's ancestors increased in rank and splendour. rebecca's mother had had some education somewhere, and her daughter spoke french with purity and a parisian accent. it was in those days rather a rare accomplishment, and led to her engagement with the orthodox miss pinkerton. for her mother being dead, her father, finding himself not likely to recover, after his third attack of delirium tremens, wrote a manly and pathetic letter to miss pinkerton, recommending the orphan child to her protection, and so descended to the grave, after two bailiffs had quarrelled over his corpse. rebecca was seventeen when she came to chiswick, and was bound over as an articled pupil; her duties being to talk french, as we have seen; and her privileges to live cost free, and, with a few guineas a year, to gather scraps of knowledge from the professors who attended the school. she was small and slight in person; pale, sandy-haired, and with eyes habitually cast down: when they looked up they were very large, odd, and attractive; so attractive that the reverend mr. crisp, fresh from oxford, and curate to the vicar of chiswick, the reverend mr. flowerdew, fell in love with miss sharp; being shot dead by a glance of her eyes which was fired all the way across chiswick church from the school-pew to the reading-desk. this infatuated young man used sometimes to take tea with miss pinkerton, to whom he had been presented by his mamma, and actually proposed something like marriage in an intercepted note, which the one-eyed apple-woman was charged to deliver. mrs. crisp was summoned from buxton, and abruptly carried off her darling boy; but the idea, even, of such an eagle in the chiswick dovecot caused a great flutter in the breast of miss pinkerton, who would have sent away miss sharp but that she was bound to her under a forfeit, and who never could thoroughly believe the young lady's protestations that she had never exchanged a single word with mr. crisp, except under her own eyes on the two occasions when she had met him at tea. by the side of many tall and bouncing young ladies in the establishment, rebecca sharp looked like a child. but she had the dismal precocity of poverty. many a dun had she talked to, and turned away from her father's door; many a tradesman had she coaxed and wheedled into good-humour, and into the granting of one meal more. she sate commonly with her father, who was very proud of her wit, and heard the talk of many of his wild companions--often but ill-suited for a girl to hear. but she never had been a girl, she said; she had been a woman since she was eight years old. oh, why did miss pinkerton let such a dangerous bird into her cage? the fact is, the old lady believed rebecca to be the meekest creature in the world, so admirably, on the occasions when her father brought her to chiswick, used rebecca to perform the part of the ingenue; and only a year before the arrangement by which rebecca had been admitted into her house, and when rebecca was sixteen years old, miss pinkerton majestically, and with a little speech, made her a present of a doll--which was, by the way, the confiscated property of miss swindle, discovered surreptitiously nursing it in school-hours. how the father and daughter laughed as they trudged home together after the evening party (it was on the occasion of the speeches, when all the professors were invited) and how miss pinkerton would have raged had she seen the caricature of herself which the little mimic, rebecca, managed to make out of her doll. becky used to go through dialogues with it; it formed the delight of newman street, gerrard street, and the artists' quarter: and the young painters, when they came to take their gin-and-water with their lazy, dissolute, clever, jovial senior, used regularly to ask rebecca if miss pinkerton was at home: she was as well known to them, poor soul! as mr. lawrence or president west. once rebecca had the honour to pass a few days at chiswick; after which she brought back jemima, and erected another doll as miss jemmy: for though that honest creature had made and given her jelly and cake enough for three children, and a seven-shilling piece at parting, the girl's sense of ridicule was far stronger than her gratitude, and she sacrificed miss jemmy quite as pitilessly as her sister. the catastrophe came, and she was brought to the mall as to her home. the rigid formality of the place suffocated her: the prayers and the meals, the lessons and the walks, which were arranged with a conventual regularity, oppressed her almost beyond endurance; and she looked back to the freedom and the beggary of the old studio in soho with so much regret, that everybody, herself included, fancied she was consumed with grief for her father. she had a little room in the garret, where the maids heard her walking and sobbing at night; but it was with rage, and not with grief. she had not been much of a dissembler, until now her loneliness taught her to feign. she had never mingled in the society of women: her father, reprobate as he was, was a man of talent; his conversation was a thousand times more agreeable to her than the talk of such of her own sex as she now encountered. the pompous vanity of the old schoolmistress, the foolish good-humour of her sister, the silly chat and scandal of the elder girls, and the frigid correctness of the governesses equally annoyed her; and she had no soft maternal heart, this unlucky girl, otherwise the prattle and talk of the younger children, with whose care she was chiefly intrusted, might have soothed and interested her; but she lived among them two years, and not one was sorry that she went away. the gentle tender-hearted amelia sedley was the only person to whom she could attach herself in the least; and who could help attaching herself to amelia? the happiness--the superior advantages of the young women round about her, gave rebecca inexpressible pangs of envy. "what airs that girl gives herself, because she is an earl's grand-daughter," she said of one. "how they cringe and bow to that creole, because of her hundred thousand pounds! i am a thousand times cleverer and more charming than that creature, for all her wealth. i am as well bred as the earl's grand-daughter, for all her fine pedigree; and yet every one passes me by here. and yet, when i was at my father's, did not the men give up their gayest balls and parties in order to pass the evening with me?" she determined at any rate to get free from the prison in which she found herself, and now began to act for herself, and for the first time to make connected plans for the future. she took advantage, therefore, of the means of study the place offered her; and as she was already a musician and a good linguist, she speedily went through the little course of study which was considered necessary for ladies in those days. her music she practised incessantly, and one day, when the girls were out, and she had remained at home, she was overheard to play a piece so well that minerva thought, wisely, she could spare herself the expense of a master for the juniors, and intimated to miss sharp that she was to instruct them in music for the future. the girl refused; and for the first time, and to the astonishment of the majestic mistress of the school. "i am here to speak french with the children," rebecca said abruptly, "not to teach them music, and save money for you. give me money, and i will teach them." minerva was obliged to yield, and, of course, disliked her from that day. "for five-and-thirty years," she said, and with great justice, "i never have seen the individual who has dared in my own house to question my authority. i have nourished a viper in my bosom." "a viper--a fiddlestick," said miss sharp to the old lady, almost fainting with astonishment. "you took me because i was useful. there is no question of gratitude between us. i hate this place, and want to leave it. i will do nothing here but what i am obliged to do." it was in vain that the old lady asked her if she was aware she was speaking to miss pinkerton? rebecca laughed in her face, with a horrid sarcastic demoniacal laughter, that almost sent the schoolmistress into fits. "give me a sum of money," said the girl, "and get rid of me--or, if you like better, get me a good place as governess in a nobleman's family--you can do so if you please." and in their further disputes she always returned to this point, "get me a situation--we hate each other, and i am ready to go." worthy miss pinkerton, although she had a roman nose and a turban, and was as tall as a grenadier, and had been up to this time an irresistible princess, had no will or strength like that of her little apprentice, and in vain did battle against her, and tried to overawe her. attempting once to scold her in public, rebecca hit upon the before-mentioned plan of answering her in french, which quite routed the old woman. in order to maintain authority in her school, it became necessary to remove this rebel, this monster, this serpent, this firebrand; and hearing about this time that sir pitt crawley's family was in want of a governess, she actually recommended miss sharp for the situation, firebrand and serpent as she was. "i cannot, certainly," she said, "find fault with miss sharp's conduct, except to myself; and must allow that her talents and accomplishments are of a high order. as far as the head goes, at least, she does credit to the educational system pursued at my establishment." and so the schoolmistress reconciled the recommendation to her conscience, and the indentures were cancelled, and the apprentice was free. the battle here described in a few lines, of course, lasted for some months. and as miss sedley, being now in her seventeenth year, was about to leave school, and had a friendship for miss sharp ("'tis the only point in amelia's behaviour," said minerva, "which has not been satisfactory to her mistress"), miss sharp was invited by her friend to pass a week with her at home, before she entered upon her duties as governess in a private family. thus the world began for these two young ladies. for amelia it was quite a new, fresh, brilliant world, with all the bloom upon it. it was not quite a new one for rebecca--(indeed, if the truth must be told with respect to the crisp affair, the tart-woman hinted to somebody, who took an affidavit of the fact to somebody else, that there was a great deal more than was made public regarding mr. crisp and miss sharp, and that his letter was in answer to another letter). but who can tell you the real truth of the matter? at all events, if rebecca was not beginning the world, she was beginning it over again. by the time the young ladies reached kensington turnpike, amelia had not forgotten her companions, but had dried her tears, and had blushed very much and been delighted at a young officer of the life guards, who spied her as he was riding by, and said, "a dem fine gal, egad!" and before the carriage arrived in russell square, a great deal of conversation had taken place about the drawing-room, and whether or not young ladies wore powder as well as hoops when presented, and whether she was to have that honour: to the lord mayor's ball she knew she was to go. and when at length home was reached, miss amelia sedley skipped out on sambo's arm, as happy and as handsome a girl as any in the whole big city of london. both he and coachman agreed on this point, and so did her father and mother, and so did every one of the servants in the house, as they stood bobbing, and curtseying, and smiling, in the hall to welcome their young mistress. you may be sure that she showed rebecca over every room of the house, and everything in every one of her drawers; and her books, and her piano, and her dresses, and all her necklaces, brooches, laces, and gimcracks. she insisted upon rebecca accepting the white cornelian and the turquoise rings, and a sweet sprigged muslin, which was too small for her now, though it would fit her friend to a nicety; and she determined in her heart to ask her mother's permission to present her white cashmere shawl to her friend. could she not spare it? and had not her brother joseph just brought her two from india? when rebecca saw the two magnificent cashmere shawls which joseph sedley had brought home to his sister, she said, with perfect truth, "that it must be delightful to have a brother," and easily got the pity of the tender-hearted amelia for being alone in the world, an orphan without friends or kindred. "not alone," said amelia; "you know, rebecca, i shall always be your friend, and love you as a sister--indeed i will." "ah, but to have parents, as you have--kind, rich, affectionate parents, who give you everything you ask for; and their love, which is more precious than all! my poor papa could give me nothing, and i had but two frocks in all the world! and then, to have a brother, a dear brother! oh, how you must love him!" amelia laughed. "what! don't you love him? you, who say you love everybody?" "yes, of course, i do--only--" "only what?" "only joseph doesn't seem to care much whether i love him or not. he gave me two fingers to shake when he arrived after ten years' absence! he is very kind and good, but he scarcely ever speaks to me; i think he loves his pipe a great deal better than his"--but here amelia checked herself, for why should she speak ill of her brother? "he was very kind to me as a child," she added; "i was but five years old when he went away." "isn't he very rich?" said rebecca. "they say all indian nabobs are enormously rich." "i believe he has a very large income." "and is your sister-in-law a nice pretty woman?" "la! joseph is not married," said amelia, laughing again. perhaps she had mentioned the fact already to rebecca, but that young lady did not appear to have remembered it; indeed, vowed and protested that she expected to see a number of amelia's nephews and nieces. she was quite disappointed that mr. sedley was not married; she was sure amelia had said he was, and she doted so on little children. "i think you must have had enough of them at chiswick," said amelia, rather wondering at the sudden tenderness on her friend's part; and indeed in later days miss sharp would never have committed herself so far as to advance opinions, the untruth of which would have been so easily detected. but we must remember that she is but nineteen as yet, unused to the art of deceiving, poor innocent creature! and making her own experience in her own person. the meaning of the above series of queries, as translated in the heart of this ingenious young woman, was simply this: "if mr. joseph sedley is rich and unmarried, why should i not marry him? i have only a fortnight, to be sure, but there is no harm in trying." and she determined within herself to make this laudable attempt. she redoubled her caresses to amelia; she kissed the white cornelian necklace as she put it on; and vowed she would never, never part with it. when the dinner-bell rang she went downstairs with her arm round her friend's waist, as is the habit of young ladies. she was so agitated at the drawing-room door, that she could hardly find courage to enter. "feel my heart, how it beats, dear!" said she to her friend. "no, it doesn't," said amelia. "come in, don't be frightened. papa won't do you any harm." chapter iii rebecca is in presence of the enemy a very stout, puffy man, in buckskins and hessian boots, with several immense neckcloths that rose almost to his nose, with a red striped waistcoat and an apple green coat with steel buttons almost as large as crown pieces (it was the morning costume of a dandy or blood of those days) was reading the paper by the fire when the two girls entered, and bounced off his arm-chair, and blushed excessively, and hid his entire face almost in his neckcloths at this apparition. "it's only your sister, joseph," said amelia, laughing and shaking the two fingers which he held out. "i've come home for good, you know; and this is my friend, miss sharp, whom you have heard me mention." "no, never, upon my word," said the head under the neckcloth, shaking very much--"that is, yes--what abominably cold weather, miss"--and herewith he fell to poking the fire with all his might, although it was in the middle of june. "he's very handsome," whispered rebecca to amelia, rather loud. "do you think so?" said the latter. "i'll tell him." "darling! not for worlds," said miss sharp, starting back as timid as a fawn. she had previously made a respectful virgin-like curtsey to the gentleman, and her modest eyes gazed so perseveringly on the carpet that it was a wonder how she should have found an opportunity to see him. "thank you for the beautiful shawls, brother," said amelia to the fire poker. "are they not beautiful, rebecca?" "o heavenly!" said miss sharp, and her eyes went from the carpet straight to the chandelier. joseph still continued a huge clattering at the poker and tongs, puffing and blowing the while, and turning as red as his yellow face would allow him. "i can't make you such handsome presents, joseph," continued his sister, "but while i was at school, i have embroidered for you a very beautiful pair of braces." "good gad! amelia," cried the brother, in serious alarm, "what do you mean?" and plunging with all his might at the bell-rope, that article of furniture came away in his hand, and increased the honest fellow's confusion. "for heaven's sake see if my buggy's at the door. i can't wait. i must go. d---- that groom of mine. i must go." at this minute the father of the family walked in, rattling his seals like a true british merchant. "what's the matter, emmy?" says he. "joseph wants me to see if his--his buggy is at the door. what is a buggy, papa?" "it is a one-horse palanquin," said the old gentleman, who was a wag in his way. joseph at this burst out into a wild fit of laughter; in which, encountering the eye of miss sharp, he stopped all of a sudden, as if he had been shot. "this young lady is your friend? miss sharp, i am very happy to see you. have you and emmy been quarrelling already with joseph, that he wants to be off?" "i promised bonamy of our service, sir," said joseph, "to dine with him." "o fie! didn't you tell your mother you would dine here?" "but in this dress it's impossible." "look at him, isn't he handsome enough to dine anywhere, miss sharp?" on which, of course, miss sharp looked at her friend, and they both set off in a fit of laughter, highly agreeable to the old gentleman. "did you ever see a pair of buckskins like those at miss pinkerton's?" continued he, following up his advantage. "gracious heavens! father," cried joseph. "there now, i have hurt his feelings. mrs. sedley, my dear, i have hurt your son's feelings. i have alluded to his buckskins. ask miss sharp if i haven't? come, joseph, be friends with miss sharp, and let us all go to dinner." "there's a pillau, joseph, just as you like it, and papa has brought home the best turbot in billingsgate." "come, come, sir, walk downstairs with miss sharp, and i will follow with these two young women," said the father, and he took an arm of wife and daughter and walked merrily off. if miss rebecca sharp had determined in her heart upon making the conquest of this big beau, i don't think, ladies, we have any right to blame her; for though the task of husband-hunting is generally, and with becoming modesty, entrusted by young persons to their mammas, recollect that miss sharp had no kind parent to arrange these delicate matters for her, and that if she did not get a husband for herself, there was no one else in the wide world who would take the trouble off her hands. what causes young people to "come out," but the noble ambition of matrimony? what sends them trooping to watering-places? what keeps them dancing till five o'clock in the morning through a whole mortal season? what causes them to labour at pianoforte sonatas, and to learn four songs from a fashionable master at a guinea a lesson, and to play the harp if they have handsome arms and neat elbows, and to wear lincoln green toxophilite hats and feathers, but that they may bring down some "desirable" young man with those killing bows and arrows of theirs? what causes respectable parents to take up their carpets, set their houses topsy-turvy, and spend a fifth of their year's income in ball suppers and iced champagne? is it sheer love of their species, and an unadulterated wish to see young people happy and dancing? psha! they want to marry their daughters; and, as honest mrs. sedley has, in the depths of her kind heart, already arranged a score of little schemes for the settlement of her amelia, so also had our beloved but unprotected rebecca determined to do her very best to secure the husband, who was even more necessary for her than for her friend. she had a vivid imagination; she had, besides, read the arabian nights and guthrie's geography; and it is a fact that while she was dressing for dinner, and after she had asked amelia whether her brother was very rich, she had built for herself a most magnificent castle in the air, of which she was mistress, with a husband somewhere in the background (she had not seen him as yet, and his figure would not therefore be very distinct); she had arrayed herself in an infinity of shawls, turbans, and diamond necklaces, and had mounted upon an elephant to the sound of the march in bluebeard, in order to pay a visit of ceremony to the grand mogul. charming alnaschar visions! it is the happy privilege of youth to construct you, and many a fanciful young creature besides rebecca sharp has indulged in these delightful day-dreams ere now! joseph sedley was twelve years older than his sister amelia. he was in the east india company's civil service, and his name appeared, at the period of which we write, in the bengal division of the east india register, as collector of boggley wollah, an honourable and lucrative post, as everybody knows: in order to know to what higher posts joseph rose in the service, the reader is referred to the same periodical. boggley wollah is situated in a fine, lonely, marshy, jungly district, famous for snipe-shooting, and where not unfrequently you may flush a tiger. ramgunge, where there is a magistrate, is only forty miles off, and there is a cavalry station about thirty miles farther; so joseph wrote home to his parents, when he took possession of his collectorship. he had lived for about eight years of his life, quite alone, at this charming place, scarcely seeing a christian face except twice a year, when the detachment arrived to carry off the revenues which he had collected, to calcutta. luckily, at this time he caught a liver complaint, for the cure of which he returned to europe, and which was the source of great comfort and amusement to him in his native country. he did not live with his family while in london, but had lodgings of his own, like a gay young bachelor. before he went to india he was too young to partake of the delightful pleasures of a man about town, and plunged into them on his return with considerable assiduity. he drove his horses in the park; he dined at the fashionable taverns (for the oriental club was not as yet invented); he frequented the theatres, as the mode was in those days, or made his appearance at the opera, laboriously attired in tights and a cocked hat. on returning to india, and ever after, he used to talk of the pleasure of this period of his existence with great enthusiasm, and give you to understand that he and brummel were the leading bucks of the day. but he was as lonely here as in his jungle at boggley wollah. he scarcely knew a single soul in the metropolis: and were it not for his doctor, and the society of his blue-pill, and his liver complaint, he must have died of loneliness. he was lazy, peevish, and a bon-vivant; the appearance of a lady frightened him beyond measure; hence it was but seldom that he joined the paternal circle in russell square, where there was plenty of gaiety, and where the jokes of his good-natured old father frightened his amour-propre. his bulk caused joseph much anxious thought and alarm; now and then he would make a desperate attempt to get rid of his superabundant fat; but his indolence and love of good living speedily got the better of these endeavours at reform, and he found himself again at his three meals a day. he never was well dressed; but he took the hugest pains to adorn his big person, and passed many hours daily in that occupation. his valet made a fortune out of his wardrobe: his toilet-table was covered with as many pomatums and essences as ever were employed by an old beauty: he had tried, in order to give himself a waist, every girth, stay, and waistband then invented. like most fat men, he would have his clothes made too tight, and took care they should be of the most brilliant colours and youthful cut. when dressed at length, in the afternoon, he would issue forth to take a drive with nobody in the park; and then would come back in order to dress again and go and dine with nobody at the piazza coffee-house. he was as vain as a girl; and perhaps his extreme shyness was one of the results of his extreme vanity. if miss rebecca can get the better of him, and at her first entrance into life, she is a young person of no ordinary cleverness. the first move showed considerable skill. when she called sedley a very handsome man, she knew that amelia would tell her mother, who would probably tell joseph, or who, at any rate, would be pleased by the compliment paid to her son. all mothers are. if you had told sycorax that her son caliban was as handsome as apollo, she would have been pleased, witch as she was. perhaps, too, joseph sedley would overhear the compliment--rebecca spoke loud enough--and he did hear, and (thinking in his heart that he was a very fine man) the praise thrilled through every fibre of his big body, and made it tingle with pleasure. then, however, came a recoil. "is the girl making fun of me?" he thought, and straightway he bounced towards the bell, and was for retreating, as we have seen, when his father's jokes and his mother's entreaties caused him to pause and stay where he was. he conducted the young lady down to dinner in a dubious and agitated frame of mind. "does she really think i am handsome?" thought he, "or is she only making game of me?" we have talked of joseph sedley being as vain as a girl. heaven help us! the girls have only to turn the tables, and say of one of their own sex, "she is as vain as a man," and they will have perfect reason. the bearded creatures are quite as eager for praise, quite as finikin over their toilettes, quite as proud of their personal advantages, quite as conscious of their powers of fascination, as any coquette in the world. downstairs, then, they went, joseph very red and blushing, rebecca very modest, and holding her green eyes downwards. she was dressed in white, with bare shoulders as white as snow--the picture of youth, unprotected innocence, and humble virgin simplicity. "i must be very quiet," thought rebecca, "and very much interested about india." now we have heard how mrs. sedley had prepared a fine curry for her son, just as he liked it, and in the course of dinner a portion of this dish was offered to rebecca. "what is it?" said she, turning an appealing look to mr. joseph. "capital," said he. his mouth was full of it: his face quite red with the delightful exercise of gobbling. "mother, it's as good as my own curries in india." "oh, i must try some, if it is an indian dish," said miss rebecca. "i am sure everything must be good that comes from there." "give miss sharp some curry, my dear," said mr. sedley, laughing. rebecca had never tasted the dish before. "do you find it as good as everything else from india?" said mr. sedley. "oh, excellent!" said rebecca, who was suffering tortures with the cayenne pepper. "try a chili with it, miss sharp," said joseph, really interested. "a chili," said rebecca, gasping. "oh yes!" she thought a chili was something cool, as its name imported, and was served with some. "how fresh and green they look," she said, and put one into her mouth. it was hotter than the curry; flesh and blood could bear it no longer. she laid down her fork. "water, for heaven's sake, water!" she cried. mr. sedley burst out laughing (he was a coarse man, from the stock exchange, where they love all sorts of practical jokes). "they are real indian, i assure you," said he. "sambo, give miss sharp some water." the paternal laugh was echoed by joseph, who thought the joke capital. the ladies only smiled a little. they thought poor rebecca suffered too much. she would have liked to choke old sedley, but she swallowed her mortification as well as she had the abominable curry before it, and as soon as she could speak, said, with a comical, good-humoured air, "i ought to have remembered the pepper which the princess of persia puts in the cream-tarts in the arabian nights. do you put cayenne into your cream-tarts in india, sir?" old sedley began to laugh, and thought rebecca was a good-humoured girl. joseph simply said, "cream-tarts, miss? our cream is very bad in bengal. we generally use goats' milk; and, 'gad, do you know, i've got to prefer it!" "you won't like everything from india now, miss sharp," said the old gentleman; but when the ladies had retired after dinner, the wily old fellow said to his son, "have a care, joe; that girl is setting her cap at you." "pooh! nonsense!" said joe, highly flattered. "i recollect, sir, there was a girl at dumdum, a daughter of cutler of the artillery, and afterwards married to lance, the surgeon, who made a dead set at me in the year ' --at me and mulligatawney, whom i mentioned to you before dinner--a devilish good fellow mulligatawney--he's a magistrate at budgebudge, and sure to be in council in five years. well, sir, the artillery gave a ball, and quintin, of the king's th, said to me, 'sedley,' said he, 'i bet you thirteen to ten that sophy cutler hooks either you or mulligatawney before the rains.' 'done,' says i; and egad, sir--this claret's very good. adamson's or carbonell's?" a slight snore was the only reply: the honest stockbroker was asleep, and so the rest of joseph's story was lost for that day. but he was always exceedingly communicative in a man's party, and has told this delightful tale many scores of times to his apothecary, dr. gollop, when he came to inquire about the liver and the blue-pill. being an invalid, joseph sedley contented himself with a bottle of claret besides his madeira at dinner, and he managed a couple of plates full of strawberries and cream, and twenty-four little rout cakes that were lying neglected in a plate near him, and certainly (for novelists have the privilege of knowing everything) he thought a great deal about the girl upstairs. "a nice, gay, merry young creature," thought he to himself. "how she looked at me when i picked up her handkerchief at dinner! she dropped it twice. who's that singing in the drawing-room? 'gad! shall i go up and see?" but his modesty came rushing upon him with uncontrollable force. his father was asleep: his hat was in the hall: there was a hackney-coach standing hard by in southampton row. "i'll go and see the forty thieves," said he, "and miss decamp's dance"; and he slipped away gently on the pointed toes of his boots, and disappeared, without waking his worthy parent. "there goes joseph," said amelia, who was looking from the open windows of the drawing-room, while rebecca was singing at the piano. "miss sharp has frightened him away," said mrs. sedley. "poor joe, why will he be so shy?" chapter iv the green silk purse poor joe's panic lasted for two or three days; during which he did not visit the house, nor during that period did miss rebecca ever mention his name. she was all respectful gratitude to mrs. sedley; delighted beyond measure at the bazaars; and in a whirl of wonder at the theatre, whither the good-natured lady took her. one day, amelia had a headache, and could not go upon some party of pleasure to which the two young people were invited: nothing could induce her friend to go without her. "what! you who have shown the poor orphan what happiness and love are for the first time in her life--quit you? never!" and the green eyes looked up to heaven and filled with tears; and mrs. sedley could not but own that her daughter's friend had a charming kind heart of her own. as for mr. sedley's jokes, rebecca laughed at them with a cordiality and perseverance which not a little pleased and softened that good-natured gentleman. nor was it with the chiefs of the family alone that miss sharp found favour. she interested mrs. blenkinsop by evincing the deepest sympathy in the raspberry-jam preserving, which operation was then going on in the housekeeper's room; she persisted in calling sambo "sir," and "mr. sambo," to the delight of that attendant; and she apologised to the lady's maid for giving her trouble in venturing to ring the bell, with such sweetness and humility, that the servants' hall was almost as charmed with her as the drawing room. once, in looking over some drawings which amelia had sent from school, rebecca suddenly came upon one which caused her to burst into tears and leave the room. it was on the day when joe sedley made his second appearance. amelia hastened after her friend to know the cause of this display of feeling, and the good-natured girl came back without her companion, rather affected too. "you know, her father was our drawing-master, mamma, at chiswick, and used to do all the best parts of our drawings." "my love! i'm sure i always heard miss pinkerton say that he did not touch them--he only mounted them." "it was called mounting, mamma. rebecca remembers the drawing, and her father working at it, and the thought of it came upon her rather suddenly--and so, you know, she--" "the poor child is all heart," said mrs. sedley. "i wish she could stay with us another week," said amelia. "she's devilish like miss cutler that i used to meet at dumdum, only fairer. she's married now to lance, the artillery surgeon. do you know, ma'am, that once quintin, of the th, bet me--" "o joseph, we know that story," said amelia, laughing. "never mind about telling that; but persuade mamma to write to sir something crawley for leave of absence for poor dear rebecca: here she comes, her eyes red with weeping." "i'm better, now," said the girl, with the sweetest smile possible, taking good-natured mrs. sedley's extended hand and kissing it respectfully. "how kind you all are to me! all," she added, with a laugh, "except you, mr. joseph." "me!" said joseph, meditating an instant departure. "gracious heavens! good gad! miss sharp!' "yes; how could you be so cruel as to make me eat that horrid pepper-dish at dinner, the first day i ever saw you? you are not so good to me as dear amelia." "he doesn't know you so well," cried amelia. "i defy anybody not to be good to you, my dear," said her mother. "the curry was capital; indeed it was," said joe, quite gravely. "perhaps there was not enough citron juice in it--no, there was not." "and the chilis?" "by jove, how they made you cry out!" said joe, caught by the ridicule of the circumstance, and exploding in a fit of laughter which ended quite suddenly, as usual. "i shall take care how i let you choose for me another time," said rebecca, as they went down again to dinner. "i didn't think men were fond of putting poor harmless girls to pain." "by gad, miss rebecca, i wouldn't hurt you for the world." "no," said she, "i know you wouldn't"; and then she gave him ever so gentle a pressure with her little hand, and drew it back quite frightened, and looked first for one instant in his face, and then down at the carpet-rods; and i am not prepared to say that joe's heart did not thump at this little involuntary, timid, gentle motion of regard on the part of the simple girl. it was an advance, and as such, perhaps, some ladies of indisputable correctness and gentility will condemn the action as immodest; but, you see, poor dear rebecca had all this work to do for herself. if a person is too poor to keep a servant, though ever so elegant, he must sweep his own rooms: if a dear girl has no dear mamma to settle matters with the young man, she must do it for herself. and oh, what a mercy it is that these women do not exercise their powers oftener! we can't resist them, if they do. let them show ever so little inclination, and men go down on their knees at once: old or ugly, it is all the same. and this i set down as a positive truth. a woman with fair opportunities, and without an absolute hump, may marry whom she likes. only let us be thankful that the darlings are like the beasts of the field, and don't know their own power. they would overcome us entirely if they did. "egad!" thought joseph, entering the dining-room, "i exactly begin to feel as i did at dumdum with miss cutler." many sweet little appeals, half tender, half jocular, did miss sharp make to him about the dishes at dinner; for by this time she was on a footing of considerable familiarity with the family, and as for the girls, they loved each other like sisters. young unmarried girls always do, if they are in a house together for ten days. as if bent upon advancing rebecca's plans in every way--what must amelia do, but remind her brother of a promise made last easter holidays--"when i was a girl at school," said she, laughing--a promise that he, joseph, would take her to vauxhall. "now," she said, "that rebecca is with us, will be the very time." "o, delightful!" said rebecca, going to clap her hands; but she recollected herself, and paused, like a modest creature, as she was. "to-night is not the night," said joe. "well, to-morrow." "to-morrow your papa and i dine out," said mrs. sedley. "you don't suppose that i'm going, mrs. sed?" said her husband, "and that a woman of your years and size is to catch cold, in such an abominable damp place?" "the children must have someone with them," cried mrs. sedley. "let joe go," said-his father, laughing. "he's big enough." at which speech even mr. sambo at the sideboard burst out laughing, and poor fat joe felt inclined to become a parricide almost. "undo his stays!" continued the pitiless old gentleman. "fling some water in his face, miss sharp, or carry him upstairs: the dear creature's fainting. poor victim! carry him up; he's as light as a feather!" "if i stand this, sir, i'm d------!" roared joseph. "order mr. jos's elephant, sambo!" cried the father. "send to exeter 'change, sambo"; but seeing jos ready almost to cry with vexation, the old joker stopped his laughter, and said, holding out his hand to his son, "it's all fair on the stock exchange, jos--and, sambo, never mind the elephant, but give me and mr. jos a glass of champagne. boney himself hasn't got such in his cellar, my boy!" a goblet of champagne restored joseph's equanimity, and before the bottle was emptied, of which as an invalid he took two-thirds, he had agreed to take the young ladies to vauxhall. "the girls must have a gentleman apiece," said the old gentleman. "jos will be sure to leave emmy in the crowd, he will be so taken up with miss sharp here. send to , and ask george osborne if he'll come." at this, i don't know in the least for what reason, mrs. sedley looked at her husband and laughed. mr. sedley's eyes twinkled in a manner indescribably roguish, and he looked at amelia; and amelia, hanging down her head, blushed as only young ladies of seventeen know how to blush, and as miss rebecca sharp never blushed in her life--at least not since she was eight years old, and when she was caught stealing jam out of a cupboard by her godmother. "amelia had better write a note," said her father; "and let george osborne see what a beautiful handwriting we have brought back from miss pinkerton's. do you remember when you wrote to him to come on twelfth-night, emmy, and spelt twelfth without the f?" "that was years ago," said amelia. "it seems like yesterday, don't it, john?" said mrs. sedley to her husband; and that night in a conversation which took place in a front room in the second floor, in a sort of tent, hung round with chintz of a rich and fantastic india pattern, and double with calico of a tender rose-colour; in the interior of which species of marquee was a featherbed, on which were two pillows, on which were two round red faces, one in a laced nightcap, and one in a simple cotton one, ending in a tassel--in a curtain lecture, i say, mrs. sedley took her husband to task for his cruel conduct to poor joe. "it was quite wicked of you, mr. sedley," said she, "to torment the poor boy so." "my dear," said the cotton-tassel in defence of his conduct, "jos is a great deal vainer than you ever were in your life, and that's saying a good deal. though, some thirty years ago, in the year seventeen hundred and eighty--what was it?--perhaps you had a right to be vain--i don't say no. but i've no patience with jos and his dandified modesty. it is out-josephing joseph, my dear, and all the while the boy is only thinking of himself, and what a fine fellow he is. i doubt, ma'am, we shall have some trouble with him yet. here is emmy's little friend making love to him as hard as she can; that's quite clear; and if she does not catch him some other will. that man is destined to be a prey to woman, as i am to go on 'change every day. it's a mercy he did not bring us over a black daughter-in-law, my dear. but, mark my words, the first woman who fishes for him, hooks him." "she shall go off to-morrow, the little artful creature," said mrs. sedley, with great energy. "why not she as well as another, mrs. sedley? the girl's a white face at any rate. i don't care who marries him. let joe please himself." and presently the voices of the two speakers were hushed, or were replaced by the gentle but unromantic music of the nose; and save when the church bells tolled the hour and the watchman called it, all was silent at the house of john sedley, esquire, of russell square, and the stock exchange. when morning came, the good-natured mrs. sedley no longer thought of executing her threats with regard to miss sharp; for though nothing is more keen, nor more common, nor more justifiable, than maternal jealousy, yet she could not bring herself to suppose that the little, humble, grateful, gentle governess would dare to look up to such a magnificent personage as the collector of boggley wollah. the petition, too, for an extension of the young lady's leave of absence had already been despatched, and it would be difficult to find a pretext for abruptly dismissing her. and as if all things conspired in favour of the gentle rebecca, the very elements (although she was not inclined at first to acknowledge their action in her behalf) interposed to aid her. for on the evening appointed for the vauxhall party, george osborne having come to dinner, and the elders of the house having departed, according to invitation, to dine with alderman balls at highbury barn, there came on such a thunder-storm as only happens on vauxhall nights, and as obliged the young people, perforce, to remain at home. mr. osborne did not seem in the least disappointed at this occurrence. he and joseph sedley drank a fitting quantity of port-wine, tete-a-tete, in the dining-room, during the drinking of which sedley told a number of his best indian stories; for he was extremely talkative in man's society; and afterwards miss amelia sedley did the honours of the drawing-room; and these four young persons passed such a comfortable evening together, that they declared they were rather glad of the thunder-storm than otherwise, which had caused them to put off their visit to vauxhall. osborne was sedley's godson, and had been one of the family any time these three-and-twenty years. at six weeks old, he had received from john sedley a present of a silver cup; at six months old, a coral with gold whistle and bells; from his youth upwards he was "tipped" regularly by the old gentleman at christmas: and on going back to school, he remembered perfectly well being thrashed by joseph sedley, when the latter was a big, swaggering hobbadyhoy, and george an impudent urchin of ten years old. in a word, george was as familiar with the family as such daily acts of kindness and intercourse could make him. "do you remember, sedley, what a fury you were in, when i cut off the tassels of your hessian boots, and how miss--hem!--how amelia rescued me from a beating, by falling down on her knees and crying out to her brother jos, not to beat little george?" jos remembered this remarkable circumstance perfectly well, but vowed that he had totally forgotten it. "well, do you remember coming down in a gig to dr. swishtail's to see me, before you went to india, and giving me half a guinea and a pat on the head? i always had an idea that you were at least seven feet high, and was quite astonished at your return from india to find you no taller than myself." "how good of mr. sedley to go to your school and give you the money!" exclaimed rebecca, in accents of extreme delight. "yes, and after i had cut the tassels of his boots too. boys never forget those tips at school, nor the givers." "i delight in hessian boots," said rebecca. jos sedley, who admired his own legs prodigiously, and always wore this ornamental chaussure, was extremely pleased at this remark, though he drew his legs under his chair as it was made. "miss sharp!" said george osborne, "you who are so clever an artist, you must make a grand historical picture of the scene of the boots. sedley shall be represented in buckskins, and holding one of the injured boots in one hand; by the other he shall have hold of my shirt-frill. amelia shall be kneeling near him, with her little hands up; and the picture shall have a grand allegorical title, as the frontispieces have in the medulla and the spelling-book." "i shan't have time to do it here," said rebecca. "i'll do it when--when i'm gone." and she dropped her voice, and looked so sad and piteous, that everybody felt how cruel her lot was, and how sorry they would be to part with her. "o that you could stay longer, dear rebecca," said amelia. "why?" answered the other, still more sadly. "that i may be only the more unhap--unwilling to lose you?" and she turned away her head. amelia began to give way to that natural infirmity of tears which, we have said, was one of the defects of this silly little thing. george osborne looked at the two young women with a touched curiosity; and joseph sedley heaved something very like a sigh out of his big chest, as he cast his eyes down towards his favourite hessian boots. "let us have some music, miss sedley--amelia," said george, who felt at that moment an extraordinary, almost irresistible impulse to seize the above-mentioned young woman in his arms, and to kiss her in the face of the company; and she looked at him for a moment, and if i should say that they fell in love with each other at that single instant of time, i should perhaps be telling an untruth, for the fact is that these two young people had been bred up by their parents for this very purpose, and their banns had, as it were, been read in their respective families any time these ten years. they went off to the piano, which was situated, as pianos usually are, in the back drawing-room; and as it was rather dark, miss amelia, in the most unaffected way in the world, put her hand into mr. osborne's, who, of course, could see the way among the chairs and ottomans a great deal better than she could. but this arrangement left mr. joseph sedley tete-a-tete with rebecca, at the drawing-room table, where the latter was occupied in knitting a green silk purse. "there is no need to ask family secrets," said miss sharp. "those two have told theirs." "as soon as he gets his company," said joseph, "i believe the affair is settled. george osborne is a capital fellow." "and your sister the dearest creature in the world," said rebecca. "happy the man who wins her!" with this, miss sharp gave a great sigh. when two unmarried persons get together, and talk upon such delicate subjects as the present, a great deal of confidence and intimacy is presently established between them. there is no need of giving a special report of the conversation which now took place between mr. sedley and the young lady; for the conversation, as may be judged from the foregoing specimen, was not especially witty or eloquent; it seldom is in private societies, or anywhere except in very high-flown and ingenious novels. as there was music in the next room, the talk was carried on, of course, in a low and becoming tone, though, for the matter of that, the couple in the next apartment would not have been disturbed had the talking been ever so loud, so occupied were they with their own pursuits. almost for the first time in his life, mr. sedley found himself talking, without the least timidity or hesitation, to a person of the other sex. miss rebecca asked him a great number of questions about india, which gave him an opportunity of narrating many interesting anecdotes about that country and himself. he described the balls at government house, and the manner in which they kept themselves cool in the hot weather, with punkahs, tatties, and other contrivances; and he was very witty regarding the number of scotchmen whom lord minto, the governor-general, patronised; and then he described a tiger-hunt; and the manner in which the mahout of his elephant had been pulled off his seat by one of the infuriated animals. how delighted miss rebecca was at the government balls, and how she laughed at the stories of the scotch aides-de-camp, and called mr. sedley a sad wicked satirical creature; and how frightened she was at the story of the elephant! "for your mother's sake, dear mr. sedley," she said, "for the sake of all your friends, promise never to go on one of those horrid expeditions." "pooh, pooh, miss sharp," said he, pulling up his shirt-collars; "the danger makes the sport only the pleasanter." he had never been but once at a tiger-hunt, when the accident in question occurred, and when he was half killed--not by the tiger, but by the fright. and as he talked on, he grew quite bold, and actually had the audacity to ask miss rebecca for whom she was knitting the green silk purse? he was quite surprised and delighted at his own graceful familiar manner. "for any one who wants a purse," replied miss rebecca, looking at him in the most gentle winning way. sedley was going to make one of the most eloquent speeches possible, and had begun--"o miss sharp, how--" when some song which was performed in the other room came to an end, and caused him to hear his own voice so distinctly that he stopped, blushed, and blew his nose in great agitation. "did you ever hear anything like your brother's eloquence?" whispered mr. osborne to amelia. "why, your friend has worked miracles." "the more the better," said miss amelia; who, like almost all women who are worth a pin, was a match-maker in her heart, and would have been delighted that joseph should carry back a wife to india. she had, too, in the course of this few days' constant intercourse, warmed into a most tender friendship for rebecca, and discovered a million of virtues and amiable qualities in her which she had not perceived when they were at chiswick together. for the affection of young ladies is of as rapid growth as jack's bean-stalk, and reaches up to the sky in a night. it is no blame to them that after marriage this sehnsucht nach der liebe subsides. it is what sentimentalists, who deal in very big words, call a yearning after the ideal, and simply means that women are commonly not satisfied until they have husbands and children on whom they may centre affections, which are spent elsewhere, as it were, in small change. having expended her little store of songs, or having stayed long enough in the back drawing-room, it now appeared proper to miss amelia to ask her friend to sing. "you would not have listened to me," she said to mr. osborne (though she knew she was telling a fib), "had you heard rebecca first." "i give miss sharp warning, though," said osborne, "that, right or wrong, i consider miss amelia sedley the first singer in the world." "you shall hear," said amelia; and joseph sedley was actually polite enough to carry the candles to the piano. osborne hinted that he should like quite as well to sit in the dark; but miss sedley, laughing, declined to bear him company any farther, and the two accordingly followed mr. joseph. rebecca sang far better than her friend (though of course osborne was free to keep his opinion), and exerted herself to the utmost, and, indeed, to the wonder of amelia, who had never known her perform so well. she sang a french song, which joseph did not understand in the least, and which george confessed he did not understand, and then a number of those simple ballads which were the fashion forty years ago, and in which british tars, our king, poor susan, blue-eyed mary, and the like, were the principal themes. they are not, it is said, very brilliant, in a musical point of view, but contain numberless good-natured, simple appeals to the affections, which people understood better than the milk-and-water lagrime, sospiri, and felicita of the eternal donizettian music with which we are favoured now-a-days. conversation of a sentimental sort, befitting the subject, was carried on between the songs, to which sambo, after he had brought the tea, the delighted cook, and even mrs. blenkinsop, the housekeeper, condescended to listen on the landing-place. among these ditties was one, the last of the concert, and to the following effect: ah! bleak and barren was the moor, ah! loud and piercing was the storm, the cottage roof was shelter'd sure, the cottage hearth was bright and warm--an orphan boy the lattice pass'd, and, as he mark'd its cheerful glow, felt doubly keen the midnight blast, and doubly cold the fallen snow. they mark'd him as he onward prest, with fainting heart and weary limb; kind voices bade him turn and rest, and gentle faces welcomed him. the dawn is up--the guest is gone, the cottage hearth is blazing still; heaven pity all poor wanderers lone! hark to the wind upon the hill! it was the sentiment of the before-mentioned words, "when i'm gone," over again. as she came to the last words, miss sharp's "deep-toned voice faltered." everybody felt the allusion to her departure, and to her hapless orphan state. joseph sedley, who was fond of music, and soft-hearted, was in a state of ravishment during the performance of the song, and profoundly touched at its conclusion. if he had had the courage; if george and miss sedley had remained, according to the former's proposal, in the farther room, joseph sedley's bachelorhood would have been at an end, and this work would never have been written. but at the close of the ditty, rebecca quitted the piano, and giving her hand to amelia, walked away into the front drawing-room twilight; and, at this moment, mr. sambo made his appearance with a tray, containing sandwiches, jellies, and some glittering glasses and decanters, on which joseph sedley's attention was immediately fixed. when the parents of the house of sedley returned from their dinner-party, they found the young people so busy in talking, that they had not heard the arrival of the carriage, and mr. joseph was in the act of saying, "my dear miss sharp, one little teaspoonful of jelly to recruit you after your immense--your--your delightful exertions." "bravo, jos!" said mr. sedley; on hearing the bantering of which well-known voice, jos instantly relapsed into an alarmed silence, and quickly took his departure. he did not lie awake all night thinking whether or not he was in love with miss sharp; the passion of love never interfered with the appetite or the slumber of mr. joseph sedley; but he thought to himself how delightful it would be to hear such songs as those after cutcherry--what a distinguee girl she was--how she could speak french better than the governor-general's lady herself--and what a sensation she would make at the calcutta balls. "it's evident the poor devil's in love with me," thought he. "she is just as rich as most of the girls who come out to india. i might go farther, and fare worse, egad!" and in these meditations he fell asleep. how miss sharp lay awake, thinking, will he come or not to-morrow? need not be told here. to-morrow came, and, as sure as fate, mr. joseph sedley made his appearance before luncheon. he had never been known before to confer such an honour on russell square. george osborne was somehow there already (sadly "putting out" amelia, who was writing to her twelve dearest friends at chiswick mall), and rebecca was employed upon her yesterday's work. as joe's buggy drove up, and while, after his usual thundering knock and pompous bustle at the door, the ex-collector of boggley wollah laboured up stairs to the drawing-room, knowing glances were telegraphed between osborne and miss sedley, and the pair, smiling archly, looked at rebecca, who actually blushed as she bent her fair ringlets over her knitting. how her heart beat as joseph appeared--joseph, puffing from the staircase in shining creaking boots--joseph, in a new waistcoat, red with heat and nervousness, and blushing behind his wadded neckcloth. it was a nervous moment for all; and as for amelia, i think she was more frightened than even the people most concerned. sambo, who flung open the door and announced mr. joseph, followed grinning, in the collector's rear, and bearing two handsome nosegays of flowers, which the monster had actually had the gallantry to purchase in covent garden market that morning--they were not as big as the haystacks which ladies carry about with them now-a-days, in cones of filigree paper; but the young women were delighted with the gift, as joseph presented one to each, with an exceedingly solemn bow. "bravo, jos!" cried osborne. "thank you, dear joseph," said amelia, quite ready to kiss her brother, if he were so minded. (and i think for a kiss from such a dear creature as amelia, i would purchase all mr. lee's conservatories out of hand.) "o heavenly, heavenly flowers!" exclaimed miss sharp, and smelt them delicately, and held them to her bosom, and cast up her eyes to the ceiling, in an ecstasy of admiration. perhaps she just looked first into the bouquet, to see whether there was a billet-doux hidden among the flowers; but there was no letter. "do they talk the language of flowers at boggley wollah, sedley?" asked osborne, laughing. "pooh, nonsense!" replied the sentimental youth. "bought 'em at nathan's; very glad you like 'em; and eh, amelia, my dear, i bought a pine-apple at the same time, which i gave to sambo. let's have it for tiffin; very cool and nice this hot weather." rebecca said she had never tasted a pine, and longed beyond everything to taste one. so the conversation went on. i don't know on what pretext osborne left the room, or why, presently, amelia went away, perhaps to superintend the slicing of the pine-apple; but jos was left alone with rebecca, who had resumed her work, and the green silk and the shining needles were quivering rapidly under her white slender fingers. "what a beautiful, byoo-ootiful song that was you sang last night, dear miss sharp," said the collector. "it made me cry almost; 'pon my honour it did." "because you have a kind heart, mr. joseph; all the sedleys have, i think." "it kept me awake last night, and i was trying to hum it this morning, in bed; i was, upon my honour. gollop, my doctor, came in at eleven (for i'm a sad invalid, you know, and see gollop every day), and, 'gad! there i was, singing away like--a robin." "o you droll creature! do let me hear you sing it." "me? no, you, miss sharp; my dear miss sharp, do sing it." "not now, mr. sedley," said rebecca, with a sigh. "my spirits are not equal to it; besides, i must finish the purse. will you help me, mr. sedley?" and before he had time to ask how, mr. joseph sedley, of the east india company's service, was actually seated tete-a-tete with a young lady, looking at her with a most killing expression; his arms stretched out before her in an imploring attitude, and his hands bound in a web of green silk, which she was unwinding. in this romantic position osborne and amelia found the interesting pair, when they entered to announce that tiffin was ready. the skein of silk was just wound round the card; but mr. jos had never spoken. "i am sure he will to-night, dear," amelia said, as she pressed rebecca's hand; and sedley, too, had communed with his soul, and said to himself, "'gad, i'll pop the question at vauxhall." chapter v dobbin of ours cuff's fight with dobbin, and the unexpected issue of that contest, will long be remembered by every man who was educated at dr. swishtail's famous school. the latter youth (who used to be called heigh-ho dobbin, gee-ho dobbin, and by many other names indicative of puerile contempt) was the quietest, the clumsiest, and, as it seemed, the dullest of all dr. swishtail's young gentlemen. his parent was a grocer in the city: and it was bruited abroad that he was admitted into dr. swishtail's academy upon what are called "mutual principles"--that is to say, the expenses of his board and schooling were defrayed by his father in goods, not money; and he stood there--most at the bottom of the school--in his scraggy corduroys and jacket, through the seams of which his great big bones were bursting--as the representative of so many pounds of tea, candles, sugar, mottled-soap, plums (of which a very mild proportion was supplied for the puddings of the establishment), and other commodities. a dreadful day it was for young dobbin when one of the youngsters of the school, having run into the town upon a poaching excursion for hardbake and polonies, espied the cart of dobbin & rudge, grocers and oilmen, thames street, london, at the doctor's door, discharging a cargo of the wares in which the firm dealt. young dobbin had no peace after that. the jokes were frightful, and merciless against him. "hullo, dobbin," one wag would say, "here's good news in the paper. sugars is ris', my boy." another would set a sum--"if a pound of mutton-candles cost sevenpence-halfpenny, how much must dobbin cost?" and a roar would follow from all the circle of young knaves, usher and all, who rightly considered that the selling of goods by retail is a shameful and infamous practice, meriting the contempt and scorn of all real gentlemen. "your father's only a merchant, osborne," dobbin said in private to the little boy who had brought down the storm upon him. at which the latter replied haughtily, "my father's a gentleman, and keeps his carriage"; and mr. william dobbin retreated to a remote outhouse in the playground, where he passed a half-holiday in the bitterest sadness and woe. who amongst us is there that does not recollect similar hours of bitter, bitter childish grief? who feels injustice; who shrinks before a slight; who has a sense of wrong so acute, and so glowing a gratitude for kindness, as a generous boy? and how many of those gentle souls do you degrade, estrange, torture, for the sake of a little loose arithmetic, and miserable dog-latin? now, william dobbin, from an incapacity to acquire the rudiments of the above language, as they are propounded in that wonderful book the eton latin grammar, was compelled to remain among the very last of doctor swishtail's scholars, and was "taken down" continually by little fellows with pink faces and pinafores when he marched up with the lower form, a giant amongst them, with his downcast, stupefied look, his dog's-eared primer, and his tight corduroys. high and low, all made fun of him. they sewed up those corduroys, tight as they were. they cut his bed-strings. they upset buckets and benches, so that he might break his shins over them, which he never failed to do. they sent him parcels, which, when opened, were found to contain the paternal soap and candles. there was no little fellow but had his jeer and joke at dobbin; and he bore everything quite patiently, and was entirely dumb and miserable. cuff, on the contrary, was the great chief and dandy of the swishtail seminary. he smuggled wine in. he fought the town-boys. ponies used to come for him to ride home on saturdays. he had his top-boots in his room, in which he used to hunt in the holidays. he had a gold repeater: and took snuff like the doctor. he had been to the opera, and knew the merits of the principal actors, preferring mr. kean to mr. kemble. he could knock you off forty latin verses in an hour. he could make french poetry. what else didn't he know, or couldn't he do? they said even the doctor himself was afraid of him. cuff, the unquestioned king of the school, ruled over his subjects, and bullied them, with splendid superiority. this one blacked his shoes: that toasted his bread, others would fag out, and give him balls at cricket during whole summer afternoons. "figs" was the fellow whom he despised most, and with whom, though always abusing him, and sneering at him, he scarcely ever condescended to hold personal communication. one day in private, the two young gentlemen had had a difference. figs, alone in the schoolroom, was blundering over a home letter; when cuff, entering, bade him go upon some message, of which tarts were probably the subject. "i can't," says dobbin; "i want to finish my letter." "you can't?" says mr. cuff, laying hold of that document (in which many words were scratched out, many were mis-spelt, on which had been spent i don't know how much thought, and labour, and tears; for the poor fellow was writing to his mother, who was fond of him, although she was a grocer's wife, and lived in a back parlour in thames street). "you can't?" says mr. cuff: "i should like to know why, pray? can't you write to old mother figs to-morrow?" "don't call names," dobbin said, getting off the bench very nervous. "well, sir, will you go?" crowed the cock of the school. "put down the letter," dobbin replied; "no gentleman readth letterth." "well, now will you go?" says the other. "no, i won't. don't strike, or i'll thmash you," roars out dobbin, springing to a leaden inkstand, and looking so wicked, that mr. cuff paused, turned down his coat sleeves again, put his hands into his pockets, and walked away with a sneer. but he never meddled personally with the grocer's boy after that; though we must do him the justice to say he always spoke of mr. dobbin with contempt behind his back. some time after this interview, it happened that mr. cuff, on a sunshiny afternoon, was in the neighbourhood of poor william dobbin, who was lying under a tree in the playground, spelling over a favourite copy of the arabian nights which he had apart from the rest of the school, who were pursuing their various sports--quite lonely, and almost happy. if people would but leave children to themselves; if teachers would cease to bully them; if parents would not insist upon directing their thoughts, and dominating their feelings--those feelings and thoughts which are a mystery to all (for how much do you and i know of each other, of our children, of our fathers, of our neighbour, and how far more beautiful and sacred are the thoughts of the poor lad or girl whom you govern likely to be, than those of the dull and world-corrupted person who rules him?)--if, i say, parents and masters would leave their children alone a little more, small harm would accrue, although a less quantity of as in praesenti might be acquired. well, william dobbin had for once forgotten the world, and was away with sindbad the sailor in the valley of diamonds, or with prince ahmed and the fairy peribanou in that delightful cavern where the prince found her, and whither we should all like to make a tour; when shrill cries, as of a little fellow weeping, woke up his pleasant reverie; and looking up, he saw cuff before him, belabouring a little boy. it was the lad who had peached upon him about the grocer's cart; but he bore little malice, not at least towards the young and small. "how dare you, sir, break the bottle?" says cuff to the little urchin, swinging a yellow cricket-stump over him. the boy had been instructed to get over the playground wall (at a selected spot where the broken glass had been removed from the top, and niches made convenient in the brick); to run a quarter of a mile; to purchase a pint of rum-shrub on credit; to brave all the doctor's outlying spies, and to clamber back into the playground again; during the performance of which feat, his foot had slipt, and the bottle was broken, and the shrub had been spilt, and his pantaloons had been damaged, and he appeared before his employer a perfectly guilty and trembling, though harmless, wretch. "how dare you, sir, break it?" says cuff; "you blundering little thief. you drank the shrub, and now you pretend to have broken the bottle. hold out your hand, sir." down came the stump with a great heavy thump on the child's hand. a moan followed. dobbin looked up. the fairy peribanou had fled into the inmost cavern with prince ahmed: the roc had whisked away sindbad the sailor out of the valley of diamonds out of sight, far into the clouds: and there was everyday life before honest william; and a big boy beating a little one without cause. "hold out your other hand, sir," roars cuff to his little schoolfellow, whose face was distorted with pain. dobbin quivered, and gathered himself up in his narrow old clothes. "take that, you little devil!" cried mr. cuff, and down came the wicket again on the child's hand.--don't be horrified, ladies, every boy at a public school has done it. your children will so do and be done by, in all probability. down came the wicket again; and dobbin started up. i can't tell what his motive was. torture in a public school is as much licensed as the knout in russia. it would be ungentlemanlike (in a manner) to resist it. perhaps dobbin's foolish soul revolted against that exercise of tyranny; or perhaps he had a hankering feeling of revenge in his mind, and longed to measure himself against that splendid bully and tyrant, who had all the glory, pride, pomp, circumstance, banners flying, drums beating, guards saluting, in the place. whatever may have been his incentive, however, up he sprang, and screamed out, "hold off, cuff; don't bully that child any more; or i'll--" "or you'll what?" cuff asked in amazement at this interruption. "hold out your hand, you little beast." "i'll give you the worst thrashing you ever had in your life," dobbin said, in reply to the first part of cuff's sentence; and little osborne, gasping and in tears, looked up with wonder and incredulity at seeing this amazing champion put up suddenly to defend him: while cuff's astonishment was scarcely less. fancy our late monarch george iii when he heard of the revolt of the north american colonies: fancy brazen goliath when little david stepped forward and claimed a meeting; and you have the feelings of mr. reginald cuff when this rencontre was proposed to him. "after school," says he, of course; after a pause and a look, as much as to say, "make your will, and communicate your last wishes to your friends between this time and that." "as you please," dobbin said. "you must be my bottle holder, osborne." "well, if you like," little osborne replied; for you see his papa kept a carriage, and he was rather ashamed of his champion. yes, when the hour of battle came, he was almost ashamed to say, "go it, figs"; and not a single other boy in the place uttered that cry for the first two or three rounds of this famous combat; at the commencement of which the scientific cuff, with a contemptuous smile on his face, and as light and as gay as if he was at a ball, planted his blows upon his adversary, and floored that unlucky champion three times running. at each fall there was a cheer; and everybody was anxious to have the honour of offering the conqueror a knee. "what a licking i shall get when it's over," young osborne thought, picking up his man. "you'd best give in," he said to dobbin; "it's only a thrashing, figs, and you know i'm used to it." but figs, all whose limbs were in a quiver, and whose nostrils were breathing rage, put his little bottle-holder aside, and went in for a fourth time. as he did not in the least know how to parry the blows that were aimed at himself, and cuff had begun the attack on the three preceding occasions, without ever allowing his enemy to strike, figs now determined that he would commence the engagement by a charge on his own part; and accordingly, being a left-handed man, brought that arm into action, and hit out a couple of times with all his might--once at mr. cuff's left eye, and once on his beautiful roman nose. cuff went down this time, to the astonishment of the assembly. "well hit, by jove," says little osborne, with the air of a connoisseur, clapping his man on the back. "give it him with the left, figs my boy." figs's left made terrific play during all the rest of the combat. cuff went down every time. at the sixth round, there were almost as many fellows shouting out, "go it, figs," as there were youths exclaiming, "go it, cuff." at the twelfth round the latter champion was all abroad, as the saying is, and had lost all presence of mind and power of attack or defence. figs, on the contrary, was as calm as a quaker. his face being quite pale, his eyes shining open, and a great cut on his underlip bleeding profusely, gave this young fellow a fierce and ghastly air, which perhaps struck terror into many spectators. nevertheless, his intrepid adversary prepared to close for the thirteenth time. if i had the pen of a napier, or a bell's life, i should like to describe this combat properly. it was the last charge of the guard--(that is, it would have been, only waterloo had not yet taken place)--it was ney's column breasting the hill of la haye sainte, bristling with ten thousand bayonets, and crowned with twenty eagles--it was the shout of the beef-eating british, as leaping down the hill they rushed to hug the enemy in the savage arms of battle--in other words, cuff coming up full of pluck, but quite reeling and groggy, the fig-merchant put in his left as usual on his adversary's nose, and sent him down for the last time. "i think that will do for him," figs said, as his opponent dropped as neatly on the green as i have seen jack spot's ball plump into the pocket at billiards; and the fact is, when time was called, mr. reginald cuff was not able, or did not choose, to stand up again. and now all the boys set up such a shout for figs as would have made you think he had been their darling champion through the whole battle; and as absolutely brought dr. swishtail out of his study, curious to know the cause of the uproar. he threatened to flog figs violently, of course; but cuff, who had come to himself by this time, and was washing his wounds, stood up and said, "it's my fault, sir--not figs'--not dobbin's. i was bullying a little boy; and he served me right." by which magnanimous speech he not only saved his conqueror a whipping, but got back all his ascendancy over the boys which his defeat had nearly cost him. young osborne wrote home to his parents an account of the transaction. sugarcane house, richmond, march, -- dear mama,--i hope you are quite well. i should be much obliged to you to send me a cake and five shillings. there has been a fight here between cuff & dobbin. cuff, you know, was the cock of the school. they fought thirteen rounds, and dobbin licked. so cuff is now only second cock. the fight was about me. cuff was licking me for breaking a bottle of milk, and figs wouldn't stand it. we call him figs because his father is a grocer--figs & rudge, thames st., city--i think as he fought for me you ought to buy your tea & sugar at his father's. cuff goes home every saturday, but can't this, because he has black eyes. he has a white pony to come and fetch him, and a groom in livery on a bay mare. i wish my papa would let me have a pony, and i am your dutiful son, george sedley osborne p.s.--give my love to little emmy. i am cutting her out a coach in cardboard. please not a seed-cake, but a plum-cake. in consequence of dobbin's victory, his character rose prodigiously in the estimation of all his schoolfellows, and the name of figs, which had been a byword of reproach, became as respectable and popular a nickname as any other in use in the school. "after all, it's not his fault that his father's a grocer," george osborne said, who, though a little chap, had a very high popularity among the swishtail youth; and his opinion was received with great applause. it was voted low to sneer at dobbin about this accident of birth. "old figs" grew to be a name of kindness and endearment; and the sneak of an usher jeered at him no longer. and dobbin's spirit rose with his altered circumstances. he made wonderful advances in scholastic learning. the superb cuff himself, at whose condescension dobbin could only blush and wonder, helped him on with his latin verses; "coached" him in play-hours: carried him triumphantly out of the little-boy class into the middle-sized form; and even there got a fair place for him. it was discovered, that although dull at classical learning, at mathematics he was uncommonly quick. to the contentment of all he passed third in algebra, and got a french prize-book at the public midsummer examination. you should have seen his mother's face when telemaque (that delicious romance) was presented to him by the doctor in the face of the whole school and the parents and company, with an inscription to gulielmo dobbin. all the boys clapped hands in token of applause and sympathy. his blushes, his stumbles, his awkwardness, and the number of feet which he crushed as he went back to his place, who shall describe or calculate? old dobbin, his father, who now respected him for the first time, gave him two guineas publicly; most of which he spent in a general tuck-out for the school: and he came back in a tail-coat after the holidays. dobbin was much too modest a young fellow to suppose that this happy change in all his circumstances arose from his own generous and manly disposition: he chose, from some perverseness, to attribute his good fortune to the sole agency and benevolence of little george osborne, to whom henceforth he vowed such a love and affection as is only felt by children--such an affection, as we read in the charming fairy-book, uncouth orson had for splendid young valentine his conqueror. he flung himself down at little osborne's feet, and loved him. even before they were acquainted, he had admired osborne in secret. now he was his valet, his dog, his man friday. he believed osborne to be the possessor of every perfection, to be the handsomest, the bravest, the most active, the cleverest, the most generous of created boys. he shared his money with him: bought him uncountable presents of knives, pencil-cases, gold seals, toffee, little warblers, and romantic books, with large coloured pictures of knights and robbers, in many of which latter you might read inscriptions to george sedley osborne, esquire, from his attached friend william dobbin--the which tokens of homage george received very graciously, as became his superior merit. so that lieutenant osborne, when coming to russell square on the day of the vauxhall party, said to the ladies, "mrs. sedley, ma'am, i hope you have room; i've asked dobbin of ours to come and dine here, and go with us to vauxhall. he's almost as modest as jos." "modesty! pooh," said the stout gentleman, casting a vainqueur look at miss sharp. "he is--but you are incomparably more graceful, sedley," osborne added, laughing. "i met him at the bedford, when i went to look for you; and i told him that miss amelia was come home, and that we were all bent on going out for a night's pleasuring; and that mrs. sedley had forgiven his breaking the punch-bowl at the child's party. don't you remember the catastrophe, ma'am, seven years ago?" "over mrs. flamingo's crimson silk gown," said good-natured mrs. sedley. "what a gawky it was! and his sisters are not much more graceful. lady dobbin was at highbury last night with three of them. such figures! my dears." "the alderman's very rich, isn't he?" osborne said archly. "don't you think one of the daughters would be a good spec for me, ma'am?" "you foolish creature! who would take you, i should like to know, with your yellow face?" "mine a yellow face? stop till you see dobbin. why, he had the yellow fever three times; twice at nassau, and once at st. kitts." "well, well; yours is quite yellow enough for us. isn't it, emmy?" mrs. sedley said: at which speech miss amelia only made a smile and a blush; and looking at mr. george osborne's pale interesting countenance, and those beautiful black, curling, shining whiskers, which the young gentleman himself regarded with no ordinary complacency, she thought in her little heart that in his majesty's army, or in the wide world, there never was such a face or such a hero. "i don't care about captain dobbin's complexion," she said, "or about his awkwardness. i shall always like him, i know," her little reason being, that he was the friend and champion of george. "there's not a finer fellow in the service," osborne said, "nor a better officer, though he is not an adonis, certainly." and he looked towards the glass himself with much naivete; and in so doing, caught miss sharp's eye fixed keenly upon him, at which he blushed a little, and rebecca thought in her heart, "ah, mon beau monsieur! i think i have your gauge"--the little artful minx! that evening, when amelia came tripping into the drawing-room in a white muslin frock, prepared for conquest at vauxhall, singing like a lark, and as fresh as a rose--a very tall ungainly gentleman, with large hands and feet, and large ears, set off by a closely cropped head of black hair, and in the hideous military frogged coat and cocked hat of those times, advanced to meet her, and made her one of the clumsiest bows that was ever performed by a mortal. this was no other than captain william dobbin, of his majesty's regiment of foot, returned from yellow fever, in the west indies, to which the fortune of the service had ordered his regiment, whilst so many of his gallant comrades were reaping glory in the peninsula. he had arrived with a knock so very timid and quiet that it was inaudible to the ladies upstairs: otherwise, you may be sure miss amelia would never have been so bold as to come singing into the room. as it was, the sweet fresh little voice went right into the captain's heart, and nestled there. when she held out her hand for him to shake, before he enveloped it in his own, he paused, and thought--"well, is it possible--are you the little maid i remember in the pink frock, such a short time ago--the night i upset the punch-bowl, just after i was gazetted? are you the little girl that george osborne said should marry him? what a blooming young creature you seem, and what a prize the rogue has got!" all this he thought, before he took amelia's hand into his own, and as he let his cocked hat fall. his history since he left school, until the very moment when we have the pleasure of meeting him again, although not fully narrated, has yet, i think, been indicated sufficiently for an ingenious reader by the conversation in the last page. dobbin, the despised grocer, was alderman dobbin--alderman dobbin was colonel of the city light horse, then burning with military ardour to resist the french invasion. colonel dobbin's corps, in which old mr. osborne himself was but an indifferent corporal, had been reviewed by the sovereign and the duke of york; and the colonel and alderman had been knighted. his son had entered the army: and young osborne followed presently in the same regiment. they had served in the west indies and in canada. their regiment had just come home, and the attachment of dobbin to george osborne was as warm and generous now as it had been when the two were schoolboys. so these worthy people sat down to dinner presently. they talked about war and glory, and boney and lord wellington, and the last gazette. in those famous days every gazette had a victory in it, and the two gallant young men longed to see their own names in the glorious list, and cursed their unlucky fate to belong to a regiment which had been away from the chances of honour. miss sharp kindled with this exciting talk, but miss sedley trembled and grew quite faint as she heard it. mr. jos told several of his tiger-hunting stories, finished the one about miss cutler and lance the surgeon; helped rebecca to everything on the table, and himself gobbled and drank a great deal. he sprang to open the door for the ladies, when they retired, with the most killing grace--and coming back to the table, filled himself bumper after bumper of claret, which he swallowed with nervous rapidity. "he's priming himself," osborne whispered to dobbin, and at length the hour and the carriage arrived for vauxhall. chapter vi vauxhall i know that the tune i am piping is a very mild one (although there are some terrific chapters coming presently), and must beg the good-natured reader to remember that we are only discoursing at present about a stockbroker's family in russell square, who are taking walks, or luncheon, or dinner, or talking and making love as people do in common life, and without a single passionate and wonderful incident to mark the progress of their loves. the argument stands thus--osborne, in love with amelia, has asked an old friend to dinner and to vauxhall--jos sedley is in love with rebecca. will he marry her? that is the great subject now in hand. we might have treated this subject in the genteel, or in the romantic, or in the facetious manner. suppose we had laid the scene in grosvenor square, with the very same adventures--would not some people have listened? suppose we had shown how lord joseph sedley fell in love, and the marquis of osborne became attached to lady amelia, with the full consent of the duke, her noble father: or instead of the supremely genteel, suppose we had resorted to the entirely low, and described what was going on in mr. sedley's kitchen--how black sambo was in love with the cook (as indeed he was), and how he fought a battle with the coachman in her behalf; how the knife-boy was caught stealing a cold shoulder of mutton, and miss sedley's new femme de chambre refused to go to bed without a wax candle; such incidents might be made to provoke much delightful laughter, and be supposed to represent scenes of "life." or if, on the contrary, we had taken a fancy for the terrible, and made the lover of the new femme de chambre a professional burglar, who bursts into the house with his band, slaughters black sambo at the feet of his master, and carries off amelia in her night-dress, not to be let loose again till the third volume, we should easily have constructed a tale of thrilling interest, through the fiery chapters of which the reader should hurry, panting. but my readers must hope for no such romance, only a homely story, and must be content with a chapter about vauxhall, which is so short that it scarce deserves to be called a chapter at all. and yet it is a chapter, and a very important one too. are not there little chapters in everybody's life, that seem to be nothing, and yet affect all the rest of the history? let us then step into the coach with the russell square party, and be off to the gardens. there is barely room between jos and miss sharp, who are on the front seat. mr. osborne sitting bodkin opposite, between captain dobbin and amelia. every soul in the coach agreed that on that night jos would propose to make rebecca sharp mrs. sedley. the parents at home had acquiesced in the arrangement, though, between ourselves, old mr. sedley had a feeling very much akin to contempt for his son. he said he was vain, selfish, lazy, and effeminate. he could not endure his airs as a man of fashion, and laughed heartily at his pompous braggadocio stories. "i shall leave the fellow half my property," he said; "and he will have, besides, plenty of his own; but as i am perfectly sure that if you, and i, and his sister were to die to-morrow, he would say 'good gad!' and eat his dinner just as well as usual, i am not going to make myself anxious about him. let him marry whom he likes. it's no affair of mine." amelia, on the other hand, as became a young woman of her prudence and temperament, was quite enthusiastic for the match. once or twice jos had been on the point of saying something very important to her, to which she was most willing to lend an ear, but the fat fellow could not be brought to unbosom himself of his great secret, and very much to his sister's disappointment he only rid himself of a large sigh and turned away. this mystery served to keep amelia's gentle bosom in a perpetual flutter of excitement. if she did not speak with rebecca on the tender subject, she compensated herself with long and intimate conversations with mrs. blenkinsop, the housekeeper, who dropped some hints to the lady's-maid, who may have cursorily mentioned the matter to the cook, who carried the news, i have no doubt, to all the tradesmen, so that mr. jos's marriage was now talked of by a very considerable number of persons in the russell square world. it was, of course, mrs. sedley's opinion that her son would demean himself by a marriage with an artist's daughter. "but, lor', ma'am," ejaculated mrs. blenkinsop, "we was only grocers when we married mr. s., who was a stock-broker's clerk, and we hadn't five hundred pounds among us, and we're rich enough now." and amelia was entirely of this opinion, to which, gradually, the good-natured mrs. sedley was brought. mr. sedley was neutral. "let jos marry whom he likes," he said; "it's no affair of mine. this girl has no fortune; no more had mrs. sedley. she seems good-humoured and clever, and will keep him in order, perhaps. better she, my dear, than a black mrs. sedley, and a dozen of mahogany grandchildren." so that everything seemed to smile upon rebecca's fortunes. she took jos's arm, as a matter of course, on going to dinner; she had sate by him on the box of his open carriage (a most tremendous "buck" he was, as he sat there, serene, in state, driving his greys), and though nobody said a word on the subject of the marriage, everybody seemed to understand it. all she wanted was the proposal, and ah! how rebecca now felt the want of a mother!--a dear, tender mother, who would have managed the business in ten minutes, and, in the course of a little delicate confidential conversation, would have extracted the interesting avowal from the bashful lips of the young man! such was the state of affairs as the carriage crossed westminster bridge. the party was landed at the royal gardens in due time. as the majestic jos stepped out of the creaking vehicle the crowd gave a cheer for the fat gentleman, who blushed and looked very big and mighty, as he walked away with rebecca under his arm. george, of course, took charge of amelia. she looked as happy as a rose-tree in sunshine. "i say, dobbin," says george, "just look to the shawls and things, there's a good fellow." and so while he paired off with miss sedley, and jos squeezed through the gate into the gardens with rebecca at his side, honest dobbin contented himself by giving an arm to the shawls, and by paying at the door for the whole party. he walked very modestly behind them. he was not willing to spoil sport. about rebecca and jos he did not care a fig. but he thought amelia worthy even of the brilliant george osborne, and as he saw that good-looking couple threading the walks to the girl's delight and wonder, he watched her artless happiness with a sort of fatherly pleasure. perhaps he felt that he would have liked to have something on his own arm besides a shawl (the people laughed at seeing the gawky young officer carrying this female burthen); but william dobbin was very little addicted to selfish calculation at all; and so long as his friend was enjoying himself, how should he be discontented? and the truth is, that of all the delights of the gardens; of the hundred thousand extra lamps, which were always lighted; the fiddlers in cocked hats, who played ravishing melodies under the gilded cockle-shell in the midst of the gardens; the singers, both of comic and sentimental ballads, who charmed the ears there; the country dances, formed by bouncing cockneys and cockneyesses, and executed amidst jumping, thumping and laughter; the signal which announced that madame saqui was about to mount skyward on a slack-rope ascending to the stars; the hermit that always sat in the illuminated hermitage; the dark walks, so favourable to the interviews of young lovers; the pots of stout handed about by the people in the shabby old liveries; and the twinkling boxes, in which the happy feasters made-believe to eat slices of almost invisible ham--of all these things, and of the gentle simpson, that kind smiling idiot, who, i daresay, presided even then over the place--captain william dobbin did not take the slightest notice. he carried about amelia's white cashmere shawl, and having attended under the gilt cockle-shell, while mrs. salmon performed the battle of borodino (a savage cantata against the corsican upstart, who had lately met with his russian reverses)--mr. dobbin tried to hum it as he walked away, and found he was humming--the tune which amelia sedley sang on the stairs, as she came down to dinner. he burst out laughing at himself; for the truth is, he could sing no better than an owl. it is to be understood, as a matter of course, that our young people, being in parties of two and two, made the most solemn promises to keep together during the evening, and separated in ten minutes afterwards. parties at vauxhall always did separate, but 'twas only to meet again at supper-time, when they could talk of their mutual adventures in the interval. what were the adventures of mr. osborne and miss amelia? that is a secret. but be sure of this--they were perfectly happy, and correct in their behaviour; and as they had been in the habit of being together any time these fifteen years, their tete-a-tete offered no particular novelty. but when miss rebecca sharp and her stout companion lost themselves in a solitary walk, in which there were not above five score more of couples similarly straying, they both felt that the situation was extremely tender and critical, and now or never was the moment miss sharp thought, to provoke that declaration which was trembling on the timid lips of mr. sedley. they had previously been to the panorama of moscow, where a rude fellow, treading on miss sharp's foot, caused her to fall back with a little shriek into the arms of mr. sedley, and this little incident increased the tenderness and confidence of that gentleman to such a degree, that he told her several of his favourite indian stories over again for, at least, the sixth time. "how i should like to see india!" said rebecca. "should you?" said joseph, with a most killing tenderness; and was no doubt about to follow up this artful interrogatory by a question still more tender (for he puffed and panted a great deal, and rebecca's hand, which was placed near his heart, could count the feverish pulsations of that organ), when, oh, provoking! the bell rang for the fireworks, and, a great scuffling and running taking place, these interesting lovers were obliged to follow in the stream of people. captain dobbin had some thoughts of joining the party at supper: as, in truth, he found the vauxhall amusements not particularly lively--but he paraded twice before the box where the now united couples were met, and nobody took any notice of him. covers were laid for four. the mated pairs were prattling away quite happily, and dobbin knew he was as clean forgotten as if he had never existed in this world. "i should only be de trop," said the captain, looking at them rather wistfully. "i'd best go and talk to the hermit,"--and so he strolled off out of the hum of men, and noise, and clatter of the banquet, into the dark walk, at the end of which lived that well-known pasteboard solitary. it wasn't very good fun for dobbin--and, indeed, to be alone at vauxhall, i have found, from my own experience, to be one of the most dismal sports ever entered into by a bachelor. the two couples were perfectly happy then in their box: where the most delightful and intimate conversation took place. jos was in his glory, ordering about the waiters with great majesty. he made the salad; and uncorked the champagne; and carved the chickens; and ate and drank the greater part of the refreshments on the tables. finally, he insisted upon having a bowl of rack punch; everybody had rack punch at vauxhall. "waiter, rack punch." that bowl of rack punch was the cause of all this history. and why not a bowl of rack punch as well as any other cause? was not a bowl of prussic acid the cause of fair rosamond's retiring from the world? was not a bowl of wine the cause of the demise of alexander the great, or, at least, does not dr. lempriere say so?--so did this bowl of rack punch influence the fates of all the principal characters in this "novel without a hero," which we are now relating. it influenced their life, although most of them did not taste a drop of it. the young ladies did not drink it; osborne did not like it; and the consequence was that jos, that fat gourmand, drank up the whole contents of the bowl; and the consequence of his drinking up the whole contents of the bowl was a liveliness which at first was astonishing, and then became almost painful; for he talked and laughed so loud as to bring scores of listeners round the box, much to the confusion of the innocent party within it; and, volunteering to sing a song (which he did in that maudlin high key peculiar to gentlemen in an inebriated state), he almost drew away the audience who were gathered round the musicians in the gilt scollop-shell, and received from his hearers a great deal of applause. "brayvo, fat un!" said one; "angcore, daniel lambert!" said another; "what a figure for the tight-rope!" exclaimed another wag, to the inexpressible alarm of the ladies, and the great anger of mr. osborne. "for heaven's sake, jos, let us get up and go," cried that gentleman, and the young women rose. "stop, my dearest diddle-diddle-darling," shouted jos, now as bold as a lion, and clasping miss rebecca round the waist. rebecca started, but she could not get away her hand. the laughter outside redoubled. jos continued to drink, to make love, and to sing; and, winking and waving his glass gracefully to his audience, challenged all or any to come in and take a share of his punch. mr. osborne was just on the point of knocking down a gentleman in top-boots, who proposed to take advantage of this invitation, and a commotion seemed to be inevitable, when by the greatest good luck a gentleman of the name of dobbin, who had been walking about the gardens, stepped up to the box. "be off, you fools!" said this gentleman--shouldering off a great number of the crowd, who vanished presently before his cocked hat and fierce appearance--and he entered the box in a most agitated state. "good heavens! dobbin, where have you been?" osborne said, seizing the white cashmere shawl from his friend's arm, and huddling up amelia in it.--"make yourself useful, and take charge of jos here, whilst i take the ladies to the carriage." jos was for rising to interfere--but a single push from osborne's finger sent him puffing back into his seat again, and the lieutenant was enabled to remove the ladies in safety. jos kissed his hand to them as they retreated, and hiccupped out "bless you! bless you!" then, seizing captain dobbin's hand, and weeping in the most pitiful way, he confided to that gentleman the secret of his loves. he adored that girl who had just gone out; he had broken her heart, he knew he had, by his conduct; he would marry her next morning at st. george's, hanover square; he'd knock up the archbishop of canterbury at lambeth: he would, by jove! and have him in readiness; and, acting on this hint, captain dobbin shrewdly induced him to leave the gardens and hasten to lambeth palace, and, when once out of the gates, easily conveyed mr. jos sedley into a hackney-coach, which deposited him safely at his lodgings. george osborne conducted the girls home in safety: and when the door was closed upon them, and as he walked across russell square, laughed so as to astonish the watchman. amelia looked very ruefully at her friend, as they went up stairs, and kissed her, and went to bed without any more talking. "he must propose to-morrow," thought rebecca. "he called me his soul's darling, four times; he squeezed my hand in amelia's presence. he must propose to-morrow." and so thought amelia, too. and i dare say she thought of the dress she was to wear as bridesmaid, and of the presents which she should make to her nice little sister-in-law, and of a subsequent ceremony in which she herself might play a principal part, &c., and &c., and &c., and &c. oh, ignorant young creatures! how little do you know the effect of rack punch! what is the rack in the punch, at night, to the rack in the head of a morning? to this truth i can vouch as a man; there is no headache in the world like that caused by vauxhall punch. through the lapse of twenty years, i can remember the consequence of two glasses! two wine-glasses! but two, upon the honour of a gentleman; and joseph sedley, who had a liver complaint, had swallowed at least a quart of the abominable mixture. that next morning, which rebecca thought was to dawn upon her fortune, found sedley groaning in agonies which the pen refuses to describe. soda-water was not invented yet. small beer--will it be believed!--was the only drink with which unhappy gentlemen soothed the fever of their previous night's potation. with this mild beverage before him, george osborne found the ex-collector of boggley wollah groaning on the sofa at his lodgings. dobbin was already in the room, good-naturedly tending his patient of the night before. the two officers, looking at the prostrate bacchanalian, and askance at each other, exchanged the most frightful sympathetic grins. even sedley's valet, the most solemn and correct of gentlemen, with the muteness and gravity of an undertaker, could hardly keep his countenance in order, as he looked at his unfortunate master. "mr. sedley was uncommon wild last night, sir," he whispered in confidence to osborne, as the latter mounted the stair. "he wanted to fight the 'ackney-coachman, sir. the capting was obliged to bring him upstairs in his harms like a babby." a momentary smile flickered over mr. brush's features as he spoke; instantly, however, they relapsed into their usual unfathomable calm, as he flung open the drawing-room door, and announced "mr. hosbin." "how are you, sedley?" that young wag began, after surveying his victim. "no bones broke? there's a hackney-coachman downstairs with a black eye, and a tied-up head, vowing he'll have the law of you." "what do you mean--law?" sedley faintly asked. "for thrashing him last night--didn't he, dobbin? you hit out, sir, like molyneux. the watchman says he never saw a fellow go down so straight. ask dobbin." "you did have a round with the coachman," captain dobbin said, "and showed plenty of fight too." "and that fellow with the white coat at vauxhall! how jos drove at him! how the women screamed! by jove, sir, it did my heart good to see you. i thought you civilians had no pluck; but i'll never get in your way when you are in your cups, jos." "i believe i'm very terrible, when i'm roused," ejaculated jos from the sofa, and made a grimace so dreary and ludicrous, that the captain's politeness could restrain him no longer, and he and osborne fired off a ringing volley of laughter. osborne pursued his advantage pitilessly. he thought jos a milksop. he had been revolving in his mind the marriage question pending between jos and rebecca, and was not over well pleased that a member of a family into which he, george osborne, of the --th, was going to marry, should make a mesalliance with a little nobody--a little upstart governess. "you hit, you poor old fellow!" said osborne. "you terrible! why, man, you couldn't stand--you made everybody laugh in the gardens, though you were crying yourself. you were maudlin, jos. don't you remember singing a song?" "a what?" jos asked. "a sentimental song, and calling rosa, rebecca, what's her name, amelia's little friend--your dearest diddle-diddle-darling?" and this ruthless young fellow, seizing hold of dobbin's hand, acted over the scene, to the horror of the original performer, and in spite of dobbin's good-natured entreaties to him to have mercy. "why should i spare him?" osborne said to his friend's remonstrances, when they quitted the invalid, leaving him under the hands of doctor gollop. "what the deuce right has he to give himself his patronizing airs, and make fools of us at vauxhall? who's this little schoolgirl that is ogling and making love to him? hang it, the family's low enough already, without her. a governess is all very well, but i'd rather have a lady for my sister-in-law. i'm a liberal man; but i've proper pride, and know my own station: let her know hers. and i'll take down that great hectoring nabob, and prevent him from being made a greater fool than he is. that's why i told him to look out, lest she brought an action against him." "i suppose you know best," dobbin said, though rather dubiously. "you always were a tory, and your family's one of the oldest in england. but--" "come and see the girls, and make love to miss sharp yourself," the lieutenant here interrupted his friend; but captain dobbin declined to join osborne in his daily visit to the young ladies in russell square. as george walked down southampton row, from holborn, he laughed as he saw, at the sedley mansion, in two different stories two heads on the look-out. the fact is, miss amelia, in the drawing-room balcony, was looking very eagerly towards the opposite side of the square, where mr. osborne dwelt, on the watch for the lieutenant himself; and miss sharp, from her little bed-room on the second floor, was in observation until mr. joseph's great form should heave in sight. "sister anne is on the watch-tower," said he to amelia, "but there's nobody coming"; and laughing and enjoying the joke hugely, he described in the most ludicrous terms to miss sedley, the dismal condition of her brother. "i think it's very cruel of you to laugh, george," she said, looking particularly unhappy; but george only laughed the more at her piteous and discomfited mien, persisted in thinking the joke a most diverting one, and when miss sharp came downstairs, bantered her with a great deal of liveliness upon the effect of her charms on the fat civilian. "o miss sharp! if you could but see him this morning," he said--"moaning in his flowered dressing-gown--writhing on his sofa; if you could but have seen him lolling out his tongue to gollop the apothecary." "see whom?" said miss sharp. "whom? o whom? captain dobbin, of course, to whom we were all so attentive, by the way, last night." "we were very unkind to him," emmy said, blushing very much. "i--i quite forgot him." "of course you did," cried osborne, still on the laugh. "one can't be always thinking about dobbin, you know, amelia. can one, miss sharp?" "except when he overset the glass of wine at dinner," miss sharp said, with a haughty air and a toss of the head, "i never gave the existence of captain dobbin one single moment's consideration." "very good, miss sharp, i'll tell him," osborne said; and as he spoke miss sharp began to have a feeling of distrust and hatred towards this young officer, which he was quite unconscious of having inspired. "he is to make fun of me, is he?" thought rebecca. "has he been laughing about me to joseph? has he frightened him? perhaps he won't come."--a film passed over her eyes, and her heart beat quite quick. "you're always joking," said she, smiling as innocently as she could. "joke away, mr. george; there's nobody to defend me." and george osborne, as she walked away--and amelia looked reprovingly at him--felt some little manly compunction for having inflicted any unnecessary unkindness upon this helpless creature. "my dearest amelia," said he, "you are too good--too kind. you don't know the world. i do. and your little friend miss sharp must learn her station." "don't you think jos will--" "upon my word, my dear, i don't know. he may, or may not. i'm not his master. i only know he is a very foolish vain fellow, and put my dear little girl into a very painful and awkward position last night. my dearest diddle-diddle-darling!" he was off laughing again, and he did it so drolly that emmy laughed too. all that day jos never came. but amelia had no fear about this; for the little schemer had actually sent away the page, mr. sambo's aide-de-camp, to mr. joseph's lodgings, to ask for some book he had promised, and how he was; and the reply through jos's man, mr. brush, was, that his master was ill in bed, and had just had the doctor with him. he must come to-morrow, she thought, but she never had the courage to speak a word on the subject to rebecca; nor did that young woman herself allude to it in any way during the whole evening after the night at vauxhall. the next day, however, as the two young ladies sate on the sofa, pretending to work, or to write letters, or to read novels, sambo came into the room with his usual engaging grin, with a packet under his arm, and a note on a tray. "note from mr. jos, miss," says sambo. how amelia trembled as she opened it! so it ran: dear amelia,--i send you the "orphan of the forest." i was too ill to come yesterday. i leave town to-day for cheltenham. pray excuse me, if you can, to the amiable miss sharp, for my conduct at vauxhall, and entreat her to pardon and forget every word i may have uttered when excited by that fatal supper. as soon as i have recovered, for my health is very much shaken, i shall go to scotland for some months, and am truly yours, jos sedley it was the death-warrant. all was over. amelia did not dare to look at rebecca's pale face and burning eyes, but she dropt the letter into her friend's lap; and got up, and went upstairs to her room, and cried her little heart out. blenkinsop, the housekeeper, there sought her presently with consolation, on whose shoulder amelia wept confidentially, and relieved herself a good deal. "don't take on, miss. i didn't like to tell you. but none of us in the house have liked her except at fust. i sor her with my own eyes reading your ma's letters. pinner says she's always about your trinket-box and drawers, and everybody's drawers, and she's sure she's put your white ribbing into her box." "i gave it her, i gave it her," amelia said. but this did not alter mrs. blenkinsop's opinion of miss sharp. "i don't trust them governesses, pinner," she remarked to the maid. "they give themselves the hairs and hupstarts of ladies, and their wages is no better than you nor me." it now became clear to every soul in the house, except poor amelia, that rebecca should take her departure, and high and low (always with the one exception) agreed that that event should take place as speedily as possible. our good child ransacked all her drawers, cupboards, reticules, and gimcrack boxes--passed in review all her gowns, fichus, tags, bobbins, laces, silk stockings, and fallals--selecting this thing and that and the other, to make a little heap for rebecca. and going to her papa, that generous british merchant, who had promised to give her as many guineas as she was years old--she begged the old gentleman to give the money to dear rebecca, who must want it, while she lacked for nothing. she even made george osborne contribute, and nothing loth (for he was as free-handed a young fellow as any in the army), he went to bond street, and bought the best hat and spenser that money could buy. "that's george's present to you, rebecca, dear," said amelia, quite proud of the bandbox conveying these gifts. "what a taste he has! there's nobody like him." "nobody," rebecca answered. "how thankful i am to him!" she was thinking in her heart, "it was george osborne who prevented my marriage."--and she loved george osborne accordingly. she made her preparations for departure with great equanimity; and accepted all the kind little amelia's presents, after just the proper degree of hesitation and reluctance. she vowed eternal gratitude to mrs. sedley, of course; but did not intrude herself upon that good lady too much, who was embarrassed, and evidently wishing to avoid her. she kissed mr. sedley's hand, when he presented her with the purse; and asked permission to consider him for the future as her kind, kind friend and protector. her behaviour was so affecting that he was going to write her a cheque for twenty pounds more; but he restrained his feelings: the carriage was in waiting to take him to dinner, so he tripped away with a "god bless you, my dear, always come here when you come to town, you know.--drive to the mansion house, james." finally came the parting with miss amelia, over which picture i intend to throw a veil. but after a scene in which one person was in earnest and the other a perfect performer--after the tenderest caresses, the most pathetic tears, the smelling-bottle, and some of the very best feelings of the heart, had been called into requisition--rebecca and amelia parted, the former vowing to love her friend for ever and ever and ever. chapter vii crawley of queen's crawley among the most respected of the names beginning in c which the court-guide contained, in the year --, was that of crawley, sir pitt, baronet, great gaunt street, and queen's crawley, hants. this honourable name had figured constantly also in the parliamentary list for many years, in conjunction with that of a number of other worthy gentlemen who sat in turns for the borough. it is related, with regard to the borough of queen's crawley, that queen elizabeth in one of her progresses, stopping at crawley to breakfast, was so delighted with some remarkably fine hampshire beer which was then presented to her by the crawley of the day (a handsome gentleman with a trim beard and a good leg), that she forthwith erected crawley into a borough to send two members to parliament; and the place, from the day of that illustrious visit, took the name of queen's crawley, which it holds up to the present moment. and though, by the lapse of time, and those mutations which age produces in empires, cities, and boroughs, queen's crawley was no longer so populous a place as it had been in queen bess's time--nay, was come down to that condition of borough which used to be denominated rotten--yet, as sir pitt crawley would say with perfect justice in his elegant way, "rotten! be hanged--it produces me a good fifteen hundred a year." sir pitt crawley (named after the great commoner) was the son of walpole crawley, first baronet, of the tape and sealing-wax office in the reign of george ii., when he was impeached for peculation, as were a great number of other honest gentlemen of those days; and walpole crawley was, as need scarcely be said, son of john churchill crawley, named after the celebrated military commander of the reign of queen anne. the family tree (which hangs up at queen's crawley) furthermore mentions charles stuart, afterwards called barebones crawley, son of the crawley of james the first's time; and finally, queen elizabeth's crawley, who is represented as the foreground of the picture in his forked beard and armour. out of his waistcoat, as usual, grows a tree, on the main branches of which the above illustrious names are inscribed. close by the name of sir pitt crawley, baronet (the subject of the present memoir), are written that of his brother, the reverend bute crawley (the great commoner was in disgrace when the reverend gentleman was born), rector of crawley-cum-snailby, and of various other male and female members of the crawley family. sir pitt was first married to grizzel, sixth daughter of mungo binkie, lord binkie, and cousin, in consequence, of mr. dundas. she brought him two sons: pitt, named not so much after his father as after the heaven-born minister; and rawdon crawley, from the prince of wales's friend, whom his majesty george iv forgot so completely. many years after her ladyship's demise, sir pitt led to the altar rosa, daughter of mr. g. dawson, of mudbury, by whom he had two daughters, for whose benefit miss rebecca sharp was now engaged as governess. it will be seen that the young lady was come into a family of very genteel connexions, and was about to move in a much more distinguished circle than that humble one which she had just quitted in russell square. she had received her orders to join her pupils, in a note which was written upon an old envelope, and which contained the following words: sir pitt crawley begs miss sharp and baggidge may be hear on tuesday, as i leaf for queen's crawley to-morrow morning erly. great gaunt street. rebecca had never seen a baronet, as far as she knew, and as soon as she had taken leave of amelia, and counted the guineas which good-natured mr. sedley had put into a purse for her, and as soon as she had done wiping her eyes with her handkerchief (which operation she concluded the very moment the carriage had turned the corner of the street), she began to depict in her own mind what a baronet must be. "i wonder, does he wear a star?" thought she, "or is it only lords that wear stars? but he will be very handsomely dressed in a court suit, with ruffles, and his hair a little powdered, like mr. wroughton at covent garden. i suppose he will be awfully proud, and that i shall be treated most contemptuously. still i must bear my hard lot as well as i can--at least, i shall be amongst gentlefolks, and not with vulgar city people": and she fell to thinking of her russell square friends with that very same philosophical bitterness with which, in a certain apologue, the fox is represented as speaking of the grapes. having passed through gaunt square into great gaunt street, the carriage at length stopped at a tall gloomy house between two other tall gloomy houses, each with a hatchment over the middle drawing-room window; as is the custom of houses in great gaunt street, in which gloomy locality death seems to reign perpetual. the shutters of the first-floor windows of sir pitt's mansion were closed--those of the dining-room were partially open, and the blinds neatly covered up in old newspapers. john, the groom, who had driven the carriage alone, did not care to descend to ring the bell; and so prayed a passing milk-boy to perform that office for him. when the bell was rung, a head appeared between the interstices of the dining-room shutters, and the door was opened by a man in drab breeches and gaiters, with a dirty old coat, a foul old neckcloth lashed round his bristly neck, a shining bald head, a leering red face, a pair of twinkling grey eyes, and a mouth perpetually on the grin. "this sir pitt crawley's?" says john, from the box. "ees," says the man at the door, with a nod. "hand down these 'ere trunks then," said john. "hand 'n down yourself," said the porter. "don't you see i can't leave my hosses? come, bear a hand, my fine feller, and miss will give you some beer," said john, with a horse-laugh, for he was no longer respectful to miss sharp, as her connexion with the family was broken off, and as she had given nothing to the servants on coming away. the bald-headed man, taking his hands out of his breeches pockets, advanced on this summons, and throwing miss sharp's trunk over his shoulder, carried it into the house. "take this basket and shawl, if you please, and open the door," said miss sharp, and descended from the carriage in much indignation. "i shall write to mr. sedley and inform him of your conduct," said she to the groom. "don't," replied that functionary. "i hope you've forgot nothink? miss 'melia's gownds--have you got them--as the lady's maid was to have 'ad? i hope they'll fit you. shut the door, jim, you'll get no good out of 'er," continued john, pointing with his thumb towards miss sharp: "a bad lot, i tell you, a bad lot," and so saying, mr. sedley's groom drove away. the truth is, he was attached to the lady's maid in question, and indignant that she should have been robbed of her perquisites. on entering the dining-room, by the orders of the individual in gaiters, rebecca found that apartment not more cheerful than such rooms usually are, when genteel families are out of town. the faithful chambers seem, as it were, to mourn the absence of their masters. the turkey carpet has rolled itself up, and retired sulkily under the sideboard: the pictures have hidden their faces behind old sheets of brown paper: the ceiling lamp is muffled up in a dismal sack of brown holland: the window-curtains have disappeared under all sorts of shabby envelopes: the marble bust of sir walpole crawley is looking from its black corner at the bare boards and the oiled fire-irons, and the empty card-racks over the mantelpiece: the cellaret has lurked away behind the carpet: the chairs are turned up heads and tails along the walls: and in the dark corner opposite the statue, is an old-fashioned crabbed knife-box, locked and sitting on a dumb waiter. two kitchen chairs, and a round table, and an attenuated old poker and tongs were, however, gathered round the fire-place, as was a saucepan over a feeble sputtering fire. there was a bit of cheese and bread, and a tin candlestick on the table, and a little black porter in a pint-pot. "had your dinner, i suppose? it is not too warm for you? like a drop of beer?" "where is sir pitt crawley?" said miss sharp majestically. "he, he! i'm sir pitt crawley. reklect you owe me a pint for bringing down your luggage. he, he! ask tinker if i aynt. mrs. tinker, miss sharp; miss governess, mrs. charwoman. ho, ho!" the lady addressed as mrs. tinker at this moment made her appearance with a pipe and a paper of tobacco, for which she had been despatched a minute before miss sharp's arrival; and she handed the articles over to sir pitt, who had taken his seat by the fire. "where's the farden?" said he. "i gave you three halfpence. where's the change, old tinker?" "there!" replied mrs. tinker, flinging down the coin; "it's only baronets as cares about farthings." "a farthing a day is seven shillings a year," answered the m.p.; "seven shillings a year is the interest of seven guineas. take care of your farthings, old tinker, and your guineas will come quite nat'ral." "you may be sure it's sir pitt crawley, young woman," said mrs. tinker, surlily; "because he looks to his farthings. you'll know him better afore long." "and like me none the worse, miss sharp," said the old gentleman, with an air almost of politeness. "i must be just before i'm generous." "he never gave away a farthing in his life," growled tinker. "never, and never will: it's against my principle. go and get another chair from the kitchen, tinker, if you want to sit down; and then we'll have a bit of supper." presently the baronet plunged a fork into the saucepan on the fire, and withdrew from the pot a piece of tripe and an onion, which he divided into pretty equal portions, and of which he partook with mrs. tinker. "you see, miss sharp, when i'm not here tinker's on board wages: when i'm in town she dines with the family. haw! haw! i'm glad miss sharp's not hungry, ain't you, tink?" and they fell to upon their frugal supper. after supper sir pitt crawley began to smoke his pipe; and when it became quite dark, he lighted the rushlight in the tin candlestick, and producing from an interminable pocket a huge mass of papers, began reading them, and putting them in order. "i'm here on law business, my dear, and that's how it happens that i shall have the pleasure of such a pretty travelling companion to-morrow." "he's always at law business," said mrs. tinker, taking up the pot of porter. "drink and drink about," said the baronet. "yes; my dear, tinker is quite right: i've lost and won more lawsuits than any man in england. look here at crawley, bart. v. snaffle. i'll throw him over, or my name's not pitt crawley. podder and another versus crawley, bart. overseers of snaily parish against crawley, bart. they can't prove it's common: i'll defy 'em; the land's mine. it no more belongs to the parish than it does to you or tinker here. i'll beat 'em, if it cost me a thousand guineas. look over the papers; you may if you like, my dear. do you write a good hand? i'll make you useful when we're at queen's crawley, depend on it, miss sharp. now the dowager's dead i want some one." "she was as bad as he," said tinker. "she took the law of every one of her tradesmen; and turned away forty-eight footmen in four year." "she was close--very close," said the baronet, simply; "but she was a valyble woman to me, and saved me a steward."--and in this confidential strain, and much to the amusement of the new-comer, the conversation continued for a considerable time. whatever sir pitt crawley's qualities might be, good or bad, he did not make the least disguise of them. he talked of himself incessantly, sometimes in the coarsest and vulgarest hampshire accent; sometimes adopting the tone of a man of the world. and so, with injunctions to miss sharp to be ready at five in the morning, he bade her good night. "you'll sleep with tinker to-night," he said; "it's a big bed, and there's room for two. lady crawley died in it. good night." sir pitt went off after this benediction, and the solemn tinker, rushlight in hand, led the way up the great bleak stone stairs, past the great dreary drawing-room doors, with the handles muffled up in paper, into the great front bedroom, where lady crawley had slept her last. the bed and chamber were so funereal and gloomy, you might have fancied, not only that lady crawley died in the room, but that her ghost inhabited it. rebecca sprang about the apartment, however, with the greatest liveliness, and had peeped into the huge wardrobes, and the closets, and the cupboards, and tried the drawers which were locked, and examined the dreary pictures and toilette appointments, while the old charwoman was saying her prayers. "i shouldn't like to sleep in this yeer bed without a good conscience, miss," said the old woman. "there's room for us and a half-dozen of ghosts in it," says rebecca. "tell me all about lady crawley and sir pitt crawley, and everybody, my dear mrs. tinker." but old tinker was not to be pumped by this little cross-questioner; and signifying to her that bed was a place for sleeping, not conversation, set up in her corner of the bed such a snore as only the nose of innocence can produce. rebecca lay awake for a long, long time, thinking of the morrow, and of the new world into which she was going, and of her chances of success there. the rushlight flickered in the basin. the mantelpiece cast up a great black shadow, over half of a mouldy old sampler, which her defunct ladyship had worked, no doubt, and over two little family pictures of young lads, one in a college gown, and the other in a red jacket like a soldier. when she went to sleep, rebecca chose that one to dream about. at four o'clock, on such a roseate summer's morning as even made great gaunt street look cheerful, the faithful tinker, having wakened her bedfellow, and bid her prepare for departure, unbarred and unbolted the great hall door (the clanging and clapping whereof startled the sleeping echoes in the street), and taking her way into oxford street, summoned a coach from a stand there. it is needless to particularize the number of the vehicle, or to state that the driver was stationed thus early in the neighbourhood of swallow street, in hopes that some young buck, reeling homeward from the tavern, might need the aid of his vehicle, and pay him with the generosity of intoxication. it is likewise needless to say that the driver, if he had any such hopes as those above stated, was grossly disappointed; and that the worthy baronet whom he drove to the city did not give him one single penny more than his fare. it was in vain that jehu appealed and stormed; that he flung down miss sharp's bandboxes in the gutter at the 'necks, and swore he would take the law of his fare. "you'd better not," said one of the ostlers; "it's sir pitt crawley." "so it is, joe," cried the baronet, approvingly; "and i'd like to see the man can do me." "so should oi," said joe, grinning sulkily, and mounting the baronet's baggage on the roof of the coach. "keep the box for me, leader," exclaims the member of parliament to the coachman; who replied, "yes, sir pitt," with a touch of his hat, and rage in his soul (for he had promised the box to a young gentleman from cambridge, who would have given a crown to a certainty), and miss sharp was accommodated with a back seat inside the carriage, which might be said to be carrying her into the wide world. how the young man from cambridge sulkily put his five great-coats in front; but was reconciled when little miss sharp was made to quit the carriage, and mount up beside him--when he covered her up in one of his benjamins, and became perfectly good-humoured--how the asthmatic gentleman, the prim lady, who declared upon her sacred honour she had never travelled in a public carriage before (there is always such a lady in a coach--alas! was; for the coaches, where are they?), and the fat widow with the brandy-bottle, took their places inside--how the porter asked them all for money, and got sixpence from the gentleman and five greasy halfpence from the fat widow--and how the carriage at length drove away--now threading the dark lanes of aldersgate, anon clattering by the blue cupola of st. paul's, jingling rapidly by the strangers' entry of fleet-market, which, with exeter 'change, has now departed to the world of shadows--how they passed the white bear in piccadilly, and saw the dew rising up from the market-gardens of knightsbridge--how turnhamgreen, brentwood, bagshot, were passed--need not be told here. but the writer of these pages, who has pursued in former days, and in the same bright weather, the same remarkable journey, cannot but think of it with a sweet and tender regret. where is the road now, and its merry incidents of life? is there no chelsea or greenwich for the old honest pimple-nosed coachmen? i wonder where are they, those good fellows? is old weller alive or dead? and the waiters, yea, and the inns at which they waited, and the cold rounds of beef inside, and the stunted ostler, with his blue nose and clinking pail, where is he, and where is his generation? to those great geniuses now in petticoats, who shall write novels for the beloved reader's children, these men and things will be as much legend and history as nineveh, or coeur de lion, or jack sheppard. for them stage-coaches will have become romances--a team of four bays as fabulous as bucephalus or black bess. ah, how their coats shone, as the stable-men pulled their clothes off, and away they went--ah, how their tails shook, as with smoking sides at the stage's end they demurely walked away into the inn-yard. alas! we shall never hear the horn sing at midnight, or see the pike-gates fly open any more. whither, however, is the light four-inside trafalgar coach carrying us? let us be set down at queen's crawley without further divagation, and see how miss rebecca sharp speeds there. chapter viii private and confidential miss rebecca sharp to miss amelia sedley, russell square, london. (free.--pitt crawley.) my dearest, sweetest amelia, with what mingled joy and sorrow do i take up the pen to write to my dearest friend! oh, what a change between to-day and yesterday! now i am friendless and alone; yesterday i was at home, in the sweet company of a sister, whom i shall ever, ever cherish! i will not tell you in what tears and sadness i passed the fatal night in which i separated from you. you went on tuesday to joy and happiness, with your mother and your devoted young soldier by your side; and i thought of you all night, dancing at the perkins's, the prettiest, i am sure, of all the young ladies at the ball. i was brought by the groom in the old carriage to sir pitt crawley's town house, where, after john the groom had behaved most rudely and insolently to me (alas! 'twas safe to insult poverty and misfortune!), i was given over to sir p.'s care, and made to pass the night in an old gloomy bed, and by the side of a horrid gloomy old charwoman, who keeps the house. i did not sleep one single wink the whole night. sir pitt is not what we silly girls, when we used to read cecilia at chiswick, imagined a baronet must have been. anything, indeed, less like lord orville cannot be imagined. fancy an old, stumpy, short, vulgar, and very dirty man, in old clothes and shabby old gaiters, who smokes a horrid pipe, and cooks his own horrid supper in a saucepan. he speaks with a country accent, and swore a great deal at the old charwoman, at the hackney coachman who drove us to the inn where the coach went from, and on which i made the journey outside for the greater part of the way. i was awakened at daybreak by the charwoman, and having arrived at the inn, was at first placed inside the coach. but, when we got to a place called leakington, where the rain began to fall very heavily--will you believe it?--i was forced to come outside; for sir pitt is a proprietor of the coach, and as a passenger came at mudbury, who wanted an inside place, i was obliged to go outside in the rain, where, however, a young gentleman from cambridge college sheltered me very kindly in one of his several great coats. this gentleman and the guard seemed to know sir pitt very well, and laughed at him a great deal. they both agreed in calling him an old screw; which means a very stingy, avaricious person. he never gives any money to anybody, they said (and this meanness i hate); and the young gentleman made me remark that we drove very slow for the last two stages on the road, because sir pitt was on the box, and because he is proprietor of the horses for this part of the journey. "but won't i flog 'em on to squashmore, when i take the ribbons?" said the young cantab. "and sarve 'em right, master jack," said the guard. when i comprehended the meaning of this phrase, and that master jack intended to drive the rest of the way, and revenge himself on sir pitt's horses, of course i laughed too. a carriage and four splendid horses, covered with armorial bearings, however, awaited us at mudbury, four miles from queen's crawley, and we made our entrance to the baronet's park in state. there is a fine avenue of a mile long leading to the house, and the woman at the lodge-gate (over the pillars of which are a serpent and a dove, the supporters of the crawley arms), made us a number of curtsies as she flung open the old iron carved doors, which are something like those at odious chiswick. "there's an avenue," said sir pitt, "a mile long. there's six thousand pound of timber in them there trees. do you call that nothing?" he pronounced avenue--evenue, and nothing--nothink, so droll; and he had a mr. hodson, his hind from mudbury, into the carriage with him, and they talked about distraining, and selling up, and draining and subsoiling, and a great deal about tenants and farming--much more than i could understand. sam miles had been caught poaching, and peter bailey had gone to the workhouse at last. "serve him right," said sir pitt; "him and his family has been cheating me on that farm these hundred and fifty years." some old tenant, i suppose, who could not pay his rent. sir pitt might have said "he and his family," to be sure; but rich baronets do not need to be careful about grammar, as poor governesses must be. as we passed, i remarked a beautiful church-spire rising above some old elms in the park; and before them, in the midst of a lawn, and some outhouses, an old red house with tall chimneys covered with ivy, and the windows shining in the sun. "is that your church, sir?" i said. "yes, hang it," (said sir pitt, only he used, dear, a much wickeder word); "how's buty, hodson? buty's my brother bute, my dear--my brother the parson. buty and the beast i call him, ha, ha!" hodson laughed too, and then looking more grave and nodding his head, said, "i'm afraid he's better, sir pitt. he was out on his pony yesterday, looking at our corn." "looking after his tithes, hang'un (only he used the same wicked word). will brandy and water never kill him? he's as tough as old whatdyecallum--old methusalem." mr. hodson laughed again. "the young men is home from college. they've whopped john scroggins till he's well nigh dead." "whop my second keeper!" roared out sir pitt. "he was on the parson's ground, sir," replied mr. hodson; and sir pitt in a fury swore that if he ever caught 'em poaching on his ground, he'd transport 'em, by the lord he would. however, he said, "i've sold the presentation of the living, hodson; none of that breed shall get it, i war'nt"; and mr. hodson said he was quite right: and i have no doubt from this that the two brothers are at variance--as brothers often are, and sisters too. don't you remember the two miss scratchleys at chiswick, how they used always to fight and quarrel--and mary box, how she was always thumping louisa? presently, seeing two little boys gathering sticks in the wood, mr. hodson jumped out of the carriage, at sir pitt's order, and rushed upon them with his whip. "pitch into 'em, hodson," roared the baronet; "flog their little souls out, and bring 'em up to the house, the vagabonds; i'll commit 'em as sure as my name's pitt." and presently we heard mr. hodson's whip cracking on the shoulders of the poor little blubbering wretches, and sir pitt, seeing that the malefactors were in custody, drove on to the hall. all the servants were ready to meet us, and . . . here, my dear, i was interrupted last night by a dreadful thumping at my door: and who do you think it was? sir pitt crawley in his night-cap and dressing-gown, such a figure! as i shrank away from such a visitor, he came forward and seized my candle. "no candles after eleven o'clock, miss becky," said he. "go to bed in the dark, you pretty little hussy" (that is what he called me), "and unless you wish me to come for the candle every night, mind and be in bed at eleven." and with this, he and mr. horrocks the butler went off laughing. you may be sure i shall not encourage any more of their visits. they let loose two immense bloodhounds at night, which all last night were yelling and howling at the moon. "i call the dog gorer," said sir pitt; "he's killed a man that dog has, and is master of a bull, and the mother i used to call flora; but now i calls her aroarer, for she's too old to bite. haw, haw!" before the house of queen's crawley, which is an odious old-fashioned red brick mansion, with tall chimneys and gables of the style of queen bess, there is a terrace flanked by the family dove and serpent, and on which the great hall-door opens. and oh, my dear, the great hall i am sure is as big and as glum as the great hall in the dear castle of udolpho. it has a large fireplace, in which we might put half miss pinkerton's school, and the grate is big enough to roast an ox at the very least. round the room hang i don't know how many generations of crawleys, some with beards and ruffs, some with huge wigs and toes turned out, some dressed in long straight stays and gowns that look as stiff as towers, and some with long ringlets, and oh, my dear! scarcely any stays at all. at one end of the hall is the great staircase all in black oak, as dismal as may be, and on either side are tall doors with stags' heads over them, leading to the billiard-room and the library, and the great yellow saloon and the morning-rooms. i think there are at least twenty bedrooms on the first floor; one of them has the bed in which queen elizabeth slept; and i have been taken by my new pupils through all these fine apartments this morning. they are not rendered less gloomy, i promise you, by having the shutters always shut; and there is scarce one of the apartments, but when the light was let into it, i expected to see a ghost in the room. we have a schoolroom on the second floor, with my bedroom leading into it on one side, and that of the young ladies on the other. then there are mr. pitt's apartments--mr. crawley, he is called--the eldest son, and mr. rawdon crawley's rooms--he is an officer like somebody, and away with his regiment. there is no want of room i assure you. you might lodge all the people in russell square in the house, i think, and have space to spare. half an hour after our arrival, the great dinner-bell was rung, and i came down with my two pupils (they are very thin insignificant little chits of ten and eight years old). i came down in your dear muslin gown (about which that odious mrs. pinner was so rude, because you gave it me); for i am to be treated as one of the family, except on company days, when the young ladies and i are to dine upstairs. well, the great dinner-bell rang, and we all assembled in the little drawing-room where my lady crawley sits. she is the second lady crawley, and mother of the young ladies. she was an ironmonger's daughter, and her marriage was thought a great match. she looks as if she had been handsome once, and her eyes are always weeping for the loss of her beauty. she is pale and meagre and high-shouldered, and has not a word to say for herself, evidently. her stepson mr. crawley, was likewise in the room. he was in full dress, as pompous as an undertaker. he is pale, thin, ugly, silent; he has thin legs, no chest, hay-coloured whiskers, and straw-coloured hair. he is the very picture of his sainted mother over the mantelpiece--griselda of the noble house of binkie. "this is the new governess, mr. crawley," said lady crawley, coming forward and taking my hand. "miss sharp." "o!" said mr. crawley, and pushed his head once forward and began again to read a great pamphlet with which he was busy. "i hope you will be kind to my girls," said lady crawley, with her pink eyes always full of tears. "law, ma, of course she will," said the eldest: and i saw at a glance that i need not be afraid of that woman. "my lady is served," says the butler in black, in an immense white shirt-frill, that looked as if it had been one of the queen elizabeth's ruffs depicted in the hall; and so, taking mr. crawley's arm, she led the way to the dining-room, whither i followed with my little pupils in each hand. sir pitt was already in the room with a silver jug. he had just been to the cellar, and was in full dress too; that is, he had taken his gaiters off, and showed his little dumpy legs in black worsted stockings. the sideboard was covered with glistening old plate--old cups, both gold and silver; old salvers and cruet-stands, like rundell and bridge's shop. everything on the table was in silver too, and two footmen, with red hair and canary-coloured liveries, stood on either side of the sideboard. mr. crawley said a long grace, and sir pitt said amen, and the great silver dish-covers were removed. "what have we for dinner, betsy?" said the baronet. "mutton broth, i believe, sir pitt," answered lady crawley. "mouton aux navets," added the butler gravely (pronounce, if you please, moutongonavvy); "and the soup is potage de mouton a l'ecossaise. the side-dishes contain pommes de terre au naturel, and choufleur a l'eau." "mutton's mutton," said the baronet, "and a devilish good thing. what ship was it, horrocks, and when did you kill?" "one of the black-faced scotch, sir pitt: we killed on thursday." "who took any?" "steel, of mudbury, took the saddle and two legs, sir pitt; but he says the last was too young and confounded woolly, sir pitt." "will you take some potage, miss ah--miss blunt? said mr. crawley. "capital scotch broth, my dear," said sir pitt, "though they call it by a french name." "i believe it is the custom, sir, in decent society," said mr. crawley, haughtily, "to call the dish as i have called it"; and it was served to us on silver soup plates by the footmen in the canary coats, with the mouton aux navets. then "ale and water" were brought, and served to us young ladies in wine-glasses. i am not a judge of ale, but i can say with a clear conscience i prefer water. while we were enjoying our repast, sir pitt took occasion to ask what had become of the shoulders of the mutton. "i believe they were eaten in the servants' hall," said my lady, humbly. "they was, my lady," said horrocks, "and precious little else we get there neither." sir pitt burst into a horse-laugh, and continued his conversation with mr. horrocks. "that there little black pig of the kent sow's breed must be uncommon fat now." "it's not quite busting, sir pitt," said the butler with the gravest air, at which sir pitt, and with him the young ladies, this time, began to laugh violently. "miss crawley, miss rose crawley," said mr. crawley, "your laughter strikes me as being exceedingly out of place." "never mind, my lord," said the baronet, "we'll try the porker on saturday. kill un on saturday morning, john horrocks. miss sharp adores pork, don't you, miss sharp?" and i think this is all the conversation that i remember at dinner. when the repast was concluded a jug of hot water was placed before sir pitt, with a case-bottle containing, i believe, rum. mr. horrocks served myself and my pupils with three little glasses of wine, and a bumper was poured out for my lady. when we retired, she took from her work-drawer an enormous interminable piece of knitting; the young ladies began to play at cribbage with a dirty pack of cards. we had but one candle lighted, but it was in a magnificent old silver candlestick, and after a very few questions from my lady, i had my choice of amusement between a volume of sermons, and a pamphlet on the corn-laws, which mr. crawley had been reading before dinner. so we sat for an hour until steps were heard. "put away the cards, girls," cried my lady, in a great tremor; "put down mr. crawley's books, miss sharp"; and these orders had been scarcely obeyed, when mr. crawley entered the room. "we will resume yesterday's discourse, young ladies," said he, "and you shall each read a page by turns; so that miss a--miss short may have an opportunity of hearing you"; and the poor girls began to spell a long dismal sermon delivered at bethesda chapel, liverpool, on behalf of the mission for the chickasaw indians. was it not a charming evening? at ten the servants were told to call sir pitt and the household to prayers. sir pitt came in first, very much flushed, and rather unsteady in his gait; and after him the butler, the canaries, mr. crawley's man, three other men, smelling very much of the stable, and four women, one of whom, i remarked, was very much overdressed, and who flung me a look of great scorn as she plumped down on her knees. after mr. crawley had done haranguing and expounding, we received our candles, and then we went to bed; and then i was disturbed in my writing, as i have described to my dearest sweetest amelia. good night. a thousand, thousand, thousand kisses! saturday.--this morning, at five, i heard the shrieking of the little black pig. rose and violet introduced me to it yesterday; and to the stables, and to the kennel, and to the gardener, who was picking fruit to send to market, and from whom they begged hard a bunch of hot-house grapes; but he said that sir pitt had numbered every "man jack" of them, and it would be as much as his place was worth to give any away. the darling girls caught a colt in a paddock, and asked me if i would ride, and began to ride themselves, when the groom, coming with horrid oaths, drove them away. lady crawley is always knitting the worsted. sir pitt is always tipsy, every night; and, i believe, sits with horrocks, the butler. mr. crawley always reads sermons in the evening, and in the morning is locked up in his study, or else rides to mudbury, on county business, or to squashmore, where he preaches, on wednesdays and fridays, to the tenants there. a hundred thousand grateful loves to your dear papa and mamma. is your poor brother recovered of his rack-punch? oh, dear! oh, dear! how men should beware of wicked punch! ever and ever thine own rebecca everything considered, i think it is quite as well for our dear amelia sedley, in russell square, that miss sharp and she are parted. rebecca is a droll funny creature, to be sure; and those descriptions of the poor lady weeping for the loss of her beauty, and the gentleman "with hay-coloured whiskers and straw-coloured hair," are very smart, doubtless, and show a great knowledge of the world. that she might, when on her knees, have been thinking of something better than miss horrocks's ribbons, has possibly struck both of us. but my kind reader will please to remember that this history has "vanity fair" for a title, and that vanity fair is a very vain, wicked, foolish place, full of all sorts of humbugs and falsenesses and pretensions. and while the moralist, who is holding forth on the cover ( an accurate portrait of your humble servant), professes to wear neither gown nor bands, but only the very same long-eared livery in which his congregation is arrayed: yet, look you, one is bound to speak the truth as far as one knows it, whether one mounts a cap and bells or a shovel hat; and a deal of disagreeable matter must come out in the course of such an undertaking. i have heard a brother of the story-telling trade, at naples, preaching to a pack of good-for-nothing honest lazy fellows by the sea-shore, work himself up into such a rage and passion with some of the villains whose wicked deeds he was describing and inventing, that the audience could not resist it; and they and the poet together would burst out into a roar of oaths and execrations against the fictitious monster of the tale, so that the hat went round, and the bajocchi tumbled into it, in the midst of a perfect storm of sympathy. at the little paris theatres, on the other hand, you will not only hear the people yelling out "ah gredin! ah monstre:" and cursing the tyrant of the play from the boxes; but the actors themselves positively refuse to play the wicked parts, such as those of infames anglais, brutal cossacks, and what not, and prefer to appear at a smaller salary, in their real characters as loyal frenchmen. i set the two stories one against the other, so that you may see that it is not from mere mercenary motives that the present performer is desirous to show up and trounce his villains; but because he has a sincere hatred of them, which he cannot keep down, and which must find a vent in suitable abuse and bad language. i warn my "kyind friends," then, that i am going to tell a story of harrowing villainy and complicated--but, as i trust, intensely interesting--crime. my rascals are no milk-and-water rascals, i promise you. when we come to the proper places we won't spare fine language--no, no! but when we are going over the quiet country we must perforce be calm. a tempest in a slop-basin is absurd. we will reserve that sort of thing for the mighty ocean and the lonely midnight. the present chapter is very mild. others--but we will not anticipate those. and, as we bring our characters forward, i will ask leave, as a man and a brother, not only to introduce them, but occasionally to step down from the platform, and talk about them: if they are good and kindly, to love them and shake them by the hand: if they are silly, to laugh at them confidentially in the reader's sleeve: if they are wicked and heartless, to abuse them in the strongest terms which politeness admits of. otherwise you might fancy it was i who was sneering at the practice of devotion, which miss sharp finds so ridiculous; that it was i who laughed good-humouredly at the reeling old silenus of a baronet--whereas the laughter comes from one who has no reverence except for prosperity, and no eye for anything beyond success. such people there are living and flourishing in the world--faithless, hopeless, charityless: let us have at them, dear friends, with might and main. some there are, and very successful too, mere quacks and fools: and it was to combat and expose such as those, no doubt, that laughter was made. chapter ix family portraits sir pitt crawley was a philosopher with a taste for what is called low life. his first marriage with the daughter of the noble binkie had been made under the auspices of his parents; and as he often told lady crawley in her lifetime she was such a confounded quarrelsome high-bred jade that when she died he was hanged if he would ever take another of her sort, at her ladyship's demise he kept his promise, and selected for a second wife miss rose dawson, daughter of mr. john thomas dawson, ironmonger, of mudbury. what a happy woman was rose to be my lady crawley! let us set down the items of her happiness. in the first place, she gave up peter butt, a young man who kept company with her, and in consequence of his disappointment in love, took to smuggling, poaching, and a thousand other bad courses. then she quarrelled, as in duty bound, with all the friends and intimates of her youth, who, of course, could not be received by my lady at queen's crawley--nor did she find in her new rank and abode any persons who were willing to welcome her. who ever did? sir huddleston fuddleston had three daughters who all hoped to be lady crawley. sir giles wapshot's family were insulted that one of the wapshot girls had not the preference in the marriage, and the remaining baronets of the county were indignant at their comrade's misalliance. never mind the commoners, whom we will leave to grumble anonymously. sir pitt did not care, as he said, a brass farden for any one of them. he had his pretty rose, and what more need a man require than to please himself? so he used to get drunk every night: to beat his pretty rose sometimes: to leave her in hampshire when he went to london for the parliamentary session, without a single friend in the wide world. even mrs. bute crawley, the rector's wife, refused to visit her, as she said she would never give the pas to a tradesman's daughter. as the only endowments with which nature had gifted lady crawley were those of pink cheeks and a white skin, and as she had no sort of character, nor talents, nor opinions, nor occupations, nor amusements, nor that vigour of soul and ferocity of temper which often falls to the lot of entirely foolish women, her hold upon sir pitt's affections was not very great. her roses faded out of her cheeks, and the pretty freshness left her figure after the birth of a couple of children, and she became a mere machine in her husband's house of no more use than the late lady crawley's grand piano. being a light-complexioned woman, she wore light clothes, as most blondes will, and appeared, in preference, in draggled sea-green, or slatternly sky-blue. she worked that worsted day and night, or other pieces like it. she had counterpanes in the course of a few years to all the beds in crawley. she had a small flower-garden, for which she had rather an affection; but beyond this no other like or disliking. when her husband was rude to her she was apathetic: whenever he struck her she cried. she had not character enough to take to drinking, and moaned about, slipshod and in curl-papers all day. o vanity fair--vanity fair! this might have been, but for you, a cheery lass--peter butt and rose a happy man and wife, in a snug farm, with a hearty family; and an honest portion of pleasures, cares, hopes and struggles--but a title and a coach and four are toys more precious than happiness in vanity fair: and if harry the eighth or bluebeard were alive now, and wanted a tenth wife, do you suppose he could not get the prettiest girl that shall be presented this season? the languid dulness of their mamma did not, as it may be supposed, awaken much affection in her little daughters, but they were very happy in the servants' hall and in the stables; and the scotch gardener having luckily a good wife and some good children, they got a little wholesome society and instruction in his lodge, which was the only education bestowed upon them until miss sharp came. her engagement was owing to the remonstrances of mr. pitt crawley, the only friend or protector lady crawley ever had, and the only person, besides her children, for whom she entertained a little feeble attachment. mr. pitt took after the noble binkies, from whom he was descended, and was a very polite and proper gentleman. when he grew to man's estate, and came back from christchurch, he began to reform the slackened discipline of the hall, in spite of his father, who stood in awe of him. he was a man of such rigid refinement, that he would have starved rather than have dined without a white neckcloth. once, when just from college, and when horrocks the butler brought him a letter without placing it previously on a tray, he gave that domestic a look, and administered to him a speech so cutting, that horrocks ever after trembled before him; the whole household bowed to him: lady crawley's curl-papers came off earlier when he was at home: sir pitt's muddy gaiters disappeared; and if that incorrigible old man still adhered to other old habits, he never fuddled himself with rum-and-water in his son's presence, and only talked to his servants in a very reserved and polite manner; and those persons remarked that sir pitt never swore at lady crawley while his son was in the room. it was he who taught the butler to say, "my lady is served," and who insisted on handing her ladyship in to dinner. he seldom spoke to her, but when he did it was with the most powerful respect; and he never let her quit the apartment without rising in the most stately manner to open the door, and making an elegant bow at her egress. at eton he was called miss crawley; and there, i am sorry to say, his younger brother rawdon used to lick him violently. but though his parts were not brilliant, he made up for his lack of talent by meritorious industry, and was never known, during eight years at school, to be subject to that punishment which it is generally thought none but a cherub can escape. at college his career was of course highly creditable. and here he prepared himself for public life, into which he was to be introduced by the patronage of his grandfather, lord binkie, by studying the ancient and modern orators with great assiduity, and by speaking unceasingly at the debating societies. but though he had a fine flux of words, and delivered his little voice with great pomposity and pleasure to himself, and never advanced any sentiment or opinion which was not perfectly trite and stale, and supported by a latin quotation; yet he failed somehow, in spite of a mediocrity which ought to have insured any man a success. he did not even get the prize poem, which all his friends said he was sure of. after leaving college he became private secretary to lord binkie, and was then appointed attache to the legation at pumpernickel, which post he filled with perfect honour, and brought home despatches, consisting of strasburg pie, to the foreign minister of the day. after remaining ten years attache (several years after the lamented lord binkie's demise), and finding the advancement slow, he at length gave up the diplomatic service in some disgust, and began to turn country gentleman. he wrote a pamphlet on malt on returning to england (for he was an ambitious man, and always liked to be before the public), and took a strong part in the negro emancipation question. then he became a friend of mr. wilberforce's, whose politics he admired, and had that famous correspondence with the reverend silas hornblower, on the ashantee mission. he was in london, if not for the parliament session, at least in may, for the religious meetings. in the country he was a magistrate, and an active visitor and speaker among those destitute of religious instruction. he was said to be paying his addresses to lady jane sheepshanks, lord southdown's third daughter, and whose sister, lady emily, wrote those sweet tracts, "the sailor's true binnacle," and "the applewoman of finchley common." miss sharp's accounts of his employment at queen's crawley were not caricatures. he subjected the servants there to the devotional exercises before mentioned, in which (and so much the better) he brought his father to join. he patronised an independent meeting-house in crawley parish, much to the indignation of his uncle the rector, and to the consequent delight of sir pitt, who was induced to go himself once or twice, which occasioned some violent sermons at crawley parish church, directed point-blank at the baronet's old gothic pew there. honest sir pitt, however, did not feel the force of these discourses, as he always took his nap during sermon-time. mr. crawley was very earnest, for the good of the nation and of the christian world, that the old gentleman should yield him up his place in parliament; but this the elder constantly refused to do. both were of course too prudent to give up the fifteen hundred a year which was brought in by the second seat (at this period filled by mr. quadroon, with carte blanche on the slave question); indeed the family estate was much embarrassed, and the income drawn from the borough was of great use to the house of queen's crawley. it had never recovered the heavy fine imposed upon walpole crawley, first baronet, for peculation in the tape and sealing wax office. sir walpole was a jolly fellow, eager to seize and to spend money (alieni appetens, sui profusus, as mr. crawley would remark with a sigh), and in his day beloved by all the county for the constant drunkenness and hospitality which was maintained at queen's crawley. the cellars were filled with burgundy then, the kennels with hounds, and the stables with gallant hunters; now, such horses as queen's crawley possessed went to plough, or ran in the trafalgar coach; and it was with a team of these very horses, on an off-day, that miss sharp was brought to the hall; for boor as he was, sir pitt was a stickler for his dignity while at home, and seldom drove out but with four horses, and though he dined off boiled mutton, had always three footmen to serve it. if mere parsimony could have made a man rich, sir pitt crawley might have become very wealthy--if he had been an attorney in a country town, with no capital but his brains, it is very possible that he would have turned them to good account, and might have achieved for himself a very considerable influence and competency. but he was unluckily endowed with a good name and a large though encumbered estate, both of which went rather to injure than to advance him. he had a taste for law, which cost him many thousands yearly; and being a great deal too clever to be robbed, as he said, by any single agent, allowed his affairs to be mismanaged by a dozen, whom he all equally mistrusted. he was such a sharp landlord, that he could hardly find any but bankrupt tenants; and such a close farmer, as to grudge almost the seed to the ground, whereupon revengeful nature grudged him the crops which she granted to more liberal husbandmen. he speculated in every possible way; he worked mines; bought canal-shares; horsed coaches; took government contracts, and was the busiest man and magistrate of his county. as he would not pay honest agents at his granite quarry, he had the satisfaction of finding that four overseers ran away, and took fortunes with them to america. for want of proper precautions, his coal-mines filled with water: the government flung his contract of damaged beef upon his hands: and for his coach-horses, every mail proprietor in the kingdom knew that he lost more horses than any man in the country, from underfeeding and buying cheap. in disposition he was sociable, and far from being proud; nay, he rather preferred the society of a farmer or a horse-dealer to that of a gentleman, like my lord, his son: he was fond of drink, of swearing, of joking with the farmers' daughters: he was never known to give away a shilling or to do a good action, but was of a pleasant, sly, laughing mood, and would cut his joke and drink his glass with a tenant and sell him up the next day; or have his laugh with the poacher he was transporting with equal good humour. his politeness for the fair sex has already been hinted at by miss rebecca sharp--in a word, the whole baronetage, peerage, commonage of england, did not contain a more cunning, mean, selfish, foolish, disreputable old man. that blood-red hand of sir pitt crawley's would be in anybody's pocket except his own; and it is with grief and pain, that, as admirers of the british aristocracy, we find ourselves obliged to admit the existence of so many ill qualities in a person whose name is in debrett. one great cause why mr. crawley had such a hold over the affections of his father, resulted from money arrangements. the baronet owed his son a sum of money out of the jointure of his mother, which he did not find it convenient to pay; indeed he had an almost invincible repugnance to paying anybody, and could only be brought by force to discharge his debts. miss sharp calculated (for she became, as we shall hear speedily, inducted into most of the secrets of the family) that the mere payment of his creditors cost the honourable baronet several hundreds yearly; but this was a delight he could not forego; he had a savage pleasure in making the poor wretches wait, and in shifting from court to court and from term to term the period of satisfaction. what's the good of being in parliament, he said, if you must pay your debts? hence, indeed, his position as a senator was not a little useful to him. vanity fair--vanity fair! here was a man, who could not spell, and did not care to read--who had the habits and the cunning of a boor: whose aim in life was pettifogging: who never had a taste, or emotion, or enjoyment, but what was sordid and foul; and yet he had rank, and honours, and power, somehow: and was a dignitary of the land, and a pillar of the state. he was high sheriff, and rode in a golden coach. great ministers and statesmen courted him; and in vanity fair he had a higher place than the most brilliant genius or spotless virtue. sir pitt had an unmarried half-sister who inherited her mother's large fortune, and though the baronet proposed to borrow this money of her on mortgage, miss crawley declined the offer, and preferred the security of the funds. she had signified, however, her intention of leaving her inheritance between sir pitt's second son and the family at the rectory, and had once or twice paid the debts of rawdon crawley in his career at college and in the army. miss crawley was, in consequence, an object of great respect when she came to queen's crawley, for she had a balance at her banker's which would have made her beloved anywhere. what a dignity it gives an old lady, that balance at the banker's! how tenderly we look at her faults if she is a relative (and may every reader have a score of such), what a kind good-natured old creature we find her! how the junior partner of hobbs and dobbs leads her smiling to the carriage with the lozenge upon it, and the fat wheezy coachman! how, when she comes to pay us a visit, we generally find an opportunity to let our friends know her station in the world! we say (and with perfect truth) i wish i had miss macwhirter's signature to a cheque for five thousand pounds. she wouldn't miss it, says your wife. she is my aunt, say you, in an easy careless way, when your friend asks if miss macwhirter is any relative. your wife is perpetually sending her little testimonies of affection, your little girls work endless worsted baskets, cushions, and footstools for her. what a good fire there is in her room when she comes to pay you a visit, although your wife laces her stays without one! the house during her stay assumes a festive, neat, warm, jovial, snug appearance not visible at other seasons. you yourself, dear sir, forget to go to sleep after dinner, and find yourself all of a sudden (though you invariably lose) very fond of a rubber. what good dinners you have--game every day, malmsey-madeira, and no end of fish from london. even the servants in the kitchen share in the general prosperity; and, somehow, during the stay of miss macwhirter's fat coachman, the beer is grown much stronger, and the consumption of tea and sugar in the nursery (where her maid takes her meals) is not regarded in the least. is it so, or is it not so? i appeal to the middle classes. ah, gracious powers! i wish you would send me an old aunt--a maiden aunt--an aunt with a lozenge on her carriage, and a front of light coffee-coloured hair--how my children should work workbags for her, and my julia and i would make her comfortable! sweet--sweet vision! foolish--foolish dream! chapter x miss sharp begins to make friends and now, being received as a member of the amiable family whose portraits we have sketched in the foregoing pages, it became naturally rebecca's duty to make herself, as she said, agreeable to her benefactors, and to gain their confidence to the utmost of her power. who can but admire this quality of gratitude in an unprotected orphan; and, if there entered some degree of selfishness into her calculations, who can say but that her prudence was perfectly justifiable? "i am alone in the world," said the friendless girl. "i have nothing to look for but what my own labour can bring me; and while that little pink-faced chit amelia, with not half my sense, has ten thousand pounds and an establishment secure, poor rebecca (and my figure is far better than hers) has only herself and her own wits to trust to. well, let us see if my wits cannot provide me with an honourable maintenance, and if some day or the other i cannot show miss amelia my real superiority over her. not that i dislike poor amelia: who can dislike such a harmless, good-natured creature?--only it will be a fine day when i can take my place above her in the world, as why, indeed, should i not?" thus it was that our little romantic friend formed visions of the future for herself--nor must we be scandalised that, in all her castles in the air, a husband was the principal inhabitant. of what else have young ladies to think, but husbands? of what else do their dear mammas think? "i must be my own mamma," said rebecca; not without a tingling consciousness of defeat, as she thought over her little misadventure with jos sedley. so she wisely determined to render her position with the queen's crawley family comfortable and secure, and to this end resolved to make friends of every one around her who could at all interfere with her comfort. as my lady crawley was not one of these personages, and a woman, moreover, so indolent and void of character as not to be of the least consequence in her own house, rebecca soon found that it was not at all necessary to cultivate her good will--indeed, impossible to gain it. she used to talk to her pupils about their "poor mamma"; and, though she treated that lady with every demonstration of cool respect, it was to the rest of the family that she wisely directed the chief part of her attentions. with the young people, whose applause she thoroughly gained, her method was pretty simple. she did not pester their young brains with too much learning, but, on the contrary, let them have their own way in regard to educating themselves; for what instruction is more effectual than self-instruction? the eldest was rather fond of books, and as there was in the old library at queen's crawley a considerable provision of works of light literature of the last century, both in the french and english languages (they had been purchased by the secretary of the tape and sealing wax office at the period of his disgrace), and as nobody ever troubled the bookshelves but herself, rebecca was enabled agreeably, and, as it were, in playing, to impart a great deal of instruction to miss rose crawley. she and miss rose thus read together many delightful french and english works, among which may be mentioned those of the learned dr. smollett, of the ingenious mr. henry fielding, of the graceful and fantastic monsieur crebillon the younger, whom our immortal poet gray so much admired, and of the universal monsieur de voltaire. once, when mr. crawley asked what the young people were reading, the governess replied "smollett." "oh, smollett," said mr. crawley, quite satisfied. "his history is more dull, but by no means so dangerous as that of mr. hume. it is history you are reading?" "yes," said miss rose; without, however, adding that it was the history of mr. humphrey clinker. on another occasion he was rather scandalised at finding his sister with a book of french plays; but as the governess remarked that it was for the purpose of acquiring the french idiom in conversation, he was fain to be content. mr. crawley, as a diplomatist, was exceedingly proud of his own skill in speaking the french language (for he was of the world still), and not a little pleased with the compliments which the governess continually paid him upon his proficiency. miss violet's tastes were, on the contrary, more rude and boisterous than those of her sister. she knew the sequestered spots where the hens laid their eggs. she could climb a tree to rob the nests of the feathered songsters of their speckled spoils. and her pleasure was to ride the young colts, and to scour the plains like camilla. she was the favourite of her father and of the stablemen. she was the darling, and withal the terror of the cook; for she discovered the haunts of the jam-pots, and would attack them when they were within her reach. she and her sister were engaged in constant battles. any of which peccadilloes, if miss sharp discovered, she did not tell them to lady crawley; who would have told them to the father, or worse, to mr. crawley; but promised not to tell if miss violet would be a good girl and love her governess. with mr. crawley miss sharp was respectful and obedient. she used to consult him on passages of french which she could not understand, though her mother was a frenchwoman, and which he would construe to her satisfaction: and, besides giving her his aid in profane literature, he was kind enough to select for her books of a more serious tendency, and address to her much of his conversation. she admired, beyond measure, his speech at the quashimaboo-aid society; took an interest in his pamphlet on malt: was often affected, even to tears, by his discourses of an evening, and would say--"oh, thank you, sir," with a sigh, and a look up to heaven, that made him occasionally condescend to shake hands with her. "blood is everything, after all," would that aristocratic religionist say. "how miss sharp is awakened by my words, when not one of the people here is touched. i am too fine for them--too delicate. i must familiarise my style--but she understands it. her mother was a montmorency." indeed it was from this famous family, as it appears, that miss sharp, by the mother's side, was descended. of course she did not say that her mother had been on the stage; it would have shocked mr. crawley's religious scruples. how many noble emigres had this horrid revolution plunged in poverty! she had several stories about her ancestors ere she had been many months in the house; some of which mr. crawley happened to find in d'hozier's dictionary, which was in the library, and which strengthened his belief in their truth, and in the high-breeding of rebecca. are we to suppose from this curiosity and prying into dictionaries, could our heroine suppose that mr. crawley was interested in her?--no, only in a friendly way. have we not stated that he was attached to lady jane sheepshanks? he took rebecca to task once or twice about the propriety of playing at backgammon with sir pitt, saying that it was a godless amusement, and that she would be much better engaged in reading "thrump's legacy," or "the blind washerwoman of moorfields," or any work of a more serious nature; but miss sharp said her dear mother used often to play the same game with the old count de trictrac and the venerable abbe du cornet, and so found an excuse for this and other worldly amusements. but it was not only by playing at backgammon with the baronet, that the little governess rendered herself agreeable to her employer. she found many different ways of being useful to him. she read over, with indefatigable patience, all those law papers, with which, before she came to queen's crawley, he had promised to entertain her. she volunteered to copy many of his letters, and adroitly altered the spelling of them so as to suit the usages of the present day. she became interested in everything appertaining to the estate, to the farm, the park, the garden, and the stables; and so delightful a companion was she, that the baronet would seldom take his after-breakfast walk without her (and the children of course), when she would give her advice as to the trees which were to be lopped in the shrubberies, the garden-beds to be dug, the crops which were to be cut, the horses which were to go to cart or plough. before she had been a year at queen's crawley she had quite won the baronet's confidence; and the conversation at the dinner-table, which before used to be held between him and mr. horrocks the butler, was now almost exclusively between sir pitt and miss sharp. she was almost mistress of the house when mr. crawley was absent, but conducted herself in her new and exalted situation with such circumspection and modesty as not to offend the authorities of the kitchen and stable, among whom her behaviour was always exceedingly modest and affable. she was quite a different person from the haughty, shy, dissatisfied little girl whom we have known previously, and this change of temper proved great prudence, a sincere desire of amendment, or at any rate great moral courage on her part. whether it was the heart which dictated this new system of complaisance and humility adopted by our rebecca, is to be proved by her after-history. a system of hypocrisy, which lasts through whole years, is one seldom satisfactorily practised by a person of one-and-twenty; however, our readers will recollect, that, though young in years, our heroine was old in life and experience, and we have written to no purpose if they have not discovered that she was a very clever woman. the elder and younger son of the house of crawley were, like the gentleman and lady in the weather-box, never at home together--they hated each other cordially: indeed, rawdon crawley, the dragoon, had a great contempt for the establishment altogether, and seldom came thither except when his aunt paid her annual visit. the great good quality of this old lady has been mentioned. she possessed seventy thousand pounds, and had almost adopted rawdon. she disliked her elder nephew exceedingly, and despised him as a milksop. in return he did not hesitate to state that her soul was irretrievably lost, and was of opinion that his brother's chance in the next world was not a whit better. "she is a godless woman of the world," would mr. crawley say; "she lives with atheists and frenchmen. my mind shudders when i think of her awful, awful situation, and that, near as she is to the grave, she should be so given up to vanity, licentiousness, profaneness, and folly." in fact, the old lady declined altogether to hear his hour's lecture of an evening; and when she came to queen's crawley alone, he was obliged to pretermit his usual devotional exercises. "shut up your sarmons, pitt, when miss crawley comes down," said his father; "she has written to say that she won't stand the preachifying." "o, sir! consider the servants." "the servants be hanged," said sir pitt; and his son thought even worse would happen were they deprived of the benefit of his instruction. "why, hang it, pitt!" said the father to his remonstrance. "you wouldn't be such a flat as to let three thousand a year go out of the family?" "what is money compared to our souls, sir?" continued mr. crawley. "you mean that the old lady won't leave the money to you?"--and who knows but it was mr. crawley's meaning? old miss crawley was certainly one of the reprobate. she had a snug little house in park lane, and, as she ate and drank a great deal too much during the season in london, she went to harrowgate or cheltenham for the summer. she was the most hospitable and jovial of old vestals, and had been a beauty in her day, she said. (all old women were beauties once, we very well know.) she was a bel esprit, and a dreadful radical for those days. she had been in france (where st. just, they say, inspired her with an unfortunate passion), and loved, ever after, french novels, french cookery, and french wines. she read voltaire, and had rousseau by heart; talked very lightly about divorce, and most energetically of the rights of women. she had pictures of mr. fox in every room in the house: when that statesman was in opposition, i am not sure that she had not flung a main with him; and when he came into office, she took great credit for bringing over to him sir pitt and his colleague for queen's crawley, although sir pitt would have come over himself, without any trouble on the honest lady's part. it is needless to say that sir pitt was brought to change his views after the death of the great whig statesman. this worthy old lady took a fancy to rawdon crawley when a boy, sent him to cambridge (in opposition to his brother at oxford), and, when the young man was requested by the authorities of the first-named university to quit after a residence of two years, she bought him his commission in the life guards green. a perfect and celebrated "blood," or dandy about town, was this young officer. boxing, rat-hunting, the fives court, and four-in-hand driving were then the fashion of our british aristocracy; and he was an adept in all these noble sciences. and though he belonged to the household troops, who, as it was their duty to rally round the prince regent, had not shown their valour in foreign service yet, rawdon crawley had already (apropos of play, of which he was immoderately fond) fought three bloody duels, in which he gave ample proofs of his contempt for death. "and for what follows after death," would mr. crawley observe, throwing his gooseberry-coloured eyes up to the ceiling. he was always thinking of his brother's soul, or of the souls of those who differed with him in opinion: it is a sort of comfort which many of the serious give themselves. silly, romantic miss crawley, far from being horrified at the courage of her favourite, always used to pay his debts after his duels; and would not listen to a word that was whispered against his morality. "he will sow his wild oats," she would say, "and is worth far more than that puling hypocrite of a brother of his." chapter xi arcadian simplicity besides these honest folks at the hall (whose simplicity and sweet rural purity surely show the advantage of a country life over a town one), we must introduce the reader to their relatives and neighbours at the rectory, bute crawley and his wife. the reverend bute crawley was a tall, stately, jolly, shovel-hatted man, far more popular in his county than the baronet his brother. at college he pulled stroke-oar in the christchurch boat, and had thrashed all the best bruisers of the "town." he carried his taste for boxing and athletic exercises into private life; there was not a fight within twenty miles at which he was not present, nor a race, nor a coursing match, nor a regatta, nor a ball, nor an election, nor a visitation dinner, nor indeed a good dinner in the whole county, but he found means to attend it. you might see his bay mare and gig-lamps a score of miles away from his rectory house, whenever there was any dinner-party at fuddleston, or at roxby, or at wapshot hall, or at the great lords of the county, with all of whom he was intimate. he had a fine voice; sang "a southerly wind and a cloudy sky"; and gave the "whoop" in chorus with general applause. he rode to hounds in a pepper-and-salt frock, and was one of the best fishermen in the county. mrs. crawley, the rector's wife, was a smart little body, who wrote this worthy divine's sermons. being of a domestic turn, and keeping the house a great deal with her daughters, she ruled absolutely within the rectory, wisely giving her husband full liberty without. he was welcome to come and go, and dine abroad as many days as his fancy dictated, for mrs. crawley was a saving woman and knew the price of port wine. ever since mrs. bute carried off the young rector of queen's crawley (she was of a good family, daughter of the late lieut.-colonel hector mctavish, and she and her mother played for bute and won him at harrowgate), she had been a prudent and thrifty wife to him. in spite of her care, however, he was always in debt. it took him at least ten years to pay off his college bills contracted during his father's lifetime. in the year -, when he was just clear of these incumbrances, he gave the odds of to (in twenties) against kangaroo, who won the derby. the rector was obliged to take up the money at a ruinous interest, and had been struggling ever since. his sister helped him with a hundred now and then, but of course his great hope was in her death--when "hang it" (as he would say), "matilda must leave me half her money." so that the baronet and his brother had every reason which two brothers possibly can have for being by the ears. sir pitt had had the better of bute in innumerable family transactions. young pitt not only did not hunt, but set up a meeting house under his uncle's very nose. rawdon, it was known, was to come in for the bulk of miss crawley's property. these money transactions--these speculations in life and death--these silent battles for reversionary spoil--make brothers very loving towards each other in vanity fair. i, for my part, have known a five-pound note to interpose and knock up a half century's attachment between two brethren; and can't but admire, as i think what a fine and durable thing love is among worldly people. it cannot be supposed that the arrival of such a personage as rebecca at queen's crawley, and her gradual establishment in the good graces of all people there, could be unremarked by mrs. bute crawley. mrs. bute, who knew how many days the sirloin of beef lasted at the hall; how much linen was got ready at the great wash; how many peaches were on the south wall; how many doses her ladyship took when she was ill--for such points are matters of intense interest to certain persons in the country--mrs. bute, i say, could not pass over the hall governess without making every inquiry respecting her history and character. there was always the best understanding between the servants at the rectory and the hall. there was always a good glass of ale in the kitchen of the former place for the hall people, whose ordinary drink was very small--and, indeed, the rector's lady knew exactly how much malt went to every barrel of hall beer--ties of relationship existed between the hall and rectory domestics, as between their masters; and through these channels each family was perfectly well acquainted with the doings of the other. that, by the way, may be set down as a general remark. when you and your brother are friends, his doings are indifferent to you. when you have quarrelled, all his outgoings and incomings you know, as if you were his spy. very soon then after her arrival, rebecca began to take a regular place in mrs. crawley's bulletin from the hall. it was to this effect: "the black porker's killed--weighed x stone--salted the sides--pig's pudding and leg of pork for dinner. mr. cramp from mudbury, over with sir pitt about putting john blackmore in gaol--mr. pitt at meeting (with all the names of the people who attended)--my lady as usual--the young ladies with the governess." then the report would come--the new governess be a rare manager--sir pitt be very sweet on her--mr. crawley too--he be reading tracts to her--"what an abandoned wretch!" said little, eager, active, black-faced mrs. bute crawley. finally, the reports were that the governess had "come round" everybody, wrote sir pitt's letters, did his business, managed his accounts--had the upper hand of the whole house, my lady, mr. crawley, the girls and all--at which mrs. crawley declared she was an artful hussy, and had some dreadful designs in view. thus the doings at the hall were the great food for conversation at the rectory, and mrs. bute's bright eyes spied out everything that took place in the enemy's camp--everything and a great deal besides. mrs. bute crawley to miss pinkerton, the mall, chiswick. rectory, queen's crawley, december--. my dear madam,--although it is so many years since i profited by your delightful and invaluable instructions, yet i have ever retained the fondest and most reverential regard for miss pinkerton, and dear chiswick. i hope your health is good. the world and the cause of education cannot afford to lose miss pinkerton for many many years. when my friend, lady fuddleston, mentioned that her dear girls required an instructress (i am too poor to engage a governess for mine, but was i not educated at chiswick?)--"who," i exclaimed, "can we consult but the excellent, the incomparable miss pinkerton?" in a word, have you, dear madam, any ladies on your list, whose services might be made available to my kind friend and neighbour? i assure you she will take no governess but of your choosing. my dear husband is pleased to say that he likes everything which comes from miss pinkerton's school. how i wish i could present him and my beloved girls to the friend of my youth, and the admired of the great lexicographer of our country! if you ever travel into hampshire, mr. crawley begs me to say, he hopes you will adorn our rural rectory with your presence. 'tis the humble but happy home of your affectionate martha crawley p.s. mr. crawley's brother, the baronet, with whom we are not, alas! upon those terms of unity in which it becomes brethren to dwell, has a governess for his little girls, who, i am told, had the good fortune to be educated at chiswick. i hear various reports of her; and as i have the tenderest interest in my dearest little nieces, whom i wish, in spite of family differences, to see among my own children--and as i long to be attentive to any pupil of yours--do, my dear miss pinkerton, tell me the history of this young lady, whom, for your sake, i am most anxious to befriend.--m. c. miss pinkerton to mrs. bute crawley. johnson house, chiswick, dec. --. dear madam,--i have the honour to acknowledge your polite communication, to which i promptly reply. 'tis most gratifying to one in my most arduous position to find that my maternal cares have elicited a responsive affection; and to recognize in the amiable mrs. bute crawley my excellent pupil of former years, the sprightly and accomplished miss martha mactavish. i am happy to have under my charge now the daughters of many of those who were your contemporaries at my establishment--what pleasure it would give me if your own beloved young ladies had need of my instructive superintendence! presenting my respectful compliments to lady fuddleston, i have the honour (epistolarily) to introduce to her ladyship my two friends, miss tuffin and miss hawky. either of these young ladies is perfectly qualified to instruct in greek, latin, and the rudiments of hebrew; in mathematics and history; in spanish, french, italian, and geography; in music, vocal and instrumental; in dancing, without the aid of a master; and in the elements of natural sciences. in the use of the globes both are proficients. in addition to these miss tuffin, who is daughter of the late reverend thomas tuffin (fellow of corpus college, cambridge), can instruct in the syriac language, and the elements of constitutional law. but as she is only eighteen years of age, and of exceedingly pleasing personal appearance, perhaps this young lady may be objectionable in sir huddleston fuddleston's family. miss letitia hawky, on the other hand, is not personally well-favoured. she is twenty-nine; her face is much pitted with the small-pox. she has a halt in her gait, red hair, and a trifling obliquity of vision. both ladies are endowed with every moral and religious virtue. their terms, of course, are such as their accomplishments merit. with my most grateful respects to the reverend bute crawley, i have the honour to be, dear madam, your most faithful and obedient servant, barbara pinkerton. p.s. the miss sharp, whom you mention as governess to sir pitt crawley, bart., m.p., was a pupil of mine, and i have nothing to say in her disfavour. though her appearance is disagreeable, we cannot control the operations of nature: and though her parents were disreputable (her father being a painter, several times bankrupt, and her mother, as i have since learned, with horror, a dancer at the opera); yet her talents are considerable, and i cannot regret that i received her out of charity. my dread is, lest the principles of the mother--who was represented to me as a french countess, forced to emigrate in the late revolutionary horrors; but who, as i have since found, was a person of the very lowest order and morals--should at any time prove to be hereditary in the unhappy young woman whom i took as an outcast. but her principles have hitherto been correct (i believe), and i am sure nothing will occur to injure them in the elegant and refined circle of the eminent sir pitt crawley. miss rebecca sharp to miss amelia sedley. i have not written to my beloved amelia for these many weeks past, for what news was there to tell of the sayings and doings at humdrum hall, as i have christened it; and what do you care whether the turnip crop is good or bad; whether the fat pig weighed thirteen stone or fourteen; and whether the beasts thrive well upon mangelwurzel? every day since i last wrote has been like its neighbour. before breakfast, a walk with sir pitt and his spud; after breakfast studies (such as they are) in the schoolroom; after schoolroom, reading and writing about lawyers, leases, coal-mines, canals, with sir pitt (whose secretary i am become); after dinner, mr. crawley's discourses on the baronet's backgammon; during both of which amusements my lady looks on with equal placidity. she has become rather more interesting by being ailing of late, which has brought a new visitor to the hall, in the person of a young doctor. well, my dear, young women need never despair. the young doctor gave a certain friend of yours to understand that, if she chose to be mrs. glauber, she was welcome to ornament the surgery! i told his impudence that the gilt pestle and mortar was quite ornament enough; as if i was born, indeed, to be a country surgeon's wife! mr. glauber went home seriously indisposed at his rebuff, took a cooling draught, and is now quite cured. sir pitt applauded my resolution highly; he would be sorry to lose his little secretary, i think; and i believe the old wretch likes me as much as it is in his nature to like any one. marry, indeed! and with a country apothecary, after-- no, no, one cannot so soon forget old associations, about which i will talk no more. let us return to humdrum hall. for some time past it is humdrum hall no longer. my dear, miss crawley has arrived with her fat horses, fat servants, fat spaniel--the great rich miss crawley, with seventy thousand pounds in the five per cents., whom, or i had better say which, her two brothers adore. she looks very apoplectic, the dear soul; no wonder her brothers are anxious about her. you should see them struggling to settle her cushions, or to hand her coffee! "when i come into the country," she says (for she has a great deal of humour), "i leave my toady, miss briggs, at home. my brothers are my toadies here, my dear, and a pretty pair they are!" when she comes into the country our hall is thrown open, and for a month, at least, you would fancy old sir walpole was come to life again. we have dinner-parties, and drive out in the coach-and-four--the footmen put on their newest canary-coloured liveries; we drink claret and champagne as if we were accustomed to it every day. we have wax candles in the schoolroom, and fires to warm ourselves with. lady crawley is made to put on the brightest pea-green in her wardrobe, and my pupils leave off their thick shoes and tight old tartan pelisses, and wear silk stockings and muslin frocks, as fashionable baronets' daughters should. rose came in yesterday in a sad plight--the wiltshire sow (an enormous pet of hers) ran her down, and destroyed a most lovely flowered lilac silk dress by dancing over it--had this happened a week ago, sir pitt would have sworn frightfully, have boxed the poor wretch's ears, and put her upon bread and water for a month. all he said was, "i'll serve you out, miss, when your aunt's gone," and laughed off the accident as quite trivial. let us hope his wrath will have passed away before miss crawley's departure. i hope so, for miss rose's sake, i am sure. what a charming reconciler and peacemaker money is! another admirable effect of miss crawley and her seventy thousand pounds is to be seen in the conduct of the two brothers crawley. i mean the baronet and the rector, not our brothers--but the former, who hate each other all the year round, become quite loving at christmas. i wrote to you last year how the abominable horse-racing rector was in the habit of preaching clumsy sermons at us at church, and how sir pitt snored in answer. when miss crawley arrives there is no such thing as quarrelling heard of--the hall visits the rectory, and vice versa--the parson and the baronet talk about the pigs and the poachers, and the county business, in the most affable manner, and without quarrelling in their cups, i believe--indeed miss crawley won't hear of their quarrelling, and vows that she will leave her money to the shropshire crawleys if they offend her. if they were clever people, those shropshire crawleys, they might have it all, i think; but the shropshire crawley is a clergyman like his hampshire cousin, and mortally offended miss crawley (who had fled thither in a fit of rage against her impracticable brethren) by some strait-laced notions of morality. he would have prayers in the house, i believe. our sermon books are shut up when miss crawley arrives, and mr. pitt, whom she abominates, finds it convenient to go to town. on the other hand, the young dandy--"blood," i believe, is the term--captain crawley makes his appearance, and i suppose you will like to know what sort of a person he is. well, he is a very large young dandy. he is six feet high, and speaks with a great voice; and swears a great deal; and orders about the servants, who all adore him nevertheless; for he is very generous of his money, and the domestics will do anything for him. last week the keepers almost killed a bailiff and his man who came down from london to arrest the captain, and who were found lurking about the park wall--they beat them, ducked them, and were going to shoot them for poachers, but the baronet interfered. the captain has a hearty contempt for his father, i can see, and calls him an old put, an old snob, an old chaw-bacon, and numberless other pretty names. he has a dreadful reputation among the ladies. he brings his hunters home with him, lives with the squires of the county, asks whom he pleases to dinner, and sir pitt dares not say no, for fear of offending miss crawley, and missing his legacy when she dies of her apoplexy. shall i tell you a compliment the captain paid me? i must, it is so pretty. one evening we actually had a dance; there was sir huddleston fuddleston and his family, sir giles wapshot and his young ladies, and i don't know how many more. well, i heard him say--"by jove, she's a neat little filly!" meaning your humble servant; and he did me the honour to dance two country-dances with me. he gets on pretty gaily with the young squires, with whom he drinks, bets, rides, and talks about hunting and shooting; but he says the country girls are bores; indeed, i don't think he is far wrong. you should see the contempt with which they look down on poor me! when they dance i sit and play the piano very demurely; but the other night, coming in rather flushed from the dining-room, and seeing me employed in this way, he swore out loud that i was the best dancer in the room, and took a great oath that he would have the fiddlers from mudbury. "i'll go and play a country-dance," said mrs. bute crawley, very readily (she is a little, black-faced old woman in a turban, rather crooked, and with very twinkling eyes); and after the captain and your poor little rebecca had performed a dance together, do you know she actually did me the honour to compliment me upon my steps! such a thing was never heard of before; the proud mrs. bute crawley, first cousin to the earl of tiptoff, who won't condescend to visit lady crawley, except when her sister is in the country. poor lady crawley! during most part of these gaieties, she is upstairs taking pills. mrs. bute has all of a sudden taken a great fancy to me. "my dear miss sharp," she says, "why not bring over your girls to the rectory?--their cousins will be so happy to see them." i know what she means. signor clementi did not teach us the piano for nothing; at which price mrs. bute hopes to get a professor for her children. i can see through her schemes, as though she told them to me; but i shall go, as i am determined to make myself agreeable--is it not a poor governess's duty, who has not a friend or protector in the world? the rector's wife paid me a score of compliments about the progress my pupils made, and thought, no doubt, to touch my heart--poor, simple, country soul!--as if i cared a fig about my pupils! your india muslin and your pink silk, dearest amelia, are said to become me very well. they are a good deal worn now; but, you know, we poor girls can't afford des fraiches toilettes. happy, happy you! who have but to drive to st. james's street, and a dear mother who will give you any thing you ask. farewell, dearest girl, your affectionate rebecca. p.s.--i wish you could have seen the faces of the miss blackbrooks (admiral blackbrook's daughters, my dear), fine young ladies, with dresses from london, when captain rawdon selected poor me for a partner! when mrs. bute crawley (whose artifices our ingenious rebecca had so soon discovered) had procured from miss sharp the promise of a visit, she induced the all-powerful miss crawley to make the necessary application to sir pitt, and the good-natured old lady, who loved to be gay herself, and to see every one gay and happy round about her, was quite charmed, and ready to establish a reconciliation and intimacy between her two brothers. it was therefore agreed that the young people of both families should visit each other frequently for the future, and the friendship of course lasted as long as the jovial old mediatrix was there to keep the peace. "why did you ask that scoundrel, rawdon crawley, to dine?" said the rector to his lady, as they were walking home through the park. "i don't want the fellow. he looks down upon us country people as so many blackamoors. he's never content unless he gets my yellow-sealed wine, which costs me ten shillings a bottle, hang him! besides, he's such an infernal character--he's a gambler--he's a drunkard--he's a profligate in every way. he shot a man in a duel--he's over head and ears in debt, and he's robbed me and mine of the best part of miss crawley's fortune. waxy says she has him"--here the rector shook his fist at the moon, with something very like an oath, and added, in a melancholious tone, "--down in her will for fifty thousand; and there won't be above thirty to divide." "i think she's going," said the rector's wife. "she was very red in the face when we left dinner. i was obliged to unlace her." "she drank seven glasses of champagne," said the reverend gentleman, in a low voice; "and filthy champagne it is, too, that my brother poisons us with--but you women never know what's what." "we know nothing," said mrs. bute crawley. "she drank cherry-brandy after dinner," continued his reverence, "and took curacao with her coffee. i wouldn't take a glass for a five-pound note: it kills me with heartburn. she can't stand it, mrs. crawley--she must go--flesh and blood won't bear it! and i lay five to two, matilda drops in a year." indulging in these solemn speculations, and thinking about his debts, and his son jim at college, and frank at woolwich, and the four girls, who were no beauties, poor things, and would not have a penny but what they got from the aunt's expected legacy, the rector and his lady walked on for a while. "pitt can't be such an infernal villain as to sell the reversion of the living. and that methodist milksop of an eldest son looks to parliament," continued mr. crawley, after a pause. "sir pitt crawley will do anything," said the rector's wife. "we must get miss crawley to make him promise it to james." "pitt will promise anything," replied the brother. "he promised he'd pay my college bills, when my father died; he promised he'd build the new wing to the rectory; he promised he'd let me have jibb's field and the six-acre meadow--and much he executed his promises! and it's to this man's son--this scoundrel, gambler, swindler, murderer of a rawdon crawley, that matilda leaves the bulk of her money. i say it's un-christian. by jove, it is. the infamous dog has got every vice except hypocrisy, and that belongs to his brother." "hush, my dearest love! we're in sir pitt's grounds," interposed his wife. "i say he has got every vice, mrs. crawley. don't ma'am, bully me. didn't he shoot captain marker? didn't he rob young lord dovedale at the cocoa-tree? didn't he cross the fight between bill soames and the cheshire trump, by which i lost forty pound? you know he did; and as for the women, why, you heard that before me, in my own magistrate's room." "for heaven's sake, mr. crawley," said the lady, "spare me the details." "and you ask this villain into your house!" continued the exasperated rector. "you, the mother of a young family--the wife of a clergyman of the church of england. by jove!" "bute crawley, you are a fool," said the rector's wife scornfully. "well, ma'am, fool or not--and i don't say, martha, i'm so clever as you are, i never did. but i won't meet rawdon crawley, that's flat. i'll go over to huddleston, that i will, and see his black greyhound, mrs. crawley; and i'll run lancelot against him for fifty. by jove, i will; or against any dog in england. but i won't meet that beast rawdon crawley." "mr. crawley, you are intoxicated, as usual," replied his wife. and the next morning, when the rector woke, and called for small beer, she put him in mind of his promise to visit sir huddleston fuddleston on saturday, and as he knew he should have a wet night, it was agreed that he might gallop back again in time for church on sunday morning. thus it will be seen that the parishioners of crawley were equally happy in their squire and in their rector. miss crawley had not long been established at the hall before rebecca's fascinations had won the heart of that good-natured london rake, as they had of the country innocents whom we have been describing. taking her accustomed drive, one day, she thought fit to order that "that little governess" should accompany her to mudbury. before they had returned rebecca had made a conquest of her; having made her laugh four times, and amused her during the whole of the little journey. "not let miss sharp dine at table!" said she to sir pitt, who had arranged a dinner of ceremony, and asked all the neighbouring baronets. "my dear creature, do you suppose i can talk about the nursery with lady fuddleston, or discuss justices' business with that goose, old sir giles wapshot? i insist upon miss sharp appearing. let lady crawley remain upstairs, if there is no room. but little miss sharp! why, she's the only person fit to talk to in the county!" of course, after such a peremptory order as this, miss sharp, the governess, received commands to dine with the illustrious company below stairs. and when sir huddleston had, with great pomp and ceremony, handed miss crawley in to dinner, and was preparing to take his place by her side, the old lady cried out, in a shrill voice, "becky sharp! miss sharp! come you and sit by me and amuse me; and let sir huddleston sit by lady wapshot." when the parties were over, and the carriages had rolled away, the insatiable miss crawley would say, "come to my dressing room, becky, and let us abuse the company"--which, between them, this pair of friends did perfectly. old sir huddleston wheezed a great deal at dinner; sir giles wapshot had a particularly noisy manner of imbibing his soup, and her ladyship a wink of the left eye; all of which becky caricatured to admiration; as well as the particulars of the night's conversation; the politics; the war; the quarter-sessions; the famous run with the h.h., and those heavy and dreary themes, about which country gentlemen converse. as for the misses wapshot's toilettes and lady fuddleston's famous yellow hat, miss sharp tore them to tatters, to the infinite amusement of her audience. "my dear, you are a perfect trouvaille," miss crawley would say. "i wish you could come to me in london, but i couldn't make a butt of you as i do of poor briggs no, no, you little sly creature; you are too clever--isn't she, firkin?" mrs. firkin (who was dressing the very small remnant of hair which remained on miss crawley's pate), flung up her head and said, "i think miss is very clever," with the most killing sarcastic air. in fact, mrs. firkin had that natural jealousy which is one of the main principles of every honest woman. after rebuffing sir huddleston fuddleston, miss crawley ordered that rawdon crawley should lead her in to dinner every day, and that becky should follow with her cushion--or else she would have becky's arm and rawdon with the pillow. "we must sit together," she said. "we're the only three christians in the county, my love"--in which case, it must be confessed, that religion was at a very low ebb in the county of hants. besides being such a fine religionist, miss crawley was, as we have said, an ultra-liberal in opinions, and always took occasion to express these in the most candid manner. "what is birth, my dear!" she would say to rebecca--"look at my brother pitt; look at the huddlestons, who have been here since henry ii; look at poor bute at the parsonage--is any one of them equal to you in intelligence or breeding? equal to you--they are not even equal to poor dear briggs, my companion, or bowls, my butler. you, my love, are a little paragon--positively a little jewel--you have more brains than half the shire--if merit had its reward you ought to be a duchess--no, there ought to be no duchesses at all--but you ought to have no superior, and i consider you, my love, as my equal in every respect; and--will you put some coals on the fire, my dear; and will you pick this dress of mine, and alter it, you who can do it so well?" so this old philanthropist used to make her equal run of her errands, execute her millinery, and read her to sleep with french novels, every night. at this time, as some old readers may recollect, the genteel world had been thrown into a considerable state of excitement by two events, which, as the papers say, might give employment to the gentlemen of the long robe. ensign shafton had run away with lady barbara fitzurse, the earl of bruin's daughter and heiress; and poor vere vane, a gentleman who, up to forty, had maintained a most respectable character and reared a numerous family, suddenly and outrageously left his home, for the sake of mrs. rougemont, the actress, who was sixty-five years of age. "that was the most beautiful part of dear lord nelson's character," miss crawley said. "he went to the deuce for a woman. there must be good in a man who will do that. i adore all imprudent matches.-- what i like best, is for a nobleman to marry a miller's daughter, as lord flowerdale did--it makes all the women so angry--i wish some great man would run away with you, my dear; i'm sure you're pretty enough." "two post-boys!--oh, it would be delightful!" rebecca owned. "and what i like next best, is for a poor fellow to run away with a rich girl. i have set my heart on rawdon running away with some one." "a rich some one, or a poor some one?" "why, you goose! rawdon has not a shilling but what i give him. he is crible de dettes--he must repair his fortunes, and succeed in the world." "is he very clever?" rebecca asked. "clever, my love?--not an idea in the world beyond his horses, and his regiment, and his hunting, and his play; but he must succeed--he's so delightfully wicked. don't you know he has hit a man, and shot an injured father through the hat only? he's adored in his regiment; and all the young men at wattier's and the cocoa-tree swear by him." when miss rebecca sharp wrote to her beloved friend the account of the little ball at queen's crawley, and the manner in which, for the first time, captain crawley had distinguished her, she did not, strange to relate, give an altogether accurate account of the transaction. the captain had distinguished her a great number of times before. the captain had met her in a half-score of walks. the captain had lighted upon her in a half-hundred of corridors and passages. the captain had hung over her piano twenty times of an evening (my lady was now upstairs, being ill, and nobody heeded her) as miss sharp sang. the captain had written her notes (the best that the great blundering dragoon could devise and spell; but dulness gets on as well as any other quality with women). but when he put the first of the notes into the leaves of the song she was singing, the little governess, rising and looking him steadily in the face, took up the triangular missive daintily, and waved it about as if it were a cocked hat, and she, advancing to the enemy, popped the note into the fire, and made him a very low curtsey, and went back to her place, and began to sing away again more merrily than ever. "what's that?" said miss crawley, interrupted in her after-dinner doze by the stoppage of the music. "it's a false note," miss sharp said with a laugh; and rawdon crawley fumed with rage and mortification. seeing the evident partiality of miss crawley for the new governess, how good it was of mrs. bute crawley not to be jealous, and to welcome the young lady to the rectory, and not only her, but rawdon crawley, her husband's rival in the old maid's five per cents! they became very fond of each other's society, mrs. crawley and her nephew. he gave up hunting; he declined entertainments at fuddleston: he would not dine with the mess of the depot at mudbury: his great pleasure was to stroll over to crawley parsonage--whither miss crawley came too; and as their mamma was ill, why not the children with miss sharp? so the children (little dears!) came with miss sharp; and of an evening some of the party would walk back together. not miss crawley--she preferred her carriage--but the walk over the rectory fields, and in at the little park wicket, and through the dark plantation, and up the checkered avenue to queen's crawley, was charming in the moonlight to two such lovers of the picturesque as the captain and miss rebecca. "o those stars, those stars!" miss rebecca would say, turning her twinkling green eyes up towards them. "i feel myself almost a spirit when i gaze upon them." "o--ah--gad--yes, so do i exactly, miss sharp," the other enthusiast replied. "you don't mind my cigar, do you, miss sharp?" miss sharp loved the smell of a cigar out of doors beyond everything in the world--and she just tasted one too, in the prettiest way possible, and gave a little puff, and a little scream, and a little giggle, and restored the delicacy to the captain, who twirled his moustache, and straightway puffed it into a blaze that glowed quite red in the dark plantation, and swore--"jove--aw--gad--aw--it's the finest segaw i ever smoked in the world aw," for his intellect and conversation were alike brilliant and becoming to a heavy young dragoon. old sir pitt, who was taking his pipe and beer, and talking to john horrocks about a "ship" that was to be killed, espied the pair so occupied from his study-window, and with dreadful oaths swore that if it wasn't for miss crawley, he'd take rawdon and bundle un out of doors, like a rogue as he was. "he be a bad'n, sure enough," mr. horrocks remarked; "and his man flethers is wuss, and have made such a row in the housekeeper's room about the dinners and hale, as no lord would make--but i think miss sharp's a match for'n, sir pitt," he added, after a pause. and so, in truth, she was--for father and son too. chapter xii quite a sentimental chapter we must now take leave of arcadia, and those amiable people practising the rural virtues there, and travel back to london, to inquire what has become of miss amelia. "we don't care a fig for her," writes some unknown correspondent with a pretty little handwriting and a pink seal to her note. "she is fade and insipid," and adds some more kind remarks in this strain, which i should never have repeated at all, but that they are in truth prodigiously complimentary to the young lady whom they concern. has the beloved reader, in his experience of society, never heard similar remarks by good-natured female friends; who always wonder what you can see in miss smith that is so fascinating; or what could induce major jones to propose for that silly insignificant simpering miss thompson, who has nothing but her wax-doll face to recommend her? what is there in a pair of pink cheeks and blue eyes forsooth? these dear moralists ask, and hint wisely that the gifts of genius, the accomplishments of the mind, the mastery of mangnall's questions, and a ladylike knowledge of botany and geology, the knack of making poetry, the power of rattling sonatas in the herz-manner, and so forth, are far more valuable endowments for a female, than those fugitive charms which a few years will inevitably tarnish. it is quite edifying to hear women speculate upon the worthlessness and the duration of beauty. but though virtue is a much finer thing, and those hapless creatures who suffer under the misfortune of good looks ought to be continually put in mind of the fate which awaits them; and though, very likely, the heroic female character which ladies admire is a more glorious and beautiful object than the kind, fresh, smiling, artless, tender little domestic goddess, whom men are inclined to worship--yet the latter and inferior sort of women must have this consolation--that the men do admire them after all; and that, in spite of all our kind friends' warnings and protests, we go on in our desperate error and folly, and shall to the end of the chapter. indeed, for my own part, though i have been repeatedly told by persons for whom i have the greatest respect, that miss brown is an insignificant chit, and mrs. white has nothing but her petit minois chiffonne, and mrs. black has not a word to say for herself; yet i know that i have had the most delightful conversations with mrs. black (of course, my dear madam, they are inviolable): i see all the men in a cluster round mrs. white's chair: all the young fellows battling to dance with miss brown; and so i am tempted to think that to be despised by her sex is a very great compliment to a woman. the young ladies in amelia's society did this for her very satisfactorily. for instance, there was scarcely any point upon which the misses osborne, george's sisters, and the mesdemoiselles dobbin agreed so well as in their estimate of her very trifling merits: and their wonder that their brothers could find any charms in her. "we are kind to her," the misses osborne said, a pair of fine black-browed young ladies who had had the best of governesses, masters, and milliners; and they treated her with such extreme kindness and condescension, and patronised her so insufferably, that the poor little thing was in fact perfectly dumb in their presence, and to all outward appearance as stupid as they thought her. she made efforts to like them, as in duty bound, and as sisters of her future husband. she passed "long mornings" with them--the most dreary and serious of forenoons. she drove out solemnly in their great family coach with them, and miss wirt their governess, that raw-boned vestal. they took her to the ancient concerts by way of a treat, and to the oratorio, and to st. paul's to see the charity children, where in such terror was she of her friends, she almost did not dare be affected by the hymn the children sang. their house was comfortable; their papa's table rich and handsome; their society solemn and genteel; their self-respect prodigious; they had the best pew at the foundling: all their habits were pompous and orderly, and all their amusements intolerably dull and decorous. after every one of her visits (and oh how glad she was when they were over!) miss osborne and miss maria osborne, and miss wirt, the vestal governess, asked each other with increased wonder, "what could george find in that creature?" how is this? some carping reader exclaims. how is it that amelia, who had such a number of friends at school, and was so beloved there, comes out into the world and is spurned by her discriminating sex? my dear sir, there were no men at miss pinkerton's establishment except the old dancing-master; and you would not have had the girls fall out about him? when george, their handsome brother, ran off directly after breakfast, and dined from home half-a-dozen times a week, no wonder the neglected sisters felt a little vexation. when young bullock (of the firm of hulker, bullock & co., bankers, lombard street), who had been making up to miss maria the last two seasons, actually asked amelia to dance the cotillon, could you expect that the former young lady should be pleased? and yet she said she was, like an artless forgiving creature. "i'm so delighted you like dear amelia," she said quite eagerly to mr. bullock after the dance. "she's engaged to my brother george; there's not much in her, but she's the best-natured and most unaffected young creature: at home we're all so fond of her." dear girl! who can calculate the depth of affection expressed in that enthusiastic so? miss wirt and these two affectionate young women so earnestly and frequently impressed upon george osborne's mind the enormity of the sacrifice he was making, and his romantic generosity in throwing himself away upon amelia, that i'm not sure but that he really thought he was one of the most deserving characters in the british army, and gave himself up to be loved with a good deal of easy resignation. somehow, although he left home every morning, as was stated, and dined abroad six days in the week, when his sisters believed the infatuated youth to be at miss sedley's apron-strings: he was not always with amelia, whilst the world supposed him at her feet. certain it is that on more occasions than one, when captain dobbin called to look for his friend, miss osborne (who was very attentive to the captain, and anxious to hear his military stories, and to know about the health of his dear mamma), would laughingly point to the opposite side of the square, and say, "oh, you must go to the sedleys' to ask for george; we never see him from morning till night." at which kind of speech the captain would laugh in rather an absurd constrained manner, and turn off the conversation, like a consummate man of the world, to some topic of general interest, such as the opera, the prince's last ball at carlton house, or the weather--that blessing to society. "what an innocent it is, that pet of yours," miss maria would then say to miss jane, upon the captain's departure. "did you see how he blushed at the mention of poor george on duty?" "it's a pity frederick bullock hadn't some of his modesty, maria," replies the elder sister, with a toss of he head. "modesty! awkwardness you mean, jane. i don't want frederick to trample a hole in my muslin frock, as captain dobbin did in yours at mrs. perkins'." "in your frock, he, he! how could he? wasn't he dancing with amelia?" the fact is, when captain dobbin blushed so, and looked so awkward, he remembered a circumstance of which he did not think it was necessary to inform the young ladies, viz., that he had been calling at mr. sedley's house already, on the pretence of seeing george, of course, and george wasn't there, only poor little amelia, with rather a sad wistful face, seated near the drawing-room window, who, after some very trifling stupid talk, ventured to ask, was there any truth in the report that the regiment was soon to be ordered abroad; and had captain dobbin seen mr. osborne that day? the regiment was not ordered abroad as yet; and captain dobbin had not seen george. "he was with his sister, most likely," the captain said. "should he go and fetch the truant?" so she gave him her hand kindly and gratefully: and he crossed the square; and she waited and waited, but george never came. poor little tender heart! and so it goes on hoping and beating, and longing and trusting. you see it is not much of a life to describe. there is not much of what you call incident in it. only one feeling all day--when will he come? only one thought to sleep and wake upon. i believe george was playing billiards with captain cannon in swallow street at the time when amelia was asking captain dobbin about him; for george was a jolly sociable fellow, and excellent in all games of skill. once, after three days of absence, miss amelia put on her bonnet, and actually invaded the osborne house. "what! leave our brother to come to us?" said the young ladies. "have you had a quarrel, amelia? do tell us!" no, indeed, there had been no quarrel. "who could quarrel with him?" says she, with her eyes filled with tears. she only came over to--to see her dear friends; they had not met for so long. and this day she was so perfectly stupid and awkward, that the misses osborne and their governess, who stared after her as she went sadly away, wondered more than ever what george could see in poor little amelia. of course they did. how was she to bare that timid little heart for the inspection of those young ladies with their bold black eyes? it was best that it should shrink and hide itself. i know the misses osborne were excellent critics of a cashmere shawl, or a pink satin slip; and when miss turner had hers dyed purple, and made into a spencer; and when miss pickford had her ermine tippet twisted into a muff and trimmings, i warrant you the changes did not escape the two intelligent young women before mentioned. but there are things, look you, of a finer texture than fur or satin, and all solomon's glories, and all the wardrobe of the queen of sheba--things whereof the beauty escapes the eyes of many connoisseurs. and there are sweet modest little souls on which you light, fragrant and blooming tenderly in quiet shady places; and there are garden-ornaments, as big as brass warming-pans, that are fit to stare the sun itself out of countenance. miss sedley was not of the sunflower sort; and i say it is out of the rules of all proportion to draw a violet of the size of a double dahlia. no, indeed; the life of a good young girl who is in the paternal nest as yet, can't have many of those thrilling incidents to which the heroine of romance commonly lays claim. snares or shot may take off the old birds foraging without--hawks may be abroad, from which they escape or by whom they suffer; but the young ones in the nest have a pretty comfortable unromantic sort of existence in the down and the straw, till it comes to their turn, too, to get on the wing. while becky sharp was on her own wing in the country, hopping on all sorts of twigs, and amid a multiplicity of traps, and pecking up her food quite harmless and successful, amelia lay snug in her home of russell square; if she went into the world, it was under the guidance of the elders; nor did it seem that any evil could befall her or that opulent cheery comfortable home in which she was affectionately sheltered. mamma had her morning duties, and her daily drive, and the delightful round of visits and shopping which forms the amusement, or the profession as you may call it, of the rich london lady. papa conducted his mysterious operations in the city--a stirring place in those days, when war was raging all over europe, and empires were being staked; when the "courier" newspaper had tens of thousands of subscribers; when one day brought you a battle of vittoria, another a burning of moscow, or a newsman's horn blowing down russell square about dinner-time, announced such a fact as--"battle of leipsic--six hundred thousand men engaged--total defeat of the french--two hundred thousand killed." old sedley once or twice came home with a very grave face; and no wonder, when such news as this was agitating all the hearts and all the stocks of europe. meanwhile matters went on in russell square, bloomsbury, just as if matters in europe were not in the least disorganised. the retreat from leipsic made no difference in the number of meals mr. sambo took in the servants' hall; the allies poured into france, and the dinner-bell rang at five o'clock just as usual. i don't think poor amelia cared anything about brienne and montmirail, or was fairly interested in the war until the abdication of the emperor; when she clapped her hands and said prayers--oh, how grateful! and flung herself into george osborne's arms with all her soul, to the astonishment of everybody who witnessed that ebullition of sentiment. the fact is, peace was declared, europe was going to be at rest; the corsican was overthrown, and lieutenant osborne's regiment would not be ordered on service. that was the way in which miss amelia reasoned. the fate of europe was lieutenant george osborne to her. his dangers being over, she sang te deum. he was her europe: her emperor: her allied monarchs and august prince regent. he was her sun and moon; and i believe she thought the grand illumination and ball at the mansion house, given to the sovereigns, were especially in honour of george osborne. we have talked of shift, self, and poverty, as those dismal instructors under whom poor miss becky sharp got her education. now, love was miss amelia sedley's last tutoress, and it was amazing what progress our young lady made under that popular teacher. in the course of fifteen or eighteen months' daily and constant attention to this eminent finishing governess, what a deal of secrets amelia learned, which miss wirt and the black-eyed young ladies over the way, which old miss pinkerton of chiswick herself, had no cognizance of! as, indeed, how should any of those prim and reputable virgins? with misses p. and w. the tender passion is out of the question: i would not dare to breathe such an idea regarding them. miss maria osborne, it is true, was "attached" to mr. frederick augustus bullock, of the firm of hulker, bullock & bullock; but hers was a most respectable attachment, and she would have taken bullock senior just the same, her mind being fixed--as that of a well-bred young woman should be--upon a house in park lane, a country house at wimbledon, a handsome chariot, and two prodigious tall horses and footmen, and a fourth of the annual profits of the eminent firm of hulker & bullock, all of which advantages were represented in the person of frederick augustus. had orange blossoms been invented then (those touching emblems of female purity imported by us from france, where people's daughters are universally sold in marriage), miss maria, i say, would have assumed the spotless wreath, and stepped into the travelling carriage by the side of gouty, old, bald-headed, bottle-nosed bullock senior; and devoted her beautiful existence to his happiness with perfect modesty--only the old gentleman was married already; so she bestowed her young affections on the junior partner. sweet, blooming, orange flowers! the other day i saw miss trotter (that was), arrayed in them, trip into the travelling carriage at st. george's, hanover square, and lord methuselah hobbled in after. with what an engaging modesty she pulled down the blinds of the chariot--the dear innocent! there were half the carriages of vanity fair at the wedding. this was not the sort of love that finished amelia's education; and in the course of a year turned a good young girl into a good young woman--to be a good wife presently, when the happy time should come. this young person (perhaps it was very imprudent in her parents to encourage her, and abet her in such idolatry and silly romantic ideas) loved, with all her heart, the young officer in his majesty's service with whom we have made a brief acquaintance. she thought about him the very first moment on waking; and his was the very last name mentioned in her prayers. she never had seen a man so beautiful or so clever: such a figure on horseback: such a dancer: such a hero in general. talk of the prince's bow! what was it to george's? she had seen mr. brummell, whom everybody praised so. compare such a person as that to her george! not amongst all the beaux at the opera (and there were beaux in those days with actual opera hats) was there any one to equal him. he was only good enough to be a fairy prince; and oh, what magnanimity to stoop to such a humble cinderella! miss pinkerton would have tried to check this blind devotion very likely, had she been amelia's confidante; but not with much success, depend upon it. it is in the nature and instinct of some women. some are made to scheme, and some to love; and i wish any respected bachelor that reads this may take the sort that best likes him. while under this overpowering impression, miss amelia neglected her twelve dear friends at chiswick most cruelly, as such selfish people commonly will do. she had but this subject, of course, to think about; and miss saltire was too cold for a confidante, and she couldn't bring her mind to tell miss swartz, the woolly-haired young heiress from st. kitt's. she had little laura martin home for the holidays; and my belief is, she made a confidante of her, and promised that laura should come and live with her when she was married, and gave laura a great deal of information regarding the passion of love, which must have been singularly useful and novel to that little person. alas, alas! i fear poor emmy had not a well-regulated mind. what were her parents doing, not to keep this little heart from beating so fast? old sedley did not seem much to notice matters. he was graver of late, and his city affairs absorbed him. mrs. sedley was of so easy and uninquisitive a nature that she wasn't even jealous. mr. jos was away, being besieged by an irish widow at cheltenham. amelia had the house to herself--ah! too much to herself sometimes--not that she ever doubted; for, to be sure, george must be at the horse guards; and he can't always get leave from chatham; and he must see his friends and sisters, and mingle in society when in town (he, such an ornament to every society!); and when he is with the regiment, he is too tired to write long letters. i know where she kept that packet she had--and can steal in and out of her chamber like iachimo--like iachimo? no--that is a bad part. i will only act moonshine, and peep harmless into the bed where faith and beauty and innocence lie dreaming. but if osborne's were short and soldierlike letters, it must be confessed, that were miss sedley's letters to mr. osborne to be published, we should have to extend this novel to such a multiplicity of volumes as not the most sentimental reader could support; that she not only filled sheets of large paper, but crossed them with the most astonishing perverseness; that she wrote whole pages out of poetry-books without the least pity; that she underlined words and passages with quite a frantic emphasis; and, in fine, gave the usual tokens of her condition. she wasn't a heroine. her letters were full of repetition. she wrote rather doubtful grammar sometimes, and in her verses took all sorts of liberties with the metre. but oh, mesdames, if you are not allowed to touch the heart sometimes in spite of syntax, and are not to be loved until you all know the difference between trimeter and tetrameter, may all poetry go to the deuce, and every schoolmaster perish miserably! chapter xiii sentimental and otherwise i fear the gentleman to whom miss amelia's letters were addressed was rather an obdurate critic. such a number of notes followed lieutenant osborne about the country, that he became almost ashamed of the jokes of his mess-room companions regarding them, and ordered his servant never to deliver them except at his private apartment. he was seen lighting his cigar with one, to the horror of captain dobbin, who, it is my belief, would have given a bank-note for the document. for some time george strove to keep the liaison a secret. there was a woman in the case, that he admitted. "and not the first either," said ensign spooney to ensign stubble. "that osborne's a devil of a fellow. there was a judge's daughter at demerara went almost mad about him; then there was that beautiful quadroon girl, miss pye, at st. vincent's, you know; and since he's been home, they say he's a regular don giovanni, by jove." stubble and spooney thought that to be a "regular don giovanni, by jove" was one of the finest qualities a man could possess, and osborne's reputation was prodigious amongst the young men of the regiment. he was famous in field-sports, famous at a song, famous on parade; free with his money, which was bountifully supplied by his father. his coats were better made than any man's in the regiment, and he had more of them. he was adored by the men. he could drink more than any officer of the whole mess, including old heavytop, the colonel. he could spar better than knuckles, the private (who would have been a corporal but for his drunkenness, and who had been in the prize-ring); and was the best batter and bowler, out and out, of the regimental club. he rode his own horse, greased lightning, and won the garrison cup at quebec races. there were other people besides amelia who worshipped him. stubble and spooney thought him a sort of apollo; dobbin took him to be an admirable crichton; and mrs. major o'dowd acknowledged he was an elegant young fellow, and put her in mind of fitzjurld fogarty, lord castlefogarty's second son. well, stubble and spooney and the rest indulged in most romantic conjectures regarding this female correspondent of osborne's--opining that it was a duchess in london who was in love with him--or that it was a general's daughter, who was engaged to somebody else, and madly attached to him--or that it was a member of parliament's lady, who proposed four horses and an elopement--or that it was some other victim of a passion delightfully exciting, romantic, and disgraceful to all parties, on none of which conjectures would osborne throw the least light, leaving his young admirers and friends to invent and arrange their whole history. and the real state of the case would never have been known at all in the regiment but for captain dobbin's indiscretion. the captain was eating his breakfast one day in the mess-room, while cackle, the assistant-surgeon, and the two above-named worthies were speculating upon osborne's intrigue--stubble holding out that the lady was a duchess about queen charlotte's court, and cackle vowing she was an opera-singer of the worst reputation. at this idea dobbin became so moved, that though his mouth was full of eggs and bread-and-butter at the time, and though he ought not to have spoken at all, yet he couldn't help blurting out, "cackle, you're a stupid fool. you're always talking nonsense and scandal. osborne is not going to run off with a duchess or ruin a milliner. miss sedley is one of the most charming young women that ever lived. he's been engaged to her ever so long; and the man who calls her names had better not do so in my hearing." with which, turning exceedingly red, dobbin ceased speaking, and almost choked himself with a cup of tea. the story was over the regiment in half-an-hour; and that very evening mrs. major o'dowd wrote off to her sister glorvina at o'dowdstown not to hurry from dublin--young osborne being prematurely engaged already. she complimented the lieutenant in an appropriate speech over a glass of whisky-toddy that evening, and he went home perfectly furious to quarrel with dobbin (who had declined mrs. major o'dowd's party, and sat in his own room playing the flute, and, i believe, writing poetry in a very melancholy manner)--to quarrel with dobbin for betraying his secret. "who the deuce asked you to talk about my affairs?" osborne shouted indignantly. "why the devil is all the regiment to know that i am going to be married? why is that tattling old harridan, peggy o'dowd, to make free with my name at her d--d supper-table, and advertise my engagement over the three kingdoms? after all, what right have you to say i am engaged, or to meddle in my business at all, dobbin?" "it seems to me," captain dobbin began. "seems be hanged, dobbin," his junior interrupted him. "i am under obligations to you, i know it, a d--d deal too well too; but i won't be always sermonised by you because you're five years my senior. i'm hanged if i'll stand your airs of superiority and infernal pity and patronage. pity and patronage! i should like to know in what i'm your inferior?" "are you engaged?" captain dobbin interposed. "what the devil's that to you or any one here if i am?" "are you ashamed of it?" dobbin resumed. "what right have you to ask me that question, sir? i should like to know," george said. "good god, you don't mean to say you want to break off?" asked dobbin, starting up. "in other words, you ask me if i'm a man of honour," said osborne, fiercely; "is that what you mean? you've adopted such a tone regarding me lately that i'm ------ if i'll bear it any more." "what have i done? i've told you you were neglecting a sweet girl, george. i've told you that when you go to town you ought to go to her, and not to the gambling-houses about st. james's." "you want your money back, i suppose," said george, with a sneer. "of course i do--i always did, didn't i?" says dobbin. "you speak like a generous fellow." "no, hang it, william, i beg your pardon"--here george interposed in a fit of remorse; "you have been my friend in a hundred ways, heaven knows. you've got me out of a score of scrapes. when crawley of the guards won that sum of money of me i should have been done but for you: i know i should. but you shouldn't deal so hardly with me; you shouldn't be always catechising me. i am very fond of amelia; i adore her, and that sort of thing. don't look angry. she's faultless; i know she is. but you see there's no fun in winning a thing unless you play for it. hang it: the regiment's just back from the west indies, i must have a little fling, and then when i'm married i'll reform; i will upon my honour, now. and--i say--dob--don't be angry with me, and i'll give you a hundred next month, when i know my father will stand something handsome; and i'll ask heavytop for leave, and i'll go to town, and see amelia to-morrow--there now, will that satisfy you?" "it is impossible to be long angry with you, george," said the good-natured captain; "and as for the money, old boy, you know if i wanted it you'd share your last shilling with me." "that i would, by jove, dobbin," george said, with the greatest generosity, though by the way he never had any money to spare. "only i wish you had sown those wild oats of yours, george. if you could have seen poor little miss emmy's face when she asked me about you the other day, you would have pitched those billiard-balls to the deuce. go and comfort her, you rascal. go and write her a long letter. do something to make her happy; a very little will." "i believe she's d--d fond of me," the lieutenant said, with a self-satisfied air; and went off to finish the evening with some jolly fellows in the mess-room. amelia meanwhile, in russell square, was looking at the moon, which was shining upon that peaceful spot, as well as upon the square of the chatham barracks, where lieutenant osborne was quartered, and thinking to herself how her hero was employed. perhaps he is visiting the sentries, thought she; perhaps he is bivouacking; perhaps he is attending the couch of a wounded comrade, or studying the art of war up in his own desolate chamber. and her kind thoughts sped away as if they were angels and had wings, and flying down the river to chatham and rochester, strove to peep into the barracks where george was. . . . all things considered, i think it was as well the gates were shut, and the sentry allowed no one to pass; so that the poor little white-robed angel could not hear the songs those young fellows were roaring over the whisky-punch. the day after the little conversation at chatham barracks, young osborne, to show that he would be as good as his word, prepared to go to town, thereby incurring captain dobbin's applause. "i should have liked to make her a little present," osborne said to his friend in confidence, "only i am quite out of cash until my father tips up." but dobbin would not allow this good nature and generosity to be balked, and so accommodated mr. osborne with a few pound notes, which the latter took after a little faint scruple. and i dare say he would have bought something very handsome for amelia; only, getting off the coach in fleet street, he was attracted by a handsome shirt-pin in a jeweller's window, which he could not resist; and having paid for that, had very little money to spare for indulging in any further exercise of kindness. never mind: you may be sure it was not his presents amelia wanted. when he came to russell square, her face lighted up as if he had been sunshine. the little cares, fears, tears, timid misgivings, sleepless fancies of i don't know how many days and nights, were forgotten, under one moment's influence of that familiar, irresistible smile. he beamed on her from the drawing-room door--magnificent, with ambrosial whiskers, like a god. sambo, whose face as he announced captain osbin (having conferred a brevet rank on that young officer) blazed with a sympathetic grin, saw the little girl start, and flush, and jump up from her watching-place in the window; and sambo retreated: and as soon as the door was shut, she went fluttering to lieutenant george osborne's heart as if it was the only natural home for her to nestle in. oh, thou poor panting little soul! the very finest tree in the whole forest, with the straightest stem, and the strongest arms, and the thickest foliage, wherein you choose to build and coo, may be marked, for what you know, and may be down with a crash ere long. what an old, old simile that is, between man and timber! in the meanwhile, george kissed her very kindly on her forehead and glistening eyes, and was very gracious and good; and she thought his diamond shirt-pin (which she had not known him to wear before) the prettiest ornament ever seen. the observant reader, who has marked our young lieutenant's previous behaviour, and has preserved our report of the brief conversation which he has just had with captain dobbin, has possibly come to certain conclusions regarding the character of mr. osborne. some cynical frenchman has said that there are two parties to a love-transaction: the one who loves and the other who condescends to be so treated. perhaps the love is occasionally on the man's side; perhaps on the lady's. perhaps some infatuated swain has ere this mistaken insensibility for modesty, dulness for maiden reserve, mere vacuity for sweet bashfulness, and a goose, in a word, for a swan. perhaps some beloved female subscriber has arrayed an ass in the splendour and glory of her imagination; admired his dulness as manly simplicity; worshipped his selfishness as manly superiority; treated his stupidity as majestic gravity, and used him as the brilliant fairy titania did a certain weaver at athens. i think i have seen such comedies of errors going on in the world. but this is certain, that amelia believed her lover to be one of the most gallant and brilliant men in the empire: and it is possible lieutenant osborne thought so too. he was a little wild: how many young men are; and don't girls like a rake better than a milksop? he hadn't sown his wild oats as yet, but he would soon: and quit the army now that peace was proclaimed; the corsican monster locked up at elba; promotion by consequence over; and no chance left for the display of his undoubted military talents and valour: and his allowance, with amelia's settlement, would enable them to take a snug place in the country somewhere, in a good sporting neighbourhood; and he would hunt a little, and farm a little; and they would be very happy. as for remaining in the army as a married man, that was impossible. fancy mrs. george osborne in lodgings in a county town; or, worse still, in the east or west indies, with a society of officers, and patronized by mrs. major o'dowd! amelia died with laughing at osborne's stories about mrs. major o'dowd. he loved her much too fondly to subject her to that horrid woman and her vulgarities, and the rough treatment of a soldier's wife. he didn't care for himself--not he; but his dear little girl should take the place in society to which, as his wife, she was entitled: and to these proposals you may be sure she acceded, as she would to any other from the same author. holding this kind of conversation, and building numberless castles in the air (which amelia adorned with all sorts of flower-gardens, rustic walks, country churches, sunday schools, and the like; while george had his mind's eye directed to the stables, the kennel, and the cellar), this young pair passed away a couple of hours very pleasantly; and as the lieutenant had only that single day in town, and a great deal of most important business to transact, it was proposed that miss emmy should dine with her future sisters-in-law. this invitation was accepted joyfully. he conducted her to his sisters; where he left her talking and prattling in a way that astonished those ladies, who thought that george might make something of her; and he then went off to transact his business. in a word, he went out and ate ices at a pastry-cook's shop in charing cross; tried a new coat in pall mall; dropped in at the old slaughters', and called for captain cannon; played eleven games at billiards with the captain, of which he won eight, and returned to russell square half an hour late for dinner, but in very good humour. it was not so with old mr. osborne. when that gentleman came from the city, and was welcomed in the drawing-room by his daughters and the elegant miss wirt, they saw at once by his face--which was puffy, solemn, and yellow at the best of times--and by the scowl and twitching of his black eyebrows, that the heart within his large white waistcoat was disturbed and uneasy. when amelia stepped forward to salute him, which she always did with great trembling and timidity, he gave a surly grunt of recognition, and dropped the little hand out of his great hirsute paw without any attempt to hold it there. he looked round gloomily at his eldest daughter; who, comprehending the meaning of his look, which asked unmistakably, "why the devil is she here?" said at once: "george is in town, papa; and has gone to the horse guards, and will be back to dinner." "o he is, is he? i won't have the dinner kept waiting for him, jane"; with which this worthy man lapsed into his particular chair, and then the utter silence in his genteel, well-furnished drawing-room was only interrupted by the alarmed ticking of the great french clock. when that chronometer, which was surmounted by a cheerful brass group of the sacrifice of iphigenia, tolled five in a heavy cathedral tone, mr. osborne pulled the bell at his right hand--violently, and the butler rushed up. "dinner!" roared mr. osborne. "mr. george isn't come in, sir," interposed the man. "damn mr. george, sir. am i master of the house? dinner!" mr. osborne scowled. amelia trembled. a telegraphic communication of eyes passed between the other three ladies. the obedient bell in the lower regions began ringing the announcement of the meal. the tolling over, the head of the family thrust his hands into the great tail-pockets of his great blue coat with brass buttons, and without waiting for a further announcement strode downstairs alone, scowling over his shoulder at the four females. "what's the matter now, my dear?" asked one of the other, as they rose and tripped gingerly behind the sire. "i suppose the funds are falling," whispered miss wirt; and so, trembling and in silence, this hushed female company followed their dark leader. they took their places in silence. he growled out a blessing, which sounded as gruffly as a curse. the great silver dish-covers were removed. amelia trembled in her place, for she was next to the awful osborne, and alone on her side of the table--the gap being occasioned by the absence of george. "soup?" says mr. osborne, clutching the ladle, fixing his eyes on her, in a sepulchral tone; and having helped her and the rest, did not speak for a while. "take miss sedley's plate away," at last he said. "she can't eat the soup--no more can i. it's beastly. take away the soup, hicks, and to-morrow turn the cook out of the house, jane." having concluded his observations upon the soup, mr. osborne made a few curt remarks respecting the fish, also of a savage and satirical tendency, and cursed billingsgate with an emphasis quite worthy of the place. then he lapsed into silence, and swallowed sundry glasses of wine, looking more and more terrible, till a brisk knock at the door told of george's arrival when everybody began to rally. "he could not come before. general daguilet had kept him waiting at the horse guards. never mind soup or fish. give him anything--he didn't care what. capital mutton--capital everything." his good humour contrasted with his father's severity; and he rattled on unceasingly during dinner, to the delight of all--of one especially, who need not be mentioned. as soon as the young ladies had discussed the orange and the glass of wine which formed the ordinary conclusion of the dismal banquets at mr. osborne's house, the signal to make sail for the drawing-room was given, and they all arose and departed. amelia hoped george would soon join them there. she began playing some of his favourite waltzes (then newly imported) at the great carved-legged, leather-cased grand piano in the drawing-room overhead. this little artifice did not bring him. he was deaf to the waltzes; they grew fainter and fainter; the discomfited performer left the huge instrument presently; and though her three friends performed some of the loudest and most brilliant new pieces of their repertoire, she did not hear a single note, but sate thinking, and boding evil. old osborne's scowl, terrific always, had never before looked so deadly to her. his eyes followed her out of the room, as if she had been guilty of something. when they brought her coffee, she started as though it were a cup of poison which mr. hicks, the butler, wished to propose to her. what mystery was there lurking? oh, those women! they nurse and cuddle their presentiments, and make darlings of their ugliest thoughts, as they do of their deformed children. the gloom on the paternal countenance had also impressed george osborne with anxiety. with such eyebrows, and a look so decidedly bilious, how was he to extract that money from the governor, of which george was consumedly in want? he began praising his father's wine. that was generally a successful means of cajoling the old gentleman. "we never got such madeira in the west indies, sir, as yours. colonel heavytop took off three bottles of that you sent me down, under his belt the other day." "did he?" said the old gentleman. "it stands me in eight shillings a bottle." "will you take six guineas a dozen for it, sir?" said george, with a laugh. "there's one of the greatest men in the kingdom wants some." "does he?" growled the senior. "wish he may get it." "when general daguilet was at chatham, sir, heavytop gave him a breakfast, and asked me for some of the wine. the general liked it just as well--wanted a pipe for the commander-in-chief. he's his royal highness's right-hand man." "it is devilish fine wine," said the eyebrows, and they looked more good-humoured; and george was going to take advantage of this complacency, and bring the supply question on the mahogany, when the father, relapsing into solemnity, though rather cordial in manner, bade him ring the bell for claret. "and we'll see if that's as good as the madeira, george, to which his royal highness is welcome, i'm sure. and as we are drinking it, i'll talk to you about a matter of importance." amelia heard the claret bell ringing as she sat nervously upstairs. she thought, somehow, it was a mysterious and presentimental bell. of the presentiments which some people are always having, some surely must come right. "what i want to know, george," the old gentleman said, after slowly smacking his first bumper--"what i want to know is, how you and--ah--that little thing upstairs, are carrying on?" "i think, sir, it is not hard to see," george said, with a self-satisfied grin. "pretty clear, sir.--what capital wine!" "what d'you mean, pretty clear, sir?" "why, hang it, sir, don't push me too hard. i'm a modest man. i--ah--i don't set up to be a lady-killer; but i do own that she's as devilish fond of me as she can be. anybody can see that with half an eye." "and you yourself?" "why, sir, didn't you order me to marry her, and ain't i a good boy? haven't our papas settled it ever so long?" "a pretty boy, indeed. haven't i heard of your doings, sir, with lord tarquin, captain crawley of the guards, the honourable mr. deuceace and that set. have a care sir, have a care." the old gentleman pronounced these aristocratic names with the greatest gusto. whenever he met a great man he grovelled before him, and my-lorded him as only a free-born briton can do. he came home and looked out his history in the peerage: he introduced his name into his daily conversation; he bragged about his lordship to his daughters. he fell down prostrate and basked in him as a neapolitan beggar does in the sun. george was alarmed when he heard the names. he feared his father might have been informed of certain transactions at play. but the old moralist eased him by saying serenely: "well, well, young men will be young men. and the comfort to me is, george, that living in the best society in england, as i hope you do; as i think you do; as my means will allow you to do--" "thank you, sir," says george, making his point at once. "one can't live with these great folks for nothing; and my purse, sir, look at it"; and he held up a little token which had been netted by amelia, and contained the very last of dobbin's pound notes. "you shan't want, sir. the british merchant's son shan't want, sir. my guineas are as good as theirs, george, my boy; and i don't grudge 'em. call on mr. chopper as you go through the city to-morrow; he'll have something for you. i don't grudge money when i know you're in good society, because i know that good society can never go wrong. there's no pride in me. i was a humbly born man--but you have had advantages. make a good use of 'em. mix with the young nobility. there's many of 'em who can't spend a dollar to your guinea, my boy. and as for the pink bonnets (here from under the heavy eyebrows there came a knowing and not very pleasing leer)--why boys will be boys. only there's one thing i order you to avoid, which, if you do not, i'll cut you off with a shilling, by jove; and that's gambling." "oh, of course, sir," said george. "but to return to the other business about amelia: why shouldn't you marry higher than a stockbroker's daughter, george--that's what i want to know?" "it's a family business, sir," says george, cracking filberts. "you and mr. sedley made the match a hundred years ago." "i don't deny it; but people's positions alter, sir. i don't deny that sedley made my fortune, or rather put me in the way of acquiring, by my own talents and genius, that proud position, which, i may say, i occupy in the tallow trade and the city of london. i've shown my gratitude to sedley; and he's tried it of late, sir, as my cheque-book can show. george! i tell you in confidence i don't like the looks of mr. sedley's affairs. my chief clerk, mr. chopper, does not like the looks of 'em, and he's an old file, and knows 'change as well as any man in london. hulker & bullock are looking shy at him. he's been dabbling on his own account i fear. they say the jeune amelie was his, which was taken by the yankee privateer molasses. and that's flat--unless i see amelia's ten thousand down you don't marry her. i'll have no lame duck's daughter in my family. pass the wine, sir--or ring for coffee." with which mr. osborne spread out the evening paper, and george knew from this signal that the colloquy was ended, and that his papa was about to take a nap. he hurried upstairs to amelia in the highest spirits. what was it that made him more attentive to her on that night than he had been for a long time--more eager to amuse her, more tender, more brilliant in talk? was it that his generous heart warmed to her at the prospect of misfortune; or that the idea of losing the dear little prize made him value it more? she lived upon the recollections of that happy evening for many days afterwards, remembering his words; his looks; the song he sang; his attitude, as he leant over her or looked at her from a distance. as it seemed to her, no night ever passed so quickly at mr. osborne's house before; and for once this young person was almost provoked to be angry by the premature arrival of mr. sambo with her shawl. george came and took a tender leave of her the next morning; and then hurried off to the city, where he visited mr. chopper, his father's head man, and received from that gentleman a document which he exchanged at hulker & bullock's for a whole pocketful of money. as george entered the house, old john sedley was passing out of the banker's parlour, looking very dismal. but his godson was much too elated to mark the worthy stockbroker's depression, or the dreary eyes which the kind old gentleman cast upon him. young bullock did not come grinning out of the parlour with him as had been his wont in former years. and as the swinging doors of hulker, bullock & co. closed upon mr. sedley, mr. quill, the cashier (whose benevolent occupation it is to hand out crisp bank-notes from a drawer and dispense sovereigns out of a copper shovel), winked at mr. driver, the clerk at the desk on his right. mr. driver winked again. "no go," mr. d. whispered. "not at no price," mr. q. said. "mr. george osborne, sir, how will you take it?" george crammed eagerly a quantity of notes into his pockets, and paid dobbin fifty pounds that very evening at mess. that very evening amelia wrote him the tenderest of long letters. her heart was overflowing with tenderness, but it still foreboded evil. what was the cause of mr. osborne's dark looks? she asked. had any difference arisen between him and her papa? her poor papa returned so melancholy from the city, that all were alarmed about him at home--in fine, there were four pages of loves and fears and hopes and forebodings. "poor little emmy--dear little emmy. how fond she is of me," george said, as he perused the missive--"and gad, what a headache that mixed punch has given me!" poor little emmy, indeed. chapter xiv miss crawley at home about this time there drove up to an exceedingly snug and well-appointed house in park lane, a travelling chariot with a lozenge on the panels, a discontented female in a green veil and crimped curls on the rumble, and a large and confidential man on the box. it was the equipage of our friend miss crawley, returning from hants. the carriage windows were shut; the fat spaniel, whose head and tongue ordinarily lolled out of one of them, reposed on the lap of the discontented female. when the vehicle stopped, a large round bundle of shawls was taken out of the carriage by the aid of various domestics and a young lady who accompanied the heap of cloaks. that bundle contained miss crawley, who was conveyed upstairs forthwith, and put into a bed and chamber warmed properly as for the reception of an invalid. messengers went off for her physician and medical man. they came, consulted, prescribed, vanished. the young companion of miss crawley, at the conclusion of their interview, came in to receive their instructions, and administered those antiphlogistic medicines which the eminent men ordered. captain crawley of the life guards rode up from knightsbridge barracks the next day; his black charger pawed the straw before his invalid aunt's door. he was most affectionate in his inquiries regarding that amiable relative. there seemed to be much source of apprehension. he found miss crawley's maid (the discontented female) unusually sulky and despondent; he found miss briggs, her dame de compagnie, in tears alone in the drawing-room. she had hastened home, hearing of her beloved friend's illness. she wished to fly to her couch, that couch which she, briggs, had so often smoothed in the hour of sickness. she was denied admission to miss crawley's apartment. a stranger was administering her medicines--a stranger from the country--an odious miss ... --tears choked the utterance of the dame de compagnie, and she buried her crushed affections and her poor old red nose in her pocket handkerchief. rawdon crawley sent up his name by the sulky femme de chambre, and miss crawley's new companion, coming tripping down from the sick-room, put a little hand into his as he stepped forward eagerly to meet her, gave a glance of great scorn at the bewildered briggs, and beckoning the young guardsman out of the back drawing-room, led him downstairs into that now desolate dining-parlour, where so many a good dinner had been celebrated. here these two talked for ten minutes, discussing, no doubt, the symptoms of the old invalid above stairs; at the end of which period the parlour bell was rung briskly, and answered on that instant by mr. bowls, miss crawley's large confidential butler (who, indeed, happened to be at the keyhole during the most part of the interview); and the captain coming out, curling his mustachios, mounted the black charger pawing among the straw, to the admiration of the little blackguard boys collected in the street. he looked in at the dining-room window, managing his horse, which curvetted and capered beautifully--for one instant the young person might be seen at the window, when her figure vanished, and, doubtless, she went upstairs again to resume the affecting duties of benevolence. who could this young woman be, i wonder? that evening a little dinner for two persons was laid in the dining-room--when mrs. firkin, the lady's maid, pushed into her mistress's apartment, and bustled about there during the vacancy occasioned by the departure of the new nurse--and the latter and miss briggs sat down to the neat little meal. briggs was so much choked by emotion that she could hardly take a morsel of meat. the young person carved a fowl with the utmost delicacy, and asked so distinctly for egg-sauce, that poor briggs, before whom that delicious condiment was placed, started, made a great clattering with the ladle, and once more fell back in the most gushing hysterical state. "had you not better give miss briggs a glass of wine?" said the person to mr. bowls, the large confidential man. he did so. briggs seized it mechanically, gasped it down convulsively, moaned a little, and began to play with the chicken on her plate. "i think we shall be able to help each other," said the person with great suavity: "and shall have no need of mr. bowls's kind services. mr. bowls, if you please, we will ring when we want you." he went downstairs, where, by the way, he vented the most horrid curses upon the unoffending footman, his subordinate. "it is a pity you take on so, miss briggs," the young lady said, with a cool, slightly sarcastic, air. "my dearest friend is so ill, and wo-o-on't see me," gurgled out briggs in an agony of renewed grief. "she's not very ill any more. console yourself, dear miss briggs. she has only overeaten herself--that is all. she is greatly better. she will soon be quite restored again. she is weak from being cupped and from medical treatment, but she will rally immediately. pray console yourself, and take a little more wine." "but why, why won't she see me again?" miss briggs bleated out. "oh, matilda, matilda, after three-and-twenty years' tenderness! is this the return to your poor, poor arabella?" "don't cry too much, poor arabella," the other said (with ever so little of a grin); "she only won't see you, because she says you don't nurse her as well as i do. it's no pleasure to me to sit up all night. i wish you might do it instead." "have i not tended that dear couch for years?" arabella said, "and now--" "now she prefers somebody else. well, sick people have these fancies, and must be humoured. when she's well i shall go." "never, never," arabella exclaimed, madly inhaling her salts-bottle. "never be well or never go, miss briggs?" the other said, with the same provoking good-nature. "pooh--she will be well in a fortnight, when i shall go back to my little pupils at queen's crawley, and to their mother, who is a great deal more sick than our friend. you need not be jealous about me, my dear miss briggs. i am a poor little girl without any friends, or any harm in me. i don't want to supplant you in miss crawley's good graces. she will forget me a week after i am gone: and her affection for you has been the work of years. give me a little wine if you please, my dear miss briggs, and let us be friends. i'm sure i want friends." the placable and soft-hearted briggs speechlessly pushed out her hand at this appeal; but she felt the desertion most keenly for all that, and bitterly, bitterly moaned the fickleness of her matilda. at the end of half an hour, the meal over, miss rebecca sharp (for such, astonishing to state, is the name of her who has been described ingeniously as "the person" hitherto), went upstairs again to her patient's rooms, from which, with the most engaging politeness, she eliminated poor firkin. "thank you, mrs. firkin, that will quite do; how nicely you make it! i will ring when anything is wanted." "thank you"; and firkin came downstairs in a tempest of jealousy, only the more dangerous because she was forced to confine it in her own bosom. could it be the tempest which, as she passed the landing of the first floor, blew open the drawing-room door? no; it was stealthily opened by the hand of briggs. briggs had been on the watch. briggs too well heard the creaking firkin descend the stairs, and the clink of the spoon and gruel-basin the neglected female carried. "well, firkin?" says she, as the other entered the apartment. "well, jane?" "wuss and wuss, miss b.," firkin said, wagging her head. "is she not better then?" "she never spoke but once, and i asked her if she felt a little more easy, and she told me to hold my stupid tongue. oh, miss b., i never thought to have seen this day!" and the water-works again began to play. "what sort of a person is this miss sharp, firkin? i little thought, while enjoying my christmas revels in the elegant home of my firm friends, the reverend lionel delamere and his amiable lady, to find a stranger had taken my place in the affections of my dearest, my still dearest matilda!" miss briggs, it will be seen by her language, was of a literary and sentimental turn, and had once published a volume of poems--"trills of the nightingale"--by subscription. "miss b., they are all infatyated about that young woman," firkin replied. "sir pitt wouldn't have let her go, but he daredn't refuse miss crawley anything. mrs. bute at the rectory jist as bad--never happy out of her sight. the capting quite wild about her. mr. crawley mortial jealous. since miss c. was took ill, she won't have nobody near her but miss sharp, i can't tell for where nor for why; and i think somethink has bewidged everybody." rebecca passed that night in constant watching upon miss crawley; the next night the old lady slept so comfortably, that rebecca had time for several hours' comfortable repose herself on the sofa, at the foot of her patroness's bed; very soon, miss crawley was so well that she sat up and laughed heartily at a perfect imitation of miss briggs and her grief, which rebecca described to her. briggs' weeping snuffle, and her manner of using the handkerchief, were so completely rendered that miss crawley became quite cheerful, to the admiration of the doctors when they visited her, who usually found this worthy woman of the world, when the least sickness attacked her, under the most abject depression and terror of death. captain crawley came every day, and received bulletins from miss rebecca respecting his aunt's health. this improved so rapidly, that poor briggs was allowed to see her patroness; and persons with tender hearts may imagine the smothered emotions of that sentimental female, and the affecting nature of the interview. miss crawley liked to have briggs in a good deal soon. rebecca used to mimic her to her face with the most admirable gravity, thereby rendering the imitation doubly piquant to her worthy patroness. the causes which had led to the deplorable illness of miss crawley, and her departure from her brother's house in the country, were of such an unromantic nature that they are hardly fit to be explained in this genteel and sentimental novel. for how is it possible to hint of a delicate female, living in good society, that she ate and drank too much, and that a hot supper of lobsters profusely enjoyed at the rectory was the reason of an indisposition which miss crawley herself persisted was solely attributable to the dampness of the weather? the attack was so sharp that matilda--as his reverence expressed it--was very nearly "off the hooks"; all the family were in a fever of expectation regarding the will, and rawdon crawley was making sure of at least forty thousand pounds before the commencement of the london season. mr. crawley sent over a choice parcel of tracts, to prepare her for the change from vanity fair and park lane for another world; but a good doctor from southampton being called in in time, vanquished the lobster which was so nearly fatal to her, and gave her sufficient strength to enable her to return to london. the baronet did not disguise his exceeding mortification at the turn which affairs took. while everybody was attending on miss crawley, and messengers every hour from the rectory were carrying news of her health to the affectionate folks there, there was a lady in another part of the house, being exceedingly ill, of whom no one took any notice at all; and this was the lady of crawley herself. the good doctor shook his head after seeing her; to which visit sir pitt consented, as it could be paid without a fee; and she was left fading away in her lonely chamber, with no more heed paid to her than to a weed in the park. the young ladies, too, lost much of the inestimable benefit of their governess's instruction, so affectionate a nurse was miss sharp, that miss crawley would take her medicines from no other hand. firkin had been deposed long before her mistress's departure from the country. that faithful attendant found a gloomy consolation on returning to london, in seeing miss briggs suffer the same pangs of jealousy and undergo the same faithless treatment to which she herself had been subject. captain rawdon got an extension of leave on his aunt's illness, and remained dutifully at home. he was always in her antechamber. (she lay sick in the state bedroom, into which you entered by the little blue saloon.) his father was always meeting him there; or if he came down the corridor ever so quietly, his father's door was sure to open, and the hyena face of the old gentleman to glare out. what was it set one to watch the other so? a generous rivalry, no doubt, as to which should be most attentive to the dear sufferer in the state bedroom. rebecca used to come out and comfort both of them; or one or the other of them rather. both of these worthy gentlemen were most anxious to have news of the invalid from her little confidential messenger. at dinner--to which meal she descended for half an hour--she kept the peace between them: after which she disappeared for the night; when rawdon would ride over to the depot of the th at mudbury, leaving his papa to the society of mr. horrocks and his rum and water. she passed as weary a fortnight as ever mortal spent in miss crawley's sick-room; but her little nerves seemed to be of iron, as she was quite unshaken by the duty and the tedium of the sick-chamber. she never told until long afterwards how painful that duty was; how peevish a patient was the jovial old lady; how angry; how sleepless; in what horrors of death; during what long nights she lay moaning, and in almost delirious agonies respecting that future world which she quite ignored when she was in good health.--picture to yourself, oh fair young reader, a worldly, selfish, graceless, thankless, religionless old woman, writhing in pain and fear, and without her wig. picture her to yourself, and ere you be old, learn to love and pray! sharp watched this graceless bedside with indomitable patience. nothing escaped her; and, like a prudent steward, she found a use for everything. she told many a good story about miss crawley's illness in after days--stories which made the lady blush through her artificial carnations. during the illness she was never out of temper; always alert; she slept light, having a perfectly clear conscience; and could take that refreshment at almost any minute's warning. and so you saw very few traces of fatigue in her appearance. her face might be a trifle paler, and the circles round her eyes a little blacker than usual; but whenever she came out from the sick-room she was always smiling, fresh, and neat, and looked as trim in her little dressing-gown and cap, as in her smartest evening suit. the captain thought so, and raved about her in uncouth convulsions. the barbed shaft of love had penetrated his dull hide. six weeks--appropinquity--opportunity--had victimised him completely. he made a confidante of his aunt at the rectory, of all persons in the world. she rallied him about it; she had perceived his folly; she warned him; she finished by owning that little sharp was the most clever, droll, odd, good-natured, simple, kindly creature in england. rawdon must not trifle with her affections, though--dear miss crawley would never pardon him for that; for she, too, was quite overcome by the little governess, and loved sharp like a daughter. rawdon must go away--go back to his regiment and naughty london, and not play with a poor artless girl's feelings. many and many a time this good-natured lady, compassionating the forlorn life-guardsman's condition, gave him an opportunity of seeing miss sharp at the rectory, and of walking home with her, as we have seen. when men of a certain sort, ladies, are in love, though they see the hook and the string, and the whole apparatus with which they are to be taken, they gorge the bait nevertheless--they must come to it--they must swallow it--and are presently struck and landed gasping. rawdon saw there was a manifest intention on mrs. bute's part to captivate him with rebecca. he was not very wise; but he was a man about town, and had seen several seasons. a light dawned upon his dusky soul, as he thought, through a speech of mrs. bute's. "mark my words, rawdon," she said. "you will have miss sharp one day for your relation." "what relation--my cousin, hey, mrs. bute? james sweet on her, hey?" inquired the waggish officer. "more than that," mrs. bute said, with a flash from her black eyes. "not pitt? he sha'n't have her. the sneak a'n't worthy of her. he's booked to lady jane sheepshanks." "you men perceive nothing. you silly, blind creature--if anything happens to lady crawley, miss sharp will be your mother-in-law; and that's what will happen." rawdon crawley, esquire, gave vent to a prodigious whistle, in token of astonishment at this announcement. he couldn't deny it. his father's evident liking for miss sharp had not escaped him. he knew the old gentleman's character well; and a more unscrupulous old--whyou--he did not conclude the sentence, but walked home, curling his mustachios, and convinced he had found a clue to mrs. bute's mystery. "by jove, it's too bad," thought rawdon, "too bad, by jove! i do believe the woman wants the poor girl to be ruined, in order that she shouldn't come into the family as lady crawley." when he saw rebecca alone, he rallied her about his father's attachment in his graceful way. she flung up her head scornfully, looked him full in the face, and said, "well, suppose he is fond of me. i know he is, and others too. you don't think i am afraid of him, captain crawley? you don't suppose i can't defend my own honour," said the little woman, looking as stately as a queen. "oh, ah, why--give you fair warning--look out, you know--that's all," said the mustachio-twiddler. "you hint at something not honourable, then?" said she, flashing out. "o gad--really--miss rebecca," the heavy dragoon interposed. "do you suppose i have no feeling of self-respect, because i am poor and friendless, and because rich people have none? do you think, because i am a governess, i have not as much sense, and feeling, and good breeding as you gentlefolks in hampshire? i'm a montmorency. do you suppose a montmorency is not as good as a crawley?" when miss sharp was agitated, and alluded to her maternal relatives, she spoke with ever so slight a foreign accent, which gave a great charm to her clear ringing voice. "no," she continued, kindling as she spoke to the captain; "i can endure poverty, but not shame--neglect, but not insult; and insult from--from you." her feelings gave way, and she burst into tears. "hang it, miss sharp--rebecca--by jove--upon my soul, i wouldn't for a thousand pounds. stop, rebecca!" she was gone. she drove out with miss crawley that day. it was before the latter's illness. at dinner she was unusually brilliant and lively; but she would take no notice of the hints, or the nods, or the clumsy expostulations of the humiliated, infatuated guardsman. skirmishes of this sort passed perpetually during the little campaign--tedious to relate, and similar in result. the crawley heavy cavalry was maddened by defeat, and routed every day. if the baronet of queen's crawley had not had the fear of losing his sister's legacy before his eyes, he never would have permitted his dear girls to lose the educational blessings which their invaluable governess was conferring upon them. the old house at home seemed a desert without her, so useful and pleasant had rebecca made herself there. sir pitt's letters were not copied and corrected; his books not made up; his household business and manifold schemes neglected, now that his little secretary was away. and it was easy to see how necessary such an amanuensis was to him, by the tenor and spelling of the numerous letters which he sent to her, entreating her and commanding her to return. almost every day brought a frank from the baronet, enclosing the most urgent prayers to becky for her return, or conveying pathetic statements to miss crawley, regarding the neglected state of his daughters' education; of which documents miss crawley took very little heed. miss briggs was not formally dismissed, but her place as companion was a sinecure and a derision; and her company was the fat spaniel in the drawing-room, or occasionally the discontented firkin in the housekeeper's closet. nor though the old lady would by no means hear of rebecca's departure, was the latter regularly installed in office in park lane. like many wealthy people, it was miss crawley's habit to accept as much service as she could get from her inferiors; and good-naturedly to take leave of them when she no longer found them useful. gratitude among certain rich folks is scarcely natural or to be thought of. they take needy people's services as their due. nor have you, o poor parasite and humble hanger-on, much reason to complain! your friendship for dives is about as sincere as the return which it usually gets. it is money you love, and not the man; and were croesus and his footman to change places you know, you poor rogue, who would have the benefit of your allegiance. and i am not sure that, in spite of rebecca's simplicity and activity, and gentleness and untiring good humour, the shrewd old london lady, upon whom these treasures of friendship were lavished, had not a lurking suspicion all the while of her affectionate nurse and friend. it must have often crossed miss crawley's mind that nobody does anything for nothing. if she measured her own feeling towards the world, she must have been pretty well able to gauge those of the world towards herself; and perhaps she reflected that it is the ordinary lot of people to have no friends if they themselves care for nobody. well, meanwhile becky was the greatest comfort and convenience to her, and she gave her a couple of new gowns, and an old necklace and shawl, and showed her friendship by abusing all her intimate acquaintances to her new confidante (than which there can't be a more touching proof of regard), and meditated vaguely some great future benefit--to marry her perhaps to clump, the apothecary, or to settle her in some advantageous way of life; or at any rate, to send her back to queen's crawley when she had done with her, and the full london season had begun. when miss crawley was convalescent and descended to the drawing-room, becky sang to her, and otherwise amused her; when she was well enough to drive out, becky accompanied her. and amongst the drives which they took, whither, of all places in the world, did miss crawley's admirable good-nature and friendship actually induce her to penetrate, but to russell square, bloomsbury, and the house of john sedley, esquire. ere that event, many notes had passed, as may be imagined, between the two dear friends. during the months of rebecca's stay in hampshire, the eternal friendship had (must it be owned?) suffered considerable diminution, and grown so decrepit and feeble with old age as to threaten demise altogether. the fact is, both girls had their own real affairs to think of: rebecca her advance with her employers--amelia her own absorbing topic. when the two girls met, and flew into each other's arms with that impetuosity which distinguishes the behaviour of young ladies towards each other, rebecca performed her part of the embrace with the most perfect briskness and energy. poor little amelia blushed as she kissed her friend, and thought she had been guilty of something very like coldness towards her. their first interview was but a very short one. amelia was just ready to go out for a walk. miss crawley was waiting in her carriage below, her people wondering at the locality in which they found themselves, and gazing upon honest sambo, the black footman of bloomsbury, as one of the queer natives of the place. but when amelia came down with her kind smiling looks (rebecca must introduce her to her friend, miss crawley was longing to see her, and was too ill to leave her carriage)--when, i say, amelia came down, the park lane shoulder-knot aristocracy wondered more and more that such a thing could come out of bloomsbury; and miss crawley was fairly captivated by the sweet blushing face of the young lady who came forward so timidly and so gracefully to pay her respects to the protector of her friend. "what a complexion, my dear! what a sweet voice!" miss crawley said, as they drove away westward after the little interview. "my dear sharp, your young friend is charming. send for her to park lane, do you hear?" miss crawley had a good taste. she liked natural manners--a little timidity only set them off. she liked pretty faces near her; as she liked pretty pictures and nice china. she talked of amelia with rapture half a dozen times that day. she mentioned her to rawdon crawley, who came dutifully to partake of his aunt's chicken. of course, on this rebecca instantly stated that amelia was engaged to be married--to a lieutenant osborne--a very old flame. "is he a man in a line-regiment?" captain crawley asked, remembering after an effort, as became a guardsman, the number of the regiment, the --th. rebecca thought that was the regiment. "the captain's name," she said, "was captain dobbin." "a lanky gawky fellow," said crawley, "tumbles over everybody. i know him; and osborne's a goodish-looking fellow, with large black whiskers?" "enormous," miss rebecca sharp said, "and enormously proud of them, i assure you." captain rawdon crawley burst into a horse-laugh by way of reply; and being pressed by the ladies to explain, did so when the explosion of hilarity was over. "he fancies he can play at billiards," said he. "i won two hundred of him at the cocoa-tree. he play, the young flat! he'd have played for anything that day, but his friend captain dobbin carried him off, hang him!" "rawdon, rawdon, don't be so wicked," miss crawley remarked, highly pleased. "why, ma'am, of all the young fellows i've seen out of the line, i think this fellow's the greenest. tarquin and deuceace get what money they like out of him. he'd go to the deuce to be seen with a lord. he pays their dinners at greenwich, and they invite the company." "and very pretty company too, i dare say." "quite right, miss sharp. right, as usual, miss sharp. uncommon pretty company--haw, haw!" and the captain laughed more and more, thinking he had made a good joke. "rawdon, don't be naughty!" his aunt exclaimed. "well, his father's a city man--immensely rich, they say. hang those city fellows, they must bleed; and i've not done with him yet, i can tell you. haw, haw!" "fie, captain crawley; i shall warn amelia. a gambling husband!" "horrid, ain't he, hey?" the captain said with great solemnity; and then added, a sudden thought having struck him: "gad, i say, ma'am, we'll have him here." "is he a presentable sort of a person?" the aunt inquired. "presentable?--oh, very well. you wouldn't see any difference," captain crawley answered. "do let's have him, when you begin to see a few people; and his whatdyecallem--his inamorato--eh, miss sharp; that's what you call it--comes. gad, i'll write him a note, and have him; and i'll try if he can play piquet as well as billiards. where does he live, miss sharp?" miss sharp told crawley the lieutenant's town address; and a few days after this conversation, lieutenant osborne received a letter, in captain rawdon's schoolboy hand, and enclosing a note of invitation from miss crawley. rebecca despatched also an invitation to her darling amelia, who, you may be sure, was ready enough to accept it when she heard that george was to be of the party. it was arranged that amelia was to spend the morning with the ladies of park lane, where all were very kind to her. rebecca patronised her with calm superiority: she was so much the cleverer of the two, and her friend so gentle and unassuming, that she always yielded when anybody chose to command, and so took rebecca's orders with perfect meekness and good humour. miss crawley's graciousness was also remarkable. she continued her raptures about little amelia, talked about her before her face as if she were a doll, or a servant, or a picture, and admired her with the most benevolent wonder possible. i admire that admiration which the genteel world sometimes extends to the commonalty. there is no more agreeable object in life than to see mayfair folks condescending. miss crawley's prodigious benevolence rather fatigued poor little amelia, and i am not sure that of the three ladies in park lane she did not find honest miss briggs the most agreeable. she sympathised with briggs as with all neglected or gentle people: she wasn't what you call a woman of spirit. george came to dinner--a repast en garcon with captain crawley. the great family coach of the osbornes transported him to park lane from russell square; where the young ladies, who were not themselves invited, and professed the greatest indifference at that slight, nevertheless looked at sir pitt crawley's name in the baronetage; and learned everything which that work had to teach about the crawley family and their pedigree, and the binkies, their relatives, &c., &c. rawdon crawley received george osborne with great frankness and graciousness: praised his play at billiards: asked him when he would have his revenge: was interested about osborne's regiment: and would have proposed piquet to him that very evening, but miss crawley absolutely forbade any gambling in her house; so that the young lieutenant's purse was not lightened by his gallant patron, for that day at least. however, they made an engagement for the next, somewhere: to look at a horse that crawley had to sell, and to try him in the park; and to dine together, and to pass the evening with some jolly fellows. "that is, if you're not on duty to that pretty miss sedley," crawley said, with a knowing wink. "monstrous nice girl, 'pon my honour, though, osborne," he was good enough to add. "lots of tin, i suppose, eh?" osborne wasn't on duty; he would join crawley with pleasure: and the latter, when they met the next day, praised his new friend's horsemanship--as he might with perfect honesty--and introduced him to three or four young men of the first fashion, whose acquaintance immensely elated the simple young officer. "how's little miss sharp, by-the-bye?" osborne inquired of his friend over their wine, with a dandified air. "good-natured little girl that. does she suit you well at queen's crawley? miss sedley liked her a good deal last year." captain crawley looked savagely at the lieutenant out of his little blue eyes, and watched him when he went up to resume his acquaintance with the fair governess. her conduct must have relieved crawley if there was any jealousy in the bosom of that life-guardsman. when the young men went upstairs, and after osborne's introduction to miss crawley, he walked up to rebecca with a patronising, easy swagger. he was going to be kind to her and protect her. he would even shake hands with her, as a friend of amelia's; and saying, "ah, miss sharp! how-dy-doo?" held out his left hand towards her, expecting that she would be quite confounded at the honour. miss sharp put out her right forefinger, and gave him a little nod, so cool and killing, that rawdon crawley, watching the operations from the other room, could hardly restrain his laughter as he saw the lieutenant's entire discomfiture; the start he gave, the pause, and the perfect clumsiness with which he at length condescended to take the finger which was offered for his embrace. "she'd beat the devil, by jove!" the captain said, in a rapture; and the lieutenant, by way of beginning the conversation, agreeably asked rebecca how she liked her new place. "my place?" said miss sharp, coolly, "how kind of you to remind me of it! it's a tolerably good place: the wages are pretty good--not so good as miss wirt's, i believe, with your sisters in russell square. how are those young ladies?--not that i ought to ask." "why not?" mr. osborne said, amazed. "why, they never condescended to speak to me, or to ask me into their house, whilst i was staying with amelia; but we poor governesses, you know, are used to slights of this sort." "my dear miss sharp!" osborne ejaculated. "at least in some families," rebecca continued. "you can't think what a difference there is though. we are not so wealthy in hampshire as you lucky folks of the city. but then i am in a gentleman's family--good old english stock. i suppose you know sir pitt's father refused a peerage. and you see how i am treated. i am pretty comfortable. indeed it is rather a good place. but how very good of you to inquire!" osborne was quite savage. the little governess patronised him and persiffled him until this young british lion felt quite uneasy; nor could he muster sufficient presence of mind to find a pretext for backing out of this most delectable conversation. "i thought you liked the city families pretty well," he said, haughtily. "last year you mean, when i was fresh from that horrid vulgar school? of course i did. doesn't every girl like to come home for the holidays? and how was i to know any better? but oh, mr. osborne, what a difference eighteen months' experience makes! eighteen months spent, pardon me for saying so, with gentlemen. as for dear amelia, she, i grant you, is a pearl, and would be charming anywhere. there now, i see you are beginning to be in a good humour; but oh these queer odd city people! and mr. jos--how is that wonderful mr. joseph?" "it seems to me you didn't dislike that wonderful mr. joseph last year," osborne said kindly. "how severe of you! well, entre nous, i didn't break my heart about him; yet if he had asked me to do what you mean by your looks (and very expressive and kind they are, too), i wouldn't have said no." mr. osborne gave a look as much as to say, "indeed, how very obliging!" "what an honour to have had you for a brother-in-law, you are thinking? to be sister-in-law to george osborne, esquire, son of john osborne, esquire, son of--what was your grandpapa, mr. osborne? well, don't be angry. you can't help your pedigree, and i quite agree with you that i would have married mr. joe sedley; for could a poor penniless girl do better? now you know the whole secret. i'm frank and open; considering all things, it was very kind of you to allude to the circumstance--very kind and polite. amelia dear, mr. osborne and i were talking about your poor brother joseph. how is he?" thus was george utterly routed. not that rebecca was in the right; but she had managed most successfully to put him in the wrong. and he now shamefully fled, feeling, if he stayed another minute, that he would have been made to look foolish in the presence of amelia. though rebecca had had the better of him, george was above the meanness of talebearing or revenge upon a lady--only he could not help cleverly confiding to captain crawley, next day, some notions of his regarding miss rebecca--that she was a sharp one, a dangerous one, a desperate flirt, &c.; in all of which opinions crawley agreed laughingly, and with every one of which miss rebecca was made acquainted before twenty-four hours were over. they added to her original regard for mr. osborne. her woman's instinct had told her that it was george who had interrupted the success of her first love-passage, and she esteemed him accordingly. "i only just warn you," he said to rawdon crawley, with a knowing look--he had bought the horse, and lost some score of guineas after dinner, "i just warn you--i know women, and counsel you to be on the look-out." "thank you, my boy," said crawley, with a look of peculiar gratitude. "you're wide awake, i see." and george went off, thinking crawley was quite right. he told amelia of what he had done, and how he had counselled rawdon crawley--a devilish good, straightforward fellow--to be on his guard against that little sly, scheming rebecca. "against whom?" amelia cried. "your friend the governess.--don't look so astonished." "o george, what have you done?" amelia said. for her woman's eyes, which love had made sharp-sighted, had in one instant discovered a secret which was invisible to miss crawley, to poor virgin briggs, and above all, to the stupid peepers of that young whiskered prig, lieutenant osborne. for as rebecca was shawling her in an upper apartment, where these two friends had an opportunity for a little of that secret talking and conspiring which form the delight of female life, amelia, coming up to rebecca, and taking her two little hands in hers, said, "rebecca, i see it all." rebecca kissed her. and regarding this delightful secret, not one syllable more was said by either of the young women. but it was destined to come out before long. some short period after the above events, and miss rebecca sharp still remaining at her patroness's house in park lane, one more hatchment might have been seen in great gaunt street, figuring amongst the many which usually ornament that dismal quarter. it was over sir pitt crawley's house; but it did not indicate the worthy baronet's demise. it was a feminine hatchment, and indeed a few years back had served as a funeral compliment to sir pitt's old mother, the late dowager lady crawley. its period of service over, the hatchment had come down from the front of the house, and lived in retirement somewhere in the back premises of sir pitt's mansion. it reappeared now for poor rose dawson. sir pitt was a widower again. the arms quartered on the shield along with his own were not, to be sure, poor rose's. she had no arms. but the cherubs painted on the scutcheon answered as well for her as for sir pitt's mother, and resurgam was written under the coat, flanked by the crawley dove and serpent. arms and hatchments, resurgam.--here is an opportunity for moralising! mr. crawley had tended that otherwise friendless bedside. she went out of the world strengthened by such words and comfort as he could give her. for many years his was the only kindness she ever knew; the only friendship that solaced in any way that feeble, lonely soul. her heart was dead long before her body. she had sold it to become sir pitt crawley's wife. mothers and daughters are making the same bargain every day in vanity fair. when the demise took place, her husband was in london attending to some of his innumerable schemes, and busy with his endless lawyers. he had found time, nevertheless, to call often in park lane, and to despatch many notes to rebecca, entreating her, enjoining her, commanding her to return to her young pupils in the country, who were now utterly without companionship during their mother's illness. but miss crawley would not hear of her departure; for though there was no lady of fashion in london who would desert her friends more complacently as soon as she was tired of their society, and though few tired of them sooner, yet as long as her engoument lasted her attachment was prodigious, and she clung still with the greatest energy to rebecca. the news of lady crawley's death provoked no more grief or comment than might have been expected in miss crawley's family circle. "i suppose i must put off my party for the rd," miss crawley said; and added, after a pause, "i hope my brother will have the decency not to marry again." "what a confounded rage pitt will be in if he does," rawdon remarked, with his usual regard for his elder brother. rebecca said nothing. she seemed by far the gravest and most impressed of the family. she left the room before rawdon went away that day; but they met by chance below, as he was going away after taking leave, and had a parley together. on the morrow, as rebecca was gazing from the window, she startled miss crawley, who was placidly occupied with a french novel, by crying out in an alarmed tone, "here's sir pitt, ma'am!" and the baronet's knock followed this announcement. "my dear, i can't see him. i won't see him. tell bowls not at home, or go downstairs and say i'm too ill to receive any one. my nerves really won't bear my brother at this moment," cried out miss crawley, and resumed the novel. "she's too ill to see you, sir," rebecca said, tripping down to sir pitt, who was preparing to ascend. "so much the better," sir pitt answered. "i want to see you, miss becky. come along a me into the parlour," and they entered that apartment together. "i wawnt you back at queen's crawley, miss," the baronet said, fixing his eyes upon her, and taking off his black gloves and his hat with its great crape hat-band. his eyes had such a strange look, and fixed upon her so steadfastly, that rebecca sharp began almost to tremble. "i hope to come soon," she said in a low voice, "as soon as miss crawley is better--and return to--to the dear children." "you've said so these three months, becky," replied sir pitt, "and still you go hanging on to my sister, who'll fling you off like an old shoe, when she's wore you out. i tell you i want you. i'm going back to the vuneral. will you come back? yes or no?" "i daren't--i don't think--it would be right--to be alone--with you, sir," becky said, seemingly in great agitation. "i say agin, i want you," sir pitt said, thumping the table. "i can't git on without you. i didn't see what it was till you went away. the house all goes wrong. it's not the same place. all my accounts has got muddled agin. you must come back. do come back. dear becky, do come." "come--as what, sir?" rebecca gasped out. "come as lady crawley, if you like," the baronet said, grasping his crape hat. "there! will that zatusfy you? come back and be my wife. your vit vor't. birth be hanged. you're as good a lady as ever i see. you've got more brains in your little vinger than any baronet's wife in the county. will you come? yes or no?" "oh, sir pitt!" rebecca said, very much moved. "say yes, becky," sir pitt continued. "i'm an old man, but a good'n. i'm good for twenty years. i'll make you happy, zee if i don't. you shall do what you like; spend what you like; and 'ave it all your own way. i'll make you a zettlement. i'll do everything reglar. look year!" and the old man fell down on his knees and leered at her like a satyr. rebecca started back a picture of consternation. in the course of this history we have never seen her lose her presence of mind; but she did now, and wept some of the most genuine tears that ever fell from her eyes. "oh, sir pitt!" she said. "oh, sir--i--i'm married already." chapter xv in which rebecca's husband appears for a short time every reader of a sentimental turn (and we desire no other) must have been pleased with the tableau with which the last act of our little drama concluded; for what can be prettier than an image of love on his knees before beauty? but when love heard that awful confession from beauty that she was married already, he bounced up from his attitude of humility on the carpet, uttering exclamations which caused poor little beauty to be more frightened than she was when she made her avowal. "married; you're joking," the baronet cried, after the first explosion of rage and wonder. "you're making vun of me, becky. who'd ever go to marry you without a shilling to your vortune?" "married! married!" rebecca said, in an agony of tears--her voice choking with emotion, her handkerchief up to her ready eyes, fainting against the mantelpiece a figure of woe fit to melt the most obdurate heart. "o sir pitt, dear sir pitt, do not think me ungrateful for all your goodness to me. it is only your generosity that has extorted my secret." "generosity be hanged!" sir pitt roared out. "who is it tu, then, you're married? where was it?" "let me come back with you to the country, sir! let me watch over you as faithfully as ever! don't, don't separate me from dear queen's crawley!" "the feller has left you, has he?" the baronet said, beginning, as he fancied, to comprehend. "well, becky--come back if you like. you can't eat your cake and have it. any ways i made you a vair offer. coom back as governess--you shall have it all your own way." she held out one hand. she cried fit to break her heart; her ringlets fell over her face, and over the marble mantelpiece where she laid it. "so the rascal ran off, eh?" sir pitt said, with a hideous attempt at consolation. "never mind, becky, i'll take care of 'ee." "oh, sir! it would be the pride of my life to go back to queen's crawley, and take care of the children, and of you as formerly, when you said you were pleased with the services of your little rebecca. when i think of what you have just offered me, my heart fills with gratitude indeed it does. i can't be your wife, sir; let me--let me be your daughter." saying which, rebecca went down on her knees in a most tragical way, and, taking sir pitt's horny black hand between her own two (which were very pretty and white, and as soft as satin), looked up in his face with an expression of exquisite pathos and confidence, when--when the door opened, and miss crawley sailed in. mrs. firkin and miss briggs, who happened by chance to be at the parlour door soon after the baronet and rebecca entered the apartment, had also seen accidentally, through the keyhole, the old gentleman prostrate before the governess, and had heard the generous proposal which he made her. it was scarcely out of his mouth when mrs. firkin and miss briggs had streamed up the stairs, had rushed into the drawing-room where miss crawley was reading the french novel, and had given that old lady the astounding intelligence that sir pitt was on his knees, proposing to miss sharp. and if you calculate the time for the above dialogue to take place--the time for briggs and firkin to fly to the drawing-room--the time for miss crawley to be astonished, and to drop her volume of pigault le brun--and the time for her to come downstairs--you will see how exactly accurate this history is, and how miss crawley must have appeared at the very instant when rebecca had assumed the attitude of humility. "it is the lady on the ground, and not the gentleman," miss crawley said, with a look and voice of great scorn. "they told me that you were on your knees, sir pitt: do kneel once more, and let me see this pretty couple!" "i have thanked sir pitt crawley, ma'am," rebecca said, rising, "and have told him that--that i never can become lady crawley." "refused him!" miss crawley said, more bewildered than ever. briggs and firkin at the door opened the eyes of astonishment and the lips of wonder. "yes--refused," rebecca continued, with a sad, tearful voice. "and am i to credit my ears that you absolutely proposed to her, sir pitt?" the old lady asked. "ees," said the baronet, "i did." "and she refused you as she says?" "ees," sir pitt said, his features on a broad grin. "it does not seem to break your heart at any rate," miss crawley remarked. "nawt a bit," answered sir pitt, with a coolness and good-humour which set miss crawley almost mad with bewilderment. that an old gentleman of station should fall on his knees to a penniless governess, and burst out laughing because she refused to marry him--that a penniless governess should refuse a baronet with four thousand a year--these were mysteries which miss crawley could never comprehend. it surpassed any complications of intrigue in her favourite pigault le brun. "i'm glad you think it good sport, brother," she continued, groping wildly through this amazement. "vamous," said sir pitt. "who'd ha' thought it! what a sly little devil! what a little fox it waws!" he muttered to himself, chuckling with pleasure. "who'd have thought what?" cries miss crawley, stamping with her foot. "pray, miss sharp, are you waiting for the prince regent's divorce, that you don't think our family good enough for you?" "my attitude," rebecca said, "when you came in, ma'am, did not look as if i despised such an honour as this good--this noble man has deigned to offer me. do you think i have no heart? have you all loved me, and been so kind to the poor orphan--deserted--girl, and am i to feel nothing? o my friends! o my benefactors! may not my love, my life, my duty, try to repay the confidence you have shown me? do you grudge me even gratitude, miss crawley? it is too much--my heart is too full"; and she sank down in a chair so pathetically, that most of the audience present were perfectly melted with her sadness. "whether you marry me or not, you're a good little girl, becky, and i'm your vriend, mind," said sir pitt, and putting on his crape-bound hat, he walked away--greatly to rebecca's relief; for it was evident that her secret was unrevealed to miss crawley, and she had the advantage of a brief reprieve. putting her handkerchief to her eyes, and nodding away honest briggs, who would have followed her upstairs, she went up to her apartment; while briggs and miss crawley, in a high state of excitement, remained to discuss the strange event, and firkin, not less moved, dived down into the kitchen regions, and talked of it with all the male and female company there. and so impressed was mrs. firkin with the news, that she thought proper to write off by that very night's post, "with her humble duty to mrs. bute crawley and the family at the rectory, and sir pitt has been and proposed for to marry miss sharp, wherein she has refused him, to the wonder of all." the two ladies in the dining-room (where worthy miss briggs was delighted to be admitted once more to confidential conversation with her patroness) wondered to their hearts' content at sir pitt's offer, and rebecca's refusal; briggs very acutely suggesting that there must have been some obstacle in the shape of a previous attachment, otherwise no young woman in her senses would ever have refused so advantageous a proposal. "you would have accepted it yourself, wouldn't you, briggs?" miss crawley said, kindly. "would it not be a privilege to be miss crawley's sister?" briggs replied, with meek evasion. "well, becky would have made a good lady crawley, after all," miss crawley remarked (who was mollified by the girl's refusal, and very liberal and generous now there was no call for her sacrifices). "she has brains in plenty (much more wit in her little finger than you have, my poor dear briggs, in all your head). her manners are excellent, now i have formed her. she is a montmorency, briggs, and blood is something, though i despise it for my part; and she would have held her own amongst those pompous stupid hampshire people much better than that unfortunate ironmonger's daughter." briggs coincided as usual, and the "previous attachment" was then discussed in conjectures. "you poor friendless creatures are always having some foolish tendre," miss crawley said. "you yourself, you know, were in love with a writing-master (don't cry, briggs--you're always crying, and it won't bring him to life again), and i suppose this unfortunate becky has been silly and sentimental too--some apothecary, or house-steward, or painter, or young curate, or something of that sort." "poor thing! poor thing!" says briggs (who was thinking of twenty-four years back, and that hectic young writing-master whose lock of yellow hair, and whose letters, beautiful in their illegibility, she cherished in her old desk upstairs). "poor thing, poor thing!" says briggs. once more she was a fresh-cheeked lass of eighteen; she was at evening church, and the hectic writing-master and she were quavering out of the same psalm-book. "after such conduct on rebecca's part," miss crawley said enthusiastically, "our family should do something. find out who is the objet, briggs. i'll set him up in a shop; or order my portrait of him, you know; or speak to my cousin, the bishop and i'll doter becky, and we'll have a wedding, briggs, and you shall make the breakfast, and be a bridesmaid." briggs declared that it would be delightful, and vowed that her dear miss crawley was always kind and generous, and went up to rebecca's bedroom to console her and prattle about the offer, and the refusal, and the cause thereof; and to hint at the generous intentions of miss crawley, and to find out who was the gentleman that had the mastery of miss sharp's heart. rebecca was very kind, very affectionate and affected--responded to briggs's offer of tenderness with grateful fervour--owned there was a secret attachment--a delicious mystery--what a pity miss briggs had not remained half a minute longer at the keyhole! rebecca might, perhaps, have told more: but five minutes after miss briggs's arrival in rebecca's apartment, miss crawley actually made her appearance there--an unheard-of honour--her impatience had overcome her; she could not wait for the tardy operations of her ambassadress: so she came in person, and ordered briggs out of the room. and expressing her approval of rebecca's conduct, she asked particulars of the interview, and the previous transactions which had brought about the astonishing offer of sir pitt. rebecca said she had long had some notion of the partiality with which sir pitt honoured her (for he was in the habit of making his feelings known in a very frank and unreserved manner) but, not to mention private reasons with which she would not for the present trouble miss crawley, sir pitt's age, station, and habits were such as to render a marriage quite impossible; and could a woman with any feeling of self-respect and any decency listen to proposals at such a moment, when the funeral of the lover's deceased wife had not actually taken place? "nonsense, my dear, you would never have refused him had there not been some one else in the case," miss crawley said, coming to her point at once. "tell me the private reasons; what are the private reasons? there is some one; who is it that has touched your heart?" rebecca cast down her eyes, and owned there was. "you have guessed right, dear lady," she said, with a sweet simple faltering voice. "you wonder at one so poor and friendless having an attachment, don't you? i have never heard that poverty was any safeguard against it. i wish it were." "my poor dear child," cried miss crawley, who was always quite ready to be sentimental, "is our passion unrequited, then? are we pining in secret? tell me all, and let me console you." "i wish you could, dear madam," rebecca said in the same tearful tone. "indeed, indeed, i need it." and she laid her head upon miss crawley's shoulder and wept there so naturally that the old lady, surprised into sympathy, embraced her with an almost maternal kindness, uttered many soothing protests of regard and affection for her, vowed that she loved her as a daughter, and would do everything in her power to serve her. "and now who is it, my dear? is it that pretty miss sedley's brother? you said something about an affair with him. i'll ask him here, my dear. and you shall have him: indeed you shall." "don't ask me now," rebecca said. "you shall know all soon. indeed you shall. dear kind miss crawley--dear friend, may i say so?" "that you may, my child," the old lady replied, kissing her. "i can't tell you now," sobbed out rebecca, "i am very miserable. but o! love me always--promise you will love me always." and in the midst of mutual tears--for the emotions of the younger woman had awakened the sympathies of the elder--this promise was solemnly given by miss crawley, who left her little protege, blessing and admiring her as a dear, artless, tender-hearted, affectionate, incomprehensible creature. and now she was left alone to think over the sudden and wonderful events of the day, and of what had been and what might have been. what think you were the private feelings of miss, no (begging her pardon) of mrs. rebecca? if, a few pages back, the present writer claimed the privilege of peeping into miss amelia sedley's bedroom, and understanding with the omniscience of the novelist all the gentle pains and passions which were tossing upon that innocent pillow, why should he not declare himself to be rebecca's confidante too, master of her secrets, and seal-keeper of that young woman's conscience? well, then, in the first place, rebecca gave way to some very sincere and touching regrets that a piece of marvellous good fortune should have been so near her, and she actually obliged to decline it. in this natural emotion every properly regulated mind will certainly share. what good mother is there that would not commiserate a penniless spinster, who might have been my lady, and have shared four thousand a year? what well-bred young person is there in all vanity fair, who will not feel for a hard-working, ingenious, meritorious girl, who gets such an honourable, advantageous, provoking offer, just at the very moment when it is out of her power to accept it? i am sure our friend becky's disappointment deserves and will command every sympathy. i remember one night being in the fair myself, at an evening party. i observed old miss toady there also present, single out for her special attentions and flattery little mrs. briefless, the barrister's wife, who is of a good family certainly, but, as we all know, is as poor as poor can be. what, i asked in my own mind, can cause this obsequiousness on the part of miss toady; has briefless got a county court, or has his wife had a fortune left her? miss toady explained presently, with that simplicity which distinguishes all her conduct. "you know," she said, "mrs briefless is granddaughter of sir john redhand, who is so ill at cheltenham that he can't last six months. mrs. briefless's papa succeeds; so you see she will be a baronet's daughter." and toady asked briefless and his wife to dinner the very next week. if the mere chance of becoming a baronet's daughter can procure a lady such homage in the world, surely, surely we may respect the agonies of a young woman who has lost the opportunity of becoming a baronet's wife. who would have dreamed of lady crawley dying so soon? she was one of those sickly women that might have lasted these ten years--rebecca thought to herself, in all the woes of repentance--and i might have been my lady! i might have led that old man whither i would. i might have thanked mrs. bute for her patronage, and mr. pitt for his insufferable condescension. i would have had the town-house newly furnished and decorated. i would have had the handsomest carriage in london, and a box at the opera; and i would have been presented next season. all this might have been; and now--now all was doubt and mystery. but rebecca was a young lady of too much resolution and energy of character to permit herself much useless and unseemly sorrow for the irrevocable past; so, having devoted only the proper portion of regret to it, she wisely turned her whole attention towards the future, which was now vastly more important to her. and she surveyed her position, and its hopes, doubts, and chances. in the first place, she was married--that was a great fact. sir pitt knew it. she was not so much surprised into the avowal, as induced to make it by a sudden calculation. it must have come some day: and why not now as at a later period? he who would have married her himself must at least be silent with regard to her marriage. how miss crawley would bear the news--was the great question. misgivings rebecca had; but she remembered all miss crawley had said; the old lady's avowed contempt for birth; her daring liberal opinions; her general romantic propensities; her almost doting attachment to her nephew, and her repeatedly expressed fondness for rebecca herself. she is so fond of him, rebecca thought, that she will forgive him anything: she is so used to me that i don't think she could be comfortable without me: when the eclaircissement comes there will be a scene, and hysterics, and a great quarrel, and then a great reconciliation. at all events, what use was there in delaying? the die was thrown, and now or to-morrow the issue must be the same. and so, resolved that miss crawley should have the news, the young person debated in her mind as to the best means of conveying it to her; and whether she should face the storm that must come, or fly and avoid it until its first fury was blown over. in this state of meditation she wrote the following letter: dearest friend, the great crisis which we have debated about so often is come. half of my secret is known, and i have thought and thought, until i am quite sure that now is the time to reveal the whole of the mystery. sir pitt came to me this morning, and made--what do you think?--a declaration in form. think of that! poor little me. i might have been lady crawley. how pleased mrs. bute would have been: and ma tante if i had taken precedence of her! i might have been somebody's mamma, instead of--o, i tremble, i tremble, when i think how soon we must tell all! sir pitt knows i am married, and not knowing to whom, is not very much displeased as yet. ma tante is actually angry that i should have refused him. but she is all kindness and graciousness. she condescends to say i would have made him a good wife; and vows that she will be a mother to your little rebecca. she will be shaken when she first hears the news. but need we fear anything beyond a momentary anger? i think not: i am sure not. she dotes upon you so (you naughty, good-for-nothing man), that she would pardon you anything: and, indeed, i believe, the next place in her heart is mine: and that she would be miserable without me. dearest! something tells me we shall conquer. you shall leave that odious regiment: quit gaming, racing, and be a good boy; and we shall all live in park lane, and ma tante shall leave us all her money. i shall try and walk to-morrow at in the usual place. if miss b. accompanies me, you must come to dinner, and bring an answer, and put it in the third volume of porteus's sermons. but, at all events, come to your own r. to miss eliza styles, at mr. barnet's, saddler, knightsbridge. and i trust there is no reader of this little story who has not discernment enough to perceive that the miss eliza styles (an old schoolfellow, rebecca said, with whom she had resumed an active correspondence of late, and who used to fetch these letters from the saddler's), wore brass spurs, and large curling mustachios, and was indeed no other than captain rawdon crawley. chapter xvi the letter on the pincushion how they were married is not of the slightest consequence to anybody. what is to hinder a captain who is a major, and a young lady who is of age, from purchasing a licence, and uniting themselves at any church in this town? who needs to be told, that if a woman has a will she will assuredly find a way?--my belief is that one day, when miss sharp had gone to pass the forenoon with her dear friend miss amelia sedley in russell square, a lady very like her might have been seen entering a church in the city, in company with a gentleman with dyed mustachios, who, after a quarter of an hour's interval, escorted her back to the hackney-coach in waiting, and that this was a quiet bridal party. and who on earth, after the daily experience we have, can question the probability of a gentleman marrying anybody? how many of the wise and learned have married their cooks? did not lord eldon himself, the most prudent of men, make a runaway match? were not achilles and ajax both in love with their servant maids? and are we to expect a heavy dragoon with strong desires and small brains, who had never controlled a passion in his life, to become prudent all of a sudden, and to refuse to pay any price for an indulgence to which he had a mind? if people only made prudent marriages, what a stop to population there would be! it seems to me, for my part, that mr. rawdon's marriage was one of the honestest actions which we shall have to record in any portion of that gentleman's biography which has to do with the present history. no one will say it is unmanly to be captivated by a woman, or, being captivated, to marry her; and the admiration, the delight, the passion, the wonder, the unbounded confidence, and frantic adoration with which, by degrees, this big warrior got to regard the little rebecca, were feelings which the ladies at least will pronounce were not altogether discreditable to him. when she sang, every note thrilled in his dull soul, and tingled through his huge frame. when she spoke, he brought all the force of his brains to listen and wonder. if she was jocular, he used to revolve her jokes in his mind, and explode over them half an hour afterwards in the street, to the surprise of the groom in the tilbury by his side, or the comrade riding with him in rotten row. her words were oracles to him, her smallest actions marked by an infallible grace and wisdom. "how she sings,--how she paints," thought he. "how she rode that kicking mare at queen's crawley!" and he would say to her in confidential moments, "by jove, beck, you're fit to be commander-in-chief, or archbishop of canterbury, by jove." is his case a rare one? and don't we see every day in the world many an honest hercules at the apron-strings of omphale, and great whiskered samsons prostrate in delilah's lap? when, then, becky told him that the great crisis was near, and the time for action had arrived, rawdon expressed himself as ready to act under her orders, as he would be to charge with his troop at the command of his colonel. there was no need for him to put his letter into the third volume of porteus. rebecca easily found a means to get rid of briggs, her companion, and met her faithful friend in "the usual place" on the next day. she had thought over matters at night, and communicated to rawdon the result of her determinations. he agreed, of course, to everything; was quite sure that it was all right: that what she proposed was best; that miss crawley would infallibly relent, or "come round," as he said, after a time. had rebecca's resolutions been entirely different, he would have followed them as implicitly. "you have head enough for both of us, beck," said he. "you're sure to get us out of the scrape. i never saw your equal, and i've met with some clippers in my time too." and with this simple confession of faith, the love-stricken dragoon left her to execute his part of the project which she had formed for the pair. it consisted simply in the hiring of quiet lodgings at brompton, or in the neighbourhood of the barracks, for captain and mrs. crawley. for rebecca had determined, and very prudently, we think, to fly. rawdon was only too happy at her resolve; he had been entreating her to take this measure any time for weeks past. he pranced off to engage the lodgings with all the impetuosity of love. he agreed to pay two guineas a week so readily, that the landlady regretted she had asked him so little. he ordered in a piano, and half a nursery-house full of flowers: and a heap of good things. as for shawls, kid gloves, silk stockings, gold french watches, bracelets and perfumery, he sent them in with the profusion of blind love and unbounded credit. and having relieved his mind by this outpouring of generosity, he went and dined nervously at the club, waiting until the great moment of his life should come. the occurrences of the previous day; the admirable conduct of rebecca in refusing an offer so advantageous to her, the secret unhappiness preying upon her, the sweetness and silence with which she bore her affliction, made miss crawley much more tender than usual. an event of this nature, a marriage, or a refusal, or a proposal, thrills through a whole household of women, and sets all their hysterical sympathies at work. as an observer of human nature, i regularly frequent st. george's, hanover square, during the genteel marriage season; and though i have never seen the bridegroom's male friends give way to tears, or the beadles and officiating clergy any way affected, yet it is not at all uncommon to see women who are not in the least concerned in the operations going on--old ladies who are long past marrying, stout middle-aged females with plenty of sons and daughters, let alone pretty young creatures in pink bonnets, who are on their promotion, and may naturally take an interest in the ceremony--i say it is quite common to see the women present piping, sobbing, sniffling; hiding their little faces in their little useless pocket-handkerchiefs; and heaving, old and young, with emotion. when my friend, the fashionable john pimlico, married the lovely lady belgravia green parker, the excitement was so general that even the little snuffy old pew-opener who let me into the seat was in tears. and wherefore? i inquired of my own soul: she was not going to be married. miss crawley and briggs in a word, after the affair of sir pitt, indulged in the utmost luxury of sentiment, and rebecca became an object of the most tender interest to them. in her absence miss crawley solaced herself with the most sentimental of the novels in her library. little sharp, with her secret griefs, was the heroine of the day. that night rebecca sang more sweetly and talked more pleasantly than she had ever been heard to do in park lane. she twined herself round the heart of miss crawley. she spoke lightly and laughingly of sir pitt's proposal, ridiculed it as the foolish fancy of an old man; and her eyes filled with tears, and briggs's heart with unutterable pangs of defeat, as she said she desired no other lot than to remain for ever with her dear benefactress. "my dear little creature," the old lady said, "i don't intend to let you stir for years, that you may depend upon it. as for going back to that odious brother of mine after what has passed, it is out of the question. here you stay with me and briggs. briggs wants to go to see her relations very often. briggs, you may go when you like. but as for you, my dear, you must stay and take care of the old woman." if rawdon crawley had been then and there present, instead of being at the club nervously drinking claret, the pair might have gone down on their knees before the old spinster, avowed all, and been forgiven in a twinkling. but that good chance was denied to the young couple, doubtless in order that this story might be written, in which numbers of their wonderful adventures are narrated--adventures which could never have occurred to them if they had been housed and sheltered under the comfortable uninteresting forgiveness of miss crawley. under mrs. firkin's orders, in the park lane establishment, was a young woman from hampshire, whose business it was, among other duties, to knock at miss sharp's door with that jug of hot water which firkin would rather have perished than have presented to the intruder. this girl, bred on the family estate, had a brother in captain crawley's troop, and if the truth were known, i daresay it would come out that she was aware of certain arrangements, which have a great deal to do with this history. at any rate she purchased a yellow shawl, a pair of green boots, and a light blue hat with a red feather with three guineas which rebecca gave her, and as little sharp was by no means too liberal with her money, no doubt it was for services rendered that betty martin was so bribed. on the second day after sir pitt crawley's offer to miss sharp, the sun rose as usual, and at the usual hour betty martin, the upstairs maid, knocked at the door of the governess's bedchamber. no answer was returned, and she knocked again. silence was still uninterrupted; and betty, with the hot water, opened the door and entered the chamber. the little white dimity bed was as smooth and trim as on the day previous, when betty's own hands had helped to make it. two little trunks were corded in one end of the room; and on the table before the window--on the pincushion--the great fat pincushion lined with pink inside, and twilled like a lady's nightcap--lay a letter. it had been reposing there probably all night. betty advanced towards it on tiptoe, as if she were afraid to awake it--looked at it, and round the room, with an air of great wonder and satisfaction; took up the letter, and grinned intensely as she turned it round and over, and finally carried it into miss briggs's room below. how could betty tell that the letter was for miss briggs, i should like to know? all the schooling betty had had was at mrs. bute crawley's sunday school, and she could no more read writing than hebrew. "la, miss briggs," the girl exclaimed, "o, miss, something must have happened--there's nobody in miss sharp's room; the bed ain't been slep in, and she've run away, and left this letter for you, miss." "what!" cries briggs, dropping her comb, the thin wisp of faded hair falling over her shoulders; "an elopement! miss sharp a fugitive! what, what is this?" and she eagerly broke the neat seal, and, as they say, "devoured the contents" of the letter addressed to her. dear miss briggs [the refugee wrote], the kindest heart in the world, as yours is, will pity and sympathise with me and excuse me. with tears, and prayers, and blessings, i leave the home where the poor orphan has ever met with kindness and affection. claims even superior to those of my benefactress call me hence. i go to my duty--to my husband. yes, i am married. my husband commands me to seek the humble home which we call ours. dearest miss briggs, break the news as your delicate sympathy will know how to do it--to my dear, my beloved friend and benefactress. tell her, ere i went, i shed tears on her dear pillow--that pillow that i have so often soothed in sickness--that i long again to watch--oh, with what joy shall i return to dear park lane! how i tremble for the answer which is to seal my fate! when sir pitt deigned to offer me his hand, an honour of which my beloved miss crawley said i was deserving (my blessings go with her for judging the poor orphan worthy to be her sister!) i told sir pitt that i was already a wife. even he forgave me. but my courage failed me, when i should have told him all--that i could not be his wife, for i was his daughter! i am wedded to the best and most generous of men--miss crawley's rawdon is my rawdon. at his command i open my lips, and follow him to our humble home, as i would through the world. o, my excellent and kind friend, intercede with my rawdon's beloved aunt for him and the poor girl to whom all his noble race have shown such unparalleled affection. ask miss crawley to receive her children. i can say no more, but blessings, blessings on all in the dear house i leave, prays your affectionate and grateful rebecca crawley. midnight. just as briggs had finished reading this affecting and interesting document, which reinstated her in her position as first confidante of miss crawley, mrs. firkin entered the room. "here's mrs. bute crawley just arrived by the mail from hampshire, and wants some tea; will you come down and make breakfast, miss?" and to the surprise of firkin, clasping her dressing-gown around her, the wisp of hair floating dishevelled behind her, the little curl-papers still sticking in bunches round her forehead, briggs sailed down to mrs. bute with the letter in her hand containing the wonderful news. "oh, mrs. firkin," gasped betty, "sech a business. miss sharp have a gone and run away with the capting, and they're off to gretney green!" we would devote a chapter to describe the emotions of mrs. firkin, did not the passions of her mistresses occupy our genteeler muse. when mrs. bute crawley, numbed with midnight travelling, and warming herself at the newly crackling parlour fire, heard from miss briggs the intelligence of the clandestine marriage, she declared it was quite providential that she should have arrived at such a time to assist poor dear miss crawley in supporting the shock--that rebecca was an artful little hussy of whom she had always had her suspicions; and that as for rawdon crawley, she never could account for his aunt's infatuation regarding him, and had long considered him a profligate, lost, and abandoned being. and this awful conduct, mrs. bute said, will have at least this good effect, it will open poor dear miss crawley's eyes to the real character of this wicked man. then mrs. bute had a comfortable hot toast and tea; and as there was a vacant room in the house now, there was no need for her to remain at the gloster coffee house where the portsmouth mail had set her down, and whence she ordered mr. bowls's aide-de-camp the footman to bring away her trunks. miss crawley, be it known, did not leave her room until near noon--taking chocolate in bed in the morning, while becky sharp read the morning post to her, or otherwise amusing herself or dawdling. the conspirators below agreed that they would spare the dear lady's feelings until she appeared in her drawing-room: meanwhile it was announced to her that mrs. bute crawley had come up from hampshire by the mail, was staying at the gloster, sent her love to miss crawley, and asked for breakfast with miss briggs. the arrival of mrs. bute, which would not have caused any extreme delight at another period, was hailed with pleasure now; miss crawley being pleased at the notion of a gossip with her sister-in-law regarding the late lady crawley, the funeral arrangements pending, and sir pitt's abrupt proposal to rebecca. it was not until the old lady was fairly ensconced in her usual arm-chair in the drawing-room, and the preliminary embraces and inquiries had taken place between the ladies, that the conspirators thought it advisable to submit her to the operation. who has not admired the artifices and delicate approaches with which women "prepare" their friends for bad news? miss crawley's two friends made such an apparatus of mystery before they broke the intelligence to her, that they worked her up to the necessary degree of doubt and alarm. "and she refused sir pitt, my dear, dear miss crawley, prepare yourself for it," mrs. bute said, "because--because she couldn't help herself." "of course there was a reason," miss crawley answered. "she liked somebody else. i told briggs so yesterday." "likes somebody else!" briggs gasped. "o my dear friend, she is married already." "married already," mrs. bute chimed in; and both sate with clasped hands looking from each other at their victim. "send her to me, the instant she comes in. the little sly wretch: how dared she not tell me?" cried out miss crawley. "she won't come in soon. prepare yourself, dear friend--she's gone out for a long time--she's--she's gone altogether." "gracious goodness, and who's to make my chocolate? send for her and have her back; i desire that she come back," the old lady said. "she decamped last night, ma'am," cried mrs. bute. "she left a letter for me," briggs exclaimed. "she's married to--" "prepare her, for heaven's sake. don't torture her, my dear miss briggs." "she's married to whom?" cries the spinster in a nervous fury. "to--to a relation of--" "she refused sir pitt," cried the victim. "speak at once. don't drive me mad." "o ma'am--prepare her, miss briggs--she's married to rawdon crawley." "rawdon married rebecca--governess--nobod-- get out of my house, you fool, you idiot--you stupid old briggs--how dare you? you're in the plot--you made him marry, thinking that i'd leave my money from him--you did, martha," the poor old lady screamed in hysteric sentences. "i, ma'am, ask a member of this family to marry a drawing-master's daughter?" "her mother was a montmorency," cried out the old lady, pulling at the bell with all her might. "her mother was an opera girl, and she has been on the stage or worse herself," said mrs. bute. miss crawley gave a final scream, and fell back in a faint. they were forced to take her back to the room which she had just quitted. one fit of hysterics succeeded another. the doctor was sent for--the apothecary arrived. mrs. bute took up the post of nurse by her bedside. "her relations ought to be round about her," that amiable woman said. she had scarcely been carried up to her room, when a new person arrived to whom it was also necessary to break the news. this was sir pitt. "where's becky?" he said, coming in. "where's her traps? she's coming with me to queen's crawley." "have you not heard the astonishing intelligence regarding her surreptitious union?" briggs asked. "what's that to me?" sir pitt asked. "i know she's married. that makes no odds. tell her to come down at once, and not keep me." "are you not aware, sir," miss briggs asked, "that she has left our roof, to the dismay of miss crawley, who is nearly killed by the intelligence of captain rawdon's union with her?" when sir pitt crawley heard that rebecca was married to his son, he broke out into a fury of language, which it would do no good to repeat in this place, as indeed it sent poor briggs shuddering out of the room; and with her we will shut the door upon the figure of the frenzied old man, wild with hatred and insane with baffled desire. one day after he went to queen's crawley, he burst like a madman into the room she had used when there--dashed open her boxes with his foot, and flung about her papers, clothes, and other relics. miss horrocks, the butler's daughter, took some of them. the children dressed themselves and acted plays in the others. it was but a few days after the poor mother had gone to her lonely burying-place; and was laid, unwept and disregarded, in a vault full of strangers. "suppose the old lady doesn't come to," rawdon said to his little wife, as they sate together in the snug little brompton lodgings. she had been trying the new piano all the morning. the new gloves fitted her to a nicety; the new shawls became her wonderfully; the new rings glittered on her little hands, and the new watch ticked at her waist; "suppose she don't come round, eh, becky?" "i'll make your fortune," she said; and delilah patted samson's cheek. "you can do anything," he said, kissing the little hand. "by jove you can; and we'll drive down to the star and garter, and dine, by jove." chapter xvii how captain dobbin bought a piano if there is any exhibition in all vanity fair which satire and sentiment can visit arm in arm together; where you light on the strangest contrasts laughable and tearful: where you may be gentle and pathetic, or savage and cynical with perfect propriety: it is at one of those public assemblies, a crowd of which are advertised every day in the last page of the times newspaper, and over which the late mr. george robins used to preside with so much dignity. there are very few london people, as i fancy, who have not attended at these meetings, and all with a taste for moralizing must have thought, with a sensation and interest not a little startling and queer, of the day when their turn shall come too, and mr. hammerdown will sell by the orders of diogenes' assignees, or will be instructed by the executors, to offer to public competition, the library, furniture, plate, wardrobe, and choice cellar of wines of epicurus deceased. even with the most selfish disposition, the vanity fairian, as he witnesses this sordid part of the obsequies of a departed friend, can't but feel some sympathies and regret. my lord dives's remains are in the family vault: the statuaries are cutting an inscription veraciously commemorating his virtues, and the sorrows of his heir, who is disposing of his goods. what guest at dives's table can pass the familiar house without a sigh?--the familiar house of which the lights used to shine so cheerfully at seven o'clock, of which the hall-doors opened so readily, of which the obsequious servants, as you passed up the comfortable stair, sounded your name from landing to landing, until it reached the apartment where jolly old dives welcomed his friends! what a number of them he had; and what a noble way of entertaining them. how witty people used to be here who were morose when they got out of the door; and how courteous and friendly men who slandered and hated each other everywhere else! he was pompous, but with such a cook what would one not swallow? he was rather dull, perhaps, but would not such wine make any conversation pleasant? we must get some of his burgundy at any price, the mourners cry at his club. "i got this box at old dives's sale," pincher says, handing it round, "one of louis xv's mistresses--pretty thing, is it not?--sweet miniature," and they talk of the way in which young dives is dissipating his fortune. how changed the house is, though! the front is patched over with bills, setting forth the particulars of the furniture in staring capitals. they have hung a shred of carpet out of an upstairs window--a half dozen of porters are lounging on the dirty steps--the hall swarms with dingy guests of oriental countenance, who thrust printed cards into your hand, and offer to bid. old women and amateurs have invaded the upper apartments, pinching the bed-curtains, poking into the feathers, shampooing the mattresses, and clapping the wardrobe drawers to and fro. enterprising young housekeepers are measuring the looking-glasses and hangings to see if they will suit the new menage (snob will brag for years that he has purchased this or that at dives's sale), and mr. hammerdown is sitting on the great mahogany dining-tables, in the dining-room below, waving the ivory hammer, and employing all the artifices of eloquence, enthusiasm, entreaty, reason, despair; shouting to his people; satirizing mr. davids for his sluggishness; inspiriting mr. moss into action; imploring, commanding, bellowing, until down comes the hammer like fate, and we pass to the next lot. o dives, who would ever have thought, as we sat round the broad table sparkling with plate and spotless linen, to have seen such a dish at the head of it as that roaring auctioneer? it was rather late in the sale. the excellent drawing-room furniture by the best makers; the rare and famous wines selected, regardless of cost, and with the well-known taste of the purchaser; the rich and complete set of family plate had been sold on the previous days. certain of the best wines (which all had a great character among amateurs in the neighbourhood) had been purchased for his master, who knew them very well, by the butler of our friend john osborne, esquire, of russell square. a small portion of the most useful articles of the plate had been bought by some young stockbrokers from the city. and now the public being invited to the purchase of minor objects, it happened that the orator on the table was expatiating on the merits of a picture, which he sought to recommend to his audience: it was by no means so select or numerous a company as had attended the previous days of the auction. "no. ," roared mr. hammerdown. "portrait of a gentleman on an elephant. who'll bid for the gentleman on the elephant? lift up the picture, blowman, and let the company examine this lot." a long, pale, military-looking gentleman, seated demurely at the mahogany table, could not help grinning as this valuable lot was shown by mr. blowman. "turn the elephant to the captain, blowman. what shall we say, sir, for the elephant?" but the captain, blushing in a very hurried and discomfited manner, turned away his head. "shall we say twenty guineas for this work of art?--fifteen, five, name your own price. the gentleman without the elephant is worth five pound." "i wonder it ain't come down with him," said a professional wag, "he's anyhow a precious big one"; at which (for the elephant-rider was represented as of a very stout figure) there was a general giggle in the room. "don't be trying to deprecate the value of the lot, mr. moss," mr. hammerdown said; "let the company examine it as a work of art--the attitude of the gallant animal quite according to natur'; the gentleman in a nankeen jacket, his gun in his hand, is going to the chase; in the distance a banyhann tree and a pagody, most likely resemblances of some interesting spot in our famous eastern possessions. how much for this lot? come, gentlemen, don't keep me here all day." some one bid five shillings, at which the military gentleman looked towards the quarter from which this splendid offer had come, and there saw another officer with a young lady on his arm, who both appeared to be highly amused with the scene, and to whom, finally, this lot was knocked down for half a guinea. he at the table looked more surprised and discomposed than ever when he spied this pair, and his head sank into his military collar, and he turned his back upon them, so as to avoid them altogether. of all the other articles which mr. hammerdown had the honour to offer for public competition that day it is not our purpose to make mention, save of one only, a little square piano, which came down from the upper regions of the house (the state grand piano having been disposed of previously); this the young lady tried with a rapid and skilful hand (making the officer blush and start again), and for it, when its turn came, her agent began to bid. but there was an opposition here. the hebrew aide-de-camp in the service of the officer at the table bid against the hebrew gentleman employed by the elephant purchasers, and a brisk battle ensued over this little piano, the combatants being greatly encouraged by mr. hammerdown. at last, when the competition had been prolonged for some time, the elephant captain and lady desisted from the race; and the hammer coming down, the auctioneer said:--"mr. lewis, twenty-five," and mr. lewis's chief thus became the proprietor of the little square piano. having effected the purchase, he sate up as if he was greatly relieved, and the unsuccessful competitors catching a glimpse of him at this moment, the lady said to her friend, "why, rawdon, it's captain dobbin." i suppose becky was discontented with the new piano her husband had hired for her, or perhaps the proprietors of that instrument had fetched it away, declining farther credit, or perhaps she had a particular attachment for the one which she had just tried to purchase, recollecting it in old days, when she used to play upon it, in the little sitting-room of our dear amelia sedley. the sale was at the old house in russell square, where we passed some evenings together at the beginning of this story. good old john sedley was a ruined man. his name had been proclaimed as a defaulter on the stock exchange, and his bankruptcy and commercial extermination had followed. mr. osborne's butler came to buy some of the famous port wine to transfer to the cellars over the way. as for one dozen well-manufactured silver spoons and forks at per oz., and one dozen dessert ditto ditto, there were three young stockbrokers (messrs. dale, spiggot, and dale, of threadneedle street, indeed), who, having had dealings with the old man, and kindnesses from him in days when he was kind to everybody with whom he dealt, sent this little spar out of the wreck with their love to good mrs. sedley; and with respect to the piano, as it had been amelia's, and as she might miss it and want one now, and as captain william dobbin could no more play upon it than he could dance on the tight rope, it is probable that he did not purchase the instrument for his own use. in a word, it arrived that evening at a wonderful small cottage in a street leading from the fulham road--one of those streets which have the finest romantic names--(this was called st. adelaide villas, anna-maria road west), where the houses look like baby-houses; where the people, looking out of the first-floor windows, must infallibly, as you think, sit with their feet in the parlours; where the shrubs in the little gardens in front bloom with a perennial display of little children's pinafores, little red socks, caps, &c. (polyandria polygynia); whence you hear the sound of jingling spinets and women singing; where little porter pots hang on the railings sunning themselves; whither of evenings you see city clerks padding wearily: here it was that mr. clapp, the clerk of mr. sedley, had his domicile, and in this asylum the good old gentleman hid his head with his wife and daughter when the crash came. jos sedley had acted as a man of his disposition would, when the announcement of the family misfortune reached him. he did not come to london, but he wrote to his mother to draw upon his agents for whatever money was wanted, so that his kind broken-spirited old parents had no present poverty to fear. this done, jos went on at the boarding-house at cheltenham pretty much as before. he drove his curricle; he drank his claret; he played his rubber; he told his indian stories, and the irish widow consoled and flattered him as usual. his present of money, needful as it was, made little impression on his parents; and i have heard amelia say that the first day on which she saw her father lift up his head after the failure was on the receipt of the packet of forks and spoons with the young stockbrokers' love, over which he burst out crying like a child, being greatly more affected than even his wife, to whom the present was addressed. edward dale, the junior of the house, who purchased the spoons for the firm, was, in fact, very sweet upon amelia, and offered for her in spite of all. he married miss louisa cutts (daughter of higham and cutts, the eminent cornfactors) with a handsome fortune in ; and is now living in splendour, and with a numerous family, at his elegant villa, muswell hill. but we must not let the recollections of this good fellow cause us to diverge from the principal history. i hope the reader has much too good an opinion of captain and mrs. crawley to suppose that they ever would have dreamed of paying a visit to so remote a district as bloomsbury, if they thought the family whom they proposed to honour with a visit were not merely out of fashion, but out of money, and could be serviceable to them in no possible manner. rebecca was entirely surprised at the sight of the comfortable old house where she had met with no small kindness, ransacked by brokers and bargainers, and its quiet family treasures given up to public desecration and plunder. a month after her flight, she had bethought her of amelia, and rawdon, with a horse-laugh, had expressed a perfect willingness to see young george osborne again. "he's a very agreeable acquaintance, beck," the wag added. "i'd like to sell him another horse, beck. i'd like to play a few more games at billiards with him. he'd be what i call useful just now, mrs. c.--ha, ha!" by which sort of speech it is not to be supposed that rawdon crawley had a deliberate desire to cheat mr. osborne at play, but only wished to take that fair advantage of him which almost every sporting gentleman in vanity fair considers to be his due from his neighbour. the old aunt was long in "coming-to." a month had elapsed. rawdon was denied the door by mr. bowls; his servants could not get a lodgment in the house at park lane; his letters were sent back unopened. miss crawley never stirred out--she was unwell--and mrs. bute remained still and never left her. crawley and his wife both of them augured evil from the continued presence of mrs. bute. "gad, i begin to perceive now why she was always bringing us together at queen's crawley," rawdon said. "what an artful little woman!" ejaculated rebecca. "well, i don't regret it, if you don't," the captain cried, still in an amorous rapture with his wife, who rewarded him with a kiss by way of reply, and was indeed not a little gratified by the generous confidence of her husband. "if he had but a little more brains," she thought to herself, "i might make something of him"; but she never let him perceive the opinion she had of him; listened with indefatigable complacency to his stories of the stable and the mess; laughed at all his jokes; felt the greatest interest in jack spatterdash, whose cab-horse had come down, and bob martingale, who had been taken up in a gambling-house, and tom cinqbars, who was going to ride the steeplechase. when he came home she was alert and happy: when he went out she pressed him to go: when he stayed at home, she played and sang for him, made him good drinks, superintended his dinner, warmed his slippers, and steeped his soul in comfort. the best of women (i have heard my grandmother say) are hypocrites. we don't know how much they hide from us: how watchful they are when they seem most artless and confidential: how often those frank smiles which they wear so easily, are traps to cajole or elude or disarm--i don't mean in your mere coquettes, but your domestic models, and paragons of female virtue. who has not seen a woman hide the dulness of a stupid husband, or coax the fury of a savage one? we accept this amiable slavishness, and praise a woman for it: we call this pretty treachery truth. a good housewife is of necessity a humbug; and cornelia's husband was hoodwinked, as potiphar was--only in a different way. by these attentions, that veteran rake, rawdon crawley, found himself converted into a very happy and submissive married man. his former haunts knew him not. they asked about him once or twice at his clubs, but did not miss him much: in those booths of vanity fair people seldom do miss each other. his secluded wife ever smiling and cheerful, his little comfortable lodgings, snug meals, and homely evenings, had all the charms of novelty and secrecy. the marriage was not yet declared to the world, or published in the morning post. all his creditors would have come rushing on him in a body, had they known that he was united to a woman without fortune. "my relations won't cry fie upon me," becky said, with rather a bitter laugh; and she was quite contented to wait until the old aunt should be reconciled, before she claimed her place in society. so she lived at brompton, and meanwhile saw no one, or only those few of her husband's male companions who were admitted into her little dining-room. these were all charmed with her. the little dinners, the laughing and chatting, the music afterwards, delighted all who participated in these enjoyments. major martingale never thought about asking to see the marriage licence, captain cinqbars was perfectly enchanted with her skill in making punch. and young lieutenant spatterdash (who was fond of piquet, and whom crawley would often invite) was evidently and quickly smitten by mrs. crawley; but her own circumspection and modesty never forsook her for a moment, and crawley's reputation as a fire-eating and jealous warrior was a further and complete defence to his little wife. there are gentlemen of very good blood and fashion in this city, who never have entered a lady's drawing-room; so that though rawdon crawley's marriage might be talked about in his county, where, of course, mrs. bute had spread the news, in london it was doubted, or not heeded, or not talked about at all. he lived comfortably on credit. he had a large capital of debts, which laid out judiciously, will carry a man along for many years, and on which certain men about town contrive to live a hundred times better than even men with ready money can do. indeed who is there that walks london streets, but can point out a half-dozen of men riding by him splendidly, while he is on foot, courted by fashion, bowed into their carriages by tradesmen, denying themselves nothing, and living on who knows what? we see jack thriftless prancing in the park, or darting in his brougham down pall mall: we eat his dinners served on his miraculous plate. "how did this begin," we say, "or where will it end?" "my dear fellow," i heard jack once say, "i owe money in every capital in europe." the end must come some day, but in the meantime jack thrives as much as ever; people are glad enough to shake him by the hand, ignore the little dark stories that are whispered every now and then against him, and pronounce him a good-natured, jovial, reckless fellow. truth obliges us to confess that rebecca had married a gentleman of this order. everything was plentiful in his house but ready money, of which their menage pretty early felt the want; and reading the gazette one day, and coming upon the announcement of "lieutenant g. osborne to be captain by purchase, vice smith, who exchanges," rawdon uttered that sentiment regarding amelia's lover, which ended in the visit to russell square. when rawdon and his wife wished to communicate with captain dobbin at the sale, and to know particulars of the catastrophe which had befallen rebecca's old acquaintances, the captain had vanished; and such information as they got was from a stray porter or broker at the auction. "look at them with their hooked beaks," becky said, getting into the buggy, her picture under her arm, in great glee. "they're like vultures after a battle." "don't know. never was in action, my dear. ask martingale; he was in spain, aide-de-camp to general blazes." "he was a very kind old man, mr. sedley," rebecca said; "i'm really sorry he's gone wrong." "o stockbrokers--bankrupts--used to it, you know," rawdon replied, cutting a fly off the horse's ear. "i wish we could have afforded some of the plate, rawdon," the wife continued sentimentally. "five-and-twenty guineas was monstrously dear for that little piano. we chose it at broadwood's for amelia, when she came from school. it only cost five-and-thirty then." "what-d'-ye-call'em--'osborne,' will cry off now, i suppose, since the family is smashed. how cut up your pretty little friend will be; hey, becky?" "i daresay she'll recover it," becky said with a smile--and they drove on and talked about something else. chapter xviii who played on the piano captain dobbin bought our surprised story now finds itself for a moment among very famous events and personages, and hanging on to the skirts of history. when the eagles of napoleon bonaparte, the corsican upstart, were flying from provence, where they had perched after a brief sojourn in elba, and from steeple to steeple until they reached the towers of notre dame, i wonder whether the imperial birds had any eye for a little corner of the parish of bloomsbury, london, which you might have thought so quiet, that even the whirring and flapping of those mighty wings would pass unobserved there? "napoleon has landed at cannes." such news might create a panic at vienna, and cause russia to drop his cards, and take prussia into a corner, and talleyrand and metternich to wag their heads together, while prince hardenberg, and even the present marquis of londonderry, were puzzled; but how was this intelligence to affect a young lady in russell square, before whose door the watchman sang the hours when she was asleep: who, if she strolled in the square, was guarded there by the railings and the beadle: who, if she walked ever so short a distance to buy a ribbon in southampton row, was followed by black sambo with an enormous cane: who was always cared for, dressed, put to bed, and watched over by ever so many guardian angels, with and without wages? bon dieu, i say, is it not hard that the fateful rush of the great imperial struggle can't take place without affecting a poor little harmless girl of eighteen, who is occupied in billing and cooing, or working muslin collars in russell square? you too, kindly, homely flower!--is the great roaring war tempest coming to sweep you down, here, although cowering under the shelter of holborn? yes; napoleon is flinging his last stake, and poor little emmy sedley's happiness forms, somehow, part of it. in the first place, her father's fortune was swept down with that fatal news. all his speculations had of late gone wrong with the luckless old gentleman. ventures had failed; merchants had broken; funds had risen when he calculated they would fall. what need to particularize? if success is rare and slow, everybody knows how quick and easy ruin is. old sedley had kept his own sad counsel. everything seemed to go on as usual in the quiet, opulent house; the good-natured mistress pursuing, quite unsuspiciously, her bustling idleness, and daily easy avocations; the daughter absorbed still in one selfish, tender thought, and quite regardless of all the world besides, when that final crash came, under which the worthy family fell. one night mrs. sedley was writing cards for a party; the osbornes had given one, and she must not be behindhand; john sedley, who had come home very late from the city, sate silent at the chimney side, while his wife was prattling to him; emmy had gone up to her room ailing and low-spirited. "she's not happy," the mother went on. "george osborne neglects her. i've no patience with the airs of those people. the girls have not been in the house these three weeks; and george has been twice in town without coming. edward dale saw him at the opera. edward would marry her i'm sure: and there's captain dobbin who, i think, would--only i hate all army men. such a dandy as george has become. with his military airs, indeed! we must show some folks that we're as good as they. only give edward dale any encouragement, and you'll see. we must have a party, mr. s. why don't you speak, john? shall i say tuesday fortnight? why don't you answer? good god, john, what has happened?" john sedley sprang up out of his chair to meet his wife, who ran to him. he seized her in his arms, and said with a hasty voice, "we're ruined, mary. we've got the world to begin over again, dear. it's best that you should know all, and at once." as he spoke, he trembled in every limb, and almost fell. he thought the news would have overpowered his wife--his wife, to whom he had never said a hard word. but it was he that was the most moved, sudden as the shock was to her. when he sank back into his seat, it was the wife that took the office of consoler. she took his trembling hand, and kissed it, and put it round her neck: she called him her john--her dear john--her old man--her kind old man; she poured out a hundred words of incoherent love and tenderness; her faithful voice and simple caresses wrought this sad heart up to an inexpressible delight and anguish, and cheered and solaced his over-burdened soul. only once in the course of the long night as they sate together, and poor sedley opened his pent-up soul, and told the story of his losses and embarrassments--the treason of some of his oldest friends, the manly kindness of some, from whom he never could have expected it--in a general confession--only once did the faithful wife give way to emotion. "my god, my god, it will break emmy's heart," she said. the father had forgotten the poor girl. she was lying, awake and unhappy, overhead. in the midst of friends, home, and kind parents, she was alone. to how many people can any one tell all? who will be open where there is no sympathy, or has call to speak to those who never can understand? our gentle amelia was thus solitary. she had no confidante, so to speak, ever since she had anything to confide. she could not tell the old mother her doubts and cares; the would-be sisters seemed every day more strange to her. and she had misgivings and fears which she dared not acknowledge to herself, though she was always secretly brooding over them. her heart tried to persist in asserting that george osborne was worthy and faithful to her, though she knew otherwise. how many a thing had she said, and got no echo from him. how many suspicions of selfishness and indifference had she to encounter and obstinately overcome. to whom could the poor little martyr tell these daily struggles and tortures? her hero himself only half understood her. she did not dare to own that the man she loved was her inferior; or to feel that she had given her heart away too soon. given once, the pure bashful maiden was too modest, too tender, too trustful, too weak, too much woman to recall it. we are turks with the affections of our women; and have made them subscribe to our doctrine too. we let their bodies go abroad liberally enough, with smiles and ringlets and pink bonnets to disguise them instead of veils and yakmaks. but their souls must be seen by only one man, and they obey not unwillingly, and consent to remain at home as our slaves--ministering to us and doing drudgery for us. so imprisoned and tortured was this gentle little heart, when in the month of march, anno domini , napoleon landed at cannes, and louis xviii fled, and all europe was in alarm, and the funds fell, and old john sedley was ruined. we are not going to follow the worthy old stockbroker through those last pangs and agonies of ruin through which he passed before his commercial demise befell. they declared him at the stock exchange; he was absent from his house of business: his bills were protested: his act of bankruptcy formal. the house and furniture of russell square were seized and sold up, and he and his family were thrust away, as we have seen, to hide their heads where they might. john sedley had not the heart to review the domestic establishment who have appeared now and anon in our pages and of whom he was now forced by poverty to take leave. the wages of those worthy people were discharged with that punctuality which men frequently show who only owe in great sums--they were sorry to leave good places--but they did not break their hearts at parting from their adored master and mistress. amelia's maid was profuse in condolences, but went off quite resigned to better herself in a genteeler quarter of the town. black sambo, with the infatuation of his profession, determined on setting up a public-house. honest old mrs. blenkinsop indeed, who had seen the birth of jos and amelia, and the wooing of john sedley and his wife, was for staying by them without wages, having amassed a considerable sum in their service: and she accompanied the fallen people into their new and humble place of refuge, where she tended them and grumbled against them for a while. of all sedley's opponents in his debates with his creditors which now ensued, and harassed the feelings of the humiliated old gentleman so severely, that in six weeks he oldened more than he had done for fifteen years before--the most determined and obstinate seemed to be john osborne, his old friend and neighbour--john osborne, whom he had set up in life--who was under a hundred obligations to him--and whose son was to marry sedley's daughter. any one of these circumstances would account for the bitterness of osborne's opposition. when one man has been under very remarkable obligations to another, with whom he subsequently quarrels, a common sense of decency, as it were, makes of the former a much severer enemy than a mere stranger would be. to account for your own hard-heartedness and ingratitude in such a case, you are bound to prove the other party's crime. it is not that you are selfish, brutal, and angry at the failure of a speculation--no, no--it is that your partner has led you into it by the basest treachery and with the most sinister motives. from a mere sense of consistency, a persecutor is bound to show that the fallen man is a villain--otherwise he, the persecutor, is a wretch himself. and as a general rule, which may make all creditors who are inclined to be severe pretty comfortable in their minds, no men embarrassed are altogether honest, very likely. they conceal something; they exaggerate chances of good luck; hide away the real state of affairs; say that things are flourishing when they are hopeless, keep a smiling face (a dreary smile it is) upon the verge of bankruptcy--are ready to lay hold of any pretext for delay or of any money, so as to stave off the inevitable ruin a few days longer. "down with such dishonesty," says the creditor in triumph, and reviles his sinking enemy. "you fool, why do you catch at a straw?" calm good sense says to the man that is drowning. "you villain, why do you shrink from plunging into the irretrievable gazette?" says prosperity to the poor devil battling in that black gulf. who has not remarked the readiness with which the closest of friends and honestest of men suspect and accuse each other of cheating when they fall out on money matters? everybody does it. everybody is right, i suppose, and the world is a rogue. then osborne had the intolerable sense of former benefits to goad and irritate him: these are always a cause of hostility aggravated. finally, he had to break off the match between sedley's daughter and his son; and as it had gone very far indeed, and as the poor girl's happiness and perhaps character were compromised, it was necessary to show the strongest reasons for the rupture, and for john osborne to prove john sedley to be a very bad character indeed. at the meetings of creditors, then, he comported himself with a savageness and scorn towards sedley, which almost succeeded in breaking the heart of that ruined bankrupt man. on george's intercourse with amelia he put an instant veto--menacing the youth with maledictions if he broke his commands, and vilipending the poor innocent girl as the basest and most artful of vixens. one of the great conditions of anger and hatred is, that you must tell and believe lies against the hated object, in order, as we said, to be consistent. when the great crash came--the announcement of ruin, and the departure from russell square, and the declaration that all was over between her and george--all over between her and love, her and happiness, her and faith in the world--a brutal letter from john osborne told her in a few curt lines that her father's conduct had been of such a nature that all engagements between the families were at an end--when the final award came, it did not shock her so much as her parents, as her mother rather expected (for john sedley himself was entirely prostrate in the ruins of his own affairs and shattered honour). amelia took the news very palely and calmly. it was only the confirmation of the dark presages which had long gone before. it was the mere reading of the sentence--of the crime she had long ago been guilty--the crime of loving wrongly, too violently, against reason. she told no more of her thoughts now than she had before. she seemed scarcely more unhappy now when convinced all hope was over, than before when she felt but dared not confess that it was gone. so she changed from the large house to the small one without any mark or difference; remained in her little room for the most part; pined silently; and died away day by day. i do not mean to say that all females are so. my dear miss bullock, i do not think your heart would break in this way. you are a strong-minded young woman with proper principles. i do not venture to say that mine would; it has suffered, and, it must be confessed, survived. but there are some souls thus gently constituted, thus frail, and delicate, and tender. whenever old john sedley thought of the affair between george and amelia, or alluded to it, it was with bitterness almost as great as mr. osborne himself had shown. he cursed osborne and his family as heartless, wicked, and ungrateful. no power on earth, he swore, would induce him to marry his daughter to the son of such a villain, and he ordered emmy to banish george from her mind, and to return all the presents and letters which she had ever had from him. she promised acquiescence, and tried to obey. she put up the two or three trinkets: and, as for the letters, she drew them out of the place where she kept them; and read them over--as if she did not know them by heart already: but she could not part with them. that effort was too much for her; she placed them back in her bosom again--as you have seen a woman nurse a child that is dead. young amelia felt that she would die or lose her senses outright, if torn away from this last consolation. how she used to blush and lighten up when those letters came! how she used to trip away with a beating heart, so that she might read unseen! if they were cold, yet how perversely this fond little soul interpreted them into warmth. if they were short or selfish, what excuses she found for the writer! it was over these few worthless papers that she brooded and brooded. she lived in her past life--every letter seemed to recall some circumstance of it. how well she remembered them all! his looks and tones, his dress, what he said and how--these relics and remembrances of dead affection were all that were left her in the world. and the business of her life, was--to watch the corpse of love. to death she looked with inexpressible longing. then, she thought, i shall always be able to follow him. i am not praising her conduct or setting her up as a model for miss bullock to imitate. miss b. knows how to regulate her feelings better than this poor little creature. miss b. would never have committed herself as that imprudent amelia had done; pledged her love irretrievably; confessed her heart away, and got back nothing--only a brittle promise which was snapt and worthless in a moment. a long engagement is a partnership which one party is free to keep or to break, but which involves all the capital of the other. be cautious then, young ladies; be wary how you engage. be shy of loving frankly; never tell all you feel, or (a better way still), feel very little. see the consequences of being prematurely honest and confiding, and mistrust yourselves and everybody. get yourselves married as they do in france, where the lawyers are the bridesmaids and confidantes. at any rate, never have any feelings which may make you uncomfortable, or make any promises which you cannot at any required moment command and withdraw. that is the way to get on, and be respected, and have a virtuous character in vanity fair. if amelia could have heard the comments regarding her which were made in the circle from which her father's ruin had just driven her, she would have seen what her own crimes were, and how entirely her character was jeopardised. such criminal imprudence mrs. smith never knew of; such horrid familiarities mrs. brown had always condemned, and the end might be a warning to her daughters. "captain osborne, of course, could not marry a bankrupt's daughter," the misses dobbin said. "it was quite enough to have been swindled by the father. as for that little amelia, her folly had really passed all--" "all what?" captain dobbin roared out. "haven't they been engaged ever since they were children? wasn't it as good as a marriage? dare any soul on earth breathe a word against the sweetest, the purest, the tenderest, the most angelical of young women?" "la, william, don't be so highty-tighty with us. we're not men. we can't fight you," miss jane said. "we've said nothing against miss sedley: but that her conduct throughout was most imprudent, not to call it by any worse name; and that her parents are people who certainly merit their misfortunes." "hadn't you better, now that miss sedley is free, propose for her yourself, william?" miss ann asked sarcastically. "it would be a most eligible family connection. he! he!" "i marry her!" dobbin said, blushing very much, and talking quick. "if you are so ready, young ladies, to chop and change, do you suppose that she is? laugh and sneer at that angel. she can't hear it; and she's miserable and unfortunate, and deserves to be laughed at. go on joking, ann. you're the wit of the family, and the others like to hear it." "i must tell you again we're not in a barrack, william," miss ann remarked. "in a barrack, by jove--i wish anybody in a barrack would say what you do," cried out this uproused british lion. "i should like to hear a man breathe a word against her, by jupiter. but men don't talk in this way, ann: it's only women, who get together and hiss, and shriek, and cackle. there, get away--don't begin to cry. i only said you were a couple of geese," will dobbin said, perceiving miss ann's pink eyes were beginning to moisten as usual. "well, you're not geese, you're swans--anything you like, only do, do leave miss sedley alone." anything like william's infatuation about that silly little flirting, ogling thing was never known, the mamma and sisters agreed together in thinking: and they trembled lest, her engagement being off with osborne, she should take up immediately her other admirer and captain. in which forebodings these worthy young women no doubt judged according to the best of their experience; or rather (for as yet they had had no opportunities of marrying or of jilting) according to their own notions of right and wrong. "it is a mercy, mamma, that the regiment is ordered abroad," the girls said. "this danger, at any rate, is spared our brother." such, indeed, was the fact; and so it is that the french emperor comes in to perform a part in this domestic comedy of vanity fair which we are now playing, and which would never have been enacted without the intervention of this august mute personage. it was he that ruined the bourbons and mr. john sedley. it was he whose arrival in his capital called up all france in arms to defend him there; and all europe to oust him. while the french nation and army were swearing fidelity round the eagles in the champ de mars, four mighty european hosts were getting in motion for the great chasse a l'aigle; and one of these was a british army, of which two heroes of ours, captain dobbin and captain osborne, formed a portion. the news of napoleon's escape and landing was received by the gallant --th with a fiery delight and enthusiasm, which everybody can understand who knows that famous corps. from the colonel to the smallest drummer in the regiment, all were filled with hope and ambition and patriotic fury; and thanked the french emperor as for a personal kindness in coming to disturb the peace of europe. now was the time the --th had so long panted for, to show their comrades in arms that they could fight as well as the peninsular veterans, and that all the pluck and valour of the --th had not been killed by the west indies and the yellow fever. stubble and spooney looked to get their companies without purchase. before the end of the campaign (which she resolved to share), mrs. major o'dowd hoped to write herself mrs. colonel o'dowd, c.b. our two friends (dobbin and osborne) were quite as much excited as the rest: and each in his way--mr. dobbin very quietly, mr. osborne very loudly and energetically--was bent upon doing his duty, and gaining his share of honour and distinction. the agitation thrilling through the country and army in consequence of this news was so great, that private matters were little heeded: and hence probably george osborne, just gazetted to his company, busy with preparations for the march, which must come inevitably, and panting for further promotion--was not so much affected by other incidents which would have interested him at a more quiet period. he was not, it must be confessed, very much cast down by good old mr. sedley's catastrophe. he tried his new uniform, which became him very handsomely, on the day when the first meeting of the creditors of the unfortunate gentleman took place. his father told him of the wicked, rascally, shameful conduct of the bankrupt, reminded him of what he had said about amelia, and that their connection was broken off for ever; and gave him that evening a good sum of money to pay for the new clothes and epaulets in which he looked so well. money was always useful to this free-handed young fellow, and he took it without many words. the bills were up in the sedley house, where he had passed so many, many happy hours. he could see them as he walked from home that night (to the old slaughters', where he put up when in town) shining white in the moon. that comfortable home was shut, then, upon amelia and her parents: where had they taken refuge? the thought of their ruin affected him not a little. he was very melancholy that night in the coffee-room at the slaughters'; and drank a good deal, as his comrades remarked there. dobbin came in presently, cautioned him about the drink, which he only took, he said, because he was deuced low; but when his friend began to put to him clumsy inquiries, and asked him for news in a significant manner, osborne declined entering into conversation with him, avowing, however, that he was devilish disturbed and unhappy. three days afterwards, dobbin found osborne in his room at the barracks--his head on the table, a number of papers about, the young captain evidently in a state of great despondency. "she--she's sent me back some things i gave her--some damned trinkets. look here!" there was a little packet directed in the well-known hand to captain george osborne, and some things lying about--a ring, a silver knife he had bought, as a boy, for her at a fair; a gold chain, and a locket with hair in it. "it's all over," said he, with a groan of sickening remorse. "look, will, you may read it if you like." there was a little letter of a few lines, to which he pointed, which said: my papa has ordered me to return to you these presents, which you made in happier days to me; and i am to write to you for the last time. i think, i know you feel as much as i do the blow which has come upon us. it is i that absolve you from an engagement which is impossible in our present misery. i am sure you had no share in it, or in the cruel suspicions of mr. osborne, which are the hardest of all our griefs to bear. farewell. farewell. i pray god to strengthen me to bear this and other calamities, and to bless you always. a. i shall often play upon the piano--your piano. it was like you to send it. dobbin was very soft-hearted. the sight of women and children in pain always used to melt him. the idea of amelia broken-hearted and lonely tore that good-natured soul with anguish. and he broke out into an emotion, which anybody who likes may consider unmanly. he swore that amelia was an angel, to which osborne said aye with all his heart. he, too, had been reviewing the history of their lives--and had seen her from her childhood to her present age, so sweet, so innocent, so charmingly simple, and artlessly fond and tender. what a pang it was to lose all that: to have had it and not prized it! a thousand homely scenes and recollections crowded on him--in which he always saw her good and beautiful. and for himself, he blushed with remorse and shame, as the remembrance of his own selfishness and indifference contrasted with that perfect purity. for a while, glory, war, everything was forgotten, and the pair of friends talked about her only. "where are they?" osborne asked, after a long talk, and a long pause--and, in truth, with no little shame at thinking that he had taken no steps to follow her. "where are they? there's no address to the note." dobbin knew. he had not merely sent the piano; but had written a note to mrs. sedley, and asked permission to come and see her--and he had seen her, and amelia too, yesterday, before he came down to chatham; and, what is more, he had brought that farewell letter and packet which had so moved them. the good-natured fellow had found mrs. sedley only too willing to receive him, and greatly agitated by the arrival of the piano, which, as she conjectured, must have come from george, and was a signal of amity on his part. captain dobbin did not correct this error of the worthy lady, but listened to all her story of complaints and misfortunes with great sympathy--condoled with her losses and privations, and agreed in reprehending the cruel conduct of mr. osborne towards his first benefactor. when she had eased her overflowing bosom somewhat, and poured forth many of her sorrows, he had the courage to ask actually to see amelia, who was above in her room as usual, and whom her mother led trembling downstairs. her appearance was so ghastly, and her look of despair so pathetic, that honest william dobbin was frightened as he beheld it; and read the most fatal forebodings in that pale fixed face. after sitting in his company a minute or two, she put the packet into his hand, and said, "take this to captain osborne, if you please, and--and i hope he's quite well--and it was very kind of you to come and see us--and we like our new house very much. and i--i think i'll go upstairs, mamma, for i'm not very strong." and with this, and a curtsey and a smile, the poor child went her way. the mother, as she led her up, cast back looks of anguish towards dobbin. the good fellow wanted no such appeal. he loved her himself too fondly for that. inexpressible grief, and pity, and terror pursued him, and he came away as if he was a criminal after seeing her. when osborne heard that his friend had found her, he made hot and anxious inquiries regarding the poor child. how was she? how did she look? what did she say? his comrade took his hand, and looked him in the face. "george, she's dying," william dobbin said--and could speak no more. there was a buxom irish servant-girl, who performed all the duties of the little house where the sedley family had found refuge: and this girl had in vain, on many previous days, striven to give amelia aid or consolation. emmy was much too sad to answer, or even to be aware of the attempts the other was making in her favour. four hours after the talk between dobbin and osborne, this servant-maid came into amelia's room, where she sate as usual, brooding silently over her letters--her little treasures. the girl, smiling, and looking arch and happy, made many trials to attract poor emmy's attention, who, however, took no heed of her. "miss emmy," said the girl. "i'm coming," emmy said, not looking round. "there's a message," the maid went on. "there's something--somebody--sure, here's a new letter for you--don't be reading them old ones any more." and she gave her a letter, which emmy took, and read. "i must see you," the letter said. "dearest emmy--dearest love--dearest wife, come to me." george and her mother were outside, waiting until she had read the letter. chapter xix miss crawley at nurse we have seen how mrs. firkin, the lady's maid, as soon as any event of importance to the crawley family came to her knowledge, felt bound to communicate it to mrs. bute crawley, at the rectory; and have before mentioned how particularly kind and attentive that good-natured lady was to miss crawley's confidential servant. she had been a gracious friend to miss briggs, the companion, also; and had secured the latter's good-will by a number of those attentions and promises, which cost so little in the making, and are yet so valuable and agreeable to the recipient. indeed every good economist and manager of a household must know how cheap and yet how amiable these professions are, and what a flavour they give to the most homely dish in life. who was the blundering idiot who said that "fine words butter no parsnips"? half the parsnips of society are served and rendered palatable with no other sauce. as the immortal alexis soyer can make more delicious soup for a half-penny than an ignorant cook can concoct with pounds of vegetables and meat, so a skilful artist will make a few simple and pleasing phrases go farther than ever so much substantial benefit-stock in the hands of a mere bungler. nay, we know that substantial benefits often sicken some stomachs; whereas, most will digest any amount of fine words, and be always eager for more of the same food. mrs. bute had told briggs and firkin so often of the depth of her affection for them; and what she would do, if she had miss crawley's fortune, for friends so excellent and attached, that the ladies in question had the deepest regard for her; and felt as much gratitude and confidence as if mrs. bute had loaded them with the most expensive favours. rawdon crawley, on the other hand, like a selfish heavy dragoon as he was, never took the least trouble to conciliate his aunt's aides-de-camp, showed his contempt for the pair with entire frankness--made firkin pull off his boots on one occasion--sent her out in the rain on ignominious messages--and if he gave her a guinea, flung it to her as if it were a box on the ear. as his aunt, too, made a butt of briggs, the captain followed the example, and levelled his jokes at her--jokes about as delicate as a kick from his charger. whereas, mrs. bute consulted her in matters of taste or difficulty, admired her poetry, and by a thousand acts of kindness and politeness, showed her appreciation of briggs; and if she made firkin a twopenny-halfpenny present, accompanied it with so many compliments, that the twopence-half-penny was transmuted into gold in the heart of the grateful waiting-maid, who, besides, was looking forwards quite contentedly to some prodigious benefit which must happen to her on the day when mrs. bute came into her fortune. the different conduct of these two people is pointed out respectfully to the attention of persons commencing the world. praise everybody, i say to such: never be squeamish, but speak out your compliment both point-blank in a man's face, and behind his back, when you know there is a reasonable chance of his hearing it again. never lose a chance of saying a kind word. as collingwood never saw a vacant place in his estate but he took an acorn out of his pocket and popped it in; so deal with your compliments through life. an acorn costs nothing; but it may sprout into a prodigious bit of timber. in a word, during rawdon crawley's prosperity, he was only obeyed with sulky acquiescence; when his disgrace came, there was nobody to help or pity him. whereas, when mrs. bute took the command at miss crawley's house, the garrison there were charmed to act under such a leader, expecting all sorts of promotion from her promises, her generosity, and her kind words. that he would consider himself beaten, after one defeat, and make no attempt to regain the position he had lost, mrs. bute crawley never allowed herself to suppose. she knew rebecca to be too clever and spirited and desperate a woman to submit without a struggle; and felt that she must prepare for that combat, and be incessantly watchful against assault; or mine, or surprise. in the first place, though she held the town, was she sure of the principal inhabitant? would miss crawley herself hold out; and had she not a secret longing to welcome back the ousted adversary? the old lady liked rawdon, and rebecca, who amused her. mrs. bute could not disguise from herself the fact that none of her party could so contribute to the pleasures of the town-bred lady. "my girls' singing, after that little odious governess's, i know is unbearable," the candid rector's wife owned to herself. "she always used to go to sleep when martha and louisa played their duets. jim's stiff college manners and poor dear bute's talk about his dogs and horses always annoyed her. if i took her to the rectory, she would grow angry with us all, and fly, i know she would; and might fall into that horrid rawdon's clutches again, and be the victim of that little viper of a sharp. meanwhile, it is clear to me that she is exceedingly unwell, and cannot move for some weeks, at any rate; during which we must think of some plan to protect her from the arts of those unprincipled people." in the very best of moments, if anybody told miss crawley that she was, or looked ill, the trembling old lady sent off for her doctor; and i daresay she was very unwell after the sudden family event, which might serve to shake stronger nerves than hers. at least, mrs. bute thought it was her duty to inform the physician, and the apothecary, and the dame-de-compagnie, and the domestics, that miss crawley was in a most critical state, and that they were to act accordingly. she had the street laid knee-deep with straw; and the knocker put by with mr. bowls's plate. she insisted that the doctor should call twice a day; and deluged her patient with draughts every two hours. when anybody entered the room, she uttered a shshshsh so sibilant and ominous, that it frightened the poor old lady in her bed, from which she could not look without seeing mrs. bute's beady eyes eagerly fixed on her, as the latter sate steadfast in the arm-chair by the bedside. they seemed to lighten in the dark (for she kept the curtains closed) as she moved about the room on velvet paws like a cat. there miss crawley lay for days--ever so many days--mr. bute reading books of devotion to her: for nights, long nights, during which she had to hear the watchman sing, the night-light sputter; visited at midnight, the last thing, by the stealthy apothecary; and then left to look at mrs. bute's twinkling eyes, or the flicks of yellow that the rushlight threw on the dreary darkened ceiling. hygeia herself would have fallen sick under such a regimen; and how much more this poor old nervous victim? it has been said that when she was in health and good spirits, this venerable inhabitant of vanity fair had as free notions about religion and morals as monsieur de voltaire himself could desire, but when illness overtook her, it was aggravated by the most dreadful terrors of death, and an utter cowardice took possession of the prostrate old sinner. sick-bed homilies and pious reflections are, to be sure, out of place in mere story-books, and we are not going (after the fashion of some novelists of the present day) to cajole the public into a sermon, when it is only a comedy that the reader pays his money to witness. but, without preaching, the truth may surely be borne in mind, that the bustle, and triumph, and laughter, and gaiety which vanity fair exhibits in public, do not always pursue the performer into private life, and that the most dreary depression of spirits and dismal repentances sometimes overcome him. recollection of the best ordained banquets will scarcely cheer sick epicures. reminiscences of the most becoming dresses and brilliant ball triumphs will go very little way to console faded beauties. perhaps statesmen, at a particular period of existence, are not much gratified at thinking over the most triumphant divisions; and the success or the pleasure of yesterday becomes of very small account when a certain (albeit uncertain) morrow is in view, about which all of us must some day or other be speculating. o brother wearers of motley! are there not moments when one grows sick of grinning and tumbling, and the jingling of cap and bells? this, dear friends and companions, is my amiable object--to walk with you through the fair, to examine the shops and the shows there; and that we should all come home after the flare, and the noise, and the gaiety, and be perfectly miserable in private. "if that poor man of mine had a head on his shoulders," mrs. bute crawley thought to herself, "how useful he might be, under present circumstances, to this unhappy old lady! he might make her repent of her shocking free-thinking ways; he might urge her to do her duty, and cast off that odious reprobate who has disgraced himself and his family; and he might induce her to do justice to my dear girls and the two boys, who require and deserve, i am sure, every assistance which their relatives can give them." and, as the hatred of vice is always a progress towards virtue, mrs. bute crawley endeavoured to instil her sister-in-law a proper abhorrence for all rawdon crawley's manifold sins: of which his uncle's wife brought forward such a catalogue as indeed would have served to condemn a whole regiment of young officers. if a man has committed wrong in life, i don't know any moralist more anxious to point his errors out to the world than his own relations; so mrs. bute showed a perfect family interest and knowledge of rawdon's history. she had all the particulars of that ugly quarrel with captain marker, in which rawdon, wrong from the beginning, ended in shooting the captain. she knew how the unhappy lord dovedale, whose mamma had taken a house at oxford, so that he might be educated there, and who had never touched a card in his life till he came to london, was perverted by rawdon at the cocoa-tree, made helplessly tipsy by this abominable seducer and perverter of youth, and fleeced of four thousand pounds. she described with the most vivid minuteness the agonies of the country families whom he had ruined--the sons whom he had plunged into dishonour and poverty--the daughters whom he had inveigled into perdition. she knew the poor tradesmen who were bankrupt by his extravagance--the mean shifts and rogueries with which he had ministered to it--the astounding falsehoods by which he had imposed upon the most generous of aunts, and the ingratitude and ridicule by which he had repaid her sacrifices. she imparted these stories gradually to miss crawley; gave her the whole benefit of them; felt it to be her bounden duty as a christian woman and mother of a family to do so; had not the smallest remorse or compunction for the victim whom her tongue was immolating; nay, very likely thought her act was quite meritorious, and plumed herself upon her resolute manner of performing it. yes, if a man's character is to be abused, say what you will, there's nobody like a relation to do the business. and one is bound to own, regarding this unfortunate wretch of a rawdon crawley, that the mere truth was enough to condemn him, and that all inventions of scandal were quite superfluous pains on his friends' parts. rebecca, too, being now a relative, came in for the fullest share of mrs. bute's kind inquiries. this indefatigable pursuer of truth (having given strict orders that the door was to be denied to all emissaries or letters from rawdon), took miss crawley's carriage, and drove to her old friend miss pinkerton, at minerva house, chiswick mall, to whom she announced the dreadful intelligence of captain rawdon's seduction by miss sharp, and from whom she got sundry strange particulars regarding the ex-governess's birth and early history. the friend of the lexicographer had plenty of information to give. miss jemima was made to fetch the drawing-master's receipts and letters. this one was from a spunging-house: that entreated an advance: another was full of gratitude for rebecca's reception by the ladies of chiswick: and the last document from the unlucky artist's pen was that in which, from his dying bed, he recommended his orphan child to miss pinkerton's protection. there were juvenile letters and petitions from rebecca, too, in the collection, imploring aid for her father or declaring her own gratitude. perhaps in vanity fair there are no better satires than letters. take a bundle of your dear friend's of ten years back--your dear friend whom you hate now. look at a file of your sister's! how you clung to each other till you quarrelled about the twenty-pound legacy! get down the round-hand scrawls of your son who has half broken your heart with selfish undutifulness since; or a parcel of your own, breathing endless ardour and love eternal, which were sent back by your mistress when she married the nabob--your mistress for whom you now care no more than for queen elizabeth. vows, love, promises, confidences, gratitude, how queerly they read after a while! there ought to be a law in vanity fair ordering the destruction of every written document (except receipted tradesmen's bills) after a certain brief and proper interval. those quacks and misanthropes who advertise indelible japan ink should be made to perish along with their wicked discoveries. the best ink for vanity fair use would be one that faded utterly in a couple of days, and left the paper clean and blank, so that you might write on it to somebody else. from miss pinkerton's the indefatigable mrs. bute followed the track of sharp and his daughter back to the lodgings in greek street, which the defunct painter had occupied; and where portraits of the landlady in white satin, and of the husband in brass buttons, done by sharp in lieu of a quarter's rent, still decorated the parlour walls. mrs. stokes was a communicative person, and quickly told all she knew about mr. sharp; how dissolute and poor he was; how good-natured and amusing; how he was always hunted by bailiffs and duns; how, to the landlady's horror, though she never could abide the woman, he did not marry his wife till a short time before her death; and what a queer little wild vixen his daughter was; how she kept them all laughing with her fun and mimicry; how she used to fetch the gin from the public-house, and was known in all the studios in the quarter--in brief, mrs. bute got such a full account of her new niece's parentage, education, and behaviour as would scarcely have pleased rebecca, had the latter known that such inquiries were being made concerning her. of all these industrious researches miss crawley had the full benefit. mrs. rawdon crawley was the daughter of an opera-girl. she had danced herself. she had been a model to the painters. she was brought up as became her mother's daughter. she drank gin with her father, &c. &c. it was a lost woman who was married to a lost man; and the moral to be inferred from mrs. bute's tale was, that the knavery of the pair was irremediable, and that no properly conducted person should ever notice them again. these were the materials which prudent mrs. bute gathered together in park lane, the provisions and ammunition as it were with which she fortified the house against the siege which she knew that rawdon and his wife would lay to miss crawley. but if a fault may be found with her arrangements, it is this, that she was too eager: she managed rather too well; undoubtedly she made miss crawley more ill than was necessary; and though the old invalid succumbed to her authority, it was so harassing and severe, that the victim would be inclined to escape at the very first chance which fell in her way. managing women, the ornaments of their sex--women who order everything for everybody, and know so much better than any person concerned what is good for their neighbours, don't sometimes speculate upon the possibility of a domestic revolt, or upon other extreme consequences resulting from their overstrained authority. thus, for instance, mrs. bute, with the best intentions no doubt in the world, and wearing herself to death as she did by foregoing sleep, dinner, fresh air, for the sake of her invalid sister-in-law, carried her conviction of the old lady's illness so far that she almost managed her into her coffin. she pointed out her sacrifices and their results one day to the constant apothecary, mr. clump. "i am sure, my dear mr. clump," she said, "no efforts of mine have been wanting to restore our dear invalid, whom the ingratitude of her nephew has laid on the bed of sickness. i never shrink from personal discomfort: i never refuse to sacrifice myself." "your devotion, it must be confessed, is admirable," mr. clump says, with a low bow; "but--" "i have scarcely closed my eyes since my arrival: i give up sleep, health, every comfort, to my sense of duty. when my poor james was in the smallpox, did i allow any hireling to nurse him? no." "you did what became an excellent mother, my dear madam--the best of mothers; but--" "as the mother of a family and the wife of an english clergyman, i humbly trust that my principles are good," mrs. bute said, with a happy solemnity of conviction; "and, as long as nature supports me, never, never, mr. clump, will i desert the post of duty. others may bring that grey head with sorrow to the bed of sickness (here mrs. bute, waving her hand, pointed to one of old miss crawley's coffee-coloured fronts, which was perched on a stand in the dressing-room), but i will never quit it. ah, mr. clump! i fear, i know, that the couch needs spiritual as well as medical consolation." "what i was going to observe, my dear madam,"--here the resolute clump once more interposed with a bland air--"what i was going to observe when you gave utterance to sentiments which do you so much honour, was that i think you alarm yourself needlessly about our kind friend, and sacrifice your own health too prodigally in her favour." "i would lay down my life for my duty, or for any member of my husband's family," mrs. bute interposed. "yes, madam, if need were; but we don't want mrs bute crawley to be a martyr," clump said gallantly. "dr squills and myself have both considered miss crawley's case with every anxiety and care, as you may suppose. we see her low-spirited and nervous; family events have agitated her." "her nephew will come to perdition," mrs. crawley cried. "have agitated her: and you arrived like a guardian angel, my dear madam, a positive guardian angel, i assure you, to soothe her under the pressure of calamity. but dr. squills and i were thinking that our amiable friend is not in such a state as renders confinement to her bed necessary. she is depressed, but this confinement perhaps adds to her depression. she should have change, fresh air, gaiety; the most delightful remedies in the pharmacopoeia," mr. clump said, grinning and showing his handsome teeth. "persuade her to rise, dear madam; drag her from her couch and her low spirits; insist upon her taking little drives. they will restore the roses too to your cheeks, if i may so speak to mrs. bute crawley." "the sight of her horrid nephew casually in the park, where i am told the wretch drives with the brazen partner of his crimes," mrs. bute said (letting the cat of selfishness out of the bag of secrecy), "would cause her such a shock, that we should have to bring her back to bed again. she must not go out, mr. clump. she shall not go out as long as i remain to watch over her; and as for my health, what matters it? i give it cheerfully, sir. i sacrifice it at the altar of my duty." "upon my word, madam," mr. clump now said bluntly, "i won't answer for her life if she remains locked up in that dark room. she is so nervous that we may lose her any day; and if you wish captain crawley to be her heir, i warn you frankly, madam, that you are doing your very best to serve him." "gracious mercy! is her life in danger?" mrs. bute cried. "why, why, mr. clump, did you not inform me sooner?" the night before, mr. clump and dr. squills had had a consultation (over a bottle of wine at the house of sir lapin warren, whose lady was about to present him with a thirteenth blessing), regarding miss crawley and her case. "what a little harpy that woman from hampshire is, clump," squills remarked, "that has seized upon old tilly crawley. devilish good madeira." "what a fool rawdon crawley has been," clump replied, "to go and marry a governess! there was something about the girl, too." "green eyes, fair skin, pretty figure, famous frontal development," squills remarked. "there is something about her; and crawley was a fool, squills." "a d---- fool--always was," the apothecary replied. "of course the old girl will fling him over," said the physician, and after a pause added, "she'll cut up well, i suppose." "cut up," says clump with a grin; "i wouldn't have her cut up for two hundred a year." "that hampshire woman will kill her in two months, clump, my boy, if she stops about her," dr. squills said. "old woman; full feeder; nervous subject; palpitation of the heart; pressure on the brain; apoplexy; off she goes. get her up, clump; get her out: or i wouldn't give many weeks' purchase for your two hundred a year." and it was acting upon this hint that the worthy apothecary spoke with so much candour to mrs. bute crawley. having the old lady under her hand: in bed: with nobody near, mrs. bute had made more than one assault upon her, to induce her to alter her will. but miss crawley's usual terrors regarding death increased greatly when such dismal propositions were made to her, and mrs. bute saw that she must get her patient into cheerful spirits and health before she could hope to attain the pious object which she had in view. whither to take her was the next puzzle. the only place where she is not likely to meet those odious rawdons is at church, and that won't amuse her, mrs. bute justly felt. "we must go and visit our beautiful suburbs of london," she then thought. "i hear they are the most picturesque in the world"; and so she had a sudden interest for hampstead, and hornsey, and found that dulwich had great charms for her, and getting her victim into her carriage, drove her to those rustic spots, beguiling the little journeys with conversations about rawdon and his wife, and telling every story to the old lady which could add to her indignation against this pair of reprobates. perhaps mrs. bute pulled the string unnecessarily tight. for though she worked up miss crawley to a proper dislike of her disobedient nephew, the invalid had a great hatred and secret terror of her victimizer, and panted to escape from her. after a brief space, she rebelled against highgate and hornsey utterly. she would go into the park. mrs. bute knew they would meet the abominable rawdon there, and she was right. one day in the ring, rawdon's stanhope came in sight; rebecca was seated by him. in the enemy's equipage miss crawley occupied her usual place, with mrs. bute on her left, the poodle and miss briggs on the back seat. it was a nervous moment, and rebecca's heart beat quick as she recognized the carriage; and as the two vehicles crossed each other in a line, she clasped her hands, and looked towards the spinster with a face of agonized attachment and devotion. rawdon himself trembled, and his face grew purple behind his dyed mustachios. only old briggs was moved in the other carriage, and cast her great eyes nervously towards her old friends. miss crawley's bonnet was resolutely turned towards the serpentine. mrs. bute happened to be in ecstasies with the poodle, and was calling him a little darling, and a sweet little zoggy, and a pretty pet. the carriages moved on, each in his line. "done, by jove," rawdon said to his wife. "try once more, rawdon," rebecca answered. "could not you lock your wheels into theirs, dearest?" rawdon had not the heart for that manoeuvre. when the carriages met again, he stood up in his stanhope; he raised his hand ready to doff his hat; he looked with all his eyes. but this time miss crawley's face was not turned away; she and mrs. bute looked him full in the face, and cut their nephew pitilessly. he sank back in his seat with an oath, and striking out of the ring, dashed away desperately homewards. it was a gallant and decided triumph for mrs. bute. but she felt the danger of many such meetings, as she saw the evident nervousness of miss crawley; and she determined that it was most necessary for her dear friend's health, that they should leave town for a while, and recommended brighton very strongly. chapter xx in which captain dobbin acts as the messenger of hymen without knowing how, captain william dobbin found himself the great promoter, arranger, and manager of the match between george osborne and amelia. but for him it never would have taken place: he could not but confess as much to himself, and smiled rather bitterly as he thought that he of all men in the world should be the person upon whom the care of this marriage had fallen. but though indeed the conducting of this negotiation was about as painful a task as could be set to him, yet when he had a duty to perform, captain dobbin was accustomed to go through it without many words or much hesitation: and, having made up his mind completely, that if miss sedley was balked of her husband she would die of the disappointment, he was determined to use all his best endeavours to keep her alive. i forbear to enter into minute particulars of the interview between george and amelia, when the former was brought back to the feet (or should we venture to say the arms?) of his young mistress by the intervention of his friend honest william. a much harder heart than george's would have melted at the sight of that sweet face so sadly ravaged by grief and despair, and at the simple tender accents in which she told her little broken-hearted story: but as she did not faint when her mother, trembling, brought osborne to her; and as she only gave relief to her overcharged grief, by laying her head on her lover's shoulder and there weeping for a while the most tender, copious, and refreshing tears--old mrs. sedley, too greatly relieved, thought it was best to leave the young persons to themselves; and so quitted emmy crying over george's hand, and kissing it humbly, as if he were her supreme chief and master, and as if she were quite a guilty and unworthy person needing every favour and grace from him. this prostration and sweet unrepining obedience exquisitely touched and flattered george osborne. he saw a slave before him in that simple yielding faithful creature, and his soul within him thrilled secretly somehow at the knowledge of his power. he would be generous-minded, sultan as he was, and raise up this kneeling esther and make a queen of her: besides, her sadness and beauty touched him as much as her submission, and so he cheered her, and raised her up and forgave her, so to speak. all her hopes and feelings, which were dying and withering, this her sun having been removed from her, bloomed again and at once, its light being restored. you would scarcely have recognised the beaming little face upon amelia's pillow that night as the one that was laid there the night before, so wan, so lifeless, so careless of all round about. the honest irish maid-servant, delighted with the change, asked leave to kiss the face that had grown all of a sudden so rosy. amelia put her arms round the girl's neck and kissed her with all her heart, like a child. she was little more. she had that night a sweet refreshing sleep, like one--and what a spring of inexpressible happiness as she woke in the morning sunshine! "he will be here again to-day," amelia thought. "he is the greatest and best of men." and the fact is, that george thought he was one of the generousest creatures alive: and that he was making a tremendous sacrifice in marrying this young creature. while she and osborne were having their delightful tete-a-tete above stairs, old mrs. sedley and captain dobbin were conversing below upon the state of the affairs, and the chances and future arrangements of the young people. mrs. sedley having brought the two lovers together and left them embracing each other with all their might, like a true woman, was of opinion that no power on earth would induce mr. sedley to consent to the match between his daughter and the son of a man who had so shamefully, wickedly, and monstrously treated him. and she told a long story about happier days and their earlier splendours, when osborne lived in a very humble way in the new road, and his wife was too glad to receive some of jos's little baby things, with which mrs. sedley accommodated her at the birth of one of osborne's own children. the fiendish ingratitude of that man, she was sure, had broken mr. s.'s heart: and as for a marriage, he would never, never, never, never consent. "they must run away together, ma'am," dobbin said, laughing, "and follow the example of captain rawdon crawley, and miss emmy's friend the little governess." was it possible? well she never! mrs. sedley was all excitement about this news. she wished that blenkinsop were here to hear it: blenkinsop always mistrusted that miss sharp.-- what an escape jos had had! and she described the already well-known love-passages between rebecca and the collector of boggley wollah. it was not, however, mr. sedley's wrath which dobbin feared, so much as that of the other parent concerned, and he owned that he had a very considerable doubt and anxiety respecting the behaviour of the black-browed old tyrant of a russia merchant in russell square. he has forbidden the match peremptorily, dobbin thought. he knew what a savage determined man osborne was, and how he stuck by his word. "the only chance george has of reconcilement," argued his friend, "is by distinguishing himself in the coming campaign. if he dies they both go together. if he fails in distinction--what then? he has some money from his mother, i have heard enough to purchase his majority--or he must sell out and go and dig in canada, or rough it in a cottage in the country." with such a partner dobbin thought he would not mind siberia--and, strange to say, this absurd and utterly imprudent young fellow never for a moment considered that the want of means to keep a nice carriage and horses, and of an income which should enable its possessors to entertain their friends genteelly, ought to operate as bars to the union of george and miss sedley. it was these weighty considerations which made him think too that the marriage should take place as quickly as possible. was he anxious himself, i wonder, to have it over?--as people, when death has occurred, like to press forward the funeral, or when a parting is resolved upon, hasten it. it is certain that mr. dobbin, having taken the matter in hand, was most extraordinarily eager in the conduct of it. he urged on george the necessity of immediate action: he showed the chances of reconciliation with his father, which a favourable mention of his name in the gazette must bring about. if need were he would go himself and brave both the fathers in the business. at all events, he besought george to go through with it before the orders came, which everybody expected, for the departure of the regiment from england on foreign service. bent upon these hymeneal projects, and with the applause and consent of mrs. sedley, who did not care to break the matter personally to her husband, mr. dobbin went to seek john sedley at his house of call in the city, the tapioca coffee-house, where, since his own offices were shut up, and fate had overtaken him, the poor broken-down old gentleman used to betake himself daily, and write letters and receive them, and tie them up into mysterious bundles, several of which he carried in the flaps of his coat. i don't know anything more dismal than that business and bustle and mystery of a ruined man: those letters from the wealthy which he shows you: those worn greasy documents promising support and offering condolence which he places wistfully before you, and on which he builds his hopes of restoration and future fortune. my beloved reader has no doubt in the course of his experience been waylaid by many such a luckless companion. he takes you into the corner; he has his bundle of papers out of his gaping coat pocket; and the tape off, and the string in his mouth, and the favourite letters selected and laid before you; and who does not know the sad eager half-crazy look which he fixes on you with his hopeless eyes? changed into a man of this sort, dobbin found the once florid, jovial, and prosperous john sedley. his coat, that used to be so glossy and trim, was white at the seams, and the buttons showed the copper. his face had fallen in, and was unshorn; his frill and neckcloth hung limp under his bagging waistcoat. when he used to treat the boys in old days at a coffee-house, he would shout and laugh louder than anybody there, and have all the waiters skipping round him; it was quite painful to see how humble and civil he was to john of the tapioca, a blear-eyed old attendant in dingy stockings and cracked pumps, whose business it was to serve glasses of wafers, and bumpers of ink in pewter, and slices of paper to the frequenters of this dreary house of entertainment, where nothing else seemed to be consumed. as for william dobbin, whom he had tipped repeatedly in his youth, and who had been the old gentleman's butt on a thousand occasions, old sedley gave his hand to him in a very hesitating humble manner now, and called him "sir." a feeling of shame and remorse took possession of william dobbin as the broken old man so received and addressed him, as if he himself had been somehow guilty of the misfortunes which had brought sedley so low. "i am very glad to see you, captain dobbin, sir," says he, after a skulking look or two at his visitor (whose lanky figure and military appearance caused some excitement likewise to twinkle in the blear eyes of the waiter in the cracked dancing pumps, and awakened the old lady in black, who dozed among the mouldy old coffee-cups in the bar). "how is the worthy alderman, and my lady, your excellent mother, sir?" he looked round at the waiter as he said, "my lady," as much as to say, "hark ye, john, i have friends still, and persons of rank and reputation, too." "are you come to do anything in my way, sir? my young friends dale and spiggot do all my business for me now, until my new offices are ready; for i'm only here temporarily, you know, captain. what can we do for you, sir? will you like to take anything?" dobbin, with a great deal of hesitation and stuttering, protested that he was not in the least hungry or thirsty; that he had no business to transact; that he only came to ask if mr. sedley was well, and to shake hands with an old friend; and, he added, with a desperate perversion of truth, "my mother is very well--that is, she's been very unwell, and is only waiting for the first fine day to go out and call upon mrs. sedley. how is mrs. sedley, sir? i hope she's quite well." and here he paused, reflecting on his own consummate hypocrisy; for the day was as fine, and the sunshine as bright as it ever is in coffin court, where the tapioca coffee-house is situated: and mr. dobbin remembered that he had seen mrs. sedley himself only an hour before, having driven osborne down to fulham in his gig, and left him there tete-a-tete with miss amelia. "my wife will be very happy to see her ladyship," sedley replied, pulling out his papers. "i've a very kind letter here from your father, sir, and beg my respectful compliments to him. lady d. will find us in rather a smaller house than we were accustomed to receive our friends in; but it's snug, and the change of air does good to my daughter, who was suffering in town rather--you remember little emmy, sir?--yes, suffering a good deal." the old gentleman's eyes were wandering as he spoke, and he was thinking of something else, as he sate thrumming on his papers and fumbling at the worn red tape. "you're a military man," he went on; "i ask you, bill dobbin, could any man ever have speculated upon the return of that corsican scoundrel from elba? when the allied sovereigns were here last year, and we gave 'em that dinner in the city, sir, and we saw the temple of concord, and the fireworks, and the chinese bridge in st. james's park, could any sensible man suppose that peace wasn't really concluded, after we'd actually sung te deum for it, sir? i ask you, william, could i suppose that the emperor of austria was a damned traitor--a traitor, and nothing more? i don't mince words--a double-faced infernal traitor and schemer, who meant to have his son-in-law back all along. and i say that the escape of boney from elba was a damned imposition and plot, sir, in which half the powers of europe were concerned, to bring the funds down, and to ruin this country. that's why i'm here, william. that's why my name's in the gazette. why, sir?--because i trusted the emperor of russia and the prince regent. look here. look at my papers. look what the funds were on the st of march--what the french fives were when i bought for the count. and what they're at now. there was collusion, sir, or that villain never would have escaped. where was the english commissioner who allowed him to get away? he ought to be shot, sir--brought to a court-martial, and shot, by jove." "we're going to hunt boney out, sir," dobbin said, rather alarmed at the fury of the old man, the veins of whose forehead began to swell, and who sate drumming his papers with his clenched fist. "we are going to hunt him out, sir--the duke's in belgium already, and we expect marching orders every day." "give him no quarter. bring back the villain's head, sir. shoot the coward down, sir," sedley roared. "i'd enlist myself, by--; but i'm a broken old man--ruined by that damned scoundrel--and by a parcel of swindling thieves in this country whom i made, sir, and who are rolling in their carriages now," he added, with a break in his voice. dobbin was not a little affected by the sight of this once kind old friend, crazed almost with misfortune and raving with senile anger. pity the fallen gentleman: you to whom money and fair repute are the chiefest good; and so, surely, are they in vanity fair. "yes," he continued, "there are some vipers that you warm, and they sting you afterwards. there are some beggars that you put on horseback, and they're the first to ride you down. you know whom i mean, william dobbin, my boy. i mean a purse-proud villain in russell square, whom i knew without a shilling, and whom i pray and hope to see a beggar as he was when i befriended him." "i have heard something of this, sir, from my friend george," dobbin said, anxious to come to his point. "the quarrel between you and his father has cut him up a great deal, sir. indeed, i'm the bearer of a message from him." "o, that's your errand, is it?" cried the old man, jumping up. "what! perhaps he condoles with me, does he? very kind of him, the stiff-backed prig, with his dandified airs and west end swagger. he's hankering about my house, is he still? if my son had the courage of a man, he'd shoot him. he's as big a villain as his father. i won't have his name mentioned in my house. i curse the day that ever i let him into it; and i'd rather see my daughter dead at my feet than married to him." "his father's harshness is not george's fault, sir. your daughter's love for him is as much your doing as his. who are you, that you are to play with two young people's affections and break their hearts at your will?" "recollect it's not his father that breaks the match off," old sedley cried out. "it's i that forbid it. that family and mine are separated for ever. i'm fallen low, but not so low as that: no, no. and so you may tell the whole race--son, and father and sisters, and all." "it's my belief, sir, that you have not the power or the right to separate those two," dobbin answered in a low voice; "and that if you don't give your daughter your consent it will be her duty to marry without it. there's no reason she should die or live miserably because you are wrong-headed. to my thinking, she's just as much married as if the banns had been read in all the churches in london. and what better answer can there be to osborne's charges against you, as charges there are, than that his son claims to enter your family and marry your daughter?" a light of something like satisfaction seemed to break over old sedley as this point was put to him: but he still persisted that with his consent the marriage between amelia and george should never take place. "we must do it without," dobbin said, smiling, and told mr. sedley, as he had told mrs. sedley in the day, before, the story of rebecca's elopement with captain crawley. it evidently amused the old gentleman. "you're terrible fellows, you captains," said he, tying up his papers; and his face wore something like a smile upon it, to the astonishment of the blear-eyed waiter who now entered, and had never seen such an expression upon sedley's countenance since he had used the dismal coffee-house. the idea of hitting his enemy osborne such a blow soothed, perhaps, the old gentleman: and, their colloquy presently ending, he and dobbin parted pretty good friends. "my sisters say she has diamonds as big as pigeons' eggs," george said, laughing. "how they must set off her complexion! a perfect illumination it must be when her jewels are on her neck. her jet-black hair is as curly as sambo's. i dare say she wore a nose ring when she went to court; and with a plume of feathers in her top-knot she would look a perfect belle sauvage." george, in conversation with amelia, was rallying the appearance of a young lady of whom his father and sisters had lately made the acquaintance, and who was an object of vast respect to the russell square family. she was reported to have i don't know how many plantations in the west indies; a deal of money in the funds; and three stars to her name in the east india stockholders' list. she had a mansion in surrey, and a house in portland place. the name of the rich west india heiress had been mentioned with applause in the morning post. mrs. haggistoun, colonel haggistoun's widow, her relative, "chaperoned" her, and kept her house. she was just from school, where she had completed her education, and george and his sisters had met her at an evening party at old hulker's house, devonshire place (hulker, bullock, and co. were long the correspondents of her house in the west indies), and the girls had made the most cordial advances to her, which the heiress had received with great good humour. an orphan in her position--with her money--so interesting! the misses osborne said. they were full of their new friend when they returned from the hulker ball to miss wirt, their companion; they had made arrangements for continually meeting, and had the carriage and drove to see her the very next day. mrs. haggistoun, colonel haggistoun's widow, a relation of lord binkie, and always talking of him, struck the dear unsophisticated girls as rather haughty, and too much inclined to talk about her great relations: but rhoda was everything they could wish--the frankest, kindest, most agreeable creature--wanting a little polish, but so good-natured. the girls christian-named each other at once. "you should have seen her dress for court, emmy," osborne cried, laughing. "she came to my sisters to show it off, before she was presented in state by my lady binkie, the haggistoun's kinswoman. she's related to every one, that haggistoun. her diamonds blazed out like vauxhall on the night we were there. (do you remember vauxhall, emmy, and jos singing to his dearest diddle diddle darling?) diamonds and mahogany, my dear! think what an advantageous contrast--and the white feathers in her hair--i mean in her wool. she had earrings like chandeliers; you might have lighted 'em up, by jove--and a yellow satin train that streeled after her like the tail of a comet." "how old is she?" asked emmy, to whom george was rattling away regarding this dark paragon, on the morning of their reunion--rattling away as no other man in the world surely could. "why the black princess, though she has only just left school, must be two or three and twenty. and you should see the hand she writes! mrs. colonel haggistoun usually writes her letters, but in a moment of confidence, she put pen to paper for my sisters; she spelt satin satting, and saint james's, saint jams." "why, surely it must be miss swartz, the parlour boarder," emmy said, remembering that good-natured young mulatto girl, who had been so hysterically affected when amelia left miss pinkerton's academy. "the very name," george said. "her father was a german jew--a slave-owner they say--connected with the cannibal islands in some way or other. he died last year, and miss pinkerton has finished her education. she can play two pieces on the piano; she knows three songs; she can write when mrs. haggistoun is by to spell for her; and jane and maria already have got to love her as a sister." "i wish they would have loved me," said emmy, wistfully. "they were always very cold to me." "my dear child, they would have loved you if you had had two hundred thousand pounds," george replied. "that is the way in which they have been brought up. ours is a ready-money society. we live among bankers and city big-wigs, and be hanged to them, and every man, as he talks to you, is jingling his guineas in his pocket. there is that jackass fred bullock is going to marry maria--there's goldmore, the east india director, there's dipley, in the tallow trade--our trade," george said, with an uneasy laugh and a blush. "curse the whole pack of money-grubbing vulgarians! i fall asleep at their great heavy dinners. i feel ashamed in my father's great stupid parties. i've been accustomed to live with gentlemen, and men of the world and fashion, emmy, not with a parcel of turtle-fed tradesmen. dear little woman, you are the only person of our set who ever looked, or thought, or spoke like a lady: and you do it because you're an angel and can't help it. don't remonstrate. you are the only lady. didn't miss crawley remark it, who has lived in the best company in europe? and as for crawley, of the life guards, hang it, he's a fine fellow: and i like him for marrying the girl he had chosen." amelia admired mr. crawley very much, too, for this; and trusted rebecca would be happy with him, and hoped (with a laugh) jos would be consoled. and so the pair went on prattling, as in quite early days. amelia's confidence being perfectly restored to her, though she expressed a great deal of pretty jealousy about miss swartz, and professed to be dreadfully frightened--like a hypocrite as she was--lest george should forget her for the heiress and her money and her estates in saint kitt's. but the fact is, she was a great deal too happy to have fears or doubts or misgivings of any sort: and having george at her side again, was not afraid of any heiress or beauty, or indeed of any sort of danger. when captain dobbin came back in the afternoon to these people--which he did with a great deal of sympathy for them--it did his heart good to see how amelia had grown young again--how she laughed, and chirped, and sang familiar old songs at the piano, which were only interrupted by the bell from without proclaiming mr. sedley's return from the city, before whom george received a signal to retreat. beyond the first smile of recognition--and even that was an hypocrisy, for she thought his arrival rather provoking--miss sedley did not once notice dobbin during his visit. but he was content, so that he saw her happy; and thankful to have been the means of making her so. chapter xxi a quarrel about an heiress love may be felt for any young lady endowed with such qualities as miss swartz possessed; and a great dream of ambition entered into old mr. osborne's soul, which she was to realize. he encouraged, with the utmost enthusiasm and friendliness, his daughters' amiable attachment to the young heiress, and protested that it gave him the sincerest pleasure as a father to see the love of his girls so well disposed. "you won't find," he would say to miss rhoda, "that splendour and rank to which you are accustomed at the west end, my dear miss, at our humble mansion in russell square. my daughters are plain, disinterested girls, but their hearts are in the right place, and they've conceived an attachment for you which does them honour--i say, which does them honour. i'm a plain, simple, humble british merchant--an honest one, as my respected friends hulker and bullock will vouch, who were the correspondents of your late lamented father. you'll find us a united, simple, happy, and i think i may say respected, family--a plain table, a plain people, but a warm welcome, my dear miss rhoda--rhoda, let me say, for my heart warms to you, it does really. i'm a frank man, and i like you. a glass of champagne! hicks, champagne to miss swartz." there is little doubt that old osborne believed all he said, and that the girls were quite earnest in their protestations of affection for miss swartz. people in vanity fair fasten on to rich folks quite naturally. if the simplest people are disposed to look not a little kindly on great prosperity (for i defy any member of the british public to say that the notion of wealth has not something awful and pleasing to him; and you, if you are told that the man next you at dinner has got half a million, not to look at him with a certain interest)--if the simple look benevolently on money, how much more do your old worldlings regard it! their affections rush out to meet and welcome money. their kind sentiments awaken spontaneously towards the interesting possessors of it. i know some respectable people who don't consider themselves at liberty to indulge in friendship for any individual who has not a certain competency, or place in society. they give a loose to their feelings on proper occasions. and the proof is, that the major part of the osborne family, who had not, in fifteen years, been able to get up a hearty regard for amelia sedley, became as fond of miss swartz in the course of a single evening as the most romantic advocate of friendship at first sight could desire. what a match for george she'd be (the sisters and miss wirt agreed), and how much better than that insignificant little amelia! such a dashing young fellow as he is, with his good looks, rank, and accomplishments, would be the very husband for her. visions of balls in portland place, presentations at court, and introductions to half the peerage, filled the minds of the young ladies; who talked of nothing but george and his grand acquaintances to their beloved new friend. old osborne thought she would be a great match, too, for his son. he should leave the army; he should go into parliament; he should cut a figure in the fashion and in the state. his blood boiled with honest british exultation, as he saw the name of osborne ennobled in the person of his son, and thought that he might be the progenitor of a glorious line of baronets. he worked in the city and on 'change, until he knew everything relating to the fortune of the heiress, how her money was placed, and where her estates lay. young fred bullock, one of his chief informants, would have liked to make a bid for her himself (it was so the young banker expressed it), only he was booked to maria osborne. but not being able to secure her as a wife, the disinterested fred quite approved of her as a sister-in-law. "let george cut in directly and win her," was his advice. "strike while the iron's hot, you know--while she's fresh to the town: in a few weeks some d---- fellow from the west end will come in with a title and a rotten rent-roll and cut all us city men out, as lord fitzrufus did last year with miss grogram, who was actually engaged to podder, of podder & brown's. the sooner it is done the better, mr. osborne; them's my sentiments," the wag said; though, when osborne had left the bank parlour, mr. bullock remembered amelia, and what a pretty girl she was, and how attached to george osborne; and he gave up at least ten seconds of his valuable time to regretting the misfortune which had befallen that unlucky young woman. while thus george osborne's good feelings, and his good friend and genius, dobbin, were carrying back the truant to amelia's feet, george's parent and sisters were arranging this splendid match for him, which they never dreamed he would resist. when the elder osborne gave what he called "a hint," there was no possibility for the most obtuse to mistake his meaning. he called kicking a footman downstairs a hint to the latter to leave his service. with his usual frankness and delicacy he told mrs. haggistoun that he would give her a cheque for five thousand pounds on the day his son was married to her ward; and called that proposal a hint, and considered it a very dexterous piece of diplomacy. he gave george finally such another hint regarding the heiress; and ordered him to marry her out of hand, as he would have ordered his butler to draw a cork, or his clerk to write a letter. this imperative hint disturbed george a good deal. he was in the very first enthusiasm and delight of his second courtship of amelia, which was inexpressibly sweet to him. the contrast of her manners and appearance with those of the heiress, made the idea of a union with the latter appear doubly ludicrous and odious. carriages and opera-boxes, thought he; fancy being seen in them by the side of such a mahogany charmer as that! add to all that the junior osborne was quite as obstinate as the senior: when he wanted a thing, quite as firm in his resolution to get it; and quite as violent when angered, as his father in his most stern moments. on the first day when his father formally gave him the hint that he was to place his affections at miss swartz's feet, george temporised with the old gentleman. "you should have thought of the matter sooner, sir," he said. "it can't be done now, when we're expecting every day to go on foreign service. wait till my return, if i do return"; and then he represented, that the time when the regiment was daily expecting to quit england, was exceedingly ill-chosen: that the few days or weeks during which they were still to remain at home, must be devoted to business and not to love-making: time enough for that when he came home with his majority; "for, i promise you," said he, with a satisfied air, "that one way or other you shall read the name of george osborne in the gazette." the father's reply to this was founded upon the information which he had got in the city: that the west end chaps would infallibly catch hold of the heiress if any delay took place: that if he didn't marry miss s., he might at least have an engagement in writing, to come into effect when he returned to england; and that a man who could get ten thousand a year by staying at home, was a fool to risk his life abroad. "so that you would have me shown up as a coward, sir, and our name dishonoured for the sake of miss swartz's money," george interposed. this remark staggered the old gentleman; but as he had to reply to it, and as his mind was nevertheless made up, he said, "you will dine here to-morrow, sir, and every day miss swartz comes, you will be here to pay your respects to her. if you want for money, call upon mr. chopper." thus a new obstacle was in george's way, to interfere with his plans regarding amelia; and about which he and dobbin had more than one confidential consultation. his friend's opinion respecting the line of conduct which he ought to pursue, we know already. and as for osborne, when he was once bent on a thing, a fresh obstacle or two only rendered him the more resolute. the dark object of the conspiracy into which the chiefs of the osborne family had entered, was quite ignorant of all their plans regarding her (which, strange to say, her friend and chaperon did not divulge), and, taking all the young ladies' flattery for genuine sentiment, and being, as we have before had occasion to show, of a very warm and impetuous nature, responded to their affection with quite a tropical ardour. and if the truth may be told, i dare say that she too had some selfish attraction in the russell square house; and in a word, thought george osborne a very nice young man. his whiskers had made an impression upon her, on the very first night she beheld them at the ball at messrs. hulkers; and, as we know, she was not the first woman who had been charmed by them. george had an air at once swaggering and melancholy, languid and fierce. he looked like a man who had passions, secrets, and private harrowing griefs and adventures. his voice was rich and deep. he would say it was a warm evening, or ask his partner to take an ice, with a tone as sad and confidential as if he were breaking her mother's death to her, or preluding a declaration of love. he trampled over all the young bucks of his father's circle, and was the hero among those third-rate men. some few sneered at him and hated him. some, like dobbin, fanatically admired him. and his whiskers had begun to do their work, and to curl themselves round the affections of miss swartz. whenever there was a chance of meeting him in russell square, that simple and good-natured young woman was quite in a flurry to see her dear misses osborne. she went to great expenses in new gowns, and bracelets, and bonnets, and in prodigious feathers. she adorned her person with her utmost skill to please the conqueror, and exhibited all her simple accomplishments to win his favour. the girls would ask her, with the greatest gravity, for a little music, and she would sing her three songs and play her two little pieces as often as ever they asked, and with an always increasing pleasure to herself. during these delectable entertainments, miss wirt and the chaperon sate by, and conned over the peerage, and talked about the nobility. the day after george had his hint from his father, and a short time before the hour of dinner, he was lolling upon a sofa in the drawing-room in a very becoming and perfectly natural attitude of melancholy. he had been, at his father's request, to mr. chopper in the city (the old gentleman, though he gave great sums to his son, would never specify any fixed allowance for him, and rewarded him only as he was in the humour). he had then been to pass three hours with amelia, his dear little amelia, at fulham; and he came home to find his sisters spread in starched muslin in the drawing-room, the dowagers cackling in the background, and honest swartz in her favourite amber-coloured satin, with turquoise bracelets, countless rings, flowers, feathers, and all sorts of tags and gimcracks, about as elegantly decorated as a she chimney-sweep on may-day. the girls, after vain attempts to engage him in conversation, talked about fashions and the last drawing-room until he was perfectly sick of their chatter. he contrasted their behaviour with little emmy's--their shrill voices with her tender ringing tones; their attitudes and their elbows and their starch, with her humble soft movements and modest graces. poor swartz was seated in a place where emmy had been accustomed to sit. her bejewelled hands lay sprawling in her amber satin lap. her tags and ear-rings twinkled, and her big eyes rolled about. she was doing nothing with perfect contentment, and thinking herself charming. anything so becoming as the satin the sisters had never seen. "dammy," george said to a confidential friend, "she looked like a china doll, which has nothing to do all day but to grin and wag its head. by jove, will, it was all i i could do to prevent myself from throwing the sofa-cushion at her." he restrained that exhibition of sentiment, however. the sisters began to play the battle of prague. "stop that d---- thing," george howled out in a fury from the sofa. "it makes me mad. you play us something, miss swartz, do. sing something, anything but the battle of prague." "shall i sing 'blue eyed mary' or the air from the cabinet?" miss swartz asked. "that sweet thing from the cabinet," the sisters said. "we've had that," replied the misanthrope on the sofa. "i can sing 'fluvy du tajy,'" swartz said, in a meek voice, "if i had the words." it was the last of the worthy young woman's collection. "o, 'fleuve du tage,'" miss maria cried; "we have the song," and went off to fetch the book in which it was. now it happened that this song, then in the height of the fashion, had been given to the young ladies by a young friend of theirs, whose name was on the title, and miss swartz, having concluded the ditty with george's applause (for he remembered that it was a favourite of amelia's), was hoping for an encore perhaps, and fiddling with the leaves of the music, when her eye fell upon the title, and she saw "amelia sedley" written in the comer. "lor!" cried miss swartz, spinning swiftly round on the music-stool, "is it my amelia? amelia that was at miss p.'s at hammersmith? i know it is. it's her, and-- tell me about her--where is she?" "don't mention her," miss maria osborne said hastily. "her family has disgraced itself. her father cheated papa, and as for her, she is never to be mentioned here." this was miss maria's return for george's rudeness about the battle of prague. "are you a friend of amelia's?" george said, bouncing up. "god bless you for it, miss swartz. don't believe what the girls say. she's not to blame at any rate. she's the best--" "you know you're not to speak about her, george," cried jane. "papa forbids it." "who's to prevent me?" george cried out. "i will speak of her. i say she's the best, the kindest, the gentlest, the sweetest girl in england; and that, bankrupt or no, my sisters are not fit to hold candles to her. if you like her, go and see her, miss swartz; she wants friends now; and i say, god bless everybody who befriends her. anybody who speaks kindly of her is my friend; anybody who speaks against her is my enemy. thank you, miss swartz"; and he went up and wrung her hand. "george! george!" one of the sisters cried imploringly. "i say," george said fiercely, "i thank everybody who loves amelia sed--" he stopped. old osborne was in the room with a face livid with rage, and eyes like hot coals. though george had stopped in his sentence, yet, his blood being up, he was not to be cowed by all the generations of osborne; rallying instantly, he replied to the bullying look of his father, with another so indicative of resolution and defiance that the elder man quailed in his turn, and looked away. he felt that the tussle was coming. "mrs. haggistoun, let me take you down to dinner," he said. "give your arm to miss swartz, george," and they marched. "miss swartz, i love amelia, and we've been engaged almost all our lives," osborne said to his partner; and during all the dinner, george rattled on with a volubility which surprised himself, and made his father doubly nervous for the fight which was to take place as soon as the ladies were gone. the difference between the pair was, that while the father was violent and a bully, the son had thrice the nerve and courage of the parent, and could not merely make an attack, but resist it; and finding that the moment was now come when the contest between him and his father was to be decided, he took his dinner with perfect coolness and appetite before the engagement began. old osborne, on the contrary, was nervous, and drank much. he floundered in his conversation with the ladies, his neighbours: george's coolness only rendering him more angry. it made him half mad to see the calm way in which george, flapping his napkin, and with a swaggering bow, opened the door for the ladies to leave the room; and filling himself a glass of wine, smacked it, and looked his father full in the face, as if to say, "gentlemen of the guard, fire first." the old man also took a supply of ammunition, but his decanter clinked against the glass as he tried to fill it. after giving a great heave, and with a purple choking face, he then began. "how dare you, sir, mention that person's name before miss swartz to-day, in my drawing-room? i ask you, sir, how dare you do it?" "stop, sir," says george, "don't say dare, sir. dare isn't a word to be used to a captain in the british army." "i shall say what i like to my son, sir. i can cut him off with a shilling if i like. i can make him a beggar if i like. i will say what i like," the elder said. "i'm a gentleman though i am your son, sir," george answered haughtily. "any communications which you have to make to me, or any orders which you may please to give, i beg may be couched in that kind of language which i am accustomed to hear." whenever the lad assumed his haughty manner, it always created either great awe or great irritation in the parent. old osborne stood in secret terror of his son as a better gentleman than himself; and perhaps my readers may have remarked in their experience of this vanity fair of ours, that there is no character which a low-minded man so much mistrusts as that of a gentleman. "my father didn't give me the education you have had, nor the advantages you have had, nor the money you have had. if i had kept the company some folks have had through my means, perhaps my son wouldn't have any reason to brag, sir, of his superiority and west end airs (these words were uttered in the elder osborne's most sarcastic tones). but it wasn't considered the part of a gentleman, in my time, for a man to insult his father. if i'd done any such thing, mine would have kicked me downstairs, sir." "i never insulted you, sir. i said i begged you to remember your son was a gentleman as well as yourself. i know very well that you give me plenty of money," said george (fingering a bundle of notes which he had got in the morning from mr. chopper). "you tell it me often enough, sir. there's no fear of my forgetting it." "i wish you'd remember other things as well, sir," the sire answered. "i wish you'd remember that in this house--so long as you choose to honour it with your company, captain--i'm the master, and that name, and that that--that you--that i say--" "that what, sir?" george asked, with scarcely a sneer, filling another glass of claret. "----!" burst out his father with a screaming oath--"that the name of those sedleys never be mentioned here, sir--not one of the whole damned lot of 'em, sir." "it wasn't i, sir, that introduced miss sedley's name. it was my sisters who spoke ill of her to miss swartz; and by jove i'll defend her wherever i go. nobody shall speak lightly of that name in my presence. our family has done her quite enough injury already, i think, and may leave off reviling her now she's down. i'll shoot any man but you who says a word against her." "go on, sir, go on," the old gentleman said, his eyes starting out of his head. "go on about what, sir? about the way in which we've treated that angel of a girl? who told me to love her? it was your doing. i might have chosen elsewhere, and looked higher, perhaps, than your society: but i obeyed you. and now that her heart's mine you give me orders to fling it away, and punish her, kill her perhaps--for the faults of other people. it's a shame, by heavens," said george, working himself up into passion and enthusiasm as he proceeded, "to play at fast and loose with a young girl's affections--and with such an angel as that--one so superior to the people amongst whom she lived, that she might have excited envy, only she was so good and gentle, that it's a wonder anybody dared to hate her. if i desert her, sir, do you suppose she forgets me?" "i ain't going to have any of this dam sentimental nonsense and humbug here, sir," the father cried out. "there shall be no beggar-marriages in my family. if you choose to fling away eight thousand a year, which you may have for the asking, you may do it: but by jove you take your pack and walk out of this house, sir. will you do as i tell you, once for all, sir, or will you not?" "marry that mulatto woman?" george said, pulling up his shirt-collars. "i don't like the colour, sir. ask the black that sweeps opposite fleet market, sir. i'm not going to marry a hottentot venus." mr. osborne pulled frantically at the cord by which he was accustomed to summon the butler when he wanted wine--and almost black in the face, ordered that functionary to call a coach for captain osborne. "i've done it," said george, coming into the slaughters' an hour afterwards, looking very pale. "what, my boy?" says dobbin. george told what had passed between his father and himself. "i'll marry her to-morrow," he said with an oath. "i love her more every day, dobbin." chapter xxii a marriage and part of a honeymoon enemies the most obstinate and courageous can't hold out against starvation; so the elder osborne felt himself pretty easy about his adversary in the encounter we have just described; and as soon as george's supplies fell short, confidently expected his unconditional submission. it was unlucky, to be sure, that the lad should have secured a stock of provisions on the very day when the first encounter took place; but this relief was only temporary, old osborne thought, and would but delay george's surrender. no communication passed between father and son for some days. the former was sulky at this silence, but not disquieted; for, as he said, he knew where he could put the screw upon george, and only waited the result of that operation. he told the sisters the upshot of the dispute between them, but ordered them to take no notice of the matter, and welcome george on his return as if nothing had happened. his cover was laid as usual every day, and perhaps the old gentleman rather anxiously expected him; but he never came. some one inquired at the slaughters' regarding him, where it was said that he and his friend captain dobbin had left town. one gusty, raw day at the end of april--the rain whipping the pavement of that ancient street where the old slaughters' coffee-house was once situated--george osborne came into the coffee-room, looking very haggard and pale; although dressed rather smartly in a blue coat and brass buttons, and a neat buff waistcoat of the fashion of those days. here was his friend captain dobbin, in blue and brass too, having abandoned the military frock and french-grey trousers, which were the usual coverings of his lanky person. dobbin had been in the coffee-room for an hour or more. he had tried all the papers, but could not read them. he had looked at the clock many scores of times; and at the street, where the rain was pattering down, and the people as they clinked by in pattens, left long reflections on the shining stone: he tattooed at the table: he bit his nails most completely, and nearly to the quick (he was accustomed to ornament his great big hands in this way): he balanced the tea-spoon dexterously on the milk jug: upset it, &c., &c.; and in fact showed those signs of disquietude, and practised those desperate attempts at amusement, which men are accustomed to employ when very anxious, and expectant, and perturbed in mind. some of his comrades, gentlemen who used the room, joked him about the splendour of his costume and his agitation of manner. one asked him if he was going to be married? dobbin laughed, and said he would send his acquaintance (major wagstaff of the engineers) a piece of cake when that event took place. at length captain osborne made his appearance, very smartly dressed, but very pale and agitated as we have said. he wiped his pale face with a large yellow bandanna pocket-handkerchief that was prodigiously scented. he shook hands with dobbin, looked at the clock, and told john, the waiter, to bring him some curacao. of this cordial he swallowed off a couple of glasses with nervous eagerness. his friend asked with some interest about his health. "couldn't get a wink of sleep till daylight, dob," said he. "infernal headache and fever. got up at nine, and went down to the hummums for a bath. i say, dob, i feel just as i did on the morning i went out with rocket at quebec." "so do i," william responded. "i was a deuced deal more nervous than you were that morning. you made a famous breakfast, i remember. eat something now." "you're a good old fellow, will. i'll drink your health, old boy, and farewell to--" "no, no; two glasses are enough," dobbin interrupted him. "here, take away the liqueurs, john. have some cayenne-pepper with your fowl. make haste though, for it is time we were there." it was about half an hour from twelve when this brief meeting and colloquy took place between the two captains. a coach, into which captain osborne's servant put his master's desk and dressing-case, had been in waiting for some time; and into this the two gentlemen hurried under an umbrella, and the valet mounted on the box, cursing the rain and the dampness of the coachman who was steaming beside him. "we shall find a better trap than this at the church-door," says he; "that's a comfort." and the carriage drove on, taking the road down piccadilly, where apsley house and st. george's hospital wore red jackets still; where there were oil-lamps; where achilles was not yet born; nor the pimlico arch raised; nor the hideous equestrian monster which pervades it and the neighbourhood; and so they drove down by brompton to a certain chapel near the fulham road there. a chariot was in waiting with four horses; likewise a coach of the kind called glass coaches. only a very few idlers were collected on account of the dismal rain. "hang it!" said george, "i said only a pair." "my master would have four," said mr. joseph sedley's servant, who was in waiting; and he and mr. osborne's man agreed as they followed george and william into the church, that it was a "reg'lar shabby turn hout; and with scarce so much as a breakfast or a wedding faviour." "here you are," said our old friend, jos sedley, coming forward. "you're five minutes late, george, my boy. what a day, eh? demmy, it's like the commencement of the rainy season in bengal. but you'll find my carriage is watertight. come along, my mother and emmy are in the vestry." jos sedley was splendid. he was fatter than ever. his shirt collars were higher; his face was redder; his shirt-frill flaunted gorgeously out of his variegated waistcoat. varnished boots were not invented as yet; but the hessians on his beautiful legs shone so, that they must have been the identical pair in which the gentleman in the old picture used to shave himself; and on his light green coat there bloomed a fine wedding favour, like a great white spreading magnolia. in a word, george had thrown the great cast. he was going to be married. hence his pallor and nervousness--his sleepless night and agitation in the morning. i have heard people who have gone through the same thing own to the same emotion. after three or four ceremonies, you get accustomed to it, no doubt; but the first dip, everybody allows, is awful. the bride was dressed in a brown silk pelisse (as captain dobbin has since informed me), and wore a straw bonnet with a pink ribbon; over the bonnet she had a veil of white chantilly lace, a gift from mr. joseph sedley, her brother. captain dobbin himself had asked leave to present her with a gold chain and watch, which she sported on this occasion; and her mother gave her her diamond brooch--almost the only trinket which was left to the old lady. as the service went on, mrs. sedley sat and whimpered a great deal in a pew, consoled by the irish maid-servant and mrs. clapp from the lodgings. old sedley would not be present. jos acted for his father, giving away the bride, whilst captain dobbin stepped up as groomsman to his friend george. there was nobody in the church besides the officiating persons and the small marriage party and their attendants. the two valets sat aloof superciliously. the rain came rattling down on the windows. in the intervals of the service you heard it, and the sobbing of old mrs. sedley in the pew. the parson's tones echoed sadly through the empty walls. osborne's "i will" was sounded in very deep bass. emmy's response came fluttering up to her lips from her heart, but was scarcely heard by anybody except captain dobbin. when the service was completed, jos sedley came forward and kissed his sister, the bride, for the first time for many months--george's look of gloom had gone, and he seemed quite proud and radiant. "it's your turn, william," says he, putting his hand fondly upon dobbin's shoulder; and dobbin went up and touched amelia on the cheek. then they went into the vestry and signed the register. "god bless you, old dobbin," george said, grasping him by the hand, with something very like moisture glistening in his eyes. william replied only by nodding his head. his heart was too full to say much. "write directly, and come down as soon as you can, you know," osborne said. after mrs. sedley had taken an hysterical adieu of her daughter, the pair went off to the carriage. "get out of the way, you little devils," george cried to a small crowd of damp urchins, that were hanging about the chapel-door. the rain drove into the bride and bridegroom's faces as they passed to the chariot. the postilions' favours draggled on their dripping jackets. the few children made a dismal cheer, as the carriage, splashing mud, drove away. william dobbin stood in the church-porch, looking at it, a queer figure. the small crew of spectators jeered him. he was not thinking about them or their laughter. "come home and have some tiffin, dobbin," a voice cried behind him; as a pudgy hand was laid on his shoulder, and the honest fellow's reverie was interrupted. but the captain had no heart to go a-feasting with jos sedley. he put the weeping old lady and her attendants into the carriage along with jos, and left them without any farther words passing. this carriage, too, drove away, and the urchins gave another sarcastical cheer. "here, you little beggars," dobbin said, giving some sixpences amongst them, and then went off by himself through the rain. it was all over. they were married, and happy, he prayed god. never since he was a boy had he felt so miserable and so lonely. he longed with a heart-sick yearning for the first few days to be over, that he might see her again. some ten days after the above ceremony, three young men of our acquaintance were enjoying that beautiful prospect of bow windows on the one side and blue sea on the other, which brighton affords to the traveller. sometimes it is towards the ocean--smiling with countless dimples, speckled with white sails, with a hundred bathing-machines kissing the skirt of his blue garment--that the londoner looks enraptured: sometimes, on the contrary, a lover of human nature rather than of prospects of any kind, it is towards the bow windows that he turns, and that swarm of human life which they exhibit. from one issue the notes of a piano, which a young lady in ringlets practises six hours daily, to the delight of the fellow-lodgers: at another, lovely polly, the nurse-maid, may be seen dandling master omnium in her arms: whilst jacob, his papa, is beheld eating prawns, and devouring the times for breakfast, at the window below. yonder are the misses leery, who are looking out for the young officers of the heavies, who are pretty sure to be pacing the cliff; or again it is a city man, with a nautical turn, and a telescope, the size of a six-pounder, who has his instrument pointed seawards, so as to command every pleasure-boat, herring-boat, or bathing-machine that comes to, or quits, the shore, &c., &c. but have we any leisure for a description of brighton?--for brighton, a clean naples with genteel lazzaroni--for brighton, that always looks brisk, gay, and gaudy, like a harlequin's jacket--for brighton, which used to be seven hours distant from london at the time of our story; which is now only a hundred minutes off; and which may approach who knows how much nearer, unless joinville comes and untimely bombards it? "what a monstrous fine girl that is in the lodgings over the milliner's," one of these three promenaders remarked to the other; "gad, crawley, did you see what a wink she gave me as i passed?" "don't break her heart, jos, you rascal," said another. "don't trifle with her affections, you don juan!" "get away," said jos sedley, quite pleased, and leering up at the maid-servant in question with a most killing ogle. jos was even more splendid at brighton than he had been at his sister's marriage. he had brilliant under-waistcoats, any one of which would have set up a moderate buck. he sported a military frock-coat, ornamented with frogs, knobs, black buttons, and meandering embroidery. he had affected a military appearance and habits of late; and he walked with his two friends, who were of that profession, clinking his boot-spurs, swaggering prodigiously, and shooting death-glances at all the servant girls who were worthy to be slain. "what shall we do, boys, till the ladies return?" the buck asked. the ladies were out to rottingdean in his carriage on a drive. "let's have a game at billiards," one of his friends said--the tall one, with lacquered mustachios. "no, dammy; no, captain," jos replied, rather alarmed. "no billiards to-day, crawley, my boy; yesterday was enough." "you play very well," said crawley, laughing. "don't he, osborne? how well he made that five stroke, eh?" "famous," osborne said. "jos is a devil of a fellow at billiards, and at everything else, too. i wish there were any tiger-hunting about here! we might go and kill a few before dinner. (there goes a fine girl! what an ankle, eh, jos?) tell us that story about the tiger-hunt, and the way you did for him in the jungle--it's a wonderful story that, crawley." here george osborne gave a yawn. "it's rather slow work," said he, "down here; what shall we do?" "shall we go and look at some horses that snaffler's just brought from lewes fair?" crawley said. "suppose we go and have some jellies at dutton's," and the rogue jos, willing to kill two birds with one stone. "devilish fine gal at dutton's." "suppose we go and see the lightning come in, it's just about time?" george said. this advice prevailing over the stables and the jelly, they turned towards the coach-office to witness the lightning's arrival. as they passed, they met the carriage--jos sedley's open carriage, with its magnificent armorial bearings--that splendid conveyance in which he used to drive, about at cheltenham, majestic and solitary, with his arms folded, and his hat cocked; or, more happy, with ladies by his side. two were in the carriage now: one a little person, with light hair, and dressed in the height of the fashion; the other in a brown silk pelisse, and a straw bonnet with pink ribbons, with a rosy, round, happy face, that did you good to behold. she checked the carriage as it neared the three gentlemen, after which exercise of authority she looked rather nervous, and then began to blush most absurdly. "we have had a delightful drive, george," she said, "and--and we're so glad to come back; and, joseph, don't let him be late." "don't be leading our husbands into mischief, mr. sedley, you wicked, wicked man you," rebecca said, shaking at jos a pretty little finger covered with the neatest french kid glove. "no billiards, no smoking, no naughtiness!" "my dear mrs. crawley--ah now! upon my honour!" was all jos could ejaculate by way of reply; but he managed to fall into a tolerable attitude, with his head lying on his shoulder, grinning upwards at his victim, with one hand at his back, which he supported on his cane, and the other hand (the one with the diamond ring) fumbling in his shirt-frill and among his under-waistcoats. as the carriage drove off he kissed the diamond hand to the fair ladies within. he wished all cheltenham, all chowringhee, all calcutta, could see him in that position, waving his hand to such a beauty, and in company with such a famous buck as rawdon crawley of the guards. our young bride and bridegroom had chosen brighton as the place where they would pass the first few days after their marriage; and having engaged apartments at the ship inn, enjoyed themselves there in great comfort and quietude, until jos presently joined them. nor was he the only companion they found there. as they were coming into the hotel from a sea-side walk one afternoon, on whom should they light but rebecca and her husband. the recognition was immediate. rebecca flew into the arms of her dearest friend. crawley and osborne shook hands together cordially enough: and becky, in the course of a very few hours, found means to make the latter forget that little unpleasant passage of words which had happened between them. "do you remember the last time we met at miss crawley's, when i was so rude to you, dear captain osborne? i thought you seemed careless about dear amelia. it was that made me angry: and so pert: and so unkind: and so ungrateful. do forgive me!" rebecca said, and she held out her hand with so frank and winning a grace, that osborne could not but take it. by humbly and frankly acknowledging yourself to be in the wrong, there is no knowing, my son, what good you may do. i knew once a gentleman and very worthy practitioner in vanity fair, who used to do little wrongs to his neighbours on purpose, and in order to apologise for them in an open and manly way afterwards--and what ensued? my friend crocky doyle was liked everywhere, and deemed to be rather impetuous--but the honestest fellow. becky's humility passed for sincerity with george osborne. these two young couples had plenty of tales to relate to each other. the marriages of either were discussed; and their prospects in life canvassed with the greatest frankness and interest on both sides. george's marriage was to be made known to his father by his friend captain dobbin; and young osborne trembled rather for the result of that communication. miss crawley, on whom all rawdon's hopes depended, still held out. unable to make an entry into her house in park lane, her affectionate nephew and niece had followed her to brighton, where they had emissaries continually planted at her door. "i wish you could see some of rawdon's friends who are always about our door," rebecca said, laughing. "did you ever see a dun, my dear; or a bailiff and his man? two of the abominable wretches watched all last week at the greengrocer's opposite, and we could not get away until sunday. if aunty does not relent, what shall we do?" rawdon, with roars of laughter, related a dozen amusing anecdotes of his duns, and rebecca's adroit treatment of them. he vowed with a great oath that there was no woman in europe who could talk a creditor over as she could. almost immediately after their marriage, her practice had begun, and her husband found the immense value of such a wife. they had credit in plenty, but they had bills also in abundance, and laboured under a scarcity of ready money. did these debt-difficulties affect rawdon's good spirits? no. everybody in vanity fair must have remarked how well those live who are comfortably and thoroughly in debt: how they deny themselves nothing; how jolly and easy they are in their minds. rawdon and his wife had the very best apartments at the inn at brighton; the landlord, as he brought in the first dish, bowed before them as to his greatest customers: and rawdon abused the dinners and wine with an audacity which no grandee in the land could surpass. long custom, a manly appearance, faultless boots and clothes, and a happy fierceness of manner, will often help a man as much as a great balance at the banker's. the two wedding parties met constantly in each other's apartments. after two or three nights the gentlemen of an evening had a little piquet, as their wives sate and chatted apart. this pastime, and the arrival of jos sedley, who made his appearance in his grand open carriage, and who played a few games at billiards with captain crawley, replenished rawdon's purse somewhat, and gave him the benefit of that ready money for which the greatest spirits are sometimes at a stand-still. so the three gentlemen walked down to see the lightning coach come in. punctual to the minute, the coach crowded inside and out, the guard blowing his accustomed tune on the horn--the lightning came tearing down the street, and pulled up at the coach-office. "hullo! there's old dobbin," george cried, quite delighted to see his old friend perched on the roof; and whose promised visit to brighton had been delayed until now. "how are you, old fellow? glad you're come down. emmy'll be delighted to see you," osborne said, shaking his comrade warmly by the hand as soon as his descent from the vehicle was effected--and then he added, in a lower and agitated voice, "what's the news? have you been in russell square? what does the governor say? tell me everything." dobbin looked very pale and grave. "i've seen your father," said he. "how's amelia--mrs. george? i'll tell you all the news presently: but i've brought the great news of all: and that is--" "out with it, old fellow," george said. "we're ordered to belgium. all the army goes--guards and all. heavytop's got the gout, and is mad at not being able to move. o'dowd goes in command, and we embark from chatham next week." this news of war could not but come with a shock upon our lovers, and caused all these gentlemen to look very serious. chapter xxiii captain dobbin proceeds on his canvass what is the secret mesmerism which friendship possesses, and under the operation of which a person ordinarily sluggish, or cold, or timid, becomes wise, active, and resolute, in another's behalf? as alexis, after a few passes from dr. elliotson, despises pain, reads with the back of his head, sees miles off, looks into next week, and performs other wonders, of which, in his own private normal condition, he is quite incapable; so you see, in the affairs of the world and under the magnetism of friendships, the modest man becomes bold, the shy confident, the lazy active, or the impetuous prudent and peaceful. what is it, on the other hand, that makes the lawyer eschew his own cause, and call in his learned brother as an adviser? and what causes the doctor, when ailing, to send for his rival, and not sit down and examine his own tongue in the chimney glass, or write his own prescription at his study-table? i throw out these queries for intelligent readers to answer, who know, at once, how credulous we are, and how sceptical, how soft and how obstinate, how firm for others and how diffident about ourselves: meanwhile, it is certain that our friend william dobbin, who was personally of so complying a disposition that if his parents had pressed him much, it is probable he would have stepped down into the kitchen and married the cook, and who, to further his own interests, would have found the most insuperable difficulty in walking across the street, found himself as busy and eager in the conduct of george osborne's affairs, as the most selfish tactician could be in the pursuit of his own. whilst our friend george and his young wife were enjoying the first blushing days of the honeymoon at brighton, honest william was left as george's plenipotentiary in london, to transact all the business part of the marriage. his duty it was to call upon old sedley and his wife, and to keep the former in good humour: to draw jos and his brother-in-law nearer together, so that jos's position and dignity, as collector of boggley wollah, might compensate for his father's loss of station, and tend to reconcile old osborne to the alliance: and finally, to communicate it to the latter in such a way as should least irritate the old gentleman. now, before he faced the head of the osborne house with the news which it was his duty to tell, dobbin bethought him that it would be politic to make friends of the rest of the family, and, if possible, have the ladies on his side. they can't be angry in their hearts, thought he. no woman ever was really angry at a romantic marriage. a little crying out, and they must come round to their brother; when the three of us will lay siege to old mr. osborne. so this machiavellian captain of infantry cast about him for some happy means or stratagem by which he could gently and gradually bring the misses osborne to a knowledge of their brother's secret. by a little inquiry regarding his mother's engagements, he was pretty soon able to find out by whom of her ladyship's friends parties were given at that season; where he would be likely to meet osborne's sisters; and, though he had that abhorrence of routs and evening parties which many sensible men, alas! entertain, he soon found one where the misses osborne were to be present. making his appearance at the ball, where he danced a couple of sets with both of them, and was prodigiously polite, he actually had the courage to ask miss osborne for a few minutes' conversation at an early hour the next day, when he had, he said, to communicate to her news of the very greatest interest. what was it that made her start back, and gaze upon him for a moment, and then on the ground at her feet, and make as if she would faint on his arm, had he not by opportunely treading on her toes, brought the young lady back to self-control? why was she so violently agitated at dobbin's request? this can never be known. but when he came the next day, maria was not in the drawing-room with her sister, and miss wirt went off for the purpose of fetching the latter, and the captain and miss osborne were left together. they were both so silent that the ticktock of the sacrifice of iphigenia clock on the mantelpiece became quite rudely audible. "what a nice party it was last night," miss osborne at length began, encouragingly; "and--and how you're improved in your dancing, captain dobbin. surely somebody has taught you," she added, with amiable archness. "you should see me dance a reel with mrs. major o'dowd of ours; and a jig--did you ever see a jig? but i think anybody could dance with you, miss osborne, who dance so well." "is the major's lady young and beautiful, captain?" the fair questioner continued. "ah, what a terrible thing it must be to be a soldier's wife! i wonder they have any spirits to dance, and in these dreadful times of war, too! o captain dobbin, i tremble sometimes when i think of our dearest george, and the dangers of the poor soldier. are there many married officers of the --th, captain dobbin?" "upon my word, she's playing her hand rather too openly," miss wirt thought; but this observation is merely parenthetic, and was not heard through the crevice of the door at which the governess uttered it. "one of our young men is just married," dobbin said, now coming to the point. "it was a very old attachment, and the young couple are as poor as church mice." "o, how delightful! o, how romantic!" miss osborne cried, as the captain said "old attachment" and "poor." her sympathy encouraged him. "the finest young fellow in the regiment," he continued. "not a braver or handsomer officer in the army; and such a charming wife! how you would like her! how you will like her when you know her, miss osborne." the young lady thought the actual moment had arrived, and that dobbin's nervousness which now came on and was visible in many twitchings of his face, in his manner of beating the ground with his great feet, in the rapid buttoning and unbuttoning of his frock-coat, &c.--miss osborne, i say, thought that when he had given himself a little air, he would unbosom himself entirely, and prepared eagerly to listen. and the clock, in the altar on which iphigenia was situated, beginning, after a preparatory convulsion, to toll twelve, the mere tolling seemed as if it would last until one--so prolonged was the knell to the anxious spinster. "but it's not about marriage that i came to speak--that is that marriage--that is--no, i mean--my dear miss osborne, it's about our dear friend george," dobbin said. "about george?" she said in a tone so discomfited that maria and miss wirt laughed at the other side of the door, and even that abandoned wretch of a dobbin felt inclined to smile himself; for he was not altogether unconscious of the state of affairs: george having often bantered him gracefully and said, "hang it, will, why don't you take old jane? she'll have you if you ask her. i'll bet you five to two she will." "yes, about george, then," he continued. "there has been a difference between him and mr. osborne. and i regard him so much--for you know we have been like brothers--that i hope and pray the quarrel may be settled. we must go abroad, miss osborne. we may be ordered off at a day's warning. who knows what may happen in the campaign? don't be agitated, dear miss osborne; and those two at least should part friends." "there has been no quarrel, captain dobbin, except a little usual scene with papa," the lady said. "we are expecting george back daily. what papa wanted was only for his good. he has but to come back, and i'm sure all will be well; and dear rhoda, who went away from here in sad sad anger, i know will forgive him. woman forgives but too readily, captain." "such an angel as you i am sure would," mr. dobbin said, with atrocious astuteness. "and no man can pardon himself for giving a woman pain. what would you feel, if a man were faithless to you?" "i should perish--i should throw myself out of window--i should take poison--i should pine and die. i know i should," miss cried, who had nevertheless gone through one or two affairs of the heart without any idea of suicide. "and there are others," dobbin continued, "as true and as kind-hearted as yourself. i'm not speaking about the west indian heiress, miss osborne, but about a poor girl whom george once loved, and who was bred from her childhood to think of nobody but him. i've seen her in her poverty uncomplaining, broken-hearted, without a fault. it is of miss sedley i speak. dear miss osborne, can your generous heart quarrel with your brother for being faithful to her? could his own conscience ever forgive him if he deserted her? be her friend--she always loved you--and--and i am come here charged by george to tell you that he holds his engagement to her as the most sacred duty he has; and to entreat you, at least, to be on his side." when any strong emotion took possession of mr. dobbin, and after the first word or two of hesitation, he could speak with perfect fluency, and it was evident that his eloquence on this occasion made some impression upon the lady whom he addressed. "well," said she, "this is--most surprising--most painful--most extraordinary--what will papa say?--that george should fling away such a superb establishment as was offered to him but at any rate he has found a very brave champion in you, captain dobbin. it is of no use, however," she continued, after a pause; "i feel for poor miss sedley, most certainly--most sincerely, you know. we never thought the match a good one, though we were always very kind to her here--very. but papa will never consent, i am sure. and a well brought up young woman, you know--with a well-regulated mind, must--george must give her up, dear captain dobbin, indeed he must." "ought a man to give up the woman he loved, just when misfortune befell her?" dobbin said, holding out his hand. "dear miss osborne, is this the counsel i hear from you? my dear young lady! you must befriend her. he can't give her up. he must not give her up. would a man, think you, give you up if you were poor?" this adroit question touched the heart of miss jane osborne not a little. "i don't know whether we poor girls ought to believe what you men say, captain," she said. "there is that in woman's tenderness which induces her to believe too easily. i'm afraid you are cruel, cruel deceivers,"--and dobbin certainly thought he felt a pressure of the hand which miss osborne had extended to him. he dropped it in some alarm. "deceivers!" said he. "no, dear miss osborne, all men are not; your brother is not; george has loved amelia sedley ever since they were children; no wealth would make him marry any but her. ought he to forsake her? would you counsel him to do so?" what could miss jane say to such a question, and with her own peculiar views? she could not answer it, so she parried it by saying, "well, if you are not a deceiver, at least you are very romantic"; and captain william let this observation pass without challenge. at length when, by the help of farther polite speeches, he deemed that miss osborne was sufficiently prepared to receive the whole news, he poured it into her ear. "george could not give up amelia--george was married to her"--and then he related the circumstances of the marriage as we know them already: how the poor girl would have died had not her lover kept his faith: how old sedley had refused all consent to the match, and a licence had been got: and jos sedley had come from cheltenham to give away the bride: how they had gone to brighton in jos's chariot-and-four to pass the honeymoon: and how george counted on his dear kind sisters to befriend him with their father, as women--so true and tender as they were--assuredly would do. and so, asking permission (readily granted) to see her again, and rightly conjecturing that the news he had brought would be told in the next five minutes to the other ladies, captain dobbin made his bow and took his leave. he was scarcely out of the house, when miss maria and miss wirt rushed in to miss osborne, and the whole wonderful secret was imparted to them by that lady. to do them justice, neither of the sisters was very much displeased. there is something about a runaway match with which few ladies can be seriously angry, and amelia rather rose in their estimation, from the spirit which she had displayed in consenting to the union. as they debated the story, and prattled about it, and wondered what papa would do and say, came a loud knock, as of an avenging thunder-clap, at the door, which made these conspirators start. it must be papa, they thought. but it was not he. it was only mr. frederick bullock, who had come from the city according to appointment, to conduct the ladies to a flower-show. this gentleman, as may be imagined, was not kept long in ignorance of the secret. but his face, when he heard it, showed an amazement which was very different to that look of sentimental wonder which the countenances of the sisters wore. mr. bullock was a man of the world, and a junior partner of a wealthy firm. he knew what money was, and the value of it: and a delightful throb of expectation lighted up his little eyes, and caused him to smile on his maria, as he thought that by this piece of folly of mr. george's she might be worth thirty thousand pounds more than he had ever hoped to get with her. "gad! jane," said he, surveying even the elder sister with some interest, "eels will be sorry he cried off. you may be a fifty thousand pounder yet." the sisters had never thought of the money question up to that moment, but fred bullock bantered them with graceful gaiety about it during their forenoon's excursion; and they had risen not a little in their own esteem by the time when, the morning amusement over, they drove back to dinner. and do not let my respected reader exclaim against this selfishness as unnatural. it was but this present morning, as he rode on the omnibus from richmond; while it changed horses, this present chronicler, being on the roof, marked three little children playing in a puddle below, very dirty, and friendly, and happy. to these three presently came another little one. "polly," says she, "your sister's got a penny." at which the children got up from the puddle instantly, and ran off to pay their court to peggy. and as the omnibus drove off i saw peggy with the infantine procession at her tail, marching with great dignity towards the stall of a neighbouring lollipop-woman. chapter xxiv in which mr. osborne takes down the family bible so having prepared the sisters, dobbin hastened away to the city to perform the rest and more difficult part of the task which he had undertaken. the idea of facing old osborne rendered him not a little nervous, and more than once he thought of leaving the young ladies to communicate the secret, which, as he was aware, they could not long retain. but he had promised to report to george upon the manner in which the elder osborne bore the intelligence; so going into the city to the paternal counting-house in thames street, he despatched thence a note to mr. osborne begging for a half-hour's conversation relative to the affairs of his son george. dobbin's messenger returned from mr. osborne's house of business, with the compliments of the latter, who would be very happy to see the captain immediately, and away accordingly dobbin went to confront him. the captain, with a half-guilty secret to confess, and with the prospect of a painful and stormy interview before him, entered mr. osborne's offices with a most dismal countenance and abashed gait, and, passing through the outer room where mr. chopper presided, was greeted by that functionary from his desk with a waggish air which farther discomfited him. mr. chopper winked and nodded and pointed his pen towards his patron's door, and said, "you'll find the governor all right," with the most provoking good humour. osborne rose too, and shook him heartily by the hand, and said, "how do, my dear boy?" with a cordiality that made poor george's ambassador feel doubly guilty. his hand lay as if dead in the old gentleman's grasp. he felt that he, dobbin, was more or less the cause of all that had happened. it was he had brought back george to amelia: it was he had applauded, encouraged, transacted almost the marriage which he was come to reveal to george's father: and the latter was receiving him with smiles of welcome; patting him on the shoulder, and calling him "dobbin, my dear boy." the envoy had indeed good reason to hang his head. osborne fully believed that dobbin had come to announce his son's surrender. mr. chopper and his principal were talking over the matter between george and his father, at the very moment when dobbin's messenger arrived. both agreed that george was sending in his submission. both had been expecting it for some days--and "lord! chopper, what a marriage we'll have!" mr. osborne said to his clerk, snapping his big fingers, and jingling all the guineas and shillings in his great pockets as he eyed his subordinate with a look of triumph. with similar operations conducted in both pockets, and a knowing jolly air, osborne from his chair regarded dobbin seated blank and silent opposite to him. "what a bumpkin he is for a captain in the army," old osborne thought. "i wonder george hasn't taught him better manners." at last dobbin summoned courage to begin. "sir," said he, "i've brought you some very grave news. i have been at the horse guards this morning, and there's no doubt that our regiment will be ordered abroad, and on its way to belgium before the week is over. and you know, sir, that we shan't be home again before a tussle which may be fatal to many of us." osborne looked grave. "my s--, the regiment will do its duty, sir, i daresay," he said. "the french are very strong, sir," dobbin went on. "the russians and austrians will be a long time before they can bring their troops down. we shall have the first of the fight, sir; and depend on it boney will take care that it shall be a hard one." "what are you driving at, dobbin?" his interlocutor said, uneasy and with a scowl. "i suppose no briton's afraid of any d---- frenchman, hey?" "i only mean, that before we go, and considering the great and certain risk that hangs over every one of us--if there are any differences between you and george--it would be as well, sir, that--that you should shake hands: wouldn't it? should anything happen to him, i think you would never forgive yourself if you hadn't parted in charity." as he said this, poor william dobbin blushed crimson, and felt and owned that he himself was a traitor. but for him, perhaps, this severance need never have taken place. why had not george's marriage been delayed? what call was there to press it on so eagerly? he felt that george would have parted from amelia at any rate without a mortal pang. amelia, too, might have recovered the shock of losing him. it was his counsel had brought about this marriage, and all that was to ensue from it. and why was it? because he loved her so much that he could not bear to see her unhappy: or because his own sufferings of suspense were so unendurable that he was glad to crush them at once--as we hasten a funeral after a death, or, when a separation from those we love is imminent, cannot rest until the parting be over. "you are a good fellow, william," said mr. osborne in a softened voice; "and me and george shouldn't part in anger, that is true. look here. i've done for him as much as any father ever did. he's had three times as much money from me, as i warrant your father ever gave you. but i don't brag about that. how i've toiled for him, and worked and employed my talents and energy, i won't say. ask chopper. ask himself. ask the city of london. well, i propose to him such a marriage as any nobleman in the land might be proud of--the only thing in life i ever asked him--and he refuses me. am i wrong? is the quarrel of my making? what do i seek but his good, for which i've been toiling like a convict ever since he was born? nobody can say there's anything selfish in me. let him come back. i say, here's my hand. i say, forget and forgive. as for marrying now, it's out of the question. let him and miss s. make it up, and make out the marriage afterwards, when he comes back a colonel; for he shall be a colonel, by g-- he shall, if money can do it. i'm glad you've brought him round. i know it's you, dobbin. you've took him out of many a scrape before. let him come. i shan't be hard. come along, and dine in russell square to-day: both of you. the old shop, the old hour. you'll find a neck of venison, and no questions asked." this praise and confidence smote dobbin's heart very keenly. every moment the colloquy continued in this tone, he felt more and more guilty. "sir," said he, "i fear you deceive yourself. i am sure you do. george is much too high-minded a man ever to marry for money. a threat on your part that you would disinherit him in case of disobedience would only be followed by resistance on his." "why, hang it, man, you don't call offering him eight or ten thousand a year threatening him?" mr. osborne said, with still provoking good humour. "'gad, if miss s. will have me, i'm her man. i ain't particular about a shade or so of tawny." and the old gentleman gave his knowing grin and coarse laugh. "you forget, sir, previous engagements into which captain osborne had entered," the ambassador said, gravely. "what engagements? what the devil do you mean? you don't mean," mr. osborne continued, gathering wrath and astonishment as the thought now first came upon him; "you don't mean that he's such a d---- fool as to be still hankering after that swindling old bankrupt's daughter? you've not come here for to make me suppose that he wants to marry her? marry her, that is a good one. my son and heir marry a beggar's girl out of a gutter. d---- him, if he does, let him buy a broom and sweep a crossing. she was always dangling and ogling after him, i recollect now; and i've no doubt she was put on by her old sharper of a father." "mr. sedley was your very good friend, sir," dobbin interposed, almost pleased at finding himself growing angry. "time was you called him better names than rogue and swindler. the match was of your making. george had no right to play fast and loose--" "fast and loose!" howled out old osborne. "fast and loose! why, hang me, those are the very words my gentleman used himself when he gave himself airs, last thursday was a fortnight, and talked about the british army to his father who made him. what, it's you who have been a setting of him up--is it? and my service to you, captain. it's you who want to introduce beggars into my family. thank you for nothing, captain. marry her indeed--he, he! why should he? i warrant you she'd go to him fast enough without." "sir," said dobbin, starting up in undisguised anger; "no man shall abuse that lady in my hearing, and you least of all." "o, you're a-going to call me out, are you? stop, let me ring the bell for pistols for two. mr. george sent you here to insult his father, did he?" osborne said, pulling at the bell-cord. "mr. osborne," said dobbin, with a faltering voice, "it's you who are insulting the best creature in the world. you had best spare her, sir, for she's your son's wife." and with this, feeling that he could say no more, dobbin went away, osborne sinking back in his chair, and looking wildly after him. a clerk came in, obedient to the bell; and the captain was scarcely out of the court where mr. osborne's offices were, when mr. chopper the chief clerk came rushing hatless after him. "for god's sake, what is it?" mr. chopper said, catching the captain by the skirt. "the governor's in a fit. what has mr. george been doing?" "he married miss sedley five days ago," dobbin replied. "i was his groomsman, mr. chopper, and you must stand his friend." the old clerk shook his head. "if that's your news, captain, it's bad. the governor will never forgive him." dobbin begged chopper to report progress to him at the hotel where he was stopping, and walked off moodily westwards, greatly perturbed as to the past and the future. when the russell square family came to dinner that evening, they found the father of the house seated in his usual place, but with that air of gloom on his face, which, whenever it appeared there, kept the whole circle silent. the ladies, and mr. bullock who dined with them, felt that the news had been communicated to mr. osborne. his dark looks affected mr. bullock so far as to render him still and quiet: but he was unusually bland and attentive to miss maria, by whom he sat, and to her sister presiding at the head of the table. miss wirt, by consequence, was alone on her side of the board, a gap being left between her and miss jane osborne. now this was george's place when he dined at home; and his cover, as we said, was laid for him in expectation of that truant's return. nothing occurred during dinner-time except smiling mr. frederick's flagging confidential whispers, and the clinking of plate and china, to interrupt the silence of the repast. the servants went about stealthily doing their duty. mutes at funerals could not look more glum than the domestics of mr. osborne the neck of venison of which he had invited dobbin to partake, was carved by him in perfect silence; but his own share went away almost untasted, though he drank much, and the butler assiduously filled his glass. at last, just at the end of the dinner, his eyes, which had been staring at everybody in turn, fixed themselves for a while upon the plate laid for george. he pointed to it presently with his left hand. his daughters looked at him and did not comprehend, or choose to comprehend, the signal; nor did the servants at first understand it. "take that plate away," at last he said, getting up with an oath--and with this pushing his chair back, he walked into his own room. behind mr. osborne's dining-room was the usual apartment which went in his house by the name of the study; and was sacred to the master of the house. hither mr. osborne would retire of a sunday forenoon when not minded to go to church; and here pass the morning in his crimson leather chair, reading the paper. a couple of glazed book-cases were here, containing standard works in stout gilt bindings. the "annual register," the "gentleman's magazine," "blair's sermons," and "hume and smollett." from year's end to year's end he never took one of these volumes from the shelf; but there was no member of the family that would dare for his life to touch one of the books, except upon those rare sunday evenings when there was no dinner-party, and when the great scarlet bible and prayer-book were taken out from the corner where they stood beside his copy of the peerage, and the servants being rung up to the dining parlour, osborne read the evening service to his family in a loud grating pompous voice. no member of the household, child, or domestic, ever entered that room without a certain terror. here he checked the housekeeper's accounts, and overhauled the butler's cellar-book. hence he could command, across the clean gravel court-yard, the back entrance of the stables with which one of his bells communicated, and into this yard the coachman issued from his premises as into a dock, and osborne swore at him from the study window. four times a year miss wirt entered this apartment to get her salary; and his daughters to receive their quarterly allowance. george as a boy had been horsewhipped in this room many times; his mother sitting sick on the stair listening to the cuts of the whip. the boy was scarcely ever known to cry under the punishment; the poor woman used to fondle and kiss him secretly, and give him money to soothe him when he came out. there was a picture of the family over the mantelpiece, removed thither from the front room after mrs. osborne's death--george was on a pony, the elder sister holding him up a bunch of flowers; the younger led by her mother's hand; all with red cheeks and large red mouths, simpering on each other in the approved family-portrait manner. the mother lay underground now, long since forgotten--the sisters and brother had a hundred different interests of their own, and, familiar still, were utterly estranged from each other. some few score of years afterwards, when all the parties represented are grown old, what bitter satire there is in those flaunting childish family-portraits, with their farce of sentiment and smiling lies, and innocence so self-conscious and self-satisfied. osborne's own state portrait, with that of his great silver inkstand and arm-chair, had taken the place of honour in the dining-room, vacated by the family-piece. to this study old osborne retired then, greatly to the relief of the small party whom he left. when the servants had withdrawn, they began to talk for a while volubly but very low; then they went upstairs quietly, mr. bullock accompanying them stealthily on his creaking shoes. he had no heart to sit alone drinking wine, and so close to the terrible old gentleman in the study hard at hand. an hour at least after dark, the butler, not having received any summons, ventured to tap at his door and take him in wax candles and tea. the master of the house sate in his chair, pretending to read the paper, and when the servant, placing the lights and refreshment on the table by him, retired, mr. osborne got up and locked the door after him. this time there was no mistaking the matter; all the household knew that some great catastrophe was going to happen which was likely direly to affect master george. in the large shining mahogany escritoire mr. osborne had a drawer especially devoted to his son's affairs and papers. here he kept all the documents relating to him ever since he had been a boy: here were his prize copy-books and drawing-books, all bearing george's hand, and that of the master: here were his first letters in large round-hand sending his love to papa and mamma, and conveying his petitions for a cake. his dear godpapa sedley was more than once mentioned in them. curses quivered on old osborne's livid lips, and horrid hatred and disappointment writhed in his heart, as looking through some of these papers he came on that name. they were all marked and docketed, and tied with red tape. it was--"from georgy, requesting s., april , --; answered, april "--or "georgy about a pony, october "--and so forth. in another packet were "dr. s.'s accounts"--"g.'s tailor's bills and outfits, drafts on me by g. osborne, jun.," &c.--his letters from the west indies--his agent's letters, and the newspapers containing his commissions: here was a whip he had when a boy, and in a paper a locket containing his hair, which his mother used to wear. turning one over after another, and musing over these memorials, the unhappy man passed many hours. his dearest vanities, ambitious hopes, had all been here. what pride he had in his boy! he was the handsomest child ever seen. everybody said he was like a nobleman's son. a royal princess had remarked him, and kissed him, and asked his name in kew gardens. what city man could show such another? could a prince have been better cared for? anything that money could buy had been his son's. he used to go down on speech-days with four horses and new liveries, and scatter new shillings among the boys at the school where george was: when he went with george to the depot of his regiment, before the boy embarked for canada, he gave the officers such a dinner as the duke of york might have sat down to. had he ever refused a bill when george drew one? there they were--paid without a word. many a general in the army couldn't ride the horses he had! he had the child before his eyes, on a hundred different days when he remembered george after dinner, when he used to come in as bold as a lord and drink off his glass by his father's side, at the head of the table--on the pony at brighton, when he cleared the hedge and kept up with the huntsman--on the day when he was presented to the prince regent at the levee, when all saint james's couldn't produce a finer young fellow. and this, this was the end of all!--to marry a bankrupt and fly in the face of duty and fortune! what humiliation and fury: what pangs of sickening rage, balked ambition and love; what wounds of outraged vanity, tenderness even, had this old worldling now to suffer under! having examined these papers, and pondered over this one and the other, in that bitterest of all helpless woe, with which miserable men think of happy past times--george's father took the whole of the documents out of the drawer in which he had kept them so long, and locked them into a writing-box, which he tied, and sealed with his seal. then he opened the book-case, and took down the great red bible we have spoken of a pompous book, seldom looked at, and shining all over with gold. there was a frontispiece to the volume, representing abraham sacrificing isaac. here, according to custom, osborne had recorded on the fly-leaf, and in his large clerk-like hand, the dates of his marriage and his wife's death, and the births and christian names of his children. jane came first, then george sedley osborne, then maria frances, and the days of the christening of each. taking a pen, he carefully obliterated george's names from the page; and when the leaf was quite dry, restored the volume to the place from which he had moved it. then he took a document out of another drawer, where his own private papers were kept; and having read it, crumpled it up and lighted it at one of the candles, and saw it burn entirely away in the grate. it was his will; which being burned, he sate down and wrote off a letter, and rang for his servant, whom he charged to deliver it in the morning. it was morning already: as he went up to bed, the whole house was alight with the sunshine; and the birds were singing among the fresh green leaves in russell square. anxious to keep all mr. osborne's family and dependants in good humour, and to make as many friends as possible for george in his hour of adversity, william dobbin, who knew the effect which good dinners and good wines have upon the soul of man, wrote off immediately on his return to his inn the most hospitable of invitations to thomas chopper, esquire, begging that gentleman to dine with him at the slaughters' next day. the note reached mr. chopper before he left the city, and the instant reply was, that "mr. chopper presents his respectful compliments, and will have the honour and pleasure of waiting on captain d." the invitation and the rough draft of the answer were shown to mrs. chopper and her daughters on his return to somers' town that evening, and they talked about military gents and west end men with great exultation as the family sate and partook of tea. when the girls had gone to rest, mr. and mrs. c. discoursed upon the strange events which were occurring in the governor's family. never had the clerk seen his principal so moved. when he went in to mr. osborne, after captain dobbin's departure, mr. chopper found his chief black in the face, and all but in a fit: some dreadful quarrel, he was certain, had occurred between mr. o. and the young captain. chopper had been instructed to make out an account of all sums paid to captain osborne within the last three years. "and a precious lot of money he has had too," the chief clerk said, and respected his old and young master the more, for the liberal way in which the guineas had been flung about. the dispute was something about miss sedley. mrs. chopper vowed and declared she pitied that poor young lady to lose such a handsome young fellow as the capting. as the daughter of an unlucky speculator, who had paid a very shabby dividend, mr. chopper had no great regard for miss sedley. he respected the house of osborne before all others in the city of london: and his hope and wish was that captain george should marry a nobleman's daughter. the clerk slept a great deal sounder than his principal that night; and, cuddling his children after breakfast (of which he partook with a very hearty appetite, though his modest cup of life was only sweetened with brown sugar), he set off in his best sunday suit and frilled shirt for business, promising his admiring wife not to punish captain d.'s port too severely that evening. mr. osborne's countenance, when he arrived in the city at his usual time, struck those dependants who were accustomed, for good reasons, to watch its expression, as peculiarly ghastly and worn. at twelve o'clock mr. higgs (of the firm of higgs & blatherwick, solicitors, bedford row) called by appointment, and was ushered into the governor's private room, and closeted there for more than an hour. at about one mr. chopper received a note brought by captain dobbin's man, and containing an inclosure for mr. osborne, which the clerk went in and delivered. a short time afterwards mr. chopper and mr. birch, the next clerk, were summoned, and requested to witness a paper. "i've been making a new will," mr. osborne said, to which these gentlemen appended their names accordingly. no conversation passed. mr. higgs looked exceedingly grave as he came into the outer rooms, and very hard in mr. chopper's face; but there were not any explanations. it was remarked that mr. osborne was particularly quiet and gentle all day, to the surprise of those who had augured ill from his darkling demeanour. he called no man names that day, and was not heard to swear once. he left business early; and before going away, summoned his chief clerk once more, and having given him general instructions, asked him, after some seeming hesitation and reluctance to speak, if he knew whether captain dobbin was in town? chopper said he believed he was. indeed both of them knew the fact perfectly. osborne took a letter directed to that officer, and giving it to the clerk, requested the latter to deliver it into dobbin's own hands immediately. "and now, chopper," says he, taking his hat, and with a strange look, "my mind will be easy." exactly as the clock struck two (there was no doubt an appointment between the pair) mr. frederick bullock called, and he and mr. osborne walked away together. the colonel of the --th regiment, in which messieurs dobbin and osborne had companies, was an old general who had made his first campaign under wolfe at quebec, and was long since quite too old and feeble for command; but he took some interest in the regiment of which he was the nominal head, and made certain of his young officers welcome at his table, a kind of hospitality which i believe is not now common amongst his brethren. captain dobbin was an especial favourite of this old general. dobbin was versed in the literature of his profession, and could talk about the great frederick, and the empress queen, and their wars, almost as well as the general himself, who was indifferent to the triumphs of the present day, and whose heart was with the tacticians of fifty years back. this officer sent a summons to dobbin to come and breakfast with him, on the morning when mr. osborne altered his will and mr. chopper put on his best shirt frill, and then informed his young favourite, a couple of days in advance, of that which they were all expecting--a marching order to go to belgium. the order for the regiment to hold itself in readiness would leave the horse guards in a day or two; and as transports were in plenty, they would get their route before the week was over. recruits had come in during the stay of the regiment at chatham; and the old general hoped that the regiment which had helped to beat montcalm in canada, and to rout mr. washington on long island, would prove itself worthy of its historical reputation on the oft-trodden battle-grounds of the low countries. "and so, my good friend, if you have any affaire la," said the old general, taking a pinch of snuff with his trembling white old hand, and then pointing to the spot of his robe de chambre under which his heart was still feebly beating, "if you have any phillis to console, or to bid farewell to papa and mamma, or any will to make, i recommend you to set about your business without delay." with which the general gave his young friend a finger to shake, and a good-natured nod of his powdered and pigtailed head; and the door being closed upon dobbin, sate down to pen a poulet (he was exceedingly vain of his french) to mademoiselle amenaide of his majesty's theatre. this news made dobbin grave, and he thought of our friends at brighton, and then he was ashamed of himself that amelia was always the first thing in his thoughts (always before anybody--before father and mother, sisters and duty--always at waking and sleeping indeed, and all day long); and returning to his hotel, he sent off a brief note to mr. osborne acquainting him with the information which he had received, and which might tend farther, he hoped, to bring about a reconciliation with george. this note, despatched by the same messenger who had carried the invitation to chopper on the previous day, alarmed the worthy clerk not a little. it was inclosed to him, and as he opened the letter he trembled lest the dinner should be put off on which he was calculating. his mind was inexpressibly relieved when he found that the envelope was only a reminder for himself. ("i shall expect you at half-past five," captain dobbin wrote.) he was very much interested about his employer's family; but, que voulez-vous? a grand dinner was of more concern to him than the affairs of any other mortal. dobbin was quite justified in repeating the general's information to any officers of the regiment whom he should see in the course of his peregrinations; accordingly he imparted it to ensign stubble, whom he met at the agent's, and who--such was his military ardour--went off instantly to purchase a new sword at the accoutrement-maker's. here this young fellow, who, though only seventeen years of age, and about sixty-five inches high, with a constitution naturally rickety and much impaired by premature brandy and water, had an undoubted courage and a lion's heart, poised, tried, bent, and balanced a weapon such as he thought would do execution amongst frenchmen. shouting "ha, ha!" and stamping his little feet with tremendous energy, he delivered the point twice or thrice at captain dobbin, who parried the thrust laughingly with his bamboo walking-stick. mr. stubble, as may be supposed from his size and slenderness, was of the light bobs. ensign spooney, on the contrary, was a tall youth, and belonged to (captain dobbin's) the grenadier company, and he tried on a new bearskin cap, under which he looked savage beyond his years. then these two lads went off to the slaughters', and having ordered a famous dinner, sate down and wrote off letters to the kind anxious parents at home--letters full of love and heartiness, and pluck and bad spelling. ah! there were many anxious hearts beating through england at that time; and mothers' prayers and tears flowing in many homesteads. seeing young stubble engaged in composition at one of the coffee-room tables at the slaughters', and the tears trickling down his nose on to the paper (for the youngster was thinking of his mamma, and that he might never see her again), dobbin, who was going to write off a letter to george osborne, relented, and locked up his desk. "why should i?" said he. "let her have this night happy. i'll go and see my parents early in the morning, and go down to brighton myself to-morrow." so he went up and laid his big hand on young stubble's shoulder, and backed up that young champion, and told him if he would leave off brandy and water he would be a good soldier, as he always was a gentlemanly good-hearted fellow. young stubble's eyes brightened up at this, for dobbin was greatly respected in the regiment, as the best officer and the cleverest man in it. "thank you, dobbin," he said, rubbing his eyes with his knuckles, "i was just--just telling her i would. and, o sir, she's so dam kind to me." the water pumps were at work again, and i am not sure that the soft-hearted captain's eyes did not also twinkle. the two ensigns, the captain, and mr. chopper, dined together in the same box. chopper brought the letter from mr. osborne, in which the latter briefly presented his compliments to captain dobbin, and requested him to forward the inclosed to captain george osborne. chopper knew nothing further; he described mr. osborne's appearance, it is true, and his interview with his lawyer, wondered how the governor had sworn at nobody, and--especially as the wine circled round--abounded in speculations and conjectures. but these grew more vague with every glass, and at length became perfectly unintelligible. at a late hour captain dobbin put his guest into a hackney coach, in a hiccupping state, and swearing that he would be the kick--the kick--captain's friend for ever and ever. when captain dobbin took leave of miss osborne we have said that he asked leave to come and pay her another visit, and the spinster expected him for some hours the next day, when, perhaps, had he come, and had he asked her that question which she was prepared to answer, she would have declared herself as her brother's friend, and a reconciliation might have been effected between george and his angry father. but though she waited at home the captain never came. he had his own affairs to pursue; his own parents to visit and console; and at an early hour of the day to take his place on the lightning coach, and go down to his friends at brighton. in the course of the day miss osborne heard her father give orders that that meddling scoundrel, captain dobbin, should never be admitted within his doors again, and any hopes in which she may have indulged privately were thus abruptly brought to an end. mr. frederick bullock came, and was particularly affectionate to maria, and attentive to the broken-spirited old gentleman. for though he said his mind would be easy, the means which he had taken to secure quiet did not seem to have succeeded as yet, and the events of the past two days had visibly shattered him. chapter xxv in which all the principal personages think fit to leave brighton conducted to the ladies, at the ship inn, dobbin assumed a jovial and rattling manner, which proved that this young officer was becoming a more consummate hypocrite every day of his life. he was trying to hide his own private feelings, first upon seeing mrs. george osborne in her new condition, and secondly to mask the apprehensions he entertained as to the effect which the dismal news brought down by him would certainly have upon her. "it is my opinion, george," he said, "that the french emperor will be upon us, horse and foot, before three weeks are over, and will give the duke such a dance as shall make the peninsula appear mere child's play. but you need not say that to mrs. osborne, you know. there mayn't be any fighting on our side after all, and our business in belgium may turn out to be a mere military occupation. many persons think so; and brussels is full of fine people and ladies of fashion." so it was agreed to represent the duty of the british army in belgium in this harmless light to amelia. this plot being arranged, the hypocritical dobbin saluted mrs. george osborne quite gaily, tried to pay her one or two compliments relative to her new position as a bride (which compliments, it must be confessed, were exceedingly clumsy and hung fire woefully), and then fell to talking about brighton, and the sea-air, and the gaieties of the place, and the beauties of the road and the merits of the lightning coach and horses--all in a manner quite incomprehensible to amelia, and very amusing to rebecca, who was watching the captain, as indeed she watched every one near whom she came. little amelia, it must be owned, had rather a mean opinion of her husband's friend, captain dobbin. he lisped--he was very plain and homely-looking: and exceedingly awkward and ungainly. she liked him for his attachment to her husband (to be sure there was very little merit in that), and she thought george was most generous and kind in extending his friendship to his brother officer. george had mimicked dobbin's lisp and queer manners many times to her, though to do him justice, he always spoke most highly of his friend's good qualities. in her little day of triumph, and not knowing him intimately as yet, she made light of honest william--and he knew her opinions of him quite well, and acquiesced in them very humbly. a time came when she knew him better, and changed her notions regarding him; but that was distant as yet. as for rebecca, captain dobbin had not been two hours in the ladies' company before she understood his secret perfectly. she did not like him, and feared him privately; nor was he very much prepossessed in her favour. he was so honest, that her arts and cajoleries did not affect him, and he shrank from her with instinctive repulsion. and, as she was by no means so far superior to her sex as to be above jealousy, she disliked him the more for his adoration of amelia. nevertheless, she was very respectful and cordial in her manner towards him. a friend to the osbornes! a friend to her dearest benefactors! she vowed she should always love him sincerely: she remembered him quite well on the vauxhall night, as she told amelia archly, and she made a little fun of him when the two ladies went to dress for dinner. rawdon crawley paid scarcely any attention to dobbin, looking upon him as a good-natured nincompoop and under-bred city man. jos patronised him with much dignity. when george and dobbin were alone in the latter's room, to which george had followed him, dobbin took from his desk the letter which he had been charged by mr. osborne to deliver to his son. "it's not in my father's handwriting," said george, looking rather alarmed; nor was it: the letter was from mr. osborne's lawyer, and to the following effect: "bedford row, may , . "sir, "i am commissioned by mr. osborne to inform you, that he abides by the determination which he before expressed to you, and that in consequence of the marriage which you have been pleased to contract, he ceases to consider you henceforth as a member of his family. this determination is final and irrevocable. "although the monies expended upon you in your minority, and the bills which you have drawn upon him so unsparingly of late years, far exceed in amount the sum to which you are entitled in your own right (being the third part of the fortune of your mother, the late mrs. osborne and which reverted to you at her decease, and to miss jane osborne and miss maria frances osborne); yet i am instructed by mr. osborne to say, that he waives all claim upon your estate, and that the sum of , pounds, per cent. annuities, at the value of the day (being your one-third share of the sum of , pounds), shall be paid over to yourself or your agents upon your receipt for the same, by "your obedient servt., "s. higgs. "p.s.--mr. osborne desires me to say, once for all, that he declines to receive any messages, letters, or communications from you on this or any other subject. "a pretty way you have managed the affair," said george, looking savagely at william dobbin. "look there, dobbin," and he flung over to the latter his parent's letter. "a beggar, by jove, and all in consequence of my d--d sentimentality. why couldn't we have waited? a ball might have done for me in the course of the war, and may still, and how will emmy be bettered by being left a beggar's widow? it was all your doing. you were never easy until you had got me married and ruined. what the deuce am i to do with two thousand pounds? such a sum won't last two years. i've lost a hundred and forty to crawley at cards and billiards since i've been down here. a pretty manager of a man's matters you are, forsooth." "there's no denying that the position is a hard one," dobbin replied, after reading over the letter with a blank countenance; "and as you say, it is partly of my making. there are some men who wouldn't mind changing with you," he added, with a bitter smile. "how many captains in the regiment have two thousand pounds to the fore, think you? you must live on your pay till your father relents, and if you die, you leave your wife a hundred a year." "do you suppose a man of my habits can live on his pay and a hundred a year?" george cried out in great anger. "you must be a fool to talk so, dobbin. how the deuce am i to keep up my position in the world upon such a pitiful pittance? i can't change my habits. i must have my comforts. i wasn't brought up on porridge, like macwhirter, or on potatoes, like old o'dowd. do you expect my wife to take in soldiers' washing, or ride after the regiment in a baggage waggon?" "well, well," said dobbin, still good-naturedly, "we'll get her a better conveyance. but try and remember that you are only a dethroned prince now, george, my boy; and be quiet whilst the tempest lasts. it won't be for long. let your name be mentioned in the gazette, and i'll engage the old father relents towards you:" "mentioned in the gazette!" george answered. "and in what part of it? among the killed and wounded returns, and at the top of the list, very likely." "psha! it will be time enough to cry out when we are hurt," dobbin said. "and if anything happens, you know, george, i have got a little, and i am not a marrying man, and i shall not forget my godson in my will," he added, with a smile. whereupon the dispute ended--as many scores of such conversations between osborne and his friend had concluded previously--by the former declaring there was no possibility of being angry with dobbin long, and forgiving him very generously after abusing him without cause. "i say, becky," cried rawdon crawley out of his dressing-room, to his lady, who was attiring herself for dinner in her own chamber. "what?" said becky's shrill voice. she was looking over her shoulder in the glass. she had put on the neatest and freshest white frock imaginable, and with bare shoulders and a little necklace, and a light blue sash, she looked the image of youthful innocence and girlish happiness. "i say, what'll mrs. o. do, when o. goes out with the regiment?" crawley said coming into the room, performing a duet on his head with two huge hair-brushes, and looking out from under his hair with admiration on his pretty little wife. "i suppose she'll cry her eyes out," becky answered. "she has been whimpering half a dozen times, at the very notion of it, already to me." "you don't care, i suppose?" rawdon said, half angry at his wife's want of feeling. "you wretch! don't you know that i intend to go with you," becky replied. "besides, you're different. you go as general tufto's aide-de-camp. we don't belong to the line," mrs. crawley said, throwing up her head with an air that so enchanted her husband that he stooped down and kissed it. "rawdon dear--don't you think--you'd better get that--money from cupid, before he goes?" becky continued, fixing on a killing bow. she called george osborne, cupid. she had flattered him about his good looks a score of times already. she watched over him kindly at ecarte of a night when he would drop in to rawdon's quarters for a half-hour before bed-time. she had often called him a horrid dissipated wretch, and threatened to tell emmy of his wicked ways and naughty extravagant habits. she brought his cigar and lighted it for him; she knew the effect of that manoeuvre, having practised it in former days upon rawdon crawley. he thought her gay, brisk, arch, distinguee, delightful. in their little drives and dinners, becky, of course, quite outshone poor emmy, who remained very mute and timid while mrs. crawley and her husband rattled away together, and captain crawley (and jos after he joined the young married people) gobbled in silence. emmy's mind somehow misgave her about her friend. rebecca's wit, spirits, and accomplishments troubled her with a rueful disquiet. they were only a week married, and here was george already suffering ennui, and eager for others' society! she trembled for the future. how shall i be a companion for him, she thought--so clever and so brilliant, and i such a humble foolish creature? how noble it was of him to marry me--to give up everything and stoop down to me! i ought to have refused him, only i had not the heart. i ought to have stopped at home and taken care of poor papa. and her neglect of her parents (and indeed there was some foundation for this charge which the poor child's uneasy conscience brought against her) was now remembered for the first time, and caused her to blush with humiliation. oh! thought she, i have been very wicked and selfish--selfish in forgetting them in their sorrows--selfish in forcing george to marry me. i know i'm not worthy of him--i know he would have been happy without me--and yet--i tried, i tried to give him up. it is hard when, before seven days of marriage are over, such thoughts and confessions as these force themselves on a little bride's mind. but so it was, and the night before dobbin came to join these young people--on a fine brilliant moonlight night of may--so warm and balmy that the windows were flung open to the balcony, from which george and mrs. crawley were gazing upon the calm ocean spread shining before them, while rawdon and jos were engaged at backgammon within--amelia couched in a great chair quite neglected, and watching both these parties, felt a despair and remorse such as were bitter companions for that tender lonely soul. scarce a week was past, and it was come to this! the future, had she regarded it, offered a dismal prospect; but emmy was too shy, so to speak, to look to that, and embark alone on that wide sea, and unfit to navigate it without a guide and protector. i know miss smith has a mean opinion of her. but how many, my dear madam, are endowed with your prodigious strength of mind? "gad, what a fine night, and how bright the moon is!" george said, with a puff of his cigar, which went soaring up skywards. "how delicious they smell in the open air! i adore them. who'd think the moon was two hundred and thirty-six thousand eight hundred and forty-seven miles off?" becky added, gazing at that orb with a smile. "isn't it clever of me to remember that? pooh! we learned it all at miss pinkerton's! how calm the sea is, and how clear everything. i declare i can almost see the coast of france!" and her bright green eyes streamed out, and shot into the night as if they could see through it. "do you know what i intend to do one morning?" she said; "i find i can swim beautifully, and some day, when my aunt crawley's companion--old briggs, you know--you remember her--that hook-nosed woman, with the long wisps of hair--when briggs goes out to bathe, i intend to dive under her awning, and insist on a reconciliation in the water. isn't that a stratagem?" george burst out laughing at the idea of this aquatic meeting. "what's the row there, you two?" rawdon shouted out, rattling the box. amelia was making a fool of herself in an absurd hysterical manner, and retired to her own room to whimper in private. our history is destined in this chapter to go backwards and forwards in a very irresolute manner seemingly, and having conducted our story to to-morrow presently, we shall immediately again have occasion to step back to yesterday, so that the whole of the tale may get a hearing. as you behold at her majesty's drawing-room, the ambassadors' and high dignitaries' carriages whisk off from a private door, while captain jones's ladies are waiting for their fly: as you see in the secretary of the treasury's antechamber, a half-dozen of petitioners waiting patiently for their audience, and called out one by one, when suddenly an irish member or some eminent personage enters the apartment, and instantly walks into mr. under-secretary over the heads of all the people present: so in the conduct of a tale, the romancer is obliged to exercise this most partial sort of justice. although all the little incidents must be heard, yet they must be put off when the great events make their appearance; and surely such a circumstance as that which brought dobbin to brighton, viz., the ordering out of the guards and the line to belgium, and the mustering of the allied armies in that country under the command of his grace the duke of wellington--such a dignified circumstance as that, i say, was entitled to the pas over all minor occurrences whereof this history is composed mainly, and hence a little trifling disarrangement and disorder was excusable and becoming. we have only now advanced in time so far beyond chapter xxii as to have got our various characters up into their dressing-rooms before the dinner, which took place as usual on the day of dobbin's arrival. george was too humane or too much occupied with the tie of his neckcloth to convey at once all the news to amelia which his comrade had brought with him from london. he came into her room, however, holding the attorney's letter in his hand, and with so solemn and important an air that his wife, always ingeniously on the watch for calamity, thought the worst was about to befall, and running up to her husband, besought her dearest george to tell her everything--he was ordered abroad; there would be a battle next week--she knew there would. dearest george parried the question about foreign service, and with a melancholy shake of the head said, "no, emmy; it isn't that: it's not myself i care about: it's you. i have had bad news from my father. he refuses any communication with me; he has flung us off; and leaves us to poverty. i can rough it well enough; but you, my dear, how will you bear it? read here." and he handed her over the letter. amelia, with a look of tender alarm in her eyes, listened to her noble hero as he uttered the above generous sentiments, and sitting down on the bed, read the letter which george gave her with such a pompous martyr-like air. her face cleared up as she read the document, however. the idea of sharing poverty and privation in company with the beloved object is, as we have before said, far from being disagreeable to a warm-hearted woman. the notion was actually pleasant to little amelia. then, as usual, she was ashamed of herself for feeling happy at such an indecorous moment, and checked her pleasure, saying demurely, "o, george, how your poor heart must bleed at the idea of being separated from your papa!" "it does," said george, with an agonised countenance. "but he can't be angry with you long," she continued. "nobody could, i'm sure. he must forgive you, my dearest, kindest husband. o, i shall never forgive myself if he does not." "what vexes me, my poor emmy, is not my misfortune, but yours," george said. "i don't care for a little poverty; and i think, without vanity, i've talents enough to make my own way." "that you have," interposed his wife, who thought that war should cease, and her husband should be made a general instantly. "yes, i shall make my way as well as another," osborne went on; "but you, my dear girl, how can i bear your being deprived of the comforts and station in society which my wife had a right to expect? my dearest girl in barracks; the wife of a soldier in a marching regiment; subject to all sorts of annoyance and privation! it makes me miserable." emmy, quite at ease, as this was her husband's only cause of disquiet, took his hand, and with a radiant face and smile began to warble that stanza from the favourite song of "wapping old stairs," in which the heroine, after rebuking her tom for inattention, promises "his trousers to mend, and his grog too to make," if he will be constant and kind, and not forsake her. "besides," she said, after a pause, during which she looked as pretty and happy as any young woman need, "isn't two thousand pounds an immense deal of money, george?" george laughed at her naivete; and finally they went down to dinner, amelia clinging to george's arm, still warbling the tune of "wapping old stairs," and more pleased and light of mind than she had been for some days past. thus the repast, which at length came off, instead of being dismal, was an exceedingly brisk and merry one. the excitement of the campaign counteracted in george's mind the depression occasioned by the disinheriting letter. dobbin still kept up his character of rattle. he amused the company with accounts of the army in belgium; where nothing but fetes and gaiety and fashion were going on. then, having a particular end in view, this dexterous captain proceeded to describe mrs. major o'dowd packing her own and her major's wardrobe, and how his best epaulets had been stowed into a tea canister, whilst her own famous yellow turban, with the bird of paradise wrapped in brown paper, was locked up in the major's tin cocked-hat case, and wondered what effect it would have at the french king's court at ghent, or the great military balls at brussels. "ghent! brussels!" cried out amelia with a sudden shock and start. "is the regiment ordered away, george--is it ordered away?" a look of terror came over the sweet smiling face, and she clung to george as by an instinct. "don't be afraid, dear," he said good-naturedly; "it is but a twelve hours' passage. it won't hurt you. you shall go, too, emmy." "i intend to go," said becky. "i'm on the staff. general tufto is a great flirt of mine. isn't he, rawdon?" rawdon laughed out with his usual roar. william dobbin flushed up quite red. "she can't go," he said; "think of the--of the danger," he was going to add; but had not all his conversation during dinner-time tended to prove there was none? he became very confused and silent. "i must and will go," amelia cried with the greatest spirit; and george, applauding her resolution, patted her under the chin, and asked all the persons present if they ever saw such a termagant of a wife, and agreed that the lady should bear him company. "we'll have mrs. o'dowd to chaperon you," he said. what cared she so long as her husband was near her? thus somehow the bitterness of a parting was juggled away. though war and danger were in store, war and danger might not befall for months to come. there was a respite at any rate, which made the timid little amelia almost as happy as a full reprieve would have done, and which even dobbin owned in his heart was very welcome. for, to be permitted to see her was now the greatest privilege and hope of his life, and he thought with himself secretly how he would watch and protect her. i wouldn't have let her go if i had been married to her, he thought. but george was the master, and his friend did not think fit to remonstrate. putting her arm round her friend's waist, rebecca at length carried amelia off from the dinner-table where so much business of importance had been discussed, and left the gentlemen in a highly exhilarated state, drinking and talking very gaily. in the course of the evening rawdon got a little family-note from his wife, which, although he crumpled it up and burnt it instantly in the candle, we had the good luck to read over rebecca's shoulder. "great news," she wrote. "mrs. bute is gone. get the money from cupid tonight, as he'll be off to-morrow most likely. mind this.--r." so when the little company was about adjourning to coffee in the women's apartment, rawdon touched osborne on the elbow, and said gracefully, "i say, osborne, my boy, if quite convenient, i'll trouble you for that 'ere small trifle." it was not quite convenient, but nevertheless george gave him a considerable present instalment in bank-notes from his pocket-book, and a bill on his agents at a week's date, for the remaining sum. this matter arranged, george, and jos, and dobbin, held a council of war over their cigars, and agreed that a general move should be made for london in jos's open carriage the next day. jos, i think, would have preferred staying until rawdon crawley quitted brighton, but dobbin and george overruled him, and he agreed to carry the party to town, and ordered four horses, as became his dignity. with these they set off in state, after breakfast, the next day. amelia had risen very early in the morning, and packed her little trunks with the greatest alacrity, while osborne lay in bed deploring that she had not a maid to help her. she was only too glad, however, to perform this office for herself. a dim uneasy sentiment about rebecca filled her mind already; and although they kissed each other most tenderly at parting, yet we know what jealousy is; and mrs. amelia possessed that among other virtues of her sex. besides these characters who are coming and going away, we must remember that there were some other old friends of ours at brighton; miss crawley, namely, and the suite in attendance upon her. now, although rebecca and her husband were but at a few stones' throw of the lodgings which the invalid miss crawley occupied, the old lady's door remained as pitilessly closed to them as it had been heretofore in london. as long as she remained by the side of her sister-in-law, mrs. bute crawley took care that her beloved matilda should not be agitated by a meeting with her nephew. when the spinster took her drive, the faithful mrs. bute sate beside her in the carriage. when miss crawley took the air in a chair, mrs. bute marched on one side of the vehicle, whilst honest briggs occupied the other wing. and if they met rawdon and his wife by chance--although the former constantly and obsequiously took off his hat, the miss-crawley party passed him by with such a frigid and killing indifference, that rawdon began to despair. "we might as well be in london as here," captain rawdon often said, with a downcast air. "a comfortable inn in brighton is better than a spunging-house in chancery lane," his wife answered, who was of a more cheerful temperament. "think of those two aides-de-camp of mr. moses, the sheriff's-officer, who watched our lodging for a week. our friends here are very stupid, but mr. jos and captain cupid are better companions than mr. moses's men, rawdon, my love." "i wonder the writs haven't followed me down here," rawdon continued, still desponding. "when they do, we'll find means to give them the slip," said dauntless little becky, and further pointed out to her husband the great comfort and advantage of meeting jos and osborne, whose acquaintance had brought to rawdon crawley a most timely little supply of ready money. "it will hardly be enough to pay the inn bill," grumbled the guardsman. "why need we pay it?" said the lady, who had an answer for everything. through rawdon's valet, who still kept up a trifling acquaintance with the male inhabitants of miss crawley's servants' hall, and was instructed to treat the coachman to drink whenever they met, old miss crawley's movements were pretty well known by our young couple; and rebecca luckily bethought herself of being unwell, and of calling in the same apothecary who was in attendance upon the spinster, so that their information was on the whole tolerably complete. nor was miss briggs, although forced to adopt a hostile attitude, secretly inimical to rawdon and his wife. she was naturally of a kindly and forgiving disposition. now that the cause of jealousy was removed, her dislike for rebecca disappeared also, and she remembered the latter's invariable good words and good humour. and, indeed, she and mrs. firkin, the lady's-maid, and the whole of miss crawley's household, groaned under the tyranny of the triumphant mrs. bute. as often will be the case, that good but imperious woman pushed her advantages too far, and her successes quite unmercifully. she had in the course of a few weeks brought the invalid to such a state of helpless docility, that the poor soul yielded herself entirely to her sister's orders, and did not even dare to complain of her slavery to briggs or firkin. mrs. bute measured out the glasses of wine which miss crawley was daily allowed to take, with irresistible accuracy, greatly to the annoyance of firkin and the butler, who found themselves deprived of control over even the sherry-bottle. she apportioned the sweetbreads, jellies, chickens; their quantity and order. night and noon and morning she brought the abominable drinks ordained by the doctor, and made her patient swallow them with so affecting an obedience that firkin said "my poor missus du take her physic like a lamb." she prescribed the drive in the carriage or the ride in the chair, and, in a word, ground down the old lady in her convalescence in such a way as only belongs to your proper-managing, motherly moral woman. if ever the patient faintly resisted, and pleaded for a little bit more dinner or a little drop less medicine, the nurse threatened her with instantaneous death, when miss crawley instantly gave in. "she's no spirit left in her," firkin remarked to briggs; "she ain't ave called me a fool these three weeks." finally, mrs. bute had made up her mind to dismiss the aforesaid honest lady's-maid, mr. bowls the large confidential man, and briggs herself, and to send for her daughters from the rectory, previous to removing the dear invalid bodily to queen's crawley, when an odious accident happened which called her away from duties so pleasing. the reverend bute crawley, her husband, riding home one night, fell with his horse and broke his collar-bone. fever and inflammatory symptoms set in, and mrs. bute was forced to leave sussex for hampshire. as soon as ever bute was restored, she promised to return to her dearest friend, and departed, leaving the strongest injunctions with the household regarding their behaviour to their mistress; and as soon as she got into the southampton coach, there was such a jubilee and sense of relief in all miss crawley's house, as the company of persons assembled there had not experienced for many a week before. that very day miss crawley left off her afternoon dose of medicine: that afternoon bowls opened an independent bottle of sherry for himself and mrs. firkin: that night miss crawley and miss briggs indulged in a game of piquet instead of one of porteus's sermons. it was as in the old nursery-story, when the stick forgot to beat the dog, and the whole course of events underwent a peaceful and happy revolution. at a very early hour in the morning, twice or thrice a week, miss briggs used to betake herself to a bathing-machine, and disport in the water in a flannel gown and an oilskin cap. rebecca, as we have seen, was aware of this circumstance, and though she did not attempt to storm briggs as she had threatened, and actually dive into that lady's presence and surprise her under the sacredness of the awning, mrs. rawdon determined to attack briggs as she came away from her bath, refreshed and invigorated by her dip, and likely to be in good humour. so getting up very early the next morning, becky brought the telescope in their sitting-room, which faced the sea, to bear upon the bathing-machines on the beach; saw briggs arrive, enter her box; and put out to sea; and was on the shore just as the nymph of whom she came in quest stepped out of the little caravan on to the shingles. it was a pretty picture: the beach; the bathing-women's faces; the long line of rocks and building were blushing and bright in the sunshine. rebecca wore a kind, tender smile on her face, and was holding out her pretty white hand as briggs emerged from the box. what could briggs do but accept the salutation? "miss sh--mrs. crawley," she said. mrs. crawley seized her hand, pressed it to her heart, and with a sudden impulse, flinging her arms round briggs, kissed her affectionately. "dear, dear friend!" she said, with a touch of such natural feeling, that miss briggs of course at once began to melt, and even the bathing-woman was mollified. rebecca found no difficulty in engaging briggs in a long, intimate, and delightful conversation. everything that had passed since the morning of becky's sudden departure from miss crawley's house in park lane up to the present day, and mrs. bute's happy retreat, was discussed and described by briggs. all miss crawley's symptoms, and the particulars of her illness and medical treatment, were narrated by the confidante with that fulness and accuracy which women delight in. about their complaints and their doctors do ladies ever tire of talking to each other? briggs did not on this occasion; nor did rebecca weary of listening. she was thankful, truly thankful, that the dear kind briggs, that the faithful, the invaluable firkin, had been permitted to remain with their benefactress through her illness. heaven bless her! though she, rebecca, had seemed to act undutifully towards miss crawley; yet was not her fault a natural and excusable one? could she help giving her hand to the man who had won her heart? briggs, the sentimental, could only turn up her eyes to heaven at this appeal, and heave a sympathetic sigh, and think that she, too, had given away her affections long years ago, and own that rebecca was no very great criminal. "can i ever forget her who so befriended the friendless orphan? no, though she has cast me off," the latter said, "i shall never cease to love her, and i would devote my life to her service. as my own benefactress, as my beloved rawdon's adored relative, i love and admire miss crawley, dear miss briggs, beyond any woman in the world, and next to her i love all those who are faithful to her. i would never have treated miss crawley's faithful friends as that odious designing mrs. bute has done. rawdon, who was all heart," rebecca continued, "although his outward manners might seem rough and careless, had said a hundred times, with tears in his eyes, that he blessed heaven for sending his dearest aunty two such admirable nurses as her attached firkin and her admirable miss briggs. should the machinations of the horrible mrs. bute end, as she too much feared they would, in banishing everybody that miss crawley loved from her side, and leaving that poor lady a victim to those harpies at the rectory, rebecca besought her (miss briggs) to remember that her own home, humble as it was, was always open to receive briggs. dear friend," she exclaimed, in a transport of enthusiasm, "some hearts can never forget benefits; all women are not bute crawleys! though why should i complain of her," rebecca added; "though i have been her tool and the victim to her arts, do i not owe my dearest rawdon to her?" and rebecca unfolded to briggs all mrs. bute's conduct at queen's crawley, which, though unintelligible to her then, was clearly enough explained by the events now--now that the attachment had sprung up which mrs. bute had encouraged by a thousand artifices--now that two innocent people had fallen into the snares which she had laid for them, and loved and married and been ruined through her schemes. it was all very true. briggs saw the stratagems as clearly as possible. mrs. bute had made the match between rawdon and rebecca. yet, though the latter was a perfectly innocent victim, miss briggs could not disguise from her friend her fear that miss crawley's affections were hopelessly estranged from rebecca, and that the old lady would never forgive her nephew for making so imprudent a marriage. on this point rebecca had her own opinion, and still kept up a good heart. if miss crawley did not forgive them at present, she might at least relent on a future day. even now, there was only that puling, sickly pitt crawley between rawdon and a baronetcy; and should anything happen to the former, all would be well. at all events, to have mrs. bute's designs exposed, and herself well abused, was a satisfaction, and might be advantageous to rawdon's interest; and rebecca, after an hour's chat with her recovered friend, left her with the most tender demonstrations of regard, and quite assured that the conversation they had had together would be reported to miss crawley before many hours were over. this interview ended, it became full time for rebecca to return to her inn, where all the party of the previous day were assembled at a farewell breakfast. rebecca took such a tender leave of amelia as became two women who loved each other as sisters; and having used her handkerchief plentifully, and hung on her friend's neck as if they were parting for ever, and waved the handkerchief (which was quite dry, by the way) out of window, as the carriage drove off, she came back to the breakfast table, and ate some prawns with a good deal of appetite, considering her emotion; and while she was munching these delicacies, explained to rawdon what had occurred in her morning walk between herself and briggs. her hopes were very high: she made her husband share them. she generally succeeded in making her husband share all her opinions, whether melancholy or cheerful. "you will now, if you please, my dear, sit down at the writing-table and pen me a pretty little letter to miss crawley, in which you'll say that you are a good boy, and that sort of thing." so rawdon sate down, and wrote off, "brighton, thursday," and "my dear aunt," with great rapidity: but there the gallant officer's imagination failed him. he mumbled the end of his pen, and looked up in his wife's face. she could not help laughing at his rueful countenance, and marching up and down the room with her hands behind her, the little woman began to dictate a letter, which he took down. "before quitting the country and commencing a campaign, which very possibly may be fatal." "what?" said rawdon, rather surprised, but took the humour of the phrase, and presently wrote it down with a grin. "which very possibly may be fatal, i have come hither--" "why not say come here, becky? come here's grammar," the dragoon interposed. "i have come hither," rebecca insisted, with a stamp of her foot, "to say farewell to my dearest and earliest friend. i beseech you before i go, not perhaps to return, once more to let me press the hand from which i have received nothing but kindnesses all my life." "kindnesses all my life," echoed rawdon, scratching down the words, and quite amazed at his own facility of composition. "i ask nothing from you but that we should part not in anger. i have the pride of my family on some points, though not on all. i married a painter's daughter, and am not ashamed of the union." "no, run me through the body if i am!" rawdon ejaculated. "you old booby," rebecca said, pinching his ear and looking over to see that he made no mistakes in spelling--"beseech is not spelt with an a, and earliest is." so he altered these words, bowing to the superior knowledge of his little missis. "i thought that you were aware of the progress of my attachment," rebecca continued: "i knew that mrs. bute crawley confirmed and encouraged it. but i make no reproaches. i married a poor woman, and am content to abide by what i have done. leave your property, dear aunt, as you will. i shall never complain of the way in which you dispose of it. i would have you believe that i love you for yourself, and not for money's sake. i want to be reconciled to you ere i leave england. let me, let me see you before i go. a few weeks or months hence it may be too late, and i cannot bear the notion of quitting the country without a kind word of farewell from you." "she won't recognise my style in that," said becky. "i made the sentences short and brisk on purpose." and this authentic missive was despatched under cover to miss briggs. old miss crawley laughed when briggs, with great mystery, handed her over this candid and simple statement. "we may read it now mrs. bute is away," she said. "read it to me, briggs." when briggs had read the epistle out, her patroness laughed more. "don't you see, you goose," she said to briggs, who professed to be much touched by the honest affection which pervaded the composition, "don't you see that rawdon never wrote a word of it. he never wrote to me without asking for money in his life, and all his letters are full of bad spelling, and dashes, and bad grammar. it is that little serpent of a governess who rules him." they are all alike, miss crawley thought in her heart. they all want me dead, and are hankering for my money. "i don't mind seeing rawdon," she added, after a pause, and in a tone of perfect indifference. "i had just as soon shake hands with him as not. provided there is no scene, why shouldn't we meet? i don't mind. but human patience has its limits; and mind, my dear, i respectfully decline to receive mrs. rawdon--i can't support that quite"--and miss briggs was fain to be content with this half-message of conciliation; and thought that the best method of bringing the old lady and her nephew together, was to warn rawdon to be in waiting on the cliff, when miss crawley went out for her air in her chair. there they met. i don't know whether miss crawley had any private feeling of regard or emotion upon seeing her old favourite; but she held out a couple of fingers to him with as smiling and good-humoured an air, as if they had met only the day before. and as for rawdon, he turned as red as scarlet, and wrung off briggs's hand, so great was his rapture and his confusion at the meeting. perhaps it was interest that moved him: or perhaps affection: perhaps he was touched by the change which the illness of the last weeks had wrought in his aunt. "the old girl has always acted like a trump to me," he said to his wife, as he narrated the interview, "and i felt, you know, rather queer, and that sort of thing. i walked by the side of the what-dy'e-call-'em, you know, and to her own door, where bowls came to help her in. and i wanted to go in very much, only--" "you didn't go in, rawdon!" screamed his wife. "no, my dear; i'm hanged if i wasn't afraid when it came to the point." "you fool! you ought to have gone in, and never come out again," rebecca said. "don't call me names," said the big guardsman, sulkily. "perhaps i was a fool, becky, but you shouldn't say so"; and he gave his wife a look, such as his countenance could wear when angered, and such as was not pleasant to face. "well, dearest, to-morrow you must be on the look-out, and go and see her, mind, whether she asks you or no," rebecca said, trying to soothe her angry yoke-mate. on which he replied, that he would do exactly as he liked, and would just thank her to keep a civil tongue in her head--and the wounded husband went away, and passed the forenoon at the billiard-room, sulky, silent, and suspicious. but before the night was over he was compelled to give in, and own, as usual, to his wife's superior prudence and foresight, by the most melancholy confirmation of the presentiments which she had regarding the consequences of the mistake which he had made. miss crawley must have had some emotion upon seeing him and shaking hands with him after so long a rupture. she mused upon the meeting a considerable time. "rawdon is getting very fat and old, briggs," she said to her companion. "his nose has become red, and he is exceedingly coarse in appearance. his marriage to that woman has hopelessly vulgarised him. mrs. bute always said they drank together; and i have no doubt they do. yes: he smelt of gin abominably. i remarked it. didn't you?" in vain briggs interposed that mrs. bute spoke ill of everybody: and, as far as a person in her humble position could judge, was an-- "an artful designing woman? yes, so she is, and she does speak ill of every one--but i am certain that woman has made rawdon drink. all those low people do--" "he was very much affected at seeing you, ma'am," the companion said; "and i am sure, when you remember that he is going to the field of danger--" "how much money has he promised you, briggs?" the old spinster cried out, working herself into a nervous rage--"there now, of course you begin to cry. i hate scenes. why am i always to be worried? go and cry up in your own room, and send firkin to me--no, stop, sit down and blow your nose, and leave off crying, and write a letter to captain crawley." poor briggs went and placed herself obediently at the writing-book. its leaves were blotted all over with relics of the firm, strong, rapid handwriting of the spinster's late amanuensis, mrs. bute crawley. "begin 'my dear sir,' or 'dear sir,' that will be better, and say you are desired by miss crawley--no, by miss crawley's medical man, by mr. creamer, to state that my health is such that all strong emotions would be dangerous in my present delicate condition--and that i must decline any family discussions or interviews whatever. and thank him for coming to brighton, and so forth, and beg him not to stay any longer on my account. and, miss briggs, you may add that i wish him a bon voyage, and that if he will take the trouble to call upon my lawyer's in gray's inn square, he will find there a communication for him. yes, that will do; and that will make him leave brighton." the benevolent briggs penned this sentence with the utmost satisfaction. "to seize upon me the very day after mrs. bute was gone," the old lady prattled on; "it was too indecent. briggs, my dear, write to mrs. crawley, and say she needn't come back. no--she needn't--and she shan't--and i won't be a slave in my own house--and i won't be starved and choked with poison. they all want to kill me--all--all"--and with this the lonely old woman burst into a scream of hysterical tears. the last scene of her dismal vanity fair comedy was fast approaching; the tawdry lamps were going out one by one; and the dark curtain was almost ready to descend. that final paragraph, which referred rawdon to miss crawley's solicitor in london, and which briggs had written so good-naturedly, consoled the dragoon and his wife somewhat, after their first blank disappointment, on reading the spinster's refusal of a reconciliation. and it effected the purpose for which the old lady had caused it to be written, by making rawdon very eager to get to london. out of jos's losings and george osborne's bank-notes, he paid his bill at the inn, the landlord whereof does not probably know to this day how doubtfully his account once stood. for, as a general sends his baggage to the rear before an action, rebecca had wisely packed up all their chief valuables and sent them off under care of george's servant, who went in charge of the trunks on the coach back to london. rawdon and his wife returned by the same conveyance next day. "i should have liked to see the old girl before we went," rawdon said. "she looks so cut up and altered that i'm sure she can't last long. i wonder what sort of a cheque i shall have at waxy's. two hundred--it can't be less than two hundred--hey, becky?" in consequence of the repeated visits of the aides-de-camp of the sheriff of middlesex, rawdon and his wife did not go back to their lodgings at brompton, but put up at an inn. early the next morning, rebecca had an opportunity of seeing them as she skirted that suburb on her road to old mrs. sedley's house at fulham, whither she went to look for her dear amelia and her brighton friends. they were all off to chatham, thence to harwich, to take shipping for belgium with the regiment--kind old mrs. sedley very much depressed and tearful, solitary. returning from this visit, rebecca found her husband, who had been off to gray's inn, and learnt his fate. he came back furious. "by jove, becky," says he, "she's only given me twenty pound!" though it told against themselves, the joke was too good, and becky burst out laughing at rawdon's discomfiture. chapter xxvi between london and chatham on quitting brighton, our friend george, as became a person of rank and fashion travelling in a barouche with four horses, drove in state to a fine hotel in cavendish square, where a suite of splendid rooms, and a table magnificently furnished with plate and surrounded by a half-dozen of black and silent waiters, was ready to receive the young gentleman and his bride. george did the honours of the place with a princely air to jos and dobbin; and amelia, for the first time, and with exceeding shyness and timidity, presided at what george called her own table. george pooh-poohed the wine and bullied the waiters royally, and jos gobbled the turtle with immense satisfaction. dobbin helped him to it; for the lady of the house, before whom the tureen was placed, was so ignorant of the contents, that she was going to help mr. sedley without bestowing upon him either calipash or calipee. the splendour of the entertainment, and the apartments in which it was given, alarmed mr. dobbin, who remonstrated after dinner, when jos was asleep in the great chair. but in vain he cried out against the enormity of turtle and champagne that was fit for an archbishop. "i've always been accustomed to travel like a gentleman," george said, "and, damme, my wife shall travel like a lady. as long as there's a shot in the locker, she shall want for nothing," said the generous fellow, quite pleased with himself for his magnificence of spirit. nor did dobbin try and convince him that amelia's happiness was not centred in turtle-soup. a while after dinner, amelia timidly expressed a wish to go and see her mamma, at fulham: which permission george granted her with some grumbling. and she tripped away to her enormous bedroom, in the centre of which stood the enormous funereal bed, "that the emperor halixander's sister slep in when the allied sufferings was here," and put on her little bonnet and shawl with the utmost eagerness and pleasure. george was still drinking claret when she returned to the dining-room, and made no signs of moving. "ar'n't you coming with me, dearest?" she asked him. no; the "dearest" had "business" that night. his man should get her a coach and go with her. and the coach being at the door of the hotel, amelia made george a little disappointed curtsey after looking vainly into his face once or twice, and went sadly down the great staircase, captain dobbin after, who handed her into the vehicle, and saw it drive away to its destination. the very valet was ashamed of mentioning the address to the hackney-coachman before the hotel waiters, and promised to instruct him when they got further on. dobbin walked home to his old quarters and the slaughters', thinking very likely that it would be delightful to be in that hackney-coach, along with mrs. osborne. george was evidently of quite a different taste; for when he had taken wine enough, he went off to half-price at the play, to see mr. kean perform in shylock. captain osborne was a great lover of the drama, and had himself performed high-comedy characters with great distinction in several garrison theatrical entertainments. jos slept on until long after dark, when he woke up with a start at the motions of his servant, who was removing and emptying the decanters on the table; and the hackney-coach stand was again put into requisition for a carriage to convey this stout hero to his lodgings and bed. mrs. sedley, you may be sure, clasped her daughter to her heart with all maternal eagerness and affection, running out of the door as the carriage drew up before the little garden-gate, to welcome the weeping, trembling, young bride. old mr. clapp, who was in his shirt-sleeves, trimming the garden-plot, shrank back alarmed. the irish servant-lass rushed up from the kitchen and smiled a "god bless you." amelia could hardly walk along the flags and up the steps into the parlour. how the floodgates were opened, and mother and daughter wept, when they were together embracing each other in this sanctuary, may readily be imagined by every reader who possesses the least sentimental turn. when don't ladies weep? at what occasion of joy, sorrow, or other business of life, and, after such an event as a marriage, mother and daughter were surely at liberty to give way to a sensibility which is as tender as it is refreshing. about a question of marriage i have seen women who hate each other kiss and cry together quite fondly. how much more do they feel when they love! good mothers are married over again at their daughters' weddings: and as for subsequent events, who does not know how ultra-maternal grandmothers are?--in fact a woman, until she is a grandmother, does not often really know what to be a mother is. let us respect amelia and her mamma whispering and whimpering and laughing and crying in the parlour and the twilight. old mr. sedley did. he had not divined who was in the carriage when it drove up. he had not flown out to meet his daughter, though he kissed her very warmly when she entered the room (where he was occupied, as usual, with his papers and tapes and statements of accounts), and after sitting with the mother and daughter for a short time, he very wisely left the little apartment in their possession. george's valet was looking on in a very supercilious manner at mr. clapp in his shirt-sleeves, watering his rose-bushes. he took off his hat, however, with much condescension to mr. sedley, who asked news about his son-in-law, and about jos's carriage, and whether his horses had been down to brighton, and about that infernal traitor bonaparty, and the war; until the irish maid-servant came with a plate and a bottle of wine, from which the old gentleman insisted upon helping the valet. he gave him a half-guinea too, which the servant pocketed with a mixture of wonder and contempt. "to the health of your master and mistress, trotter," mr. sedley said, "and here's something to drink your health when you get home, trotter." there were but nine days past since amelia had left that little cottage and home--and yet how far off the time seemed since she had bidden it farewell. what a gulf lay between her and that past life. she could look back to it from her present standing-place, and contemplate, almost as another being, the young unmarried girl absorbed in her love, having no eyes but for one special object, receiving parental affection if not ungratefully, at least indifferently, and as if it were her due--her whole heart and thoughts bent on the accomplishment of one desire. the review of those days, so lately gone yet so far away, touched her with shame; and the aspect of the kind parents filled her with tender remorse. was the prize gained--the heaven of life--and the winner still doubtful and unsatisfied? as his hero and heroine pass the matrimonial barrier, the novelist generally drops the curtain, as if the drama were over then: the doubts and struggles of life ended: as if, once landed in the marriage country, all were green and pleasant there: and wife and husband had nothing to do but to link each other's arms together, and wander gently downwards towards old age in happy and perfect fruition. but our little amelia was just on the bank of her new country, and was already looking anxiously back towards the sad friendly figures waving farewell to her across the stream, from the other distant shore. in honour of the young bride's arrival, her mother thought it necessary to prepare i don't know what festive entertainment, and after the first ebullition of talk, took leave of mrs. george osborne for a while, and dived down to the lower regions of the house to a sort of kitchen-parlour (occupied by mr. and mrs. clapp, and in the evening, when her dishes were washed and her curl-papers removed, by miss flannigan, the irish servant), there to take measures for the preparing of a magnificent ornamented tea. all people have their ways of expressing kindness, and it seemed to mrs. sedley that a muffin and a quantity of orange marmalade spread out in a little cut-glass saucer would be peculiarly agreeable refreshments to amelia in her most interesting situation. while these delicacies were being transacted below, amelia, leaving the drawing-room, walked upstairs and found herself, she scarce knew how, in the little room which she had occupied before her marriage, and in that very chair in which she had passed so many bitter hours. she sank back in its arms as if it were an old friend; and fell to thinking over the past week, and the life beyond it. already to be looking sadly and vaguely back: always to be pining for something which, when obtained, brought doubt and sadness rather than pleasure; here was the lot of our poor little creature and harmless lost wanderer in the great struggling crowds of vanity fair. here she sate, and recalled to herself fondly that image of george to which she had knelt before marriage. did she own to herself how different the real man was from that superb young hero whom she had worshipped? it requires many, many years--and a man must be very bad indeed--before a woman's pride and vanity will let her own to such a confession. then rebecca's twinkling green eyes and baleful smile lighted upon her, and filled her with dismay. and so she sate for awhile indulging in her usual mood of selfish brooding, in that very listless melancholy attitude in which the honest maid-servant had found her, on the day when she brought up the letter in which george renewed his offer of marriage. she looked at the little white bed, which had been hers a few days before, and thought she would like to sleep in it that night, and wake, as formerly, with her mother smiling over her in the morning: then she thought with terror of the great funereal damask pavilion in the vast and dingy state bedroom, which was awaiting her at the grand hotel in cavendish square. dear little white bed! how many a long night had she wept on its pillow! how she had despaired and hoped to die there; and now were not all her wishes accomplished, and the lover of whom she had despaired her own for ever? kind mother! how patiently and tenderly she had watched round that bed! she went and knelt down by the bedside; and there this wounded and timorous, but gentle and loving soul, sought for consolation, where as yet, it must be owned, our little girl had but seldom looked for it. love had been her faith hitherto; and the sad, bleeding disappointed heart began to feel the want of another consoler. have we a right to repeat or to overhear her prayers? these, brother, are secrets, and out of the domain of vanity fair, in which our story lies. but this may be said, that when the tea was finally announced, our young lady came downstairs a great deal more cheerful; that she did not despond, or deplore her fate, or think about george's coldness, or rebecca's eyes, as she had been wont to do of late. she went downstairs, and kissed her father and mother, and talked to the old gentleman, and made him more merry than he had been for many a day. she sate down at the piano which dobbin had bought for her, and sang over all her father's favourite old songs. she pronounced the tea to be excellent, and praised the exquisite taste in which the marmalade was arranged in the saucers. and in determining to make everybody else happy, she found herself so; and was sound asleep in the great funereal pavilion, and only woke up with a smile when george arrived from the theatre. for the next day, george had more important "business" to transact than that which took him to see mr. kean in shylock. immediately on his arrival in london he had written off to his father's solicitors, signifying his royal pleasure that an interview should take place between them on the morrow. his hotel bill, losses at billiards and cards to captain crawley had almost drained the young man's purse, which wanted replenishing before he set out on his travels, and he had no resource but to infringe upon the two thousand pounds which the attorneys were commissioned to pay over to him. he had a perfect belief in his own mind that his father would relent before very long. how could any parent be obdurate for a length of time against such a paragon as he was? if his mere past and personal merits did not succeed in mollifying his father, george determined that he would distinguish himself so prodigiously in the ensuing campaign that the old gentleman must give in to him. and if not? bah! the world was before him. his luck might change at cards, and there was a deal of spending in two thousand pounds. so he sent off amelia once more in a carriage to her mamma, with strict orders and carte blanche to the two ladies to purchase everything requisite for a lady of mrs. george osborne's fashion, who was going on a foreign tour. they had but one day to complete the outfit, and it may be imagined that their business therefore occupied them pretty fully. in a carriage once more, bustling about from milliner to linen-draper, escorted back to the carriage by obsequious shopmen or polite owners, mrs. sedley was herself again almost, and sincerely happy for the first time since their misfortunes. nor was mrs. amelia at all above the pleasure of shopping, and bargaining, and seeing and buying pretty things. (would any man, the most philosophic, give twopence for a woman who was?) she gave herself a little treat, obedient to her husband's orders, and purchased a quantity of lady's gear, showing a great deal of taste and elegant discernment, as all the shopfolks said. and about the war that was ensuing, mrs. osborne was not much alarmed; bonaparty was to be crushed almost without a struggle. margate packets were sailing every day, filled with men of fashion and ladies of note, on their way to brussels and ghent. people were going not so much to a war as to a fashionable tour. the newspapers laughed the wretched upstart and swindler to scorn. such a corsican wretch as that withstand the armies of europe and the genius of the immortal wellington! amelia held him in utter contempt; for it needs not to be said that this soft and gentle creature took her opinions from those people who surrounded her, such fidelity being much too humble-minded to think for itself. well, in a word, she and her mother performed a great day's shopping, and she acquitted herself with considerable liveliness and credit on this her first appearance in the genteel world of london. george meanwhile, with his hat on one side, his elbows squared, and his swaggering martial air, made for bedford row, and stalked into the attorney's offices as if he was lord of every pale-faced clerk who was scribbling there. he ordered somebody to inform mr. higgs that captain osborne was waiting, in a fierce and patronizing way, as if the pekin of an attorney, who had thrice his brains, fifty times his money, and a thousand times his experience, was a wretched underling who should instantly leave all his business in life to attend on the captain's pleasure. he did not see the sneer of contempt which passed all round the room, from the first clerk to the articled gents, from the articled gents to the ragged writers and white-faced runners, in clothes too tight for them, as he sate there tapping his boot with his cane, and thinking what a parcel of miserable poor devils these were. the miserable poor devils knew all about his affairs. they talked about them over their pints of beer at their public-house clubs to other clerks of a night. ye gods, what do not attorneys and attorneys' clerks know in london! nothing is hidden from their inquisition, and their families mutely rule our city. perhaps george expected, when he entered mr. higgs's apartment, to find that gentleman commissioned to give him some message of compromise or conciliation from his father; perhaps his haughty and cold demeanour was adopted as a sign of his spirit and resolution: but if so, his fierceness was met by a chilling coolness and indifference on the attorney's part, that rendered swaggering absurd. he pretended to be writing at a paper, when the captain entered. "pray, sit down, sir," said he, "and i will attend to your little affair in a moment. mr. poe, get the release papers, if you please"; and then he fell to writing again. poe having produced those papers, his chief calculated the amount of two thousand pounds stock at the rate of the day; and asked captain osborne whether he would take the sum in a cheque upon the bankers, or whether he should direct the latter to purchase stock to that amount. "one of the late mrs. osborne's trustees is out of town," he said indifferently, "but my client wishes to meet your wishes, and have done with the business as quick as possible." "give me a cheque, sir," said the captain very surlily. "damn the shillings and halfpence, sir," he added, as the lawyer was making out the amount of the draft; and, flattering himself that by this stroke of magnanimity he had put the old quiz to the blush, he stalked out of the office with the paper in his pocket. "that chap will be in gaol in two years," mr. higgs said to mr. poe. "won't o. come round, sir, don't you think?" "won't the monument come round," mr. higgs replied. "he's going it pretty fast," said the clerk. "he's only married a week, and i saw him and some other military chaps handing mrs. highflyer to her carriage after the play." and then another case was called, and mr. george osborne thenceforth dismissed from these worthy gentlemen's memory. the draft was upon our friends hulker and bullock of lombard street, to whose house, still thinking he was doing business, george bent his way, and from whom he received his money. frederick bullock, esq., whose yellow face was over a ledger, at which sate a demure clerk, happened to be in the banking-room when george entered. his yellow face turned to a more deadly colour when he saw the captain, and he slunk back guiltily into the inmost parlour. george was too busy gloating over the money (for he had never had such a sum before), to mark the countenance or flight of the cadaverous suitor of his sister. fred bullock told old osborne of his son's appearance and conduct. "he came in as bold as brass," said frederick. "he has drawn out every shilling. how long will a few hundred pounds last such a chap as that?" osborne swore with a great oath that he little cared when or how soon he spent it. fred dined every day in russell square now. but altogether, george was highly pleased with his day's business. all his own baggage and outfit was put into a state of speedy preparation, and he paid amelia's purchases with cheques on his agents, and with the splendour of a lord. chapter xxvii in which amelia joins her regiment when jos's fine carriage drove up to the inn door at chatham, the first face which amelia recognized was the friendly countenance of captain dobbin, who had been pacing the street for an hour past in expectation of his friends' arrival. the captain, with shells on his frockcoat, and a crimson sash and sabre, presented a military appearance, which made jos quite proud to be able to claim such an acquaintance, and the stout civilian hailed him with a cordiality very different from the reception which jos vouchsafed to his friend in brighton and bond street. along with the captain was ensign stubble; who, as the barouche neared the inn, burst out with an exclamation of "by jove! what a pretty girl"; highly applauding osborne's choice. indeed, amelia dressed in her wedding-pelisse and pink ribbons, with a flush in her face, occasioned by rapid travel through the open air, looked so fresh and pretty, as fully to justify the ensign's compliment. dobbin liked him for making it. as he stepped forward to help the lady out of the carriage, stubble saw what a pretty little hand she gave him, and what a sweet pretty little foot came tripping down the step. he blushed profusely, and made the very best bow of which he was capable; to which amelia, seeing the number of the the regiment embroidered on the ensign's cap, replied with a blushing smile, and a curtsey on her part; which finished the young ensign on the spot. dobbin took most kindly to mr. stubble from that day, and encouraged him to talk about amelia in their private walks, and at each other's quarters. it became the fashion, indeed, among all the honest young fellows of the --th to adore and admire mrs. osborne. her simple artless behaviour, and modest kindness of demeanour, won all their unsophisticated hearts; all which simplicity and sweetness are quite impossible to describe in print. but who has not beheld these among women, and recognised the presence of all sorts of qualities in them, even though they say no more to you than that they are engaged to dance the next quadrille, or that it is very hot weather? george, always the champion of his regiment, rose immensely in the opinion of the youth of the corps, by his gallantry in marrying this portionless young creature, and by his choice of such a pretty kind partner. in the sitting-room which was awaiting the travellers, amelia, to her surprise, found a letter addressed to mrs. captain osborne. it was a triangular billet, on pink paper, and sealed with a dove and an olive branch, and a profusion of light blue sealing wax, and it was written in a very large, though undecided female hand. "it's peggy o'dowd's fist," said george, laughing. "i know it by the kisses on the seal." and in fact, it was a note from mrs. major o'dowd, requesting the pleasure of mrs. osborne's company that very evening to a small friendly party. "you must go," george said. "you will make acquaintance with the regiment there. o'dowd goes in command of the regiment, and peggy goes in command." but they had not been for many minutes in the enjoyment of mrs. o'dowd's letter, when the door was flung open, and a stout jolly lady, in a riding-habit, followed by a couple of officers of ours, entered the room. "sure, i couldn't stop till tay-time. present me, garge, my dear fellow, to your lady. madam, i'm deloighted to see ye; and to present to you me husband, meejor o'dowd"; and with this, the jolly lady in the riding-habit grasped amelia's hand very warmly, and the latter knew at once that the lady was before her whom her husband had so often laughed at. "you've often heard of me from that husband of yours," said the lady, with great vivacity. "you've often heard of her," echoed her husband, the major. amelia answered, smiling, "that she had." "and small good he's told you of me," mrs. o'dowd replied; adding that "george was a wicked divvle." "that i'll go bail for," said the major, trying to look knowing, at which george laughed; and mrs. o'dowd, with a tap of her whip, told the major to be quiet; and then requested to be presented in form to mrs. captain osborne. "this, my dear," said george with great gravity, "is my very good, kind, and excellent friend, auralia margaretta, otherwise called peggy." "faith, you're right," interposed the major. "otherwise called peggy, lady of major michael o'dowd, of our regiment, and daughter of fitzjurld ber'sford de burgo malony of glenmalony, county kildare." "and muryan squeer, doblin," said the lady with calm superiority. "and muryan square, sure enough," the major whispered. "'twas there ye coorted me, meejor dear," the lady said; and the major assented to this as to every other proposition which was made generally in company. major o'dowd, who had served his sovereign in every quarter of the world, and had paid for every step in his profession by some more than equivalent act of daring and gallantry, was the most modest, silent, sheep-faced and meek of little men, and as obedient to his wife as if he had been her tay-boy. at the mess-table he sat silently, and drank a great deal. when full of liquor, he reeled silently home. when he spoke, it was to agree with everybody on every conceivable point; and he passed through life in perfect ease and good-humour. the hottest suns of india never heated his temper; and the walcheren ague never shook it. he walked up to a battery with just as much indifference as to a dinner-table; had dined on horse-flesh and turtle with equal relish and appetite; and had an old mother, mrs. o'dowd of o'dowdstown indeed, whom he had never disobeyed but when he ran away and enlisted, and when he persisted in marrying that odious peggy malony. peggy was one of five sisters, and eleven children of the noble house of glenmalony; but her husband, though her own cousin, was of the mother's side, and so had not the inestimable advantage of being allied to the malonys, whom she believed to be the most famous family in the world. having tried nine seasons at dublin and two at bath and cheltenham, and not finding a partner for life, miss malony ordered her cousin mick to marry her when she was about thirty-three years of age; and the honest fellow obeying, carried her off to the west indies, to preside over the ladies of the --th regiment, into which he had just exchanged. before mrs. o'dowd was half an hour in amelia's (or indeed in anybody else's) company, this amiable lady told all her birth and pedigree to her new friend. "my dear," said she, good-naturedly, "it was my intention that garge should be a brother of my own, and my sister glorvina would have suited him entirely. but as bygones are bygones, and he was engaged to yourself, why, i'm determined to take you as a sister instead, and to look upon you as such, and to love you as one of the family. faith, you've got such a nice good-natured face and way widg you, that i'm sure we'll agree; and that you'll be an addition to our family anyway." "'deed and she will," said o'dowd, with an approving air, and amelia felt herself not a little amused and grateful to be thus suddenly introduced to so large a party of relations. "we're all good fellows here," the major's lady continued. "there's not a regiment in the service where you'll find a more united society nor a more agreeable mess-room. there's no quarrelling, bickering, slandthering, nor small talk amongst us. we all love each other." "especially mrs. magenis," said george, laughing. "mrs. captain magenis and me has made up, though her treatment of me would bring me gray hairs with sorrow to the grave." "and you with such a beautiful front of black, peggy, my dear," the major cried. "hould your tongue, mick, you booby. them husbands are always in the way, mrs. osborne, my dear; and as for my mick, i often tell him he should never open his mouth but to give the word of command, or to put meat and drink into it. i'll tell you about the regiment, and warn you when we're alone. introduce me to your brother now; sure he's a mighty fine man, and reminds me of me cousin, dan malony (malony of ballymalony, my dear, you know who mar'ied ophalia scully, of oystherstown, own cousin to lord poldoody). mr. sedley, sir, i'm deloighted to be made known te ye. i suppose you'll dine at the mess to-day. (mind that divvle of a docther, mick, and whatever ye du, keep yourself sober for me party this evening.)" "it's the th gives us a farewell dinner, my love," interposed the major, "but we'll easy get a card for mr. sedley." "run simple (ensign simple, of ours, my dear amelia. i forgot to introjuice him to ye). run in a hurry, with mrs. major o'dowd's compliments to colonel tavish, and captain osborne has brought his brothernlaw down, and will bring him to the th mess at five o'clock sharp--when you and i, my dear, will take a snack here, if you like." before mrs. o'dowd's speech was concluded, the young ensign was trotting downstairs on his commission. "obedience is the soul of the army. we will go to our duty while mrs. o'dowd will stay and enlighten you, emmy," captain osborne said; and the two gentlemen, taking each a wing of the major, walked out with that officer, grinning at each other over his head. and, now having her new friend to herself, the impetuous mrs. o'dowd proceeded to pour out such a quantity of information as no poor little woman's memory could ever tax itself to bear. she told amelia a thousand particulars relative to the very numerous family of which the amazed young lady found herself a member. "mrs. heavytop, the colonel's wife, died in jamaica of the yellow faver and a broken heart comboined, for the horrud old colonel, with a head as bald as a cannon-ball, was making sheep's eyes at a half-caste girl there. mrs. magenis, though without education, was a good woman, but she had the divvle's tongue, and would cheat her own mother at whist. mrs. captain kirk must turn up her lobster eyes forsooth at the idea of an honest round game (wherein me fawther, as pious a man as ever went to church, me uncle dane malony, and our cousin the bishop, took a hand at loo, or whist, every night of their lives). nayther of 'em's goin' with the regiment this time," mrs. o'dowd added. "fanny magenis stops with her mother, who sells small coal and potatoes, most likely, in islington-town, hard by london, though she's always bragging of her father's ships, and pointing them out to us as they go up the river: and mrs. kirk and her children will stop here in bethesda place, to be nigh to her favourite preacher, dr. ramshorn. mrs. bunny's in an interesting situation--faith, and she always is, then--and has given the lieutenant seven already. and ensign posky's wife, who joined two months before you, my dear, has quarl'd with tom posky a score of times, till you can hear'm all over the bar'ck (they say they're come to broken pleets, and tom never accounted for his black oi), and she'll go back to her mother, who keeps a ladies' siminary at richmond--bad luck to her for running away from it! where did ye get your finishing, my dear? i had moin, and no expince spared, at madame flanahan's, at ilyssus grove, booterstown, near dublin, wid a marchioness to teach us the true parisian pronunciation, and a retired mejor-general of the french service to put us through the exercise." of this incongruous family our astonished amelia found herself all of a sudden a member: with mrs. o'dowd as an elder sister. she was presented to her other female relations at tea-time, on whom, as she was quiet, good-natured, and not too handsome, she made rather an agreeable impression until the arrival of the gentlemen from the mess of the th, who all admired her so, that her sisters began, of course, to find fault with her. "i hope osborne has sown his wild oats," said mrs. magenis to mrs. bunny. "if a reformed rake makes a good husband, sure it's she will have the fine chance with garge," mrs. o'dowd remarked to posky, who had lost her position as bride in the regiment, and was quite angry with the usurper. and as for mrs. kirk: that disciple of dr. ramshorn put one or two leading professional questions to amelia, to see whether she was awakened, whether she was a professing christian and so forth, and finding from the simplicity of mrs. osborne's replies that she was yet in utter darkness, put into her hands three little penny books with pictures, viz., the "howling wilderness," the "washerwoman of wandsworth common," and the "british soldier's best bayonet," which, bent upon awakening her before she slept, mrs. kirk begged amelia to read that night ere she went to bed. but all the men, like good fellows as they were, rallied round their comrade's pretty wife, and paid her their court with soldierly gallantry. she had a little triumph, which flushed her spirits and made her eyes sparkle. george was proud of her popularity, and pleased with the manner (which was very gay and graceful, though naive and a little timid) with which she received the gentlemen's attentions, and answered their compliments. and he in his uniform--how much handsomer he was than any man in the room! she felt that he was affectionately watching her, and glowed with pleasure at his kindness. "i will make all his friends welcome," she resolved in her heart. "i will love all as i love him. i will always try and be gay and good-humoured and make his home happy." the regiment indeed adopted her with acclamation. the captains approved, the lieutenants applauded, the ensigns admired. old cutler, the doctor, made one or two jokes, which, being professional, need not be repeated; and cackle, the assistant m.d. of edinburgh, condescended to examine her upon leeterature, and tried her with his three best french quotations. young stubble went about from man to man whispering, "jove, isn't she a pretty gal?" and never took his eyes off her except when the negus came in. as for captain dobbin, he never so much as spoke to her during the whole evening. but he and captain porter of the th took home jos to the hotel, who was in a very maudlin state, and had told his tiger-hunt story with great effect, both at the mess-table and at the soiree, to mrs. o'dowd in her turban and bird of paradise. having put the collector into the hands of his servant, dobbin loitered about, smoking his cigar before the inn door. george had meanwhile very carefully shawled his wife, and brought her away from mrs. o'dowd's after a general handshaking from the young officers, who accompanied her to the fly, and cheered that vehicle as it drove off. so amelia gave dobbin her little hand as she got out of the carriage, and rebuked him smilingly for not having taken any notice of her all night. the captain continued that deleterious amusement of smoking, long after the inn and the street were gone to bed. he watched the lights vanish from george's sitting-room windows, and shine out in the bedroom close at hand. it was almost morning when he returned to his own quarters. he could hear the cheering from the ships in the river, where the transports were already taking in their cargoes preparatory to dropping down the thames. chapter xxviii in which amelia invades the low countries the regiment with its officers was to be transported in ships provided by his majesty's government for the occasion: and in two days after the festive assembly at mrs. o'dowd's apartments, in the midst of cheering from all the east india ships in the river, and the military on shore, the band playing "god save the king," the officers waving their hats, and the crews hurrahing gallantly, the transports went down the river and proceeded under convoy to ostend. meanwhile the gallant jos had agreed to escort his sister and the major's wife, the bulk of whose goods and chattels, including the famous bird of paradise and turban, were with the regimental baggage: so that our two heroines drove pretty much unencumbered to ramsgate, where there were plenty of packets plying, in one of which they had a speedy passage to ostend. that period of jos's life which now ensued was so full of incident, that it served him for conversation for many years after, and even the tiger-hunt story was put aside for more stirring narratives which he had to tell about the great campaign of waterloo. as soon as he had agreed to escort his sister abroad, it was remarked that he ceased shaving his upper lip. at chatham he followed the parades and drills with great assiduity. he listened with the utmost attention to the conversation of his brother officers (as he called them in after days sometimes), and learned as many military names as he could. in these studies the excellent mrs. o'dowd was of great assistance to him; and on the day finally when they embarked on board the lovely rose, which was to carry them to their destination, he made his appearance in a braided frock-coat and duck trousers, with a foraging cap ornamented with a smart gold band. having his carriage with him, and informing everybody on board confidentially that he was going to join the duke of wellington's army, folks mistook him for a great personage, a commissary-general, or a government courier at the very least. he suffered hugely on the voyage, during which the ladies were likewise prostrate; but amelia was brought to life again as the packet made ostend, by the sight of the transports conveying her regiment, which entered the harbour almost at the same time with the lovely rose. jos went in a collapsed state to an inn, while captain dobbin escorted the ladies, and then busied himself in freeing jos's carriage and luggage from the ship and the custom-house, for mr. jos was at present without a servant, osborne's man and his own pampered menial having conspired together at chatham, and refused point-blank to cross the water. this revolt, which came very suddenly, and on the last day, so alarmed mr. sedley, junior, that he was on the point of giving up the expedition, but captain dobbin (who made himself immensely officious in the business, jos said), rated him and laughed at him soundly: the mustachios were grown in advance, and jos finally was persuaded to embark. in place of the well-bred and well-fed london domestics, who could only speak english, dobbin procured for jos's party a swarthy little belgian servant who could speak no language at all; but who, by his bustling behaviour, and by invariably addressing mr. sedley as "my lord," speedily acquired that gentleman's favour. times are altered at ostend now; of the britons who go thither, very few look like lords, or act like those members of our hereditary aristocracy. they seem for the most part shabby in attire, dingy of linen, lovers of billiards and brandy, and cigars and greasy ordinaries. but it may be said as a rule, that every englishman in the duke of wellington's army paid his way. the remembrance of such a fact surely becomes a nation of shopkeepers. it was a blessing for a commerce-loving country to be overrun by such an army of customers: and to have such creditable warriors to feed. and the country which they came to protect is not military. for a long period of history they have let other people fight there. when the present writer went to survey with eagle glance the field of waterloo, we asked the conductor of the diligence, a portly warlike-looking veteran, whether he had been at the battle. "pas si bete"--such an answer and sentiment as no frenchman would own to--was his reply. but, on the other hand, the postilion who drove us was a viscount, a son of some bankrupt imperial general, who accepted a pennyworth of beer on the road. the moral is surely a good one. this flat, flourishing, easy country never could have looked more rich and prosperous than in that opening summer of , when its green fields and quiet cities were enlivened by multiplied red-coats: when its wide chaussees swarmed with brilliant english equipages: when its great canal-boats, gliding by rich pastures and pleasant quaint old villages, by old chateaux lying amongst old trees, were all crowded with well-to-do english travellers: when the soldier who drank at the village inn, not only drank, but paid his score; and donald, the highlander, billeted in the flemish farm-house, rocked the baby's cradle, while jean and jeannette were out getting in the hay. as our painters are bent on military subjects just now, i throw out this as a good subject for the pencil, to illustrate the principle of an honest english war. all looked as brilliant and harmless as a hyde park review. meanwhile, napoleon screened behind his curtain of frontier-fortresses, was preparing for the outbreak which was to drive all these orderly people into fury and blood; and lay so many of them low. everybody had such a perfect feeling of confidence in the leader (for the resolute faith which the duke of wellington had inspired in the whole english nation was as intense as that more frantic enthusiasm with which at one time the french regarded napoleon), the country seemed in so perfect a state of orderly defence, and the help at hand in case of need so near and overwhelming, that alarm was unknown, and our travellers, among whom two were naturally of a very timid sort, were, like all the other multiplied english tourists, entirely at ease. the famous regiment, with so many of whose officers we have made acquaintance, was drafted in canal boats to bruges and ghent, thence to march to brussels. jos accompanied the ladies in the public boats; the which all old travellers in flanders must remember for the luxury and accommodation they afforded. so prodigiously good was the eating and drinking on board these sluggish but most comfortable vessels, that there are legends extant of an english traveller, who, coming to belgium for a week, and travelling in one of these boats, was so delighted with the fare there that he went backwards and forwards from ghent to bruges perpetually until the railroads were invented, when he drowned himself on the last trip of the passage-boat. jos's death was not to be of this sort, but his comfort was exceeding, and mrs. o'dowd insisted that he only wanted her sister glorvina to make his happiness complete. he sate on the roof of the cabin all day drinking flemish beer, shouting for isidor, his servant, and talking gallantly to the ladies. his courage was prodigious. "boney attack us!" he cried. "my dear creature, my poor emmy, don't be frightened. there's no danger. the allies will be in paris in two months, i tell you; when i'll take you to dine in the palais royal, by jove! there are three hundred thousand rooshians, i tell you, now entering france by mayence and the rhine--three hundred thousand under wittgenstein and barclay de tolly, my poor love. you don't know military affairs, my dear. i do, and i tell you there's no infantry in france can stand against rooshian infantry, and no general of boney's that's fit to hold a candle to wittgenstein. then there are the austrians, they are five hundred thousand if a man, and they are within ten marches of the frontier by this time, under schwartzenberg and prince charles. then there are the prooshians under the gallant prince marshal. show me a cavalry chief like him now that murat is gone. hey, mrs. o'dowd? do you think our little girl here need be afraid? is there any cause for fear, isidor? hey, sir? get some more beer." mrs. o'dowd said that her "glorvina was not afraid of any man alive, let alone a frenchman," and tossed off a glass of beer with a wink which expressed her liking for the beverage. having frequently been in presence of the enemy, or, in other words, faced the ladies at cheltenham and bath, our friend, the collector, had lost a great deal of his pristine timidity, and was now, especially when fortified with liquor, as talkative as might be. he was rather a favourite with the regiment, treating the young officers with sumptuosity, and amusing them by his military airs. and as there is one well-known regiment of the army which travels with a goat heading the column, whilst another is led by a deer, george said with respect to his brother-in-law, that his regiment marched with an elephant. since amelia's introduction to the regiment, george began to be rather ashamed of some of the company to which he had been forced to present her; and determined, as he told dobbin (with what satisfaction to the latter it need not be said), to exchange into some better regiment soon, and to get his wife away from those damned vulgar women. but this vulgarity of being ashamed of one's society is much more common among men than women (except very great ladies of fashion, who, to be sure, indulge in it); and mrs. amelia, a natural and unaffected person, had none of that artificial shamefacedness which her husband mistook for delicacy on his own part. thus mrs. o'dowd had a cock's plume in her hat, and a very large "repayther" on her stomach, which she used to ring on all occasions, narrating how it had been presented to her by her fawther, as she stipt into the car'ge after her mar'ge; and these ornaments, with other outward peculiarities of the major's wife, gave excruciating agonies to captain osborne, when his wife and the major's came in contact; whereas amelia was only amused by the honest lady's eccentricities, and not in the least ashamed of her company. as they made that well-known journey, which almost every englishman of middle rank has travelled since, there might have been more instructive, but few more entertaining, companions than mrs. major o'dowd. "talk about kenal boats; my dear! ye should see the kenal boats between dublin and ballinasloe. it's there the rapid travelling is; and the beautiful cattle. sure me fawther got a goold medal (and his excellency himself eat a slice of it, and said never was finer mate in his loif) for a four-year-old heifer, the like of which ye never saw in this country any day." and jos owned with a sigh, "that for good streaky beef, really mingled with fat and lean, there was no country like england." "except ireland, where all your best mate comes from," said the major's lady; proceeding, as is not unusual with patriots of her nation, to make comparisons greatly in favour of her own country. the idea of comparing the market at bruges with those of dublin, although she had suggested it herself, caused immense scorn and derision on her part. "i'll thank ye tell me what they mean by that old gazabo on the top of the market-place," said she, in a burst of ridicule fit to have brought the old tower down. the place was full of english soldiery as they passed. english bugles woke them in the morning; at nightfall they went to bed to the note of the british fife and drum: all the country and europe was in arms, and the greatest event of history pending: and honest peggy o'dowd, whom it concerned as well as another, went on prattling about ballinafad, and the horses in the stables at glenmalony, and the clar't drunk there; and jos sedley interposed about curry and rice at dumdum; and amelia thought about her husband, and how best she should show her love for him; as if these were the great topics of the world. those who like to lay down the history-book, and to speculate upon what might have happened in the world, but for the fatal occurrence of what actually did take place (a most puzzling, amusing, ingenious, and profitable kind of meditation), have no doubt often thought to themselves what a specially bad time napoleon took to come back from elba, and to let loose his eagle from gulf san juan to notre dame. the historians on our side tell us that the armies of the allied powers were all providentially on a war-footing, and ready to bear down at a moment's notice upon the elban emperor. the august jobbers assembled at vienna, and carving out the kingdoms of europe according to their wisdom, had such causes of quarrel among themselves as might have set the armies which had overcome napoleon to fight against each other, but for the return of the object of unanimous hatred and fear. this monarch had an army in full force because he had jobbed to himself poland, and was determined to keep it: another had robbed half saxony, and was bent upon maintaining his acquisition: italy was the object of a third's solicitude. each was protesting against the rapacity of the other; and could the corsican but have waited in prison until all these parties were by the ears, he might have returned and reigned unmolested. but what would have become of our story and all our friends, then? if all the drops in it were dried up, what would become of the sea? in the meanwhile the business of life and living, and the pursuits of pleasure, especially, went on as if no end were to be expected to them, and no enemy in front. when our travellers arrived at brussels, in which their regiment was quartered, a great piece of good fortune, as all said, they found themselves in one of the gayest and most brilliant little capitals in europe, and where all the vanity fair booths were laid out with the most tempting liveliness and splendour. gambling was here in profusion, and dancing in plenty: feasting was there to fill with delight that great gourmand of a jos: there was a theatre where a miraculous catalani was delighting all hearers: beautiful rides, all enlivened with martial splendour; a rare old city, with strange costumes and wonderful architecture, to delight the eyes of little amelia, who had never before seen a foreign country, and fill her with charming surprises: so that now and for a few weeks' space in a fine handsome lodging, whereof the expenses were borne by jos and osborne, who was flush of money and full of kind attentions to his wife--for about a fortnight, i say, during which her honeymoon ended, mrs. amelia was as pleased and happy as any little bride out of england. every day during this happy time there was novelty and amusement for all parties. there was a church to see, or a picture-gallery--there was a ride, or an opera. the bands of the regiments were making music at all hours. the greatest folks of england walked in the park--there was a perpetual military festival. george, taking out his wife to a new jaunt or junket every night, was quite pleased with himself as usual, and swore he was becoming quite a domestic character. and a jaunt or a junket with him! was it not enough to set this little heart beating with joy? her letters home to her mother were filled with delight and gratitude at this season. her husband bade her buy laces, millinery, jewels, and gimcracks of all sorts. oh, he was the kindest, best, and most generous of men! the sight of the very great company of lords and ladies and fashionable persons who thronged the town, and appeared in every public place, filled george's truly british soul with intense delight. they flung off that happy frigidity and insolence of demeanour which occasionally characterises the great at home, and appearing in numberless public places, condescended to mingle with the rest of the company whom they met there. one night at a party given by the general of the division to which george's regiment belonged, he had the honour of dancing with lady blanche thistlewood, lord bareacres' daughter; he bustled for ices and refreshments for the two noble ladies; he pushed and squeezed for lady bareacres' carriage; he bragged about the countess when he got home, in a way which his own father could not have surpassed. he called upon the ladies the next day; he rode by their side in the park; he asked their party to a great dinner at a restaurateur's, and was quite wild with exultation when they agreed to come. old bareacres, who had not much pride and a large appetite, would go for a dinner anywhere. "i hope there will be no women besides our own party," lady bareacres said, after reflecting upon the invitation which had been made, and accepted with too much precipitancy. "gracious heaven, mamma--you don't suppose the man would bring his wife," shrieked lady blanche, who had been languishing in george's arms in the newly imported waltz for hours the night before. "the men are bearable, but their women--" "wife, just married, dev'lish pretty woman, i hear," the old earl said. "well, my dear blanche," said the mother, "i suppose, as papa wants to go, we must go; but we needn't know them in england, you know." and so, determined to cut their new acquaintance in bond street, these great folks went to eat his dinner at brussels, and condescending to make him pay for their pleasure, showed their dignity by making his wife uncomfortable, and carefully excluding her from the conversation. this is a species of dignity in which the high-bred british female reigns supreme. to watch the behaviour of a fine lady to other and humbler women, is a very good sport for a philosophical frequenter of vanity fair. this festival, on which honest george spent a great deal of money, was the very dismallest of all the entertainments which amelia had in her honeymoon. she wrote the most piteous accounts of the feast home to her mamma: how the countess of bareacres would not answer when spoken to; how lady blanche stared at her with her eye-glass; and what a rage captain dobbin was in at their behaviour; and how my lord, as they came away from the feast, asked to see the bill, and pronounced it a d---- bad dinner, and d---- dear. but though amelia told all these stories, and wrote home regarding her guests' rudeness, and her own discomfiture, old mrs. sedley was mightily pleased nevertheless, and talked about emmy's friend, the countess of bareacres, with such assiduity that the news how his son was entertaining peers and peeresses actually came to osborne's ears in the city. those who know the present lieutenant-general sir george tufto, k.c.b., and have seen him, as they may on most days in the season, padded and in stays, strutting down pall mall with a rickety swagger on his high-heeled lacquered boots, leering under the bonnets of passers-by, or riding a showy chestnut, and ogling broughams in the parks--those who know the present sir george tufto would hardly recognise the daring peninsular and waterloo officer. he has thick curling brown hair and black eyebrows now, and his whiskers are of the deepest purple. he was light-haired and bald in , and stouter in the person and in the limbs, which especially have shrunk very much of late. when he was about seventy years of age (he is now nearly eighty), his hair, which was very scarce and quite white, suddenly grew thick, and brown, and curly, and his whiskers and eyebrows took their present colour. ill-natured people say that his chest is all wool, and that his hair, because it never grows, is a wig. tom tufto, with whose father he quarrelled ever so many years ago, declares that mademoiselle de jaisey, of the french theatre, pulled his grandpapa's hair off in the green-room; but tom is notoriously spiteful and jealous; and the general's wig has nothing to do with our story. one day, as some of our friends of the --th were sauntering in the flower-market of brussels, having been to see the hotel de ville, which mrs. major o'dowd declared was not near so large or handsome as her fawther's mansion of glenmalony, an officer of rank, with an orderly behind him, rode up to the market, and descending from his horse, came amongst the flowers, and selected the very finest bouquet which money could buy. the beautiful bundle being tied up in a paper, the officer remounted, giving the nosegay into the charge of his military groom, who carried it with a grin, following his chief, who rode away in great state and self-satisfaction. "you should see the flowers at glenmalony," mrs. o'dowd was remarking. "me fawther has three scotch garners with nine helpers. we have an acre of hot-houses, and pines as common as pays in the sayson. our greeps weighs six pounds every bunch of 'em, and upon me honour and conscience i think our magnolias is as big as taykettles." dobbin, who never used to "draw out" mrs. o'dowd as that wicked osborne delighted in doing (much to amelia's terror, who implored him to spare her), fell back in the crowd, crowing and sputtering until he reached a safe distance, when he exploded amongst the astonished market-people with shrieks of yelling laughter. "hwhat's that gawky guggling about?" said mrs. o'dowd. "is it his nose bleedn? he always used to say 'twas his nose bleedn, till he must have pomped all the blood out of 'um. an't the magnolias at glenmalony as big as taykettles, o'dowd?" "'deed then they are, and bigger, peggy," the major said. when the conversation was interrupted in the manner stated by the arrival of the officer who purchased the bouquet. "devlish fine horse--who is it?" george asked. "you should see me brother molloy malony's horse, molasses, that won the cop at the curragh," the major's wife was exclaiming, and was continuing the family history, when her husband interrupted her by saying-- "it's general tufto, who commands the ---- cavalry division"; adding quietly, "he and i were both shot in the same leg at talavera." "where you got your step," said george with a laugh. "general tufto! then, my dear, the crawleys are come." amelia's heart fell--she knew not why. the sun did not seem to shine so bright. the tall old roofs and gables looked less picturesque all of a sudden, though it was a brilliant sunset, and one of the brightest and most beautiful days at the end of may. chapter xxix brussels mr. jos had hired a pair of horses for his open carriage, with which cattle, and the smart london vehicle, he made a very tolerable figure in the drives about brussels. george purchased a horse for his private riding, and he and captain dobbin would often accompany the carriage in which jos and his sister took daily excursions of pleasure. they went out that day in the park for their accustomed diversion, and there, sure enough, george's remark with regard to the arrival of rawdon crawley and his wife proved to be correct. in the midst of a little troop of horsemen, consisting of some of the very greatest persons in brussels, rebecca was seen in the prettiest and tightest of riding-habits, mounted on a beautiful little arab, which she rode to perfection (having acquired the art at queen's crawley, where the baronet, mr. pitt, and rawdon himself had given her many lessons), and by the side of the gallant general tufto. "sure it's the juke himself," cried mrs. major o'dowd to jos, who began to blush violently; "and that's lord uxbridge on the bay. how elegant he looks! me brother, molloy malony, is as like him as two pays." rebecca did not make for the carriage; but as soon as she perceived her old acquaintance amelia seated in it, acknowledged her presence by a gracious nod and smile, and by kissing and shaking her fingers playfully in the direction of the vehicle. then she resumed her conversation with general tufto, who asked "who the fat officer was in the gold-laced cap?" on which becky replied, "that he was an officer in the east indian service." but rawdon crawley rode out of the ranks of his company, and came up and shook hands heartily with amelia, and said to jos, "well, old boy, how are you?" and stared in mrs. o'dowd's face and at the black cock's feathers until she began to think she had made a conquest of him. george, who had been delayed behind, rode up almost immediately with dobbin, and they touched their caps to the august personages, among whom osborne at once perceived mrs. crawley. he was delighted to see rawdon leaning over his carriage familiarly and talking to amelia, and met the aide-de-camp's cordial greeting with more than corresponding warmth. the nods between rawdon and dobbin were of the very faintest specimens of politeness. crawley told george where they were stopping with general tufto at the hotel du parc, and george made his friend promise to come speedily to osborne's own residence. "sorry i hadn't seen you three days ago," george said. "had a dinner at the restaurateur's--rather a nice thing. lord bareacres, and the countess, and lady blanche, were good enough to dine with us--wish we'd had you." having thus let his friend know his claims to be a man of fashion, osborne parted from rawdon, who followed the august squadron down an alley into which they cantered, while george and dobbin resumed their places, one on each side of amelia's carriage. "how well the juke looked," mrs. o'dowd remarked. "the wellesleys and malonys are related; but, of course, poor i would never dream of introjuicing myself unless his grace thought proper to remember our family-tie." "he's a great soldier," jos said, much more at ease now the great man was gone. "was there ever a battle won like salamanca? hey, dobbin? but where was it he learnt his art? in india, my boy! the jungle's the school for a general, mark me that. i knew him myself, too, mrs. o'dowd: we both of us danced the same evening with miss cutler, daughter of cutler of the artillery, and a devilish fine girl, at dumdum." the apparition of the great personages held them all in talk during the drive; and at dinner; and until the hour came when they were all to go to the opera. it was almost like old england. the house was filled with familiar british faces, and those toilettes for which the british female has long been celebrated. mrs. o'dowd's was not the least splendid amongst these, and she had a curl on her forehead, and a set of irish diamonds and cairngorms, which outshone all the decorations in the house, in her notion. her presence used to excruciate osborne; but go she would upon all parties of pleasure on which she heard her young friends were bent. it never entered into her thought but that they must be charmed with her company. "she's been useful to you, my dear," george said to his wife, whom he could leave alone with less scruple when she had this society. "but what a comfort it is that rebecca's come: you will have her for a friend, and we may get rid now of this damn'd irishwoman." to this amelia did not answer, yes or no: and how do we know what her thoughts were? the coup d'oeil of the brussels opera-house did not strike mrs. o'dowd as being so fine as the theatre in fishamble street, dublin, nor was french music at all equal, in her opinion, to the melodies of her native country. she favoured her friends with these and other opinions in a very loud tone of voice, and tossed about a great clattering fan she sported, with the most splendid complacency. "who is that wonderful woman with amelia, rawdon, love?" said a lady in an opposite box (who, almost always civil to her husband in private, was more fond than ever of him in company). "don't you see that creature with a yellow thing in her turban, and a red satin gown, and a great watch?" "near the pretty little woman in white?" asked a middle-aged gentleman seated by the querist's side, with orders in his button, and several under-waistcoats, and a great, choky, white stock. "that pretty woman in white is amelia, general: you are remarking all the pretty women, you naughty man." "only one, begad, in the world!" said the general, delighted, and the lady gave him a tap with a large bouquet which she had. "bedad it's him," said mrs. o'dowd; "and that's the very bokay he bought in the marshy aux flures!" and when rebecca, having caught her friend's eye, performed the little hand-kissing operation once more, mrs. major o'd., taking the compliment to herself, returned the salute with a gracious smile, which sent that unfortunate dobbin shrieking out of the box again. at the end of the act, george was out of the box in a moment, and he was even going to pay his respects to rebecca in her loge. he met crawley in the lobby, however, where they exchanged a few sentences upon the occurrences of the last fortnight. "you found my cheque all right at the agent's? george said, with a knowing air. "all right, my boy," rawdon answered. "happy to give you your revenge. governor come round?" "not yet," said george, "but he will; and you know i've some private fortune through my mother. has aunty relented?" "sent me twenty pound, damned old screw. when shall we have a meet? the general dines out on tuesday. can't you come tuesday? i say, make sedley cut off his moustache. what the devil does a civilian mean with a moustache and those infernal frogs to his coat! by-bye. try and come on tuesday"; and rawdon was going-off with two brilliant young gentlemen of fashion, who were, like himself, on the staff of a general officer. george was only half pleased to be asked to dinner on that particular day when the general was not to dine. "i will go in and pay my respects to your wife," said he; at which rawdon said, "hm, as you please," looking very glum, and at which the two young officers exchanged knowing glances. george parted from them and strutted down the lobby to the general's box, the number of which he had carefully counted. "entrez," said a clear little voice, and our friend found himself in rebecca's presence; who jumped up, clapped her hands together, and held out both of them to george, so charmed was she to see him. the general, with the orders in his button, stared at the newcomer with a sulky scowl, as much as to say, who the devil are you? "my dear captain george!" cried little rebecca in an ecstasy. "how good of you to come. the general and i were moping together tete-a-tete. general, this is my captain george of whom you heard me talk." "indeed," said the general, with a very small bow; "of what regiment is captain george?" george mentioned the --th: how he wished he could have said it was a crack cavalry corps. "come home lately from the west indies, i believe. not seen much service in the late war. quartered here, captain george?"--the general went on with killing haughtiness. "not captain george, you stupid man; captain osborne," rebecca said. the general all the while was looking savagely from one to the other. "captain osborne, indeed! any relation to the l------ osbornes?" "we bear the same arms," george said, as indeed was the fact; mr. osborne having consulted with a herald in long acre, and picked the l------ arms out of the peerage, when he set up his carriage fifteen years before. the general made no reply to this announcement; but took up his opera-glass--the double-barrelled lorgnon was not invented in those days--and pretended to examine the house; but rebecca saw that his disengaged eye was working round in her direction, and shooting out bloodshot glances at her and george. she redoubled in cordiality. "how is dearest amelia? but i needn't ask: how pretty she looks! and who is that nice good-natured looking creature with her--a flame of yours? o, you wicked men! and there is mr. sedley eating ice, i declare: how he seems to enjoy it! general, why have we not had any ices?" "shall i go and fetch you some?" said the general, bursting with wrath. "let me go, i entreat you," george said. "no, i will go to amelia's box. dear, sweet girl! give me your arm, captain george"; and so saying, and with a nod to the general, she tripped into the lobby. she gave george the queerest, knowingest look, when they were together, a look which might have been interpreted, "don't you see the state of affairs, and what a fool i'm making of him?" but he did not perceive it. he was thinking of his own plans, and lost in pompous admiration of his own irresistible powers of pleasing. the curses to which the general gave a low utterance, as soon as rebecca and her conqueror had quitted him, were so deep, that i am sure no compositor would venture to print them were they written down. they came from the general's heart; and a wonderful thing it is to think that the human heart is capable of generating such produce, and can throw out, as occasion demands, such a supply of lust and fury, rage and hatred. amelia's gentle eyes, too, had been fixed anxiously on the pair, whose conduct had so chafed the jealous general; but when rebecca entered her box, she flew to her friend with an affectionate rapture which showed itself, in spite of the publicity of the place; for she embraced her dearest friend in the presence of the whole house, at least in full view of the general's glass, now brought to bear upon the osborne party. mrs. rawdon saluted jos, too, with the kindliest greeting: she admired mrs. o'dowd's large cairngorm brooch and superb irish diamonds, and wouldn't believe that they were not from golconda direct. she bustled, she chattered, she turned and twisted, and smiled upon one, and smirked on another, all in full view of the jealous opera-glass opposite. and when the time for the ballet came (in which there was no dancer that went through her grimaces or performed her comedy of action better), she skipped back to her own box, leaning on captain dobbin's arm this time. no, she would not have george's: he must stay and talk to his dearest, best, little amelia. "what a humbug that woman is!" honest old dobbin mumbled to george, when he came back from rebecca's box, whither he had conducted her in perfect silence, and with a countenance as glum as an undertaker's. "she writhes and twists about like a snake. all the time she was here, didn't you see, george, how she was acting at the general over the way?" "humbug--acting! hang it, she's the nicest little woman in england," george replied, showing his white teeth, and giving his ambrosial whiskers a twirl. "you ain't a man of the world, dobbin. dammy, look at her now, she's talked over tufto in no time. look how he's laughing! gad, what a shoulder she has! emmy, why didn't you have a bouquet? everybody has a bouquet." "faith, then, why didn't you boy one?" mrs. o'dowd said; and both amelia and william dobbin thanked her for this timely observation. but beyond this neither of the ladies rallied. amelia was overpowered by the flash and the dazzle and the fashionable talk of her worldly rival. even the o'dowd was silent and subdued after becky's brilliant apparition, and scarcely said a word more about glenmalony all the evening. "when do you intend to give up play, george, as you have promised me, any time these hundred years?" dobbin said to his friend a few days after the night at the opera. "when do you intend to give up sermonising?" was the other's reply. "what the deuce, man, are you alarmed about? we play low; i won last night. you don't suppose crawley cheats? with fair play it comes to pretty much the same thing at the year's end." "but i don't think he could pay if he lost," dobbin said; and his advice met with the success which advice usually commands. osborne and crawley were repeatedly together now. general tufto dined abroad almost constantly. george was always welcome in the apartments (very close indeed to those of the general) which the aide-de-camp and his wife occupied in the hotel. amelia's manners were such when she and george visited crawley and his wife at these quarters, that they had very nearly come to their first quarrel; that is, george scolded his wife violently for her evident unwillingness to go, and the high and mighty manner in which she comported herself towards mrs. crawley, her old friend; and amelia did not say one single word in reply; but with her husband's eye upon her, and rebecca scanning her as she felt, was, if possible, more bashful and awkward on the second visit which she paid to mrs. rawdon, than on her first call. rebecca was doubly affectionate, of course, and would not take notice, in the least, of her friend's coolness. "i think emmy has become prouder since her father's name was in the--since mr. sedley's misfortunes," rebecca said, softening the phrase charitably for george's ear. "upon my word, i thought when we were at brighton she was doing me the honour to be jealous of me; and now i suppose she is scandalised because rawdon, and i, and the general live together. why, my dear creature, how could we, with our means, live at all, but for a friend to share expenses? and do you suppose that rawdon is not big enough to take care of my honour? but i'm very much obliged to emmy, very," mrs. rawdon said. "pooh, jealousy!" answered george, "all women are jealous." "and all men too. weren't you jealous of general tufto, and the general of you, on the night of the opera? why, he was ready to eat me for going with you to visit that foolish little wife of yours; as if i care a pin for either of you," crawley's wife said, with a pert toss of her head. "will you dine here? the dragon dines with the commander-in-chief. great news is stirring. they say the french have crossed the frontier. we shall have a quiet dinner." george accepted the invitation, although his wife was a little ailing. they were now not quite six weeks married. another woman was laughing or sneering at her expense, and he not angry. he was not even angry with himself, this good-natured fellow. it is a shame, he owned to himself; but hang it, if a pretty woman will throw herself in your way, why, what can a fellow do, you know? i am rather free about women, he had often said, smiling and nodding knowingly to stubble and spooney, and other comrades of the mess-table; and they rather respected him than otherwise for this prowess. next to conquering in war, conquering in love has been a source of pride, time out of mind, amongst men in vanity fair, or how should schoolboys brag of their amours, or don juan be popular? so mr. osborne, having a firm conviction in his own mind that he was a woman-killer and destined to conquer, did not run counter to his fate, but yielded himself up to it quite complacently. and as emmy did not say much or plague him with her jealousy, but merely became unhappy and pined over it miserably in secret, he chose to fancy that she was not suspicious of what all his acquaintance were perfectly aware--namely, that he was carrying on a desperate flirtation with mrs. crawley. he rode with her whenever she was free. he pretended regimental business to amelia (by which falsehood she was not in the least deceived), and consigning his wife to solitude or her brother's society, passed his evenings in the crawleys' company; losing money to the husband and flattering himself that the wife was dying of love for him. it is very likely that this worthy couple never absolutely conspired and agreed together in so many words: the one to cajole the young gentleman, whilst the other won his money at cards: but they understood each other perfectly well, and rawdon let osborne come and go with entire good humour. george was so occupied with his new acquaintances that he and william dobbin were by no means so much together as formerly. george avoided him in public and in the regiment, and, as we see, did not like those sermons which his senior was disposed to inflict upon him. if some parts of his conduct made captain dobbin exceedingly grave and cool; of what use was it to tell george that, though his whiskers were large, and his own opinion of his knowingness great, he was as green as a schoolboy? that rawdon was making a victim of him as he had done of many before, and as soon as he had used him would fling him off with scorn? he would not listen: and so, as dobbin, upon those days when he visited the osborne house, seldom had the advantage of meeting his old friend, much painful and unavailing talk between them was spared. our friend george was in the full career of the pleasures of vanity fair. there never was, since the days of darius, such a brilliant train of camp-followers as hung round the duke of wellington's army in the low countries, in ; and led it dancing and feasting, as it were, up to the very brink of battle. a certain ball which a noble duchess gave at brussels on the th of june in the above-named year is historical. all brussels had been in a state of excitement about it, and i have heard from ladies who were in that town at the period, that the talk and interest of persons of their own sex regarding the ball was much greater even than in respect of the enemy in their front. the struggles, intrigues, and prayers to get tickets were such as only english ladies will employ, in order to gain admission to the society of the great of their own nation. jos and mrs. o'dowd, who were panting to be asked, strove in vain to procure tickets; but others of our friends were more lucky. for instance, through the interest of my lord bareacres, and as a set-off for the dinner at the restaurateur's, george got a card for captain and mrs. osborne; which circumstance greatly elated him. dobbin, who was a friend of the general commanding the division in which their regiment was, came laughing one day to mrs. osborne, and displayed a similar invitation, which made jos envious, and george wonder how the deuce he should be getting into society. mr. and mrs. rawdon, finally, were of course invited; as became the friends of a general commanding a cavalry brigade. on the appointed night, george, having commanded new dresses and ornaments of all sorts for amelia, drove to the famous ball, where his wife did not know a single soul. after looking about for lady bareacres, who cut him, thinking the card was quite enough--and after placing amelia on a bench, he left her to her own cogitations there, thinking, on his own part, that he had behaved very handsomely in getting her new clothes, and bringing her to the ball, where she was free to amuse herself as she liked. her thoughts were not of the pleasantest, and nobody except honest dobbin came to disturb them. whilst her appearance was an utter failure (as her husband felt with a sort of rage), mrs. rawdon crawley's debut was, on the contrary, very brilliant. she arrived very late. her face was radiant; her dress perfection. in the midst of the great persons assembled, and the eye-glasses directed to her, rebecca seemed to be as cool and collected as when she used to marshal miss pinkerton's little girls to church. numbers of the men she knew already, and the dandies thronged round her. as for the ladies, it was whispered among them that rawdon had run away with her from out of a convent, and that she was a relation of the montmorency family. she spoke french so perfectly that there might be some truth in this report, and it was agreed that her manners were fine, and her air distingue. fifty would-be partners thronged round her at once, and pressed to have the honour to dance with her. but she said she was engaged, and only going to dance very little; and made her way at once to the place where emmy sate quite unnoticed, and dismally unhappy. and so, to finish the poor child at once, mrs. rawdon ran and greeted affectionately her dearest amelia, and began forthwith to patronise her. she found fault with her friend's dress, and her hairdresser, and wondered how she could be so chaussee, and vowed that she must send her corsetiere the next morning. she vowed that it was a delightful ball; that there was everybody that every one knew, and only a very few nobodies in the whole room. it is a fact, that in a fortnight, and after three dinners in general society, this young woman had got up the genteel jargon so well, that a native could not speak it better; and it was only from her french being so good, that you could know she was not a born woman of fashion. george, who had left emmy on her bench on entering the ball-room, very soon found his way back when rebecca was by her dear friend's side. becky was just lecturing mrs. osborne upon the follies which her husband was committing. "for god's sake, stop him from gambling, my dear," she said, "or he will ruin himself. he and rawdon are playing at cards every night, and you know he is very poor, and rawdon will win every shilling from him if he does not take care. why don't you prevent him, you little careless creature? why don't you come to us of an evening, instead of moping at home with that captain dobbin? i dare say he is tres aimable; but how could one love a man with feet of such size? your husband's feet are darlings--here he comes. where have you been, wretch? here is emmy crying her eyes out for you. are you coming to fetch me for the quadrille?" and she left her bouquet and shawl by amelia's side, and tripped off with george to dance. women only know how to wound so. there is a poison on the tips of their little shafts, which stings a thousand times more than a man's blunter weapon. our poor emmy, who had never hated, never sneered all her life, was powerless in the hands of her remorseless little enemy. george danced with rebecca twice or thrice--how many times amelia scarcely knew. she sat quite unnoticed in her corner, except when rawdon came up with some words of clumsy conversation: and later in the evening, when captain dobbin made so bold as to bring her refreshments and sit beside her. he did not like to ask her why she was so sad; but as a pretext for the tears which were filling in her eyes, she told him that mrs. crawley had alarmed her by telling her that george would go on playing. "it is curious, when a man is bent upon play, by what clumsy rogues he will allow himself to be cheated," dobbin said; and emmy said, "indeed." she was thinking of something else. it was not the loss of the money that grieved her. at last george came back for rebecca's shawl and flowers. she was going away. she did not even condescend to come back and say good-bye to amelia. the poor girl let her husband come and go without saying a word, and her head fell on her breast. dobbin had been called away, and was whispering deep in conversation with the general of the division, his friend, and had not seen this last parting. george went away then with the bouquet; but when he gave it to the owner, there lay a note, coiled like a snake among the flowers. rebecca's eye caught it at once. she had been used to deal with notes in early life. she put out her hand and took the nosegay. he saw by her eyes as they met, that she was aware what she should find there. her husband hurried her away, still too intent upon his own thoughts, seemingly, to take note of any marks of recognition which might pass between his friend and his wife. these were, however, but trifling. rebecca gave george her hand with one of her usual quick knowing glances, and made a curtsey and walked away. george bowed over the hand, said nothing in reply to a remark of crawley's, did not hear it even, his brain was so throbbing with triumph and excitement, and allowed them to go away without a word. his wife saw the one part at least of the bouquet-scene. it was quite natural that george should come at rebecca's request to get her her scarf and flowers: it was no more than he had done twenty times before in the course of the last few days; but now it was too much for her. "william," she said, suddenly clinging to dobbin, who was near her, "you've always been very kind to me--i'm--i'm not well. take me home." she did not know she called him by his christian name, as george was accustomed to do. he went away with her quickly. her lodgings were hard by; and they threaded through the crowd without, where everything seemed to be more astir than even in the ball-room within. george had been angry twice or thrice at finding his wife up on his return from the parties which he frequented: so she went straight to bed now; but although she did not sleep, and although the din and clatter, and the galloping of horsemen were incessant, she never heard any of these noises, having quite other disturbances to keep her awake. osborne meanwhile, wild with elation, went off to a play-table, and began to bet frantically. he won repeatedly. "everything succeeds with me to-night," he said. but his luck at play even did not cure him of his restlessness, and he started up after awhile, pocketing his winnings, and went to a buffet, where he drank off many bumpers of wine. here, as he was rattling away to the people around, laughing loudly and wild with spirits, dobbin found him. he had been to the card-tables to look there for his friend. dobbin looked as pale and grave as his comrade was flushed and jovial. "hullo, dob! come and drink, old dob! the duke's wine is famous. give me some more, you sir"; and he held out a trembling glass for the liquor. "come out, george," said dobbin, still gravely; "don't drink." "drink! there's nothing like it. drink yourself, and light up your lantern jaws, old boy. here's to you." dobbin went up and whispered something to him, at which george, giving a start and a wild hurray, tossed off his glass, clapped it on the table, and walked away speedily on his friend's arm. "the enemy has passed the sambre," william said, "and our left is already engaged. come away. we are to march in three hours." away went george, his nerves quivering with excitement at the news so long looked for, so sudden when it came. what were love and intrigue now? he thought about a thousand things but these in his rapid walk to his quarters--his past life and future chances--the fate which might be before him--the wife, the child perhaps, from whom unseen he might be about to part. oh, how he wished that night's work undone! and that with a clear conscience at least he might say farewell to the tender and guileless being by whose love he had set such little store! he thought over his brief married life. in those few weeks he had frightfully dissipated his little capital. how wild and reckless he had been! should any mischance befall him: what was then left for her? how unworthy he was of her. why had he married her? he was not fit for marriage. why had he disobeyed his father, who had been always so generous to him? hope, remorse, ambition, tenderness, and selfish regret filled his heart. he sate down and wrote to his father, remembering what he had said once before, when he was engaged to fight a duel. dawn faintly streaked the sky as he closed this farewell letter. he sealed it, and kissed the superscription. he thought how he had deserted that generous father, and of the thousand kindnesses which the stern old man had done him. he had looked into amelia's bedroom when he entered; she lay quiet, and her eyes seemed closed, and he was glad that she was asleep. on arriving at his quarters from the ball, he had found his regimental servant already making preparations for his departure: the man had understood his signal to be still, and these arrangements were very quickly and silently made. should he go in and wake amelia, he thought, or leave a note for her brother to break the news of departure to her? he went in to look at her once again. she had been awake when he first entered her room, but had kept her eyes closed, so that even her wakefulness should not seem to reproach him. but when he had returned, so soon after herself, too, this timid little heart had felt more at ease, and turning towards him as he stept softly out of the room, she had fallen into a light sleep. george came in and looked at her again, entering still more softly. by the pale night-lamp he could see her sweet, pale face--the purple eyelids were fringed and closed, and one round arm, smooth and white, lay outside of the coverlet. good god! how pure she was; how gentle, how tender, and how friendless! and he, how selfish, brutal, and black with crime! heart-stained, and shame-stricken, he stood at the bed's foot, and looked at the sleeping girl. how dared he--who was he, to pray for one so spotless! god bless her! god bless her! he came to the bedside, and looked at the hand, the little soft hand, lying asleep; and he bent over the pillow noiselessly towards the gentle pale face. two fair arms closed tenderly round his neck as he stooped down. "i am awake, george," the poor child said, with a sob fit to break the little heart that nestled so closely by his own. she was awake, poor soul, and to what? at that moment a bugle from the place of arms began sounding clearly, and was taken up through the town; and amidst the drums of the infantry, and the shrill pipes of the scotch, the whole city awoke. chapter xxx "the girl i left behind me" we do not claim to rank among the military novelists. our place is with the non-combatants. when the decks are cleared for action we go below and wait meekly. we should only be in the way of the manoeuvres that the gallant fellows are performing overhead. we shall go no farther with the --th than to the city gate: and leaving major o'dowd to his duty, come back to the major's wife, and the ladies and the baggage. now the major and his lady, who had not been invited to the ball at which in our last chapter other of our friends figured, had much more time to take their wholesome natural rest in bed, than was accorded to people who wished to enjoy pleasure as well as to do duty. "it's my belief, peggy, my dear," said he, as he placidly pulled his nightcap over his ears, "that there will be such a ball danced in a day or two as some of 'em has never heard the chune of"; and he was much more happy to retire to rest after partaking of a quiet tumbler, than to figure at any other sort of amusement. peggy, for her part, would have liked to have shown her turban and bird of paradise at the ball, but for the information which her husband had given her, and which made her very grave. "i'd like ye wake me about half an hour before the assembly beats," the major said to his lady. "call me at half-past one, peggy dear, and see me things is ready. may be i'll not come back to breakfast, mrs. o'd." with which words, which signified his opinion that the regiment would march the next morning, the major ceased talking, and fell asleep. mrs. o'dowd, the good housewife, arrayed in curl papers and a camisole, felt that her duty was to act, and not to sleep, at this juncture. "time enough for that," she said, "when mick's gone"; and so she packed his travelling valise ready for the march, brushed his cloak, his cap, and other warlike habiliments, set them out in order for him; and stowed away in the cloak pockets a light package of portable refreshments, and a wicker-covered flask or pocket-pistol, containing near a pint of a remarkably sound cognac brandy, of which she and the major approved very much; and as soon as the hands of the "repayther" pointed to half-past one, and its interior arrangements (it had a tone quite equal to a cathaydral, its fair owner considered) knelled forth that fatal hour, mrs. o'dowd woke up her major, and had as comfortable a cup of coffee prepared for him as any made that morning in brussels. and who is there will deny that this worthy lady's preparations betokened affection as much as the fits of tears and hysterics by which more sensitive females exhibited their love, and that their partaking of this coffee, which they drank together while the bugles were sounding the turn-out and the drums beating in the various quarters of the town, was not more useful and to the purpose than the outpouring of any mere sentiment could be? the consequence was, that the major appeared on parade quite trim, fresh, and alert, his well-shaved rosy countenance, as he sate on horseback, giving cheerfulness and confidence to the whole corps. all the officers saluted her when the regiment marched by the balcony on which this brave woman stood, and waved them a cheer as they passed; and i daresay it was not from want of courage, but from a sense of female delicacy and propriety, that she refrained from leading the gallant--th personally into action. on sundays, and at periods of a solemn nature, mrs. o'dowd used to read with great gravity out of a large volume of her uncle the dean's sermons. it had been of great comfort to her on board the transport as they were coming home, and were very nearly wrecked, on their return from the west indies. after the regiment's departure she betook herself to this volume for meditation; perhaps she did not understand much of what she was reading, and her thoughts were elsewhere: but the sleep project, with poor mick's nightcap there on the pillow, was quite a vain one. so it is in the world. jack or donald marches away to glory with his knapsack on his shoulder, stepping out briskly to the tune of "the girl i left behind me." it is she who remains and suffers--and has the leisure to think, and brood, and remember. knowing how useless regrets are, and how the indulgence of sentiment only serves to make people more miserable, mrs. rebecca wisely determined to give way to no vain feelings of sorrow, and bore the parting from her husband with quite a spartan equanimity. indeed captain rawdon himself was much more affected at the leave-taking than the resolute little woman to whom he bade farewell. she had mastered this rude coarse nature; and he loved and worshipped her with all his faculties of regard and admiration. in all his life he had never been so happy, as, during the past few months, his wife had made him. all former delights of turf, mess, hunting-field, and gambling-table; all previous loves and courtships of milliners, opera-dancers, and the like easy triumphs of the clumsy military adonis, were quite insipid when compared to the lawful matrimonial pleasures which of late he had enjoyed. she had known perpetually how to divert him; and he had found his house and her society a thousand times more pleasant than any place or company which he had ever frequented from his childhood until now. and he cursed his past follies and extravagances, and bemoaned his vast outlying debts above all, which must remain for ever as obstacles to prevent his wife's advancement in the world. he had often groaned over these in midnight conversations with rebecca, although as a bachelor they had never given him any disquiet. he himself was struck with this phenomenon. "hang it," he would say (or perhaps use a still stronger expression out of his simple vocabulary), "before i was married i didn't care what bills i put my name to, and so long as moses would wait or levy would renew for three months, i kept on never minding. but since i'm married, except renewing, of course, i give you my honour i've not touched a bit of stamped paper." rebecca always knew how to conjure away these moods of melancholy. "why, my stupid love," she would say, "we have not done with your aunt yet. if she fails us, isn't there what you call the gazette? or, stop, when your uncle bute's life drops, i have another scheme. the living has always belonged to the younger brother, and why shouldn't you sell out and go into the church?" the idea of this conversion set rawdon into roars of laughter: you might have heard the explosion through the hotel at midnight, and the haw-haws of the great dragoon's voice. general tufto heard him from his quarters on the first floor above them; and rebecca acted the scene with great spirit, and preached rawdon's first sermon, to the immense delight of the general at breakfast. but these were mere by-gone days and talk. when the final news arrived that the campaign was opened, and the troops were to march, rawdon's gravity became such that becky rallied him about it in a manner which rather hurt the feelings of the guardsman. "you don't suppose i'm afraid, becky, i should think," he said, with a tremor in his voice. "but i'm a pretty good mark for a shot, and you see if it brings me down, why i leave one and perhaps two behind me whom i should wish to provide for, as i brought 'em into the scrape. it is no laughing matter that, mrs. c., anyways." rebecca by a hundred caresses and kind words tried to soothe the feelings of the wounded lover. it was only when her vivacity and sense of humour got the better of this sprightly creature (as they would do under most circumstances of life indeed) that she would break out with her satire, but she could soon put on a demure face. "dearest love," she said, "do you suppose i feel nothing?" and hastily dashing something from her eyes, she looked up in her husband's face with a smile. "look here," said he. "if i drop, let us see what there is for you. i have had a pretty good run of luck here, and here's two hundred and thirty pounds. i have got ten napoleons in my pocket. that is as much as i shall want; for the general pays everything like a prince; and if i'm hit, why you know i cost nothing. don't cry, little woman; i may live to vex you yet. well, i shan't take either of my horses, but shall ride the general's grey charger: it's cheaper, and i told him mine was lame. if i'm done, those two ought to fetch you something. grigg offered ninety for the mare yesterday, before this confounded news came, and like a fool i wouldn't let her go under the two o's. bullfinch will fetch his price any day, only you'd better sell him in this country, because the dealers have so many bills of mine, and so i'd rather he shouldn't go back to england. your little mare the general gave you will fetch something, and there's no d--d livery stable bills here as there are in london," rawdon added, with a laugh. "there's that dressing-case cost me two hundred--that is, i owe two for it; and the gold tops and bottles must be worth thirty or forty. please to put that up the spout, ma'am, with my pins, and rings, and watch and chain, and things. they cost a precious lot of money. miss crawley, i know, paid a hundred down for the chain and ticker. gold tops and bottles, indeed! dammy, i'm sorry i didn't take more now. edwards pressed on me a silver-gilt boot-jack, and i might have had a dressing-case fitted up with a silver warming-pan, and a service of plate. but we must make the best of what we've got, becky, you know." and so, making his last dispositions, captain crawley, who had seldom thought about anything but himself, until the last few months of his life, when love had obtained the mastery over the dragoon, went through the various items of his little catalogue of effects, striving to see how they might be turned into money for his wife's benefit, in case any accident should befall him. he pleased himself by noting down with a pencil, in his big schoolboy handwriting, the various items of his portable property which might be sold for his widow's advantage as, for example, "my double-barril by manton, say guineas; my driving cloak, lined with sable fur, pounds; my duelling pistols in rosewood case (same which i shot captain marker), pounds; my regulation saddle-holsters and housings; my laurie ditto," and so forth, over all of which articles he made rebecca the mistress. faithful to his plan of economy, the captain dressed himself in his oldest and shabbiest uniform and epaulets, leaving the newest behind, under his wife's (or it might be his widow's) guardianship. and this famous dandy of windsor and hyde park went off on his campaign with a kit as modest as that of a sergeant, and with something like a prayer on his lips for the woman he was leaving. he took her up from the ground, and held her in his arms for a minute, tight pressed against his strong-beating heart. his face was purple and his eyes dim, as he put her down and left her. he rode by his general's side, and smoked his cigar in silence as they hastened after the troops of the general's brigade, which preceded them; and it was not until they were some miles on their way that he left off twirling his moustache and broke silence. and rebecca, as we have said, wisely determined not to give way to unavailing sentimentality on her husband's departure. she waved him an adieu from the window, and stood there for a moment looking out after he was gone. the cathedral towers and the full gables of the quaint old houses were just beginning to blush in the sunrise. there had been no rest for her that night. she was still in her pretty ball-dress, her fair hair hanging somewhat out of curl on her neck, and the circles round her eyes dark with watching. "what a fright i seem," she said, examining herself in the glass, "and how pale this pink makes one look!" so she divested herself of this pink raiment; in doing which a note fell out from her corsage, which she picked up with a smile, and locked into her dressing-box. and then she put her bouquet of the ball into a glass of water, and went to bed, and slept very comfortably. the town was quite quiet when she woke up at ten o'clock, and partook of coffee, very requisite and comforting after the exhaustion and grief of the morning's occurrences. this meal over, she resumed honest rawdon's calculations of the night previous, and surveyed her position. should the worst befall, all things considered, she was pretty well to do. there were her own trinkets and trousseau, in addition to those which her husband had left behind. rawdon's generosity, when they were first married, has already been described and lauded. besides these, and the little mare, the general, her slave and worshipper, had made her many very handsome presents, in the shape of cashmere shawls bought at the auction of a bankrupt french general's lady, and numerous tributes from the jewellers' shops, all of which betokened her admirer's taste and wealth. as for "tickers," as poor rawdon called watches, her apartments were alive with their clicking. for, happening to mention one night that hers, which rawdon had given to her, was of english workmanship, and went ill, on the very next morning there came to her a little bijou marked leroy, with a chain and cover charmingly set with turquoises, and another signed brequet, which was covered with pearls, and yet scarcely bigger than a half-crown. general tufto had bought one, and captain osborne had gallantly presented the other. mrs. osborne had no watch, though, to do george justice, she might have had one for the asking, and the honourable mrs. tufto in england had an old instrument of her mother's that might have served for the plate-warming pan which rawdon talked about. if messrs. howell and james were to publish a list of the purchasers of all the trinkets which they sell, how surprised would some families be: and if all these ornaments went to gentlemen's lawful wives and daughters, what a profusion of jewellery there would be exhibited in the genteelest homes of vanity fair! every calculation made of these valuables mrs. rebecca found, not without a pungent feeling of triumph and self-satisfaction, that should circumstances occur, she might reckon on six or seven hundred pounds at the very least, to begin the world with; and she passed the morning disposing, ordering, looking out, and locking up her properties in the most agreeable manner. among the notes in rawdon's pocket-book was a draft for twenty pounds on osborne's banker. this made her think about mrs. osborne. "i will go and get the draft cashed," she said, "and pay a visit afterwards to poor little emmy." if this is a novel without a hero, at least let us lay claim to a heroine. no man in the british army which has marched away, not the great duke himself, could be more cool or collected in the presence of doubts and difficulties, than the indomitable little aide-de-camp's wife. and there was another of our acquaintances who was also to be left behind, a non-combatant, and whose emotions and behaviour we have therefore a right to know. this was our friend the ex-collector of boggley wollah, whose rest was broken, like other people's, by the sounding of the bugles in the early morning. being a great sleeper, and fond of his bed, it is possible he would have snoozed on until his usual hour of rising in the forenoon, in spite of all the drums, bugles, and bagpipes in the british army, but for an interruption, which did not come from george osborne, who shared jos's quarters with him, and was as usual occupied too much with his own affairs or with grief at parting with his wife, to think of taking leave of his slumbering brother-in-law--it was not george, we say, who interposed between jos sedley and sleep, but captain dobbin, who came and roused him up, insisting on shaking hands with him before his departure. "very kind of you," said jos, yawning, and wishing the captain at the deuce. "i--i didn't like to go off without saying good-bye, you know," dobbin said in a very incoherent manner; "because you know some of us mayn't come back again, and i like to see you all well, and--and that sort of thing, you know." "what do you mean?" jos asked, rubbing his eyes. the captain did not in the least hear him or look at the stout gentleman in the nightcap, about whom he professed to have such a tender interest. the hypocrite was looking and listening with all his might in the direction of george's apartments, striding about the room, upsetting the chairs, beating the tattoo, biting his nails, and showing other signs of great inward emotion. jos had always had rather a mean opinion of the captain, and now began to think his courage was somewhat equivocal. "what is it i can do for you, dobbin?" he said, in a sarcastic tone. "i tell you what you can do," the captain replied, coming up to the bed; "we march in a quarter of an hour, sedley, and neither george nor i may ever come back. mind you, you are not to stir from this town until you ascertain how things go. you are to stay here and watch over your sister, and comfort her, and see that no harm comes to her. if anything happens to george, remember she has no one but you in the world to look to. if it goes wrong with the army, you'll see her safe back to england; and you will promise me on your word that you will never desert her. i know you won't: as far as money goes, you were always free enough with that. do you want any? i mean, have you enough gold to take you back to england in case of a misfortune?" "sir," said jos, majestically, "when i want money, i know where to ask for it. and as for my sister, you needn't tell me how i ought to behave to her." "you speak like a man of spirit, jos," the other answered good-naturedly, "and i am glad that george can leave her in such good hands. so i may give him your word of honour, may i, that in case of extremity you will stand by her?" "of course, of course," answered mr. jos, whose generosity in money matters dobbin estimated quite correctly. "and you'll see her safe out of brussels in the event of a defeat?" "a defeat! d---- it, sir, it's impossible. don't try and frighten me," the hero cried from his bed; and dobbin's mind was thus perfectly set at ease now that jos had spoken out so resolutely respecting his conduct to his sister. "at least," thought the captain, "there will be a retreat secured for her in case the worst should ensue." if captain dobbin expected to get any personal comfort and satisfaction from having one more view of amelia before the regiment marched away, his selfishness was punished just as such odious egotism deserved to be. the door of jos's bedroom opened into the sitting-room which was common to the family party, and opposite this door was that of amelia's chamber. the bugles had wakened everybody: there was no use in concealment now. george's servant was packing in this room: osborne coming in and out of the contiguous bedroom, flinging to the man such articles as he thought fit to carry on the campaign. and presently dobbin had the opportunity which his heart coveted, and he got sight of amelia's face once more. but what a face it was! so white, so wild and despair-stricken, that the remembrance of it haunted him afterwards like a crime, and the sight smote him with inexpressible pangs of longing and pity. she was wrapped in a white morning dress, her hair falling on her shoulders, and her large eyes fixed and without light. by way of helping on the preparations for the departure, and showing that she too could be useful at a moment so critical, this poor soul had taken up a sash of george's from the drawers whereon it lay, and followed him to and fro with the sash in her hand, looking on mutely as his packing proceeded. she came out and stood, leaning at the wall, holding this sash against her bosom, from which the heavy net of crimson dropped like a large stain of blood. our gentle-hearted captain felt a guilty shock as he looked at her. "good god," thought he, "and is it grief like this i dared to pry into?" and there was no help: no means to soothe and comfort this helpless, speechless misery. he stood for a moment and looked at her, powerless and torn with pity, as a parent regards an infant in pain. at last, george took emmy's hand, and led her back into the bedroom, from whence he came out alone. the parting had taken place in that moment, and he was gone. "thank heaven that is over," george thought, bounding down the stair, his sword under his arm, as he ran swiftly to the alarm ground, where the regiment was mustered, and whither trooped men and officers hurrying from their billets; his pulse was throbbing and his cheeks flushed: the great game of war was going to be played, and he one of the players. what a fierce excitement of doubt, hope, and pleasure! what tremendous hazards of loss or gain! what were all the games of chance he had ever played compared to this one? into all contests requiring athletic skill and courage, the young man, from his boyhood upwards, had flung himself with all his might. the champion of his school and his regiment, the bravos of his companions had followed him everywhere; from the boys' cricket-match to the garrison-races, he had won a hundred of triumphs; and wherever he went women and men had admired and envied him. what qualities are there for which a man gets so speedy a return of applause, as those of bodily superiority, activity, and valour? time out of mind strength and courage have been the theme of bards and romances; and from the story of troy down to to-day, poetry has always chosen a soldier for a hero. i wonder is it because men are cowards in heart that they admire bravery so much, and place military valour so far beyond every other quality for reward and worship? so, at the sound of that stirring call to battle, george jumped away from the gentle arms in which he had been dallying; not without a feeling of shame (although his wife's hold on him had been but feeble), that he should have been detained there so long. the same feeling of eagerness and excitement was amongst all those friends of his of whom we have had occasional glimpses, from the stout senior major, who led the regiment into action, to little stubble, the ensign, who was to bear its colours on that day. the sun was just rising as the march began--it was a gallant sight--the band led the column, playing the regimental march--then came the major in command, riding upon pyramus, his stout charger--then marched the grenadiers, their captain at their head; in the centre were the colours, borne by the senior and junior ensigns--then george came marching at the head of his company. he looked up, and smiled at amelia, and passed on; and even the sound of the music died away. chapter xxxi in which jos sedley takes care of his sister thus all the superior officers being summoned on duty elsewhere, jos sedley was left in command of the little colony at brussels, with amelia invalided, isidor, his belgian servant, and the bonne, who was maid-of-all-work for the establishment, as a garrison under him. though he was disturbed in spirit, and his rest destroyed by dobbin's interruption and the occurrences of the morning, jos nevertheless remained for many hours in bed, wakeful and rolling about there until his usual hour of rising had arrived. the sun was high in the heavens, and our gallant friends of the --th miles on their march, before the civilian appeared in his flowered dressing-gown at breakfast. about george's absence, his brother-in-law was very easy in mind. perhaps jos was rather pleased in his heart that osborne was gone, for during george's presence, the other had played but a very secondary part in the household, and osborne did not scruple to show his contempt for the stout civilian. but emmy had always been good and attentive to him. it was she who ministered to his comforts, who superintended the dishes that he liked, who walked or rode with him (as she had many, too many, opportunities of doing, for where was george?) and who interposed her sweet face between his anger and her husband's scorn. many timid remonstrances had she uttered to george in behalf of her brother, but the former in his trenchant way cut these entreaties short. "i'm an honest man," he said, "and if i have a feeling i show it, as an honest man will. how the deuce, my dear, would you have me behave respectfully to such a fool as your brother?" so jos was pleased with george's absence. his plain hat, and gloves on a sideboard, and the idea that the owner was away, caused jos i don't know what secret thrill of pleasure. "he won't be troubling me this morning," jos thought, "with his dandified airs and his impudence." "put the captain's hat into the ante-room," he said to isidor, the servant. "perhaps he won't want it again," replied the lackey, looking knowingly at his master. he hated george too, whose insolence towards him was quite of the english sort. "and ask if madame is coming to breakfast," mr. sedley said with great majesty, ashamed to enter with a servant upon the subject of his dislike for george. the truth is, he had abused his brother to the valet a score of times before. alas! madame could not come to breakfast, and cut the tartines that mr. jos liked. madame was a great deal too ill, and had been in a frightful state ever since her husband's departure, so her bonne said. jos showed his sympathy by pouring her out a large cup of tea it was his way of exhibiting kindness: and he improved on this; he not only sent her breakfast, but he bethought him what delicacies she would most like for dinner. isidor, the valet, had looked on very sulkily, while osborne's servant was disposing of his master's baggage previous to the captain's departure: for in the first place he hated mr. osborne, whose conduct to him, and to all inferiors, was generally overbearing (nor does the continental domestic like to be treated with insolence as our own better-tempered servants do), and secondly, he was angry that so many valuables should be removed from under his hands, to fall into other people's possession when the english discomfiture should arrive. of this defeat he and a vast number of other persons in brussels and belgium did not make the slightest doubt. the almost universal belief was, that the emperor would divide the prussian and english armies, annihilate one after the other, and march into brussels before three days were over: when all the movables of his present masters, who would be killed, or fugitives, or prisoners, would lawfully become the property of monsieur isidor. as he helped jos through his toilsome and complicated daily toilette, this faithful servant would calculate what he should do with the very articles with which he was decorating his master's person. he would make a present of the silver essence-bottles and toilet knicknacks to a young lady of whom he was fond; and keep the english cutlery and the large ruby pin for himself. it would look very smart upon one of the fine frilled shirts, which, with the gold-laced cap and the frogged frock coat, that might easily be cut down to suit his shape, and the captain's gold-headed cane, and the great double ring with the rubies, which he would have made into a pair of beautiful earrings, he calculated would make a perfect adonis of himself, and render mademoiselle reine an easy prey. "how those sleeve-buttons will suit me!" thought he, as he fixed a pair on the fat pudgy wrists of mr. sedley. "i long for sleeve-buttons; and the captain's boots with brass spurs, in the next room, corbleu! what an effect they will make in the allee verte!" so while monsieur isidor with bodily fingers was holding on to his master's nose, and shaving the lower part of jos's face, his imagination was rambling along the green avenue, dressed out in a frogged coat and lace, and in company with mademoiselle reine; he was loitering in spirit on the banks, and examining the barges sailing slowly under the cool shadows of the trees by the canal, or refreshing himself with a mug of faro at the bench of a beer-house on the road to laeken. but mr. joseph sedley, luckily for his own peace, no more knew what was passing in his domestic's mind than the respected reader, and i suspect what john or mary, whose wages we pay, think of ourselves. what our servants think of us!--did we know what our intimates and dear relations thought of us, we should live in a world that we should be glad to quit, and in a frame of mind and a constant terror, that would be perfectly unbearable. so jos's man was marking his victim down, as you see one of mr. paynter's assistants in leadenhall street ornament an unconscious turtle with a placard on which is written, "soup to-morrow." amelia's attendant was much less selfishly disposed. few dependents could come near that kind and gentle creature without paying their usual tribute of loyalty and affection to her sweet and affectionate nature. and it is a fact that pauline, the cook, consoled her mistress more than anybody whom she saw on this wretched morning; for when she found how amelia remained for hours, silent, motionless, and haggard, by the windows in which she had placed herself to watch the last bayonets of the column as it marched away, the honest girl took the lady's hand, and said, tenez, madame, est-ce qu'il n'est pas aussi a l'armee, mon homme a moi? with which she burst into tears, and amelia falling into her arms, did likewise, and so each pitied and soothed the other. several times during the forenoon mr. jos's isidor went from his lodgings into the town, and to the gates of the hotels and lodging-houses round about the parc, where the english were congregated, and there mingled with other valets, couriers, and lackeys, gathered such news as was abroad, and brought back bulletins for his master's information. almost all these gentlemen were in heart partisans of the emperor, and had their opinions about the speedy end of the campaign. the emperor's proclamation from avesnes had been distributed everywhere plentifully in brussels. "soldiers!" it said, "this is the anniversary of marengo and friedland, by which the destinies of europe were twice decided. then, as after austerlitz, as after wagram, we were too generous. we believed in the oaths and promises of princes whom we suffered to remain upon their thrones. let us march once more to meet them. we and they, are we not still the same men? soldiers! these same prussians who are so arrogant to-day, were three to one against you at jena, and six to one at montmirail. those among you who were prisoners in england can tell their comrades what frightful torments they suffered on board the english hulks. madmen! a moment of prosperity has blinded them, and if they enter into france it will be to find a grave there!" but the partisans of the french prophesied a more speedy extermination of the emperor's enemies than this; and it was agreed on all hands that prussians and british would never return except as prisoners in the rear of the conquering army. these opinions in the course of the day were brought to operate upon mr. sedley. he was told that the duke of wellington had gone to try and rally his army, the advance of which had been utterly crushed the night before. "crushed, psha!" said jos, whose heart was pretty stout at breakfast-time. "the duke has gone to beat the emperor as he has beaten all his generals before." "his papers are burned, his effects are removed, and his quarters are being got ready for the duke of dalmatia," jos's informant replied. "i had it from his own maitre d'hotel. milor duc de richemont's people are packing up everything. his grace has fled already, and the duchess is only waiting to see the plate packed to join the king of france at ostend." "the king of france is at ghent, fellow," replied jos, affecting incredulity. "he fled last night to bruges, and embarks today from ostend. the duc de berri is taken prisoner. those who wish to be safe had better go soon, for the dykes will be opened to-morrow, and who can fly when the whole country is under water?" "nonsense, sir, we are three to one, sir, against any force boney can bring into the field," mr. sedley objected; "the austrians and the russians are on their march. he must, he shall be crushed," jos said, slapping his hand on the table. "the prussians were three to one at jena, and he took their army and kingdom in a week. they were six to one at montmirail, and he scattered them like sheep. the austrian army is coming, but with the empress and the king of rome at its head; and the russians, bah! the russians will withdraw. no quarter is to be given to the english, on account of their cruelty to our braves on board the infamous pontoons. look here, here it is in black and white. here's the proclamation of his majesty the emperor and king," said the now declared partisan of napoleon, and taking the document from his pocket, isidor sternly thrust it into his master's face, and already looked upon the frogged coat and valuables as his own spoil. jos was, if not seriously alarmed as yet, at least considerably disturbed in mind. "give me my coat and cap, sir," said he, "and follow me. i will go myself and learn the truth of these reports." isidor was furious as jos put on the braided frock. "milor had better not wear that military coat," said he; "the frenchmen have sworn not to give quarter to a single british soldier." "silence, sirrah!" said jos, with a resolute countenance still, and thrust his arm into the sleeve with indomitable resolution, in the performance of which heroic act he was found by mrs. rawdon crawley, who at this juncture came up to visit amelia, and entered without ringing at the antechamber door. rebecca was dressed very neatly and smartly, as usual: her quiet sleep after rawdon's departure had refreshed her, and her pink smiling cheeks were quite pleasant to look at, in a town and on a day when everybody else's countenance wore the appearance of the deepest anxiety and gloom. she laughed at the attitude in which jos was discovered, and the struggles and convulsions with which the stout gentleman thrust himself into the braided coat. "are you preparing to join the army, mr. joseph?" she said. "is there to be nobody left in brussels to protect us poor women?" jos succeeded in plunging into the coat, and came forward blushing and stuttering out excuses to his fair visitor. "how was she after the events of the morning--after the fatigues of the ball the night before?" monsieur isidor disappeared into his master's adjacent bedroom, bearing off the flowered dressing-gown. "how good of you to ask," said she, pressing one of his hands in both her own. "how cool and collected you look when everybody else is frightened! how is our dear little emmy? it must have been an awful, awful parting." "tremendous," jos said. "you men can bear anything," replied the lady. "parting or danger are nothing to you. own now that you were going to join the army and leave us to our fate. i know you were--something tells me you were. i was so frightened, when the thought came into my head (for i do sometimes think of you when i am alone, mr. joseph), that i ran off immediately to beg and entreat you not to fly from us." this speech might be interpreted, "my dear sir, should an accident befall the army, and a retreat be necessary, you have a very comfortable carriage, in which i propose to take a seat." i don't know whether jos understood the words in this sense. but he was profoundly mortified by the lady's inattention to him during their stay at brussels. he had never been presented to any of rawdon crawley's great acquaintances: he had scarcely been invited to rebecca's parties; for he was too timid to play much, and his presence bored george and rawdon equally, who neither of them, perhaps, liked to have a witness of the amusements in which the pair chose to indulge. "ah!" thought jos, "now she wants me she comes to me. when there is nobody else in the way she can think about old joseph sedley!" but besides these doubts he felt flattered at the idea rebecca expressed of his courage. he blushed a good deal, and put on an air of importance. "i should like to see the action," he said. "every man of any spirit would, you know. i've seen a little service in india, but nothing on this grand scale." "you men would sacrifice anything for a pleasure," rebecca answered. "captain crawley left me this morning as gay as if he were going to a hunting party. what does he care? what do any of you care for the agonies and tortures of a poor forsaken woman? (i wonder whether he could really have been going to the troops, this great lazy gourmand?) oh! dear mr. sedley, i have come to you for comfort--for consolation. i have been on my knees all the morning. i tremble at the frightful danger into which our husbands, our friends, our brave troops and allies, are rushing. and i come here for shelter, and find another of my friends--the last remaining to me--bent upon plunging into the dreadful scene!" "my dear madam," jos replied, now beginning to be quite soothed, "don't be alarmed. i only said i should like to go--what briton would not? but my duty keeps me here: i can't leave that poor creature in the next room." and he pointed with his finger to the door of the chamber in which amelia was. "good noble brother!" rebecca said, putting her handkerchief to her eyes, and smelling the eau-de-cologne with which it was scented. "i have done you injustice: you have got a heart. i thought you had not." "o, upon my honour!" jos said, making a motion as if he would lay his hand upon the spot in question. "you do me injustice, indeed you do--my dear mrs. crawley." "i do, now your heart is true to your sister. but i remember two years ago--when it was false to me!" rebecca said, fixing her eyes upon him for an instant, and then turning away into the window. jos blushed violently. that organ which he was accused by rebecca of not possessing began to thump tumultuously. he recalled the days when he had fled from her, and the passion which had once inflamed him--the days when he had driven her in his curricle: when she had knit the green purse for him: when he had sate enraptured gazing at her white arms and bright eyes. "i know you think me ungrateful," rebecca continued, coming out of the window, and once more looking at him and addressing him in a low tremulous voice. "your coldness, your averted looks, your manner when we have met of late--when i came in just now, all proved it to me. but were there no reasons why i should avoid you? let your own heart answer that question. do you think my husband was too much inclined to welcome you? the only unkind words i have ever had from him (i will do captain crawley that justice) have been about you--and most cruel, cruel words they were." "good gracious! what have i done?" asked jos in a flurry of pleasure and perplexity; "what have i done--to--to--?" "is jealousy nothing?" said rebecca. "he makes me miserable about you. and whatever it might have been once--my heart is all his. i am innocent now. am i not, mr. sedley?" all jos's blood tingled with delight, as he surveyed this victim to his attractions. a few adroit words, one or two knowing tender glances of the eyes, and his heart was inflamed again and his doubts and suspicions forgotten. from solomon downwards, have not wiser men than he been cajoled and befooled by women? "if the worst comes to the worst," becky thought, "my retreat is secure; and i have a right-hand seat in the barouche." there is no knowing into what declarations of love and ardour the tumultuous passions of mr. joseph might have led him, if isidor the valet had not made his reappearance at this minute, and begun to busy himself about the domestic affairs. jos, who was just going to gasp out an avowal, choked almost with the emotion that he was obliged to restrain. rebecca too bethought her that it was time she should go in and comfort her dearest amelia. "au revoir," she said, kissing her hand to mr. joseph, and tapped gently at the door of his sister's apartment. as she entered and closed the door on herself, he sank down in a chair, and gazed and sighed and puffed portentously. "that coat is very tight for milor," isidor said, still having his eye on the frogs; but his master heard him not: his thoughts were elsewhere: now glowing, maddening, upon the contemplation of the enchanting rebecca: anon shrinking guiltily before the vision of the jealous rawdon crawley, with his curling, fierce mustachios, and his terrible duelling pistols loaded and cocked. rebecca's appearance struck amelia with terror, and made her shrink back. it recalled her to the world and the remembrance of yesterday. in the overpowering fears about to-morrow she had forgotten rebecca--jealousy--everything except that her husband was gone and was in danger. until this dauntless worldling came in and broke the spell, and lifted the latch, we too have forborne to enter into that sad chamber. how long had that poor girl been on her knees! what hours of speechless prayer and bitter prostration had she passed there! the war-chroniclers who write brilliant stories of fight and triumph scarcely tell us of these. these are too mean parts of the pageant: and you don't hear widows' cries or mothers' sobs in the midst of the shouts and jubilation in the great chorus of victory. and yet when was the time that such have not cried out: heart-broken, humble protestants, unheard in the uproar of the triumph! after the first movement of terror in amelia's mind--when rebecca's green eyes lighted upon her, and rustling in her fresh silks and brilliant ornaments, the latter tripped up with extended arms to embrace her--a feeling of anger succeeded, and from being deadly pale before, her face flushed up red, and she returned rebecca's look after a moment with a steadiness which surprised and somewhat abashed her rival. "dearest amelia, you are very unwell," the visitor said, putting forth her hand to take amelia's. "what is it? i could not rest until i knew how you were." amelia drew back her hand--never since her life began had that gentle soul refused to believe or to answer any demonstration of good-will or affection. but she drew back her hand, and trembled all over. "why are you here, rebecca?" she said, still looking at her solemnly with her large eyes. these glances troubled her visitor. "she must have seen him give me the letter at the ball," rebecca thought. "don't be agitated, dear amelia," she said, looking down. "i came but to see if i could--if you were well." "are you well?" said amelia. "i dare say you are. you don't love your husband. you would not be here if you did. tell me, rebecca, did i ever do you anything but kindness?" "indeed, amelia, no," the other said, still hanging down her head. "when you were quite poor, who was it that befriended you? was i not a sister to you? you saw us all in happier days before he married me. i was all in all then to him; or would he have given up his fortune, his family, as he nobly did to make me happy? why did you come between my love and me? who sent you to separate those whom god joined, and take my darling's heart from me--my own husband? do you think you could love him as i did? his love was everything to me. you knew it, and wanted to rob me of it. for shame, rebecca; bad and wicked woman--false friend and false wife." "amelia, i protest before god, i have done my husband no wrong," rebecca said, turning from her. "have you done me no wrong, rebecca? you did not succeed, but you tried. ask your heart if you did not." she knows nothing, rebecca thought. "he came back to me. i knew he would. i knew that no falsehood, no flattery, could keep him from me long. i knew he would come. i prayed so that he should." the poor girl spoke these words with a spirit and volubility which rebecca had never before seen in her, and before which the latter was quite dumb. "but what have i done to you," she continued in a more pitiful tone, "that you should try and take him from me? i had him but for six weeks. you might have spared me those, rebecca. and yet, from the very first day of our wedding, you came and blighted it. now he is gone, are you come to see how unhappy i am?" she continued. "you made me wretched enough for the past fortnight: you might have spared me to-day." "i--i never came here," interposed rebecca, with unlucky truth. "no. you didn't come. you took him away. are you come to fetch him from me?" she continued in a wilder tone. "he was here, but he is gone now. there on that very sofa he sate. don't touch it. we sate and talked there. i was on his knee, and my arms were round his neck, and we said 'our father.' yes, he was here: and they came and took him away, but he promised me to come back." "he will come back, my dear," said rebecca, touched in spite of herself. "look," said amelia, "this is his sash--isn't it a pretty colour?" and she took up the fringe and kissed it. she had tied it round her waist at some part of the day. she had forgotten her anger, her jealousy, the very presence of her rival seemingly. for she walked silently and almost with a smile on her face, towards the bed, and began to smooth down george's pillow. rebecca walked, too, silently away. "how is amelia?" asked jos, who still held his position in the chair. "there should be somebody with her," said rebecca. "i think she is very unwell": and she went away with a very grave face, refusing mr. sedley's entreaties that she would stay and partake of the early dinner which he had ordered. rebecca was of a good-natured and obliging disposition; and she liked amelia rather than otherwise. even her hard words, reproachful as they were, were complimentary--the groans of a person stinging under defeat. meeting mrs. o'dowd, whom the dean's sermons had by no means comforted, and who was walking very disconsolately in the parc, rebecca accosted the latter, rather to the surprise of the major's wife, who was not accustomed to such marks of politeness from mrs. rawdon crawley, and informing her that poor little mrs. osborne was in a desperate condition, and almost mad with grief, sent off the good-natured irishwoman straight to see if she could console her young favourite. "i've cares of my own enough," mrs. o'dowd said, gravely, "and i thought poor amelia would be little wanting for company this day. but if she's so bad as you say, and you can't attend to her, who used to be so fond of her, faith i'll see if i can be of service. and so good marning to ye, madam"; with which speech and a toss of her head, the lady of the repayther took a farewell of mrs. crawley, whose company she by no means courted. becky watched her marching off, with a smile on her lip. she had the keenest sense of humour, and the parthian look which the retreating mrs. o'dowd flung over her shoulder almost upset mrs. crawley's gravity. "my service to ye, me fine madam, and i'm glad to see ye so cheerful," thought peggy. "it's not you that will cry your eyes out with grief, anyway." and with this she passed on, and speedily found her way to mrs. osborne's lodgings. the poor soul was still at the bedside, where rebecca had left her, and stood almost crazy with grief. the major's wife, a stronger-minded woman, endeavoured her best to comfort her young friend. "you must bear up, amelia, dear," she said kindly, "for he mustn't find you ill when he sends for you after the victory. it's not you are the only woman that are in the hands of god this day." "i know that. i am very wicked, very weak," amelia said. she knew her own weakness well enough. the presence of the more resolute friend checked it, however; and she was the better of this control and company. they went on till two o'clock; their hearts were with the column as it marched farther and farther away. dreadful doubt and anguish--prayers and fears and griefs unspeakable--followed the regiment. it was the women's tribute to the war. it taxes both alike, and takes the blood of the men, and the tears of the women. at half-past two, an event occurred of daily importance to mr. joseph: the dinner-hour arrived. warriors may fight and perish, but he must dine. he came into amelia's room to see if he could coax her to share that meal. "try," said he; "the soup is very good. do try, emmy," and he kissed her hand. except when she was married, he had not done so much for years before. "you are very good and kind, joseph," she said. "everybody is, but, if you please, i will stay in my room to-day." the savour of the soup, however, was agreeable to mrs. o'dowd's nostrils: and she thought she would bear mr. jos company. so the two sate down to their meal. "god bless the meat," said the major's wife, solemnly: she was thinking of her honest mick, riding at the head of his regiment: "'tis but a bad dinner those poor boys will get to-day," she said, with a sigh, and then, like a philosopher, fell to. jos's spirits rose with his meal. he would drink the regiment's health; or, indeed, take any other excuse to indulge in a glass of champagne. "we'll drink to o'dowd and the brave --th," said he, bowing gallantly to his guest. "hey, mrs. o'dowd? fill mrs. o'dowd's glass, isidor." but all of a sudden, isidor started, and the major's wife laid down her knife and fork. the windows of the room were open, and looked southward, and a dull distant sound came over the sun-lighted roofs from that direction. "what is it?" said jos. "why don't you pour, you rascal?" "cest le feu!" said isidor, running to the balcony. "god defend us; it's cannon!" mrs. o'dowd cried, starting up, and followed too to the window. a thousand pale and anxious faces might have been seen looking from other casements. and presently it seemed as if the whole population of the city rushed into the streets. chapter xxxii in which jos takes flight, and the war is brought to a close we of peaceful london city have never beheld--and please god never shall witness--such a scene of hurry and alarm, as that which brussels presented. crowds rushed to the namur gate, from which direction the noise proceeded, and many rode along the level chaussee, to be in advance of any intelligence from the army. each man asked his neighbour for news; and even great english lords and ladies condescended to speak to persons whom they did not know. the friends of the french went abroad, wild with excitement, and prophesying the triumph of their emperor. the merchants closed their shops, and came out to swell the general chorus of alarm and clamour. women rushed to the churches, and crowded the chapels, and knelt and prayed on the flags and steps. the dull sound of the cannon went on rolling, rolling. presently carriages with travellers began to leave the town, galloping away by the ghent barrier. the prophecies of the french partisans began to pass for facts. "he has cut the armies in two," it was said. "he is marching straight on brussels. he will overpower the english, and be here to-night." "he will overpower the english," shrieked isidor to his master, "and will be here to-night." the man bounded in and out from the lodgings to the street, always returning with some fresh particulars of disaster. jos's face grew paler and paler. alarm began to take entire possession of the stout civilian. all the champagne he drank brought no courage to him. before sunset he was worked up to such a pitch of nervousness as gratified his friend isidor to behold, who now counted surely upon the spoils of the owner of the laced coat. the women were away all this time. after hearing the firing for a moment, the stout major's wife bethought her of her friend in the next chamber, and ran in to watch, and if possible to console, amelia. the idea that she had that helpless and gentle creature to protect, gave additional strength to the natural courage of the honest irishwoman. she passed five hours by her friend's side, sometimes in remonstrance, sometimes talking cheerfully, oftener in silence and terrified mental supplication. "i never let go her hand once," said the stout lady afterwards, "until after sunset, when the firing was over." pauline, the bonne, was on her knees at church hard by, praying for son homme a elle. when the noise of the cannonading was over, mrs. o'dowd issued out of amelia's room into the parlour adjoining, where jos sate with two emptied flasks, and courage entirely gone. once or twice he had ventured into his sister's bedroom, looking very much alarmed, and as if he would say something. but the major's wife kept her place, and he went away without disburthening himself of his speech. he was ashamed to tell her that he wanted to fly. but when she made her appearance in the dining-room, where he sate in the twilight in the cheerless company of his empty champagne bottles, he began to open his mind to her. "mrs. o'dowd," he said, "hadn't you better get amelia ready?" "are you going to take her out for a walk?" said the major's lady; "sure she's too weak to stir." "i--i've ordered the carriage," he said, "and--and post-horses; isidor is gone for them," jos continued. "what do you want with driving to-night?" answered the lady. "isn't she better on her bed? i've just got her to lie down." "get her up," said jos; "she must get up, i say": and he stamped his foot energetically. "i say the horses are ordered--yes, the horses are ordered. it's all over, and--" "and what?" asked mrs. o'dowd. "i'm off for ghent," jos answered. "everybody is going; there's a place for you! we shall start in half-an-hour." the major's wife looked at him with infinite scorn. "i don't move till o'dowd gives me the route," said she. "you may go if you like, mr. sedley; but, faith, amelia and i stop here." "she shall go," said jos, with another stamp of his foot. mrs. o'dowd put herself with arms akimbo before the bedroom door. "is it her mother you're going to take her to?" she said; "or do you want to go to mamma yourself, mr. sedley? good marning--a pleasant journey to ye, sir. bon voyage, as they say, and take my counsel, and shave off them mustachios, or they'll bring you into mischief." "d--n!" yelled out jos, wild with fear, rage, and mortification; and isidor came in at this juncture, swearing in his turn. "pas de chevaux, sacre bleu!" hissed out the furious domestic. all the horses were gone. jos was not the only man in brussels seized with panic that day. but jos's fears, great and cruel as they were already, were destined to increase to an almost frantic pitch before the night was over. it has been mentioned how pauline, the bonne, had son homme a elle also in the ranks of the army that had gone out to meet the emperor napoleon. this lover was a native of brussels, and a belgian hussar. the troops of his nation signalised themselves in this war for anything but courage, and young van cutsum, pauline's admirer, was too good a soldier to disobey his colonel's orders to run away. whilst in garrison at brussels young regulus (he had been born in the revolutionary times) found his great comfort, and passed almost all his leisure moments, in pauline's kitchen; and it was with pockets and holsters crammed full of good things from her larder, that he had take leave of his weeping sweetheart, to proceed upon the campaign a few days before. as far as his regiment was concerned, this campaign was over now. they had formed a part of the division under the command of his sovereign apparent, the prince of orange, and as respected length of swords and mustachios, and the richness of uniform and equipments, regulus and his comrades looked to be as gallant a body of men as ever trumpet sounded for. when ney dashed upon the advance of the allied troops, carrying one position after the other, until the arrival of the great body of the british army from brussels changed the aspect of the combat of quatre bras, the squadrons among which regulus rode showed the greatest activity in retreating before the french, and were dislodged from one post and another which they occupied with perfect alacrity on their part. their movements were only checked by the advance of the british in their rear. thus forced to halt, the enemy's cavalry (whose bloodthirsty obstinacy cannot be too severely reprehended) had at length an opportunity of coming to close quarters with the brave belgians before them; who preferred to encounter the british rather than the french, and at once turning tail rode through the english regiments that were behind them, and scattered in all directions. the regiment in fact did not exist any more. it was nowhere. it had no head-quarters. regulus found himself galloping many miles from the field of action, entirely alone; and whither should he fly for refuge so naturally as to that kitchen and those faithful arms in which pauline had so often welcomed him? at some ten o'clock the clinking of a sabre might have been heard up the stair of the house where the osbornes occupied a story in the continental fashion. a knock might have been heard at the kitchen door; and poor pauline, come back from church, fainted almost with terror as she opened it and saw before her her haggard hussar. he looked as pale as the midnight dragoon who came to disturb leonora. pauline would have screamed, but that her cry would have called her masters, and discovered her friend. she stifled her scream, then, and leading her hero into the kitchen, gave him beer, and the choice bits from the dinner, which jos had not had the heart to taste. the hussar showed he was no ghost by the prodigious quantity of flesh and beer which he devoured--and during the mouthfuls he told his tale of disaster. his regiment had performed prodigies of courage, and had withstood for a while the onset of the whole french army. but they were overwhelmed at last, as was the whole british army by this time. ney destroyed each regiment as it came up. the belgians in vain interposed to prevent the butchery of the english. the brunswickers were routed and had fled--their duke was killed. it was a general debacle. he sought to drown his sorrow for the defeat in floods of beer. isidor, who had come into the kitchen, heard the conversation and rushed out to inform his master. "it is all over," he shrieked to jos. "milor duke is a prisoner; the duke of brunswick is killed; the british army is in full flight; there is only one man escaped, and he is in the kitchen now--come and hear him." so jos tottered into that apartment where regulus still sate on the kitchen table, and clung fast to his flagon of beer. in the best french which he could muster, and which was in sooth of a very ungrammatical sort, jos besought the hussar to tell his tale. the disasters deepened as regulus spoke. he was the only man of his regiment not slain on the field. he had seen the duke of brunswick fall, the black hussars fly, the ecossais pounded down by the cannon. "and the --th?" gasped jos. "cut in pieces," said the hussar--upon which pauline cried out, "o my mistress, ma bonne petite dame," went off fairly into hysterics, and filled the house with her screams. wild with terror, mr. sedley knew not how or where to seek for safety. he rushed from the kitchen back to the sitting-room, and cast an appealing look at amelia's door, which mrs. o'dowd had closed and locked in his face; but he remembered how scornfully the latter had received him, and after pausing and listening for a brief space at the door, he left it, and resolved to go into the street, for the first time that day. so, seizing a candle, he looked about for his gold-laced cap, and found it lying in its usual place, on a console-table, in the anteroom, placed before a mirror at which jos used to coquet, always giving his side-locks a twirl, and his cap the proper cock over his eye, before he went forth to make appearance in public. such is the force of habit, that even in the midst of his terror he began mechanically to twiddle with his hair, and arrange the cock of his hat. then he looked amazed at the pale face in the glass before him, and especially at his mustachios, which had attained a rich growth in the course of near seven weeks, since they had come into the world. they will mistake me for a military man, thought he, remembering isidor's warning as to the massacre with which all the defeated british army was threatened; and staggering back to his bedchamber, he began wildly pulling the bell which summoned his valet. isidor answered that summons. jos had sunk in a chair--he had torn off his neckcloths, and turned down his collars, and was sitting with both his hands lifted to his throat. "coupez-moi, isidor," shouted he; "vite! coupez-moi!" isidor thought for a moment he had gone mad, and that he wished his valet to cut his throat. "les moustaches," gasped joe; "les moustaches--coupy, rasy, vite!"--his french was of this sort--voluble, as we have said, but not remarkable for grammar. isidor swept off the mustachios in no time with the razor, and heard with inexpressible delight his master's orders that he should fetch a hat and a plain coat. "ne porty ploo--habit militair--bonn--bonny a voo, prenny dehors"--were jos's words--the coat and cap were at last his property. this gift being made, jos selected a plain black coat and waistcoat from his stock, and put on a large white neckcloth, and a plain beaver. if he could have got a shovel hat he would have worn it. as it was, you would have fancied he was a flourishing, large parson of the church of england. "venny maintenong," he continued, "sweevy--ally--party--dong la roo." and so having said, he plunged swiftly down the stairs of the house, and passed into the street. although regulus had vowed that he was the only man of his regiment or of the allied army, almost, who had escaped being cut to pieces by ney, it appeared that his statement was incorrect, and that a good number more of the supposed victims had survived the massacre. many scores of regulus's comrades had found their way back to brussels, and all agreeing that they had run away--filled the whole town with an idea of the defeat of the allies. the arrival of the french was expected hourly; the panic continued, and preparations for flight went on everywhere. no horses! thought jos, in terror. he made isidor inquire of scores of persons, whether they had any to lend or sell, and his heart sank within him, at the negative answers returned everywhere. should he take the journey on foot? even fear could not render that ponderous body so active. almost all the hotels occupied by the english in brussels face the parc, and jos wandered irresolutely about in this quarter, with crowds of other people, oppressed as he was by fear and curiosity. some families he saw more happy than himself, having discovered a team of horses, and rattling through the streets in retreat; others again there were whose case was like his own, and who could not for any bribes or entreaties procure the necessary means of flight. amongst these would-be fugitives, jos remarked the lady bareacres and her daughter, who sate in their carriage in the porte-cochere of their hotel, all their imperials packed, and the only drawback to whose flight was the same want of motive power which kept jos stationary. rebecca crawley occupied apartments in this hotel; and had before this period had sundry hostile meetings with the ladies of the bareacres family. my lady bareacres cut mrs. crawley on the stairs when they met by chance; and in all places where the latter's name was mentioned, spoke perseveringly ill of her neighbour. the countess was shocked at the familiarity of general tufto with the aide-de-camp's wife. the lady blanche avoided her as if she had been an infectious disease. only the earl himself kept up a sly occasional acquaintance with her, when out of the jurisdiction of his ladies. rebecca had her revenge now upon these insolent enemies. if became known in the hotel that captain crawley's horses had been left behind, and when the panic began, lady bareacres condescended to send her maid to the captain's wife with her ladyship's compliments, and a desire to know the price of mrs. crawley's horses. mrs. crawley returned a note with her compliments, and an intimation that it was not her custom to transact bargains with ladies' maids. this curt reply brought the earl in person to becky's apartment; but he could get no more success than the first ambassador. "send a lady's maid to me!" mrs. crawley cried in great anger; "why didn't my lady bareacres tell me to go and saddle the horses! is it her ladyship that wants to escape, or her ladyship's femme de chambre?" and this was all the answer that the earl bore back to his countess. what will not necessity do? the countess herself actually came to wait upon mrs. crawley on the failure of her second envoy. she entreated her to name her own price; she even offered to invite becky to bareacres house, if the latter would but give her the means of returning to that residence. mrs. crawley sneered at her. "i don't want to be waited on by bailiffs in livery," she said; "you will never get back though most probably--at least not you and your diamonds together. the french will have those. they will be here in two hours, and i shall be half way to ghent by that time. i would not sell you my horses, no, not for the two largest diamonds that your ladyship wore at the ball." lady bareacres trembled with rage and terror. the diamonds were sewed into her habit, and secreted in my lord's padding and boots. "woman, the diamonds are at the banker's, and i will have the horses," she said. rebecca laughed in her face. the infuriate countess went below, and sate in her carriage; her maid, her courier, and her husband were sent once more through the town, each to look for cattle; and woe betide those who came last! her ladyship was resolved on departing the very instant the horses arrived from any quarter--with her husband or without him. rebecca had the pleasure of seeing her ladyship in the horseless carriage, and keeping her eyes fixed upon her, and bewailing, in the loudest tone of voice, the countess's perplexities. "not to be able to get horses!" she said, "and to have all those diamonds sewed into the carriage cushions! what a prize it will be for the french when they come!--the carriage and the diamonds, i mean; not the lady!" she gave this information to the landlord, to the servants, to the guests, and the innumerable stragglers about the courtyard. lady bareacres could have shot her from the carriage window. it was while enjoying the humiliation of her enemy that rebecca caught sight of jos, who made towards her directly he perceived her. that altered, frightened, fat face, told his secret well enough. he too wanted to fly, and was on the look-out for the means of escape. "he shall buy my horses," thought rebecca, "and i'll ride the mare." jos walked up to his friend, and put the question for the hundredth time during the past hour, "did she know where horses were to be had?" "what, you fly?" said rebecca, with a laugh. "i thought you were the champion of all the ladies, mr. sedley." "i--i'm not a military man," gasped he. "and amelia?--who is to protect that poor little sister of yours?" asked rebecca. "you surely would not desert her?" "what good can i do her, suppose--suppose the enemy arrive?" jos answered. "they'll spare the women; but my man tells me that they have taken an oath to give no quarter to the men--the dastardly cowards." "horrid!" cried rebecca, enjoying his perplexity. "besides, i don't want to desert her," cried the brother. "she shan't be deserted. there is a seat for her in my carriage, and one for you, dear mrs. crawley, if you will come; and if we can get horses--" sighed he-- "i have two to sell," the lady said. jos could have flung himself into her arms at the news. "get the carriage, isidor," he cried; "we've found them--we have found them." "my horses never were in harness," added the lady. "bullfinch would kick the carriage to pieces, if you put him in the traces." "but he is quiet to ride?" asked the civilian. "as quiet as a lamb, and as fast as a hare," answered rebecca. "do you think he is up to my weight?" jos said. he was already on his back, in imagination, without ever so much as a thought for poor amelia. what person who loved a horse-speculation could resist such a temptation? in reply, rebecca asked him to come into her room, whither he followed her quite breathless to conclude the bargain. jos seldom spent a half-hour in his life which cost him so much money. rebecca, measuring the value of the goods which she had for sale by jos's eagerness to purchase, as well as by the scarcity of the article, put upon her horses a price so prodigious as to make even the civilian draw back. "she would sell both or neither," she said, resolutely. rawdon had ordered her not to part with them for a price less than that which she specified. lord bareacres below would give her the same money--and with all her love and regard for the sedley family, her dear mr. joseph must conceive that poor people must live--nobody, in a word, could be more affectionate, but more firm about the matter of business. jos ended by agreeing, as might be supposed of him. the sum he had to give her was so large that he was obliged to ask for time; so large as to be a little fortune to rebecca, who rapidly calculated that with this sum, and the sale of the residue of rawdon's effects, and her pension as a widow should he fall, she would now be absolutely independent of the world, and might look her weeds steadily in the face. once or twice in the day she certainly had herself thought about flying. but her reason gave her better counsel. "suppose the french do come," thought becky, "what can they do to a poor officer's widow? bah! the times of sacks and sieges are over. we shall be let to go home quietly, or i may live pleasantly abroad with a snug little income." meanwhile jos and isidor went off to the stables to inspect the newly purchased cattle. jos bade his man saddle the horses at once. he would ride away that very night, that very hour. and he left the valet busy in getting the horses ready, and went homewards himself to prepare for his departure. it must be secret. he would go to his chamber by the back entrance. he did not care to face mrs. o'dowd and amelia, and own to them that he was about to run. by the time jos's bargain with rebecca was completed, and his horses had been visited and examined, it was almost morning once more. but though midnight was long passed, there was no rest for the city; the people were up, the lights in the houses flamed, crowds were still about the doors, and the streets were busy. rumours of various natures went still from mouth to mouth: one report averred that the prussians had been utterly defeated; another that it was the english who had been attacked and conquered: a third that the latter had held their ground. this last rumour gradually got strength. no frenchmen had made their appearance. stragglers had come in from the army bringing reports more and more favourable: at last an aide-de-camp actually reached brussels with despatches for the commandant of the place, who placarded presently through the town an official announcement of the success of the allies at quatre bras, and the entire repulse of the french under ney after a six hours' battle. the aide-de-camp must have arrived sometime while jos and rebecca were making their bargain together, or the latter was inspecting his purchase. when he reached his own hotel, he found a score of its numerous inhabitants on the threshold discoursing of the news; there was no doubt as to its truth. and he went up to communicate it to the ladies under his charge. he did not think it was necessary to tell them how he had intended to take leave of them, how he had bought horses, and what a price he had paid for them. but success or defeat was a minor matter to them, who had only thought for the safety of those they loved. amelia, at the news of the victory, became still more agitated even than before. she was for going that moment to the army. she besought her brother with tears to conduct her thither. her doubts and terrors reached their paroxysm; and the poor girl, who for many hours had been plunged into stupor, raved and ran hither and thither in hysteric insanity--a piteous sight. no man writhing in pain on the hard-fought field fifteen miles off, where lay, after their struggles, so many of the brave--no man suffered more keenly than this poor harmless victim of the war. jos could not bear the sight of her pain. he left his sister in the charge of her stouter female companion, and descended once more to the threshold of the hotel, where everybody still lingered, and talked, and waited for more news. it grew to be broad daylight as they stood here, and fresh news began to arrive from the war, brought by men who had been actors in the scene. wagons and long country carts laden with wounded came rolling into the town; ghastly groans came from within them, and haggard faces looked up sadly from out of the straw. jos sedley was looking at one of these carriages with a painful curiosity--the moans of the people within were frightful--the wearied horses could hardly pull the cart. "stop! stop!" a feeble voice cried from the straw, and the carriage stopped opposite mr. sedley's hotel. "it is george, i know it is!" cried amelia, rushing in a moment to the balcony, with a pallid face and loose flowing hair. it was not george, however, but it was the next best thing: it was news of him. it was poor tom stubble, who had marched out of brussels so gallantly twenty-four hours before, bearing the colours of the regiment, which he had defended very gallantly upon the field. a french lancer had speared the young ensign in the leg, who fell, still bravely holding to his flag. at the conclusion of the engagement, a place had been found for the poor boy in a cart, and he had been brought back to brussels. "mr. sedley, mr. sedley!" cried the boy, faintly, and jos came up almost frightened at the appeal. he had not at first distinguished who it was that called him. little tom stubble held out his hot and feeble hand. "i'm to be taken in here," he said. "osborne--and--and dobbin said i was; and you are to give the man two napoleons: my mother will pay you." this young fellow's thoughts, during the long feverish hours passed in the cart, had been wandering to his father's parsonage which he had quitted only a few months before, and he had sometimes forgotten his pain in that delirium. the hotel was large, and the people kind, and all the inmates of the cart were taken in and placed on various couches. the young ensign was conveyed upstairs to osborne's quarters. amelia and the major's wife had rushed down to him, when the latter had recognised him from the balcony. you may fancy the feelings of these women when they were told that the day was over, and both their husbands were safe; in what mute rapture amelia fell on her good friend's neck, and embraced her; in what a grateful passion of prayer she fell on her knees, and thanked the power which had saved her husband. our young lady, in her fevered and nervous condition, could have had no more salutary medicine prescribed for her by any physician than that which chance put in her way. she and mrs. o'dowd watched incessantly by the wounded lad, whose pains were very severe, and in the duty thus forced upon her, amelia had not time to brood over her personal anxieties, or to give herself up to her own fears and forebodings after her wont. the young patient told in his simple fashion the events of the day, and the actions of our friends of the gallant --th. they had suffered severely. they had lost very many officers and men. the major's horse had been shot under him as the regiment charged, and they all thought that o'dowd was gone, and that dobbin had got his majority, until on their return from the charge to their old ground, the major was discovered seated on pyramus's carcase, refreshing him-self from a case-bottle. it was captain osborne that cut down the french lancer who had speared the ensign. amelia turned so pale at the notion, that mrs. o'dowd stopped the young ensign in this story. and it was captain dobbin who at the end of the day, though wounded himself, took up the lad in his arms and carried him to the surgeon, and thence to the cart which was to bring him back to brussels. and it was he who promised the driver two louis if he would make his way to mr. sedley's hotel in the city; and tell mrs. captain osborne that the action was over, and that her husband was unhurt and well. "indeed, but he has a good heart that william dobbin," mrs. o'dowd said, "though he is always laughing at me." young stubble vowed there was not such another officer in the army, and never ceased his praises of the senior captain, his modesty, his kindness, and his admirable coolness in the field. to these parts of the conversation, amelia lent a very distracted attention: it was only when george was spoken of that she listened, and when he was not mentioned, she thought about him. in tending her patient, and in thinking of the wonderful escapes of the day before, her second day passed away not too slowly with amelia. there was only one man in the army for her: and as long as he was well, it must be owned that its movements interested her little. all the reports which jos brought from the streets fell very vaguely on her ears; though they were sufficient to give that timorous gentleman, and many other people then in brussels, every disquiet. the french had been repulsed certainly, but it was after a severe and doubtful struggle, and with only a division of the french army. the emperor, with the main body, was away at ligny, where he had utterly annihilated the prussians, and was now free to bring his whole force to bear upon the allies. the duke of wellington was retreating upon the capital, and a great battle must be fought under its walls probably, of which the chances were more than doubtful. the duke of wellington had but twenty thousand british troops on whom he could rely, for the germans were raw militia, the belgians disaffected, and with this handful his grace had to resist a hundred and fifty thousand men that had broken into belgium under napoleon. under napoleon! what warrior was there, however famous and skilful, that could fight at odds with him? jos thought of all these things, and trembled. so did all the rest of brussels--where people felt that the fight of the day before was but the prelude to the greater combat which was imminent. one of the armies opposed to the emperor was scattered to the winds already. the few english that could be brought to resist him would perish at their posts, and the conqueror would pass over their bodies into the city. woe be to those whom he found there! addresses were prepared, public functionaries assembled and debated secretly, apartments were got ready, and tricoloured banners and triumphal emblems manufactured, to welcome the arrival of his majesty the emperor and king. the emigration still continued, and wherever families could find means of departure, they fled. when jos, on the afternoon of the th of june, went to rebecca's hotel, he found that the great bareacres' carriage had at length rolled away from the porte-cochere. the earl had procured a pair of horses somehow, in spite of mrs. crawley, and was rolling on the road to ghent. louis the desired was getting ready his portmanteau in that city, too. it seemed as if misfortune was never tired of worrying into motion that unwieldy exile. jos felt that the delay of yesterday had been only a respite, and that his dearly bought horses must of a surety be put into requisition. his agonies were very severe all this day. as long as there was an english army between brussels and napoleon, there was no need of immediate flight; but he had his horses brought from their distant stables, to the stables in the court-yard of the hotel where he lived; so that they might be under his own eyes, and beyond the risk of violent abduction. isidor watched the stable-door constantly, and had the horses saddled, to be ready for the start. he longed intensely for that event. after the reception of the previous day, rebecca did not care to come near her dear amelia. she clipped the bouquet which george had brought her, and gave fresh water to the flowers, and read over the letter which he had sent her. "poor wretch," she said, twirling round the little bit of paper in her fingers, "how i could crush her with this!--and it is for a thing like this that she must break her heart, forsooth--for a man who is stupid--a coxcomb--and who does not care for her. my poor good rawdon is worth ten of this creature." and then she fell to thinking what she should do if--if anything happened to poor good rawdon, and what a great piece of luck it was that he had left his horses behind. in the course of this day too, mrs. crawley, who saw not without anger the bareacres party drive off, bethought her of the precaution which the countess had taken, and did a little needlework for her own advantage; she stitched away the major part of her trinkets, bills, and bank-notes about her person, and so prepared, was ready for any event--to fly if she thought fit, or to stay and welcome the conqueror, were he englishman or frenchman. and i am not sure that she did not dream that night of becoming a duchess and madame la marechale, while rawdon wrapped in his cloak, and making his bivouac under the rain at mount saint john, was thinking, with all the force of his heart, about the little wife whom he had left behind him. the next day was a sunday. and mrs. major o'dowd had the satisfaction of seeing both her patients refreshed in health and spirits by some rest which they had taken during the night. she herself had slept on a great chair in amelia's room, ready to wait upon her poor friend or the ensign, should either need her nursing. when morning came, this robust woman went back to the house where she and her major had their billet; and here performed an elaborate and splendid toilette, befitting the day. and it is very possible that whilst alone in that chamber, which her husband had inhabited, and where his cap still lay on the pillow, and his cane stood in the corner, one prayer at least was sent up to heaven for the welfare of the brave soldier, michael o'dowd. when she returned she brought her prayer-book with her, and her uncle the dean's famous book of sermons, out of which she never failed to read every sabbath; not understanding all, haply, not pronouncing many of the words aright, which were long and abstruse--for the dean was a learned man, and loved long latin words--but with great gravity, vast emphasis, and with tolerable correctness in the main. how often has my mick listened to these sermons, she thought, and me reading in the cabin of a calm! she proposed to resume this exercise on the present day, with amelia and the wounded ensign for a congregation. the same service was read on that day in twenty thousand churches at the same hour; and millions of british men and women, on their knees, implored protection of the father of all. they did not hear the noise which disturbed our little congregation at brussels. much louder than that which had interrupted them two days previously, as mrs. o'dowd was reading the service in her best voice, the cannon of waterloo began to roar. when jos heard that dreadful sound, he made up his mind that he would bear this perpetual recurrence of terrors no longer, and would fly at once. he rushed into the sick man's room, where our three friends had paused in their prayers, and further interrupted them by a passionate appeal to amelia. "i can't stand it any more, emmy," he said; "i won't stand it; and you must come with me. i have bought a horse for you--never mind at what price--and you must dress and come with me, and ride behind isidor." "god forgive me, mr. sedley, but you are no better than a coward," mrs. o'dowd said, laying down the book. "i say come, amelia," the civilian went on; "never mind what she says; why are we to stop here and be butchered by the frenchmen?" "you forget the --th, my boy," said the little stubble, the wounded hero, from his bed--"and and you won't leave me, will you, mrs. o'dowd?" "no, my dear fellow," said she, going up and kissing the boy. "no harm shall come to you while i stand by. i don't budge till i get the word from mick. a pretty figure i'd be, wouldn't i, stuck behind that chap on a pillion?" this image caused the young patient to burst out laughing in his bed, and even made amelia smile. "i don't ask her," jos shouted out--"i don't ask that--that irishwoman, but you amelia; once for all, will you come?" "without my husband, joseph?" amelia said, with a look of wonder, and gave her hand to the major's wife. jos's patience was exhausted. "good-bye, then," he said, shaking his fist in a rage, and slamming the door by which he retreated. and this time he really gave his order for march: and mounted in the court-yard. mrs. o'dowd heard the clattering hoofs of the horses as they issued from the gate; and looking on, made many scornful remarks on poor joseph as he rode down the street with isidor after him in the laced cap. the horses, which had not been exercised for some days, were lively, and sprang about the street. jos, a clumsy and timid horseman, did not look to advantage in the saddle. "look at him, amelia dear, driving into the parlour window. such a bull in a china-shop i never saw." and presently the pair of riders disappeared at a canter down the street leading in the direction of the ghent road, mrs. o'dowd pursuing them with a fire of sarcasm so long as they were in sight. all that day from morning until past sunset, the cannon never ceased to roar. it was dark when the cannonading stopped all of a sudden. all of us have read of what occurred during that interval. the tale is in every englishman's mouth; and you and i, who were children when the great battle was won and lost, are never tired of hearing and recounting the history of that famous action. its remembrance rankles still in the bosoms of millions of the countrymen of those brave men who lost the day. they pant for an opportunity of revenging that humiliation; and if a contest, ending in a victory on their part, should ensue, elating them in their turn, and leaving its cursed legacy of hatred and rage behind to us, there is no end to the so-called glory and shame, and to the alternations of successful and unsuccessful murder, in which two high-spirited nations might engage. centuries hence, we frenchmen and englishmen might be boasting and killing each other still, carrying out bravely the devil's code of honour. all our friends took their share and fought like men in the great field. all day long, whilst the women were praying ten miles away, the lines of the dauntless english infantry were receiving and repelling the furious charges of the french horsemen. guns which were heard at brussels were ploughing up their ranks, and comrades falling, and the resolute survivors closing in. towards evening, the attack of the french, repeated and resisted so bravely, slackened in its fury. they had other foes besides the british to engage, or were preparing for a final onset. it came at last: the columns of the imperial guard marched up the hill of saint jean, at length and at once to sweep the english from the height which they had maintained all day, and spite of all: unscared by the thunder of the artillery, which hurled death from the english line--the dark rolling column pressed on and up the hill. it seemed almost to crest the eminence, when it began to wave and falter. then it stopped, still facing the shot. then at last the english troops rushed from the post from which no enemy had been able to dislodge them, and the guard turned and fled. no more firing was heard at brussels--the pursuit rolled miles away. darkness came down on the field and city: and amelia was praying for george, who was lying on his face, dead, with a bullet through his heart. chapter xxxiii in which miss crawley's relations are very anxious about her the kind reader must please to remember--while the army is marching from flanders, and, after its heroic actions there, is advancing to take the fortifications on the frontiers of france, previous to an occupation of that country--that there are a number of persons living peaceably in england who have to do with the history at present in hand, and must come in for their share of the chronicle. during the time of these battles and dangers, old miss crawley was living at brighton, very moderately moved by the great events that were going on. the great events rendered the newspapers rather interesting, to be sure, and briggs read out the gazette, in which rawdon crawley's gallantry was mentioned with honour, and his promotion was presently recorded. "what a pity that young man has taken such an irretrievable step in the world!" his aunt said; "with his rank and distinction he might have married a brewer's daughter with a quarter of a million--like miss grains; or have looked to ally himself with the best families in england. he would have had my money some day or other; or his children would--for i'm not in a hurry to go, miss briggs, although you may be in a hurry to be rid of me; and instead of that, he is a doomed pauper, with a dancing-girl for a wife." "will my dear miss crawley not cast an eye of compassion upon the heroic soldier, whose name is inscribed in the annals of his country's glory?" said miss briggs, who was greatly excited by the waterloo proceedings, and loved speaking romantically when there was an occasion. "has not the captain--or the colonel as i may now style him--done deeds which make the name of crawley illustrious?" "briggs, you are a fool," said miss crawley: "colonel crawley has dragged the name of crawley through the mud, miss briggs. marry a drawing-master's daughter, indeed!--marry a dame de compagnie--for she was no better, briggs; no, she was just what you are--only younger, and a great deal prettier and cleverer. were you an accomplice of that abandoned wretch, i wonder, of whose vile arts he became a victim, and of whom you used to be such an admirer? yes, i daresay you were an accomplice. but you will find yourself disappointed in my will, i can tell you: and you will have the goodness to write to mr. waxy, and say that i desire to see him immediately." miss crawley was now in the habit of writing to mr. waxy her solicitor almost every day in the week, for her arrangements respecting her property were all revoked, and her perplexity was great as to the future disposition of her money. the spinster had, however, rallied considerably; as was proved by the increased vigour and frequency of her sarcasms upon miss briggs, all which attacks the poor companion bore with meekness, with cowardice, with a resignation that was half generous and half hypocritical--with the slavish submission, in a word, that women of her disposition and station are compelled to show. who has not seen how women bully women? what tortures have men to endure, comparable to those daily repeated shafts of scorn and cruelty with which poor women are riddled by the tyrants of their sex? poor victims! but we are starting from our proposition, which is, that miss crawley was always particularly annoying and savage when she was rallying from illness--as they say wounds tingle most when they are about to heal. while thus approaching, as all hoped, to convalescence, miss briggs was the only victim admitted into the presence of the invalid; yet miss crawley's relatives afar off did not forget their beloved kinswoman, and by a number of tokens, presents, and kind affectionate messages, strove to keep themselves alive in her recollection. in the first place, let us mention her nephew, rawdon crawley. a few weeks after the famous fight of waterloo, and after the gazette had made known to her the promotion and gallantry of that distinguished officer, the dieppe packet brought over to miss crawley at brighton, a box containing presents, and a dutiful letter, from the colonel her nephew. in the box were a pair of french epaulets, a cross of the legion of honour, and the hilt of a sword--relics from the field of battle: and the letter described with a good deal of humour how the latter belonged to a commanding officer of the guard, who having sworn that "the guard died, but never surrendered," was taken prisoner the next minute by a private soldier, who broke the frenchman's sword with the butt of his musket, when rawdon made himself master of the shattered weapon. as for the cross and epaulets, they came from a colonel of french cavalry, who had fallen under the aide-de-camp's arm in the battle: and rawdon crawley did not know what better to do with the spoils than to send them to his kindest and most affectionate old friend. should he continue to write to her from paris, whither the army was marching? he might be able to give her interesting news from that capital, and of some of miss crawley's old friends of the emigration, to whom she had shown so much kindness during their distress. the spinster caused briggs to write back to the colonel a gracious and complimentary letter, encouraging him to continue his correspondence. his first letter was so excessively lively and amusing that she should look with pleasure for its successors.--"of course, i know," she explained to miss briggs, "that rawdon could not write such a good letter any more than you could, my poor briggs, and that it is that clever little wretch of a rebecca, who dictates every word to him; but that is no reason why my nephew should not amuse me; and so i wish to let him understand that i am in high good humour." i wonder whether she knew that it was not only becky who wrote the letters, but that mrs. rawdon actually took and sent home the trophies which she bought for a few francs, from one of the innumerable pedlars who immediately began to deal in relics of the war. the novelist, who knows everything, knows this also. be this, however, as it may, miss crawley's gracious reply greatly encouraged our young friends, rawdon and his lady, who hoped for the best from their aunt's evidently pacified humour: and they took care to entertain her with many delightful letters from paris, whither, as rawdon said, they had the good luck to go in the track of the conquering army. to the rector's lady, who went off to tend her husband's broken collar-bone at the rectory at queen's crawley, the spinster's communications were by no means so gracious. mrs. bute, that brisk, managing, lively, imperious woman, had committed the most fatal of all errors with regard to her sister-in-law. she had not merely oppressed her and her household--she had bored miss crawley; and if poor miss briggs had been a woman of any spirit, she might have been made happy by the commission which her principal gave her to write a letter to mrs. bute crawley, saying that miss crawley's health was greatly improved since mrs. bute had left her, and begging the latter on no account to put herself to trouble, or quit her family for miss crawley's sake. this triumph over a lady who had been very haughty and cruel in her behaviour to miss briggs, would have rejoiced most women; but the truth is, briggs was a woman of no spirit at all, and the moment her enemy was discomfited, she began to feel compassion in her favour. "how silly i was," mrs. bute thought, and with reason, "ever to hint that i was coming, as i did, in that foolish letter when we sent miss crawley the guinea-fowls. i ought to have gone without a word to the poor dear doting old creature, and taken her out of the hands of that ninny briggs, and that harpy of a femme de chambre. oh! bute, bute, why did you break your collar-bone?" why, indeed? we have seen how mrs. bute, having the game in her hands, had really played her cards too well. she had ruled over miss crawley's household utterly and completely, to be utterly and completely routed when a favourable opportunity for rebellion came. she and her household, however, considered that she had been the victim of horrible selfishness and treason, and that her sacrifices in miss crawley's behalf had met with the most savage ingratitude. rawdon's promotion, and the honourable mention made of his name in the gazette, filled this good christian lady also with alarm. would his aunt relent towards him now that he was a lieutenant-colonel and a c.b.? and would that odious rebecca once more get into favour? the rector's wife wrote a sermon for her husband about the vanity of military glory and the prosperity of the wicked, which the worthy parson read in his best voice and without understanding one syllable of it. he had pitt crawley for one of his auditors--pitt, who had come with his two half-sisters to church, which the old baronet could now by no means be brought to frequent. since the departure of becky sharp, that old wretch had given himself up entirely to his bad courses, to the great scandal of the county and the mute horror of his son. the ribbons in miss horrocks's cap became more splendid than ever. the polite families fled the hall and its owner in terror. sir pitt went about tippling at his tenants' houses; and drank rum-and-water with the farmers at mudbury and the neighbouring places on market-days. he drove the family coach-and-four to southampton with miss horrocks inside: and the county people expected, every week, as his son did in speechless agony, that his marriage with her would be announced in the provincial paper. it was indeed a rude burthen for mr. crawley to bear. his eloquence was palsied at the missionary meetings, and other religious assemblies in the neighbourhood, where he had been in the habit of presiding, and of speaking for hours; for he felt, when he rose, that the audience said, "that is the son of the old reprobate sir pitt, who is very likely drinking at the public house at this very moment." and once when he was speaking of the benighted condition of the king of timbuctoo, and the number of his wives who were likewise in darkness, some gipsy miscreant from the crowd asked, "how many is there at queen's crawley, young squaretoes?" to the surprise of the platform, and the ruin of mr. pitt's speech. and the two daughters of the house of queen's crawley would have been allowed to run utterly wild (for sir pitt swore that no governess should ever enter into his doors again), had not mr. crawley, by threatening the old gentleman, forced the latter to send them to school. meanwhile, as we have said, whatever individual differences there might be between them all, miss crawley's dear nephews and nieces were unanimous in loving her and sending her tokens of affection. thus mrs. bute sent guinea-fowls, and some remarkably fine cauliflowers, and a pretty purse or pincushion worked by her darling girls, who begged to keep a little place in the recollection of their dear aunt, while mr. pitt sent peaches and grapes and venison from the hall. the southampton coach used to carry these tokens of affection to miss crawley at brighton: it used sometimes to convey mr. pitt thither too: for his differences with sir pitt caused mr. crawley to absent himself a good deal from home now: and besides, he had an attraction at brighton in the person of the lady jane sheepshanks, whose engagement to mr. crawley has been formerly mentioned in this history. her ladyship and her sisters lived at brighton with their mamma, the countess southdown, that strong-minded woman so favourably known in the serious world. a few words ought to be said regarding her ladyship and her noble family, who are bound by ties of present and future relationship to the house of crawley. respecting the chief of the southdown family, clement william, fourth earl of southdown, little need be told, except that his lordship came into parliament (as lord wolsey) under the auspices of mr. wilberforce, and for a time was a credit to his political sponsor, and decidedly a serious young man. but words cannot describe the feelings of his admirable mother, when she learned, very shortly after her noble husband's demise, that her son was a member of several worldly clubs, had lost largely at play at wattier's and the cocoa tree; that he had raised money on post-obits, and encumbered the family estate; that he drove four-in-hand, and patronised the ring; and that he actually had an opera-box, where he entertained the most dangerous bachelor company. his name was only mentioned with groans in the dowager's circle. the lady emily was her brother's senior by many years; and took considerable rank in the serious world as author of some of the delightful tracts before mentioned, and of many hymns and spiritual pieces. a mature spinster, and having but faint ideas of marriage, her love for the blacks occupied almost all her feelings. it is to her, i believe, we owe that beautiful poem. lead us to some sunny isle, yonder in the western deep; where the skies for ever smile, and the blacks for ever weep, &c. she had correspondences with clerical gentlemen in most of our east and west india possessions; and was secretly attached to the reverend silas hornblower, who was tattooed in the south sea islands. as for the lady jane, on whom, as it has been said, mr. pitt crawley's affection had been placed, she was gentle, blushing, silent, and timid. in spite of his falling away, she wept for her brother, and was quite ashamed of loving him still. even yet she used to send him little hurried smuggled notes, and pop them into the post in private. the one dreadful secret which weighed upon her life was, that she and the old housekeeper had been to pay southdown a furtive visit at his chambers in the albany; and found him--o the naughty dear abandoned wretch!--smoking a cigar with a bottle of curacao before him. she admired her sister, she adored her mother, she thought mr. crawley the most delightful and accomplished of men, after southdown, that fallen angel: and her mamma and sister, who were ladies of the most superior sort, managed everything for her, and regarded her with that amiable pity, of which your really superior woman always has such a share to give away. her mamma ordered her dresses, her books, her bonnets, and her ideas for her. she was made to take pony-riding, or piano-exercise, or any other sort of bodily medicament, according as my lady southdown saw meet; and her ladyship would have kept her daughter in pinafores up to her present age of six-and-twenty, but that they were thrown off when lady jane was presented to queen charlotte. when these ladies first came to their house at brighton, it was to them alone that mr. crawley paid his personal visits, contenting himself by leaving a card at his aunt's house, and making a modest inquiry of mr. bowls or his assistant footman, with respect to the health of the invalid. when he met miss briggs coming home from the library with a cargo of novels under her arm, mr. crawley blushed in a manner quite unusual to him, as he stepped forward and shook miss crawley's companion by the hand. he introduced miss briggs to the lady with whom he happened to be walking, the lady jane sheepshanks, saying, "lady jane, permit me to introduce to you my aunt's kindest friend and most affectionate companion, miss briggs, whom you know under another title, as authoress of the delightful 'lyrics of the heart,' of which you are so fond." lady jane blushed too as she held out a kind little hand to miss briggs, and said something very civil and incoherent about mamma, and proposing to call on miss crawley, and being glad to be made known to the friends and relatives of mr. crawley; and with soft dove-like eyes saluted miss briggs as they separated, while pitt crawley treated her to a profound courtly bow, such as he had used to h.h. the duchess of pumpernickel, when he was attache at that court. the artful diplomatist and disciple of the machiavellian binkie! it was he who had given lady jane that copy of poor briggs's early poems, which he remembered to have seen at queen's crawley, with a dedication from the poetess to his father's late wife; and he brought the volume with him to brighton, reading it in the southampton coach and marking it with his own pencil, before he presented it to the gentle lady jane. it was he, too, who laid before lady southdown the great advantages which might occur from an intimacy between her family and miss crawley--advantages both worldly and spiritual, he said: for miss crawley was now quite alone; the monstrous dissipation and alliance of his brother rawdon had estranged her affections from that reprobate young man; the greedy tyranny and avarice of mrs. bute crawley had caused the old lady to revolt against the exorbitant pretensions of that part of the family; and though he himself had held off all his life from cultivating miss crawley's friendship, with perhaps an improper pride, he thought now that every becoming means should be taken, both to save her soul from perdition, and to secure her fortune to himself as the head of the house of crawley. the strong-minded lady southdown quite agreed in both proposals of her son-in-law, and was for converting miss crawley off-hand. at her own home, both at southdown and at trottermore castle, this tall and awful missionary of the truth rode about the country in her barouche with outriders, launched packets of tracts among the cottagers and tenants, and would order gaffer jones to be converted, as she would order goody hicks to take a james's powder, without appeal, resistance, or benefit of clergy. my lord southdown, her late husband, an epileptic and simple-minded nobleman, was in the habit of approving of everything which his matilda did and thought. so that whatever changes her own belief might undergo (and it accommodated itself to a prodigious variety of opinion, taken from all sorts of doctors among the dissenters) she had not the least scruple in ordering all her tenants and inferiors to follow and believe after her. thus whether she received the reverend saunders mcnitre, the scotch divine; or the reverend luke waters, the mild wesleyan; or the reverend giles jowls, the illuminated cobbler, who dubbed himself reverend as napoleon crowned himself emperor--the household, children, tenantry of my lady southdown were expected to go down on their knees with her ladyship, and say amen to the prayers of either doctor. during these exercises old southdown, on account of his invalid condition, was allowed to sit in his own room, and have negus and the paper read to him. lady jane was the old earl's favourite daughter, and tended him and loved him sincerely: as for lady emily, the authoress of the "washerwoman of finchley common," her denunciations of future punishment (at this period, for her opinions modified afterwards) were so awful that they used to frighten the timid old gentleman her father, and the physicians declared his fits always occurred after one of her ladyship's sermons. "i will certainly call," said lady southdown then, in reply to the exhortation of her daughter's pretendu, mr. pitt crawley--"who is miss crawley's medical man?" mr. crawley mentioned the name of mr. creamer. "a most dangerous and ignorant practitioner, my dear pitt. i have providentially been the means of removing him from several houses: though in one or two instances i did not arrive in time. i could not save poor dear general glanders, who was dying under the hands of that ignorant man--dying. he rallied a little under the podgers' pills which i administered to him; but alas! it was too late. his death was delightful, however; and his change was only for the better; creamer, my dear pitt, must leave your aunt." pitt expressed his perfect acquiescence. he, too, had been carried along by the energy of his noble kinswoman, and future mother-in-law. he had been made to accept saunders mcnitre, luke waters, giles jowls, podgers' pills, rodgers' pills, pokey's elixir, every one of her ladyship's remedies spiritual or temporal. he never left her house without carrying respectfully away with him piles of her quack theology and medicine. o, my dear brethren and fellow-sojourners in vanity fair, which among you does not know and suffer under such benevolent despots? it is in vain you say to them, "dear madam, i took podgers' specific at your orders last year, and believe in it. why, why am i to recant and accept the rodgers' articles now?" there is no help for it; the faithful proselytizer, if she cannot convince by argument, bursts into tears, and the refusant finds himself, at the end of the contest, taking down the bolus, and saying, "well, well, rodgers' be it." "and as for her spiritual state," continued the lady, "that of course must be looked to immediately: with creamer about her, she may go off any day: and in what a condition, my dear pitt, in what a dreadful condition! i will send the reverend mr. irons to her instantly. jane, write a line to the reverend bartholomew irons, in the third person, and say that i desire the pleasure of his company this evening at tea at half-past six. he is an awakening man; he ought to see miss crawley before she rests this night. and emily, my love, get ready a packet of books for miss crawley. put up 'a voice from the flames,' 'a trumpet-warning to jericho,' and the 'fleshpots broken; or, the converted cannibal.'" "and the 'washerwoman of finchley common,' mamma," said lady emily. "it is as well to begin soothingly at first." "stop, my dear ladies," said pitt, the diplomatist. "with every deference to the opinion of my beloved and respected lady southdown, i think it would be quite unadvisable to commence so early upon serious topics with miss crawley. remember her delicate condition, and how little, how very little accustomed she has hitherto been to considerations connected with her immortal welfare." "can we then begin too early, pitt?" said lady emily, rising with six little books already in her hand. "if you begin abruptly, you will frighten her altogether. i know my aunt's worldly nature so well as to be sure that any abrupt attempt at conversion will be the very worst means that can be employed for the welfare of that unfortunate lady. you will only frighten and annoy her. she will very likely fling the books away, and refuse all acquaintance with the givers." "you are as worldly as miss crawley, pitt," said lady emily, tossing out of the room, her books in her hand. "and i need not tell you, my dear lady southdown," pitt continued, in a low voice, and without heeding the interruption, "how fatal a little want of gentleness and caution may be to any hopes which we may entertain with regard to the worldly possessions of my aunt. remember she has seventy thousand pounds; think of her age, and her highly nervous and delicate condition; i know that she has destroyed the will which was made in my brother's (colonel crawley's) favour: it is by soothing that wounded spirit that we must lead it into the right path, and not by frightening it; and so i think you will agree with me that--that--' "of course, of course," lady southdown remarked. "jane, my love, you need not send that note to mr. irons. if her health is such that discussions fatigue her, we will wait her amendment. i will call upon miss crawley tomorrow." "and if i might suggest, my sweet lady," pitt said in a bland tone, "it would be as well not to take our precious emily, who is too enthusiastic; but rather that you should be accompanied by our sweet and dear lady jane." "most certainly, emily would ruin everything," lady southdown said; and this time agreed to forego her usual practice, which was, as we have said, before she bore down personally upon any individual whom she proposed to subjugate, to fire in a quantity of tracts upon the menaced party (as a charge of the french was always preceded by a furious cannonade). lady southdown, we say, for the sake of the invalid's health, or for the sake of her soul's ultimate welfare, or for the sake of her money, agreed to temporise. the next day, the great southdown female family carriage, with the earl's coronet and the lozenge (upon which the three lambs trottant argent upon the field vert of the southdowns, were quartered with sable on a bend or, three snuff-mulls gules, the cognizance of the house of binkie), drove up in state to miss crawley's door, and the tall serious footman handed in to mr. bowls her ladyship's cards for miss crawley, and one likewise for miss briggs. by way of compromise, lady emily sent in a packet in the evening for the latter lady, containing copies of the "washerwoman," and other mild and favourite tracts for miss b.'s own perusal; and a few for the servants' hall, viz.: "crumbs from the pantry," "the frying pan and the fire," and "the livery of sin," of a much stronger kind. chapter xxxiv james crawley's pipe is put out the amiable behaviour of mr. crawley, and lady jane's kind reception of her, highly flattered miss briggs, who was enabled to speak a good word for the latter, after the cards of the southdown family had been presented to miss crawley. a countess's card left personally too for her, briggs, was not a little pleasing to the poor friendless companion. "what could lady southdown mean by leaving a card upon you, i wonder, miss briggs?" said the republican miss crawley; upon which the companion meekly said "that she hoped there could be no harm in a lady of rank taking notice of a poor gentlewoman," and she put away this card in her work-box amongst her most cherished personal treasures. furthermore, miss briggs explained how she had met mr. crawley walking with his cousin and long affianced bride the day before: and she told how kind and gentle-looking the lady was, and what a plain, not to say common, dress she had, all the articles of which, from the bonnet down to the boots, she described and estimated with female accuracy. miss crawley allowed briggs to prattle on without interrupting her too much. as she got well, she was pining for society. mr. creamer, her medical man, would not hear of her returning to her old haunts and dissipation in london. the old spinster was too glad to find any companionship at brighton, and not only were the cards acknowledged the very next day, but pitt crawley was graciously invited to come and see his aunt. he came, bringing with him lady southdown and her daughter. the dowager did not say a word about the state of miss crawley's soul; but talked with much discretion about the weather: about the war and the downfall of the monster bonaparte: and above all, about doctors, quacks, and the particular merits of dr. podgers, whom she then patronised. during their interview pitt crawley made a great stroke, and one which showed that, had his diplomatic career not been blighted by early neglect, he might have risen to a high rank in his profession. when the countess dowager of southdown fell foul of the corsican upstart, as the fashion was in those days, and showed that he was a monster stained with every conceivable crime, a coward and a tyrant not fit to live, one whose fall was predicted, &c., pitt crawley suddenly took up the cudgels in favour of the man of destiny. he described the first consul as he saw him at paris at the peace of amiens; when he, pitt crawley, had the gratification of making the acquaintance of the great and good mr. fox, a statesman whom, however much he might differ with him, it was impossible not to admire fervently--a statesman who had always had the highest opinion of the emperor napoleon. and he spoke in terms of the strongest indignation of the faithless conduct of the allies towards this dethroned monarch, who, after giving himself generously up to their mercy, was consigned to an ignoble and cruel banishment, while a bigoted popish rabble was tyrannising over france in his stead. this orthodox horror of romish superstition saved pitt crawley in lady southdown's opinion, whilst his admiration for fox and napoleon raised him immeasurably in miss crawley's eyes. her friendship with that defunct british statesman was mentioned when we first introduced her in this history. a true whig, miss crawley had been in opposition all through the war, and though, to be sure, the downfall of the emperor did not very much agitate the old lady, or his ill-treatment tend to shorten her life or natural rest, yet pitt spoke to her heart when he lauded both her idols; and by that single speech made immense progress in her favour. "and what do you think, my dear?" miss crawley said to the young lady, for whom she had taken a liking at first sight, as she always did for pretty and modest young people; though it must be owned her affections cooled as rapidly as they rose. lady jane blushed very much, and said "that she did not understand politics, which she left to wiser heads than hers; but though mamma was, no doubt, correct, mr. crawley had spoken beautifully." and when the ladies were retiring at the conclusion of their visit, miss crawley hoped "lady southdown would be so kind as to send her lady jane sometimes, if she could be spared to come down and console a poor sick lonely old woman." this promise was graciously accorded, and they separated upon great terms of amity. "don't let lady southdown come again, pitt," said the old lady. "she is stupid and pompous, like all your mother's family, whom i never could endure. but bring that nice good-natured little jane as often as ever you please." pitt promised that he would do so. he did not tell the countess of southdown what opinion his aunt had formed of her ladyship, who, on the contrary, thought that she had made a most delightful and majestic impression on miss crawley. and so, nothing loth to comfort a sick lady, and perhaps not sorry in her heart to be freed now and again from the dreary spouting of the reverend bartholomew irons, and the serious toadies who gathered round the footstool of the pompous countess, her mamma, lady jane became a pretty constant visitor to miss crawley, accompanied her in her drives, and solaced many of her evenings. she was so naturally good and soft, that even firkin was not jealous of her; and the gentle briggs thought her friend was less cruel to her when kind lady jane was by. towards her ladyship miss crawley's manners were charming. the old spinster told her a thousand anecdotes about her youth, talking to her in a very different strain from that in which she had been accustomed to converse with the godless little rebecca; for there was that in lady jane's innocence which rendered light talking impertinence before her, and miss crawley was too much of a gentlewoman to offend such purity. the young lady herself had never received kindness except from this old spinster, and her brother and father: and she repaid miss crawley's engoument by artless sweetness and friendship. in the autumn evenings (when rebecca was flaunting at paris, the gayest among the gay conquerors there, and our amelia, our dear wounded amelia, ah! where was she?) lady jane would be sitting in miss crawley's drawing-room singing sweetly to her, in the twilight, her little simple songs and hymns, while the sun was setting and the sea was roaring on the beach. the old spinster used to wake up when these ditties ceased, and ask for more. as for briggs, and the quantity of tears of happiness which she now shed as she pretended to knit, and looked out at the splendid ocean darkling before the windows, and the lamps of heaven beginning more brightly to shine--who, i say can measure the happiness and sensibility of briggs? pitt meanwhile in the dining-room, with a pamphlet on the corn laws or a missionary register by his side, took that kind of recreation which suits romantic and unromantic men after dinner. he sipped madeira: built castles in the air: thought himself a fine fellow: felt himself much more in love with jane than he had been any time these seven years, during which their liaison had lasted without the slightest impatience on pitt's part--and slept a good deal. when the time for coffee came, mr. bowls used to enter in a noisy manner, and summon squire pitt, who would be found in the dark very busy with his pamphlet. "i wish, my love, i could get somebody to play piquet with me," miss crawley said one night when this functionary made his appearance with the candles and the coffee. "poor briggs can no more play than an owl, she is so stupid" (the spinster always took an opportunity of abusing briggs before the servants); "and i think i should sleep better if i had my game." at this lady jane blushed to the tips of her little ears, and down to the ends of her pretty fingers; and when mr. bowls had quitted the room, and the door was quite shut, she said: "miss crawley, i can play a little. i used to--to play a little with poor dear papa." "come and kiss me. come and kiss me this instant, you dear good little soul," cried miss crawley in an ecstasy: and in this picturesque and friendly occupation mr. pitt found the old lady and the young one, when he came upstairs with him pamphlet in his hand. how she did blush all the evening, that poor lady jane! it must not be imagined that mr. pitt crawley's artifices escaped the attention of his dear relations at the rectory at queen's crawley. hampshire and sussex lie very close together, and mrs. bute had friends in the latter county who took care to inform her of all, and a great deal more than all, that passed at miss crawley's house at brighton. pitt was there more and more. he did not come for months together to the hall, where his abominable old father abandoned himself completely to rum-and-water, and the odious society of the horrocks family. pitt's success rendered the rector's family furious, and mrs. bute regretted more (though she confessed less) than ever her monstrous fault in so insulting miss briggs, and in being so haughty and parsimonious to bowls and firkin, that she had not a single person left in miss crawley's household to give her information of what took place there. "it was all bute's collar-bone," she persisted in saying; "if that had not broke, i never would have left her. i am a martyr to duty and to your odious unclerical habit of hunting, bute." "hunting; nonsense! it was you that frightened her, barbara," the divine interposed. "you're a clever woman, but you've got a devil of a temper; and you're a screw with your money, barbara." "you'd have been screwed in gaol, bute, if i had not kept your money." "i know i would, my dear," said the rector, good-naturedly. "you are a clever woman, but you manage too well, you know": and the pious man consoled himself with a big glass of port. "what the deuce can she find in that spooney of a pitt crawley?" he continued. "the fellow has not pluck enough to say bo to a goose. i remember when rawdon, who is a man, and be hanged to him, used to flog him round the stables as if he was a whipping-top: and pitt would go howling home to his ma--ha, ha! why, either of my boys would whop him with one hand. jim says he's remembered at oxford as miss crawley still--the spooney. "i say, barbara," his reverence continued, after a pause. "what?" said barbara, who was biting her nails, and drumming the table. "i say, why not send jim over to brighton to see if he can do anything with the old lady. he's very near getting his degree, you know. he's only been plucked twice--so was i--but he's had the advantages of oxford and a university education. he knows some of the best chaps there. he pulls stroke in the boniface boat. he's a handsome feller. d---- it, ma'am, let's put him on the old woman, hey, and tell him to thrash pitt if he says anything. ha, ha, ha! "jim might go down and see her, certainly," the housewife said; adding with a sigh, "if we could but get one of the girls into the house; but she could never endure them, because they are not pretty!" those unfortunate and well-educated women made themselves heard from the neighbouring drawing-room, where they were thrumming away, with hard fingers, an elaborate music-piece on the piano-forte, as their mother spoke; and indeed, they were at music, or at backboard, or at geography, or at history, the whole day long. but what avail all these accomplishments, in vanity fair, to girls who are short, poor, plain, and have a bad complexion? mrs. bute could think of nobody but the curate to take one of them off her hands; and jim coming in from the stable at this minute, through the parlour window, with a short pipe stuck in his oilskin cap, he and his father fell to talking about odds on the st. leger, and the colloquy between the rector and his wife ended. mrs. bute did not augur much good to the cause from the sending of her son james as an ambassador, and saw him depart in rather a despairing mood. nor did the young fellow himself, when told what his mission was to be, expect much pleasure or benefit from it; but he was consoled by the thought that possibly the old lady would give him some handsome remembrance of her, which would pay a few of his most pressing bills at the commencement of the ensuing oxford term, and so took his place by the coach from southampton, and was safely landed at brighton on the same evening with his portmanteau, his favourite bull-dog towzer, and an immense basket of farm and garden produce, from the dear rectory folks to the dear miss crawley. considering it was too late to disturb the invalid lady on the first night of his arrival, he put up at an inn, and did not wait upon miss crawley until a late hour in the noon of next day. james crawley, when his aunt had last beheld him, was a gawky lad, at that uncomfortable age when the voice varies between an unearthly treble and a preternatural bass; when the face not uncommonly blooms out with appearances for which rowland's kalydor is said to act as a cure; when boys are seen to shave furtively with their sister's scissors, and the sight of other young women produces intolerable sensations of terror in them; when the great hands and ankles protrude a long way from garments which have grown too tight for them; when their presence after dinner is at once frightful to the ladies, who are whispering in the twilight in the drawing-room, and inexpressibly odious to the gentlemen over the mahogany, who are restrained from freedom of intercourse and delightful interchange of wit by the presence of that gawky innocence; when, at the conclusion of the second glass, papa says, "jack, my boy, go out and see if the evening holds up," and the youth, willing to be free, yet hurt at not being yet a man, quits the incomplete banquet. james, then a hobbadehoy, was now become a young man, having had the benefits of a university education, and acquired the inestimable polish which is gained by living in a fast set at a small college, and contracting debts, and being rusticated, and being plucked. he was a handsome lad, however, when he came to present himself to his aunt at brighton, and good looks were always a title to the fickle old lady's favour. nor did his blushes and awkwardness take away from it: she was pleased with these healthy tokens of the young gentleman's ingenuousness. he said "he had come down for a couple of days to see a man of his college, and--and to pay my respects to you, ma'am, and my father's and mother's, who hope you are well." pitt was in the room with miss crawley when the lad was announced, and looked very blank when his name was mentioned. the old lady had plenty of humour, and enjoyed her correct nephew's perplexity. she asked after all the people at the rectory with great interest; and said she was thinking of paying them a visit. she praised the lad to his face, and said he was well-grown and very much improved, and that it was a pity his sisters had not some of his good looks; and finding, on inquiry, that he had taken up his quarters at an hotel, would not hear of his stopping there, but bade mr. bowls send for mr. james crawley's things instantly; "and hark ye, bowls," she added, with great graciousness, "you will have the goodness to pay mr. james's bill." she flung pitt a look of arch triumph, which caused that diplomatist almost to choke with envy. much as he had ingratiated himself with his aunt, she had never yet invited him to stay under her roof, and here was a young whipper-snapper, who at first sight was made welcome there. "i beg your pardon, sir," says bowls, advancing with a profound bow; "what 'otel, sir, shall thomas fetch the luggage from?" "o, dam," said young james, starting up, as if in some alarm, "i'll go." "what!" said miss crawley. "the tom cribb's arms," said james, blushing deeply. miss crawley burst out laughing at this title. mr. bowls gave one abrupt guffaw, as a confidential servant of the family, but choked the rest of the volley; the diplomatist only smiled. "i--i didn't know any better," said james, looking down. "i've never been here before; it was the coachman told me." the young story-teller! the fact is, that on the southampton coach, the day previous, james crawley had met the tutbury pet, who was coming to brighton to make a match with the rottingdean fibber; and enchanted by the pet's conversation, had passed the evening in company with that scientific man and his friends, at the inn in question. "i--i'd best go and settle the score," james continued. "couldn't think of asking you, ma'am," he added, generously. this delicacy made his aunt laugh the more. "go and settle the bill, bowls," she said, with a wave of her hand, "and bring it to me." poor lady, she did not know what she had done! "there--there's a little dawg," said james, looking frightfully guilty. "i'd best go for him. he bites footmen's calves." all the party cried out with laughing at this description; even briggs and lady jane, who was sitting mute during the interview between miss crawley and her nephew: and bowls, without a word, quitted the room. still, by way of punishing her elder nephew, miss crawley persisted in being gracious to the young oxonian. there were no limits to her kindness or her compliments when they once began. she told pitt he might come to dinner, and insisted that james should accompany her in her drive, and paraded him solemnly up and down the cliff, on the back seat of the barouche. during all this excursion, she condescended to say civil things to him: she quoted italian and french poetry to the poor bewildered lad, and persisted that he was a fine scholar, and was perfectly sure he would gain a gold medal, and be a senior wrangler. "haw, haw," laughed james, encouraged by these compliments; "senior wrangler, indeed; that's at the other shop." "what is the other shop, my dear child?" said the lady. "senior wranglers at cambridge, not oxford," said the scholar, with a knowing air; and would probably have been more confidential, but that suddenly there appeared on the cliff in a tax-cart, drawn by a bang-up pony, dressed in white flannel coats, with mother-of-pearl buttons, his friends the tutbury pet and the rottingdean fibber, with three other gentlemen of their acquaintance, who all saluted poor james there in the carriage as he sate. this incident damped the ingenuous youth's spirits, and no word of yea or nay could he be induced to utter during the rest of the drive. on his return he found his room prepared, and his portmanteau ready, and might have remarked that mr. bowls's countenance, when the latter conducted him to his apartments, wore a look of gravity, wonder, and compassion. but the thought of mr. bowls did not enter his head. he was deploring the dreadful predicament in which he found himself, in a house full of old women, jabbering french and italian, and talking poetry to him. "reglarly up a tree, by jingo!" exclaimed the modest boy, who could not face the gentlest of her sex--not even briggs--when she began to talk to him; whereas, put him at iffley lock, and he could out-slang the boldest bargeman. at dinner, james appeared choking in a white neckcloth, and had the honour of handing my lady jane downstairs, while briggs and mr. crawley followed afterwards, conducting the old lady, with her apparatus of bundles, and shawls, and cushions. half of briggs's time at dinner was spent in superintending the invalid's comfort, and in cutting up chicken for her fat spaniel. james did not talk much, but he made a point of asking all the ladies to drink wine, and accepted mr. crawley's challenge, and consumed the greater part of a bottle of champagne which mr. bowls was ordered to produce in his honour. the ladies having withdrawn, and the two cousins being left together, pitt, the ex-diplomatist, he came very communicative and friendly. he asked after james's career at college--what his prospects in life were--hoped heartily he would get on; and, in a word, was frank and amiable. james's tongue unloosed with the port, and he told his cousin his life, his prospects, his debts, his troubles at the little-go, and his rows with the proctors, filling rapidly from the bottles before him, and flying from port to madeira with joyous activity. "the chief pleasure which my aunt has," said mr. crawley, filling his glass, "is that people should do as they like in her house. this is liberty hall, james, and you can't do miss crawley a greater kindness than to do as you please, and ask for what you will. i know you have all sneered at me in the country for being a tory. miss crawley is liberal enough to suit any fancy. she is a republican in principle, and despises everything like rank or title." "why are you going to marry an earl's daughter?" said james. "my dear friend, remember it is not poor lady jane's fault that she is well born," pitt replied, with a courtly air. "she cannot help being a lady. besides, i am a tory, you know." "oh, as for that," said jim, "there's nothing like old blood; no, dammy, nothing like it. i'm none of your radicals. i know what it is to be a gentleman, dammy. see the chaps in a boat-race; look at the fellers in a fight; aye, look at a dawg killing rats--which is it wins? the good-blooded ones. get some more port, bowls, old boy, whilst i buzz this bottle here. what was i asaying?" "i think you were speaking of dogs killing rats," pitt remarked mildly, handing his cousin the decanter to "buzz." "killing rats was i? well, pitt, are you a sporting man? do you want to see a dawg as can kill a rat? if you do, come down with me to tom corduroy's, in castle street mews, and i'll show you such a bull-terrier as--pooh! gammon," cried james, bursting out laughing at his own absurdity--"you don't care about a dawg or rat; it's all nonsense. i'm blest if i think you know the difference between a dog and a duck." "no; by the way," pitt continued with increased blandness, "it was about blood you were talking, and the personal advantages which people derive from patrician birth. here's the fresh bottle." "blood's the word," said james, gulping the ruby fluid down. "nothing like blood, sir, in hosses, dawgs, and men. why, only last term, just before i was rusticated, that is, i mean just before i had the measles, ha, ha--there was me and ringwood of christchurch, bob ringwood, lord cinqbars' son, having our beer at the bell at blenheim, when the banbury bargeman offered to fight either of us for a bowl of punch. i couldn't. my arm was in a sling; couldn't even take the drag down--a brute of a mare of mine had fell with me only two days before, out with the abingdon, and i thought my arm was broke. well, sir, i couldn't finish him, but bob had his coat off at once--he stood up to the banbury man for three minutes, and polished him off in four rounds easy. gad, how he did drop, sir, and what was it? blood, sir, all blood." "you don't drink, james," the ex-attache continued. "in my time at oxford, the men passed round the bottle a little quicker than you young fellows seem to do." "come, come," said james, putting his hand to his nose and winking at his cousin with a pair of vinous eyes, "no jokes, old boy; no trying it on on me. you want to trot me out, but it's no go. in vino veritas, old boy. mars, bacchus, apollo virorum, hey? i wish my aunt would send down some of this to the governor; it's a precious good tap." "you had better ask her," machiavel continued, "or make the best of your time now. what says the bard? 'nunc vino pellite curas, cras ingens iterabimus aequor,'" and the bacchanalian, quoting the above with a house of commons air, tossed off nearly a thimbleful of wine with an immense flourish of his glass. at the rectory, when the bottle of port wine was opened after dinner, the young ladies had each a glass from a bottle of currant wine. mrs. bute took one glass of port, honest james had a couple commonly, but as his father grew very sulky if he made further inroads on the bottle, the good lad generally refrained from trying for more, and subsided either into the currant wine, or to some private gin-and-water in the stables, which he enjoyed in the company of the coachman and his pipe. at oxford, the quantity of wine was unlimited, but the quality was inferior: but when quantity and quality united as at his aunt's house, james showed that he could appreciate them indeed; and hardly needed any of his cousin's encouragement in draining off the second bottle supplied by mr. bowls. when the time for coffee came, however, and for a return to the ladies, of whom he stood in awe, the young gentleman's agreeable frankness left him, and he relapsed into his usual surly timidity; contenting himself by saying yes and no, by scowling at lady jane, and by upsetting one cup of coffee during the evening. if he did not speak he yawned in a pitiable manner, and his presence threw a damp upon the modest proceedings of the evening, for miss crawley and lady jane at their piquet, and miss briggs at her work, felt that his eyes were wildly fixed on them, and were uneasy under that maudlin look. "he seems a very silent, awkward, bashful lad," said miss crawley to mr. pitt. "he is more communicative in men's society than with ladies," machiavel dryly replied: perhaps rather disappointed that the port wine had not made jim speak more. he had spent the early part of the next morning in writing home to his mother a most flourishing account of his reception by miss crawley. but ah! he little knew what evils the day was bringing for him, and how short his reign of favour was destined to be. a circumstance which jim had forgotten--a trivial but fatal circumstance--had taken place at the cribb's arms on the night before he had come to his aunt's house. it was no other than this--jim, who was always of a generous disposition, and when in his cups especially hospitable, had in the course of the night treated the tutbury champion and the rottingdean man, and their friends, twice or thrice to the refreshment of gin-and-water--so that no less than eighteen glasses of that fluid at eightpence per glass were charged in mr. james crawley's bill. it was not the amount of eightpences, but the quantity of gin which told fatally against poor james's character, when his aunt's butler, mr. bowls, went down at his mistress's request to pay the young gentleman's bill. the landlord, fearing lest the account should be refused altogether, swore solemnly that the young gent had consumed personally every farthing's worth of the liquor: and bowls paid the bill finally, and showed it on his return home to mrs. firkin, who was shocked at the frightful prodigality of gin; and took the bill to miss briggs as accountant-general; who thought it her duty to mention the circumstance to her principal, miss crawley. had he drunk a dozen bottles of claret, the old spinster could have pardoned him. mr. fox and mr. sheridan drank claret. gentlemen drank claret. but eighteen glasses of gin consumed among boxers in an ignoble pot-house--it was an odious crime and not to be pardoned readily. everything went against the lad: he came home perfumed from the stables, whither he had been to pay his dog towzer a visit--and whence he was going to take his friend out for an airing, when he met miss crawley and her wheezy blenheim spaniel, which towzer would have eaten up had not the blenheim fled squealing to the protection of miss briggs, while the atrocious master of the bull-dog stood laughing at the horrible persecution. this day too the unlucky boy's modesty had likewise forsaken him. he was lively and facetious at dinner. during the repast he levelled one or two jokes against pitt crawley: he drank as much wine as upon the previous day; and going quite unsuspiciously to the drawing-room, began to entertain the ladies there with some choice oxford stories. he described the different pugilistic qualities of molyneux and dutch sam, offered playfully to give lady jane the odds upon the tutbury pet against the rottingdean man, or take them, as her ladyship chose: and crowned the pleasantry by proposing to back himself against his cousin pitt crawley, either with or without the gloves. "and that's a fair offer, my buck," he said, with a loud laugh, slapping pitt on the shoulder, "and my father told me to make it too, and he'll go halves in the bet, ha, ha!" so saying, the engaging youth nodded knowingly at poor miss briggs, and pointed his thumb over his shoulder at pitt crawley in a jocular and exulting manner. pitt was not pleased altogether perhaps, but still not unhappy in the main. poor jim had his laugh out: and staggered across the room with his aunt's candle, when the old lady moved to retire, and offered to salute her with the blandest tipsy smile: and he took his own leave and went upstairs to his bedroom perfectly satisfied with himself, and with a pleased notion that his aunt's money would be left to him in preference to his father and all the rest of the family. once up in the bedroom, one would have thought he could not make matters worse; and yet this unlucky boy did. the moon was shining very pleasantly out on the sea, and jim, attracted to the window by the romantic appearance of the ocean and the heavens, thought he would further enjoy them while smoking. nobody would smell the tobacco, he thought, if he cunningly opened the window and kept his head and pipe in the fresh air. this he did: but being in an excited state, poor jim had forgotten that his door was open all this time, so that the breeze blowing inwards and a fine thorough draught being established, the clouds of tobacco were carried downstairs, and arrived with quite undiminished fragrance to miss crawley and miss briggs. the pipe of tobacco finished the business: and the bute-crawleys never knew how many thousand pounds it cost them. firkin rushed downstairs to bowls who was reading out the "fire and the frying pan" to his aide-de-camp in a loud and ghostly voice. the dreadful secret was told to him by firkin with so frightened a look, that for the first moment mr. bowls and his young man thought that robbers were in the house, the legs of whom had probably been discovered by the woman under miss crawley's bed. when made aware of the fact, however--to rush upstairs at three steps at a time to enter the unconscious james's apartment, calling out, "mr. james," in a voice stifled with alarm, and to cry, "for gawd's sake, sir, stop that 'ere pipe," was the work of a minute with mr. bowls. "o, mr. james, what 'ave you done!" he said in a voice of the deepest pathos, as he threw the implement out of the window. "what 'ave you done, sir! missis can't abide 'em." "missis needn't smoke," said james with a frantic misplaced laugh, and thought the whole matter an excellent joke. but his feelings were very different in the morning, when mr. bowls's young man, who operated upon mr. james's boots, and brought him his hot water to shave that beard which he was so anxiously expecting, handed a note in to mr. james in bed, in the handwriting of miss briggs. "dear sir," it said, "miss crawley has passed an exceedingly disturbed night, owing to the shocking manner in which the house has been polluted by tobacco; miss crawley bids me say she regrets that she is too unwell to see you before you go--and above all that she ever induced you to remove from the ale-house, where she is sure you will be much more comfortable during the rest of your stay at brighton." and herewith honest james's career as a candidate for his aunt's favour ended. he had in fact, and without knowing it, done what he menaced to do. he had fought his cousin pitt with the gloves. where meanwhile was he who had been once first favourite for this race for money? becky and rawdon, as we have seen, were come together after waterloo, and were passing the winter of at paris in great splendour and gaiety. rebecca was a good economist, and the price poor jos sedley had paid for her two horses was in itself sufficient to keep their little establishment afloat for a year, at the least; there was no occasion to turn into money "my pistols, the same which i shot captain marker," or the gold dressing-case, or the cloak lined with sable. becky had it made into a pelisse for herself, in which she rode in the bois de boulogne to the admiration of all: and you should have seen the scene between her and her delighted husband, whom she rejoined after the army had entered cambray, and when she unsewed herself, and let out of her dress all those watches, knick-knacks, bank-notes, cheques, and valuables, which she had secreted in the wadding, previous to her meditated flight from brussels! tufto was charmed, and rawdon roared with delighted laughter, and swore that she was better than any play he ever saw, by jove. and the way in which she jockeyed jos, and which she described with infinite fun, carried up his delight to a pitch of quite insane enthusiasm. he believed in his wife as much as the french soldiers in napoleon. her success in paris was remarkable. all the french ladies voted her charming. she spoke their language admirably. she adopted at once their grace, their liveliness, their manner. her husband was stupid certainly--all english are stupid--and, besides, a dull husband at paris is always a point in a lady's favour. he was the heir of the rich and spirituelle miss crawley, whose house had been open to so many of the french noblesse during the emigration. they received the colonel's wife in their own hotels--"why," wrote a great lady to miss crawley, who had bought her lace and trinkets at the duchess's own price, and given her many a dinner during the pinching times after the revolution--"why does not our dear miss come to her nephew and niece, and her attached friends in paris? all the world raffoles of the charming mistress and her espiegle beauty. yes, we see in her the grace, the charm, the wit of our dear friend miss crawley! the king took notice of her yesterday at the tuileries, and we are all jealous of the attention which monsieur pays her. if you could have seen the spite of a certain stupid miladi bareacres (whose eagle-beak and toque and feathers may be seen peering over the heads of all assemblies) when madame, the duchess of angouleme, the august daughter and companion of kings, desired especially to be presented to mrs. crawley, as your dear daughter and protegee, and thanked her in the name of france, for all your benevolence towards our unfortunates during their exile! she is of all the societies, of all the balls--of the balls--yes--of the dances, no; and yet how interesting and pretty this fair creature looks surrounded by the homage of the men, and so soon to be a mother! to hear her speak of you, her protectress, her mother, would bring tears to the eyes of ogres. how she loves you! how we all love our admirable, our respectable miss crawley!" it is to be feared that this letter of the parisian great lady did not by any means advance mrs. becky's interest with her admirable, her respectable, relative. on the contrary, the fury of the old spinster was beyond bounds, when she found what was rebecca's situation, and how audaciously she had made use of miss crawley's name, to get an entree into parisian society. too much shaken in mind and body to compose a letter in the french language in reply to that of her correspondent, she dictated to briggs a furious answer in her own native tongue, repudiating mrs. rawdon crawley altogether, and warning the public to beware of her as a most artful and dangerous person. but as madame the duchess of x--had only been twenty years in england, she did not understand a single word of the language, and contented herself by informing mrs. rawdon crawley at their next meeting, that she had received a charming letter from that chere mees, and that it was full of benevolent things for mrs. crawley, who began seriously to have hopes that the spinster would relent. meanwhile, she was the gayest and most admired of englishwomen: and had a little european congress on her reception-night. prussians and cossacks, spanish and english--all the world was at paris during this famous winter: to have seen the stars and cordons in rebecca's humble saloon would have made all baker street pale with envy. famous warriors rode by her carriage in the bois, or crowded her modest little box at the opera. rawdon was in the highest spirits. there were no duns in paris as yet: there were parties every day at very's or beauvilliers'; play was plentiful and his luck good. tufto perhaps was sulky. mrs. tufto had come over to paris at her own invitation, and besides this contretemps, there were a score of generals now round becky's chair, and she might take her choice of a dozen bouquets when she went to the play. lady bareacres and the chiefs of the english society, stupid and irreproachable females, writhed with anguish at the success of the little upstart becky, whose poisoned jokes quivered and rankled in their chaste breasts. but she had all the men on her side. she fought the women with indomitable courage, and they could not talk scandal in any tongue but their own. so in fetes, pleasures, and prosperity, the winter of - passed away with mrs. rawdon crawley, who accommodated herself to polite life as if her ancestors had been people of fashion for centuries past--and who from her wit, talent, and energy, indeed merited a place of honour in vanity fair. in the early spring of , galignani's journal contained the following announcement in an interesting corner of the paper: "on the th of march--the lady of lieutenant-colonel crawley, of the life guards green--of a son and heir." this event was copied into the london papers, out of which miss briggs read the statement to miss crawley, at breakfast, at brighton. the intelligence, expected as it might have been, caused a crisis in the affairs of the crawley family. the spinster's rage rose to its height, and sending instantly for pitt, her nephew, and for the lady southdown, from brunswick square, she requested an immediate celebration of the marriage which had been so long pending between the two families. and she announced that it was her intention to allow the young couple a thousand a year during her lifetime, at the expiration of which the bulk of her property would be settled upon her nephew and her dear niece, lady jane crawley. waxy came down to ratify the deeds--lord southdown gave away his sister--she was married by a bishop, and not by the rev. bartholomew irons--to the disappointment of the irregular prelate. when they were married, pitt would have liked to take a hymeneal tour with his bride, as became people of their condition. but the affection of the old lady towards lady jane had grown so strong, that she fairly owned she could not part with her favourite. pitt and his wife came therefore and lived with miss crawley: and (greatly to the annoyance of poor pitt, who conceived himself a most injured character--being subject to the humours of his aunt on one side, and of his mother-in-law on the other). lady southdown, from her neighbouring house, reigned over the whole family--pitt, lady jane, miss crawley, briggs, bowls, firkin, and all. she pitilessly dosed them with her tracts and her medicine, she dismissed creamer, she installed rodgers, and soon stripped miss crawley of even the semblance of authority. the poor soul grew so timid that she actually left off bullying briggs any more, and clung to her niece, more fond and terrified every day. peace to thee, kind and selfish, vain and generous old heathen!--we shall see thee no more. let us hope that lady jane supported her kindly, and led her with gentle hand out of the busy struggle of vanity fair. chapter xxxv widow and mother the news of the great fights of quatre bras and waterloo reached england at the same time. the gazette first published the result of the two battles; at which glorious intelligence all england thrilled with triumph and fear. particulars then followed; and after the announcement of the victories came the list of the wounded and the slain. who can tell the dread with which that catalogue was opened and read! fancy, at every village and homestead almost through the three kingdoms, the great news coming of the battles in flanders, and the feelings of exultation and gratitude, bereavement and sickening dismay, when the lists of the regimental losses were gone through, and it became known whether the dear friend and relative had escaped or fallen. anybody who will take the trouble of looking back to a file of the newspapers of the time, must, even now, feel at second-hand this breathless pause of expectation. the lists of casualties are carried on from day to day: you stop in the midst as in a story which is to be continued in our next. think what the feelings must have been as those papers followed each other fresh from the press; and if such an interest could be felt in our country, and about a battle where but twenty thousand of our people were engaged, think of the condition of europe for twenty years before, where people were fighting, not by thousands, but by millions; each one of whom as he struck his enemy wounded horribly some other innocent heart far away. the news which that famous gazette brought to the osbornes gave a dreadful shock to the family and its chief. the girls indulged unrestrained in their grief. the gloom-stricken old father was still more borne down by his fate and sorrow. he strove to think that a judgment was on the boy for his disobedience. he dared not own that the severity of the sentence frightened him, and that its fulfilment had come too soon upon his curses. sometimes a shuddering terror struck him, as if he had been the author of the doom which he had called down on his son. there was a chance before of reconciliation. the boy's wife might have died; or he might have come back and said, father i have sinned. but there was no hope now. he stood on the other side of the gulf impassable, haunting his parent with sad eyes. he remembered them once before so in a fever, when every one thought the lad was dying, and he lay on his bed speechless, and gazing with a dreadful gloom. good god! how the father clung to the doctor then, and with what a sickening anxiety he followed him: what a weight of grief was off his mind when, after the crisis of the fever, the lad recovered, and looked at his father once more with eyes that recognised him. but now there was no help or cure, or chance of reconcilement: above all, there were no humble words to soothe vanity outraged and furious, or bring to its natural flow the poisoned, angry blood. and it is hard to say which pang it was that tore the proud father's heart most keenly--that his son should have gone out of the reach of his forgiveness, or that the apology which his own pride expected should have escaped him. whatever his sensations might have been, however, the stern old man would have no confidant. he never mentioned his son's name to his daughters; but ordered the elder to place all the females of the establishment in mourning; and desired that the male servants should be similarly attired in deep black. all parties and entertainments, of course, were to be put off. no communications were made to his future son-in-law, whose marriage-day had been fixed: but there was enough in mr. osborne's appearance to prevent mr. bullock from making any inquiries, or in any way pressing forward that ceremony. he and the ladies whispered about it under their voices in the drawing-room sometimes, whither the father never came. he remained constantly in his own study; the whole front part of the house being closed until some time after the completion of the general mourning. about three weeks after the th of june, mr. osborne's acquaintance, sir william dobbin, called at mr. osborne's house in russell square, with a very pale and agitated face, and insisted upon seeing that gentleman. ushered into his room, and after a few words, which neither the speaker nor the host understood, the former produced from an inclosure a letter sealed with a large red seal. "my son, major dobbin," the alderman said, with some hesitation, "despatched me a letter by an officer of the --th, who arrived in town to-day. my son's letter contains one for you, osborne." the alderman placed the letter on the table, and osborne stared at him for a moment or two in silence. his looks frightened the ambassador, who after looking guiltily for a little time at the grief-stricken man, hurried away without another word. the letter was in george's well-known bold handwriting. it was that one which he had written before daybreak on the th of june, and just before he took leave of amelia. the great red seal was emblazoned with the sham coat of arms which osborne had assumed from the peerage, with "pax in bello" for a motto; that of the ducal house with which the vain old man tried to fancy himself connected. the hand that signed it would never hold pen or sword more. the very seal that sealed it had been robbed from george's dead body as it lay on the field of battle. the father knew nothing of this, but sat and looked at the letter in terrified vacancy. he almost fell when he went to open it. have you ever had a difference with a dear friend? how his letters, written in the period of love and confidence, sicken and rebuke you! what a dreary mourning it is to dwell upon those vehement protests of dead affection! what lying epitaphs they make over the corpse of love! what dark, cruel comments upon life and vanities! most of us have got or written drawers full of them. they are closet-skeletons which we keep and shun. osborne trembled long before the letter from his dead son. the poor boy's letter did not say much. he had been too proud to acknowledge the tenderness which his heart felt. he only said, that on the eve of a great battle, he wished to bid his father farewell, and solemnly to implore his good offices for the wife--it might be for the child--whom he left behind him. he owned with contrition that his irregularities and his extravagance had already wasted a large part of his mother's little fortune. he thanked his father for his former generous conduct; and he promised him that if he fell on the field or survived it, he would act in a manner worthy of the name of george osborne. his english habit, pride, awkwardness perhaps, had prevented him from saying more. his father could not see the kiss george had placed on the superscription of his letter. mr. osborne dropped it with the bitterest, deadliest pang of balked affection and revenge. his son was still beloved and unforgiven. about two months afterwards, however, as the young ladies of the family went to church with their father, they remarked how he took a different seat from that which he usually occupied when he chose to attend divine worship; and that from his cushion opposite, he looked up at the wall over their heads. this caused the young women likewise to gaze in the direction towards which their father's gloomy eyes pointed: and they saw an elaborate monument upon the wall, where britannia was represented weeping over an urn, and a broken sword and a couchant lion indicated that the piece of sculpture had been erected in honour of a deceased warrior. the sculptors of those days had stocks of such funereal emblems in hand; as you may see still on the walls of st. paul's, which are covered with hundreds of these braggart heathen allegories. there was a constant demand for them during the first fifteen years of the present century. under the memorial in question were emblazoned the well-known and pompous osborne arms; and the inscription said, that the monument was "sacred to the memory of george osborne, junior, esq., late a captain in his majesty's --th regiment of foot, who fell on the th of june, , aged years, while fighting for his king and country in the glorious victory of waterloo. dulce et decorum est pro patria mori." the sight of that stone agitated the nerves of the sisters so much, that miss maria was compelled to leave the church. the congregation made way respectfully for those sobbing girls clothed in deep black, and pitied the stern old father seated opposite the memorial of the dead soldier. "will he forgive mrs. george?" the girls said to themselves as soon as their ebullition of grief was over. much conversation passed too among the acquaintances of the osborne family, who knew of the rupture between the son and father caused by the former's marriage, as to the chance of a reconciliation with the young widow. there were bets among the gentlemen both about russell square and in the city. if the sisters had any anxiety regarding the possible recognition of amelia as a daughter of the family, it was increased presently, and towards the end of the autumn, by their father's announcement that he was going abroad. he did not say whither, but they knew at once that his steps would be turned towards belgium, and were aware that george's widow was still in brussels. they had pretty accurate news indeed of poor amelia from lady dobbin and her daughters. our honest captain had been promoted in consequence of the death of the second major of the regiment on the field; and the brave o'dowd, who had distinguished himself greatly here as upon all occasions where he had a chance to show his coolness and valour, was a colonel and companion of the bath. very many of the brave --th, who had suffered severely upon both days of action, were still at brussels in the autumn, recovering of their wounds. the city was a vast military hospital for months after the great battles; and as men and officers began to rally from their hurts, the gardens and places of public resort swarmed with maimed warriors, old and young, who, just rescued out of death, fell to gambling, and gaiety, and love-making, as people of vanity fair will do. mr. osborne found out some of the --th easily. he knew their uniform quite well, and had been used to follow all the promotions and exchanges in the regiment, and loved to talk about it and its officers as if he had been one of the number. on the day after his arrival at brussels, and as he issued from his hotel, which faced the park, he saw a soldier in the well-known facings, reposing on a stone bench in the garden, and went and sate down trembling by the wounded convalescent man. "were you in captain osborne's company?" he said, and added, after a pause, "he was my son, sir." the man was not of the captain's company, but he lifted up his unwounded arm and touched his cap sadly and respectfully to the haggard broken-spirited gentleman who questioned him. "the whole army didn't contain a finer or a better officer," the soldier said. "the sergeant of the captain's company (captain raymond had it now), was in town, though, and was just well of a shot in the shoulder. his honour might see him if he liked, who could tell him anything he wanted to know about--about the --th's actions. but his honour had seen major dobbin, no doubt, the brave captain's great friend; and mrs. osborne, who was here too, and had been very bad, he heard everybody say. they say she was out of her mind like for six weeks or more. but your honour knows all about that--and asking your pardon"--the man added. osborne put a guinea into the soldier's hand, and told him he should have another if he would bring the sergeant to the hotel du parc; a promise which very soon brought the desired officer to mr. osborne's presence. and the first soldier went away; and after telling a comrade or two how captain osborne's father was arrived, and what a free-handed generous gentleman he was, they went and made good cheer with drink and feasting, as long as the guineas lasted which had come from the proud purse of the mourning old father. in the sergeant's company, who was also just convalescent, osborne made the journey of waterloo and quatre bras, a journey which thousands of his countrymen were then taking. he took the sergeant with him in his carriage, and went through both fields under his guidance. he saw the point of the road where the regiment marched into action on the th, and the slope down which they drove the french cavalry who were pressing on the retreating belgians. there was the spot where the noble captain cut down the french officer who was grappling with the young ensign for the colours, the colour-sergeants having been shot down. along this road they retreated on the next day, and here was the bank at which the regiment bivouacked under the rain of the night of the seventeenth. further on was the position which they took and held during the day, forming time after time to receive the charge of the enemy's horsemen and lying down under the shelter of the bank from the furious french cannonade. and it was at this declivity when at evening the whole english line received the order to advance, as the enemy fell back after his last charge, that the captain, hurraying and rushing down the hill waving his sword, received a shot and fell dead. "it was major dobbin who took back the captain's body to brussels," the sergeant said, in a low voice, "and had him buried, as your honour knows." the peasants and relic-hunters about the place were screaming round the pair, as the soldier told his story, offering for sale all sorts of mementoes of the fight, crosses, and epaulets, and shattered cuirasses, and eagles. osborne gave a sumptuous reward to the sergeant when he parted with him, after having visited the scenes of his son's last exploits. his burial-place he had already seen. indeed, he had driven thither immediately after his arrival at brussels. george's body lay in the pretty burial-ground of laeken, near the city; in which place, having once visited it on a party of pleasure, he had lightly expressed a wish to have his grave made. and there the young officer was laid by his friend, in the unconsecrated corner of the garden, separated by a little hedge from the temples and towers and plantations of flowers and shrubs, under which the roman catholic dead repose. it seemed a humiliation to old osborne to think that his son, an english gentleman, a captain in the famous british army, should not be found worthy to lie in ground where mere foreigners were buried. which of us is there can tell how much vanity lurks in our warmest regard for others, and how selfish our love is? old osborne did not speculate much upon the mingled nature of his feelings, and how his instinct and selfishness were combating together. he firmly believed that everything he did was right, that he ought on all occasions to have his own way--and like the sting of a wasp or serpent his hatred rushed out armed and poisonous against anything like opposition. he was proud of his hatred as of everything else. always to be right, always to trample forward, and never to doubt, are not these the great qualities with which dullness takes the lead in the world? as after the drive to waterloo, mr. osborne's carriage was nearing the gates of the city at sunset, they met another open barouche, in which were a couple of ladies and a gentleman, and by the side of which an officer was riding. osborne gave a start back, and the sergeant, seated with him, cast a look of surprise at his neighbour, as he touched his cap to the officer, who mechanically returned his salute. it was amelia, with the lame young ensign by her side, and opposite to her her faithful friend mrs. o'dowd. it was amelia, but how changed from the fresh and comely girl osborne knew. her face was white and thin. her pretty brown hair was parted under a widow's cap--the poor child. her eyes were fixed, and looking nowhere. they stared blank in the face of osborne, as the carriages crossed each other, but she did not know him; nor did he recognise her, until looking up, he saw dobbin riding by her: and then he knew who it was. he hated her. he did not know how much until he saw her there. when her carriage had passed on, he turned and stared at the sergeant, with a curse and defiance in his eye cast at his companion, who could not help looking at him--as much as to say "how dare you look at me? damn you! i do hate her. it is she who has tumbled my hopes and all my pride down." "tell the scoundrel to drive on quick," he shouted with an oath, to the lackey on the box. a minute afterwards, a horse came clattering over the pavement behind osborne's carriage, and dobbin rode up. his thoughts had been elsewhere as the carriages passed each other, and it was not until he had ridden some paces forward, that he remembered it was osborne who had just passed him. then he turned to examine if the sight of her father-in-law had made any impression on amelia, but the poor girl did not know who had passed. then william, who daily used to accompany her in his drives, taking out his watch, made some excuse about an engagement which he suddenly recollected, and so rode off. she did not remark that either: but sate looking before her, over the homely landscape towards the woods in the distance, by which george marched away. "mr. osborne, mr. osborne!" cried dobbin, as he rode up and held out his hand. osborne made no motion to take it, but shouted out once more and with another curse to his servant to drive on. dobbin laid his hand on the carriage side. "i will see you, sir," he said. "i have a message for you." "from that woman?" said osborne, fiercely. "no," replied the other, "from your son"; at which osborne fell back into the corner of his carriage, and dobbin allowing it to pass on, rode close behind it, and so through the town until they reached mr. osborne's hotel, and without a word. there he followed osborne up to his apartments. george had often been in the rooms; they were the lodgings which the crawleys had occupied during their stay in brussels. "pray, have you any commands for me, captain dobbin, or, i beg your pardon, i should say major dobbin, since better men than you are dead, and you step into their shoes?" said mr. osborne, in that sarcastic tone which he sometimes was pleased to assume. "better men are dead," dobbin replied. "i want to speak to you about one." "make it short, sir," said the other with an oath, scowling at his visitor. "i am here as his closest friend," the major resumed, "and the executor of his will. he made it before he went into action. are you aware how small his means are, and of the straitened circumstances of his widow?" "i don't know his widow, sir," osborne said. "let her go back to her father." but the gentleman whom he addressed was determined to remain in good temper, and went on without heeding the interruption. "do you know, sir, mrs. osborne's condition? her life and her reason almost have been shaken by the blow which has fallen on her. it is very doubtful whether she will rally. there is a chance left for her, however, and it is about this i came to speak to you. she will be a mother soon. will you visit the parent's offence upon the child's head? or will you forgive the child for poor george's sake?" osborne broke out into a rhapsody of self-praise and imprecations;--by the first, excusing himself to his own conscience for his conduct; by the second, exaggerating the undutifulness of george. no father in all england could have behaved more generously to a son, who had rebelled against him wickedly. he had died without even so much as confessing he was wrong. let him take the consequences of his undutifulness and folly. as for himself, mr. osborne, he was a man of his word. he had sworn never to speak to that woman, or to recognize her as his son's wife. "and that's what you may tell her," he concluded with an oath; "and that's what i will stick to to the last day of my life." there was no hope from that quarter then. the widow must live on her slender pittance, or on such aid as jos could give her. "i might tell her, and she would not heed it," thought dobbin, sadly: for the poor girl's thoughts were not here at all since her catastrophe, and, stupefied under the pressure of her sorrow, good and evil were alike indifferent to her. so, indeed, were even friendship and kindness. she received them both uncomplainingly, and having accepted them, relapsed into her grief. suppose some twelve months after the above conversation took place to have passed in the life of our poor amelia. she has spent the first portion of that time in a sorrow so profound and pitiable, that we who have been watching and describing some of the emotions of that weak and tender heart, must draw back in the presence of the cruel grief under which it is bleeding. tread silently round the hapless couch of the poor prostrate soul. shut gently the door of the dark chamber wherein she suffers, as those kind people did who nursed her through the first months of her pain, and never left her until heaven had sent her consolation. a day came--of almost terrified delight and wonder--when the poor widowed girl pressed a child upon her breast--a child, with the eyes of george who was gone--a little boy, as beautiful as a cherub. what a miracle it was to hear its first cry! how she laughed and wept over it--how love, and hope, and prayer woke again in her bosom as the baby nestled there. she was safe. the doctors who attended her, and had feared for her life or for her brain, had waited anxiously for this crisis before they could pronounce that either was secure. it was worth the long months of doubt and dread which the persons who had constantly been with her had passed, to see her eyes once more beaming tenderly upon them. our friend dobbin was one of them. it was he who brought her back to england and to her mother's house; when mrs. o'dowd, receiving a peremptory summons from her colonel, had been forced to quit her patient. to see dobbin holding the infant, and to hear amelia's laugh of triumph as she watched him, would have done any man good who had a sense of humour. william was the godfather of the child, and exerted his ingenuity in the purchase of cups, spoons, pap-boats, and corals for this little christian. how his mother nursed him, and dressed him, and lived upon him; how she drove away all nurses, and would scarce allow any hand but her own to touch him; how she considered that the greatest favour she could confer upon his godfather, major dobbin, was to allow the major occasionally to dandle him, need not be told here. this child was her being. her existence was a maternal caress. she enveloped the feeble and unconscious creature with love and worship. it was her life which the baby drank in from her bosom. of nights, and when alone, she had stealthy and intense raptures of motherly love, such as god's marvellous care has awarded to the female instinct--joys how far higher and lower than reason--blind beautiful devotions which only women's hearts know. it was william dobbin's task to muse upon these movements of amelia's, and to watch her heart; and if his love made him divine almost all the feelings which agitated it, alas! he could see with a fatal perspicuity that there was no place there for him. and so, gently, he bore his fate, knowing it, and content to bear it. i suppose amelia's father and mother saw through the intentions of the major, and were not ill-disposed to encourage him; for dobbin visited their house daily, and stayed for hours with them, or with amelia, or with the honest landlord, mr. clapp, and his family. he brought, on one pretext or another, presents to everybody, and almost every day; and went, with the landlord's little girl, who was rather a favourite with amelia, by the name of major sugarplums. it was this little child who commonly acted as mistress of the ceremonies to introduce him to mrs. osborne. she laughed one day when major sugarplums' cab drove up to fulham, and he descended from it, bringing out a wooden horse, a drum, a trumpet, and other warlike toys, for little georgy, who was scarcely six months old, and for whom the articles in question were entirely premature. the child was asleep. "hush," said amelia, annoyed, perhaps, at the creaking of the major's boots; and she held out her hand; smiling because william could not take it until he had rid himself of his cargo of toys. "go downstairs, little mary," said he presently to the child, "i want to speak to mrs. osborne." she looked up rather astonished, and laid down the infant on its bed. "i am come to say good-bye, amelia," said he, taking her slender little white hand gently. "good-bye? and where are you going?" she said, with a smile. "send the letters to the agents," he said; "they will forward them; for you will write to me, won't you? i shall be away a long time." "i'll write to you about georgy," she said. "dear william, how good you have been to him and to me. look at him. isn't he like an angel?" the little pink hands of the child closed mechanically round the honest soldier's finger, and amelia looked up in his face with bright maternal pleasure. the cruellest looks could not have wounded him more than that glance of hopeless kindness. he bent over the child and mother. he could not speak for a moment. and it was only with all his strength that he could force himself to say a god bless you. "god bless you," said amelia, and held up her face and kissed him. "hush! don't wake georgy!" she added, as william dobbin went to the door with heavy steps. she did not hear the noise of his cab-wheels as he drove away: she was looking at the child, who was laughing in his sleep. chapter xxxvi how to live well on nothing a year i suppose there is no man in this vanity fair of ours so little observant as not to think sometimes about the worldly affairs of his acquaintances, or so extremely charitable as not to wonder how his neighbour jones, or his neighbour smith, can make both ends meet at the end of the year. with the utmost regard for the family, for instance (for i dine with them twice or thrice in the season), i cannot but own that the appearance of the jenkinses in the park, in the large barouche with the grenadier-footmen, will surprise and mystify me to my dying day: for though i know the equipage is only jobbed, and all the jenkins people are on board wages, yet those three men and the carriage must represent an expense of six hundred a year at the very least--and then there are the splendid dinners, the two boys at eton, the prize governess and masters for the girls, the trip abroad, or to eastbourne or worthing, in the autumn, the annual ball with a supper from gunter's (who, by the way, supplies most of the first-rate dinners which j. gives, as i know very well, having been invited to one of them to fill a vacant place, when i saw at once that these repasts are very superior to the common run of entertainments for which the humbler sort of j.'s acquaintances get cards)--who, i say, with the most good-natured feelings in the world, can help wondering how the jenkinses make out matters? what is jenkins? we all know--commissioner of the tape and sealing wax office, with pounds a year for a salary. had his wife a private fortune? pooh!--miss flint--one of eleven children of a small squire in buckinghamshire. all she ever gets from her family is a turkey at christmas, in exchange for which she has to board two or three of her sisters in the off season, and lodge and feed her brothers when they come to town. how does jenkins balance his income? i say, as every friend of his must say, how is it that he has not been outlawed long since, and that he ever came back (as he did to the surprise of everybody) last year from boulogne? "i" is here introduced to personify the world in general--the mrs. grundy of each respected reader's private circle--every one of whom can point to some families of his acquaintance who live nobody knows how. many a glass of wine have we all of us drunk, i have very little doubt, hob-and-nobbing with the hospitable giver and wondering how the deuce he paid for it. some three or four years after his stay in paris, when rawdon crawley and his wife were established in a very small comfortable house in curzon street, may fair, there was scarcely one of the numerous friends whom they entertained at dinner that did not ask the above question regarding them. the novelist, it has been said before, knows everything, and as i am in a situation to be able to tell the public how crawley and his wife lived without any income, may i entreat the public newspapers which are in the habit of extracting portions of the various periodical works now published not to reprint the following exact narrative and calculations--of which i ought, as the discoverer (and at some expense, too), to have the benefit? my son, i would say, were i blessed with a child--you may by deep inquiry and constant intercourse with him learn how a man lives comfortably on nothing a year. but it is best not to be intimate with gentlemen of this profession and to take the calculations at second hand, as you do logarithms, for to work them yourself, depend upon it, will cost you something considerable. on nothing per annum then, and during a course of some two or three years, of which we can afford to give but a very brief history, crawley and his wife lived very happily and comfortably at paris. it was in this period that he quitted the guards and sold out of the army. when we find him again, his mustachios and the title of colonel on his card are the only relics of his military profession. it has been mentioned that rebecca, soon after her arrival in paris, took a very smart and leading position in the society of that capital, and was welcomed at some of the most distinguished houses of the restored french nobility. the english men of fashion in paris courted her, too, to the disgust of the ladies their wives, who could not bear the parvenue. for some months the salons of the faubourg st. germain, in which her place was secured, and the splendours of the new court, where she was received with much distinction, delighted and perhaps a little intoxicated mrs. crawley, who may have been disposed during this period of elation to slight the people--honest young military men mostly--who formed her husband's chief society. but the colonel yawned sadly among the duchesses and great ladies of the court. the old women who played ecarte made such a noise about a five-franc piece that it was not worth colonel crawley's while to sit down at a card-table. the wit of their conversation he could not appreciate, being ignorant of their language. and what good could his wife get, he urged, by making curtsies every night to a whole circle of princesses? he left rebecca presently to frequent these parties alone, resuming his own simple pursuits and amusements amongst the amiable friends of his own choice. the truth is, when we say of a gentleman that he lives elegantly on nothing a year, we use the word "nothing" to signify something unknown; meaning, simply, that we don't know how the gentleman in question defrays the expenses of his establishment. now, our friend the colonel had a great aptitude for all games of chance: and exercising himself, as he continually did, with the cards, the dice-box, or the cue, it is natural to suppose that he attained a much greater skill in the use of these articles than men can possess who only occasionally handle them. to use a cue at billiards well is like using a pencil, or a german flute, or a small-sword--you cannot master any one of these implements at first, and it is only by repeated study and perseverance, joined to a natural taste, that a man can excel in the handling of either. now crawley, from being only a brilliant amateur, had grown to be a consummate master of billiards. like a great general, his genius used to rise with the danger, and when the luck had been unfavourable to him for a whole game, and the bets were consequently against him, he would, with consummate skill and boldness, make some prodigious hits which would restore the battle, and come in a victor at the end, to the astonishment of everybody--of everybody, that is, who was a stranger to his play. those who were accustomed to see it were cautious how they staked their money against a man of such sudden resources and brilliant and overpowering skill. at games of cards he was equally skilful; for though he would constantly lose money at the commencement of an evening, playing so carelessly and making such blunders, that newcomers were often inclined to think meanly of his talent; yet when roused to action and awakened to caution by repeated small losses, it was remarked that crawley's play became quite different, and that he was pretty sure of beating his enemy thoroughly before the night was over. indeed, very few men could say that they ever had the better of him. his successes were so repeated that no wonder the envious and the vanquished spoke sometimes with bitterness regarding them. and as the french say of the duke of wellington, who never suffered a defeat, that only an astonishing series of lucky accidents enabled him to be an invariable winner; yet even they allow that he cheated at waterloo, and was enabled to win the last great trick: so it was hinted at headquarters in england that some foul play must have taken place in order to account for the continuous successes of colonel crawley. though frascati's and the salon were open at that time in paris, the mania for play was so widely spread that the public gambling-rooms did not suffice for the general ardour, and gambling went on in private houses as much as if there had been no public means for gratifying the passion. at crawley's charming little reunions of an evening this fatal amusement commonly was practised--much to good-natured little mrs. crawley's annoyance. she spoke about her husband's passion for dice with the deepest grief; she bewailed it to everybody who came to her house. she besought the young fellows never, never to touch a box; and when young green, of the rifles, lost a very considerable sum of money, rebecca passed a whole night in tears, as the servant told the unfortunate young gentleman, and actually went on her knees to her husband to beseech him to remit the debt, and burn the acknowledgement. how could he? he had lost just as much himself to blackstone of the hussars, and count punter of the hanoverian cavalry. green might have any decent time; but pay?--of course he must pay; to talk of burning iou's was child's play. other officers, chiefly young--for the young fellows gathered round mrs. crawley--came from her parties with long faces, having dropped more or less money at her fatal card-tables. her house began to have an unfortunate reputation. the old hands warned the less experienced of their danger. colonel o'dowd, of the --th regiment, one of those occupying in paris, warned lieutenant spooney of that corps. a loud and violent fracas took place between the infantry colonel and his lady, who were dining at the cafe de paris, and colonel and mrs. crawley; who were also taking their meal there. the ladies engaged on both sides. mrs. o'dowd snapped her fingers in mrs. crawley's face and called her husband "no betther than a black-leg." colonel crawley challenged colonel o'dowd, c.b. the commander-in-chief hearing of the dispute sent for colonel crawley, who was getting ready the same pistols "which he shot captain marker," and had such a conversation with him that no duel took place. if rebecca had not gone on her knees to general tufto, crawley would have been sent back to england; and he did not play, except with civilians, for some weeks after. but, in spite of rawdon's undoubted skill and constant successes, it became evident to rebecca, considering these things, that their position was but a precarious one, and that, even although they paid scarcely anybody, their little capital would end one day by dwindling into zero. "gambling," she would say, "dear, is good to help your income, but not as an income itself. some day people may be tired of play, and then where are we?" rawdon acquiesced in the justice of her opinion; and in truth he had remarked that after a few nights of his little suppers, &c., gentlemen were tired of play with him, and, in spite of rebecca's charms, did not present themselves very eagerly. easy and pleasant as their life at paris was, it was after all only an idle dalliance and amiable trifling; and rebecca saw that she must push rawdon's fortune in their own country. she must get him a place or appointment at home or in the colonies, and she determined to make a move upon england as soon as the way could be cleared for her. as a first step she had made crawley sell out of the guards and go on half-pay. his function as aide-de-camp to general tufto had ceased previously. rebecca laughed in all companies at that officer, at his toupee (which he mounted on coming to paris), at his waistband, at his false teeth, at his pretensions to be a lady-killer above all, and his absurd vanity in fancying every woman whom he came near was in love with him. it was to mrs. brent, the beetle-browed wife of mr. commissary brent, to whom the general transferred his attentions now--his bouquets, his dinners at the restaurateurs', his opera-boxes, and his knick-knacks. poor mrs. tufto was no more happy than before, and had still to pass long evenings alone with her daughters, knowing that her general was gone off scented and curled to stand behind mrs. brent's chair at the play. becky had a dozen admirers in his place, to be sure, and could cut her rival to pieces with her wit. but, as we have said, she was growing tired of this idle social life: opera-boxes and restaurateur dinners palled upon her: nosegays could not be laid by as a provision for future years: and she could not live upon knick-knacks, laced handkerchiefs, and kid gloves. she felt the frivolity of pleasure and longed for more substantial benefits. at this juncture news arrived which was spread among the many creditors of the colonel at paris, and which caused them great satisfaction. miss crawley, the rich aunt from whom he expected his immense inheritance, was dying; the colonel must haste to her bedside. mrs. crawley and her child would remain behind until he came to reclaim them. he departed for calais, and having reached that place in safety, it might have been supposed that he went to dover; but instead he took the diligence to dunkirk, and thence travelled to brussels, for which place he had a former predilection. the fact is, he owed more money at london than at paris; and he preferred the quiet little belgian city to either of the more noisy capitals. her aunt was dead. mrs. crawley ordered the most intense mourning for herself and little rawdon. the colonel was busy arranging the affairs of the inheritance. they could take the premier now, instead of the little entresol of the hotel which they occupied. mrs. crawley and the landlord had a consultation about the new hangings, an amicable wrangle about the carpets, and a final adjustment of everything except the bill. she went off in one of his carriages; her french bonne with her; the child by her side; the admirable landlord and landlady smiling farewell to her from the gate. general tufto was furious when he heard she was gone, and mrs. brent furious with him for being furious; lieutenant spooney was cut to the heart; and the landlord got ready his best apartments previous to the return of the fascinating little woman and her husband. he _serred_ the trunks which she left in his charge with the greatest care. they had been especially recommended to him by madame crawley. they were not, however, found to be particularly valuable when opened some time after. but before she went to join her husband in the belgic capital, mrs. crawley made an expedition into england, leaving behind her her little son upon the continent, under the care of her french maid. the parting between rebecca and the little rawdon did not cause either party much pain. she had not, to say truth, seen much of the young gentleman since his birth. after the amiable fashion of french mothers, she had placed him out at nurse in a village in the neighbourhood of paris, where little rawdon passed the first months of his life, not unhappily, with a numerous family of foster-brothers in wooden shoes. his father would ride over many a time to see him here, and the elder rawdon's paternal heart glowed to see him rosy and dirty, shouting lustily, and happy in the making of mud-pies under the superintendence of the gardener's wife, his nurse. rebecca did not care much to go and see the son and heir. once he spoiled a new dove-coloured pelisse of hers. he preferred his nurse's caresses to his mamma's, and when finally he quitted that jolly nurse and almost parent, he cried loudly for hours. he was only consoled by his mother's promise that he should return to his nurse the next day; indeed the nurse herself, who probably would have been pained at the parting too, was told that the child would immediately be restored to her, and for some time awaited quite anxiously his return. in fact, our friends may be said to have been among the first of that brood of hardy english adventurers who have subsequently invaded the continent and swindled in all the capitals of europe. the respect in those happy days of - was very great for the wealth and honour of britons. they had not then learned, as i am told, to haggle for bargains with the pertinacity which now distinguishes them. the great cities of europe had not been as yet open to the enterprise of our rascals. and whereas there is now hardly a town of france or italy in which you shall not see some noble countryman of our own, with that happy swagger and insolence of demeanour which we carry everywhere, swindling inn-landlords, passing fictitious cheques upon credulous bankers, robbing coach-makers of their carriages, goldsmiths of their trinkets, easy travellers of their money at cards, even public libraries of their books--thirty years ago you needed but to be a milor anglais, travelling in a private carriage, and credit was at your hand wherever you chose to seek it, and gentlemen, instead of cheating, were cheated. it was not for some weeks after the crawleys' departure that the landlord of the hotel which they occupied during their residence at paris found out the losses which he had sustained: not until madame marabou, the milliner, made repeated visits with her little bill for articles supplied to madame crawley; not until monsieur didelot from boule d'or in the palais royal had asked half a dozen times whether cette charmante miladi who had bought watches and bracelets of him was de retour. it is a fact that even the poor gardener's wife, who had nursed madame's child, was never paid after the first six months for that supply of the milk of human kindness with which she had furnished the lusty and healthy little rawdon. no, not even the nurse was paid--the crawleys were in too great a hurry to remember their trifling debt to her. as for the landlord of the hotel, his curses against the english nation were violent for the rest of his natural life. he asked all travellers whether they knew a certain colonel lor crawley--avec sa femme une petite dame, tres spirituelle. "ah, monsieur!" he would add--"ils m'ont affreusement vole." it was melancholy to hear his accents as he spoke of that catastrophe. rebecca's object in her journey to london was to effect a kind of compromise with her husband's numerous creditors, and by offering them a dividend of ninepence or a shilling in the pound, to secure a return for him into his own country. it does not become us to trace the steps which she took in the conduct of this most difficult negotiation; but, having shown them to their satisfaction that the sum which she was empowered to offer was all her husband's available capital, and having convinced them that colonel crawley would prefer a perpetual retirement on the continent to a residence in this country with his debts unsettled; having proved to them that there was no possibility of money accruing to him from other quarters, and no earthly chance of their getting a larger dividend than that which she was empowered to offer, she brought the colonel's creditors unanimously to accept her proposals, and purchased with fifteen hundred pounds of ready money more than ten times that amount of debts. mrs. crawley employed no lawyer in the transaction. the matter was so simple, to have or to leave, as she justly observed, that she made the lawyers of the creditors themselves do the business. and mr. lewis representing mr. davids, of red lion square, and mr. moss acting for mr. manasseh of cursitor street (chief creditors of the colonel's), complimented his lady upon the brilliant way in which she did business, and declared that there was no professional man who could beat her. rebecca received their congratulations with perfect modesty; ordered a bottle of sherry and a bread cake to the little dingy lodgings where she dwelt, while conducting the business, to treat the enemy's lawyers: shook hands with them at parting, in excellent good humour, and returned straightway to the continent, to rejoin her husband and son and acquaint the former with the glad news of his entire liberation. as for the latter, he had been considerably neglected during his mother's absence by mademoiselle genevieve, her french maid; for that young woman, contracting an attachment for a soldier in the garrison of calais, forgot her charge in the society of this militaire, and little rawdon very narrowly escaped drowning on calais sands at this period, where the absent genevieve had left and lost him. and so, colonel and mrs. crawley came to london: and it is at their house in curzon street, may fair, that they really showed the skill which must be possessed by those who would live on the resources above named. chapter xxxvii the subject continued in the first place, and as a matter of the greatest necessity, we are bound to describe how a house may be got for nothing a year. these mansions are to be had either unfurnished, where, if you have credit with messrs. gillows or bantings, you can get them splendidly montees and decorated entirely according to your own fancy; or they are to be let furnished, a less troublesome and complicated arrangement to most parties. it was so that crawley and his wife preferred to hire their house. before mr. bowls came to preside over miss crawley's house and cellar in park lane, that lady had had for a butler a mr. raggles, who was born on the family estate of queen's crawley, and indeed was a younger son of a gardener there. by good conduct, a handsome person and calves, and a grave demeanour, raggles rose from the knife-board to the footboard of the carriage; from the footboard to the butler's pantry. when he had been a certain number of years at the head of miss crawley's establishment, where he had had good wages, fat perquisites, and plenty of opportunities of saving, he announced that he was about to contract a matrimonial alliance with a late cook of miss crawley's, who had subsisted in an honourable manner by the exercise of a mangle, and the keeping of a small greengrocer's shop in the neighbourhood. the truth is, that the ceremony had been clandestinely performed some years back; although the news of mr. raggles' marriage was first brought to miss crawley by a little boy and girl of seven and eight years of age, whose continual presence in the kitchen had attracted the attention of miss briggs. mr. raggles then retired and personally undertook the superintendence of the small shop and the greens. he added milk and cream, eggs and country-fed pork to his stores, contenting himself whilst other retired butlers were vending spirits in public houses, by dealing in the simplest country produce. and having a good connection amongst the butlers in the neighbourhood, and a snug back parlour where he and mrs. raggles received them, his milk, cream, and eggs got to be adopted by many of the fraternity, and his profits increased every year. year after year he quietly and modestly amassed money, and when at length that snug and complete bachelor's residence at no. , curzon street, may fair, lately the residence of the honourable frederick deuceace, gone abroad, with its rich and appropriate furniture by the first makers, was brought to the hammer, who should go in and purchase the lease and furniture of the house but charles raggles? a part of the money he borrowed, it is true, and at rather a high interest, from a brother butler, but the chief part he paid down, and it was with no small pride that mrs. raggles found herself sleeping in a bed of carved mahogany, with silk curtains, with a prodigious cheval glass opposite to her, and a wardrobe which would contain her, and raggles, and all the family. of course, they did not intend to occupy permanently an apartment so splendid. it was in order to let the house again that raggles purchased it. as soon as a tenant was found, he subsided into the greengrocer's shop once more; but a happy thing it was for him to walk out of that tenement and into curzon street, and there survey his house--his own house--with geraniums in the window and a carved bronze knocker. the footman occasionally lounging at the area railing, treated him with respect; the cook took her green stuff at his house and called him mr. landlord, and there was not one thing the tenants did, or one dish which they had for dinner, that raggles might not know of, if he liked. he was a good man; good and happy. the house brought him in so handsome a yearly income that he was determined to send his children to good schools, and accordingly, regardless of expense, charles was sent to boarding at dr. swishtail's, sugar-cane lodge, and little matilda to miss peckover's, laurentinum house, clapham. raggles loved and adored the crawley family as the author of all his prosperity in life. he had a silhouette of his mistress in his back shop, and a drawing of the porter's lodge at queen's crawley, done by that spinster herself in india ink--and the only addition he made to the decorations of the curzon street house was a print of queen's crawley in hampshire, the seat of sir walpole crawley, baronet, who was represented in a gilded car drawn by six white horses, and passing by a lake covered with swans, and barges containing ladies in hoops, and musicians with flags and periwigs. indeed raggles thought there was no such palace in all the world, and no such august family. as luck would have it, raggles' house in curzon street was to let when rawdon and his wife returned to london. the colonel knew it and its owner quite well; the latter's connection with the crawley family had been kept up constantly, for raggles helped mr. bowls whenever miss crawley received friends. and the old man not only let his house to the colonel but officiated as his butler whenever he had company; mrs. raggles operating in the kitchen below and sending up dinners of which old miss crawley herself might have approved. this was the way, then, crawley got his house for nothing; for though raggles had to pay taxes and rates, and the interest of the mortgage to the brother butler; and the insurance of his life; and the charges for his children at school; and the value of the meat and drink which his own family--and for a time that of colonel crawley too--consumed; and though the poor wretch was utterly ruined by the transaction, his children being flung on the streets, and himself driven into the fleet prison: yet somebody must pay even for gentlemen who live for nothing a year--and so it was this unlucky raggles was made the representative of colonel crawley's defective capital. i wonder how many families are driven to roguery and to ruin by great practitioners in crawley's way?--how many great noblemen rob their petty tradesmen, condescend to swindle their poor retainers out of wretched little sums and cheat for a few shillings? when we read that a noble nobleman has left for the continent, or that another noble nobleman has an execution in his house--and that one or other owes six or seven millions, the defeat seems glorious even, and we respect the victim in the vastness of his ruin. but who pities a poor barber who can't get his money for powdering the footmen's heads; or a poor carpenter who has ruined himself by fixing up ornaments and pavilions for my lady's dejeuner; or the poor devil of a tailor whom the steward patronizes, and who has pledged all he is worth, and more, to get the liveries ready, which my lord has done him the honour to bespeak? when the great house tumbles down, these miserable wretches fall under it unnoticed: as they say in the old legends, before a man goes to the devil himself, he sends plenty of other souls thither. rawdon and his wife generously gave their patronage to all such of miss crawley's tradesmen and purveyors as chose to serve them. some were willing enough, especially the poor ones. it was wonderful to see the pertinacity with which the washerwoman from tooting brought the cart every saturday, and her bills week after week. mr. raggles himself had to supply the greengroceries. the bill for servants' porter at the fortune of war public house is a curiosity in the chronicles of beer. every servant also was owed the greater part of his wages, and thus kept up perforce an interest in the house. nobody in fact was paid. not the blacksmith who opened the lock; nor the glazier who mended the pane; nor the jobber who let the carriage; nor the groom who drove it; nor the butcher who provided the leg of mutton; nor the coals which roasted it; nor the cook who basted it; nor the servants who ate it: and this i am given to understand is not unfrequently the way in which people live elegantly on nothing a year. in a little town such things cannot be done without remark. we know there the quantity of milk our neighbour takes and espy the joint or the fowls which are going in for his dinner. so, probably, and in curzon street might know what was going on in the house between them, the servants communicating through the area-railings; but crawley and his wife and his friends did not know and . when you came to there was a hearty welcome, a kind smile, a good dinner, and a jolly shake of the hand from the host and hostess there, just for all the world as if they had been undisputed masters of three or four thousand a year--and so they were, not in money, but in produce and labour--if they did not pay for the mutton, they had it: if they did not give bullion in exchange for their wine, how should we know? never was better claret at any man's table than at honest rawdon's; dinners more gay and neatly served. his drawing-rooms were the prettiest, little, modest salons conceivable: they were decorated with the greatest taste, and a thousand knick-knacks from paris, by rebecca: and when she sat at her piano trilling songs with a lightsome heart, the stranger voted himself in a little paradise of domestic comfort and agreed that, if the husband was rather stupid, the wife was charming, and the dinners the pleasantest in the world. rebecca's wit, cleverness, and flippancy made her speedily the vogue in london among a certain class. you saw demure chariots at her door, out of which stepped very great people. you beheld her carriage in the park, surrounded by dandies of note. the little box in the third tier of the opera was crowded with heads constantly changing; but it must be confessed that the ladies held aloof from her, and that their doors were shut to our little adventurer. with regard to the world of female fashion and its customs, the present writer of course can only speak at second hand. a man can no more penetrate or understand those mysteries than he can know what the ladies talk about when they go upstairs after dinner. it is only by inquiry and perseverance that one sometimes gets hints of those secrets; and by a similar diligence every person who treads the pall mall pavement and frequents the clubs of this metropolis knows, either through his own experience or through some acquaintance with whom he plays at billiards or shares the joint, something about the genteel world of london, and how, as there are men (such as rawdon crawley, whose position we mentioned before) who cut a good figure to the eyes of the ignorant world and to the apprentices in the park, who behold them consorting with the most notorious dandies there, so there are ladies, who may be called men's women, being welcomed entirely by all the gentlemen and cut or slighted by all their wives. mrs. firebrace is of this sort; the lady with the beautiful fair ringlets whom you see every day in hyde park, surrounded by the greatest and most famous dandies of this empire. mrs. rockwood is another, whose parties are announced laboriously in the fashionable newspapers and with whom you see that all sorts of ambassadors and great noblemen dine; and many more might be mentioned had they to do with the history at present in hand. but while simple folks who are out of the world, or country people with a taste for the genteel, behold these ladies in their seeming glory in public places, or envy them from afar off, persons who are better instructed could inform them that these envied ladies have no more chance of establishing themselves in "society," than the benighted squire's wife in somersetshire who reads of their doings in the morning post. men living about london are aware of these awful truths. you hear how pitilessly many ladies of seeming rank and wealth are excluded from this "society." the frantic efforts which they make to enter this circle, the meannesses to which they submit, the insults which they undergo, are matters of wonder to those who take human or womankind for a study; and the pursuit of fashion under difficulties would be a fine theme for any very great person who had the wit, the leisure, and the knowledge of the english language necessary for the compiling of such a history. now the few female acquaintances whom mrs. crawley had known abroad not only declined to visit her when she came to this side of the channel, but cut her severely when they met in public places. it was curious to see how the great ladies forgot her, and no doubt not altogether a pleasant study to rebecca. when lady bareacres met her in the waiting-room at the opera, she gathered her daughters about her as if they would be contaminated by a touch of becky, and retreating a step or two, placed herself in front of them, and stared at her little enemy. to stare becky out of countenance required a severer glance than even the frigid old bareacres could shoot out of her dismal eyes. when lady de la mole, who had ridden a score of times by becky's side at brussels, met mrs. crawley's open carriage in hyde park, her ladyship was quite blind, and could not in the least recognize her former friend. even mrs. blenkinsop, the banker's wife, cut her at church. becky went regularly to church now; it was edifying to see her enter there with rawdon by her side, carrying a couple of large gilt prayer-books, and afterwards going through the ceremony with the gravest resignation. rawdon at first felt very acutely the slights which were passed upon his wife, and was inclined to be gloomy and savage. he talked of calling out the husbands or brothers of every one of the insolent women who did not pay a proper respect to his wife; and it was only by the strongest commands and entreaties on her part that he was brought into keeping a decent behaviour. "you can't shoot me into society," she said good-naturedly. "remember, my dear, that i was but a governess, and you, you poor silly old man, have the worst reputation for debt, and dice, and all sorts of wickedness. we shall get quite as many friends as we want by and by, and in the meanwhile you must be a good boy and obey your schoolmistress in everything she tells you to do. when we heard that your aunt had left almost everything to pitt and his wife, do you remember what a rage you were in? you would have told all paris, if i had not made you keep your temper, and where would you have been now?--in prison at ste. pelagie for debt, and not established in london in a handsome house, with every comfort about you--you were in such a fury you were ready to murder your brother, you wicked cain you, and what good would have come of remaining angry? all the rage in the world won't get us your aunt's money; and it is much better that we should be friends with your brother's family than enemies, as those foolish butes are. when your father dies, queen's crawley will be a pleasant house for you and me to pass the winter in. if we are ruined, you can carve and take charge of the stable, and i can be a governess to lady jane's children. ruined! fiddlede-dee! i will get you a good place before that; or pitt and his little boy will die, and we will be sir rawdon and my lady. while there is life, there is hope, my dear, and i intend to make a man of you yet. who sold your horses for you? who paid your debts for you?" rawdon was obliged to confess that he owed all these benefits to his wife, and to trust himself to her guidance for the future. indeed, when miss crawley quitted the world, and that money for which all her relatives had been fighting so eagerly was finally left to pitt, bute crawley, who found that only five thousand pounds had been left to him instead of the twenty upon which he calculated, was in such a fury at his disappointment that he vented it in savage abuse upon his nephew; and the quarrel always rankling between them ended in an utter breach of intercourse. rawdon crawley's conduct, on the other hand, who got but a hundred pounds, was such as to astonish his brother and delight his sister-in-law, who was disposed to look kindly upon all the members of her husband's family. he wrote to his brother a very frank, manly, good-humoured letter from paris. he was aware, he said, that by his own marriage he had forfeited his aunt's favour; and though he did not disguise his disappointment that she should have been so entirely relentless towards him, he was glad that the money was still kept in their branch of the family, and heartily congratulated his brother on his good fortune. he sent his affectionate remembrances to his sister, and hoped to have her good-will for mrs. rawdon; and the letter concluded with a postscript to pitt in the latter lady's own handwriting. she, too, begged to join in her husband's congratulations. she should ever remember mr. crawley's kindness to her in early days when she was a friendless orphan, the instructress of his little sisters, in whose welfare she still took the tenderest interest. she wished him every happiness in his married life, and, asking his permission to offer her remembrances to lady jane (of whose goodness all the world informed her), she hoped that one day she might be allowed to present her little boy to his uncle and aunt, and begged to bespeak for him their good-will and protection. pitt crawley received this communication very graciously--more graciously than miss crawley had received some of rebecca's previous compositions in rawdon's handwriting; and as for lady jane, she was so charmed with the letter that she expected her husband would instantly divide his aunt's legacy into two equal portions and send off one-half to his brother at paris. to her ladyship's surprise, however, pitt declined to accommodate his brother with a cheque for thirty thousand pounds. but he made rawdon a handsome offer of his hand whenever the latter should come to england and choose to take it; and, thanking mrs. crawley for her good opinion of himself and lady jane, he graciously pronounced his willingness to take any opportunity to serve her little boy. thus an almost reconciliation was brought about between the brothers. when rebecca came to town pitt and his wife were not in london. many a time she drove by the old door in park lane to see whether they had taken possession of miss crawley's house there. but the new family did not make its appearance; it was only through raggles that she heard of their movements--how miss crawley's domestics had been dismissed with decent gratuities, and how mr. pitt had only once made his appearance in london, when he stopped for a few days at the house, did business with his lawyers there, and sold off all miss crawley's french novels to a bookseller out of bond street. becky had reasons of her own which caused her to long for the arrival of her new relation. "when lady jane comes," thought she, "she shall be my sponsor in london society; and as for the women! bah! the women will ask me when they find the men want to see me." an article as necessary to a lady in this position as her brougham or her bouquet is her companion. i have always admired the way in which the tender creatures, who cannot exist without sympathy, hire an exceedingly plain friend of their own sex from whom they are almost inseparable. the sight of that inevitable woman in her faded gown seated behind her dear friend in the opera-box, or occupying the back seat of the barouche, is always a wholesome and moral one to me, as jolly a reminder as that of the death's-head which figured in the repasts of egyptian bon-vivants, a strange sardonic memorial of vanity fair. what? even battered, brazen, beautiful, conscienceless, heartless, mrs. firebrace, whose father died of her shame: even lovely, daring mrs. mantrap, who will ride at any fence which any man in england will take, and who drives her greys in the park, while her mother keeps a huckster's stall in bath still--even those who are so bold, one might fancy they could face anything, dare not face the world without a female friend. they must have somebody to cling to, the affectionate creatures! and you will hardly see them in any public place without a shabby companion in a dyed silk, sitting somewhere in the shade close behind them. "rawdon," said becky, very late one night, as a party of gentlemen were seated round her crackling drawing-room fire (for the men came to her house to finish the night; and she had ice and coffee for them, the best in london): "i must have a sheep-dog." "a what?" said rawdon, looking up from an ecarte table. "a sheep-dog!" said young lord southdown. "my dear mrs. crawley, what a fancy! why not have a danish dog? i know of one as big as a camel-leopard, by jove. it would almost pull your brougham. or a persian greyhound, eh? (i propose, if you please); or a little pug that would go into one of lord steyne's snuff-boxes? there's a man at bayswater got one with such a nose that you might--i mark the king and play--that you might hang your hat on it." "i mark the trick," rawdon gravely said. he attended to his game commonly and didn't much meddle with the conversation, except when it was about horses and betting. "what can you want with a shepherd's dog?" the lively little southdown continued. "i mean a moral shepherd's dog," said becky, laughing and looking up at lord steyne. "what the devil's that?" said his lordship. "a dog to keep the wolves off me," rebecca continued. "a companion." "dear little innocent lamb, you want one," said the marquis; and his jaw thrust out, and he began to grin hideously, his little eyes leering towards rebecca. the great lord of steyne was standing by the fire sipping coffee. the fire crackled and blazed pleasantly. there was a score of candles sparkling round the mantel piece, in all sorts of quaint sconces, of gilt and bronze and porcelain. they lighted up rebecca's figure to admiration, as she sat on a sofa covered with a pattern of gaudy flowers. she was in a pink dress that looked as fresh as a rose; her dazzling white arms and shoulders were half-covered with a thin hazy scarf through which they sparkled; her hair hung in curls round her neck; one of her little feet peeped out from the fresh crisp folds of the silk: the prettiest little foot in the prettiest little sandal in the finest silk stocking in the world. the candles lighted up lord steyne's shining bald head, which was fringed with red hair. he had thick bushy eyebrows, with little twinkling bloodshot eyes, surrounded by a thousand wrinkles. his jaw was underhung, and when he laughed, two white buck-teeth protruded themselves and glistened savagely in the midst of the grin. he had been dining with royal personages, and wore his garter and ribbon. a short man was his lordship, broad-chested and bow-legged, but proud of the fineness of his foot and ankle, and always caressing his garter-knee. "and so the shepherd is not enough," said he, "to defend his lambkin?" "the shepherd is too fond of playing at cards and going to his clubs," answered becky, laughing. "'gad, what a debauched corydon!" said my lord--"what a mouth for a pipe!" "i take your three to two," here said rawdon, at the card-table. "hark at meliboeus," snarled the noble marquis; "he's pastorally occupied too: he's shearing a southdown. what an innocent mutton, hey? damme, what a snowy fleece!" rebecca's eyes shot out gleams of scornful humour. "my lord," she said, "you are a knight of the order." he had the collar round his neck, indeed--a gift of the restored princes of spain. lord steyne in early life had been notorious for his daring and his success at play. he had sat up two days and two nights with mr. fox at hazard. he had won money of the most august personages of the realm: he had won his marquisate, it was said, at the gaming-table; but he did not like an allusion to those bygone fredaines. rebecca saw the scowl gathering over his heavy brow. she rose up from her sofa and went and took his coffee cup out of his hand with a little curtsey. "yes," she said, "i must get a watchdog. but he won't bark at you." and, going into the other drawing-room, she sat down to the piano and began to sing little french songs in such a charming, thrilling voice that the mollified nobleman speedily followed her into that chamber, and might be seen nodding his head and bowing time over her. rawdon and his friend meanwhile played ecarte until they had enough. the colonel won; but, say that he won ever so much and often, nights like these, which occurred many times in the week--his wife having all the talk and all the admiration, and he sitting silent without the circle, not comprehending a word of the jokes, the allusions, the mystical language within--must have been rather wearisome to the ex-dragoon. "how is mrs. crawley's husband?" lord steyne used to say to him by way of a good day when they met; and indeed that was now his avocation in life. he was colonel crawley no more. he was mrs. crawley's husband. about the little rawdon, if nothing has been said all this while, it is because he is hidden upstairs in a garret somewhere, or has crawled below into the kitchen for companionship. his mother scarcely ever took notice of him. he passed the days with his french bonne as long as that domestic remained in mr. crawley's family, and when the frenchwoman went away, the little fellow, howling in the loneliness of the night, had compassion taken on him by a housemaid, who took him out of his solitary nursery into her bed in the garret hard by and comforted him. rebecca, my lord steyne, and one or two more were in the drawing-room taking tea after the opera, when this shouting was heard overhead. "it's my cherub crying for his nurse," she said. she did not offer to move to go and see the child. "don't agitate your feelings by going to look for him," said lord steyne sardonically. "bah!" replied the other, with a sort of blush, "he'll cry himself to sleep"; and they fell to talking about the opera. rawdon had stolen off though, to look after his son and heir; and came back to the company when he found that honest dolly was consoling the child. the colonel's dressing-room was in those upper regions. he used to see the boy there in private. they had interviews together every morning when he shaved; rawdon minor sitting on a box by his father's side and watching the operation with never-ceasing pleasure. he and the sire were great friends. the father would bring him sweetmeats from the dessert and hide them in a certain old epaulet box, where the child went to seek them, and laughed with joy on discovering the treasure; laughed, but not too loud: for mamma was below asleep and must not be disturbed. she did not go to rest till very late and seldom rose till after noon. rawdon bought the boy plenty of picture-books and crammed his nursery with toys. its walls were covered with pictures pasted up by the father's own hand and purchased by him for ready money. when he was off duty with mrs. rawdon in the park, he would sit up here, passing hours with the boy; who rode on his chest, who pulled his great mustachios as if they were driving-reins, and spent days with him in indefatigable gambols. the room was a low room, and once, when the child was not five years old, his father, who was tossing him wildly up in his arms, hit the poor little chap's skull so violently against the ceiling that he almost dropped the child, so terrified was he at the disaster. rawdon minor had made up his face for a tremendous howl--the severity of the blow indeed authorized that indulgence; but just as he was going to begin, the father interposed. "for god's sake, rawdy, don't wake mamma," he cried. and the child, looking in a very hard and piteous way at his father, bit his lips, clenched his hands, and didn't cry a bit. rawdon told that story at the clubs, at the mess, to everybody in town. "by gad, sir," he explained to the public in general, "what a good plucked one that boy of mine is--what a trump he is! i half-sent his head through the ceiling, by gad, and he wouldn't cry for fear of disturbing his mother." sometimes--once or twice in a week--that lady visited the upper regions in which the child lived. she came like a vivified figure out of the magasin des modes--blandly smiling in the most beautiful new clothes and little gloves and boots. wonderful scarfs, laces, and jewels glittered about her. she had always a new bonnet on, and flowers bloomed perpetually in it, or else magnificent curling ostrich feathers, soft and snowy as camellias. she nodded twice or thrice patronizingly to the little boy, who looked up from his dinner or from the pictures of soldiers he was painting. when she left the room, an odour of rose, or some other magical fragrance, lingered about the nursery. she was an unearthly being in his eyes, superior to his father--to all the world: to be worshipped and admired at a distance. to drive with that lady in the carriage was an awful rite: he sat up in the back seat and did not dare to speak: he gazed with all his eyes at the beautifully dressed princess opposite to him. gentlemen on splendid prancing horses came up and smiled and talked with her. how her eyes beamed upon all of them! her hand used to quiver and wave gracefully as they passed. when he went out with her he had his new red dress on. his old brown holland was good enough when he stayed at home. sometimes, when she was away, and dolly his maid was making his bed, he came into his mother's room. it was as the abode of a fairy to him--a mystic chamber of splendour and delights. there in the wardrobe hung those wonderful robes--pink and blue and many-tinted. there was the jewel-case, silver-clasped, and the wondrous bronze hand on the dressing-table, glistening all over with a hundred rings. there was the cheval-glass, that miracle of art, in which he could just see his own wondering head and the reflection of dolly (queerly distorted, and as if up in the ceiling), plumping and patting the pillows of the bed. oh, thou poor lonely little benighted boy! mother is the name for god in the lips and hearts of little children; and here was one who was worshipping a stone! now rawdon crawley, rascal as the colonel was, had certain manly tendencies of affection in his heart and could love a child and a woman still. for rawdon minor he had a great secret tenderness then, which did not escape rebecca, though she did not talk about it to her husband. it did not annoy her: she was too good-natured. it only increased her scorn for him. he felt somehow ashamed of this paternal softness and hid it from his wife--only indulging in it when alone with the boy. he used to take him out of mornings when they would go to the stables together and to the park. little lord southdown, the best-natured of men, who would make you a present of the hat from his head, and whose main occupation in life was to buy knick-knacks that he might give them away afterwards, bought the little chap a pony not much bigger than a large rat, the donor said, and on this little black shetland pygmy young rawdon's great father was pleased to mount the boy, and to walk by his side in the park. it pleased him to see his old quarters, and his old fellow-guardsmen at knightsbridge: he had begun to think of his bachelorhood with something like regret. the old troopers were glad to recognize their ancient officer and dandle the little colonel. colonel crawley found dining at mess and with his brother-officers very pleasant. "hang it, i ain't clever enough for her--i know it. she won't miss me," he used to say: and he was right, his wife did not miss him. rebecca was fond of her husband. she was always perfectly good-humoured and kind to him. she did not even show her scorn much for him; perhaps she liked him the better for being a fool. he was her upper servant and maitre d'hotel. he went on her errands; obeyed her orders without question; drove in the carriage in the ring with her without repining; took her to the opera-box, solaced himself at his club during the performance, and came punctually back to fetch her when due. he would have liked her to be a little fonder of the boy, but even to that he reconciled himself. "hang it, you know she's so clever," he said, "and i'm not literary and that, you know." for, as we have said before, it requires no great wisdom to be able to win at cards and billiards, and rawdon made no pretensions to any other sort of skill. when the companion came, his domestic duties became very light. his wife encouraged him to dine abroad: she would let him off duty at the opera. "don't stay and stupefy yourself at home to-night, my dear," she would say. "some men are coming who will only bore you. i would not ask them, but you know it's for your good, and now i have a sheep-dog, i need not be afraid to be alone." "a sheep-dog--a companion! becky sharp with a companion! isn't it good fun?" thought mrs. crawley to herself. the notion tickled hugely her sense of humour. one sunday morning, as rawdon crawley, his little son, and the pony were taking their accustomed walk in the park, they passed by an old acquaintance of the colonel's, corporal clink, of the regiment, who was in conversation with a friend, an old gentleman, who held a boy in his arms about the age of little rawdon. this other youngster had seized hold of the waterloo medal which the corporal wore, and was examining it with delight. "good morning, your honour," said clink, in reply to the "how do, clink?" of the colonel. "this ere young gentleman is about the little colonel's age, sir," continued the corporal. "his father was a waterloo man, too," said the old gentleman, who carried the boy. "wasn't he, georgy?" "yes," said georgy. he and the little chap on the pony were looking at each other with all their might--solemnly scanning each other as children do. "in a line regiment," clink said with a patronizing air. "he was a captain in the --th regiment," said the old gentleman rather pompously. "captain george osborne, sir--perhaps you knew him. he died the death of a hero, sir, fighting against the corsican tyrant." colonel crawley blushed quite red. "i knew him very well, sir," he said, "and his wife, his dear little wife, sir--how is she?" "she is my daughter, sir," said the old gentleman, putting down the boy and taking out a card with great solemnity, which he handed to the colonel. on it written-- "mr. sedley, sole agent for the black diamond and anti-cinder coal association, bunker's wharf, thames street, and anna-maria cottages, fulham road west." little georgy went up and looked at the shetland pony. "should you like to have a ride?" said rawdon minor from the saddle. "yes," said georgy. the colonel, who had been looking at him with some interest, took up the child and put him on the pony behind rawdon minor. "take hold of him, georgy," he said--"take my little boy round the waist--his name is rawdon." and both the children began to laugh. "you won't see a prettier pair i think, this summer's day, sir," said the good-natured corporal; and the colonel, the corporal, and old mr. sedley with his umbrella, walked by the side of the children. chapter xxxviii a family in a very small way we must suppose little george osborne has ridden from knightsbridge towards fulham, and will stop and make inquiries at that village regarding some friends whom we have left there. how is mrs. amelia after the storm of waterloo? is she living and thriving? what has come of major dobbin, whose cab was always hankering about her premises? and is there any news of the collector of boggley wollah? the facts concerning the latter are briefly these: our worthy fat friend joseph sedley returned to india not long after his escape from brussels. either his furlough was up, or he dreaded to meet any witnesses of his waterloo flight. however it might be, he went back to his duties in bengal very soon after napoleon had taken up his residence at st. helena, where jos saw the ex-emperor. to hear mr. sedley talk on board ship you would have supposed that it was not the first time he and the corsican had met, and that the civilian had bearded the french general at mount st. john. he had a thousand anecdotes about the famous battles; he knew the position of every regiment and the loss which each had incurred. he did not deny that he had been concerned in those victories--that he had been with the army and carried despatches for the duke of wellington. and he described what the duke did and said on every conceivable moment of the day of waterloo, with such an accurate knowledge of his grace's sentiments and proceedings that it was clear he must have been by the conqueror's side throughout the day; though, as a non-combatant, his name was not mentioned in the public documents relative to the battle. perhaps he actually worked himself up to believe that he had been engaged with the army; certain it is that he made a prodigious sensation for some time at calcutta, and was called waterloo sedley during the whole of his subsequent stay in bengal. the bills which jos had given for the purchase of those unlucky horses were paid without question by him and his agents. he never was heard to allude to the bargain, and nobody knows for a certainty what became of the horses, or how he got rid of them, or of isidor, his belgian servant, who sold a grey horse, very like the one which jos rode, at valenciennes sometime during the autumn of . jos's london agents had orders to pay one hundred and twenty pounds yearly to his parents at fulham. it was the chief support of the old couple; for mr. sedley's speculations in life subsequent to his bankruptcy did not by any means retrieve the broken old gentleman's fortune. he tried to be a wine-merchant, a coal-merchant, a commission lottery agent, &c., &c. he sent round prospectuses to his friends whenever he took a new trade, and ordered a new brass plate for the door, and talked pompously about making his fortune still. but fortune never came back to the feeble and stricken old man. one by one his friends dropped off, and were weary of buying dear coals and bad wine from him; and there was only his wife in all the world who fancied, when he tottered off to the city of a morning, that he was still doing any business there. at evening he crawled slowly back; and he used to go of nights to a little club at a tavern, where he disposed of the finances of the nation. it was wonderful to hear him talk about millions, and agios, and discounts, and what rothschild was doing, and baring brothers. he talked of such vast sums that the gentlemen of the club (the apothecary, the undertaker, the great carpenter and builder, the parish clerk, who was allowed to come stealthily, and mr. clapp, our old acquaintance,) respected the old gentleman. "i was better off once, sir," he did not fail to tell everybody who "used the room." "my son, sir, is at this minute chief magistrate of ramgunge in the presidency of bengal, and touching his four thousand rupees per mensem. my daughter might be a colonel's lady if she liked. i might draw upon my son, the first magistrate, sir, for two thousand pounds to-morrow, and alexander would cash my bill, down sir, down on the counter, sir. but the sedleys were always a proud family." you and i, my dear reader, may drop into this condition one day: for have not many of our friends attained it? our luck may fail: our powers forsake us: our place on the boards be taken by better and younger mimes--the chance of life roll away and leave us shattered and stranded. then men will walk across the road when they meet you--or, worse still, hold you out a couple of fingers and patronize you in a pitying way--then you will know, as soon as your back is turned, that your friend begins with a "poor devil, what imprudences he has committed, what chances that chap has thrown away!" well, well--a carriage and three thousand a year is not the summit of the reward nor the end of god's judgment of men. if quacks prosper as often as they go to the wall--if zanies succeed and knaves arrive at fortune, and, vice versa, sharing ill luck and prosperity for all the world like the ablest and most honest amongst us--i say, brother, the gifts and pleasures of vanity fair cannot be held of any great account, and that it is probable . . . but we are wandering out of the domain of the story. had mrs. sedley been a woman of energy, she would have exerted it after her husband's ruin and, occupying a large house, would have taken in boarders. the broken sedley would have acted well as the boarding-house landlady's husband; the munoz of private life; the titular lord and master: the carver, house-steward, and humble husband of the occupier of the dingy throne. i have seen men of good brains and breeding, and of good hopes and vigour once, who feasted squires and kept hunters in their youth, meekly cutting up legs of mutton for rancorous old harridans and pretending to preside over their dreary tables--but mrs. sedley, we say, had not spirit enough to bustle about for "a few select inmates to join a cheerful musical family," such as one reads of in the times. she was content to lie on the shore where fortune had stranded her--and you could see that the career of this old couple was over. i don't think they were unhappy. perhaps they were a little prouder in their downfall than in their prosperity. mrs. sedley was always a great person for her landlady, mrs. clapp, when she descended and passed many hours with her in the basement or ornamented kitchen. the irish maid betty flanagan's bonnets and ribbons, her sauciness, her idleness, her reckless prodigality of kitchen candles, her consumption of tea and sugar, and so forth occupied and amused the old lady almost as much as the doings of her former household, when she had sambo and the coachman, and a groom, and a footboy, and a housekeeper with a regiment of female domestics--her former household, about which the good lady talked a hundred times a day. and besides betty flanagan, mrs. sedley had all the maids-of-all-work in the street to superintend. she knew how each tenant of the cottages paid or owed his little rent. she stepped aside when mrs. rougemont the actress passed with her dubious family. she flung up her head when mrs. pestler, the apothecary's lady, drove by in her husband's professional one-horse chaise. she had colloquies with the greengrocer about the pennorth of turnips which mr. sedley loved; she kept an eye upon the milkman and the baker's boy; and made visitations to the butcher, who sold hundreds of oxen very likely with less ado than was made about mrs. sedley's loin of mutton: and she counted the potatoes under the joint on sundays, on which days, dressed in her best, she went to church twice and read blair's sermons in the evening. on that day, for "business" prevented him on weekdays from taking such a pleasure, it was old sedley's delight to take out his little grandson georgy to the neighbouring parks or kensington gardens, to see the soldiers or to feed the ducks. georgy loved the redcoats, and his grandpapa told him how his father had been a famous soldier, and introduced him to many sergeants and others with waterloo medals on their breasts, to whom the old grandfather pompously presented the child as the son of captain osborne of the --th, who died gloriously on the glorious eighteenth. he has been known to treat some of these non-commissioned gentlemen to a glass of porter, and, indeed, in their first sunday walks was disposed to spoil little georgy, sadly gorging the boy with apples and parliament, to the detriment of his health--until amelia declared that george should never go out with his grandpapa unless the latter promised solemnly, and on his honour, not to give the child any cakes, lollipops, or stall produce whatever. between mrs. sedley and her daughter there was a sort of coolness about this boy, and a secret jealousy--for one evening in george's very early days, amelia, who had been seated at work in their little parlour scarcely remarking that the old lady had quitted the room, ran upstairs instinctively to the nursery at the cries of the child, who had been asleep until that moment--and there found mrs. sedley in the act of surreptitiously administering daffy's elixir to the infant. amelia, the gentlest and sweetest of everyday mortals, when she found this meddling with her maternal authority, thrilled and trembled all over with anger. her cheeks, ordinarily pale, now flushed up, until they were as red as they used to be when she was a child of twelve years old. she seized the baby out of her mother's arms and then grasped at the bottle, leaving the old lady gaping at her, furious, and holding the guilty tea-spoon. amelia flung the bottle crashing into the fire-place. "i will not have baby poisoned, mamma," cried emmy, rocking the infant about violently with both her arms round him and turning with flashing eyes at her mother. "poisoned, amelia!" said the old lady; "this language to me?" "he shall not have any medicine but that which mr. pestler sends for him. he told me that daffy's elixir was poison." "very good: you think i'm a murderess then," replied mrs. sedley. "this is the language you use to your mother. i have met with misfortunes: i have sunk low in life: i have kept my carriage, and now walk on foot: but i did not know i was a murderess before, and thank you for the news." "mamma," said the poor girl, who was always ready for tears--"you shouldn't be hard upon me. i--i didn't mean--i mean, i did not wish to say you would do any wrong to this dear child, only--" "oh, no, my love,--only that i was a murderess; in which case i had better go to the old bailey. though i didn't poison you, when you were a child, but gave you the best of education and the most expensive masters money could procure. yes; i've nursed five children and buried three; and the one i loved the best of all, and tended through croup, and teething, and measles, and hooping-cough, and brought up with foreign masters, regardless of expense, and with accomplishments at minerva house--which i never had when i was a girl--when i was too glad to honour my father and mother, that i might live long in the land, and to be useful, and not to mope all day in my room and act the fine lady--says i'm a murderess. ah, mrs. osborne! may you never nourish a viper in your bosom, that's my prayer." "mamma, mamma!" cried the bewildered girl; and the child in her arms set up a frantic chorus of shouts. "a murderess, indeed! go down on your knees and pray to god to cleanse your wicked ungrateful heart, amelia, and may he forgive you as i do." and mrs. sedley tossed out of the room, hissing out the word poison once more, and so ending her charitable benediction. till the termination of her natural life, this breach between mrs. sedley and her daughter was never thoroughly mended. the quarrel gave the elder lady numberless advantages which she did not fail to turn to account with female ingenuity and perseverance. for instance, she scarcely spoke to amelia for many weeks afterwards. she warned the domestics not to touch the child, as mrs. osborne might be offended. she asked her daughter to see and satisfy herself that there was no poison prepared in the little daily messes that were concocted for georgy. when neighbours asked after the boy's health, she referred them pointedly to mrs. osborne. she never ventured to ask whether the baby was well or not. she would not touch the child although he was her grandson, and own precious darling, for she was not used to children, and might kill it. and whenever mr. pestler came upon his healing inquisition, she received the doctor with such a sarcastic and scornful demeanour, as made the surgeon declare that not lady thistlewood herself, whom he had the honour of attending professionally, could give herself greater airs than old mrs. sedley, from whom he never took a fee. and very likely emmy was jealous too, upon her own part, as what mother is not, of those who would manage her children for her, or become candidates for the first place in their affections. it is certain that when anybody nursed the child, she was uneasy, and that she would no more allow mrs. clapp or the domestic to dress or tend him than she would have let them wash her husband's miniature which hung up over her little bed--the same little bed from which the poor girl had gone to his; and to which she retired now for many long, silent, tearful, but happy years. in this room was all amelia's heart and treasure. here it was that she tended her boy and watched him through the many ills of childhood, with a constant passion of love. the elder george returned in him somehow, only improved, and as if come back from heaven. in a hundred little tones, looks, and movements, the child was so like his father that the widow's heart thrilled as she held him to it; and he would often ask the cause of her tears. it was because of his likeness to his father, she did not scruple to tell him. she talked constantly to him about this dead father, and spoke of her love for george to the innocent and wondering child; much more than she ever had done to george himself, or to any confidante of her youth. to her parents she never talked about this matter, shrinking from baring her heart to them. little george very likely could understand no better than they, but into his ears she poured her sentimental secrets unreservedly, and into his only. the very joy of this woman was a sort of grief, or so tender, at least, that its expression was tears. her sensibilities were so weak and tremulous that perhaps they ought not to be talked about in a book. i was told by dr. pestler (now a most flourishing lady's physician, with a sumptuous dark green carriage, a prospect of speedy knighthood, and a house in manchester square) that her grief at weaning the child was a sight that would have unmanned a herod. he was very soft-hearted many years ago, and his wife was mortally jealous of mrs. amelia, then and long afterwards. perhaps the doctor's lady had good reason for her jealousy: most women shared it, of those who formed the small circle of amelia's acquaintance, and were quite angry at the enthusiasm with which the other sex regarded her. for almost all men who came near her loved her; though no doubt they would be at a loss to tell you why. she was not brilliant, nor witty, nor wise over much, nor extraordinarily handsome. but wherever she went she touched and charmed every one of the male sex, as invariably as she awakened the scorn and incredulity of her own sisterhood. i think it was her weakness which was her principal charm--a kind of sweet submission and softness, which seemed to appeal to each man she met for his sympathy and protection. we have seen how in the regiment, though she spoke but to few of george's comrades there, all the swords of the young fellows at the mess-table would have leapt from their scabbards to fight round her; and so it was in the little narrow lodging-house and circle at fulham, she interested and pleased everybody. if she had been mrs. mango herself, of the great house of mango, plantain, and co., crutched friars, and the magnificent proprietress of the pineries, fulham, who gave summer dejeuners frequented by dukes and earls, and drove about the parish with magnificent yellow liveries and bay horses, such as the royal stables at kensington themselves could not turn out--i say had she been mrs. mango herself, or her son's wife, lady mary mango (daughter of the earl of castlemouldy, who condescended to marry the head of the firm), the tradesmen of the neighbourhood could not pay her more honour than they invariably showed to the gentle young widow, when she passed by their doors, or made her humble purchases at their shops. thus it was not only mr. pestler, the medical man, but mr. linton the young assistant, who doctored the servant maids and small tradesmen, and might be seen any day reading the times in the surgery, who openly declared himself the slave of mrs. osborne. he was a personable young gentleman, more welcome at mrs. sedley's lodgings than his principal; and if anything went wrong with georgy, he would drop in twice or thrice in the day to see the little chap, and without so much as the thought of a fee. he would abstract lozenges, tamarinds, and other produce from the surgery-drawers for little georgy's benefit, and compounded draughts and mixtures for him of miraculous sweetness, so that it was quite a pleasure to the child to be ailing. he and pestler, his chief, sat up two whole nights by the boy in that momentous and awful week when georgy had the measles; and when you would have thought, from the mother's terror, that there had never been measles in the world before. would they have done as much for other people? did they sit up for the folks at the pineries, when ralph plantagenet, and gwendoline, and guinever mango had the same juvenile complaint? did they sit up for little mary clapp, the landlord's daughter, who actually caught the disease of little georgy? truth compels one to say, no. they slept quite undisturbed, at least as far as she was concerned--pronounced hers to be a slight case, which would almost cure itself, sent her in a draught or two, and threw in bark when the child rallied, with perfect indifference, and just for form's sake. again, there was the little french chevalier opposite, who gave lessons in his native tongue at various schools in the neighbourhood, and who might be heard in his apartment of nights playing tremulous old gavottes and minuets on a wheezy old fiddle. whenever this powdered and courteous old man, who never missed a sunday at the convent chapel at hammersmith, and who was in all respects, thoughts, conduct, and bearing utterly unlike the bearded savages of his nation, who curse perfidious albion, and scowl at you from over their cigars, in the quadrant arcades at the present day--whenever the old chevalier de talonrouge spoke of mistress osborne, he would first finish his pinch of snuff, flick away the remaining particles of dust with a graceful wave of his hand, gather up his fingers again into a bunch, and, bringing them up to his mouth, blow them open with a kiss, exclaiming, ah! la divine creature! he vowed and protested that when amelia walked in the brompton lanes flowers grew in profusion under her feet. he called little georgy cupid, and asked him news of venus, his mamma; and told the astonished betty flanagan that she was one of the graces, and the favourite attendant of the reine des amours. instances might be multiplied of this easily gained and unconscious popularity. did not mr. binny, the mild and genteel curate of the district chapel, which the family attended, call assiduously upon the widow, dandle the little boy on his knee, and offer to teach him latin, to the anger of the elderly virgin, his sister, who kept house for him? "there is nothing in her, beilby," the latter lady would say. "when she comes to tea here she does not speak a word during the whole evening. she is but a poor lackadaisical creature, and it is my belief has no heart at all. it is only her pretty face which all you gentlemen admire so. miss grits, who has five thousand pounds, and expectations besides, has twice as much character, and is a thousand times more agreeable to my taste; and if she were good-looking i know that you would think her perfection." very likely miss binny was right to a great extent. it is the pretty face which creates sympathy in the hearts of men, those wicked rogues. a woman may possess the wisdom and chastity of minerva, and we give no heed to her, if she has a plain face. what folly will not a pair of bright eyes make pardonable? what dulness may not red lips and sweet accents render pleasant? and so, with their usual sense of justice, ladies argue that because a woman is handsome, therefore she is a fool. o ladies, ladies! there are some of you who are neither handsome nor wise. these are but trivial incidents to recount in the life of our heroine. her tale does not deal in wonders, as the gentle reader has already no doubt perceived; and if a journal had been kept of her proceedings during the seven years after the birth of her son, there would be found few incidents more remarkable in it than that of the measles, recorded in the foregoing page. yes, one day, and greatly to her wonder, the reverend mr. binny, just mentioned, asked her to change her name of osborne for his own; when, with deep blushes and tears in her eyes and voice, she thanked him for his regard for her, expressed gratitude for his attentions to her and to her poor little boy, but said that she never, never could think of any but--but the husband whom she had lost. on the twenty-fifth of april, and the eighteenth of june, the days of marriage and widowhood, she kept her room entirely, consecrating them (and we do not know how many hours of solitary night-thought, her little boy sleeping in his crib by her bedside) to the memory of that departed friend. during the day she was more active. she had to teach george to read and to write and a little to draw. she read books, in order that she might tell him stories from them. as his eyes opened and his mind expanded under the influence of the outward nature round about him, she taught the child, to the best of her humble power, to acknowledge the maker of all, and every night and every morning he and she--(in that awful and touching communion which i think must bring a thrill to the heart of every man who witnesses or who remembers it)--the mother and the little boy--prayed to our father together, the mother pleading with all her gentle heart, the child lisping after her as she spoke. and each time they prayed to god to bless dear papa, as if he were alive and in the room with them. to wash and dress this young gentleman--to take him for a run of the mornings, before breakfast, and the retreat of grandpapa for "business"--to make for him the most wonderful and ingenious dresses, for which end the thrifty widow cut up and altered every available little bit of finery which she possessed out of her wardrobe during her marriage--for mrs. osborne herself (greatly to her mother's vexation, who preferred fine clothes, especially since her misfortunes) always wore a black gown and a straw bonnet with a black ribbon--occupied her many hours of the day. others she had to spare, at the service of her mother and her old father. she had taken the pains to learn, and used to play cribbage with this gentleman on the nights when he did not go to his club. she sang for him when he was so minded, and it was a good sign, for he invariably fell into a comfortable sleep during the music. she wrote out his numerous memorials, letters, prospectuses, and projects. it was in her handwriting that most of the old gentleman's former acquaintances were informed that he had become an agent for the black diamond and anti-cinder coal company and could supply his friends and the public with the best coals at --s. per chaldron. all he did was to sign the circulars with his flourish and signature, and direct them in a shaky, clerklike hand. one of these papers was sent to major dobbin,--regt., care of messrs. cox and greenwood; but the major being in madras at the time, had no particular call for coals. he knew, though, the hand which had written the prospectus. good god! what would he not have given to hold it in his own! a second prospectus came out, informing the major that j. sedley and company, having established agencies at oporto, bordeaux, and st. mary's, were enabled to offer to their friends and the public generally the finest and most celebrated growths of ports, sherries, and claret wines at reasonable prices and under extraordinary advantages. acting upon this hint, dobbin furiously canvassed the governor, the commander-in-chief, the judges, the regiments, and everybody whom he knew in the presidency, and sent home to sedley and co. orders for wine which perfectly astonished mr. sedley and mr. clapp, who was the co. in the business. but no more orders came after that first burst of good fortune, on which poor old sedley was about to build a house in the city, a regiment of clerks, a dock to himself, and correspondents all over the world. the old gentleman's former taste in wine had gone: the curses of the mess-room assailed major dobbin for the vile drinks he had been the means of introducing there; and he bought back a great quantity of the wine and sold it at public outcry, at an enormous loss to himself. as for jos, who was by this time promoted to a seat at the revenue board at calcutta, he was wild with rage when the post brought him out a bundle of these bacchanalian prospectuses, with a private note from his father, telling jos that his senior counted upon him in this enterprise, and had consigned a quantity of select wines to him, as per invoice, drawing bills upon him for the amount of the same. jos, who would no more have it supposed that his father, jos sedley's father, of the board of revenue, was a wine merchant asking for orders, than that he was jack ketch, refused the bills with scorn, wrote back contumeliously to the old gentleman, bidding him to mind his own affairs; and the protested paper coming back, sedley and co. had to take it up, with the profits which they had made out of the madras venture, and with a little portion of emmy's savings. besides her pension of fifty pounds a year, there had been five hundred pounds, as her husband's executor stated, left in the agent's hands at the time of osborne's demise, which sum, as george's guardian, dobbin proposed to put out at per cent in an indian house of agency. mr. sedley, who thought the major had some roguish intentions of his own about the money, was strongly against this plan; and he went to the agents to protest personally against the employment of the money in question, when he learned, to his surprise, that there had been no such sum in their hands, that all the late captain's assets did not amount to a hundred pounds, and that the five hundred pounds in question must be a separate sum, of which major dobbin knew the particulars. more than ever convinced that there was some roguery, old sedley pursued the major. as his daughter's nearest friend, he demanded with a high hand a statement of the late captain's accounts. dobbin's stammering, blushing, and awkwardness added to the other's convictions that he had a rogue to deal with, and in a majestic tone he told that officer a piece of his mind, as he called it, simply stating his belief that the major was unlawfully detaining his late son-in-law's money. dobbin at this lost all patience, and if his accuser had not been so old and so broken, a quarrel might have ensued between them at the slaughters' coffee-house, in a box of which place of entertainment the gentlemen had their colloquy. "come upstairs, sir," lisped out the major. "i insist on your coming up the stairs, and i will show which is the injured party, poor george or i"; and, dragging the old gentleman up to his bedroom, he produced from his desk osborne's accounts, and a bundle of iou's which the latter had given, who, to do him justice, was always ready to give an iou. "he paid his bills in england," dobbin added, "but he had not a hundred pounds in the world when he fell. i and one or two of his brother officers made up the little sum, which was all that we could spare, and you dare tell us that we are trying to cheat the widow and the orphan." sedley was very contrite and humbled, though the fact is that william dobbin had told a great falsehood to the old gentleman; having himself given every shilling of the money, having buried his friend, and paid all the fees and charges incident upon the calamity and removal of poor amelia. about these expenses old osborne had never given himself any trouble to think, nor any other relative of amelia, nor amelia herself, indeed. she trusted to major dobbin as an accountant, took his somewhat confused calculations for granted, and never once suspected how much she was in his debt. twice or thrice in the year, according to her promise, she wrote him letters to madras, letters all about little georgy. how he treasured these papers! whenever amelia wrote he answered, and not until then. but he sent over endless remembrances of himself to his godson and to her. he ordered and sent a box of scarfs and a grand ivory set of chess-men from china. the pawns were little green and white men, with real swords and shields; the knights were on horseback, the castles were on the backs of elephants. "mrs. mango's own set at the pineries was not so fine," mr. pestler remarked. these chess-men were the delight of georgy's life, who printed his first letter in acknowledgement of this gift of his godpapa. he sent over preserves and pickles, which latter the young gentleman tried surreptitiously in the sideboard and half-killed himself with eating. he thought it was a judgement upon him for stealing, they were so hot. emmy wrote a comical little account of this mishap to the major: it pleased him to think that her spirits were rallying and that she could be merry sometimes now. he sent over a pair of shawls, a white one for her and a black one with palm-leaves for her mother, and a pair of red scarfs, as winter wrappers, for old mr. sedley and george. the shawls were worth fifty guineas apiece at the very least, as mrs. sedley knew. she wore hers in state at church at brompton, and was congratulated by her female friends upon the splendid acquisition. emmy's, too, became prettily her modest black gown. "what a pity it is she won't think of him!" mrs. sedley remarked to mrs. clapp and to all her friends of brompton. "jos never sent us such presents, i am sure, and grudges us everything. it is evident that the major is over head and ears in love with her; and yet, whenever i so much as hint it, she turns red and begins to cry and goes and sits upstairs with her miniature. i'm sick of that miniature. i wish we had never seen those odious purse-proud osbornes." amidst such humble scenes and associates george's early youth was passed, and the boy grew up delicate, sensitive, imperious, woman-bred--domineering the gentle mother whom he loved with passionate affection. he ruled all the rest of the little world round about him. as he grew, the elders were amazed at his haughty manner and his constant likeness to his father. he asked questions about everything, as inquiring youth will do. the profundity of his remarks and interrogatories astonished his old grandfather, who perfectly bored the club at the tavern with stories about the little lad's learning and genius. he suffered his grandmother with a good-humoured indifference. the small circle round about him believed that the equal of the boy did not exist upon the earth. georgy inherited his father's pride, and perhaps thought they were not wrong. when he grew to be about six years old, dobbin began to write to him very much. the major wanted to hear that georgy was going to a school and hoped he would acquit himself with credit there: or would he have a good tutor at home? it was time that he should begin to learn; and his godfather and guardian hinted that he hoped to be allowed to defray the charges of the boy's education, which would fall heavily upon his mother's straitened income. the major, in a word, was always thinking about amelia and her little boy, and by orders to his agents kept the latter provided with picture-books, paint-boxes, desks, and all conceivable implements of amusement and instruction. three days before george's sixth birthday a gentleman in a gig, accompanied by a servant, drove up to mr. sedley's house and asked to see master george osborne: it was mr. woolsey, military tailor, of conduit street, who came at the major's order to measure the young gentleman for a suit of clothes. he had had the honour of making for the captain, the young gentleman's father. sometimes, too, and by the major's desire no doubt, his sisters, the misses dobbin, would call in the family carriage to take amelia and the little boy to drive if they were so inclined. the patronage and kindness of these ladies was very uncomfortable to amelia, but she bore it meekly enough, for her nature was to yield; and, besides, the carriage and its splendours gave little georgy immense pleasure. the ladies begged occasionally that the child might pass a day with them, and he was always glad to go to that fine garden-house at denmark hill, where they lived, and where there were such fine grapes in the hot-houses and peaches on the walls. one day they kindly came over to amelia with news which they were sure would delight her--something very interesting about their dear william. "what was it: was he coming home?" she asked with pleasure beaming in her eyes. "oh, no--not the least--but they had very good reason to believe that dear william was about to be married--and to a relation of a very dear friend of amelia's--to miss glorvina o'dowd, sir michael o'dowd's sister, who had gone out to join lady o'dowd at madras--a very beautiful and accomplished girl, everybody said." amelia said "oh!" amelia was very very happy indeed. but she supposed glorvina could not be like her old acquaintance, who was most kind--but--but she was very happy indeed. and by some impulse of which i cannot explain the meaning, she took george in her arms and kissed him with an extraordinary tenderness. her eyes were quite moist when she put the child down; and she scarcely spoke a word during the whole of the drive--though she was so very happy indeed. chapter xxxix a cynical chapter our duty now takes us back for a brief space to some old hampshire acquaintances of ours, whose hopes respecting the disposal of their rich kinswoman's property were so woefully disappointed. after counting upon thirty thousand pounds from his sister, it was a heavy blow to bute crawley to receive but five; out of which sum, when he had paid his own debts and those of jim, his son at college, a very small fragment remained to portion off his four plain daughters. mrs. bute never knew, or at least never acknowledged, how far her own tyrannous behaviour had tended to ruin her husband. all that woman could do, she vowed and protested she had done. was it her fault if she did not possess those sycophantic arts which her hypocritical nephew, pitt crawley, practised? she wished him all the happiness which he merited out of his ill-gotten gains. "at least the money will remain in the family," she said charitably. "pitt will never spend it, my dear, that is quite certain; for a greater miser does not exist in england, and he is as odious, though in a different way, as his spendthrift brother, the abandoned rawdon." so mrs. bute, after the first shock of rage and disappointment, began to accommodate herself as best she could to her altered fortunes and to save and retrench with all her might. she instructed her daughters how to bear poverty cheerfully, and invented a thousand notable methods to conceal or evade it. she took them about to balls and public places in the neighbourhood, with praiseworthy energy; nay, she entertained her friends in a hospitable comfortable manner at the rectory, and much more frequently than before dear miss crawley's legacy had fallen in. from her outward bearing nobody would have supposed that the family had been disappointed in their expectations, or have guessed from her frequent appearance in public how she pinched and starved at home. her girls had more milliners' furniture than they had ever enjoyed before. they appeared perseveringly at the winchester and southampton assemblies; they penetrated to cowes for the race-balls and regatta-gaieties there; and their carriage, with the horses taken from the plough, was at work perpetually, until it began almost to be believed that the four sisters had had fortunes left them by their aunt, whose name the family never mentioned in public but with the most tender gratitude and regard. i know no sort of lying which is more frequent in vanity fair than this, and it may be remarked how people who practise it take credit to themselves for their hypocrisy, and fancy that they are exceedingly virtuous and praiseworthy, because they are able to deceive the world with regard to the extent of their means. mrs. bute certainly thought herself one of the most virtuous women in england, and the sight of her happy family was an edifying one to strangers. they were so cheerful, so loving, so well-educated, so simple! martha painted flowers exquisitely and furnished half the charity bazaars in the county. emma was a regular county bulbul, and her verses in the hampshire telegraph were the glory of its poet's corner. fanny and matilda sang duets together, mamma playing the piano, and the other two sisters sitting with their arms round each other's waists and listening affectionately. nobody saw the poor girls drumming at the duets in private. no one saw mamma drilling them rigidly hour after hour. in a word, mrs. bute put a good face against fortune and kept up appearances in the most virtuous manner. everything that a good and respectable mother could do mrs. bute did. she got over yachting men from southampton, parsons from the cathedral close at winchester, and officers from the barracks there. she tried to inveigle the young barristers at assizes and encouraged jim to bring home friends with whom he went out hunting with the h. h. what will not a mother do for the benefit of her beloved ones? between such a woman and her brother-in-law, the odious baronet at the hall, it is manifest that there could be very little in common. the rupture between bute and his brother sir pitt was complete; indeed, between sir pitt and the whole county, to which the old man was a scandal. his dislike for respectable society increased with age, and the lodge-gates had not opened to a gentleman's carriage-wheels since pitt and lady jane came to pay their visit of duty after their marriage. that was an awful and unfortunate visit, never to be thought of by the family without horror. pitt begged his wife, with a ghastly countenance, never to speak of it, and it was only through mrs. bute herself, who still knew everything which took place at the hall, that the circumstances of sir pitt's reception of his son and daughter-in-law were ever known at all. as they drove up the avenue of the park in their neat and well-appointed carriage, pitt remarked with dismay and wrath great gaps among the trees--his trees--which the old baronet was felling entirely without license. the park wore an aspect of utter dreariness and ruin. the drives were ill kept, and the neat carriage splashed and floundered in muddy pools along the road. the great sweep in front of the terrace and entrance stair was black and covered with mosses; the once trim flower-beds rank and weedy. shutters were up along almost the whole line of the house; the great hall-door was unbarred after much ringing of the bell; an individual in ribbons was seen flitting up the black oak stair, as horrocks at length admitted the heir of queen's crawley and his bride into the halls of their fathers. he led the way into sir pitt's "library," as it was called, the fumes of tobacco growing stronger as pitt and lady jane approached that apartment, "sir pitt ain't very well," horrocks remarked apologetically and hinted that his master was afflicted with lumbago. the library looked out on the front walk and park. sir pitt had opened one of the windows, and was bawling out thence to the postilion and pitt's servant, who seemed to be about to take the baggage down. "don't move none of them trunks," he cried, pointing with a pipe which he held in his hand. "it's only a morning visit, tucker, you fool. lor, what cracks that off hoss has in his heels! ain't there no one at the king's head to rub 'em a little? how do, pitt? how do, my dear? come to see the old man, hay? 'gad--you've a pretty face, too. you ain't like that old horse-godmother, your mother. come and give old pitt a kiss, like a good little gal." the embrace disconcerted the daughter-in-law somewhat, as the caresses of the old gentleman, unshorn and perfumed with tobacco, might well do. but she remembered that her brother southdown had mustachios, and smoked cigars, and submitted to the baronet with a tolerable grace. "pitt has got vat," said the baronet, after this mark of affection. "does he read ee very long zermons, my dear? hundredth psalm, evening hymn, hay pitt? go and get a glass of malmsey and a cake for my lady jane, horrocks, you great big booby, and don't stand stearing there like a fat pig. i won't ask you to stop, my dear; you'll find it too stoopid, and so should i too along a pitt. i'm an old man now, and like my own ways, and my pipe and backgammon of a night." "i can play at backgammon, sir," said lady jane, laughing. "i used to play with papa and miss crawley, didn't i, mr. crawley?" "lady jane can play, sir, at the game to which you state that you are so partial," pitt said haughtily. "but she wawn't stop for all that. naw, naw, goo back to mudbury and give mrs. rincer a benefit; or drive down to the rectory and ask buty for a dinner. he'll be charmed to see you, you know; he's so much obliged to you for gettin' the old woman's money. ha, ha! some of it will do to patch up the hall when i'm gone." "i perceive, sir," said pitt with a heightened voice, "that your people will cut down the timber." "yees, yees, very fine weather, and seasonable for the time of year," sir pitt answered, who had suddenly grown deaf. "but i'm gittin' old, pitt, now. law bless you, you ain't far from fifty yourself. but he wears well, my pretty lady jane, don't he? it's all godliness, sobriety, and a moral life. look at me, i'm not very fur from fowr-score--he, he"; and he laughed, and took snuff, and leered at her and pinched her hand. pitt once more brought the conversation back to the timber, but the baronet was deaf again in an instant. "i'm gittin' very old, and have been cruel bad this year with the lumbago. i shan't be here now for long; but i'm glad ee've come, daughter-in-law. i like your face, lady jane: it's got none of the damned high-boned binkie look in it; and i'll give ee something pretty, my dear, to go to court in." and he shuffled across the room to a cupboard, from which he took a little old case containing jewels of some value. "take that," said he, "my dear; it belonged to my mother, and afterwards to the first lady binkie. pretty pearls--never gave 'em the ironmonger's daughter. no, no. take 'em and put 'em up quick," said he, thrusting the case into his daughter's hand, and clapping the door of the cabinet to, as horrocks entered with a salver and refreshments. "what have you a been and given pitt's wife?" said the individual in ribbons, when pitt and lady jane had taken leave of the old gentleman. it was miss horrocks, the butler's daughter--the cause of the scandal throughout the county--the lady who reigned now almost supreme at queen's crawley. the rise and progress of those ribbons had been marked with dismay by the county and family. the ribbons opened an account at the mudbury branch savings bank; the ribbons drove to church, monopolising the pony-chaise, which was for the use of the servants at the hall. the domestics were dismissed at her pleasure. the scotch gardener, who still lingered on the premises, taking a pride in his walls and hot-houses, and indeed making a pretty good livelihood by the garden, which he farmed, and of which he sold the produce at southampton, found the ribbons eating peaches on a sunshiny morning at the south-wall, and had his ears boxed when he remonstrated about this attack on his property. he and his scotch wife and his scotch children, the only respectable inhabitants of queen's crawley, were forced to migrate, with their goods and their chattels, and left the stately comfortable gardens to go to waste, and the flower-beds to run to seed. poor lady crawley's rose-garden became the dreariest wilderness. only two or three domestics shuddered in the bleak old servants' hall. the stables and offices were vacant, and shut up, and half ruined. sir pitt lived in private, and boozed nightly with horrocks, his butler or house-steward (as he now began to be called), and the abandoned ribbons. the times were very much changed since the period when she drove to mudbury in the spring-cart and called the small tradesmen "sir." it may have been shame, or it may have been dislike of his neighbours, but the old cynic of queen's crawley hardly issued from his park-gates at all now. he quarrelled with his agents and screwed his tenants by letter. his days were passed in conducting his own correspondence; the lawyers and farm-bailiffs who had to do business with him could not reach him but through the ribbons, who received them at the door of the housekeeper's room, which commanded the back entrance by which they were admitted; and so the baronet's daily perplexities increased, and his embarrassments multiplied round him. the horror of pitt crawley may be imagined, as these reports of his father's dotage reached the most exemplary and correct of gentlemen. he trembled daily lest he should hear that the ribbons was proclaimed his second legal mother-in-law. after that first and last visit, his father's name was never mentioned in pitt's polite and genteel establishment. it was the skeleton in his house, and all the family walked by it in terror and silence. the countess southdown kept on dropping per coach at the lodge-gate the most exciting tracts, tracts which ought to frighten the hair off your head. mrs. bute at the parsonage nightly looked out to see if the sky was red over the elms behind which the hall stood, and the mansion was on fire. sir g. wapshot and sir h. fuddlestone, old friends of the house, wouldn't sit on the bench with sir pitt at quarter sessions, and cut him dead in the high street of southampton, where the reprobate stood offering his dirty old hands to them. nothing had any effect upon him; he put his hands into his pockets, and burst out laughing, as he scrambled into his carriage and four; he used to burst out laughing at lady southdown's tracts; and he laughed at his sons, and at the world, and at the ribbons when she was angry, which was not seldom. miss horrocks was installed as housekeeper at queen's crawley, and ruled all the domestics there with great majesty and rigour. all the servants were instructed to address her as "mum," or "madam"--and there was one little maid, on her promotion, who persisted in calling her "my lady," without any rebuke on the part of the housekeeper. "there has been better ladies, and there has been worser, hester," was miss horrocks' reply to this compliment of her inferior; so she ruled, having supreme power over all except her father, whom, however, she treated with considerable haughtiness, warning him not to be too familiar in his behaviour to one "as was to be a baronet's lady." indeed, she rehearsed that exalted part in life with great satisfaction to herself, and to the amusement of old sir pitt, who chuckled at her airs and graces, and would laugh by the hour together at her assumptions of dignity and imitations of genteel life. he swore it was as good as a play to see her in the character of a fine dame, and he made her put on one of the first lady crawley's court-dresses, swearing (entirely to miss horrocks' own concurrence) that the dress became her prodigiously, and threatening to drive her off that very instant to court in a coach-and-four. she had the ransacking of the wardrobes of the two defunct ladies, and cut and hacked their posthumous finery so as to suit her own tastes and figure. and she would have liked to take possession of their jewels and trinkets too; but the old baronet had locked them away in his private cabinet; nor could she coax or wheedle him out of the keys. and it is a fact, that some time after she left queen's crawley a copy-book belonging to this lady was discovered, which showed that she had taken great pains in private to learn the art of writing in general, and especially of writing her own name as lady crawley, lady betsy horrocks, lady elizabeth crawley, &c. though the good people of the parsonage never went to the hall and shunned the horrid old dotard its owner, yet they kept a strict knowledge of all that happened there, and were looking out every day for the catastrophe for which miss horrocks was also eager. but fate intervened enviously and prevented her from receiving the reward due to such immaculate love and virtue. one day the baronet surprised "her ladyship," as he jocularly called her, seated at that old and tuneless piano in the drawing-room, which had scarcely been touched since becky sharp played quadrilles upon it--seated at the piano with the utmost gravity and squalling to the best of her power in imitation of the music which she had sometimes heard. the little kitchen-maid on her promotion was standing at her mistress's side, quite delighted during the operation, and wagging her head up and down and crying, "lor, mum, 'tis bittiful"--just like a genteel sycophant in a real drawing-room. this incident made the old baronet roar with laughter, as usual. he narrated the circumstance a dozen times to horrocks in the course of the evening, and greatly to the discomfiture of miss horrocks. he thrummed on the table as if it had been a musical instrument, and squalled in imitation of her manner of singing. he vowed that such a beautiful voice ought to be cultivated and declared she ought to have singing-masters, in which proposals she saw nothing ridiculous. he was in great spirits that night, and drank with his friend and butler an extraordinary quantity of rum-and-water--at a very late hour the faithful friend and domestic conducted his master to his bedroom. half an hour afterwards there was a great hurry and bustle in the house. lights went about from window to window in the lonely desolate old hall, whereof but two or three rooms were ordinarily occupied by its owner. presently, a boy on a pony went galloping off to mudbury, to the doctor's house there. and in another hour (by which fact we ascertain how carefully the excellent mrs. bute crawley had always kept up an understanding with the great house), that lady in her clogs and calash, the reverend bute crawley, and james crawley, her son, had walked over from the rectory through the park, and had entered the mansion by the open hall-door. they passed through the hall and the small oak parlour, on the table of which stood the three tumblers and the empty rum-bottle which had served for sir pitt's carouse, and through that apartment into sir pitt's study, where they found miss horrocks, of the guilty ribbons, with a wild air, trying at the presses and escritoires with a bunch of keys. she dropped them with a scream of terror, as little mrs. bute's eyes flashed out at her from under her black calash. "look at that, james and mr. crawley," cried mrs. bute, pointing at the scared figure of the black-eyed, guilty wench. "he gave 'em me; he gave 'em me!" she cried. "gave them you, you abandoned creature!" screamed mrs. bute. "bear witness, mr. crawley, we found this good-for-nothing woman in the act of stealing your brother's property; and she will be hanged, as i always said she would." betsy horrocks, quite daunted, flung herself down on her knees, bursting into tears. but those who know a really good woman are aware that she is not in a hurry to forgive, and that the humiliation of an enemy is a triumph to her soul. "ring the bell, james," mrs. bute said. "go on ringing it till the people come." the three or four domestics resident in the deserted old house came presently at that jangling and continued summons. "put that woman in the strong-room," she said. "we caught her in the act of robbing sir pitt. mr. crawley, you'll make out her committal--and, beddoes, you'll drive her over in the spring cart, in the morning, to southampton gaol." "my dear," interposed the magistrate and rector--"she's only--" "are there no handcuffs?" mrs. bute continued, stamping in her clogs. "there used to be handcuffs. where's the creature's abominable father?" "he did give 'em me," still cried poor betsy; "didn't he, hester? you saw sir pitt--you know you did--give 'em me, ever so long ago--the day after mudbury fair: not that i want 'em. take 'em if you think they ain't mine." and here the unhappy wretch pulled out from her pocket a large pair of paste shoe-buckles which had excited her admiration, and which she had just appropriated out of one of the bookcases in the study, where they had lain. "law, betsy, how could you go for to tell such a wicked story!" said hester, the little kitchen-maid late on her promotion--"and to madame crawley, so good and kind, and his rev'rince (with a curtsey), and you may search all my boxes, mum, i'm sure, and here's my keys as i'm an honest girl, though of pore parents and workhouse bred--and if you find so much as a beggarly bit of lace or a silk stocking out of all the gownds as you've had the picking of, may i never go to church agin." "give up your keys, you hardened hussy," hissed out the virtuous little lady in the calash. "and here's a candle, mum, and if you please, mum, i can show you her room, mum, and the press in the housekeeper's room, mum, where she keeps heaps and heaps of things, mum," cried out the eager little hester with a profusion of curtseys. "hold your tongue, if you please. i know the room which the creature occupies perfectly well. mrs. brown, have the goodness to come with me, and beddoes don't you lose sight of that woman," said mrs. bute, seizing the candle. "mr. crawley, you had better go upstairs and see that they are not murdering your unfortunate brother"--and the calash, escorted by mrs. brown, walked away to the apartment which, as she said truly, she knew perfectly well. bute went upstairs and found the doctor from mudbury, with the frightened horrocks over his master in a chair. they were trying to bleed sir pitt crawley. with the early morning an express was sent off to mr. pitt crawley by the rector's lady, who assumed the command of everything, and had watched the old baronet through the night. he had been brought back to a sort of life; he could not speak, but seemed to recognize people. mrs. bute kept resolutely by his bedside. she never seemed to want to sleep, that little woman, and did not close her fiery black eyes once, though the doctor snored in the arm-chair. horrocks made some wild efforts to assert his authority and assist his master; but mrs. bute called him a tipsy old wretch and bade him never show his face again in that house, or he should be transported like his abominable daughter. terrified by her manner, he slunk down to the oak parlour where mr. james was, who, having tried the bottle standing there and found no liquor in it, ordered mr. horrocks to get another bottle of rum, which he fetched, with clean glasses, and to which the rector and his son sat down, ordering horrocks to put down the keys at that instant and never to show his face again. cowed by this behaviour, horrocks gave up the keys, and he and his daughter slunk off silently through the night and gave up possession of the house of queen's crawley. chapter xl in which becky is recognized by the family the heir of crawley arrived at home, in due time, after this catastrophe, and henceforth may be said to have reigned in queen's crawley. for though the old baronet survived many months, he never recovered the use of his intellect or his speech completely, and the government of the estate devolved upon his elder son. in a strange condition pitt found it. sir pitt was always buying and mortgaging; he had twenty men of business, and quarrels with each; quarrels with all his tenants, and lawsuits with them; lawsuits with the lawyers; lawsuits with the mining and dock companies in which he was proprietor; and with every person with whom he had business. to unravel these difficulties and to set the estate clear was a task worthy of the orderly and persevering diplomatist of pumpernickel, and he set himself to work with prodigious assiduity. his whole family, of course, was transported to queen's crawley, whither lady southdown, of course, came too; and she set about converting the parish under the rector's nose, and brought down her irregular clergy to the dismay of the angry mrs bute. sir pitt had concluded no bargain for the sale of the living of queen's crawley; when it should drop, her ladyship proposed to take the patronage into her own hands and present a young protege to the rectory, on which subject the diplomatic pitt said nothing. mrs. bute's intentions with regard to miss betsy horrocks were not carried into effect, and she paid no visit to southampton gaol. she and her father left the hall when the latter took possession of the crawley arms in the village, of which he had got a lease from sir pitt. the ex-butler had obtained a small freehold there likewise, which gave him a vote for the borough. the rector had another of these votes, and these and four others formed the representative body which returned the two members for queen's crawley. there was a show of courtesy kept up between the rectory and the hall ladies, between the younger ones at least, for mrs. bute and lady southdown never could meet without battles, and gradually ceased seeing each other. her ladyship kept her room when the ladies from the rectory visited their cousins at the hall. perhaps mr. pitt was not very much displeased at these occasional absences of his mamma-in-law. he believed the binkie family to be the greatest and wisest and most interesting in the world, and her ladyship and his aunt had long held ascendency over him; but sometimes he felt that she commanded him too much. to be considered young was complimentary, doubtless, but at six-and-forty to be treated as a boy was sometimes mortifying. lady jane yielded up everything, however, to her mother. she was only fond of her children in private, and it was lucky for her that lady southdown's multifarious business, her conferences with ministers, and her correspondence with all the missionaries of africa, asia, and australasia, &c., occupied the venerable countess a great deal, so that she had but little time to devote to her granddaughter, the little matilda, and her grandson, master pitt crawley. the latter was a feeble child, and it was only by prodigious quantities of calomel that lady southdown was able to keep him in life at all. as for sir pitt he retired into those very apartments where lady crawley had been previously extinguished, and here was tended by miss hester, the girl upon her promotion, with constant care and assiduity. what love, what fidelity, what constancy is there equal to that of a nurse with good wages? they smooth pillows; and make arrowroot; they get up at nights; they bear complaints and querulousness; they see the sun shining out of doors and don't want to go abroad; they sleep on arm-chairs and eat their meals in solitude; they pass long long evenings doing nothing, watching the embers, and the patient's drink simmering in the jug; they read the weekly paper the whole week through; and law's serious call or the whole duty of man suffices them for literature for the year--and we quarrel with them because, when their relations come to see them once a week, a little gin is smuggled in in their linen basket. ladies, what man's love is there that would stand a year's nursing of the object of his affection? whereas a nurse will stand by you for ten pounds a quarter, and we think her too highly paid. at least mr. crawley grumbled a good deal about paying half as much to miss hester for her constant attendance upon the baronet his father. of sunshiny days this old gentleman was taken out in a chair on the terrace--the very chair which miss crawley had had at brighton, and which had been transported thence with a number of lady southdown's effects to queen's crawley. lady jane always walked by the old man, and was an evident favourite with him. he used to nod many times to her and smile when she came in, and utter inarticulate deprecatory moans when she was going away. when the door shut upon her he would cry and sob--whereupon hester's face and manner, which was always exceedingly bland and gentle while her lady was present, would change at once, and she would make faces at him and clench her fist and scream out "hold your tongue, you stoopid old fool," and twirl away his chair from the fire which he loved to look at--at which he would cry more. for this was all that was left after more than seventy years of cunning, and struggling, and drinking, and scheming, and sin and selfishness--a whimpering old idiot put in and out of bed and cleaned and fed like a baby. at last a day came when the nurse's occupation was over. early one morning, as pitt crawley was at his steward's and bailiff's books in the study, a knock came to the door, and hester presented herself, dropping a curtsey, and said, "if you please, sir pitt, sir pitt died this morning, sir pitt. i was a-making of his toast, sir pitt, for his gruel, sir pitt, which he took every morning regular at six, sir pitt, and--i thought i heard a moan-like, sir pitt--and--and--and--" she dropped another curtsey. what was it that made pitt's pale face flush quite red? was it because he was sir pitt at last, with a seat in parliament, and perhaps future honours in prospect? "i'll clear the estate now with the ready money," he thought and rapidly calculated its incumbrances and the improvements which he would make. he would not use his aunt's money previously lest sir pitt should recover and his outlay be in vain. all the blinds were pulled down at the hall and rectory: the church bell was tolled, and the chancel hung in black; and bute crawley didn't go to a coursing meeting, but went and dined quietly at fuddleston, where they talked about his deceased brother and young sir pitt over their port. miss betsy, who was by this time married to a saddler at mudbury, cried a good deal. the family surgeon rode over and paid his respectful compliments, and inquiries for the health of their ladyships. the death was talked about at mudbury and at the crawley arms, the landlord whereof had become reconciled with the rector of late, who was occasionally known to step into the parlour and taste mr. horrocks' mild beer. "shall i write to your brother--or will you?" asked lady jane of her husband, sir pitt. "i will write, of course," sir pitt said, "and invite him to the funeral: it will be but becoming." "and--and--mrs. rawdon," said lady jane timidly. "jane!" said lady southdown, "how can you think of such a thing?" "mrs. rawdon must of course be asked," said sir pitt, resolutely. "not whilst i am in the house!" said lady southdown. "your ladyship will be pleased to recollect that i am the head of this family," sir pitt replied. "if you please, lady jane, you will write a letter to mrs. rawdon crawley, requesting her presence upon this melancholy occasion." "jane, i forbid you to put pen to paper!" cried the countess. "i believe i am the head of this family," sir pitt repeated; "and however much i may regret any circumstance which may lead to your ladyship quitting this house, must, if you please, continue to govern it as i see fit." lady southdown rose up as magnificent as mrs. siddons in lady macbeth and ordered that horses might be put to her carriage. if her son and daughter turned her out of their house, she would hide her sorrows somewhere in loneliness and pray for their conversion to better thoughts. "we don't turn you out of our house, mamma," said the timid lady jane imploringly. "you invite such company to it as no christian lady should meet, and i will have my horses to-morrow morning." "have the goodness to write, jane, under my dictation," said sir pitt, rising and throwing himself into an attitude of command, like the portrait of a gentleman in the exhibition, "and begin. 'queen's crawley, september , .--my dear brother--'" hearing these decisive and terrible words, lady macbeth, who had been waiting for a sign of weakness or vacillation on the part of her son-in-law, rose and, with a scared look, left the library. lady jane looked up to her husband as if she would fain follow and soothe her mamma, but pitt forbade his wife to move. "she won't go away," he said. "she has let her house at brighton and has spent her last half-year's dividends. a countess living at an inn is a ruined woman. i have been waiting long for an opportunity--to take this--this decisive step, my love; for, as you must perceive, it is impossible that there should be two chiefs in a family: and now, if you please, we will resume the dictation. 'my dear brother, the melancholy intelligence which it is my duty to convey to my family must have been long anticipated by,'" &c. in a word, pitt having come to his kingdom, and having by good luck, or desert rather, as he considered, assumed almost all the fortune which his other relatives had expected, was determined to treat his family kindly and respectably and make a house of queen's crawley once more. it pleased him to think that he should be its chief. he proposed to use the vast influence that his commanding talents and position must speedily acquire for him in the county to get his brother placed and his cousins decently provided for, and perhaps had a little sting of repentance as he thought that he was the proprietor of all that they had hoped for. in the course of three or four days' reign his bearing was changed and his plans quite fixed: he determined to rule justly and honestly, to depose lady southdown, and to be on the friendliest possible terms with all the relations of his blood. so he dictated a letter to his brother rawdon--a solemn and elaborate letter, containing the profoundest observations, couched in the longest words, and filling with wonder the simple little secretary, who wrote under her husband's order. "what an orator this will be," thought she, "when he enters the house of commons" (on which point, and on the tyranny of lady southdown, pitt had sometimes dropped hints to his wife in bed); "how wise and good, and what a genius my husband is! i fancied him a little cold; but how good, and what a genius!" the fact is, pitt crawley had got every word of the letter by heart and had studied it, with diplomatic secrecy, deeply and perfectly, long before he thought fit to communicate it to his astonished wife. this letter, with a huge black border and seal, was accordingly despatched by sir pitt crawley to his brother the colonel, in london. rawdon crawley was but half-pleased at the receipt of it. "what's the use of going down to that stupid place?" thought he. "i can't stand being alone with pitt after dinner, and horses there and back will cost us twenty pound." he carried the letter, as he did all difficulties, to becky, upstairs in her bedroom--with her chocolate, which he always made and took to her of a morning. he put the tray with the breakfast and the letter on the dressing-table, before which becky sat combing her yellow hair. she took up the black-edged missive, and having read it, she jumped up from the chair, crying "hurray!" and waving the note round her head. "hurray?" said rawdon, wondering at the little figure capering about in a streaming flannel dressing-gown, with tawny locks dishevelled. "he's not left us anything, becky. i had my share when i came of age." "you'll never be of age, you silly old man," becky replied. "run out now to madam brunoy's, for i must have some mourning: and get a crape on your hat, and a black waistcoat--i don't think you've got one; order it to be brought home to-morrow, so that we may be able to start on thursday." "you don't mean to go?" rawdon interposed. "of course i mean to go. i mean that lady jane shall present me at court next year. i mean that your brother shall give you a seat in parliament, you stupid old creature. i mean that lord steyne shall have your vote and his, my dear, old silly man; and that you shall be an irish secretary, or a west indian governor: or a treasurer, or a consul, or some such thing." "posting will cost a dooce of a lot of money," grumbled rawdon. "we might take southdown's carriage, which ought to be present at the funeral, as he is a relation of the family: but, no--i intend that we shall go by the coach. they'll like it better. it seems more humble--" "rawdy goes, of course?" the colonel asked. "no such thing; why pay an extra place? he's too big to travel bodkin between you and me. let him stay here in the nursery, and briggs can make him a black frock. go you, and do as i bid you. and you had best tell sparks, your man, that old sir pitt is dead and that you will come in for something considerable when the affairs are arranged. he'll tell this to raggles, who has been pressing for money, and it will console poor raggles." and so becky began sipping her chocolate. when the faithful lord steyne arrived in the evening, he found becky and her companion, who was no other than our friend briggs, busy cutting, ripping, snipping, and tearing all sorts of black stuffs available for the melancholy occasion. "miss briggs and i are plunged in grief and despondency for the death of our papa," rebecca said. "sir pitt crawley is dead, my lord. we have been tearing our hair all the morning, and now we are tearing up our old clothes." "oh, rebecca, how can you--" was all that briggs could say as she turned up her eyes. "oh, rebecca, how can you--" echoed my lord. "so that old scoundrel's dead, is he? he might have been a peer if he had played his cards better. mr. pitt had very nearly made him; but he ratted always at the wrong time. what an old silenus it was!" "i might have been silenus's widow," said rebecca. "don't you remember, miss briggs, how you peeped in at the door and saw old sir pitt on his knees to me?" miss briggs, our old friend, blushed very much at this reminiscence, and was glad when lord steyne ordered her to go downstairs and make him a cup of tea. briggs was the house-dog whom rebecca had provided as guardian of her innocence and reputation. miss crawley had left her a little annuity. she would have been content to remain in the crawley family with lady jane, who was good to her and to everybody; but lady southdown dismissed poor briggs as quickly as decency permitted; and mr. pitt (who thought himself much injured by the uncalled-for generosity of his deceased relative towards a lady who had only been miss crawley's faithful retainer a score of years) made no objection to that exercise of the dowager's authority. bowls and firkin likewise received their legacies and their dismissals, and married and set up a lodging-house, according to the custom of their kind. briggs tried to live with her relations in the country, but found that attempt was vain after the better society to which she had been accustomed. briggs's friends, small tradesmen, in a country town, quarrelled over miss briggs's forty pounds a year as eagerly and more openly than miss crawley's kinsfolk had for that lady's inheritance. briggs's brother, a radical hatter and grocer, called his sister a purse-proud aristocrat, because she would not advance a part of her capital to stock his shop; and she would have done so most likely, but that their sister, a dissenting shoemaker's lady, at variance with the hatter and grocer, who went to another chapel, showed how their brother was on the verge of bankruptcy, and took possession of briggs for a while. the dissenting shoemaker wanted miss briggs to send his son to college and make a gentleman of him. between them the two families got a great portion of her private savings out of her, and finally she fled to london followed by the anathemas of both, and determined to seek for servitude again as infinitely less onerous than liberty. and advertising in the papers that a "gentlewoman of agreeable manners, and accustomed to the best society, was anxious to," &c., she took up her residence with mr. bowls in half moon street, and waited the result of the advertisement. so it was that she fell in with rebecca. mrs. rawdon's dashing little carriage and ponies was whirling down the street one day, just as miss briggs, fatigued, had reached mr. bowls's door, after a weary walk to the times office in the city to insert her advertisement for the sixth time. rebecca was driving, and at once recognized the gentlewoman with agreeable manners, and being a perfectly good-humoured woman, as we have seen, and having a regard for briggs, she pulled up the ponies at the doorsteps, gave the reins to the groom, and jumping out, had hold of both briggs's hands, before she of the agreeable manners had recovered from the shock of seeing an old friend. briggs cried, and becky laughed a great deal and kissed the gentlewoman as soon as they got into the passage; and thence into mrs. bowls's front parlour, with the red moreen curtains, and the round looking-glass, with the chained eagle above, gazing upon the back of the ticket in the window which announced "apartments to let." briggs told all her history amidst those perfectly uncalled-for sobs and ejaculations of wonder with which women of her soft nature salute an old acquaintance, or regard a rencontre in the street; for though people meet other people every day, yet some there are who insist upon discovering miracles; and women, even though they have disliked each other, begin to cry when they meet, deploring and remembering the time when they last quarrelled. so, in a word, briggs told all her history, and becky gave a narrative of her own life, with her usual artlessness and candour. mrs. bowls, late firkin, came and listened grimly in the passage to the hysterical sniffling and giggling which went on in the front parlour. becky had never been a favourite of hers. since the establishment of the married couple in london they had frequented their former friends of the house of raggles, and did not like the latter's account of the colonel's menage. "i wouldn't trust him, ragg, my boy," bowls remarked; and his wife, when mrs. rawdon issued from the parlour, only saluted the lady with a very sour curtsey; and her fingers were like so many sausages, cold and lifeless, when she held them out in deference to mrs. rawdon, who persisted in shaking hands with the retired lady's maid. she whirled away into piccadilly, nodding with the sweetest of smiles towards miss briggs, who hung nodding at the window close under the advertisement-card, and at the next moment was in the park with a half-dozen of dandies cantering after her carriage. when she found how her friend was situated, and how having a snug legacy from miss crawley, salary was no object to our gentlewoman, becky instantly formed some benevolent little domestic plans concerning her. this was just such a companion as would suit her establishment, and she invited briggs to come to dinner with her that very evening, when she should see becky's dear little darling rawdon. mrs. bowls cautioned her lodger against venturing into the lion's den, "wherein you will rue it, miss b., mark my words, and as sure as my name is bowls." and briggs promised to be very cautious. the upshot of which caution was that she went to live with mrs. rawdon the next week, and had lent rawdon crawley six hundred pounds upon annuity before six months were over. chapter xli in which becky revisits the halls of her ancestors so the mourning being ready, and sir pitt crawley warned of their arrival, colonel crawley and his wife took a couple of places in the same old high-flyer coach by which rebecca had travelled in the defunct baronet's company, on her first journey into the world some nine years before. how well she remembered the inn yard, and the ostler to whom she refused money, and the insinuating cambridge lad who wrapped her in his coat on the journey! rawdon took his place outside, and would have liked to drive, but his grief forbade him. he sat by the coachman and talked about horses and the road the whole way; and who kept the inns, and who horsed the coach by which he had travelled so many a time, when he and pitt were boys going to eton. at mudbury a carriage and a pair of horses received them, with a coachman in black. "it's the old drag, rawdon," rebecca said as they got in. "the worms have eaten the cloth a good deal--there's the stain which sir pitt--ha! i see dawson the ironmonger has his shutters up--which sir pitt made such a noise about. it was a bottle of cherry brandy he broke which we went to fetch for your aunt from southampton. how time flies, to be sure! that can't be polly talboys, that bouncing girl standing by her mother at the cottage there. i remember her a mangy little urchin picking weeds in the garden." "fine gal," said rawdon, returning the salute which the cottage gave him, by two fingers applied to his crape hatband. becky bowed and saluted, and recognized people here and there graciously. these recognitions were inexpressibly pleasant to her. it seemed as if she was not an imposter any more, and was coming to the home of her ancestors. rawdon was rather abashed and cast down, on the other hand. what recollections of boyhood and innocence might have been flitting across his brain? what pangs of dim remorse and doubt and shame? "your sisters must be young women now," rebecca said, thinking of those girls for the first time perhaps since she had left them. "don't know, i'm shaw," replied the colonel. "hullo! here's old mother lock. how-dy-do, mrs. lock? remember me, don't you? master rawdon, hey? dammy how those old women last; she was a hundred when i was a boy." they were going through the lodge-gates kept by old mrs. lock, whose hand rebecca insisted upon shaking, as she flung open the creaking old iron gate, and the carriage passed between the two moss-grown pillars surmounted by the dove and serpent. "the governor has cut into the timber," rawdon said, looking about, and then was silent--so was becky. both of them were rather agitated, and thinking of old times. he about eton, and his mother, whom he remembered, a frigid demure woman, and a sister who died, of whom he had been passionately fond; and how he used to thrash pitt; and about little rawdy at home. and rebecca thought about her own youth and the dark secrets of those early tainted days; and of her entrance into life by yonder gates; and of miss pinkerton, and joe, and amelia. the gravel walk and terrace had been scraped quite clean. a grand painted hatchment was already over the great entrance, and two very solemn and tall personages in black flung open each a leaf of the door as the carriage pulled up at the familiar steps. rawdon turned red, and becky somewhat pale, as they passed through the old hall, arm in arm. she pinched her husband's arm as they entered the oak parlour, where sir pitt and his wife were ready to receive them. sir pitt in black, lady jane in black, and my lady southdown with a large black head-piece of bugles and feathers, which waved on her ladyship's head like an undertaker's tray. sir pitt had judged correctly, that she would not quit the premises. she contented herself by preserving a solemn and stony silence, when in company of pitt and his rebellious wife, and by frightening the children in the nursery by the ghastly gloom of her demeanour. only a very faint bending of the head-dress and plumes welcomed rawdon and his wife, as those prodigals returned to their family. to say the truth, they were not affected very much one way or other by this coolness. her ladyship was a person only of secondary consideration in their minds just then--they were intent upon the reception which the reigning brother and sister would afford them. pitt, with rather a heightened colour, went up and shook his brother by the hand, and saluted rebecca with a hand-shake and a very low bow. but lady jane took both the hands of her sister-in-law and kissed her affectionately. the embrace somehow brought tears into the eyes of the little adventuress--which ornaments, as we know, she wore very seldom. the artless mark of kindness and confidence touched and pleased her; and rawdon, encouraged by this demonstration on his sister's part, twirled up his mustachios and took leave to salute lady jane with a kiss, which caused her ladyship to blush exceedingly. "dev'lish nice little woman, lady jane," was his verdict, when he and his wife were together again. "pitt's got fat, too, and is doing the thing handsomely." "he can afford it," said rebecca and agreed in her husband's farther opinion "that the mother-in-law was a tremendous old guy--and that the sisters were rather well-looking young women." they, too, had been summoned from school to attend the funeral ceremonies. it seemed sir pitt crawley, for the dignity of the house and family, had thought right to have about the place as many persons in black as could possibly be assembled. all the men and maids of the house, the old women of the alms house, whom the elder sir pitt had cheated out of a great portion of their due, the parish clerk's family, and the special retainers of both hall and rectory were habited in sable; added to these, the undertaker's men, at least a score, with crapes and hatbands, and who made goodly show when the great burying show took place--but these are mute personages in our drama; and having nothing to do or say, need occupy a very little space here. with regard to her sisters-in-law rebecca did not attempt to forget her former position of governess towards them, but recalled it frankly and kindly, and asked them about their studies with great gravity, and told them that she had thought of them many and many a day, and longed to know of their welfare. in fact you would have supposed that ever since she had left them she had not ceased to keep them uppermost in her thoughts and to take the tenderest interest in their welfare. so supposed lady crawley herself and her young sisters. "she's hardly changed since eight years," said miss rosalind to miss violet, as they were preparing for dinner. "those red-haired women look wonderfully well," replied the other. "hers is much darker than it was; i think she must dye it," miss rosalind added. "she is stouter, too, and altogether improved," continued miss rosalind, who was disposed to be very fat. "at least she gives herself no airs and remembers that she was our governess once," miss violet said, intimating that it befitted all governesses to keep their proper place, and forgetting altogether that she was granddaughter not only of sir walpole crawley, but of mr. dawson of mudbury, and so had a coal-scuttle in her scutcheon. there are other very well-meaning people whom one meets every day in vanity fair who are surely equally oblivious. "it can't be true what the girls at the rectory said, that her mother was an opera-dancer--" "a person can't help their birth," rosalind replied with great liberality. "and i agree with our brother, that as she is in the family, of course we are bound to notice her. i am sure aunt bute need not talk; she wants to marry kate to young hooper, the wine-merchant, and absolutely asked him to come to the rectory for orders." "i wonder whether lady southdown will go away, she looked very glum upon mrs. rawdon," the other said. "i wish she would. i won't read the washerwoman of finchley common," vowed violet; and so saying, and avoiding a passage at the end of which a certain coffin was placed with a couple of watchers, and lights perpetually burning in the closed room, these young women came down to the family dinner, for which the bell rang as usual. but before this, lady jane conducted rebecca to the apartments prepared for her, which, with the rest of the house, had assumed a very much improved appearance of order and comfort during pitt's regency, and here beholding that mrs. rawdon's modest little trunks had arrived, and were placed in the bedroom and dressing-room adjoining, helped her to take off her neat black bonnet and cloak, and asked her sister-in-law in what more she could be useful. "what i should like best," said rebecca, "would be to go to the nursery and see your dear little children." on which the two ladies looked very kindly at each other and went to that apartment hand in hand. becky admired little matilda, who was not quite four years old, as the most charming little love in the world; and the boy, a little fellow of two years--pale, heavy-eyed, and large-headed--she pronounced to be a perfect prodigy in point of size, intelligence, and beauty. "i wish mamma would not insist on giving him so much medicine," lady jane said with a sigh. "i often think we should all be better without it." and then lady jane and her new-found friend had one of those confidential medical conversations about the children, which all mothers, and most women, as i am given to understand, delight in. fifty years ago, and when the present writer, being an interesting little boy, was ordered out of the room with the ladies after dinner, i remember quite well that their talk was chiefly about their ailments; and putting this question directly to two or three since, i have always got from them the acknowledgement that times are not changed. let my fair readers remark for themselves this very evening when they quit the dessert-table and assemble to celebrate the drawing-room mysteries. well--in half an hour becky and lady jane were close and intimate friends--and in the course of the evening her ladyship informed sir pitt that she thought her new sister-in-law was a kind, frank, unaffected, and affectionate young woman. and so having easily won the daughter's good-will, the indefatigable little woman bent herself to conciliate the august lady southdown. as soon as she found her ladyship alone, rebecca attacked her on the nursery question at once and said that her own little boy was saved, actually saved, by calomel, freely administered, when all the physicians in paris had given the dear child up. and then she mentioned how often she had heard of lady southdown from that excellent man the reverend lawrence grills, minister of the chapel in may fair, which she frequented; and how her views were very much changed by circumstances and misfortunes; and how she hoped that a past life spent in worldliness and error might not incapacitate her from more serious thought for the future. she described how in former days she had been indebted to mr. crawley for religious instruction, touched upon the washerwoman of finchley common, which she had read with the greatest profit, and asked about lady emily, its gifted author, now lady emily hornblower, at cape town, where her husband had strong hopes of becoming bishop of caffraria. but she crowned all, and confirmed herself in lady southdown's favour, by feeling very much agitated and unwell after the funeral and requesting her ladyship's medical advice, which the dowager not only gave, but, wrapped up in a bed-gown and looking more like lady macbeth than ever, came privately in the night to becky's room with a parcel of favourite tracts, and a medicine of her own composition, which she insisted that mrs. rawdon should take. becky first accepted the tracts and began to examine them with great interest, engaging the dowager in a conversation concerning them and the welfare of her soul, by which means she hoped that her body might escape medication. but after the religious topics were exhausted, lady macbeth would not quit becky's chamber until her cup of night-drink was emptied too; and poor mrs. rawdon was compelled actually to assume a look of gratitude, and to swallow the medicine under the unyielding old dowager's nose, who left her victim finally with a benediction. it did not much comfort mrs. rawdon; her countenance was very queer when rawdon came in and heard what had happened; and his explosions of laughter were as loud as usual, when becky, with a fun which she could not disguise, even though it was at her own expense, described the occurrence and how she had been victimized by lady southdown. lord steyne, and her son in london, had many a laugh over the story when rawdon and his wife returned to their quarters in may fair. becky acted the whole scene for them. she put on a night-cap and gown. she preached a great sermon in the true serious manner; she lectured on the virtue of the medicine which she pretended to administer, with a gravity of imitation so perfect that you would have thought it was the countess's own roman nose through which she snuffled. "give us lady southdown and the black dose," was a constant cry amongst the folks in becky's little drawing-room in may fair. and for the first time in her life the dowager countess of southdown was made amusing. sir pitt remembered the testimonies of respect and veneration which rebecca had paid personally to himself in early days, and was tolerably well disposed towards her. the marriage, ill-advised as it was, had improved rawdon very much--that was clear from the colonel's altered habits and demeanour--and had it not been a lucky union as regarded pitt himself? the cunning diplomatist smiled inwardly as he owned that he owed his fortune to it, and acknowledged that he at least ought not to cry out against it. his satisfaction was not removed by rebecca's own statements, behaviour, and conversation. she doubled the deference which before had charmed him, calling out his conversational powers in such a manner as quite to surprise pitt himself, who, always inclined to respect his own talents, admired them the more when rebecca pointed them out to him. with her sister-in-law, rebecca was satisfactorily able to prove that it was mrs. bute crawley who brought about the marriage which she afterwards so calumniated; that it was mrs. bute's avarice--who hoped to gain all miss crawley's fortune and deprive rawdon of his aunt's favour--which caused and invented all the wicked reports against rebecca. "she succeeded in making us poor," rebecca said with an air of angelical patience; "but how can i be angry with a woman who has given me one of the best husbands in the world? and has not her own avarice been sufficiently punished by the ruin of her own hopes and the loss of the property by which she set so much store? poor!" she cried. "dear lady jane, what care we for poverty? i am used to it from childhood, and i am often thankful that miss crawley's money has gone to restore the splendour of the noble old family of which i am so proud to be a member. i am sure sir pitt will make a much better use of it than rawdon would." all these speeches were reported to sir pitt by the most faithful of wives, and increased the favourable impression which rebecca made; so much so that when, on the third day after the funeral, the family party were at dinner, sir pitt crawley, carving fowls at the head of the table, actually said to mrs. rawdon, "ahem! rebecca, may i give you a wing?"--a speech which made the little woman's eyes sparkle with pleasure. while rebecca was prosecuting the above schemes and hopes, and pitt crawley arranging the funeral ceremonial and other matters connected with his future progress and dignity, and lady jane busy with her nursery, as far as her mother would let her, and the sun rising and setting, and the clock-tower bell of the hall ringing to dinner and to prayers as usual, the body of the late owner of queen's crawley lay in the apartment which he had occupied, watched unceasingly by the professional attendants who were engaged for that rite. a woman or two, and three or four undertaker's men, the best whom southampton could furnish, dressed in black, and of a proper stealthy and tragical demeanour, had charge of the remains which they watched turn about, having the housekeeper's room for their place of rendezvous when off duty, where they played at cards in privacy and drank their beer. the members of the family and servants of the house kept away from the gloomy spot, where the bones of the descendant of an ancient line of knights and gentlemen lay, awaiting their final consignment to the family crypt. no regrets attended them, save those of the poor woman who had hoped to be sir pitt's wife and widow and who had fled in disgrace from the hall over which she had so nearly been a ruler. beyond her and a favourite old pointer he had, and between whom and himself an attachment subsisted during the period of his imbecility, the old man had not a single friend to mourn him, having indeed, during the whole course of his life, never taken the least pains to secure one. could the best and kindest of us who depart from the earth have an opportunity of revisiting it, i suppose he or she (assuming that any vanity fair feelings subsist in the sphere whither we are bound) would have a pang of mortification at finding how soon our survivors were consoled. and so sir pitt was forgotten--like the kindest and best of us--only a few weeks sooner. those who will may follow his remains to the grave, whither they were borne on the appointed day, in the most becoming manner, the family in black coaches, with their handkerchiefs up to their noses, ready for the tears which did not come; the undertaker and his gentlemen in deep tribulation; the select tenantry mourning out of compliment to the new landlord; the neighbouring gentry's carriages at three miles an hour, empty, and in profound affliction; the parson speaking out the formula about "our dear brother departed." as long as we have a man's body, we play our vanities upon it, surrounding it with humbug and ceremonies, laying it in state, and packing it up in gilt nails and velvet; and we finish our duty by placing over it a stone, written all over with lies. bute's curate, a smart young fellow from oxford, and sir pitt crawley composed between them an appropriate latin epitaph for the late lamented baronet, and the former preached a classical sermon, exhorting the survivors not to give way to grief and informing them in the most respectful terms that they also would be one day called upon to pass that gloomy and mysterious portal which had just closed upon the remains of their lamented brother. then the tenantry mounted on horseback again, or stayed and refreshed themselves at the crawley arms. then, after a lunch in the servants' hall at queen's crawley, the gentry's carriages wheeled off to their different destinations: then the undertaker's men, taking the ropes, palls, velvets, ostrich feathers, and other mortuary properties, clambered up on the roof of the hearse and rode off to southampton. their faces relapsed into a natural expression as the horses, clearing the lodge-gates, got into a brisker trot on the open road; and squads of them might have been seen, speckling with black the public-house entrances, with pewter-pots flashing in the sunshine. sir pitt's invalid chair was wheeled away into a tool-house in the garden; the old pointer used to howl sometimes at first, but these were the only accents of grief which were heard in the hall of which sir pitt crawley, baronet, had been master for some threescore years. as the birds were pretty plentiful, and partridge shooting is as it were the duty of an english gentleman of statesmanlike propensities, sir pitt crawley, the first shock of grief over, went out a little and partook of that diversion in a white hat with crape round it. the sight of those fields of stubble and turnips, now his own, gave him many secret joys. sometimes, and with an exquisite humility, he took no gun, but went out with a peaceful bamboo cane; rawdon, his big brother, and the keepers blazing away at his side. pitt's money and acres had a great effect upon his brother. the penniless colonel became quite obsequious and respectful to the head of his house, and despised the milksop pitt no longer. rawdon listened with sympathy to his senior's prospects of planting and draining, gave his advice about the stables and cattle, rode over to mudbury to look at a mare, which he thought would carry lady jane, and offered to break her, &c.: the rebellious dragoon was quite humbled and subdued, and became a most creditable younger brother. he had constant bulletins from miss briggs in london respecting little rawdon, who was left behind there, who sent messages of his own. "i am very well," he wrote. "i hope you are very well. i hope mamma is very well. the pony is very well. grey takes me to ride in the park. i can canter. i met the little boy who rode before. he cried when he cantered. i do not cry." rawdon read these letters to his brother and lady jane, who was delighted with them. the baronet promised to take charge of the lad at school, and his kind-hearted wife gave rebecca a bank-note, begging her to buy a present with it for her little nephew. one day followed another, and the ladies of the house passed their life in those calm pursuits and amusements which satisfy country ladies. bells rang to meals and to prayers. the young ladies took exercise on the pianoforte every morning after breakfast, rebecca giving them the benefit of her instruction. then they put on thick shoes and walked in the park or shrubberies, or beyond the palings into the village, descending upon the cottages, with lady southdown's medicine and tracts for the sick people there. lady southdown drove out in a pony-chaise, when rebecca would take her place by the dowager's side and listen to her solemn talk with the utmost interest. she sang handel and haydn to the family of evenings, and engaged in a large piece of worsted work, as if she had been born to the business and as if this kind of life was to continue with her until she should sink to the grave in a polite old age, leaving regrets and a great quantity of consols behind her--as if there were not cares and duns, schemes, shifts, and poverty waiting outside the park gates, to pounce upon her when she issued into the world again. "it isn't difficult to be a country gentleman's wife," rebecca thought. "i think i could be a good woman if i had five thousand a year. i could dawdle about in the nursery and count the apricots on the wall. i could water plants in a green-house and pick off dead leaves from the geraniums. i could ask old women about their rheumatisms and order half-a-crown's worth of soup for the poor. i shouldn't miss it much, out of five thousand a year. i could even drive out ten miles to dine at a neighbour's, and dress in the fashions of the year before last. i could go to church and keep awake in the great family pew, or go to sleep behind the curtains, with my veil down, if i only had practice. i could pay everybody, if i had but the money. this is what the conjurors here pride themselves upon doing. they look down with pity upon us miserable sinners who have none. they think themselves generous if they give our children a five-pound note, and us contemptible if we are without one." and who knows but rebecca was right in her speculations--and that it was only a question of money and fortune which made the difference between her and an honest woman? if you take temptations into account, who is to say that he is better than his neighbour? a comfortable career of prosperity, if it does not make people honest, at least keeps them so. an alderman coming from a turtle feast will not step out of his carriage to steal a leg of mutton; but put him to starve, and see if he will not purloin a loaf. becky consoled herself by so balancing the chances and equalizing the distribution of good and evil in the world. the old haunts, the old fields and woods, the copses, ponds, and gardens, the rooms of the old house where she had spent a couple of years seven years ago, were all carefully revisited by her. she had been young there, or comparatively so, for she forgot the time when she ever was young--but she remembered her thoughts and feelings seven years back and contrasted them with those which she had at present, now that she had seen the world, and lived with great people, and raised herself far beyond her original humble station. "i have passed beyond it, because i have brains," becky thought, "and almost all the rest of the world are fools. i could not go back and consort with those people now, whom i used to meet in my father's studio. lords come up to my door with stars and garters, instead of poor artists with screws of tobacco in their pockets. i have a gentleman for my husband, and an earl's daughter for my sister, in the very house where i was little better than a servant a few years ago. but am i much better to do now in the world than i was when i was the poor painter's daughter and wheedled the grocer round the corner for sugar and tea? suppose i had married francis who was so fond of me--i couldn't have been much poorer than i am now. heigho! i wish i could exchange my position in society, and all my relations for a snug sum in the three per cent. consols"; for so it was that becky felt the vanity of human affairs, and it was in those securities that she would have liked to cast anchor. it may, perhaps, have struck her that to have been honest and humble, to have done her duty, and to have marched straightforward on her way, would have brought her as near happiness as that path by which she was striving to attain it. but--just as the children at queen's crawley went round the room where the body of their father lay--if ever becky had these thoughts, she was accustomed to walk round them and not look in. she eluded them and despised them--or at least she was committed to the other path from which retreat was now impossible. and for my part i believe that remorse is the least active of all a man's moral senses--the very easiest to be deadened when wakened, and in some never wakened at all. we grieve at being found out and at the idea of shame or punishment, but the mere sense of wrong makes very few people unhappy in vanity fair. so rebecca, during her stay at queen's crawley, made as many friends of the mammon of unrighteousness as she could possibly bring under control. lady jane and her husband bade her farewell with the warmest demonstrations of good-will. they looked forward with pleasure to the time when, the family house in gaunt street being repaired and beautified, they were to meet again in london. lady southdown made her up a packet of medicine and sent a letter by her to the rev. lawrence grills, exhorting that gentleman to save the brand who "honoured" the letter from the burning. pitt accompanied them with four horses in the carriage to mudbury, having sent on their baggage in a cart previously, accompanied with loads of game. "how happy you will be to see your darling little boy again!" lady crawley said, taking leave of her kinswoman. "oh so happy!" said rebecca, throwing up the green eyes. she was immensely happy to be free of the place, and yet loath to go. queen's crawley was abominably stupid, and yet the air there was somehow purer than that which she had been accustomed to breathe. everybody had been dull, but had been kind in their way. "it is all the influence of a long course of three per cents," becky said to herself, and was right very likely. however, the london lamps flashed joyfully as the stage rolled into piccadilly, and briggs had made a beautiful fire in curzon street, and little rawdon was up to welcome back his papa and mamma. chapter xlii which treats of the osborne family considerable time has elapsed since we have seen our respectable friend, old mr. osborne of russell square. he has not been the happiest of mortals since last we met him. events have occurred which have not improved his temper, and in more instances than one he has not been allowed to have his own way. to be thwarted in this reasonable desire was always very injurious to the old gentleman; and resistance became doubly exasperating when gout, age, loneliness, and the force of many disappointments combined to weigh him down. his stiff black hair began to grow quite white soon after his son's death; his face grew redder; his hands trembled more and more as he poured out his glass of port wine. he led his clerks a dire life in the city: his family at home were not much happier. i doubt if rebecca, whom we have seen piously praying for consols, would have exchanged her poverty and the dare-devil excitement and chances of her life for osborne's money and the humdrum gloom which enveloped him. he had proposed for miss swartz, but had been rejected scornfully by the partisans of that lady, who married her to a young sprig of scotch nobility. he was a man to have married a woman out of low life and bullied her dreadfully afterwards; but no person presented herself suitable to his taste, and, instead, he tyrannized over his unmarried daughter, at home. she had a fine carriage and fine horses and sat at the head of a table loaded with the grandest plate. she had a cheque-book, a prize footman to follow her when she walked, unlimited credit, and bows and compliments from all the tradesmen, and all the appurtenances of an heiress; but she spent a woeful time. the little charity-girls at the foundling, the sweeperess at the crossing, the poorest under-kitchen-maid in the servants' hall, was happy compared to that unfortunate and now middle-aged young lady. frederick bullock, esq., of the house of bullock, hulker, and bullock, had married maria osborne, not without a great deal of difficulty and grumbling on mr. bullock's part. george being dead and cut out of his father's will, frederick insisted that the half of the old gentleman's property should be settled upon his maria, and indeed, for a long time, refused, "to come to the scratch" (it was mr. frederick's own expression) on any other terms. osborne said fred had agreed to take his daughter with twenty thousand, and he should bind himself to no more. "fred might take it, and welcome, or leave it, and go and be hanged." fred, whose hopes had been raised when george had been disinherited, thought himself infamously swindled by the old merchant, and for some time made as if he would break off the match altogether. osborne withdrew his account from bullock and hulker's, went on 'change with a horsewhip which he swore he would lay across the back of a certain scoundrel that should be nameless, and demeaned himself in his usual violent manner. jane osborne condoled with her sister maria during this family feud. "i always told you, maria, that it was your money he loved and not you," she said, soothingly. "he selected me and my money at any rate; he didn't choose you and yours," replied maria, tossing up her head. the rapture was, however, only temporary. fred's father and senior partners counselled him to take maria, even with the twenty thousand settled, half down, and half at the death of mr. osborne, with the chances of the further division of the property. so he "knuckled down," again to use his own phrase, and sent old hulker with peaceable overtures to osborne. it was his father, he said, who would not hear of the match, and had made the difficulties; he was most anxious to keep the engagement. the excuse was sulkily accepted by mr. osborne. hulker and bullock were a high family of the city aristocracy, and connected with the "nobs" at the west end. it was something for the old man to be able to say, "my son, sir, of the house of hulker, bullock, and co., sir; my daughter's cousin, lady mary mango, sir, daughter of the right hon. the earl of castlemouldy." in his imagination he saw his house peopled by the "nobs." so he forgave young bullock and consented that the marriage should take place. it was a grand affair--the bridegroom's relatives giving the breakfast, their habitations being near st. george's, hanover square, where the business took place. the "nobs of the west end" were invited, and many of them signed the book. mr. mango and lady mary mango were there, with the dear young gwendoline and guinever mango as bridesmaids; colonel bludyer of the dragoon guards (eldest son of the house of bludyer brothers, mincing lane), another cousin of the bridegroom, and the honourable mrs. bludyer; the honourable george boulter, lord levant's son, and his lady, miss mango that was; lord viscount castletoddy; honourable james mcmull and mrs. mcmull (formerly miss swartz); and a host of fashionables, who have all married into lombard street and done a great deal to ennoble cornhill. the young couple had a house near berkeley square and a small villa at roehampton, among the banking colony there. fred was considered to have made rather a mesalliance by the ladies of his family, whose grandfather had been in a charity school, and who were allied through the husbands with some of the best blood in england. and maria was bound, by superior pride and great care in the composition of her visiting-book, to make up for the defects of birth, and felt it her duty to see her father and sister as little as possible. that she should utterly break with the old man, who had still so many scores of thousand pounds to give away, is absurd to suppose. fred bullock would never allow her to do that. but she was still young and incapable of hiding her feelings; and by inviting her papa and sister to her third-rate parties, and behaving very coldly to them when they came, and by avoiding russell square, and indiscreetly begging her father to quit that odious vulgar place, she did more harm than all frederick's diplomacy could repair, and perilled her chance of her inheritance like a giddy heedless creature as she was. "so russell square is not good enough for mrs. maria, hay?" said the old gentleman, rattling up the carriage windows as he and his daughter drove away one night from mrs. frederick bullock's, after dinner. "so she invites her father and sister to a second day's dinner (if those sides, or ontrys, as she calls 'em, weren't served yesterday, i'm d--d), and to meet city folks and littery men, and keeps the earls and the ladies, and the honourables to herself. honourables? damn honourables. i am a plain british merchant i am, and could buy the beggarly hounds over and over. lords, indeed!--why, at one of her swarreys i saw one of 'em speak to a dam fiddler--a fellar i despise. and they won't come to russell square, won't they? why, i'll lay my life i've got a better glass of wine, and pay a better figure for it, and can show a handsomer service of silver, and can lay a better dinner on my mahogany, than ever they see on theirs--the cringing, sneaking, stuck-up fools. drive on quick, james: i want to get back to russell square--ha, ha!" and he sank back into the corner with a furious laugh. with such reflections on his own superior merit, it was the custom of the old gentleman not unfrequently to console himself. jane osborne could not but concur in these opinions respecting her sister's conduct; and when mrs. frederick's first-born, frederick augustus howard stanley devereux bullock, was born, old osborne, who was invited to the christening and to be godfather, contented himself with sending the child a gold cup, with twenty guineas inside it for the nurse. "that's more than any of your lords will give, i'll warrant," he said and refused to attend at the ceremony. the splendour of the gift, however, caused great satisfaction to the house of bullock. maria thought that her father was very much pleased with her, and frederick augured the best for his little son and heir. one can fancy the pangs with which miss osborne in her solitude in russell square read the morning post, where her sister's name occurred every now and then, in the articles headed "fashionable reunions," and where she had an opportunity of reading a description of mrs. f. bullock's costume, when presented at the drawing room by lady frederica bullock. jane's own life, as we have said, admitted of no such grandeur. it was an awful existence. she had to get up of black winter's mornings to make breakfast for her scowling old father, who would have turned the whole house out of doors if his tea had not been ready at half-past eight. she remained silent opposite to him, listening to the urn hissing, and sitting in tremor while the parent read his paper and consumed his accustomed portion of muffins and tea. at half-past nine he rose and went to the city, and she was almost free till dinner-time, to make visitations in the kitchen and to scold the servants; to drive abroad and descend upon the tradesmen, who were prodigiously respectful; to leave her cards and her papa's at the great glum respectable houses of their city friends; or to sit alone in the large drawing-room, expecting visitors; and working at a huge piece of worsted by the fire, on the sofa, hard by the great iphigenia clock, which ticked and tolled with mournful loudness in the dreary room. the great glass over the mantelpiece, faced by the other great console glass at the opposite end of the room, increased and multiplied between them the brown holland bag in which the chandelier hung, until you saw these brown holland bags fading away in endless perspectives, and this apartment of miss osborne's seemed the centre of a system of drawing-rooms. when she removed the cordovan leather from the grand piano and ventured to play a few notes on it, it sounded with a mournful sadness, startling the dismal echoes of the house. george's picture was gone, and laid upstairs in a lumber-room in the garret; and though there was a consciousness of him, and father and daughter often instinctively knew that they were thinking of him, no mention was ever made of the brave and once darling son. at five o'clock mr. osborne came back to his dinner, which he and his daughter took in silence (seldom broken, except when he swore and was savage, if the cooking was not to his liking), or which they shared twice in a month with a party of dismal friends of osborne's rank and age. old dr. gulp and his lady from bloomsbury square; old mr. frowser, the attorney, from bedford row, a very great man, and from his business, hand-in-glove with the "nobs at the west end"; old colonel livermore, of the bombay army, and mrs. livermore, from upper bedford place; old sergeant toffy and mrs. toffy; and sometimes old sir thomas coffin and lady coffin, from bedford square. sir thomas was celebrated as a hanging judge, and the particular tawny port was produced when he dined with mr. osborne. these people and their like gave the pompous russell square merchant pompous dinners back again. they had solemn rubbers of whist, when they went upstairs after drinking, and their carriages were called at half past ten. many rich people, whom we poor devils are in the habit of envying, lead contentedly an existence like that above described. jane osborne scarcely ever met a man under sixty, and almost the only bachelor who appeared in their society was mr. smirk, the celebrated ladies' doctor. i can't say that nothing had occurred to disturb the monotony of this awful existence: the fact is, there had been a secret in poor jane's life which had made her father more savage and morose than even nature, pride, and over-feeding had made him. this secret was connected with miss wirt, who had a cousin an artist, mr. smee, very celebrated since as a portrait-painter and r.a., but who once was glad enough to give drawing lessons to ladies of fashion. mr. smee has forgotten where russell square is now, but he was glad enough to visit it in the year , when miss osborne had instruction from him. smee (formerly a pupil of sharpe of frith street, a dissolute, irregular, and unsuccessful man, but a man with great knowledge of his art) being the cousin of miss wirt, we say, and introduced by her to miss osborne, whose hand and heart were still free after various incomplete love affairs, felt a great attachment for this lady, and it is believed inspired one in her bosom. miss wirt was the confidante of this intrigue. i know not whether she used to leave the room where the master and his pupil were painting, in order to give them an opportunity for exchanging those vows and sentiments which cannot be uttered advantageously in the presence of a third party; i know not whether she hoped that should her cousin succeed in carrying off the rich merchant's daughter, he would give miss wirt a portion of the wealth which she had enabled him to win--all that is certain is that mr. osborne got some hint of the transaction, came back from the city abruptly, and entered the drawing-room with his bamboo cane; found the painter, the pupil, and the companion all looking exceedingly pale there; turned the former out of doors with menaces that he would break every bone in his skin, and half an hour afterwards dismissed miss wirt likewise, kicking her trunks down the stairs, trampling on her bandboxes, and shaking his fist at her hackney coach as it bore her away. jane osborne kept her bedroom for many days. she was not allowed to have a companion afterwards. her father swore to her that she should not have a shilling of his money if she made any match without his concurrence; and as he wanted a woman to keep his house, he did not choose that she should marry, so that she was obliged to give up all projects with which cupid had any share. during her papa's life, then, she resigned herself to the manner of existence here described, and was content to be an old maid. her sister, meanwhile, was having children with finer names every year and the intercourse between the two grew fainter continually. "jane and i do not move in the same sphere of life," mrs. bullock said. "i regard her as a sister, of course"--which means--what does it mean when a lady says that she regards jane as a sister? it has been described how the misses dobbin lived with their father at a fine villa at denmark hill, where there were beautiful graperies and peach-trees which delighted little georgy osborne. the misses dobbin, who drove often to brompton to see our dear amelia, came sometimes to russell square too, to pay a visit to their old acquaintance miss osborne. i believe it was in consequence of the commands of their brother the major in india (for whom their papa had a prodigious respect), that they paid attention to mrs. george; for the major, the godfather and guardian of amelia's little boy, still hoped that the child's grandfather might be induced to relent towards him and acknowledge him for the sake of his son. the misses dobbin kept miss osborne acquainted with the state of amelia's affairs; how she was living with her father and mother; how poor they were; how they wondered what men, and such men as their brother and dear captain osborne, could find in such an insignificant little chit; how she was still, as heretofore, a namby-pamby milk-and-water affected creature--but how the boy was really the noblest little boy ever seen--for the hearts of all women warm towards young children, and the sourest spinster is kind to them. one day, after great entreaties on the part of the misses dobbin, amelia allowed little george to go and pass a day with them at denmark hill--a part of which day she spent herself in writing to the major in india. she congratulated him on the happy news which his sisters had just conveyed to her. she prayed for his prosperity and that of the bride he had chosen. she thanked him for a thousand thousand kind offices and proofs of steadfast friendship to her in her affliction. she told him the last news about little georgy, and how he was gone to spend that very day with his sisters in the country. she underlined the letter a great deal, and she signed herself affectionately his friend, amelia osborne. she forgot to send any message of kindness to lady o'dowd, as her wont was--and did not mention glorvina by name, and only in italics, as the major's bride, for whom she begged blessings. but the news of the marriage removed the reserve which she had kept up towards him. she was glad to be able to own and feel how warmly and gratefully she regarded him--and as for the idea of being jealous of glorvina (glorvina, indeed!), amelia would have scouted it, if an angel from heaven had hinted it to her. that night, when georgy came back in the pony-carriage in which he rejoiced, and in which he was driven by sir wm. dobbin's old coachman, he had round his neck a fine gold chain and watch. he said an old lady, not pretty, had given it him, who cried and kissed him a great deal. but he didn't like her. he liked grapes very much. and he only liked his mamma. amelia shrank and started; the timid soul felt a presentiment of terror when she heard that the relations of the child's father had seen him. miss osborne came back to give her father his dinner. he had made a good speculation in the city, and was rather in a good humour that day, and chanced to remark the agitation under which she laboured. "what's the matter, miss osborne?" he deigned to say. the woman burst into tears. "oh, sir," she said, "i've seen little george. he is as beautiful as an angel--and so like him!" the old man opposite to her did not say a word, but flushed up and began to tremble in every limb. chapter xliii in which the reader has to double the cape the astonished reader must be called upon to transport himself ten thousand miles to the military station of bundlegunge, in the madras division of our indian empire, where our gallant old friends of the --th regiment are quartered under the command of the brave colonel, sir michael o'dowd. time has dealt kindly with that stout officer, as it does ordinarily with men who have good stomachs and good tempers and are not perplexed over much by fatigue of the brain. the colonel plays a good knife and fork at tiffin and resumes those weapons with great success at dinner. he smokes his hookah after both meals and puffs as quietly while his wife scolds him as he did under the fire of the french at waterloo. age and heat have not diminished the activity or the eloquence of the descendant of the malonys and the molloys. her ladyship, our old acquaintance, is as much at home at madras as at brussels in the cantonment as under the tents. on the march you saw her at the head of the regiment seated on a royal elephant, a noble sight. mounted on that beast, she has been into action with tigers in the jungle, she has been received by native princes, who have welcomed her and glorvina into the recesses of their zenanas and offered her shawls and jewels which it went to her heart to refuse. the sentries of all arms salute her wherever she makes her appearance, and she touches her hat gravely to their salutation. lady o'dowd is one of the greatest ladies in the presidency of madras--her quarrel with lady smith, wife of sir minos smith the puisne judge, is still remembered by some at madras, when the colonel's lady snapped her fingers in the judge's lady's face and said she'd never walk behind ever a beggarly civilian. even now, though it is five-and-twenty years ago, people remember lady o'dowd performing a jig at government house, where she danced down two aides-de-camp, a major of madras cavalry, and two gentlemen of the civil service; and, persuaded by major dobbin, c.b., second in command of the --th, to retire to the supper-room, lassata nondum satiata recessit. peggy o'dowd is indeed the same as ever, kind in act and thought; impetuous in temper; eager to command; a tyrant over her michael; a dragon amongst all the ladies of the regiment; a mother to all the young men, whom she tends in their sickness, defends in all their scrapes, and with whom lady peggy is immensely popular. but the subalterns' and captains' ladies (the major is unmarried) cabal against her a good deal. they say that glorvina gives herself airs and that peggy herself is intolerably domineering. she interfered with a little congregation which mrs. kirk had got up and laughed the young men away from her sermons, stating that a soldier's wife had no business to be a parson--that mrs. kirk would be much better mending her husband's clothes; and, if the regiment wanted sermons, that she had the finest in the world, those of her uncle, the dean. she abruptly put a termination to a flirtation which lieutenant stubble of the regiment had commenced with the surgeon's wife, threatening to come down upon stubble for the money which he had borrowed from her (for the young fellow was still of an extravagant turn) unless he broke off at once and went to the cape on sick leave. on the other hand, she housed and sheltered mrs. posky, who fled from her bungalow one night, pursued by her infuriate husband, wielding his second brandy bottle, and actually carried posky through the delirium tremens and broke him of the habit of drinking, which had grown upon that officer, as all evil habits will grow upon men. in a word, in adversity she was the best of comforters, in good fortune the most troublesome of friends, having a perfectly good opinion of herself always and an indomitable resolution to have her own way. among other points, she had made up her mind that glorvina should marry our old friend dobbin. mrs. o'dowd knew the major's expectations and appreciated his good qualities and the high character which he enjoyed in his profession. glorvina, a very handsome, fresh-coloured, black-haired, blue-eyed young lady, who could ride a horse, or play a sonata with any girl out of the county cork, seemed to be the very person destined to insure dobbin's happiness--much more than that poor good little weak-spur'ted amelia, about whom he used to take on so.--"look at glorvina enter a room," mrs. o'dowd would say, "and compare her with that poor mrs. osborne, who couldn't say boo to a goose. she'd be worthy of you, major--you're a quiet man yourself, and want some one to talk for ye. and though she does not come of such good blood as the malonys or molloys, let me tell ye, she's of an ancient family that any nobleman might be proud to marry into." but before she had come to such a resolution and determined to subjugate major dobbin by her endearments, it must be owned that glorvina had practised them a good deal elsewhere. she had had a season in dublin, and who knows how many in cork, killarney, and mallow? she had flirted with all the marriageable officers whom the depots of her country afforded, and all the bachelor squires who seemed eligible. she had been engaged to be married a half-score times in ireland, besides the clergyman at bath who used her so ill. she had flirted all the way to madras with the captain and chief mate of the ramchunder east indiaman, and had a season at the presidency with her brother and mrs. o'dowd, who was staying there, while the major of the regiment was in command at the station. everybody admired her there; everybody danced with her; but no one proposed who was worth the marrying--one or two exceedingly young subalterns sighed after her, and a beardless civilian or two, but she rejected these as beneath her pretensions--and other and younger virgins than glorvina were married before her. there are women, and handsome women too, who have this fortune in life. they fall in love with the utmost generosity; they ride and walk with half the army-list, though they draw near to forty, and yet the misses o'grady are the misses o'grady still: glorvina persisted that but for lady o'dowd's unlucky quarrel with the judge's lady, she would have made a good match at madras, where old mr. chutney, who was at the head of the civil service (and who afterwards married miss dolby, a young lady only thirteen years of age who had just arrived from school in europe), was just at the point of proposing to her. well, although lady o'dowd and glorvina quarrelled a great number of times every day, and upon almost every conceivable subject--indeed, if mick o'dowd had not possessed the temper of an angel two such women constantly about his ears would have driven him out of his senses--yet they agreed between themselves on this point, that glorvina should marry major dobbin, and were determined that the major should have no rest until the arrangement was brought about. undismayed by forty or fifty previous defeats, glorvina laid siege to him. she sang irish melodies at him unceasingly. she asked him so frequently and pathetically, will ye come to the bower? that it is a wonder how any man of feeling could have resisted the invitation. she was never tired of inquiring, if sorrow had his young days faded, and was ready to listen and weep like desdemona at the stories of his dangers and his campaigns. it has been said that our honest and dear old friend used to perform on the flute in private; glorvina insisted upon having duets with him, and lady o'dowd would rise and artlessly quit the room when the young couple were so engaged. glorvina forced the major to ride with her of mornings. the whole cantonment saw them set out and return. she was constantly writing notes over to him at his house, borrowing his books, and scoring with her great pencil-marks such passages of sentiment or humour as awakened her sympathy. she borrowed his horses, his servants, his spoons, and palanquin--no wonder that public rumour assigned her to him, and that the major's sisters in england should fancy they were about to have a sister-in-law. dobbin, who was thus vigorously besieged, was in the meanwhile in a state of the most odious tranquillity. he used to laugh when the young fellows of the regiment joked him about glorvina's manifest attentions to him. "bah!" said he, "she is only keeping her hand in--she practises upon me as she does upon mrs. tozer's piano, because it's the most handy instrument in the station. i am much too battered and old for such a fine young lady as glorvina." and so he went on riding with her, and copying music and verses into her albums, and playing at chess with her very submissively; for it is with these simple amusements that some officers in india are accustomed to while away their leisure moments, while others of a less domestic turn hunt hogs, and shoot snipes, or gamble and smoke cheroots, and betake themselves to brandy-and-water. as for sir michael o'dowd, though his lady and her sister both urged him to call upon the major to explain himself and not keep on torturing a poor innocent girl in that shameful way, the old soldier refused point-blank to have anything to do with the conspiracy. "faith, the major's big enough to choose for himself," sir michael said; "he'll ask ye when he wants ye"; or else he would turn the matter off jocularly, declaring that "dobbin was too young to keep house, and had written home to ask lave of his mamma." nay, he went farther, and in private communications with his major would caution and rally him, crying, "mind your oi, dob, my boy, them girls is bent on mischief--me lady has just got a box of gowns from europe, and there's a pink satin for glorvina, which will finish ye, dob, if it's in the power of woman or satin to move ye." but the truth is, neither beauty nor fashion could conquer him. our honest friend had but one idea of a woman in his head, and that one did not in the least resemble miss glorvina o'dowd in pink satin. a gentle little woman in black, with large eyes and brown hair, seldom speaking, save when spoken to, and then in a voice not the least resembling miss glorvina's--a soft young mother tending an infant and beckoning the major up with a smile to look at him--a rosy-cheeked lass coming singing into the room in russell square or hanging on george osborne's arm, happy and loving--there was but this image that filled our honest major's mind, by day and by night, and reigned over it always. very likely amelia was not like the portrait the major had formed of her: there was a figure in a book of fashions which his sisters had in england, and with which william had made away privately, pasting it into the lid of his desk, and fancying he saw some resemblance to mrs. osborne in the print, whereas i have seen it, and can vouch that it is but the picture of a high-waisted gown with an impossible doll's face simpering over it--and, perhaps, mr. dobbin's sentimental amelia was no more like the real one than this absurd little print which he cherished. but what man in love, of us, is better informed?--or is he much happier when he sees and owns his delusion? dobbin was under this spell. he did not bother his friends and the public much about his feelings, or indeed lose his natural rest or appetite on account of them. his head has grizzled since we saw him last, and a line or two of silver may be seen in the soft brown hair likewise. but his feelings are not in the least changed or oldened, and his love remains as fresh as a man's recollections of boyhood are. we have said how the two misses dobbin and amelia, the major's correspondents in europe, wrote him letters from england, mrs. osborne congratulating him with great candour and cordiality upon his approaching nuptials with miss o'dowd. "your sister has just kindly visited me," amelia wrote in her letter, "and informed me of an interesting event, upon which i beg to offer my most sincere congratulations. i hope the young lady to whom i hear you are to be united will in every respect prove worthy of one who is himself all kindness and goodness. the poor widow has only her prayers to offer and her cordial cordial wishes for your prosperity! georgy sends his love to his dear godpapa and hopes that you will not forget him. i tell him that you are about to form other ties, with one who i am sure merits all your affection, but that, although such ties must of course be the strongest and most sacred, and supersede all others, yet that i am sure the widow and the child whom you have ever protected and loved will always have a corner in your heart." the letter, which has been before alluded to, went on in this strain, protesting throughout as to the extreme satisfaction of the writer. this letter, which arrived by the very same ship which brought out lady o'dowd's box of millinery from london (and which you may be sure dobbin opened before any one of the other packets which the mail brought him), put the receiver into such a state of mind that glorvina, and her pink satin, and everything belonging to her became perfectly odious to him. the major cursed the talk of women, and the sex in general. everything annoyed him that day--the parade was insufferably hot and wearisome. good heavens! was a man of intellect to waste his life, day after day, inspecting cross-belts and putting fools through their manoeuvres? the senseless chatter of the young men at mess was more than ever jarring. what cared he, a man on the high road to forty, to know how many snipes lieutenant smith had shot, or what were the performances of ensign brown's mare? the jokes about the table filled him with shame. he was too old to listen to the banter of the assistant surgeon and the slang of the youngsters, at which old o'dowd, with his bald head and red face, laughed quite easily. the old man had listened to those jokes any time these thirty years--dobbin himself had been fifteen years hearing them. and after the boisterous dulness of the mess-table, the quarrels and scandal of the ladies of the regiment! it was unbearable, shameful. "o amelia, amelia," he thought, "you to whom i have been so faithful--you reproach me! it is because you cannot feel for me that i drag on this wearisome life. and you reward me after years of devotion by giving me your blessing upon my marriage, forsooth, with this flaunting irish girl!" sick and sorry felt poor william; more than ever wretched and lonely. he would like to have done with life and its vanity altogether--so bootless and unsatisfactory the struggle, so cheerless and dreary the prospect seemed to him. he lay all that night sleepless, and yearning to go home. amelia's letter had fallen as a blank upon him. no fidelity, no constant truth and passion, could move her into warmth. she would not see that he loved her. tossing in his bed, he spoke out to her. "good god, amelia!" he said, "don't you know that i only love you in the world--you, who are a stone to me--you, whom i tended through months and months of illness and grief, and who bade me farewell with a smile on your face, and forgot me before the door shut between us!" the native servants lying outside his verandas beheld with wonder the major, so cold and quiet ordinarily, at present so passionately moved and cast down. would she have pitied him had she seen him? he read over and over all the letters which he ever had from her--letters of business relative to the little property which he had made her believe her husband had left to her--brief notes of invitation--every scrap of writing that she had ever sent to him--how cold, how kind, how hopeless, how selfish they were! had there been some kind gentle soul near at hand who could read and appreciate this silent generous heart, who knows but that the reign of amelia might have been over, and that friend william's love might have flowed into a kinder channel? but there was only glorvina of the jetty ringlets with whom his intercourse was familiar, and this dashing young woman was not bent upon loving the major, but rather on making the major admire her--a most vain and hopeless task, too, at least considering the means that the poor girl possessed to carry it out. she curled her hair and showed her shoulders at him, as much as to say, did ye ever see such jet ringlets and such a complexion? she grinned at him so that he might see that every tooth in her head was sound--and he never heeded all these charms. very soon after the arrival of the box of millinery, and perhaps indeed in honour of it, lady o'dowd and the ladies of the king's regiment gave a ball to the company's regiments and the civilians at the station. glorvina sported the killing pink frock, and the major, who attended the party and walked very ruefully up and down the rooms, never so much as perceived the pink garment. glorvina danced past him in a fury with all the young subalterns of the station, and the major was not in the least jealous of her performance, or angry because captain bangles of the cavalry handed her to supper. it was not jealousy, or frocks, or shoulders that could move him, and glorvina had nothing more. so these two were each exemplifying the vanity of this life, and each longing for what he or she could not get. glorvina cried with rage at the failure. she had set her mind on the major "more than on any of the others," she owned, sobbing. "he'll break my heart, he will, peggy," she would whimper to her sister-in-law when they were good friends; "sure every one of me frocks must be taken in--it's such a skeleton i'm growing." fat or thin, laughing or melancholy, on horseback or the music-stool, it was all the same to the major. and the colonel, puffing his pipe and listening to these complaints, would suggest that glory should have some black frocks out in the next box from london, and told a mysterious story of a lady in ireland who died of grief for the loss of her husband before she got ere a one. while the major was going on in this tantalizing way, not proposing, and declining to fall in love, there came another ship from europe bringing letters on board, and amongst them some more for the heartless man. these were home letters bearing an earlier postmark than that of the former packets, and as major dobbin recognized among his the handwriting of his sister, who always crossed and recrossed her letters to her brother--gathered together all the possible bad news which she could collect, abused him and read him lectures with sisterly frankness, and always left him miserable for the day after "dearest william" had achieved the perusal of one of her epistles--the truth must be told that dearest william did not hurry himself to break the seal of miss dobbin's letter, but waited for a particularly favourable day and mood for doing so. a fortnight before, moreover, he had written to scold her for telling those absurd stories to mrs. osborne, and had despatched a letter in reply to that lady, undeceiving her with respect to the reports concerning him and assuring her that "he had no sort of present intention of altering his condition." two or three nights after the arrival of the second package of letters, the major had passed the evening pretty cheerfully at lady o'dowd's house, where glorvina thought that he listened with rather more attention than usual to the meeting of the wathers, the minsthrel boy, and one or two other specimens of song with which she favoured him (the truth is, he was no more listening to glorvina than to the howling of the jackals in the moonlight outside, and the delusion was hers as usual), and having played his game at chess with her (cribbage with the surgeon was lady o'dowd's favourite evening pastime), major dobbin took leave of the colonel's family at his usual hour and retired to his own house. there on his table, his sister's letter lay reproaching him. he took it up, ashamed rather of his negligence regarding it, and prepared himself for a disagreeable hour's communing with that crabbed-handed absent relative. . . . it may have been an hour after the major's departure from the colonel's house--sir michael was sleeping the sleep of the just; glorvina had arranged her black ringlets in the innumerable little bits of paper, in which it was her habit to confine them; lady o'dowd, too, had gone to her bed in the nuptial chamber, on the ground-floor, and had tucked her musquito curtains round her fair form, when the guard at the gates of the commanding-officer's compound beheld major dobbin, in the moonlight, rushing towards the house with a swift step and a very agitated countenance, and he passed the sentinel and went up to the windows of the colonel's bedchamber. "o'dowd--colonel!" said dobbin and kept up a great shouting. "heavens, meejor!" said glorvina of the curl-papers, putting out her head too, from her window. "what is it, dob, me boy?" said the colonel, expecting there was a fire in the station, or that the route had come from headquarters. "i--i must have leave of absence. i must go to england--on the most urgent private affairs," dobbin said. "good heavens, what has happened!" thought glorvina, trembling with all the papillotes. "i want to be off--now--to-night," dobbin continued; and the colonel getting up, came out to parley with him. in the postscript of miss dobbin's cross-letter, the major had just come upon a paragraph, to the following effect:--"i drove yesterday to see your old acquaintance, mrs. osborne. the wretched place they live at, since they were bankrupts, you know--mr. s., to judge from a brass plate on the door of his hut (it is little better) is a coal-merchant. the little boy, your godson, is certainly a fine child, though forward, and inclined to be saucy and self-willed. but we have taken notice of him as you wish it, and have introduced him to his aunt, miss o., who was rather pleased with him. perhaps his grandpapa, not the bankrupt one, who is almost doting, but mr. osborne, of russell square, may be induced to relent towards the child of your friend, his erring and self-willed son. and amelia will not be ill-disposed to give him up. the widow is consoled, and is about to marry a reverend gentleman, the rev. mr. binny, one of the curates of brompton. a poor match. but mrs. o. is getting old, and i saw a great deal of grey in her hair--she was in very good spirits: and your little godson overate himself at our house. mamma sends her love with that of your affectionate, ann dobbin." chapter xliv a round-about chapter between london and hampshire our old friends the crawleys' family house, in great gaunt street, still bore over its front the hatchment which had been placed there as a token of mourning for sir pitt crawley's demise, yet this heraldic emblem was in itself a very splendid and gaudy piece of furniture, and all the rest of the mansion became more brilliant than it had ever been during the late baronet's reign. the black outer-coating of the bricks was removed, and they appeared with a cheerful, blushing face streaked with white: the old bronze lions of the knocker were gilt handsomely, the railings painted, and the dismallest house in great gaunt street became the smartest in the whole quarter, before the green leaves in hampshire had replaced those yellowing ones which were on the trees in queen's crawley avenue when old sir pitt crawley passed under them for the last time. a little woman, with a carriage to correspond, was perpetually seen about this mansion; an elderly spinster, accompanied by a little boy, also might be remarked coming thither daily. it was miss briggs and little rawdon, whose business it was to see to the inward renovation of sir pitt's house, to superintend the female band engaged in stitching the blinds and hangings, to poke and rummage in the drawers and cupboards crammed with the dirty relics and congregated trumperies of a couple of generations of lady crawleys, and to take inventories of the china, the glass, and other properties in the closets and store-rooms. mrs. rawdon crawley was general-in-chief over these arrangements, with full orders from sir pitt to sell, barter, confiscate, or purchase furniture, and she enjoyed herself not a little in an occupation which gave full scope to her taste and ingenuity. the renovation of the house was determined upon when sir pitt came to town in november to see his lawyers, and when he passed nearly a week in curzon street, under the roof of his affectionate brother and sister. he had put up at an hotel at first, but, becky, as soon as she heard of the baronet's arrival, went off alone to greet him, and returned in an hour to curzon street with sir pitt in the carriage by her side. it was impossible sometimes to resist this artless little creature's hospitalities, so kindly were they pressed, so frankly and amiably offered. becky seized pitt's hand in a transport of gratitude when he agreed to come. "thank you," she said, squeezing it and looking into the baronet's eyes, who blushed a good deal; "how happy this will make rawdon!" she bustled up to pitt's bedroom, leading on the servants, who were carrying his trunks thither. she came in herself laughing, with a coal-scuttle out of her own room. a fire was blazing already in sir pitt's apartment (it was miss briggs's room, by the way, who was sent upstairs to sleep with the maid). "i knew i should bring you," she said with pleasure beaming in her glance. indeed, she was really sincerely happy at having him for a guest. becky made rawdon dine out once or twice on business, while pitt stayed with them, and the baronet passed the happy evening alone with her and briggs. she went downstairs to the kitchen and actually cooked little dishes for him. "isn't it a good salmi?" she said; "i made it for you. i can make you better dishes than that, and will when you come to see me." "everything you do, you do well," said the baronet gallantly. "the salmi is excellent indeed." "a poor man's wife," rebecca replied gaily, "must make herself useful, you know"; on which her brother-in-law vowed that "she was fit to be the wife of an emperor, and that to be skilful in domestic duties was surely one of the most charming of woman's qualities." and sir pitt thought, with something like mortification, of lady jane at home, and of a certain pie which she had insisted on making, and serving to him at dinner--a most abominable pie. besides the salmi, which was made of lord steyne's pheasants from his lordship's cottage of stillbrook, becky gave her brother-in-law a bottle of white wine, some that rawdon had brought with him from france, and had picked up for nothing, the little story-teller said; whereas the liquor was, in truth, some white hermitage from the marquis of steyne's famous cellars, which brought fire into the baronet's pallid cheeks and a glow into his feeble frame. then when he had drunk up the bottle of petit vin blanc, she gave him her hand, and took him up to the drawing-room, and made him snug on the sofa by the fire, and let him talk as she listened with the tenderest kindly interest, sitting by him, and hemming a shirt for her dear little boy. whenever mrs. rawdon wished to be particularly humble and virtuous, this little shirt used to come out of her work-box. it had got to be too small for rawdon long before it was finished. well, rebecca listened to pitt, she talked to him, she sang to him, she coaxed him, and cuddled him, so that he found himself more and more glad every day to get back from the lawyer's at gray's inn, to the blazing fire in curzon street--a gladness in which the men of law likewise participated, for pitt's harangues were of the longest--and so that when he went away he felt quite a pang at departing. how pretty she looked kissing her hand to him from the carriage and waving her handkerchief when he had taken his place in the mail! she put the handkerchief to her eyes once. he pulled his sealskin cap over his, as the coach drove away, and, sinking back, he thought to himself how she respected him and how he deserved it, and how rawdon was a foolish dull fellow who didn't half appreciate his wife; and how mum and stupid his own wife was compared to that brilliant little becky. becky had hinted every one of these things herself, perhaps, but so delicately and gently that you hardly knew when or where. and, before they parted, it was agreed that the house in london should be redecorated for the next season, and that the brothers' families should meet again in the country at christmas. "i wish you could have got a little money out of him," rawdon said to his wife moodily when the baronet was gone. "i should like to give something to old raggles, hanged if i shouldn't. it ain't right, you know, that the old fellow should be kept out of all his money. it may be inconvenient, and he might let to somebody else besides us, you know." "tell him," said becky, "that as soon as sir pitt's affairs are settled, everybody will be paid, and give him a little something on account. here's a cheque that pitt left for the boy," and she took from her bag and gave her husband a paper which his brother had handed over to her, on behalf of the little son and heir of the younger branch of the crawleys. the truth is, she had tried personally the ground on which her husband expressed a wish that she should venture--tried it ever so delicately, and found it unsafe. even at a hint about embarrassments, sir pitt crawley was off and alarmed. and he began a long speech, explaining how straitened he himself was in money matters; how the tenants would not pay; how his father's affairs, and the expenses attendant upon the demise of the old gentleman, had involved him; how he wanted to pay off incumbrances; and how the bankers and agents were overdrawn; and pitt crawley ended by making a compromise with his sister-in-law and giving her a very small sum for the benefit of her little boy. pitt knew how poor his brother and his brother's family must be. it could not have escaped the notice of such a cool and experienced old diplomatist that rawdon's family had nothing to live upon, and that houses and carriages are not to be kept for nothing. he knew very well that he was the proprietor or appropriator of the money, which, according to all proper calculation, ought to have fallen to his younger brother, and he had, we may be sure, some secret pangs of remorse within him, which warned him that he ought to perform some act of justice, or, let us say, compensation, towards these disappointed relations. a just, decent man, not without brains, who said his prayers, and knew his catechism, and did his duty outwardly through life, he could not be otherwise than aware that something was due to his brother at his hands, and that morally he was rawdon's debtor. but, as one reads in the columns of the times newspaper every now and then, queer announcements from the chancellor of the exchequer, acknowledging the receipt of pounds from a. b., or pounds from w. t., as conscience-money, on account of taxes due by the said a. b. or w. t., which payments the penitents beg the right honourable gentleman to acknowledge through the medium of the public press--so is the chancellor no doubt, and the reader likewise, always perfectly sure that the above-named a. b. and w. t. are only paying a very small instalment of what they really owe, and that the man who sends up a twenty-pound note has very likely hundreds or thousands more for which he ought to account. such, at least, are my feelings, when i see a. b. or w. t.'s insufficient acts of repentance. and i have no doubt that pitt crawley's contrition, or kindness if you will, towards his younger brother, by whom he had so much profited, was only a very small dividend upon the capital sum in which he was indebted to rawdon. not everybody is willing to pay even so much. to part with money is a sacrifice beyond almost all men endowed with a sense of order. there is scarcely any man alive who does not think himself meritorious for giving his neighbour five pounds. thriftless gives, not from a beneficent pleasure in giving, but from a lazy delight in spending. he would not deny himself one enjoyment; not his opera-stall, not his horse, not his dinner, not even the pleasure of giving lazarus the five pounds. thrifty, who is good, wise, just, and owes no man a penny, turns from a beggar, haggles with a hackney-coachman, or denies a poor relation, and i doubt which is the most selfish of the two. money has only a different value in the eyes of each. so, in a word, pitt crawley thought he would do something for his brother, and then thought that he would think about it some other time. and with regard to becky, she was not a woman who expected too much from the generosity of her neighbours, and so was quite content with all that pitt crawley had done for her. she was acknowledged by the head of the family. if pitt would not give her anything, he would get something for her some day. if she got no money from her brother-in-law, she got what was as good as money--credit. raggles was made rather easy in his mind by the spectacle of the union between the brothers, by a small payment on the spot, and by the promise of a much larger sum speedily to be assigned to him. and rebecca told miss briggs, whose christmas dividend upon the little sum lent by her becky paid with an air of candid joy, and as if her exchequer was brimming over with gold--rebecca, we say, told miss briggs, in strict confidence that she had conferred with sir pitt, who was famous as a financier, on briggs's special behalf, as to the most profitable investment of miss b.'s remaining capital; that sir pitt, after much consideration, had thought of a most safe and advantageous way in which briggs could lay out her money; that, being especially interested in her as an attached friend of the late miss crawley, and of the whole family, and that long before he left town, he had recommended that she should be ready with the money at a moment's notice, so as to purchase at the most favourable opportunity the shares which sir pitt had in his eye. poor miss briggs was very grateful for this mark of sir pitt's attention--it came so unsolicited, she said, for she never should have thought of removing the money from the funds--and the delicacy enhanced the kindness of the office; and she promised to see her man of business immediately and be ready with her little cash at the proper hour. and this worthy woman was so grateful for the kindness of rebecca in the matter, and for that of her generous benefactor, the colonel, that she went out and spent a great part of her half-year's dividend in the purchase of a black velvet coat for little rawdon, who, by the way, was grown almost too big for black velvet now, and was of a size and age befitting him for the assumption of the virile jacket and pantaloons. he was a fine open-faced boy, with blue eyes and waving flaxen hair, sturdy in limb, but generous and soft in heart, fondly attaching himself to all who were good to him--to the pony--to lord southdown, who gave him the horse (he used to blush and glow all over when he saw that kind young nobleman)--to the groom who had charge of the pony--to molly, the cook, who crammed him with ghost stories at night, and with good things from the dinner--to briggs, whom he plagued and laughed at--and to his father especially, whose attachment towards the lad was curious too to witness. here, as he grew to be about eight years old, his attachments may be said to have ended. the beautiful mother-vision had faded away after a while. during near two years she had scarcely spoken to the child. she disliked him. he had the measles and the hooping-cough. he bored her. one day when he was standing at the landing-place, having crept down from the upper regions, attracted by the sound of his mother's voice, who was singing to lord steyne, the drawing room door opening suddenly, discovered the little spy, who but a moment before had been rapt in delight, and listening to the music. his mother came out and struck him violently a couple of boxes on the ear. he heard a laugh from the marquis in the inner room (who was amused by this free and artless exhibition of becky's temper) and fled down below to his friends of the kitchen, bursting in an agony of grief. "it is not because it hurts me," little rawdon gasped out--"only--only"--sobs and tears wound up the sentence in a storm. it was the little boy's heart that was bleeding. "why mayn't i hear her singing? why don't she ever sing to me--as she does to that baldheaded man with the large teeth?" he gasped out at various intervals these exclamations of rage and grief. the cook looked at the housemaid, the housemaid looked knowingly at the footman--the awful kitchen inquisition which sits in judgement in every house and knows everything--sat on rebecca at that moment. after this incident, the mother's dislike increased to hatred; the consciousness that the child was in the house was a reproach and a pain to her. his very sight annoyed her. fear, doubt, and resistance sprang up, too, in the boy's own bosom. they were separated from that day of the boxes on the ear. lord steyne also heartily disliked the boy. when they met by mischance, he made sarcastic bows or remarks to the child, or glared at him with savage-looking eyes. rawdon used to stare him in the face and double his little fists in return. he knew his enemy, and this gentleman, of all who came to the house, was the one who angered him most. one day the footman found him squaring his fists at lord steyne's hat in the hall. the footman told the circumstance as a good joke to lord steyne's coachman; that officer imparted it to lord steyne's gentleman, and to the servants' hall in general. and very soon afterwards, when mrs. rawdon crawley made her appearance at gaunt house, the porter who unbarred the gates, the servants of all uniforms in the hall, the functionaries in white waistcoats, who bawled out from landing to landing the names of colonel and mrs. rawdon crawley, knew about her, or fancied they did. the man who brought her refreshment and stood behind her chair, had talked her character over with the large gentleman in motley-coloured clothes at his side. bon dieu! it is awful, that servants' inquisition! you see a woman in a great party in a splendid saloon, surrounded by faithful admirers, distributing sparkling glances, dressed to perfection, curled, rouged, smiling and happy--discovery walks respectfully up to her, in the shape of a huge powdered man with large calves and a tray of ices--with calumny (which is as fatal as truth) behind him, in the shape of the hulking fellow carrying the wafer-biscuits. madam, your secret will be talked over by those men at their club at the public-house to-night. jeames will tell chawles his notions about you over their pipes and pewter beer-pots. some people ought to have mutes for servants in vanity fair--mutes who could not write. if you are guilty, tremble. that fellow behind your chair may be a janissary with a bow-string in his plush breeches pocket. if you are not guilty, have a care of appearances, which are as ruinous as guilt. "was rebecca guilty or not?" the vehmgericht of the servants' hall had pronounced against her. and, i shame to say, she would not have got credit had they not believed her to be guilty. it was the sight of the marquis of steyne's carriage-lamps at her door, contemplated by raggles, burning in the blackness of midnight, "that kep him up," as he afterwards said, that even more than rebecca's arts and coaxings. and so--guiltless very likely--she was writhing and pushing onward towards what they call "a position in society," and the servants were pointing at her as lost and ruined. so you see molly, the housemaid, of a morning, watching a spider in the doorpost lay his thread and laboriously crawl up it, until, tired of the sport, she raises her broom and sweeps away the thread and the artificer. a day or two before christmas, becky, her husband and her son made ready and went to pass the holidays at the seat of their ancestors at queen's crawley. becky would have liked to leave the little brat behind, and would have done so but for lady jane's urgent invitations to the youngster, and the symptoms of revolt and discontent which rawdon manifested at her neglect of her son. "he's the finest boy in england," the father said in a tone of reproach to her, "and you don't seem to care for him, becky, as much as you do for your spaniel. he shan't bother you much; at home he will be away from you in the nursery, and he shall go outside on the coach with me." "where you go yourself because you want to smoke those filthy cigars," replied mrs. rawdon. "i remember when you liked 'em though," answered the husband. becky laughed; she was almost always good-humoured. "that was when i was on my promotion, goosey," she said. "take rawdon outside with you and give him a cigar too if you like." rawdon did not warm his little son for the winter's journey in this way, but he and briggs wrapped up the child in shawls and comforters, and he was hoisted respectfully onto the roof of the coach in the dark morning, under the lamps of the white horse cellar; and with no small delight he watched the dawn rise and made his first journey to the place which his father still called home. it was a journey of infinite pleasure to the boy, to whom the incidents of the road afforded endless interest, his father answering to him all questions connected with it and telling him who lived in the great white house to the right, and whom the park belonged to. his mother, inside the vehicle, with her maid and her furs, her wrappers, and her scent bottles, made such a to-do that you would have thought she never had been in a stage-coach before--much less, that she had been turned out of this very one to make room for a paying passenger on a certain journey performed some half-score years ago. it was dark again when little rawdon was wakened up to enter his uncle's carriage at mudbury, and he sat and looked out of it wondering as the great iron gates flew open, and at the white trunks of the limes as they swept by, until they stopped, at length, before the light windows of the hall, which were blazing and comfortable with christmas welcome. the hall-door was flung open--a big fire was burning in the great old fire-place--a carpet was down over the chequered black flags--"it's the old turkey one that used to be in the ladies' gallery," thought rebecca, and the next instant was kissing lady jane. she and sir pitt performed the same salute with great gravity; but rawdon, having been smoking, hung back rather from his sister-in-law, whose two children came up to their cousin; and, while matilda held out her hand and kissed him, pitt binkie southdown, the son and heir, stood aloof rather and examined him as a little dog does a big dog. then the kind hostess conducted her guests to the snug apartments blazing with cheerful fires. then the young ladies came and knocked at mrs. rawdon's door, under the pretence that they were desirous to be useful, but in reality to have the pleasure of inspecting the contents of her band and bonnet-boxes, and her dresses which, though black, were of the newest london fashion. and they told her how much the hall was changed for the better, and how old lady southdown was gone, and how pitt was taking his station in the county, as became a crawley in fact. then the great dinner-bell having rung, the family assembled at dinner, at which meal rawdon junior was placed by his aunt, the good-natured lady of the house, sir pitt being uncommonly attentive to his sister-in-law at his own right hand. little rawdon exhibited a fine appetite and showed a gentlemanlike behaviour. "i like to dine here," he said to his aunt when he had completed his meal, at the conclusion of which, and after a decent grace by sir pitt, the younger son and heir was introduced, and was perched on a high chair by the baronet's side, while the daughter took possession of the place and the little wine-glass prepared for her near her mother. "i like to dine here," said rawdon minor, looking up at his relation's kind face. "why?" said the good lady jane. "i dine in the kitchen when i am at home," replied rawdon minor, "or else with briggs." but becky was so engaged with the baronet, her host, pouring out a flood of compliments and delights and raptures, and admiring young pitt binkie, whom she declared to be the most beautiful, intelligent, noble-looking little creature, and so like his father, that she did not hear the remarks of her own flesh and blood at the other end of the broad shining table. as a guest, and it being the first night of his arrival, rawdon the second was allowed to sit up until the hour when tea being over, and a great gilt book being laid on the table before sir pitt, all the domestics of the family streamed in, and sir pitt read prayers. it was the first time the poor little boy had ever witnessed or heard of such a ceremonial. the house had been much improved even since the baronet's brief reign, and was pronounced by becky to be perfect, charming, delightful, when she surveyed it in his company. as for little rawdon, who examined it with the children for his guides, it seemed to him a perfect palace of enchantment and wonder. there were long galleries, and ancient state bedrooms, there were pictures and old china, and armour. there were the rooms in which grandpapa died, and by which the children walked with terrified looks. "who was grandpapa?" he asked; and they told him how he used to be very old, and used to be wheeled about in a garden-chair, and they showed him the garden-chair one day rotting in the out-house in which it had lain since the old gentleman had been wheeled away yonder to the church, of which the spire was glittering over the park elms. the brothers had good occupation for several mornings in examining the improvements which had been effected by sir pitt's genius and economy. and as they walked or rode, and looked at them, they could talk without too much boring each other. and pitt took care to tell rawdon what a heavy outlay of money these improvements had occasioned, and that a man of landed and funded property was often very hard pressed for twenty pounds. "there is that new lodge-gate," said pitt, pointing to it humbly with the bamboo cane, "i can no more pay for it before the dividends in january than i can fly." "i can lend you, pitt, till then," rawdon answered rather ruefully; and they went in and looked at the restored lodge, where the family arms were just new scraped in stone, and where old mrs. lock, for the first time these many long years, had tight doors, sound roofs, and whole windows. chapter xlv between hampshire and london sir pitt crawley had done more than repair fences and restore dilapidated lodges on the queen's crawley estate. like a wise man he had set to work to rebuild the injured popularity of his house and stop up the gaps and ruins in which his name had been left by his disreputable and thriftless old predecessor. he was elected for the borough speedily after his father's demise; a magistrate, a member of parliament, a county magnate and representative of an ancient family, he made it his duty to show himself before the hampshire public, subscribed handsomely to the county charities, called assiduously upon all the county folk, and laid himself out in a word to take that position in hampshire, and in the empire afterwards, to which he thought his prodigious talents justly entitled him. lady jane was instructed to be friendly with the fuddlestones, and the wapshots, and the other famous baronets, their neighbours. their carriages might frequently be seen in the queen's crawley avenue now; they dined pretty frequently at the hall (where the cookery was so good that it was clear lady jane very seldom had a hand in it), and in return pitt and his wife most energetically dined out in all sorts of weather and at all sorts of distances. for though pitt did not care for joviality, being a frigid man of poor hearth and appetite, yet he considered that to be hospitable and condescending was quite incumbent on his station, and every time that he got a headache from too long an after-dinner sitting, he felt that he was a martyr to duty. he talked about crops, corn-laws, politics, with the best country gentlemen. he (who had been formerly inclined to be a sad free-thinker on these points) entered into poaching and game preserving with ardour. he didn't hunt; he wasn't a hunting man; he was a man of books and peaceful habits; but he thought that the breed of horses must be kept up in the country, and that the breed of foxes must therefore be looked to, and for his part, if his friend, sir huddlestone fuddlestone, liked to draw his country and meet as of old the f. hounds used to do at queen's crawley, he should be happy to see him there, and the gentlemen of the fuddlestone hunt. and to lady southdown's dismay too he became more orthodox in his tendencies every day; gave up preaching in public and attending meeting-houses; went stoutly to church; called on the bishop and all the clergy at winchester; and made no objection when the venerable archdeacon trumper asked for a game of whist. what pangs must have been those of lady southdown, and what an utter castaway she must have thought her son-in-law for permitting such a godless diversion! and when, on the return of the family from an oratorio at winchester, the baronet announced to the young ladies that he should next year very probably take them to the "county balls," they worshipped him for his kindness. lady jane was only too obedient, and perhaps glad herself to go. the dowager wrote off the direst descriptions of her daughter's worldly behaviour to the authoress of the washerwoman of finchley common at the cape; and her house in brighton being about this time unoccupied, returned to that watering-place, her absence being not very much deplored by her children. we may suppose, too, that rebecca, on paying a second visit to queen's crawley, did not feel particularly grieved at the absence of the lady of the medicine chest; though she wrote a christmas letter to her ladyship, in which she respectfully recalled herself to lady southdown's recollection, spoke with gratitude of the delight which her ladyship's conversation had given her on the former visit, dilated on the kindness with which her ladyship had treated her in sickness, and declared that everything at queen's crawley reminded her of her absent friend. a great part of the altered demeanour and popularity of sir pitt crawley might have been traced to the counsels of that astute little lady of curzon street. "you remain a baronet--you consent to be a mere country gentleman," she said to him, while he had been her guest in london. "no, sir pitt crawley, i know you better. i know your talents and your ambition. you fancy you hide them both, but you can conceal neither from me. i showed lord steyne your pamphlet on malt. he was familiar with it, and said it was in the opinion of the whole cabinet the most masterly thing that had appeared on the subject. the ministry has its eye upon you, and i know what you want. you want to distinguish yourself in parliament; every one says you are the finest speaker in england (for your speeches at oxford are still remembered). you want to be member for the county, where, with your own vote and your borough at your back, you can command anything. and you want to be baron crawley of queen's crawley, and will be before you die. i saw it all. i could read your heart, sir pitt. if i had a husband who possessed your intellect as he does your name, i sometimes think i should not be unworthy of him--but--but i am your kinswoman now," she added with a laugh. "poor little penniless, i have got a little interest--and who knows, perhaps the mouse may be able to aid the lion." pitt crawley was amazed and enraptured with her speech. "how that woman comprehends me!" he said. "i never could get jane to read three pages of the malt pamphlet. she has no idea that i have commanding talents or secret ambition. so they remember my speaking at oxford, do they? the rascals! now that i represent my borough and may sit for the county, they begin to recollect me! why, lord steyne cut me at the levee last year; they are beginning to find out that pitt crawley is some one at last. yes, the man was always the same whom these people neglected: it was only the opportunity that was wanting, and i will show them now that i can speak and act as well as write. achilles did not declare himself until they gave him the sword. i hold it now, and the world shall yet hear of pitt crawley." therefore it was that this roguish diplomatist has grown so hospitable; that he was so civil to oratorios and hospitals; so kind to deans and chapters; so generous in giving and accepting dinners; so uncommonly gracious to farmers on market-days; and so much interested about county business; and that the christmas at the hall was the gayest which had been known there for many a long day. on christmas day a great family gathering took place. all the crawleys from the rectory came to dine. rebecca was as frank and fond of mrs. bute as if the other had never been her enemy; she was affectionately interested in the dear girls, and surprised at the progress which they had made in music since her time, and insisted upon encoring one of the duets out of the great song-books which jim, grumbling, had been forced to bring under his arm from the rectory. mrs. bute, perforce, was obliged to adopt a decent demeanour towards the little adventuress--of course being free to discourse with her daughters afterwards about the absurd respect with which sir pitt treated his sister-in-law. but jim, who had sat next to her at dinner, declared she was a trump, and one and all of the rector's family agreed that the little rawdon was a fine boy. they respected a possible baronet in the boy, between whom and the title there was only the little sickly pale pitt binkie. the children were very good friends. pitt binkie was too little a dog for such a big dog as rawdon to play with; and matilda being only a girl, of course not fit companion for a young gentleman who was near eight years old, and going into jackets very soon. he took the command of this small party at once--the little girl and the little boy following him about with great reverence at such times as he condescended to sport with them. his happiness and pleasure in the country were extreme. the kitchen garden pleased him hugely, the flowers moderately, but the pigeons and the poultry, and the stables when he was allowed to visit them, were delightful objects to him. he resisted being kissed by the misses crawley, but he allowed lady jane sometimes to embrace him, and it was by her side that he liked to sit when, the signal to retire to the drawing-room being given, the ladies left the gentlemen to their claret--by her side rather than by his mother. for rebecca, seeing that tenderness was the fashion, called rawdon to her one evening and stooped down and kissed him in the presence of all the ladies. he looked her full in the face after the operation, trembling and turning very red, as his wont was when moved. "you never kiss me at home, mamma," he said, at which there was a general silence and consternation and a by no means pleasant look in becky's eyes. rawdon was fond of his sister-in-law, for her regard for his son. lady jane and becky did not get on quite so well at this visit as on occasion of the former one, when the colonel's wife was bent upon pleasing. those two speeches of the child struck rather a chill. perhaps sir pitt was rather too attentive to her. but rawdon, as became his age and size, was fonder of the society of the men than of the women, and never wearied of accompanying his sire to the stables, whither the colonel retired to smoke his cigar--jim, the rector's son, sometimes joining his cousin in that and other amusements. he and the baronet's keeper were very close friends, their mutual taste for "dawgs" bringing them much together. on one day, mr. james, the colonel, and horn, the keeper, went and shot pheasants, taking little rawdon with them. on another most blissful morning, these four gentlemen partook of the amusement of rat-hunting in a barn, than which sport rawdon as yet had never seen anything more noble. they stopped up the ends of certain drains in the barn, into the other openings of which ferrets were inserted, and then stood silently aloof, with uplifted stakes in their hands, and an anxious little terrier (mr. james's celebrated "dawg" forceps, indeed) scarcely breathing from excitement, listening motionless on three legs, to the faint squeaking of the rats below. desperately bold at last, the persecuted animals bolted above-ground--the terrier accounted for one, the keeper for another; rawdon, from flurry and excitement, missed his rat, but on the other hand he half-murdered a ferret. but the greatest day of all was that on which sir huddlestone fuddlestone's hounds met upon the lawn at queen's crawley. that was a famous sight for little rawdon. at half-past ten, tom moody, sir huddlestone fuddlestone's huntsman, was seen trotting up the avenue, followed by the noble pack of hounds in a compact body--the rear being brought up by the two whips clad in stained scarlet frocks--light hard-featured lads on well-bred lean horses, possessing marvellous dexterity in casting the points of their long heavy whips at the thinnest part of any dog's skin who dares to straggle from the main body, or to take the slightest notice, or even so much as wink, at the hares and rabbits starting under their noses. next comes boy jack, tom moody's son, who weighs five stone, measures eight-and-forty inches, and will never be any bigger. he is perched on a large raw-boned hunter, half-covered by a capacious saddle. this animal is sir huddlestone fuddlestone's favourite horse the nob. other horses, ridden by other small boys, arrive from time to time, awaiting their masters, who will come cantering on anon. tom moody rides up to the door of the hall, where he is welcomed by the butler, who offers him drink, which he declines. he and his pack then draw off into a sheltered corner of the lawn, where the dogs roll on the grass, and play or growl angrily at one another, ever and anon breaking out into furious fight speedily to be quelled by tom's voice, unmatched at rating, or the snaky thongs of the whips. many young gentlemen canter up on thoroughbred hacks, spatter-dashed to the knee, and enter the house to drink cherry-brandy and pay their respects to the ladies, or, more modest and sportsmanlike, divest themselves of their mud-boots, exchange their hacks for their hunters, and warm their blood by a preliminary gallop round the lawn. then they collect round the pack in the corner and talk with tom moody of past sport, and the merits of sniveller and diamond, and of the state of the country and of the wretched breed of foxes. sir huddlestone presently appears mounted on a clever cob and rides up to the hall, where he enters and does the civil thing by the ladies, after which, being a man of few words, he proceeds to business. the hounds are drawn up to the hall-door, and little rawdon descends amongst them, excited yet half-alarmed by the caresses which they bestow upon him, at the thumps he receives from their waving tails, and at their canine bickerings, scarcely restrained by tom moody's tongue and lash. meanwhile, sir huddlestone has hoisted himself unwieldily on the nob: "let's try sowster's spinney, tom," says the baronet, "farmer mangle tells me there are two foxes in it." tom blows his horn and trots off, followed by the pack, by the whips, by the young gents from winchester, by the farmers of the neighbourhood, by the labourers of the parish on foot, with whom the day is a great holiday, sir huddlestone bringing up the rear with colonel crawley, and the whole cortege disappears down the avenue. the reverend bute crawley (who has been too modest to appear at the public meet before his nephew's windows), whom tom moody remembers forty years back a slender divine riding the wildest horses, jumping the widest brooks, and larking over the newest gates in the country--his reverence, we say, happens to trot out from the rectory lane on his powerful black horse just as sir huddlestone passes; he joins the worthy baronet. hounds and horsemen disappear, and little rawdon remains on the doorsteps, wondering and happy. during the progress of this memorable holiday, little rawdon, if he had got no special liking for his uncle, always awful and cold and locked up in his study, plunged in justice-business and surrounded by bailiffs and farmers--has gained the good graces of his married and maiden aunts, of the two little folks of the hall, and of jim of the rectory, whom sir pitt is encouraging to pay his addresses to one of the young ladies, with an understanding doubtless that he shall be presented to the living when it shall be vacated by his fox-hunting old sire. jim has given up that sport himself and confines himself to a little harmless duck- or snipe-shooting, or a little quiet trifling with the rats during the christmas holidays, after which he will return to the university and try and not be plucked, once more. he has already eschewed green coats, red neckcloths, and other worldly ornaments, and is preparing himself for a change in his condition. in this cheap and thrifty way sir pitt tries to pay off his debt to his family. also before this merry christmas was over, the baronet had screwed up courage enough to give his brother another draft on his bankers, and for no less a sum than a hundred pounds, an act which caused sir pitt cruel pangs at first, but which made him glow afterwards to think himself one of the most generous of men. rawdon and his son went away with the utmost heaviness of heart. becky and the ladies parted with some alacrity, however, and our friend returned to london to commence those avocations with which we find her occupied when this chapter begins. under her care the crawley house in great gaunt street was quite rejuvenescent and ready for the reception of sir pitt and his family, when the baronet came to london to attend his duties in parliament and to assume that position in the country for which his vast genius fitted him. for the first session, this profound dissembler hid his projects and never opened his lips but to present a petition from mudbury. but he attended assiduously in his place and learned thoroughly the routine and business of the house. at home he gave himself up to the perusal of blue books, to the alarm and wonder of lady jane, who thought he was killing himself by late hours and intense application. and he made acquaintance with the ministers, and the chiefs of his party, determining to rank as one of them before many years were over. lady jane's sweetness and kindness had inspired rebecca with such a contempt for her ladyship as the little woman found no small difficulty in concealing. that sort of goodness and simplicity which lady jane possessed annoyed our friend becky, and it was impossible for her at times not to show, or to let the other divine, her scorn. her presence, too, rendered lady jane uneasy. her husband talked constantly with becky. signs of intelligence seemed to pass between them, and pitt spoke with her on subjects on which he never thought of discoursing with lady jane. the latter did not understand them, to be sure, but it was mortifying to remain silent; still more mortifying to know that you had nothing to say, and hear that little audacious mrs. rawdon dashing on from subject to subject, with a word for every man, and a joke always pat; and to sit in one's own house alone, by the fireside, and watching all the men round your rival. in the country, when lady jane was telling stories to the children, who clustered about her knees (little rawdon into the bargain, who was very fond of her), and becky came into the room, sneering with green scornful eyes, poor lady jane grew silent under those baleful glances. her simple little fancies shrank away tremulously, as fairies in the story-books, before a superior bad angel. she could not go on, although rebecca, with the smallest inflection of sarcasm in her voice, besought her to continue that charming story. and on her side gentle thoughts and simple pleasures were odious to mrs. becky; they discorded with her; she hated people for liking them; she spurned children and children-lovers. "i have no taste for bread and butter," she would say, when caricaturing lady jane and her ways to my lord steyne. "no more has a certain person for holy water," his lordship replied with a bow and a grin and a great jarring laugh afterwards. so these two ladies did not see much of each other except upon those occasions when the younger brother's wife, having an object to gain from the other, frequented her. they my-loved and my-deared each other assiduously, but kept apart generally, whereas sir pitt, in the midst of his multiplied avocations, found daily time to see his sister-in-law. on the occasion of his first speaker's dinner, sir pitt took the opportunity of appearing before his sister-in-law in his uniform--that old diplomatic suit which he had worn when attache to the pumpernickel legation. becky complimented him upon that dress and admired him almost as much as his own wife and children, to whom he displayed himself before he set out. she said that it was only the thoroughbred gentleman who could wear the court suit with advantage: it was only your men of ancient race whom the culotte courte became. pitt looked down with complacency at his legs, which had not, in truth, much more symmetry or swell than the lean court sword which dangled by his side--looked down at his legs, and thought in his heart that he was killing. when he was gone, mrs. becky made a caricature of his figure, which she showed to lord steyne when he arrived. his lordship carried off the sketch, delighted with the accuracy of the resemblance. he had done sir pitt crawley the honour to meet him at mrs. becky's house and had been most gracious to the new baronet and member. pitt was struck too by the deference with which the great peer treated his sister-in-law, by her ease and sprightliness in the conversation, and by the delight with which the other men of the party listened to her talk. lord steyne made no doubt but that the baronet had only commenced his career in public life, and expected rather anxiously to hear him as an orator; as they were neighbours (for great gaunt street leads into gaunt square, whereof gaunt house, as everybody knows, forms one side) my lord hoped that as soon as lady steyne arrived in london she would have the honour of making the acquaintance of lady crawley. he left a card upon his neighbour in the course of a day or two, having never thought fit to notice his predecessor, though they had lived near each other for near a century past. in the midst of these intrigues and fine parties and wise and brilliant personages rawdon felt himself more and more isolated every day. he was allowed to go to the club more; to dine abroad with bachelor friends; to come and go when he liked, without any questions being asked. and he and rawdon the younger many a time would walk to gaunt street and sit with the lady and the children there while sir pitt was closeted with rebecca, on his way to the house, or on his return from it. the ex-colonel would sit for hours in his brother's house very silent, and thinking and doing as little as possible. he was glad to be employed of an errand; to go and make inquiries about a horse or a servant, or to carve the roast mutton for the dinner of the children. he was beat and cowed into laziness and submission. delilah had imprisoned him and cut his hair off, too. the bold and reckless young blood of ten-years back was subjugated and was turned into a torpid, submissive, middle-aged, stout gentleman. and poor lady jane was aware that rebecca had captivated her husband, although she and mrs. rawdon my-deared and my-loved each other every day they met. chapter xlvi struggles and trials our friends at brompton were meanwhile passing their christmas after their fashion and in a manner by no means too cheerful. out of the hundred pounds a year, which was about the amount of her income, the widow osborne had been in the habit of giving up nearly three-fourths to her father and mother, for the expenses of herself and her little boy. with _l_. more, supplied by jos, this family of four people, attended by a single irish servant who also did for clapp and his wife, might manage to live in decent comfort through the year, and hold up their heads yet, and be able to give a friend a dish of tea still, after the storms and disappointments of their early life. sedley still maintained his ascendency over the family of mr. clapp, his ex-clerk. clapp remembered the time when, sitting on the edge of the chair, he tossed off a bumper to the health of "mrs. s--, miss emmy, and mr. joseph in india," at the merchant's rich table in russell square. time magnified the splendour of those recollections in the honest clerk's bosom. whenever he came up from the kitchen-parlour to the drawing-room and partook of tea or gin-and-water with mr. sedley, he would say, "this was not what you was accustomed to once, sir," and as gravely and reverentially drink the health of the ladies as he had done in the days of their utmost prosperity. he thought miss 'melia's playing the divinest music ever performed, and her the finest lady. he never would sit down before sedley at the club even, nor would he have that gentleman's character abused by any member of the society. he had seen the first men in london shaking hands with mr. s--; he said, "he'd known him in times when rothschild might be seen on 'change with him any day, and he owed him personally everythink." clapp, with the best of characters and handwritings, had been able very soon after his master's disaster to find other employment for himself. "such a little fish as me can swim in any bucket," he used to remark, and a member of the house from which old sedley had seceded was very glad to make use of mr. clapp's services and to reward them with a comfortable salary. in fine, all sedley's wealthy friends had dropped off one by one, and this poor ex-dependent still remained faithfully attached to him. out of the small residue of her income which amelia kept back for herself, the widow had need of all the thrift and care possible in order to enable her to keep her darling boy dressed in such a manner as became george osborne's son, and to defray the expenses of the little school to which, after much misgiving and reluctance and many secret pangs and fears on her own part, she had been induced to send the lad. she had sat up of nights conning lessons and spelling over crabbed grammars and geography books in order to teach them to georgy. she had worked even at the latin accidence, fondly hoping that she might be capable of instructing him in that language. to part with him all day, to send him out to the mercy of a schoolmaster's cane and his schoolfellows' roughness, was almost like weaning him over again to that weak mother, so tremulous and full of sensibility. he, for his part, rushed off to the school with the utmost happiness. he was longing for the change. that childish gladness wounded his mother, who was herself so grieved to part with him. she would rather have had him more sorry, she thought, and then was deeply repentant within herself for daring to be so selfish as to wish her own son to be unhappy. georgy made great progress in the school, which was kept by a friend of his mother's constant admirer, the rev. mr. binny. he brought home numberless prizes and testimonials of ability. he told his mother countless stories every night about his school-companions: and what a fine fellow lyons was, and what a sneak sniffin was, and how steel's father actually supplied the meat for the establishment, whereas golding's mother came in a carriage to fetch him every saturday, and how neat had straps to his trowsers--might he have straps?--and how bull major was so strong (though only in eutropius) that it was believed he could lick the usher, mr. ward, himself. so amelia learned to know every one of the boys in that school as well as georgy himself, and of nights she used to help him in his exercises and puzzle her little head over his lessons as eagerly as if she was herself going in the morning into the presence of the master. once, after a certain combat with master smith, george came home to his mother with a black eye, and bragged prodigiously to his parent and his delighted old grandfather about his valour in the fight, in which, if the truth was known he did not behave with particular heroism, and in which he decidedly had the worst. but amelia has never forgiven that smith to this day, though he is now a peaceful apothecary near leicester square. in these quiet labours and harmless cares the gentle widow's life was passing away, a silver hair or two marking the progress of time on her head and a line deepening ever so little on her fair forehead. she used to smile at these marks of time. "what matters it," she asked, "for an old woman like me?" all she hoped for was to live to see her son great, famous, and glorious, as he deserved to be. she kept his copy-books, his drawings, and compositions, and showed them about in her little circle as if they were miracles of genius. she confided some of these specimens to miss dobbin, to show them to miss osborne, george's aunt, to show them to mr. osborne himself--to make that old man repent of his cruelty and ill feeling towards him who was gone. all her husband's faults and foibles she had buried in the grave with him: she only remembered the lover, who had married her at all sacrifices, the noble husband, so brave and beautiful, in whose arms she had hung on the morning when he had gone away to fight, and die gloriously for his king. from heaven the hero must be smiling down upon that paragon of a boy whom he had left to comfort and console her. we have seen how one of george's grandfathers (mr. osborne), in his easy chair in russell square, daily grew more violent and moody, and how his daughter, with her fine carriage, and her fine horses, and her name on half the public charity-lists of the town, was a lonely, miserable, persecuted old maid. she thought again and again of the beautiful little boy, her brother's son, whom she had seen. she longed to be allowed to drive in the fine carriage to the house in which he lived, and she used to look out day after day as she took her solitary drive in the park, in hopes that she might see him. her sister, the banker's lady, occasionally condescended to pay her old home and companion a visit in russell square. she brought a couple of sickly children attended by a prim nurse, and in a faint genteel giggling tone cackled to her sister about her fine acquaintance, and how her little frederick was the image of lord claud lollypop and her sweet maria had been noticed by the baroness as they were driving in their donkey-chaise at roehampton. she urged her to make her papa do something for the darlings. frederick she had determined should go into the guards; and if they made an elder son of him (and mr. bullock was positively ruining and pinching himself to death to buy land), how was the darling girl to be provided for? "i expect you, dear," mrs. bullock would say, "for of course my share of our papa's property must go to the head of the house, you know. dear rhoda mcmull will disengage the whole of the castletoddy property as soon as poor dear lord castletoddy dies, who is quite epileptic; and little macduff mcmull will be viscount castletoddy. both the mr. bludyers of mincing lane have settled their fortunes on fanny bludyer's little boy. my darling frederick must positively be an eldest son; and--and do ask papa to bring us back his account in lombard street, will you, dear? it doesn't look well, his going to stumpy and rowdy's." after which kind of speeches, in which fashion and the main chance were blended together, and after a kiss, which was like the contact of an oyster--mrs. frederick bullock would gather her starched nurslings and simper back into her carriage. every visit which this leader of ton paid to her family was more unlucky for her. her father paid more money into stumpy and rowdy's. her patronage became more and more insufferable. the poor widow in the little cottage at brompton, guarding her treasure there, little knew how eagerly some people coveted it. on that night when jane osborne had told her father that she had seen his grandson, the old man had made her no reply, but he had shown no anger--and had bade her good-night on going himself to his room in rather a kindly voice. and he must have meditated on what she said and have made some inquiries of the dobbin family regarding her visit, for a fortnight after it took place, he asked her where was her little french watch and chain she used to wear? "i bought it with my money, sir," she said in a great fright. "go and order another like it, or a better if you can get it," said the old gentleman and lapsed again into silence. of late the misses dobbin more than once repeated their entreaties to amelia, to allow george to visit them. his aunt had shown her inclination; perhaps his grandfather himself, they hinted, might be disposed to be reconciled to him. surely, amelia could not refuse such advantageous chances for the boy. nor could she, but she acceded to their overtures with a very heavy and suspicious heart, was always uneasy during the child's absence from her, and welcomed him back as if he was rescued out of some danger. he brought back money and toys, at which the widow looked with alarm and jealousy; she asked him always if he had seen any gentleman--"only old sir william, who drove him about in the four-wheeled chaise, and mr. dobbin, who arrived on the beautiful bay horse in the afternoon--in the green coat and pink neck-cloth, with the gold-headed whip, who promised to show him the tower of london and take him out with the surrey hounds." at last, he said, "there was an old gentleman, with thick eyebrows, and a broad hat, and large chain and seals." he came one day as the coachman was lunging georgy round the lawn on the gray pony. "he looked at me very much. he shook very much. i said 'my name is norval' after dinner. my aunt began to cry. she is always crying." such was george's report on that night. then amelia knew that the boy had seen his grandfather; and looked out feverishly for a proposal which she was sure would follow, and which came, in fact, in a few days afterwards. mr. osborne formally offered to take the boy and make him heir to the fortune which he had intended that his father should inherit. he would make mrs. george osborne an allowance, such as to assure her a decent competency. if mrs. george osborne proposed to marry again, as mr. o. heard was her intention, he would not withdraw that allowance. but it must be understood that the child would live entirely with his grandfather in russell square, or at whatever other place mr. o. should select, and that he would be occasionally permitted to see mrs. george osborne at her own residence. this message was brought or read to her in a letter one day, when her mother was from home and her father absent as usual in the city. she was never seen angry but twice or thrice in her life, and it was in one of these moods that mr. osborne's attorney had the fortune to behold her. she rose up trembling and flushing very much as soon as, after reading the letter, mr. poe handed it to her, and she tore the paper into a hundred fragments, which she trod on. "i marry again! i take money to part from my child! who dares insult me by proposing such a thing? tell mr. osborne it is a cowardly letter, sir--a cowardly letter--i will not answer it. i wish you good morning, sir--and she bowed me out of the room like a tragedy queen," said the lawyer who told the story. her parents never remarked her agitation on that day, and she never told them of the interview. they had their own affairs to interest them, affairs which deeply interested this innocent and unconscious lady. the old gentleman, her father, was always dabbling in speculation. we have seen how the wine company and the coal company had failed him. but, prowling about the city always eagerly and restlessly still, he lighted upon some other scheme, of which he thought so well that he embarked in it in spite of the remonstrances of mr. clapp, to whom indeed he never dared to tell how far he had engaged himself in it. and as it was always mr. sedley's maxim not to talk about money matters before women, they had no inkling of the misfortunes that were in store for them until the unhappy old gentleman was forced to make gradual confessions. the bills of the little household, which had been settled weekly, first fell into arrear. the remittances had not arrived from india, mr. sedley told his wife with a disturbed face. as she had paid her bills very regularly hitherto, one or two of the tradesmen to whom the poor lady was obliged to go round asking for time were very angry at a delay to which they were perfectly used from more irregular customers. emmy's contribution, paid over cheerfully without any questions, kept the little company in half-rations however. and the first six months passed away pretty easily, old sedley still keeping up with the notion that his shares must rise and that all would be well. no sixty pounds, however, came to help the household at the end of the half year, and it fell deeper and deeper into trouble--mrs. sedley, who was growing infirm and was much shaken, remained silent or wept a great deal with mrs. clapp in the kitchen. the butcher was particularly surly, the grocer insolent: once or twice little georgy had grumbled about the dinners, and amelia, who still would have been satisfied with a slice of bread for her own dinner, could not but perceive that her son was neglected and purchased little things out of her private purse to keep the boy in health. at last they told her, or told her such a garbled story as people in difficulties tell. one day, her own money having been received, and amelia about to pay it over, she, who had kept an account of the moneys expended by her, proposed to keep a certain portion back out of her dividend, having contracted engagements for a new suit for georgy. then it came out that jos's remittances were not paid, that the house was in difficulties, which amelia ought to have seen before, her mother said, but she cared for nothing or nobody except georgy. at this she passed all her money across the table, without a word, to her mother, and returned to her room to cry her eyes out. she had a great access of sensibility too that day, when obliged to go and countermand the clothes, the darling clothes on which she had set her heart for christmas day, and the cut and fashion of which she had arranged in many conversations with a small milliner, her friend. hardest of all, she had to break the matter to georgy, who made a loud outcry. everybody had new clothes at christmas. the others would laugh at him. he would have new clothes. she had promised them to him. the poor widow had only kisses to give him. she darned the old suit in tears. she cast about among her little ornaments to see if she could sell anything to procure the desired novelties. there was her india shawl that dobbin had sent her. she remembered in former days going with her mother to a fine india shop on ludgate hill, where the ladies had all sorts of dealings and bargains in these articles. her cheeks flushed and her eyes shone with pleasure as she thought of this resource, and she kissed away george to school in the morning, smiling brightly after him. the boy felt that there was good news in her look. packing up her shawl in a handkerchief (another of the gifts of the good major), she hid them under her cloak and walked flushed and eager all the way to ludgate hill, tripping along by the park wall and running over the crossings, so that many a man turned as she hurried by him and looked after her rosy pretty face. she calculated how she should spend the proceeds of her shawl--how, besides the clothes, she would buy the books that he longed for, and pay his half-year's schooling; and how she would buy a cloak for her father instead of that old great-coat which he wore. she was not mistaken as to the value of the major's gift. it was a very fine and beautiful web, and the merchant made a very good bargain when he gave her twenty guineas for her shawl. she ran on amazed and flurried with her riches to darton's shop, in st. paul's churchyard, and there purchased the parents' assistant and the sandford and merton georgy longed for, and got into the coach there with her parcel, and went home exulting. and she pleased herself by writing in the fly-leaf in her neatest little hand, "george osborne, a christmas gift from his affectionate mother." the books are extant to this day, with the fair delicate superscription. she was going from her own room with the books in her hand to place them on george's table, where he might find them on his return from school, when in the passage, she and her mother met. the gilt bindings of the seven handsome little volumes caught the old lady's eye. "what are those?" she said. "some books for georgy," amelia replied--"i--i promised them to him at christmas." "books!" cried the elder lady indignantly, "books, when the whole house wants bread! books, when to keep you and your son in luxury, and your dear father out of gaol, i've sold every trinket i had, the india shawl from my back even down to the very spoons, that our tradesmen mightn't insult us, and that mr. clapp, which indeed he is justly entitled, being not a hard landlord, and a civil man, and a father, might have his rent. oh, amelia! you break my heart with your books and that boy of yours, whom you are ruining, though part with him you will not. oh, amelia, may god send you a more dutiful child than i have had! there's jos, deserts his father in his old age; and there's george, who might be provided for, and who might be rich, going to school like a lord, with a gold watch and chain round his neck--while my dear, dear old man is without a sh--shilling." hysteric sobs and cries ended mrs. sedley's speech--it echoed through every room in the small house, whereof the other female inmates heard every word of the colloquy. "oh, mother, mother!" cried poor amelia in reply. "you told me nothing--i--i promised him the books. i--i only sold my shawl this morning. take the money--take everything"--and with quivering hands she took out her silver, and her sovereigns--her precious golden sovereigns, which she thrust into the hands of her mother, whence they overflowed and tumbled, rolling down the stairs. and then she went into her room, and sank down in despair and utter misery. she saw it all now. her selfishness was sacrificing the boy. but for her he might have wealth, station, education, and his father's place, which the elder george had forfeited for her sake. she had but to speak the words, and her father was restored to competency and the boy raised to fortune. oh, what a conviction it was to that tender and stricken heart! chapter xlvii gaunt house all the world knows that lord steyne's town palace stands in gaunt square, out of which great gaunt street leads, whither we first conducted rebecca, in the time of the departed sir pitt crawley. peering over the railings and through the black trees into the garden of the square, you see a few miserable governesses with wan-faced pupils wandering round and round it, and round the dreary grass-plot in the centre of which rises the statue of lord gaunt, who fought at minden, in a three-tailed wig, and otherwise habited like a roman emperor. gaunt house occupies nearly a side of the square. the remaining three sides are composed of mansions that have passed away into dowagerism--tall, dark houses, with window-frames of stone, or picked out of a lighter red. little light seems to be behind those lean, comfortless casements now, and hospitality to have passed away from those doors as much as the laced lacqueys and link-boys of old times, who used to put out their torches in the blank iron extinguishers that still flank the lamps over the steps. brass plates have penetrated into the square--doctors, the diddlesex bank western branch--the english and european reunion, &c.--it has a dreary look--nor is my lord steyne's palace less dreary. all i have ever seen of it is the vast wall in front, with the rustic columns at the great gate, through which an old porter peers sometimes with a fat and gloomy red face--and over the wall the garret and bedroom windows, and the chimneys, out of which there seldom comes any smoke now. for the present lord steyne lives at naples, preferring the view of the bay and capri and vesuvius to the dreary aspect of the wall in gaunt square. a few score yards down new gaunt street, and leading into gaunt mews indeed, is a little modest back door, which you would not remark from that of any of the other stables. but many a little close carriage has stopped at that door, as my informant (little tom eaves, who knows everything, and who showed me the place) told me. "the prince and perdita have been in and out of that door, sir," he had often told me; "marianne clarke has entered it with the duke of ------. it conducts to the famous petits appartements of lord steyne--one, sir, fitted up all in ivory and white satin, another in ebony and black velvet; there is a little banqueting-room taken from sallust's house at pompeii, and painted by cosway--a little private kitchen, in which every saucepan was silver and all the spits were gold. it was there that egalite orleans roasted partridges on the night when he and the marquis of steyne won a hundred thousand from a great personage at ombre. half of the money went to the french revolution, half to purchase lord gaunt's marquisate and garter--and the remainder--" but it forms no part of our scheme to tell what became of the remainder, for every shilling of which, and a great deal more, little tom eaves, who knows everybody's affairs, is ready to account. besides his town palace, the marquis had castles and palaces in various quarters of the three kingdoms, whereof the descriptions may be found in the road-books--castle strongbow, with its woods, on the shannon shore; gaunt castle, in carmarthenshire, where richard ii was taken prisoner--gauntly hall in yorkshire, where i have been informed there were two hundred silver teapots for the breakfasts of the guests of the house, with everything to correspond in splendour; and stillbrook in hampshire, which was my lord's farm, an humble place of residence, of which we all remember the wonderful furniture which was sold at my lord's demise by a late celebrated auctioneer. the marchioness of steyne was of the renowned and ancient family of the caerlyons, marquises of camelot, who have preserved the old faith ever since the conversion of the venerable druid, their first ancestor, and whose pedigree goes far beyond the date of the arrival of king brute in these islands. pendragon is the title of the eldest son of the house. the sons have been called arthurs, uthers, and caradocs, from immemorial time. their heads have fallen in many a loyal conspiracy. elizabeth chopped off the head of the arthur of her day, who had been chamberlain to philip and mary, and carried letters between the queen of scots and her uncles the guises. a cadet of the house was an officer of the great duke and distinguished in the famous saint bartholomew conspiracy. during the whole of mary's confinement, the house of camelot conspired in her behalf. it was as much injured by its charges in fitting out an armament against the spaniards, during the time of the armada, as by the fines and confiscations levied on it by elizabeth for harbouring of priests, obstinate recusancy, and popish misdoings. a recreant of james's time was momentarily perverted from his religion by the arguments of that great theologian, and the fortunes of the family somewhat restored by his timely weakness. but the earl of camelot, of the reign of charles, returned to the old creed of his family, and they continued to fight for it, and ruin themselves for it, as long as there was a stuart left to head or to instigate a rebellion. lady mary caerlyon was brought up at a parisian convent; the dauphiness marie antoinette was her godmother. in the pride of her beauty she had been married--sold, it was said--to lord gaunt, then at paris, who won vast sums from the lady's brother at some of philip of orleans's banquets. the earl of gaunt's famous duel with the count de la marche, of the grey musqueteers, was attributed by common report to the pretensions of that officer (who had been a page, and remained a favourite of the queen) to the hand of the beautiful lady mary caerlyon. she was married to lord gaunt while the count lay ill of his wound, and came to dwell at gaunt house, and to figure for a short time in the splendid court of the prince of wales. fox had toasted her. morris and sheridan had written songs about her. malmesbury had made her his best bow; walpole had pronounced her charming; devonshire had been almost jealous of her; but she was scared by the wild pleasures and gaieties of the society into which she was flung, and after she had borne a couple of sons, shrank away into a life of devout seclusion. no wonder that my lord steyne, who liked pleasure and cheerfulness, was not often seen after their marriage by the side of this trembling, silent, superstitious, unhappy lady. the before-mentioned tom eaves (who has no part in this history, except that he knew all the great folks in london, and the stories and mysteries of each family) had further information regarding my lady steyne, which may or may not be true. "the humiliations," tom used to say, "which that woman has been made to undergo, in her own house, have been frightful; lord steyne has made her sit down to table with women with whom i would rather die than allow mrs. eaves to associate--with lady crackenbury, with mrs. chippenham, with madame de la cruchecassee, the french secretary's wife (from every one of which ladies tom eaves--who would have sacrificed his wife for knowing them--was too glad to get a bow or a dinner) with the reigning favourite in a word. and do you suppose that that woman, of that family, who are as proud as the bourbons, and to whom the steynes are but lackeys, mushrooms of yesterday (for after all, they are not of the old gaunts, but of a minor and doubtful branch of the house); do you suppose, i say (the reader must bear in mind that it is always tom eaves who speaks) that the marchioness of steyne, the haughtiest woman in england, would bend down to her husband so submissively if there were not some cause? pooh! i tell you there are secret reasons. i tell you that, in the emigration, the abbe de la marche who was here and was employed in the quiberoon business with puisaye and tinteniac, was the same colonel of mousquetaires gris with whom steyne fought in the year ' --that he and the marchioness met again--that it was after the reverend colonel was shot in brittany that lady steyne took to those extreme practices of devotion which she carries on now; for she is closeted with her director every day--she is at service at spanish place, every morning, i've watched her there--that is, i've happened to be passing there--and depend on it, there's a mystery in her case. people are not so unhappy unless they have something to repent of," added tom eaves with a knowing wag of his head; "and depend on it, that woman would not be so submissive as she is if the marquis had not some sword to hold over her." so, if mr. eaves's information be correct, it is very likely that this lady, in her high station, had to submit to many a private indignity and to hide many secret griefs under a calm face. and let us, my brethren who have not our names in the red book, console ourselves by thinking comfortably how miserable our betters may be, and that damocles, who sits on satin cushions and is served on gold plate, has an awful sword hanging over his head in the shape of a bailiff, or an hereditary disease, or a family secret, which peeps out every now and then from the embroidered arras in a ghastly manner, and will be sure to drop one day or the other in the right place. in comparing, too, the poor man's situation with that of the great, there is (always according to mr. eaves) another source of comfort for the former. you who have little or no patrimony to bequeath or to inherit, may be on good terms with your father or your son, whereas the heir of a great prince, such as my lord steyne, must naturally be angry at being kept out of his kingdom, and eye the occupant of it with no very agreeable glances. "take it as a rule," this sardonic old eaves would say, "the fathers and elder sons of all great families hate each other. the crown prince is always in opposition to the crown or hankering after it. shakespeare knew the world, my good sir, and when he describes prince hal (from whose family the gaunts pretend to be descended, though they are no more related to john of gaunt than you are) trying on his father's coronet, he gives you a natural description of all heirs apparent. if you were heir to a dukedom and a thousand pounds a day, do you mean to say you would not wish for possession? pooh! and it stands to reason that every great man, having experienced this feeling towards his father, must be aware that his son entertains it towards himself; and so they can't but be suspicious and hostile. "then again, as to the feeling of elder towards younger sons. my dear sir, you ought to know that every elder brother looks upon the cadets of the house as his natural enemies, who deprive him of so much ready money which ought to be his by right. i have often heard george mac turk, lord bajazet's eldest son, say that if he had his will when he came to the title, he would do what the sultans do, and clear the estate by chopping off all his younger brothers' heads at once; and so the case is, more or less, with them all. i tell you they are all turks in their hearts. pooh! sir, they know the world." and here, haply, a great man coming up, tom eaves's hat would drop off his head, and he would rush forward with a bow and a grin, which showed that he knew the world too--in the tomeavesian way, that is. and having laid out every shilling of his fortune on an annuity, tom could afford to bear no malice to his nephews and nieces, and to have no other feeling with regard to his betters but a constant and generous desire to dine with them. between the marchioness and the natural and tender regard of mother for children, there was that cruel barrier placed of difference of faith. the very love which she might feel for her sons only served to render the timid and pious lady more fearful and unhappy. the gulf which separated them was fatal and impassable. she could not stretch her weak arms across it, or draw her children over to that side away from which her belief told her there was no safety. during the youth of his sons, lord steyne, who was a good scholar and amateur casuist, had no better sport in the evening after dinner in the country than in setting the boys' tutor, the reverend mr. trail (now my lord bishop of ealing) on her ladyship's director, father mole, over their wine, and in pitting oxford against st. acheul. he cried "bravo, latimer! well said, loyola!" alternately; he promised mole a bishopric if he would come over, and vowed he would use all his influence to get trail a cardinal's hat if he would secede. neither divine allowed himself to be conquered, and though the fond mother hoped that her youngest and favourite son would be reconciled to her church--his mother church--a sad and awful disappointment awaited the devout lady--a disappointment which seemed to be a judgement upon her for the sin of her marriage. my lord gaunt married, as every person who frequents the peerage knows, the lady blanche thistlewood, a daughter of the noble house of bareacres, before mentioned in this veracious history. a wing of gaunt house was assigned to this couple; for the head of the family chose to govern it, and while he reigned to reign supreme; his son and heir, however, living little at home, disagreeing with his wife, and borrowing upon post-obits such moneys as he required beyond the very moderate sums which his father was disposed to allow him. the marquis knew every shilling of his son's debts. at his lamented demise, he was found himself to be possessor of many of his heir's bonds, purchased for their benefit, and devised by his lordship to the children of his younger son. as, to my lord gaunt's dismay, and the chuckling delight of his natural enemy and father, the lady gaunt had no children--the lord george gaunt was desired to return from vienna, where he was engaged in waltzing and diplomacy, and to contract a matrimonial alliance with the honourable joan, only daughter of john johnes, first baron helvellyn, and head of the firm of jones, brown, and robinson, of threadneedle street, bankers; from which union sprang several sons and daughters, whose doings do not appertain to this story. the marriage at first was a happy and prosperous one. my lord george gaunt could not only read, but write pretty correctly. he spoke french with considerable fluency; and was one of the finest waltzers in europe. with these talents, and his interest at home, there was little doubt that his lordship would rise to the highest dignities in his profession. the lady, his wife, felt that courts were her sphere, and her wealth enabled her to receive splendidly in those continental towns whither her husband's diplomatic duties led him. there was talk of appointing him minister, and bets were laid at the travellers' that he would be ambassador ere long, when of a sudden, rumours arrived of the secretary's extraordinary behaviour. at a grand diplomatic dinner given by his chief, he had started up and declared that a pate de foie gras was poisoned. he went to a ball at the hotel of the bavarian envoy, the count de springbock-hohenlaufen, with his head shaved and dressed as a capuchin friar. it was not a masked ball, as some folks wanted to persuade you. it was something queer, people whispered. his grandfather was so. it was in the family. his wife and family returned to this country and took up their abode at gaunt house. lord george gave up his post on the european continent, and was gazetted to brazil. but people knew better; he never returned from that brazil expedition--never died there--never lived there--never was there at all. he was nowhere; he was gone out altogether. "brazil," said one gossip to another, with a grin--"brazil is st. john's wood. rio de janeiro is a cottage surrounded by four walls, and george gaunt is accredited to a keeper, who has invested him with the order of the strait-waistcoat." these are the kinds of epitaphs which men pass over one another in vanity fair. twice or thrice in a week, in the earliest morning, the poor mother went for her sins and saw the poor invalid. sometimes he laughed at her (and his laughter was more pitiful than to hear him cry); sometimes she found the brilliant dandy diplomatist of the congress of vienna dragging about a child's toy, or nursing the keeper's baby's doll. sometimes he knew her and father mole, her director and companion; oftener he forgot her, as he had done wife, children, love, ambition, vanity. but he remembered his dinner-hour, and used to cry if his wine-and-water was not strong enough. it was the mysterious taint of the blood; the poor mother had brought it from her own ancient race. the evil had broken out once or twice in the father's family, long before lady steyne's sins had begun, or her fasts and tears and penances had been offered in their expiation. the pride of the race was struck down as the first-born of pharaoh. the dark mark of fate and doom was on the threshold--the tall old threshold surmounted by coronets and caned heraldry. the absent lord's children meanwhile prattled and grew on quite unconscious that the doom was over them too. first they talked of their father and devised plans against his return. then the name of the living dead man was less frequently in their mouth--then not mentioned at all. but the stricken old grandmother trembled to think that these too were the inheritors of their father's shame as well as of his honours, and watched sickening for the day when the awful ancestral curse should come down on them. this dark presentiment also haunted lord steyne. he tried to lay the horrid bedside ghost in red seas of wine and jollity, and lost sight of it sometimes in the crowd and rout of his pleasures. but it always came back to him when alone, and seemed to grow more threatening with years. "i have taken your son," it said, "why not you? i may shut you up in a prison some day like your son george. i may tap you on the head to-morrow, and away go pleasure and honours, feasts and beauty, friends, flatterers, french cooks, fine horses and houses--in exchange for a prison, a keeper, and a straw mattress like george gaunt's." and then my lord would defy the ghost which threatened him, for he knew of a remedy by which he could baulk his enemy. so there was splendour and wealth, but no great happiness perchance, behind the tall caned portals of gaunt house with its smoky coronets and ciphers. the feasts there were of the grandest in london, but there was not overmuch content therewith, except among the guests who sat at my lord's table. had he not been so great a prince very few possibly would have visited him; but in vanity fair the sins of very great personages are looked at indulgently. "nous regardons a deux fois" (as the french lady said) before we condemn a person of my lord's undoubted quality. some notorious carpers and squeamish moralists might be sulky with lord steyne, but they were glad enough to come when he asked them. "lord steyne is really too bad," lady slingstone said, "but everybody goes, and of course i shall see that my girls come to no harm." "his lordship is a man to whom i owe much, everything in life," said the right reverend doctor trail, thinking that the archbishop was rather shaky, and mrs. trail and the young ladies would as soon have missed going to church as to one of his lordship's parties. "his morals are bad," said little lord southdown to his sister, who meekly expostulated, having heard terrific legends from her mamma with respect to the doings at gaunt house; "but hang it, he's got the best dry sillery in europe!" and as for sir pitt crawley, bart.--sir pitt that pattern of decorum, sir pitt who had led off at missionary meetings--he never for one moment thought of not going too. "where you see such persons as the bishop of ealing and the countess of slingstone, you may be pretty sure, jane," the baronet would say, "that we cannot be wrong. the great rank and station of lord steyne put him in a position to command people in our station in life. the lord lieutenant of a county, my dear, is a respectable man. besides, george gaunt and i were intimate in early life; he was my junior when we were attaches at pumpernickel together." in a word everybody went to wait upon this great man--everybody who was asked, as you the reader (do not say nay) or i the writer hereof would go if we had an invitation. chapter xlviii in which the reader is introduced to the very best of company at last becky's kindness and attention to the chief of her husband's family were destined to meet with an exceeding great reward, a reward which, though certainly somewhat unsubstantial, the little woman coveted with greater eagerness than more positive benefits. if she did not wish to lead a virtuous life, at least she desired to enjoy a character for virtue, and we know that no lady in the genteel world can possess this desideratum, until she has put on a train and feathers and has been presented to her sovereign at court. from that august interview they come out stamped as honest women. the lord chamberlain gives them a certificate of virtue. and as dubious goods or letters are passed through an oven at quarantine, sprinkled with aromatic vinegar, and then pronounced clean, many a lady, whose reputation would be doubtful otherwise and liable to give infection, passes through the wholesome ordeal of the royal presence and issues from it free from all taint. it might be very well for my lady bareacres, my lady tufto, mrs. bute crawley in the country, and other ladies who had come into contact with mrs. rawdon crawley to cry fie at the idea of the odious little adventuress making her curtsey before the sovereign, and to declare that, if dear good queen charlotte had been alive, she never would have admitted such an extremely ill-regulated personage into her chaste drawing-room. but when we consider that it was the first gentleman in europe in whose high presence mrs. rawdon passed her examination, and as it were, took her degree in reputation, it surely must be flat disloyalty to doubt any more about her virtue. i, for my part, look back with love and awe to that great character in history. ah, what a high and noble appreciation of gentlewomanhood there must have been in vanity fair, when that revered and august being was invested, by the universal acclaim of the refined and educated portion of this empire, with the title of premier gentilhomme of his kingdom. do you remember, dear m--, oh friend of my youth, how one blissful night five-and-twenty years since, the "hypocrite" being acted, elliston being manager, dowton and liston performers, two boys had leave from their loyal masters to go out from slaughter-house school where they were educated and to appear on drury lane stage, amongst a crowd which assembled there to greet the king. the king? there he was. beefeaters were before the august box; the marquis of steyne (lord of the powder closet) and other great officers of state were behind the chair on which he sat, he sat--florid of face, portly of person, covered with orders, and in a rich curling head of hair--how we sang god save him! how the house rocked and shouted with that magnificent music. how they cheered, and cried, and waved handkerchiefs. ladies wept; mothers clasped their children; some fainted with emotion. people were suffocated in the pit, shrieks and groans rising up amidst the writhing and shouting mass there of his people who were, and indeed showed themselves almost to be, ready to die for him. yes, we saw him. fate cannot deprive us of that. others have seen napoleon. some few still exist who have beheld frederick the great, doctor johnson, marie antoinette, &c.--be it our reasonable boast to our children, that we saw george the good, the magnificent, the great. well, there came a happy day in mrs. rawdon crawley's existence when this angel was admitted into the paradise of a court which she coveted, her sister-in-law acting as her godmother. on the appointed day, sir pitt and his lady, in their great family carriage (just newly built, and ready for the baronet's assumption of the office of high sheriff of his county), drove up to the little house in curzon street, to the edification of raggles, who was watching from his greengrocer's shop, and saw fine plumes within, and enormous bunches of flowers in the breasts of the new livery-coats of the footmen. sir pitt, in a glittering uniform, descended and went into curzon street, his sword between his legs. little rawdon stood with his face against the parlour window-panes, smiling and nodding with all his might to his aunt in the carriage within; and presently sir pitt issued forth from the house again, leading forth a lady with grand feathers, covered in a white shawl, and holding up daintily a train of magnificent brocade. she stepped into the vehicle as if she were a princess and accustomed all her life to go to court, smiling graciously on the footman at the door and on sir pitt, who followed her into the carriage. then rawdon followed in his old guards' uniform, which had grown woefully shabby, and was much too tight. he was to have followed the procession and waited upon his sovereign in a cab, but that his good-natured sister-in-law insisted that they should be a family party. the coach was large, the ladies not very big, they would hold their trains in their laps--finally, the four went fraternally together, and their carriage presently joined the line of royal equipages which was making its way down piccadilly and st. james's street, towards the old brick palace where the star of brunswick was in waiting to receive his nobles and gentlefolks. becky felt as if she could bless the people out of the carriage windows, so elated was she in spirit, and so strong a sense had she of the dignified position which she had at last attained in life. even our becky had her weaknesses, and as one often sees how men pride themselves upon excellences which others are slow to perceive: how, for instance, comus firmly believes that he is the greatest tragic actor in england; how brown, the famous novelist, longs to be considered, not a man of genius, but a man of fashion; while robinson, the great lawyer, does not in the least care about his reputation in westminster hall, but believes himself incomparable across country and at a five-barred gate--so to be, and to be thought, a respectable woman was becky's aim in life, and she got up the genteel with amazing assiduity, readiness, and success. we have said, there were times when she believed herself to be a fine lady and forgot that there was no money in the chest at home--duns round the gate, tradesmen to coax and wheedle--no ground to walk upon, in a word. and as she went to court in the carriage, the family carriage, she adopted a demeanour so grand, self-satisfied, deliberate, and imposing that it made even lady jane laugh. she walked into the royal apartments with a toss of the head which would have befitted an empress, and i have no doubt had she been one, she would have become the character perfectly. we are authorized to state that mrs. rawdon crawley's costume de cour on the occasion of her presentation to the sovereign was of the most elegant and brilliant description. some ladies we may have seen--we who wear stars and cordons and attend the st. james's assemblies, or we, who, in muddy boots, dawdle up and down pall mall and peep into the coaches as they drive up with the great folks in their feathers--some ladies of fashion, i say, we may have seen, about two o'clock of the forenoon of a levee day, as the laced-jacketed band of the life guards are blowing triumphal marches seated on those prancing music-stools, their cream-coloured chargers--who are by no means lovely and enticing objects at that early period of noon. a stout countess of sixty, decolletee, painted, wrinkled with rouge up to her drooping eyelids, and diamonds twinkling in her wig, is a wholesome and edifying, but not a pleasant sight. she has the faded look of a st. james's street illumination, as it may be seen of an early morning, when half the lamps are out, and the others are blinking wanly, as if they were about to vanish like ghosts before the dawn. such charms as those of which we catch glimpses while her ladyship's carriage passes should appear abroad at night alone. if even cynthia looks haggard of an afternoon, as we may see her sometimes in the present winter season, with phoebus staring her out of countenance from the opposite side of the heavens, how much more can old lady castlemouldy keep her head up when the sun is shining full upon it through the chariot windows, and showing all the chinks and crannies with which time has marked her face! no. drawing-rooms should be announced for november, or the first foggy day, or the elderly sultanas of our vanity fair should drive up in closed litters, descend in a covered way, and make their curtsey to the sovereign under the protection of lamplight. our beloved rebecca had no need, however, of any such a friendly halo to set off her beauty. her complexion could bear any sunshine as yet, and her dress, though if you were to see it now, any present lady of vanity fair would pronounce it to be the most foolish and preposterous attire ever worn, was as handsome in her eyes and those of the public, some five-and-twenty years since, as the most brilliant costume of the most famous beauty of the present season. a score of years hence that too, that milliner's wonder, will have passed into the domain of the absurd, along with all previous vanities. but we are wandering too much. mrs. rawdon's dress was pronounced to be charmante on the eventful day of her presentation. even good little lady jane was forced to acknowledge this effect, as she looked at her kinswoman, and owned sorrowfully to herself that she was quite inferior in taste to mrs. becky. she did not know how much care, thought, and genius mrs. rawdon had bestowed upon that garment. rebecca had as good taste as any milliner in europe, and such a clever way of doing things as lady jane little understood. the latter quickly spied out the magnificence of the brocade of becky's train, and the splendour of the lace on her dress. the brocade was an old remnant, becky said; and as for the lace, it was a great bargain. she had had it these hundred years. "my dear mrs. crawley, it must have cost a little fortune," lady jane said, looking down at her own lace, which was not nearly so good; and then examining the quality of the ancient brocade which formed the material of mrs. rawdon's court dress, she felt inclined to say that she could not afford such fine clothing, but checked that speech, with an effort, as one uncharitable to her kinswoman. and yet, if lady jane had known all, i think even her kindly temper would have failed her. the fact is, when she was putting sir pitt's house in order, mrs. rawdon had found the lace and the brocade in old wardrobes, the property of the former ladies of the house, and had quietly carried the goods home, and had suited them to her own little person. briggs saw her take them, asked no questions, told no stories; but i believe quite sympathised with her on this matter, and so would many another honest woman. and the diamonds--"where the doose did you get the diamonds, becky?" said her husband, admiring some jewels which he had never seen before and which sparkled in her ears and on her neck with brilliance and profusion. becky blushed a little and looked at him hard for a moment. pitt crawley blushed a little too, and looked out of window. the fact is, he had given her a very small portion of the brilliants; a pretty diamond clasp, which confined a pearl necklace which she wore--and the baronet had omitted to mention the circumstance to his lady. becky looked at her husband, and then at sir pitt, with an air of saucy triumph--as much as to say, "shall i betray you?" "guess!" she said to her husband. "why, you silly man," she continued, "where do you suppose i got them?--all except the little clasp, which a dear friend of mine gave me long ago. i hired them, to be sure. i hired them at mr. polonius's, in coventry street. you don't suppose that all the diamonds which go to court belong to the wearers; like those beautiful stones which lady jane has, and which are much handsomer than any which i have, i am certain." "they are family jewels," said sir pitt, again looking uneasy. and in this family conversation the carriage rolled down the street, until its cargo was finally discharged at the gates of the palace where the sovereign was sitting in state. the diamonds, which had created rawdon's admiration, never went back to mr. polonius, of coventry street, and that gentleman never applied for their restoration, but they retired into a little private repository, in an old desk, which amelia sedley had given her years and years ago, and in which becky kept a number of useful and, perhaps, valuable things, about which her husband knew nothing. to know nothing, or little, is in the nature of some husbands. to hide, in the nature of how many women? oh, ladies! how many of you have surreptitious milliners' bills? how many of you have gowns and bracelets which you daren't show, or which you wear trembling?--trembling, and coaxing with smiles the husband by your side, who does not know the new velvet gown from the old one, or the new bracelet from last year's, or has any notion that the ragged-looking yellow lace scarf cost forty guineas and that madame bobinot is writing dunning letters every week for the money! thus rawdon knew nothing about the brilliant diamond ear-rings, or the superb brilliant ornament which decorated the fair bosom of his lady; but lord steyne, who was in his place at court, as lord of the powder closet, and one of the great dignitaries and illustrious defences of the throne of england, and came up with all his stars, garters, collars, and cordons, and paid particular attention to the little woman, knew whence the jewels came and who paid for them. as he bowed over her he smiled, and quoted the hackneyed and beautiful lines from the rape of the lock about belinda's diamonds, "which jews might kiss and infidels adore." "but i hope your lordship is orthodox," said the little lady with a toss of her head. and many ladies round about whispered and talked, and many gentlemen nodded and whispered, as they saw what marked attention the great nobleman was paying to the little adventuress. what were the circumstances of the interview between rebecca crawley, nee sharp, and her imperial master, it does not become such a feeble and inexperienced pen as mine to attempt to relate. the dazzled eyes close before that magnificent idea. loyal respect and decency tell even the imagination not to look too keenly and audaciously about the sacred audience-chamber, but to back away rapidly, silently, and respectfully, making profound bows out of the august presence. this may be said, that in all london there was no more loyal heart than becky's after this interview. the name of her king was always on her lips, and he was proclaimed by her to be the most charming of men. she went to colnaghi's and ordered the finest portrait of him that art had produced, and credit could supply. she chose that famous one in which the best of monarchs is represented in a frock-coat with a fur collar, and breeches and silk stockings, simpering on a sofa from under his curly brown wig. she had him painted in a brooch and wore it--indeed she amused and somewhat pestered her acquaintance with her perpetual talk about his urbanity and beauty. who knows! perhaps the little woman thought she might play the part of a maintenon or a pompadour. but the finest sport of all after her presentation was to hear her talk virtuously. she had a few female acquaintances, not, it must be owned, of the very highest reputation in vanity fair. but being made an honest woman of, so to speak, becky would not consort any longer with these dubious ones, and cut lady crackenbury when the latter nodded to her from her opera-box, and gave mrs. washington white the go-by in the ring. "one must, my dear, show one is somebody," she said. "one mustn't be seen with doubtful people. i pity lady crackenbury from my heart, and mrs. washington white may be a very good-natured person. you may go and dine with them, as you like your rubber. but i mustn't, and won't; and you will have the goodness to tell smith to say i am not at home when either of them calls." the particulars of becky's costume were in the newspapers--feathers, lappets, superb diamonds, and all the rest. lady crackenbury read the paragraph in bitterness of spirit and discoursed to her followers about the airs which that woman was giving herself. mrs. bute crawley and her young ladies in the country had a copy of the morning post from town, and gave a vent to their honest indignation. "if you had been sandy-haired, green-eyed, and a french rope-dancer's daughter," mrs. bute said to her eldest girl (who, on the contrary, was a very swarthy, short, and snub-nosed young lady), "you might have had superb diamonds forsooth, and have been presented at court by your cousin, the lady jane. but you're only a gentlewoman, my poor dear child. you have only some of the best blood in england in your veins, and good principles and piety for your portion. i, myself, the wife of a baronet's younger brother, too, never thought of such a thing as going to court--nor would other people, if good queen charlotte had been alive." in this way the worthy rectoress consoled herself, and her daughters sighed and sat over the peerage all night. a few days after the famous presentation, another great and exceeding honour was vouchsafed to the virtuous becky. lady steyne's carriage drove up to mr. rawdon crawley's door, and the footman, instead of driving down the front of the house, as by his tremendous knocking he appeared to be inclined to do, relented and only delivered in a couple of cards, on which were engraven the names of the marchioness of steyne and the countess of gaunt. if these bits of pasteboard had been beautiful pictures, or had had a hundred yards of malines lace rolled round them, worth twice the number of guineas, becky could not have regarded them with more pleasure. you may be sure they occupied a conspicuous place in the china bowl on the drawing-room table, where becky kept the cards of her visitors. lord! lord! how poor mrs. washington white's card and lady crackenbury's card--which our little friend had been glad enough to get a few months back, and of which the silly little creature was rather proud once--lord! lord! i say, how soon at the appearance of these grand court cards, did those poor little neglected deuces sink down to the bottom of the pack. steyne! bareacres, johnes of helvellyn! and caerylon of camelot! we may be sure that becky and briggs looked out those august names in the peerage, and followed the noble races up through all the ramifications of the family tree. my lord steyne coming to call a couple of hours afterwards, and looking about him, and observing everything as was his wont, found his ladies' cards already ranged as the trumps of becky's hand, and grinned, as this old cynic always did at any naive display of human weakness. becky came down to him presently; whenever the dear girl expected his lordship, her toilette was prepared, her hair in perfect order, her mouchoirs, aprons, scarfs, little morocco slippers, and other female gimcracks arranged, and she seated in some artless and agreeable posture ready to receive him--whenever she was surprised, of course, she had to fly to her apartment to take a rapid survey of matters in the glass, and to trip down again to wait upon the great peer. she found him grinning over the bowl. she was discovered, and she blushed a little. "thank you, monseigneur," she said. "you see your ladies have been here. how good of you! i couldn't come before--i was in the kitchen making a pudding." "i know you were, i saw you through the area-railings as i drove up," replied the old gentleman. "you see everything," she replied. "a few things, but not that, my pretty lady," he said good-naturedly. "you silly little fibster! i heard you in the room overhead, where i have no doubt you were putting a little rouge on--you must give some of yours to my lady gaunt, whose complexion is quite preposterous--and i heard the bedroom door open, and then you came downstairs." "is it a crime to try and look my best when you come here?" answered mrs. rawdon plaintively, and she rubbed her cheek with her handkerchief as if to show there was no rouge at all, only genuine blushes and modesty in her case. about this who can tell? i know there is some rouge that won't come off on a pocket-handkerchief, and some so good that even tears will not disturb it. "well," said the old gentleman, twiddling round his wife's card, "you are bent on becoming a fine lady. you pester my poor old life out to get you into the world. you won't be able to hold your own there, you silly little fool. you've got no money." "you will get us a place," interposed becky, "as quick as possible." "you've got no money, and you want to compete with those who have. you poor little earthenware pipkin, you want to swim down the stream along with the great copper kettles. all women are alike. everybody is striving for what is not worth the having! gad! i dined with the king yesterday, and we had neck of mutton and turnips. a dinner of herbs is better than a stalled ox very often. you will go to gaunt house. you give an old fellow no rest until you get there. it's not half so nice as here. you'll be bored there. i am. my wife is as gay as lady macbeth, and my daughters as cheerful as regan and goneril. i daren't sleep in what they call my bedroom. the bed is like the baldaquin of st. peter's, and the pictures frighten me. i have a little brass bed in a dressing-room, and a little hair mattress like an anchorite. i am an anchorite. ho! ho! you'll be asked to dinner next week. and gare aux femmes, look out and hold your own! how the women will bully you!" this was a very long speech for a man of few words like my lord steyne; nor was it the first which he uttered for becky's benefit on that day. briggs looked up from the work-table at which she was seated in the farther room and gave a deep sigh as she heard the great marquis speak so lightly of her sex. "if you don't turn off that abominable sheep-dog," said lord steyne, with a savage look over his shoulder at her, "i will have her poisoned." "i always give my dog dinner from my own plate," said rebecca, laughing mischievously; and having enjoyed for some time the discomfiture of my lord, who hated poor briggs for interrupting his tete-a-tete with the fair colonel's wife, mrs. rawdon at length had pity upon her admirer, and calling to briggs, praised the fineness of the weather to her and bade her to take out the child for a walk. "i can't send her away," becky said presently, after a pause, and in a very sad voice. her eyes filled with tears as she spoke, and she turned away her head. "you owe her her wages, i suppose?" said the peer. "worse than that," said becky, still casting down her eyes; "i have ruined her." "ruined her? then why don't you turn her out?" the gentleman asked. "men do that," becky answered bitterly. "women are not so bad as you. last year, when we were reduced to our last guinea, she gave us everything. she shall never leave me, until we are ruined utterly ourselves, which does not seem far off, or until i can pay her the utmost farthing." "------ it, how much is it?" said the peer with an oath. and becky, reflecting on the largeness of his means, mentioned not only the sum which she had borrowed from miss briggs, but one of nearly double the amount. this caused the lord steyne to break out in another brief and energetic expression of anger, at which rebecca held down her head the more and cried bitterly. "i could not help it. it was my only chance. i dare not tell my husband. he would kill me if i told him what i have done. i have kept it a secret from everybody but you--and you forced it from me. ah, what shall i do, lord steyne? for i am very, very unhappy!" lord steyne made no reply except by beating the devil's tattoo and biting his nails. at last he clapped his hat on his head and flung out of the room. rebecca did not rise from her attitude of misery until the door slammed upon him and his carriage whirled away. then she rose up with the queerest expression of victorious mischief glittering in her green eyes. she burst out laughing once or twice to herself, as she sat at work, and sitting down to the piano, she rattled away a triumphant voluntary on the keys, which made the people pause under her window to listen to her brilliant music. that night, there came two notes from gaunt house for the little woman, the one containing a card of invitation from lord and lady steyne to a dinner at gaunt house next friday, while the other enclosed a slip of gray paper bearing lord steyne's signature and the address of messrs. jones, brown, and robinson, lombard street. rawdon heard becky laughing in the night once or twice. it was only her delight at going to gaunt house and facing the ladies there, she said, which amused her so. but the truth was that she was occupied with a great number of other thoughts. should she pay off old briggs and give her her conge? should she astonish raggles by settling his account? she turned over all these thoughts on her pillow, and on the next day, when rawdon went out to pay his morning visit to the club, mrs. crawley (in a modest dress with a veil on) whipped off in a hackney-coach to the city: and being landed at messrs. jones and robinson's bank, presented a document there to the authority at the desk, who, in reply, asked her "how she would take it?" she gently said "she would take a hundred and fifty pounds in small notes and the remainder in one note": and passing through st. paul's churchyard stopped there and bought the handsomest black silk gown for briggs which money could buy; and which, with a kiss and the kindest speeches, she presented to the simple old spinster. then she walked to mr. raggles, inquired about his children affectionately, and gave him fifty pounds on account. then she went to the livery-man from whom she jobbed her carriages and gratified him with a similar sum. "and i hope this will be a lesson to you, spavin," she said, "and that on the next drawing-room day my brother, sir pitt, will not be inconvenienced by being obliged to take four of us in his carriage to wait upon his majesty, because my own carriage is not forthcoming." it appears there had been a difference on the last drawing-room day. hence the degradation which the colonel had almost suffered, of being obliged to enter the presence of his sovereign in a hack cab. these arrangements concluded, becky paid a visit upstairs to the before-mentioned desk, which amelia sedley had given her years and years ago, and which contained a number of useful and valuable little things--in which private museum she placed the one note which messrs. jones and robinson's cashier had given her. chapter xlix in which we enjoy three courses and a dessert when the ladies of gaunt house were at breakfast that morning, lord steyne (who took his chocolate in private and seldom disturbed the females of his household, or saw them except upon public days, or when they crossed each other in the hall, or when from his pit-box at the opera he surveyed them in their box on the grand tier) his lordship, we say, appeared among the ladies and the children who were assembled over the tea and toast, and a battle royal ensued apropos of rebecca. "my lady steyne," he said, "i want to see the list for your dinner on friday; and i want you, if you please, to write a card for colonel and mrs. crawley." "blanche writes them," lady steyne said in a flutter. "lady gaunt writes them." "i will not write to that person," lady gaunt said, a tall and stately lady, who looked up for an instant and then down again after she had spoken. it was not good to meet lord steyne's eyes for those who had offended him. "send the children out of the room. go!" said he pulling at the bell-rope. the urchins, always frightened before him, retired: their mother would have followed too. "not you," he said. "you stop." "my lady steyne," he said, "once more will you have the goodness to go to the desk and write that card for your dinner on friday?" "my lord, i will not be present at it," lady gaunt said; "i will go home." "i wish you would, and stay there. you will find the bailiffs at bareacres very pleasant company, and i shall be freed from lending money to your relations and from your own damned tragedy airs. who are you to give orders here? you have no money. you've got no brains. you were here to have children, and you have not had any. gaunt's tired of you, and george's wife is the only person in the family who doesn't wish you were dead. gaunt would marry again if you were." "i wish i were," her ladyship answered with tears and rage in her eyes. "you, forsooth, must give yourself airs of virtue, while my wife, who is an immaculate saint, as everybody knows, and never did wrong in her life, has no objection to meet my young friend mrs. crawley. my lady steyne knows that appearances are sometimes against the best of women; that lies are often told about the most innocent of them. pray, madam, shall i tell you some little anecdotes about my lady bareacres, your mamma?" "you may strike me if you like, sir, or hit any cruel blow," lady gaunt said. to see his wife and daughter suffering always put his lordship into a good humour. "my sweet blanche," he said, "i am a gentleman, and never lay my hand upon a woman, save in the way of kindness. i only wish to correct little faults in your character. you women are too proud, and sadly lack humility, as father mole, i'm sure, would tell my lady steyne if he were here. you mustn't give yourselves airs; you must be meek and humble, my blessings. for all lady steyne knows, this calumniated, simple, good-humoured mrs. crawley is quite innocent--even more innocent than herself. her husband's character is not good, but it is as good as bareacres', who has played a little and not paid a great deal, who cheated you out of the only legacy you ever had and left you a pauper on my hands. and mrs. crawley is not very well-born, but she is not worse than fanny's illustrious ancestor, the first de la jones." "the money which i brought into the family, sir," lady george cried out-- "you purchased a contingent reversion with it," the marquis said darkly. "if gaunt dies, your husband may come to his honours; your little boys may inherit them, and who knows what besides? in the meanwhile, ladies, be as proud and virtuous as you like abroad, but don't give me any airs. as for mrs. crawley's character, i shan't demean myself or that most spotless and perfectly irreproachable lady by even hinting that it requires a defence. you will be pleased to receive her with the utmost cordiality, as you will receive all persons whom i present in this house. this house?" he broke out with a laugh. "who is the master of it? and what is it? this temple of virtue belongs to me. and if i invite all newgate or all bedlam here, by ------ they shall be welcome." after this vigorous allocution, to one of which sort lord steyne treated his "hareem" whenever symptoms of insubordination appeared in his household, the crestfallen women had nothing for it but to obey. lady gaunt wrote the invitation which his lordship required, and she and her mother-in-law drove in person, and with bitter and humiliated hearts, to leave the cards on mrs. rawdon, the reception of which caused that innocent woman so much pleasure. there were families in london who would have sacrificed a year's income to receive such an honour at the hands of those great ladies. mrs. frederick bullock, for instance, would have gone on her knees from may fair to lombard street, if lady steyne and lady gaunt had been waiting in the city to raise her up and say, "come to us next friday"--not to one of the great crushes and grand balls of gaunt house, whither everybody went, but to the sacred, unapproachable, mysterious, delicious entertainments, to be admitted to one of which was a privilege, and an honour, and a blessing indeed. severe, spotless, and beautiful, lady gaunt held the very highest rank in vanity fair. the distinguished courtesy with which lord steyne treated her charmed everybody who witnessed his behaviour, caused the severest critics to admit how perfect a gentleman he was, and to own that his lordship's heart at least was in the right place. the ladies of gaunt house called lady bareacres in to their aid, in order to repulse the common enemy. one of lady gaunt's carriages went to hill street for her ladyship's mother, all whose equipages were in the hands of the bailiffs, whose very jewels and wardrobe, it was said, had been seized by those inexorable israelites. bareacres castle was theirs, too, with all its costly pictures, furniture, and articles of vertu--the magnificent vandykes; the noble reynolds pictures; the lawrence portraits, tawdry and beautiful, and, thirty years ago, deemed as precious as works of real genius; the matchless dancing nymph of canova, for which lady bareacres had sat in her youth--lady bareacres splendid then, and radiant in wealth, rank, and beauty--a toothless, bald, old woman now--a mere rag of a former robe of state. her lord, painted at the same time by lawrence, as waving his sabre in front of bareacres castle, and clothed in his uniform as colonel of the thistlewood yeomanry, was a withered, old, lean man in a greatcoat and a brutus wig, slinking about gray's inn of mornings chiefly and dining alone at clubs. he did not like to dine with steyne now. they had run races of pleasure together in youth when bareacres was the winner. but steyne had more bottom than he and had lasted him out. the marquis was ten times a greater man now than the young lord gaunt of ' , and bareacres nowhere in the race--old, beaten, bankrupt, and broken down. he had borrowed too much money of steyne to find it pleasant to meet his old comrade often. the latter, whenever he wished to be merry, used jeeringly to ask lady gaunt why her father had not come to see her. "he has not been here for four months," lord steyne would say. "i can always tell by my cheque-book afterwards, when i get a visit from bareacres. what a comfort it is, my ladies, i bank with one of my sons' fathers-in-law, and the other banks with me!" of the other illustrious persons whom becky had the honour to encounter on this her first presentation to the grand world, it does not become the present historian to say much. there was his excellency the prince of peterwaradin, with his princess--a nobleman tightly girthed, with a large military chest, on which the plaque of his order shone magnificently, and wearing the red collar of the golden fleece round his neck. he was the owner of countless flocks. "look at his face. i think he must be descended from a sheep," becky whispered to lord steyne. indeed, his excellency's countenance, long, solemn, and white, with the ornament round his neck, bore some resemblance to that of a venerable bell-wether. there was mr. john paul jefferson jones, titularly attached to the american embassy and correspondent of the new york demagogue, who, by way of making himself agreeable to the company, asked lady steyne, during a pause in the conversation at dinner, how his dear friend, george gaunt, liked the brazils? he and george had been most intimate at naples and had gone up vesuvius together. mr. jones wrote a full and particular account of the dinner, which appeared duly in the demagogue. he mentioned the names and titles of all the guests, giving biographical sketches of the principal people. he described the persons of the ladies with great eloquence; the service of the table; the size and costume of the servants; enumerated the dishes and wines served; the ornaments of the sideboard; and the probable value of the plate. such a dinner he calculated could not be dished up under fifteen or eighteen dollars per head. and he was in the habit, until very lately, of sending over proteges, with letters of recommendation to the present marquis of steyne, encouraged to do so by the intimate terms on which he had lived with his dear friend, the late lord. he was most indignant that a young and insignificant aristocrat, the earl of southdown, should have taken the pas of him in their procession to the dining-room. "just as i was stepping up to offer my hand to a very pleasing and witty fashionable, the brilliant and exclusive mrs. rawdon crawley,"--he wrote--"the young patrician interposed between me and the lady and whisked my helen off without a word of apology. i was fain to bring up the rear with the colonel, the lady's husband, a stout red-faced warrior who distinguished himself at waterloo, where he had better luck than befell some of his brother redcoats at new orleans." the colonel's countenance on coming into this polite society wore as many blushes as the face of a boy of sixteen assumes when he is confronted with his sister's schoolfellows. it has been told before that honest rawdon had not been much used at any period of his life to ladies' company. with the men at the club or the mess room, he was well enough; and could ride, bet, smoke, or play at billiards with the boldest of them. he had had his time for female friendships too, but that was twenty years ago, and the ladies were of the rank of those with whom young marlow in the comedy is represented as having been familiar before he became abashed in the presence of miss hardcastle. the times are such that one scarcely dares to allude to that kind of company which thousands of our young men in vanity fair are frequenting every day, which nightly fills casinos and dancing-rooms, which is known to exist as well as the ring in hyde park or the congregation at st. james's--but which the most squeamish if not the most moral of societies is determined to ignore. in a word, although colonel crawley was now five-and-forty years of age, it had not been his lot in life to meet with a half dozen good women, besides his paragon of a wife. all except her and his kind sister lady jane, whose gentle nature had tamed and won him, scared the worthy colonel, and on occasion of his first dinner at gaunt house he was not heard to make a single remark except to state that the weather was very hot. indeed becky would have left him at home, but that virtue ordained that her husband should be by her side to protect the timid and fluttering little creature on her first appearance in polite society. on her first appearance lord steyne stepped forward, taking her hand, and greeting her with great courtesy, and presenting her to lady steyne, and their ladyships, her daughters. their ladyships made three stately curtsies, and the elder lady to be sure gave her hand to the newcomer, but it was as cold and lifeless as marble. becky took it, however, with grateful humility, and performing a reverence which would have done credit to the best dancer-master, put herself at lady steyne's feet, as it were, by saying that his lordship had been her father's earliest friend and patron, and that she, becky, had learned to honour and respect the steyne family from the days of her childhood. the fact is that lord steyne had once purchased a couple of pictures of the late sharp, and the affectionate orphan could never forget her gratitude for that favour. the lady bareacres then came under becky's cognizance--to whom the colonel's lady made also a most respectful obeisance: it was returned with severe dignity by the exalted person in question. "i had the pleasure of making your ladyship's acquaintance at brussels, ten years ago," becky said in the most winning manner. "i had the good fortune to meet lady bareacres at the duchess of richmond's ball, the night before the battle of waterloo. and i recollect your ladyship, and my lady blanche, your daughter, sitting in the carriage in the porte-cochere at the inn, waiting for horses. i hope your ladyship's diamonds are safe." everybody's eyes looked into their neighbour's. the famous diamonds had undergone a famous seizure, it appears, about which becky, of course, knew nothing. rawdon crawley retreated with lord southdown into a window, where the latter was heard to laugh immoderately, as rawdon told him the story of lady bareacres wanting horses and "knuckling down by jove," to mrs. crawley. "i think i needn't be afraid of that woman," becky thought. indeed, lady bareacres exchanged terrified and angry looks with her daughter and retreated to a table, where she began to look at pictures with great energy. when the potentate from the danube made his appearance, the conversation was carried on in the french language, and the lady bareacres and the younger ladies found, to their farther mortification, that mrs. crawley was much better acquainted with that tongue, and spoke it with a much better accent than they. becky had met other hungarian magnates with the army in france in - . she asked after her friends with great interest. the foreign personages thought that she was a lady of great distinction, and the prince and the princess asked severally of lord steyne and the marchioness, whom they conducted to dinner, who was that petite dame who spoke so well? finally, the procession being formed in the order described by the american diplomatist, they marched into the apartment where the banquet was served, and which, as i have promised the reader he shall enjoy it, he shall have the liberty of ordering himself so as to suit his fancy. but it was when the ladies were alone that becky knew the tug of war would come. and then indeed the little woman found herself in such a situation as made her acknowledge the correctness of lord steyne's caution to her to beware of the society of ladies above her own sphere. as they say, the persons who hate irishmen most are irishmen; so, assuredly, the greatest tyrants over women are women. when poor little becky, alone with the ladies, went up to the fire-place whither the great ladies had repaired, the great ladies marched away and took possession of a table of drawings. when becky followed them to the table of drawings, they dropped off one by one to the fire again. she tried to speak to one of the children (of whom she was commonly fond in public places), but master george gaunt was called away by his mamma; and the stranger was treated with such cruelty finally, that even lady steyne herself pitied her and went up to speak to the friendless little woman. "lord steyne," said her ladyship, as her wan cheeks glowed with a blush, "says you sing and play very beautifully, mrs. crawley--i wish you would do me the kindness to sing to me." "i will do anything that may give pleasure to my lord steyne or to you," said rebecca, sincerely grateful, and seating herself at the piano, began to sing. she sang religious songs of mozart, which had been early favourites of lady steyne, and with such sweetness and tenderness that the lady, lingering round the piano, sat down by its side and listened until the tears rolled down her eyes. it is true that the opposition ladies at the other end of the room kept up a loud and ceaseless buzzing and talking, but the lady steyne did not hear those rumours. she was a child again--and had wandered back through a forty years' wilderness to her convent garden. the chapel organ had pealed the same tones, the organist, the sister whom she loved best of the community, had taught them to her in those early happy days. she was a girl once more, and the brief period of her happiness bloomed out again for an hour--she started when the jarring doors were flung open, and with a loud laugh from lord steyne, the men of the party entered full of gaiety. he saw at a glance what had happened in his absence, and was grateful to his wife for once. he went and spoke to her, and called her by her christian name, so as again to bring blushes to her pale face--"my wife says you have been singing like an angel," he said to becky. now there are angels of two kinds, and both sorts, it is said, are charming in their way. whatever the previous portion of the evening had been, the rest of that night was a great triumph for becky. she sang her very best, and it was so good that every one of the men came and crowded round the piano. the women, her enemies, were left quite alone. and mr. paul jefferson jones thought he had made a conquest of lady gaunt by going up to her ladyship and praising her delightful friend's first-rate singing. chapter l contains a vulgar incident the muse, whoever she be, who presides over this comic history must now descend from the genteel heights in which she has been soaring and have the goodness to drop down upon the lowly roof of john sedley at brompton, and describe what events are taking place there. here, too, in this humble tenement, live care, and distrust, and dismay. mrs. clapp in the kitchen is grumbling in secret to her husband about the rent, and urging the good fellow to rebel against his old friend and patron and his present lodger. mrs. sedley has ceased to visit her landlady in the lower regions now, and indeed is in a position to patronize mrs. clapp no longer. how can one be condescending to a lady to whom one owes a matter of forty pounds, and who is perpetually throwing out hints for the money? the irish maidservant has not altered in the least in her kind and respectful behaviour; but mrs. sedley fancies that she is growing insolent and ungrateful, and, as the guilty thief who fears each bush an officer, sees threatening innuendoes and hints of capture in all the girl's speeches and answers. miss clapp, grown quite a young woman now, is declared by the soured old lady to be an unbearable and impudent little minx. why amelia can be so fond of her, or have her in her room so much, or walk out with her so constantly, mrs. sedley cannot conceive. the bitterness of poverty has poisoned the life of the once cheerful and kindly woman. she is thankless for amelia's constant and gentle bearing towards her; carps at her for her efforts at kindness or service; rails at her for her silly pride in her child and her neglect of her parents. georgy's house is not a very lively one since uncle jos's annuity has been withdrawn and the little family are almost upon famine diet. amelia thinks, and thinks, and racks her brain, to find some means of increasing the small pittance upon which the household is starving. can she give lessons in anything? paint card-racks? do fine work? she finds that women are working hard, and better than she can, for twopence a day. she buys a couple of begilt bristol boards at the fancy stationer's and paints her very best upon them--a shepherd with a red waistcoat on one, and a pink face smiling in the midst of a pencil landscape--a shepherdess on the other, crossing a little bridge, with a little dog, nicely shaded. the man of the fancy repository and brompton emporium of fine arts (of whom she bought the screens, vainly hoping that he would repurchase them when ornamented by her hand) can hardly hide the sneer with which he examines these feeble works of art. he looks askance at the lady who waits in the shop, and ties up the cards again in their envelope of whitey-brown paper, and hands them to the poor widow and miss clapp, who had never seen such beautiful things in her life, and had been quite confident that the man must give at least two guineas for the screens. they try at other shops in the interior of london, with faint sickening hopes. "don't want 'em," says one. "be off," says another fiercely. three-and-sixpence has been spent in vain--the screens retire to miss clapp's bedroom, who persists in thinking them lovely. she writes out a little card in her neatest hand, and after long thought and labour of composition, in which the public is informed that "a lady who has some time at her disposal, wishes to undertake the education of some little girls, whom she would instruct in english, in french, in geography, in history, and in music--address a. o., at mr. brown's"; and she confides the card to the gentleman of the fine art repository, who consents to allow it to lie upon the counter, where it grows dingy and fly-blown. amelia passes the door wistfully many a time, in hopes that mr. brown will have some news to give her, but he never beckons her in. when she goes to make little purchases, there is no news for her. poor simple lady, tender and weak--how are you to battle with the struggling violent world? she grows daily more care-worn and sad, fixing upon her child alarmed eyes, whereof the little boy cannot interpret the expression. she starts up of a night and peeps into his room stealthily, to see that he is sleeping and not stolen away. she sleeps but little now. a constant thought and terror is haunting her. how she weeps and prays in the long silent nights--how she tries to hide from herself the thought which will return to her, that she ought to part with the boy, that she is the only barrier between him and prosperity. she can't, she can't. not now, at least. some other day. oh! it is too hard to think of and to bear. a thought comes over her which makes her blush and turn from herself--her parents might keep the annuity--the curate would marry her and give a home to her and the boy. but george's picture and dearest memory are there to rebuke her. shame and love say no to the sacrifice. she shrinks from it as from something unholy, and such thoughts never found a resting-place in that pure and gentle bosom. the combat, which we describe in a sentence or two, lasted for many weeks in poor amelia's heart, during which she had no confidante; indeed, she could never have one, as she would not allow to herself the possibility of yielding, though she was giving way daily before the enemy with whom she had to battle. one truth after another was marshalling itself silently against her and keeping its ground. poverty and misery for all, want and degradation for her parents, injustice to the boy--one by one the outworks of the little citadel were taken, in which the poor soul passionately guarded her only love and treasure. at the beginning of the struggle, she had written off a letter of tender supplication to her brother at calcutta, imploring him not to withdraw the support which he had granted to their parents and painting in terms of artless pathos their lonely and hapless condition. she did not know the truth of the matter. the payment of jos's annuity was still regular, but it was a money-lender in the city who was receiving it: old sedley had sold it for a sum of money wherewith to prosecute his bootless schemes. emmy was calculating eagerly the time that would elapse before the letter would arrive and be answered. she had written down the date in her pocket-book of the day when she dispatched it. to her son's guardian, the good major at madras, she had not communicated any of her griefs and perplexities. she had not written to him since she wrote to congratulate him on his approaching marriage. she thought with sickening despondency, that that friend--the only one, the one who had felt such a regard for her--was fallen away. one day, when things had come to a very bad pass--when the creditors were pressing, the mother in hysteric grief, the father in more than usual gloom, the inmates of the family avoiding each other, each secretly oppressed with his private unhappiness and notion of wrong--the father and daughter happened to be left alone together, and amelia thought to comfort her father by telling him what she had done. she had written to joseph--an answer must come in three or four months. he was always generous, though careless. he could not refuse, when he knew how straitened were the circumstances of his parents. then the poor old gentleman revealed the whole truth to her--that his son was still paying the annuity, which his own imprudence had flung away. he had not dared to tell it sooner. he thought amelia's ghastly and terrified look, when, with a trembling, miserable voice he made the confession, conveyed reproaches to him for his concealment. "ah!" said he with quivering lips and turning away, "you despise your old father now!" "oh, papa! it is not that," amelia cried out, falling on his neck and kissing him many times. "you are always good and kind. you did it for the best. it is not for the money--it is--my god! my god! have mercy upon me, and give me strength to bear this trial"; and she kissed him again wildly and went away. still the father did not know what that explanation meant, and the burst of anguish with which the poor girl left him. it was that she was conquered. the sentence was passed. the child must go from her--to others--to forget her. her heart and her treasure--her joy, hope, love, worship--her god, almost! she must give him up, and then--and then she would go to george, and they would watch over the child and wait for him until he came to them in heaven. she put on her bonnet, scarcely knowing what she did, and went out to walk in the lanes by which george used to come back from school, and where she was in the habit of going on his return to meet the boy. it was may, a half-holiday. the leaves were all coming out, the weather was brilliant; the boy came running to her flushed with health, singing, his bundle of school-books hanging by a thong. there he was. both her arms were round him. no, it was impossible. they could not be going to part. "what is the matter, mother?" said he; "you look very pale." "nothing, my child," she said and stooped down and kissed him. that night amelia made the boy read the story of samuel to her, and how hannah, his mother, having weaned him, brought him to eli the high priest to minister before the lord. and he read the song of gratitude which hannah sang, and which says, who it is who maketh poor and maketh rich, and bringeth low and exalteth--how the poor shall be raised up out of the dust, and how, in his own might, no man shall be strong. then he read how samuel's mother made him a little coat and brought it to him from year to year when she came up to offer the yearly sacrifice. and then, in her sweet simple way, george's mother made commentaries to the boy upon this affecting story. how hannah, though she loved her son so much, yet gave him up because of her vow. and how she must always have thought of him as she sat at home, far away, making the little coat; and samuel, she was sure, never forgot his mother; and how happy she must have been as the time came (and the years pass away very quick) when she should see her boy and how good and wise he had grown. this little sermon she spoke with a gentle solemn voice, and dry eyes, until she came to the account of their meeting--then the discourse broke off suddenly, the tender heart overflowed, and taking the boy to her breast, she rocked him in her arms and wept silently over him in a sainted agony of tears. her mind being made up, the widow began to take such measures as seemed right to her for advancing the end which she proposed. one day, miss osborne, in russell square (amelia had not written the name or number of the house for ten years--her youth, her early story came back to her as she wrote the superscription) one day miss osborne got a letter from amelia which made her blush very much and look towards her father, sitting glooming in his place at the other end of the table. in simple terms, amelia told her the reasons which had induced her to change her mind respecting her boy. her father had met with fresh misfortunes which had entirely ruined him. her own pittance was so small that it would barely enable her to support her parents and would not suffice to give george the advantages which were his due. great as her sufferings would be at parting with him she would, by god's help, endure them for the boy's sake. she knew that those to whom he was going would do all in their power to make him happy. she described his disposition, such as she fancied it--quick and impatient of control or harshness, easily to be moved by love and kindness. in a postscript, she stipulated that she should have a written agreement, that she should see the child as often as she wished--she could not part with him under any other terms. "what? mrs. pride has come down, has she?" old osborne said, when with a tremulous eager voice miss osborne read him the letter. "reg'lar starved out, hey? ha, ha! i knew she would." he tried to keep his dignity and to read his paper as usual--but he could not follow it. he chuckled and swore to himself behind the sheet. at last he flung it down and, scowling at his daughter, as his wont was, went out of the room into his study adjoining, from whence he presently returned with a key. he flung it to miss osborne. "get the room over mine--his room that was--ready," he said. "yes, sir," his daughter replied in a tremble. it was george's room. it had not been opened for more than ten years. some of his clothes, papers, handkerchiefs, whips and caps, fishing-rods and sporting gear, were still there. an army list of , with his name written on the cover; a little dictionary he was wont to use in writing; and the bible his mother had given him, were on the mantelpiece, with a pair of spurs and a dried inkstand covered with the dust of ten years. ah! since that ink was wet, what days and people had passed away! the writing-book, still on the table, was blotted with his hand. miss osborne was much affected when she first entered this room with the servants under her. she sank quite pale on the little bed. "this is blessed news, m'am--indeed, m'am," the housekeeper said; "and the good old times is returning, m'am. the dear little feller, to be sure, m'am; how happy he will be! but some folks in may fair, m'am, will owe him a grudge, m'am"; and she clicked back the bolt which held the window-sash and let the air into the chamber. "you had better send that woman some money," mr. osborne said, before he went out. "she shan't want for nothing. send her a hundred pound." "and i'll go and see her to-morrow?" miss osborne asked. "that's your look out. she don't come in here, mind. no, by ------, not for all the money in london. but she mustn't want now. so look out, and get things right." with which brief speeches mr. osborne took leave of his daughter and went on his accustomed way into the city. "here, papa, is some money," amelia said that night, kissing the old man, her father, and putting a bill for a hundred pounds into his hands. "and--and, mamma, don't be harsh with georgy. he--he is not going to stop with us long." she could say nothing more, and walked away silently to her room. let us close it upon her prayers and her sorrow. i think we had best speak little about so much love and grief. miss osborne came the next day, according to the promise contained in her note, and saw amelia. the meeting between them was friendly. a look and a few words from miss osborne showed the poor widow that, with regard to this woman at least, there need be no fear lest she should take the first place in her son's affection. she was cold, sensible, not unkind. the mother had not been so well pleased, perhaps, had the rival been better looking, younger, more affectionate, warmer-hearted. miss osborne, on the other hand, thought of old times and memories and could not but be touched with the poor mother's pitiful situation. she was conquered, and laying down her arms, as it were, she humbly submitted. that day they arranged together the preliminaries of the treaty of capitulation. george was kept from school the next day, and saw his aunt. amelia left them alone together and went to her room. she was trying the separation--as that poor gentle lady jane grey felt the edge of the axe that was to come down and sever her slender life. days were passed in parleys, visits, preparations. the widow broke the matter to georgy with great caution; she looked to see him very much affected by the intelligence. he was rather elated than otherwise, and the poor woman turned sadly away. he bragged about the news that day to the boys at school; told them how he was going to live with his grandpapa, his father's father, not the one who comes here sometimes; and that he would be very rich, and have a carriage, and a pony, and go to a much finer school, and when he was rich he would buy leader's pencil-case and pay the tart-woman. the boy was the image of his father, as his fond mother thought. indeed i have no heart, on account of our dear amelia's sake, to go through the story of george's last days at home. at last the day came, the carriage drove up, the little humble packets containing tokens of love and remembrance were ready and disposed in the hall long since--george was in his new suit, for which the tailor had come previously to measure him. he had sprung up with the sun and put on the new clothes, his mother hearing him from the room close by, in which she had been lying, in speechless grief and watching. days before she had been making preparations for the end, purchasing little stores for the boy's use, marking his books and linen, talking with him and preparing him for the change--fondly fancying that he needed preparation. so that he had change, what cared he? he was longing for it. by a thousand eager declarations as to what he would do, when he went to live with his grandfather, he had shown the poor widow how little the idea of parting had cast him down. "he would come and see his mamma often on the pony," he said. "he would come and fetch her in the carriage; they would drive in the park, and she should have everything she wanted." the poor mother was fain to content herself with these selfish demonstrations of attachment, and tried to convince herself how sincerely her son loved her. he must love her. all children were so: a little anxious for novelty, and--no, not selfish, but self-willed. her child must have his enjoyments and ambition in the world. she herself, by her own selfishness and imprudent love for him had denied him his just rights and pleasures hitherto. i know few things more affecting than that timorous debasement and self-humiliation of a woman. how she owns that it is she and not the man who is guilty; how she takes all the faults on her side; how she courts in a manner punishment for the wrongs which she has not committed and persists in shielding the real culprit! it is those who injure women who get the most kindness from them--they are born timid and tyrants and maltreat those who are humblest before them. so poor amelia had been getting ready in silent misery for her son's departure, and had passed many and many a long solitary hour in making preparations for the end. george stood by his mother, watching her arrangements without the least concern. tears had fallen into his boxes; passages had been scored in his favourite books; old toys, relics, treasures had been hoarded away for him, and packed with strange neatness and care--and of all these things the boy took no note. the child goes away smiling as the mother breaks her heart. by heavens it is pitiful, the bootless love of women for children in vanity fair. a few days are past, and the great event of amelia's life is consummated. no angel has intervened. the child is sacrificed and offered up to fate, and the widow is quite alone. the boy comes to see her often, to be sure. he rides on a pony with a coachman behind him, to the delight of his old grandfather, sedley, who walks proudly down the lane by his side. she sees him, but he is not her boy any more. why, he rides to see the boys at the little school, too, and to show off before them his new wealth and splendour. in two days he has adopted a slightly imperious air and patronizing manner. he was born to command, his mother thinks, as his father was before him. it is fine weather now. of evenings on the days when he does not come, she takes a long walk into london--yes, as far as russell square, and rests on the stone by the railing of the garden opposite mr. osborne's house. it is so pleasant and cool. she can look up and see the drawing-room windows illuminated, and, at about nine o'clock, the chamber in the upper story where georgy sleeps. she knows--he has told her. she prays there as the light goes out, prays with an humble heart, and walks home shrinking and silent. she is very tired when she comes home. perhaps she will sleep the better for that long weary walk, and she may dream about georgy. one sunday she happened to be walking in russell square, at some distance from mr. osborne's house (she could see it from a distance though) when all the bells of sabbath were ringing, and george and his aunt came out to go to church; a little sweep asked for charity, and the footman, who carried the books, tried to drive him away; but georgy stopped and gave him money. may god's blessing be on the boy! emmy ran round the square and, coming up to the sweep, gave him her mite too. all the bells of sabbath were ringing, and she followed them until she came to the foundling church, into which she went. there she sat in a place whence she could see the head of the boy under his father's tombstone. many hundred fresh children's voices rose up there and sang hymns to the father beneficent, and little george's soul thrilled with delight at the burst of glorious psalmody. his mother could not see him for awhile, through the mist that dimmed her eyes. chapter li in which a charade is acted which may or may not puzzle the reader after becky's appearance at my lord steyne's private and select parties, the claims of that estimable woman as regards fashion were settled, and some of the very greatest and tallest doors in the metropolis were speedily opened to her--doors so great and tall that the beloved reader and writer hereof may hope in vain to enter at them. dear brethren, let us tremble before those august portals. i fancy them guarded by grooms of the chamber with flaming silver forks with which they prong all those who have not the right of the entree. they say the honest newspaper-fellow who sits in the hall and takes down the names of the great ones who are admitted to the feasts dies after a little time. he can't survive the glare of fashion long. it scorches him up, as the presence of jupiter in full dress wasted that poor imprudent semele--a giddy moth of a creature who ruined herself by venturing out of her natural atmosphere. her myth ought to be taken to heart amongst the tyburnians, the belgravians--her story, and perhaps becky's too. ah, ladies!--ask the reverend mr. thurifer if belgravia is not a sounding brass and tyburnia a tinkling cymbal. these are vanities. even these will pass away. and some day or other (but it will be after our time, thank goodness) hyde park gardens will be no better known than the celebrated horticultural outskirts of babylon, and belgrave square will be as desolate as baker street, or tadmor in the wilderness. ladies, are you aware that the great pitt lived in baker street? what would not your grandmothers have given to be asked to lady hester's parties in that now decayed mansion? i have dined in it--moi qui vous parle, i peopled the chamber with ghosts of the mighty dead. as we sat soberly drinking claret there with men of to-day, the spirits of the departed came in and took their places round the darksome board. the pilot who weathered the storm tossed off great bumpers of spiritual port; the shade of dundas did not leave the ghost of a heeltap. addington sat bowing and smirking in a ghastly manner, and would not be behindhand when the noiseless bottle went round; scott, from under bushy eyebrows, winked at the apparition of a beeswing; wilberforce's eyes went up to the ceiling, so that he did not seem to know how his glass went up full to his mouth and came down empty; up to the ceiling which was above us only yesterday, and which the great of the past days have all looked at. they let the house as a furnished lodging now. yes, lady hester once lived in baker street, and lies asleep in the wilderness. eothen saw her there--not in baker street, but in the other solitude. it is all vanity to be sure, but who will not own to liking a little of it? i should like to know what well-constituted mind, merely because it is transitory, dislikes roast beef? that is a vanity, but may every man who reads this have a wholesome portion of it through life, i beg: aye, though my readers were five hundred thousand. sit down, gentlemen, and fall to, with a good hearty appetite; the fat, the lean, the gravy, the horse-radish as you like it--don't spare it. another glass of wine, jones, my boy--a little bit of the sunday side. yes, let us eat our fill of the vain thing and be thankful therefor. and let us make the best of becky's aristocratic pleasures likewise--for these too, like all other mortal delights, were but transitory. the upshot of her visit to lord steyne was that his highness the prince of peterwaradin took occasion to renew his acquaintance with colonel crawley, when they met on the next day at the club, and to compliment mrs. crawley in the ring of hyde park with a profound salute of the hat. she and her husband were invited immediately to one of the prince's small parties at levant house, then occupied by his highness during the temporary absence from england of its noble proprietor. she sang after dinner to a very little comite. the marquis of steyne was present, paternally superintending the progress of his pupil. at levant house becky met one of the finest gentlemen and greatest ministers that europe has produced--the duc de la jabotiere, then ambassador from the most christian king, and subsequently minister to that monarch. i declare i swell with pride as these august names are transcribed by my pen, and i think in what brilliant company my dear becky is moving. she became a constant guest at the french embassy, where no party was considered to be complete without the presence of the charming madame ravdonn cravley. messieurs de truffigny (of the perigord family) and champignac, both attaches of the embassy, were straightway smitten by the charms of the fair colonel's wife, and both declared, according to the wont of their nation (for who ever yet met a frenchman, come out of england, that has not left half a dozen families miserable, and brought away as many hearts in his pocket-book?), both, i say, declared that they were au mieux with the charming madame ravdonn. but i doubt the correctness of the assertion. champignac was very fond of ecarte, and made many parties with the colonel of evenings, while becky was singing to lord steyne in the other room; and as for truffigny, it is a well-known fact that he dared not go to the travellers', where he owed money to the waiters, and if he had not had the embassy as a dining-place, the worthy young gentleman must have starved. i doubt, i say, that becky would have selected either of these young men as a person on whom she would bestow her special regard. they ran of her messages, purchased her gloves and flowers, went in debt for opera-boxes for her, and made themselves amiable in a thousand ways. and they talked english with adorable simplicity, and to the constant amusement of becky and my lord steyne, she would mimic one or other to his face, and compliment him on his advance in the english language with a gravity which never failed to tickle the marquis, her sardonic old patron. truffigny gave briggs a shawl by way of winning over becky's confidante, and asked her to take charge of a letter which the simple spinster handed over in public to the person to whom it was addressed, and the composition of which amused everybody who read it greatly. lord steyne read it, everybody but honest rawdon, to whom it was not necessary to tell everything that passed in the little house in may fair. here, before long, becky received not only "the best" foreigners (as the phrase is in our noble and admirable society slang), but some of the best english people too. i don't mean the most virtuous, or indeed the least virtuous, or the cleverest, or the stupidest, or the richest, or the best born, but "the best,"--in a word, people about whom there is no question--such as the great lady fitz-willis, that patron saint of almack's, the great lady slowbore, the great lady grizzel macbeth (she was lady g. glowry, daughter of lord grey of glowry), and the like. when the countess of fitz-willis (her ladyship is of the kingstreet family, see debrett and burke) takes up a person, he or she is safe. there is no question about them any more. not that my lady fitz-willis is any better than anybody else, being, on the contrary, a faded person, fifty-seven years of age, and neither handsome, nor wealthy, nor entertaining; but it is agreed on all sides that she is of the "best people." those who go to her are of the best: and from an old grudge probably to lady steyne (for whose coronet her ladyship, then the youthful georgina frederica, daughter of the prince of wales's favourite, the earl of portansherry, had once tried), this great and famous leader of the fashion chose to acknowledge mrs. rawdon crawley; made her a most marked curtsey at the assembly over which she presided; and not only encouraged her son, st. kitts (his lordship got his place through lord steyne's interest), to frequent mrs. crawley's house, but asked her to her own mansion and spoke to her twice in the most public and condescending manner during dinner. the important fact was known all over london that night. people who had been crying fie about mrs. crawley were silent. wenham, the wit and lawyer, lord steyne's right-hand man, went about everywhere praising her: some who had hesitated, came forward at once and welcomed her; little tom toady, who had warned southdown about visiting such an abandoned woman, now besought to be introduced to her. in a word, she was admitted to be among the "best" people. ah, my beloved readers and brethren, do not envy poor becky prematurely--glory like this is said to be fugitive. it is currently reported that even in the very inmost circles, they are no happier than the poor wanderers outside the zone; and becky, who penetrated into the very centre of fashion and saw the great george iv face to face, has owned since that there too was vanity. we must be brief in descanting upon this part of her career. as i cannot describe the mysteries of freemasonry, although i have a shrewd idea that it is a humbug, so an uninitiated man cannot take upon himself to portray the great world accurately, and had best keep his opinions to himself, whatever they are. becky has often spoken in subsequent years of this season of her life, when she moved among the very greatest circles of the london fashion. her success excited, elated, and then bored her. at first no occupation was more pleasant than to invent and procure (the latter a work of no small trouble and ingenuity, by the way, in a person of mrs. rawdon crawley's very narrow means)--to procure, we say, the prettiest new dresses and ornaments; to drive to fine dinner parties, where she was welcomed by great people; and from the fine dinner parties to fine assemblies, whither the same people came with whom she had been dining, whom she had met the night before, and would see on the morrow--the young men faultlessly appointed, handsomely cravatted, with the neatest glossy boots and white gloves--the elders portly, brass-buttoned, noble-looking, polite, and prosy--the young ladies blonde, timid, and in pink--the mothers grand, beautiful, sumptuous, solemn, and in diamonds. they talked in english, not in bad french, as they do in the novels. they talked about each others' houses, and characters, and families--just as the joneses do about the smiths. becky's former acquaintances hated and envied her; the poor woman herself was yawning in spirit. "i wish i were out of it," she said to herself. "i would rather be a parson's wife and teach a sunday school than this; or a sergeant's lady and ride in the regimental waggon; or, oh, how much gayer it would be to wear spangles and trousers and dance before a booth at a fair." "you would do it very well," said lord steyne, laughing. she used to tell the great man her ennuis and perplexities in her artless way--they amused him. "rawdon would make a very good ecuyer--master of the ceremonies--what do you call him--the man in the large boots and the uniform, who goes round the ring cracking the whip? he is large, heavy, and of a military figure. i recollect," becky continued pensively, "my father took me to see a show at brookgreen fair when i was a child, and when we came home, i made myself a pair of stilts and danced in the studio to the wonder of all the pupils." "i should have liked to see it," said lord steyne. "i should like to do it now," becky continued. "how lady blinkey would open her eyes, and lady grizzel macbeth would stare! hush! silence! there is pasta beginning to sing." becky always made a point of being conspicuously polite to the professional ladies and gentlemen who attended at these aristocratic parties--of following them into the corners where they sat in silence, and shaking hands with them, and smiling in the view of all persons. she was an artist herself, as she said very truly; there was a frankness and humility in the manner in which she acknowledged her origin, which provoked, or disarmed, or amused lookers-on, as the case might be. "how cool that woman is," said one; "what airs of independence she assumes, where she ought to sit still and be thankful if anybody speaks to her!" "what an honest and good-natured soul she is!" said another. "what an artful little minx" said a third. they were all right very likely, but becky went her own way, and so fascinated the professional personages that they would leave off their sore throats in order to sing at her parties and give her lessons for nothing. yes, she gave parties in the little house in curzon street. many scores of carriages, with blazing lamps, blocked up the street, to the disgust of no. , who could not rest for the thunder of the knocking, and of , who could not sleep for envy. the gigantic footmen who accompanied the vehicles were too big to be contained in becky's little hall, and were billeted off in the neighbouring public-houses, whence, when they were wanted, call-boys summoned them from their beer. scores of the great dandies of london squeezed and trod on each other on the little stairs, laughing to find themselves there; and many spotless and severe ladies of ton were seated in the little drawing-room, listening to the professional singers, who were singing according to their wont, and as if they wished to blow the windows down. and the day after, there appeared among the fashionable reunions in the morning post a paragraph to the following effect: "yesterday, colonel and mrs. crawley entertained a select party at dinner at their house in may fair. their excellencies the prince and princess of peterwaradin, h. e. papoosh pasha, the turkish ambassador (attended by kibob bey, dragoman of the mission), the marquess of steyne, earl of southdown, sir pitt and lady jane crawley, mr. wagg, &c. after dinner mrs. crawley had an assembly which was attended by the duchess (dowager) of stilton, duc de la gruyere, marchioness of cheshire, marchese alessandro strachino, comte de brie, baron schapzuger, chevalier tosti, countess of slingstone, and lady f. macadam, major-general and lady g. macbeth, and ( ) miss macbeths; viscount paddington, sir horace fogey, hon. sands bedwin, bobachy bahawder," and an &c., which the reader may fill at his pleasure through a dozen close lines of small type. and in her commerce with the great our dear friend showed the same frankness which distinguished her transactions with the lowly in station. on one occasion, when out at a very fine house, rebecca was (perhaps rather ostentatiously) holding a conversation in the french language with a celebrated tenor singer of that nation, while the lady grizzel macbeth looked over her shoulder scowling at the pair. "how very well you speak french," lady grizzel said, who herself spoke the tongue in an edinburgh accent most remarkable to hear. "i ought to know it," becky modestly said, casting down her eyes. "i taught it in a school, and my mother was a frenchwoman." lady grizzel was won by her humility and was mollified towards the little woman. she deplored the fatal levelling tendencies of the age, which admitted persons of all classes into the society of their superiors, but her ladyship owned that this one at least was well behaved and never forgot her place in life. she was a very good woman: good to the poor; stupid, blameless, unsuspicious. it is not her ladyship's fault that she fancies herself better than you and me. the skirts of her ancestors' garments have been kissed for centuries; it is a thousand years, they say, since the tartans of the head of the family were embraced by the defunct duncan's lords and councillors, when the great ancestor of the house became king of scotland. lady steyne, after the music scene, succumbed before becky, and perhaps was not disinclined to her. the younger ladies of the house of gaunt were also compelled into submission. once or twice they set people at her, but they failed. the brilliant lady stunnington tried a passage of arms with her, but was routed with great slaughter by the intrepid little becky. when attacked sometimes, becky had a knack of adopting a demure ingenue air, under which she was most dangerous. she said the wickedest things with the most simple unaffected air when in this mood, and would take care artlessly to apologize for her blunders, so that all the world should know that she had made them. mr. wagg, the celebrated wit, and a led captain and trencher-man of my lord steyne, was caused by the ladies to charge her; and the worthy fellow, leering at his patronesses and giving them a wink, as much as to say, "now look out for sport," one evening began an assault upon becky, who was unsuspiciously eating her dinner. the little woman, attacked on a sudden, but never without arms, lighted up in an instant, parried and riposted with a home-thrust, which made wagg's face tingle with shame; then she returned to her soup with the most perfect calm and a quiet smile on her face. wagg's great patron, who gave him dinners and lent him a little money sometimes, and whose election, newspaper, and other jobs wagg did, gave the luckless fellow such a savage glance with the eyes as almost made him sink under the table and burst into tears. he looked piteously at my lord, who never spoke to him during dinner, and at the ladies, who disowned him. at last becky herself took compassion upon him and tried to engage him in talk. he was not asked to dinner again for six weeks; and fiche, my lord's confidential man, to whom wagg naturally paid a good deal of court, was instructed to tell him that if he ever dared to say a rude thing to mrs. crawley again, or make her the butt of his stupid jokes, milor would put every one of his notes of hand into his lawyer's hands and sell him up without mercy. wagg wept before fiche and implored his dear friend to intercede for him. he wrote a poem in favour of mrs. r. c., which appeared in the very next number of the harum-scarum magazine, which he conducted. he implored her good-will at parties where he met her. he cringed and coaxed rawdon at the club. he was allowed to come back to gaunt house after a while. becky was always good to him, always amused, never angry. his lordship's vizier and chief confidential servant (with a seat in parliament and at the dinner table), mr. wenham, was much more prudent in his behaviour and opinions than mr. wagg. however much he might be disposed to hate all parvenus (mr. wenham himself was a staunch old true blue tory, and his father a small coal-merchant in the north of england), this aide-de-camp of the marquis never showed any sort of hostility to the new favourite, but pursued her with stealthy kindnesses and a sly and deferential politeness which somehow made becky more uneasy than other people's overt hostilities. how the crawleys got the money which was spent upon the entertainments with which they treated the polite world was a mystery which gave rise to some conversation at the time, and probably added zest to these little festivities. some persons averred that sir pitt crawley gave his brother a handsome allowance; if he did, becky's power over the baronet must have been extraordinary indeed, and his character greatly changed in his advanced age. other parties hinted that it was becky's habit to levy contributions on all her husband's friends: going to this one in tears with an account that there was an execution in the house; falling on her knees to that one and declaring that the whole family must go to gaol or commit suicide unless such and such a bill could be paid. lord southdown, it was said, had been induced to give many hundreds through these pathetic representations. young feltham, of the --th dragoons (and son of the firm of tiler and feltham, hatters and army accoutrement makers), and whom the crawleys introduced into fashionable life, was also cited as one of becky's victims in the pecuniary way. people declared that she got money from various simply disposed persons, under pretence of getting them confidential appointments under government. who knows what stories were or were not told of our dear and innocent friend? certain it is that if she had had all the money which she was said to have begged or borrowed or stolen, she might have capitalized and been honest for life, whereas,--but this is advancing matters. the truth is, that by economy and good management--by a sparing use of ready money and by paying scarcely anybody--people can manage, for a time at least, to make a great show with very little means: and it is our belief that becky's much-talked-of parties, which were not, after all was said, very numerous, cost this lady very little more than the wax candles which lighted the walls. stillbrook and queen's crawley supplied her with game and fruit in abundance. lord steyne's cellars were at her disposal, and that excellent nobleman's famous cooks presided over her little kitchen, or sent by my lord's order the rarest delicacies from their own. i protest it is quite shameful in the world to abuse a simple creature, as people of her time abuse becky, and i warn the public against believing one-tenth of the stories against her. if every person is to be banished from society who runs into debt and cannot pay--if we are to be peering into everybody's private life, speculating upon their income, and cutting them if we don't approve of their expenditure--why, what a howling wilderness and intolerable dwelling vanity fair would be! every man's hand would be against his neighbour in this case, my dear sir, and the benefits of civilization would be done away with. we should be quarrelling, abusing, avoiding one another. our houses would become caverns, and we should go in rags because we cared for nobody. rents would go down. parties wouldn't be given any more. all the tradesmen of the town would be bankrupt. wine, wax-lights, comestibles, rouge, crinoline-petticoats, diamonds, wigs, louis-quatorze gimcracks, and old china, park hacks, and splendid high-stepping carriage horses--all the delights of life, i say,--would go to the deuce, if people did but act upon their silly principles and avoid those whom they dislike and abuse. whereas, by a little charity and mutual forbearance, things are made to go on pleasantly enough: we may abuse a man as much as we like, and call him the greatest rascal unhanged--but do we wish to hang him therefore? no. we shake hands when we meet. if his cook is good we forgive him and go and dine with him, and we expect he will do the same by us. thus trade flourishes--civilization advances; peace is kept; new dresses are wanted for new assemblies every week; and the last year's vintage of lafitte will remunerate the honest proprietor who reared it. at the time whereof we are writing, though the great george was on the throne and ladies wore gigots and large combs like tortoise-shell shovels in their hair, instead of the simple sleeves and lovely wreaths which are actually in fashion, the manners of the very polite world were not, i take it, essentially different from those of the present day: and their amusements pretty similar. to us, from the outside, gazing over the policeman's shoulders at the bewildering beauties as they pass into court or ball, they may seem beings of unearthly splendour and in the enjoyment of an exquisite happiness by us unattainable. it is to console some of these dissatisfied beings that we are narrating our dear becky's struggles, and triumphs, and disappointments, of all of which, indeed, as is the case with all persons of merit, she had her share. at this time the amiable amusement of acting charades had come among us from france, and was considerably in vogue in this country, enabling the many ladies amongst us who had beauty to display their charms, and the fewer number who had cleverness to exhibit their wit. my lord steyne was incited by becky, who perhaps believed herself endowed with both the above qualifications, to give an entertainment at gaunt house, which should include some of these little dramas--and we must take leave to introduce the reader to this brilliant reunion, and, with a melancholy welcome too, for it will be among the very last of the fashionable entertainments to which it will be our fortune to conduct him. a portion of that splendid room, the picture gallery of gaunt house, was arranged as the charade theatre. it had been so used when george iii was king; and a picture of the marquis of gaunt is still extant, with his hair in powder and a pink ribbon, in a roman shape, as it was called, enacting the part of cato in mr. addison's tragedy of that name, performed before their royal highnesses the prince of wales, the bishop of osnaburgh, and prince william henry, then children like the actor. one or two of the old properties were drawn out of the garrets, where they had lain ever since, and furbished up anew for the present festivities. young bedwin sands, then an elegant dandy and eastern traveller, was manager of the revels. an eastern traveller was somebody in those days, and the adventurous bedwin, who had published his quarto and passed some months under the tents in the desert, was a personage of no small importance. in his volume there were several pictures of sands in various oriental costumes; and he travelled about with a black attendant of most unprepossessing appearance, just like another brian de bois guilbert. bedwin, his costumes, and black man, were hailed at gaunt house as very valuable acquisitions. he led off the first charade. a turkish officer with an immense plume of feathers (the janizaries were supposed to be still in existence, and the tarboosh had not as yet displaced the ancient and majestic head-dress of the true believers) was seen couched on a divan, and making believe to puff at a narghile, in which, however, for the sake of the ladies, only a fragrant pastille was allowed to smoke. the turkish dignitary yawns and expresses signs of weariness and idleness. he claps his hands and mesrour the nubian appears, with bare arms, bangles, yataghans, and every eastern ornament--gaunt, tall, and hideous. he makes a salaam before my lord the aga. a thrill of terror and delight runs through the assembly. the ladies whisper to one another. the black slave was given to bedwin sands by an egyptian pasha in exchange for three dozen of maraschino. he has sewn up ever so many odalisques in sacks and tilted them into the nile. "bid the slave-merchant enter," says the turkish voluptuary with a wave of his hand. mesrour conducts the slave-merchant into my lord's presence; he brings a veiled female with him. he removes the veil. a thrill of applause bursts through the house. it is mrs. winkworth (she was a miss absolom) with the beautiful eyes and hair. she is in a gorgeous oriental costume; the black braided locks are twined with innumerable jewels; her dress is covered over with gold piastres. the odious mahometan expresses himself charmed by her beauty. she falls down on her knees and entreats him to restore her to the mountains where she was born, and where her circassian lover is still deploring the absence of his zuleikah. no entreaties will move the obdurate hassan. he laughs at the notion of the circassian bridegroom. zuleikah covers her face with her hands and drops down in an attitude of the most beautiful despair. there seems to be no hope for her, when--when the kislar aga appears. the kislar aga brings a letter from the sultan. hassan receives and places on his head the dread firman. a ghastly terror seizes him, while on the negro's face (it is mesrour again in another costume) appears a ghastly joy. "mercy! mercy!" cries the pasha: while the kislar aga, grinning horribly, pulls out--a bow-string. the curtain draws just as he is going to use that awful weapon. hassan from within bawls out, "first two syllables"--and mrs. rawdon crawley, who is going to act in the charade, comes forward and compliments mrs. winkworth on the admirable taste and beauty of her costume. the second part of the charade takes place. it is still an eastern scene. hassan, in another dress, is in an attitude by zuleikah, who is perfectly reconciled to him. the kislar aga has become a peaceful black slave. it is sunrise on the desert, and the turks turn their heads eastwards and bow to the sand. as there are no dromedaries at hand, the band facetiously plays "the camels are coming." an enormous egyptian head figures in the scene. it is a musical one--and, to the surprise of the oriental travellers, sings a comic song, composed by mr. wagg. the eastern voyagers go off dancing, like papageno and the moorish king in the magic flute. "last two syllables," roars the head. the last act opens. it is a grecian tent this time. a tall and stalwart man reposes on a couch there. above him hang his helmet and shield. there is no need for them now. ilium is down. iphigenia is slain. cassandra is a prisoner in his outer halls. the king of men (it is colonel crawley, who, indeed, has no notion about the sack of ilium or the conquest of cassandra), the anax andron is asleep in his chamber at argos. a lamp casts the broad shadow of the sleeping warrior flickering on the wall--the sword and shield of troy glitter in its light. the band plays the awful music of don juan, before the statue enters. aegisthus steals in pale and on tiptoe. what is that ghastly face looking out balefully after him from behind the arras? he raises his dagger to strike the sleeper, who turns in his bed, and opens his broad chest as if for the blow. he cannot strike the noble slumbering chieftain. clytemnestra glides swiftly into the room like an apparition--her arms are bare and white--her tawny hair floats down her shoulders--her face is deadly pale--and her eyes are lighted up with a smile so ghastly that people quake as they look at her. a tremor ran through the room. "good god!" somebody said, "it's mrs. rawdon crawley." scornfully she snatches the dagger out of aegisthus's hand and advances to the bed. you see it shining over her head in the glimmer of the lamp, and--and the lamp goes out, with a groan, and all is dark. the darkness and the scene frightened people. rebecca performed her part so well, and with such ghastly truth, that the spectators were all dumb, until, with a burst, all the lamps of the hall blazed out again, when everybody began to shout applause. "brava! brava!" old steyne's strident voice was heard roaring over all the rest. "by--, she'd do it too," he said between his teeth. the performers were called by the whole house, which sounded with cries of "manager! clytemnestra!" agamemnon could not be got to show in his classical tunic, but stood in the background with aegisthus and others of the performers of the little play. mr. bedwin sands led on zuleikah and clytemnestra. a great personage insisted on being presented to the charming clytemnestra. "heigh ha? run him through the body. marry somebody else, hay?" was the apposite remark made by his royal highness. "mrs. rawdon crawley was quite killing in the part," said lord steyne. becky laughed, gay and saucy looking, and swept the prettiest little curtsey ever seen. servants brought in salvers covered with numerous cool dainties, and the performers disappeared to get ready for the second charade-tableau. the three syllables of this charade were to be depicted in pantomime, and the performance took place in the following wise: first syllable. colonel rawdon crawley, c.b., with a slouched hat and a staff, a great-coat, and a lantern borrowed from the stables, passed across the stage bawling out, as if warning the inhabitants of the hour. in the lower window are seen two bagmen playing apparently at the game of cribbage, over which they yawn much. to them enters one looking like boots (the honourable g. ringwood), which character the young gentleman performed to perfection, and divests them of their lower coverings; and presently chambermaid (the right honourable lord southdown) with two candlesticks, and a warming-pan. she ascends to the upper apartment and warms the bed. she uses the warming-pan as a weapon wherewith she wards off the attention of the bagmen. she exits. they put on their night-caps and pull down the blinds. boots comes out and closes the shutters of the ground-floor chamber. you hear him bolting and chaining the door within. all the lights go out. the music plays dormez, dormez, chers amours. a voice from behind the curtain says, "first syllable." second syllable. the lamps are lighted up all of a sudden. the music plays the old air from john of paris, ah quel plaisir d'etre en voyage. it is the same scene. between the first and second floors of the house represented, you behold a sign on which the steyne arms are painted. all the bells are ringing all over the house. in the lower apartment you see a man with a long slip of paper presenting it to another, who shakes his fists, threatens and vows that it is monstrous. "ostler, bring round my gig," cries another at the door. he chucks chambermaid (the right honourable lord southdown) under the chin; she seems to deplore his absence, as calypso did that of that other eminent traveller ulysses. boots (the honourable g. ringwood) passes with a wooden box, containing silver flagons, and cries "pots" with such exquisite humour and naturalness that the whole house rings with applause, and a bouquet is thrown to him. crack, crack, crack, go the whips. landlord, chambermaid, waiter rush to the door, but just as some distinguished guest is arriving, the curtains close, and the invisible theatrical manager cries out "second syllable." "i think it must be 'hotel,'" says captain grigg of the life guards; there is a general laugh at the captain's cleverness. he is not very far from the mark. while the third syllable is in preparation, the band begins a nautical medley--"all in the downs," "cease rude boreas," "rule britannia," "in the bay of biscay o!"--some maritime event is about to take place. a bell is heard ringing as the curtain draws aside. "now, gents, for the shore!" a voice exclaims. people take leave of each other. they point anxiously as if towards the clouds, which are represented by a dark curtain, and they nod their heads in fear. lady squeams (the right honourable lord southdown), her lap-dog, her bags, reticules, and husband sit down, and cling hold of some ropes. it is evidently a ship. the captain (colonel crawley, c.b.), with a cocked hat and a telescope, comes in, holding his hat on his head, and looks out; his coat tails fly about as if in the wind. when he leaves go of his hat to use his telescope, his hat flies off, with immense applause. it is blowing fresh. the music rises and whistles louder and louder; the mariners go across the stage staggering, as if the ship was in severe motion. the steward (the honourable g. ringwood) passes reeling by, holding six basins. he puts one rapidly by lord squeams--lady squeams, giving a pinch to her dog, which begins to howl piteously, puts her pocket-handkerchief to her face, and rushes away as for the cabin. the music rises up to the wildest pitch of stormy excitement, and the third syllable is concluded. there was a little ballet, "le rossignol," in which montessu and noblet used to be famous in those days, and which mr. wagg transferred to the english stage as an opera, putting his verse, of which he was a skilful writer, to the pretty airs of the ballet. it was dressed in old french costume, and little lord southdown now appeared admirably attired in the disguise of an old woman hobbling about the stage with a faultless crooked stick. trills of melody were heard behind the scenes, and gurgling from a sweet pasteboard cottage covered with roses and trellis work. "philomele, philomele," cries the old woman, and philomele comes out. more applause--it is mrs. rawdon crawley in powder and patches, the most ravissante little marquise in the world. she comes in laughing, humming, and frisks about the stage with all the innocence of theatrical youth--she makes a curtsey. mamma says "why, child, you are always laughing and singing," and away she goes, with-- the rose upon my balcony the rose upon my balcony the morning air perfuming was leafless all the winter time and pining for the spring; you ask me why her breath is sweet and why her cheek is blooming, it is because the sun is out and birds begin to sing. the nightingale, whose melody is through the greenwood ringing, was silent when the boughs were bare and winds were blowing keen: and if, mamma, you ask of me the reason of his singing, it is because the sun is out and all the leaves are green. thus each performs his part, mamma, the birds have found their voices, the blowing rose a flush, mamma, her bonny cheek to dye; and there's sunshine in my heart, mamma, which wakens and rejoices, and so i sing and blush, mamma, and that's the reason why. during the intervals of the stanzas of this ditty, the good-natured personage addressed as mamma by the singer, and whose large whiskers appeared under her cap, seemed very anxious to exhibit her maternal affection by embracing the innocent creature who performed the daughter's part. every caress was received with loud acclamations of laughter by the sympathizing audience. at its conclusion (while the music was performing a symphony as if ever so many birds were warbling) the whole house was unanimous for an encore: and applause and bouquets without end were showered upon the nightingale of the evening. lord steyne's voice of applause was loudest of all. becky, the nightingale, took the flowers which he threw to her and pressed them to her heart with the air of a consummate comedian. lord steyne was frantic with delight. his guests' enthusiasm harmonized with his own. where was the beautiful black-eyed houri whose appearance in the first charade had caused such delight? she was twice as handsome as becky, but the brilliancy of the latter had quite eclipsed her. all voices were for her. stephens, caradori, ronzi de begnis, people compared her to one or the other, and agreed with good reason, very likely, that had she been an actress none on the stage could have surpassed her. she had reached her culmination: her voice rose trilling and bright over the storm of applause, and soared as high and joyful as her triumph. there was a ball after the dramatic entertainments, and everybody pressed round becky as the great point of attraction of the evening. the royal personage declared with an oath that she was perfection, and engaged her again and again in conversation. little becky's soul swelled with pride and delight at these honours; she saw fortune, fame, fashion before her. lord steyne was her slave, followed her everywhere, and scarcely spoke to any one in the room beside, and paid her the most marked compliments and attention. she still appeared in her marquise costume and danced a minuet with monsieur de truffigny, monsieur le duc de la jabotiere's attache; and the duke, who had all the traditions of the ancient court, pronounced that madame crawley was worthy to have been a pupil of vestris, or to have figured at versailles. only a feeling of dignity, the gout, and the strongest sense of duty and personal sacrifice prevented his excellency from dancing with her himself, and he declared in public that a lady who could talk and dance like mrs. rawdon was fit to be ambassadress at any court in europe. he was only consoled when he heard that she was half a frenchwoman by birth. "none but a compatriot," his excellency declared, "could have performed that majestic dance in such a way." then she figured in a waltz with monsieur de klingenspohr, the prince of peterwaradin's cousin and attache. the delighted prince, having less retenue than his french diplomatic colleague, insisted upon taking a turn with the charming creature, and twirled round the ball-room with her, scattering the diamonds out of his boot-tassels and hussar jacket until his highness was fairly out of breath. papoosh pasha himself would have liked to dance with her if that amusement had been the custom of his country. the company made a circle round her and applauded as wildly as if she had been a noblet or a taglioni. everybody was in ecstacy; and becky too, you may be sure. she passed by lady stunnington with a look of scorn. she patronized lady gaunt and her astonished and mortified sister-in-law--she ecrased all rival charmers. as for poor mrs. winkworth, and her long hair and great eyes, which had made such an effect at the commencement of the evening--where was she now? nowhere in the race. she might tear her long hair and cry her great eyes out, but there was not a person to heed or to deplore the discomfiture. the greatest triumph of all was at supper time. she was placed at the grand exclusive table with his royal highness the exalted personage before mentioned, and the rest of the great guests. she was served on gold plate. she might have had pearls melted into her champagne if she liked--another cleopatra--and the potentate of peterwaradin would have given half the brilliants off his jacket for a kind glance from those dazzling eyes. jabotiere wrote home about her to his government. the ladies at the other tables, who supped off mere silver and marked lord steyne's constant attention to her, vowed it was a monstrous infatuation, a gross insult to ladies of rank. if sarcasm could have killed, lady stunnington would have slain her on the spot. rawdon crawley was scared at these triumphs. they seemed to separate his wife farther than ever from him somehow. he thought with a feeling very like pain how immeasurably she was his superior. when the hour of departure came, a crowd of young men followed her to her carriage, for which the people without bawled, the cry being caught up by the link-men who were stationed outside the tall gates of gaunt house, congratulating each person who issued from the gate and hoping his lordship had enjoyed this noble party. mrs. rawdon crawley's carriage, coming up to the gate after due shouting, rattled into the illuminated court-yard and drove up to the covered way. rawdon put his wife into the carriage, which drove off. mr. wenham had proposed to him to walk home, and offered the colonel the refreshment of a cigar. they lighted their cigars by the lamp of one of the many link-boys outside, and rawdon walked on with his friend wenham. two persons separated from the crowd and followed the two gentlemen; and when they had walked down gaunt square a few score of paces, one of the men came up and, touching rawdon on the shoulder, said, "beg your pardon, colonel, i vish to speak to you most particular." this gentleman's acquaintance gave a loud whistle as the latter spoke, at which signal a cab came clattering up from those stationed at the gate of gaunt house--and the aide-de-camp ran round and placed himself in front of colonel crawley. that gallant officer at once knew what had befallen him. he was in the hands of the bailiffs. he started back, falling against the man who had first touched him. "we're three on us--it's no use bolting," the man behind said. "it's you, moss, is it?" said the colonel, who appeared to know his interlocutor. "how much is it?" "only a small thing," whispered mr. moss, of cursitor street, chancery lane, and assistant officer to the sheriff of middlesex--"one hundred and sixty-six, six and eight-pence, at the suit of mr. nathan." "lend me a hundred, wenham, for god's sake," poor rawdon said--"i've got seventy at home." "i've not got ten pounds in the world," said poor mr. wenham--"good night, my dear fellow." "good night," said rawdon ruefully. and wenham walked away--and rawdon crawley finished his cigar as the cab drove under temple bar. chapter lii in which lord steyne shows himself in a most amiable light when lord steyne was benevolently disposed, he did nothing by halves, and his kindness towards the crawley family did the greatest honour to his benevolent discrimination. his lordship extended his good-will to little rawdon: he pointed out to the boy's parents the necessity of sending him to a public school, that he was of an age now when emulation, the first principles of the latin language, pugilistic exercises, and the society of his fellow-boys would be of the greatest benefit to the boy. his father objected that he was not rich enough to send the child to a good public school; his mother that briggs was a capital mistress for him, and had brought him on (as indeed was the fact) famously in english, the latin rudiments, and in general learning: but all these objections disappeared before the generous perseverance of the marquis of steyne. his lordship was one of the governors of that famous old collegiate institution called the whitefriars. it had been a cistercian convent in old days, when the smithfield, which is contiguous to it, was a tournament ground. obstinate heretics used to be brought thither convenient for burning hard by. henry viii, the defender of the faith, seized upon the monastery and its possessions and hanged and tortured some of the monks who could not accommodate themselves to the pace of his reform. finally, a great merchant bought the house and land adjoining, in which, and with the help of other wealthy endowments of land and money, he established a famous foundation hospital for old men and children. an extern school grew round the old almost monastic foundation, which subsists still with its middle-age costume and usages--and all cistercians pray that it may long flourish. of this famous house, some of the greatest noblemen, prelates, and dignitaries in england are governors: and as the boys are very comfortably lodged, fed, and educated, and subsequently inducted to good scholarships at the university and livings in the church, many little gentlemen are devoted to the ecclesiastical profession from their tenderest years, and there is considerable emulation to procure nominations for the foundation. it was originally intended for the sons of poor and deserving clerics and laics, but many of the noble governors of the institution, with an enlarged and rather capricious benevolence, selected all sorts of objects for their bounty. to get an education for nothing, and a future livelihood and profession assured, was so excellent a scheme that some of the richest people did not disdain it; and not only great men's relations, but great men themselves, sent their sons to profit by the chance--right rev. prelates sent their own kinsmen or the sons of their clergy, while, on the other hand, some great noblemen did not disdain to patronize the children of their confidential servants--so that a lad entering this establishment had every variety of youthful society wherewith to mingle. rawdon crawley, though the only book which he studied was the racing calendar, and though his chief recollections of polite learning were connected with the floggings which he received at eton in his early youth, had that decent and honest reverence for classical learning which all english gentlemen feel, and was glad to think that his son was to have a provision for life, perhaps, and a certain opportunity of becoming a scholar. and although his boy was his chief solace and companion, and endeared to him by a thousand small ties, about which he did not care to speak to his wife, who had all along shown the utmost indifference to their son, yet rawdon agreed at once to part with him and to give up his own greatest comfort and benefit for the sake of the welfare of the little lad. he did not know how fond he was of the child until it became necessary to let him go away. when he was gone, he felt more sad and downcast than he cared to own--far sadder than the boy himself, who was happy enough to enter a new career and find companions of his own age. becky burst out laughing once or twice when the colonel, in his clumsy, incoherent way, tried to express his sentimental sorrows at the boy's departure. the poor fellow felt that his dearest pleasure and closest friend was taken from him. he looked often and wistfully at the little vacant bed in his dressing-room, where the child used to sleep. he missed him sadly of mornings and tried in vain to walk in the park without him. he did not know how solitary he was until little rawdon was gone. he liked the people who were fond of him, and would go and sit for long hours with his good-natured sister lady jane, and talk to her about the virtues, and good looks, and hundred good qualities of the child. young rawdon's aunt, we have said, was very fond of him, as was her little girl, who wept copiously when the time for her cousin's departure came. the elder rawdon was thankful for the fondness of mother and daughter. the very best and honestest feelings of the man came out in these artless outpourings of paternal feeling in which he indulged in their presence, and encouraged by their sympathy. he secured not only lady jane's kindness, but her sincere regard, by the feelings which he manifested, and which he could not show to his own wife. the two kinswomen met as seldom as possible. becky laughed bitterly at jane's feelings and softness; the other's kindly and gentle nature could not but revolt at her sister's callous behaviour. it estranged rawdon from his wife more than he knew or acknowledged to himself. she did not care for the estrangement. indeed, she did not miss him or anybody. she looked upon him as her errand-man and humble slave. he might be ever so depressed or sulky, and she did not mark his demeanour, or only treated it with a sneer. she was busy thinking about her position, or her pleasures, or her advancement in society; she ought to have held a great place in it, that is certain. it was honest briggs who made up the little kit for the boy which he was to take to school. molly, the housemaid, blubbered in the passage when he went away--molly kind and faithful in spite of a long arrear of unpaid wages. mrs. becky could not let her husband have the carriage to take the boy to school. take the horses into the city!--such a thing was never heard of. let a cab be brought. she did not offer to kiss him when he went, nor did the child propose to embrace her; but gave a kiss to old briggs (whom, in general, he was very shy of caressing), and consoled her by pointing out that he was to come home on saturdays, when she would have the benefit of seeing him. as the cab rolled towards the city, becky's carriage rattled off to the park. she was chattering and laughing with a score of young dandies by the serpentine as the father and son entered at the old gates of the school--where rawdon left the child and came away with a sadder purer feeling in his heart than perhaps that poor battered fellow had ever known since he himself came out of the nursery. he walked all the way home very dismally, and dined alone with briggs. he was very kind to her and grateful for her love and watchfulness over the boy. his conscience smote him that he had borrowed briggs's money and aided in deceiving her. they talked about little rawdon a long time, for becky only came home to dress and go out to dinner--and then he went off uneasily to drink tea with lady jane, and tell her of what had happened, and how little rawdon went off like a trump, and how he was to wear a gown and little knee-breeches, and how young blackball, jack blackball's son, of the old regiment, had taken him in charge and promised to be kind to him. in the course of a week, young blackball had constituted little rawdon his fag, shoe-black, and breakfast toaster; initiated him into the mysteries of the latin grammar; and thrashed him three or four times, but not severely. the little chap's good-natured honest face won his way for him. he only got that degree of beating which was, no doubt, good for him; and as for blacking shoes, toasting bread, and fagging in general, were these offices not deemed to be necessary parts of every young english gentleman's education? our business does not lie with the second generation and master rawdon's life at school, otherwise the present tale might be carried to any indefinite length. the colonel went to see his son a short time afterwards and found the lad sufficiently well and happy, grinning and laughing in his little black gown and little breeches. his father sagaciously tipped blackball, his master, a sovereign, and secured that young gentleman's good-will towards his fag. as a protege of the great lord steyne, the nephew of a county member, and son of a colonel and c.b., whose name appeared in some of the most fashionable parties in the morning post, perhaps the school authorities were disposed not to look unkindly on the child. he had plenty of pocket-money, which he spent in treating his comrades royally to raspberry tarts, and he was often allowed to come home on saturdays to his father, who always made a jubilee of that day. when free, rawdon would take him to the play, or send him thither with the footman; and on sundays he went to church with briggs and lady jane and his cousins. rawdon marvelled over his stories about school, and fights, and fagging. before long, he knew the names of all the masters and the principal boys as well as little rawdon himself. he invited little rawdon's crony from school, and made both the children sick with pastry, and oysters, and porter after the play. he tried to look knowing over the latin grammar when little rawdon showed him what part of that work he was "in." "stick to it, my boy," he said to him with much gravity, "there's nothing like a good classical education! nothing!" becky's contempt for her husband grew greater every day. "do what you like--dine where you please--go and have ginger-beer and sawdust at astley's, or psalm-singing with lady jane--only don't expect me to busy myself with the boy. i have your interests to attend to, as you can't attend to them yourself. i should like to know where you would have been now, and in what sort of a position in society, if i had not looked after you." indeed, nobody wanted poor old rawdon at the parties whither becky used to go. she was often asked without him now. she talked about great people as if she had the fee-simple of may fair, and when the court went into mourning, she always wore black. little rawdon being disposed of, lord steyne, who took such a parental interest in the affairs of this amiable poor family, thought that their expenses might be very advantageously curtailed by the departure of miss briggs, and that becky was quite clever enough to take the management of her own house. it has been narrated in a former chapter how the benevolent nobleman had given his protegee money to pay off her little debt to miss briggs, who however still remained behind with her friends; whence my lord came to the painful conclusion that mrs. crawley had made some other use of the money confided to her than that for which her generous patron had given the loan. however, lord steyne was not so rude as to impart his suspicions upon this head to mrs. becky, whose feelings might be hurt by any controversy on the money-question, and who might have a thousand painful reasons for disposing otherwise of his lordship's generous loan. but he determined to satisfy himself of the real state of the case, and instituted the necessary inquiries in a most cautious and delicate manner. in the first place he took an early opportunity of pumping miss briggs. that was not a difficult operation. a very little encouragement would set that worthy woman to talk volubly and pour out all within her. and one day when mrs. rawdon had gone out to drive (as mr. fiche, his lordship's confidential servant, easily learned at the livery stables where the crawleys kept their carriage and horses, or rather, where the livery-man kept a carriage and horses for mr. and mrs. crawley)--my lord dropped in upon the curzon street house--asked briggs for a cup of coffee--told her that he had good accounts of the little boy at school--and in five minutes found out from her that mrs. rawdon had given her nothing except a black silk gown, for which miss briggs was immensely grateful. he laughed within himself at this artless story. for the truth is, our dear friend rebecca had given him a most circumstantial narration of briggs's delight at receiving her money--eleven hundred and twenty-five pounds--and in what securities she had invested it; and what a pang becky herself felt in being obliged to pay away such a delightful sum of money. "who knows," the dear woman may have thought within herself, "perhaps he may give me a little more?" my lord, however, made no such proposal to the little schemer--very likely thinking that he had been sufficiently generous already. he had the curiosity, then, to ask miss briggs about the state of her private affairs--and she told his lordship candidly what her position was--how miss crawley had left her a legacy--how her relatives had had part of it--how colonel crawley had put out another portion, for which she had the best security and interest--and how mr. and mrs. rawdon had kindly busied themselves with sir pitt, who was to dispose of the remainder most advantageously for her, when he had time. my lord asked how much the colonel had already invested for her, and miss briggs at once and truly told him that the sum was six hundred and odd pounds. but as soon as she had told her story, the voluble briggs repented of her frankness and besought my lord not to tell mr. crawley of the confessions which she had made. "the colonel was so kind--mr. crawley might be offended and pay back the money, for which she could get no such good interest anywhere else." lord steyne, laughing, promised he never would divulge their conversation, and when he and miss briggs parted he laughed still more. "what an accomplished little devil it is!" thought he. "what a splendid actress and manager! she had almost got a second supply out of me the other day; with her coaxing ways. she beats all the women i have ever seen in the course of all my well-spent life. they are babies compared to her. i am a greenhorn myself, and a fool in her hands--an old fool. she is unsurpassable in lies." his lordship's admiration for becky rose immeasurably at this proof of her cleverness. getting the money was nothing--but getting double the sum she wanted, and paying nobody--it was a magnificent stroke. and crawley, my lord thought--crawley is not such a fool as he looks and seems. he has managed the matter cleverly enough on his side. nobody would ever have supposed from his face and demeanour that he knew anything about this money business; and yet he put her up to it, and has spent the money, no doubt. in this opinion my lord, we know, was mistaken, but it influenced a good deal his behaviour towards colonel crawley, whom he began to treat with even less than that semblance of respect which he had formerly shown towards that gentleman. it never entered into the head of mrs. crawley's patron that the little lady might be making a purse for herself; and, perhaps, if the truth must be told, he judged of colonel crawley by his experience of other husbands, whom he had known in the course of the long and well-spent life which had made him acquainted with a great deal of the weakness of mankind. my lord had bought so many men during his life that he was surely to be pardoned for supposing that he had found the price of this one. he taxed becky upon the point on the very first occasion when he met her alone, and he complimented her, good-humouredly, on her cleverness in getting more than the money which she required. becky was only a little taken aback. it was not the habit of this dear creature to tell falsehoods, except when necessity compelled, but in these great emergencies it was her practice to lie very freely; and in an instant she was ready with another neat plausible circumstantial story which she administered to her patron. the previous statement which she had made to him was a falsehood--a wicked falsehood--she owned it. but who had made her tell it? "ah, my lord," she said, "you don't know all i have to suffer and bear in silence; you see me gay and happy before you--you little know what i have to endure when there is no protector near me. it was my husband, by threats and the most savage treatment, forced me to ask for that sum about which i deceived you. it was he who, foreseeing that questions might be asked regarding the disposal of the money, forced me to account for it as i did. he took the money. he told me he had paid miss briggs; i did not want, i did not dare to doubt him. pardon the wrong which a desperate man is forced to commit, and pity a miserable, miserable woman." she burst into tears as she spoke. persecuted virtue never looked more bewitchingly wretched. they had a long conversation, driving round and round the regent's park in mrs. crawley's carriage together, a conversation of which it is not necessary to repeat the details, but the upshot of it was that, when becky came home, she flew to her dear briggs with a smiling face and announced that she had some very good news for her. lord steyne had acted in the noblest and most generous manner. he was always thinking how and when he could do good. now that little rawdon was gone to school, a dear companion and friend was no longer necessary to her. she was grieved beyond measure to part with briggs, but her means required that she should practise every retrenchment, and her sorrow was mitigated by the idea that her dear briggs would be far better provided for by her generous patron than in her humble home. mrs. pilkington, the housekeeper at gauntly hall, was growing exceedingly old, feeble, and rheumatic: she was not equal to the work of superintending that vast mansion, and must be on the look out for a successor. it was a splendid position. the family did not go to gauntly once in two years. at other times the housekeeper was the mistress of the magnificent mansion--had four covers daily for her table; was visited by the clergy and the most respectable people of the county--was the lady of gauntly, in fact; and the two last housekeepers before mrs. pilkington had married rectors of gauntly--but mrs. p. could not, being the aunt of the present rector. the place was not to be hers yet, but she might go down on a visit to mrs. pilkington and see whether she would like to succeed her. what words can paint the ecstatic gratitude of briggs! all she stipulated for was that little rawdon should be allowed to come down and see her at the hall. becky promised this--anything. she ran up to her husband when he came home and told him the joyful news. rawdon was glad, deuced glad; the weight was off his conscience about poor briggs's money. she was provided for, at any rate, but--but his mind was disquiet. he did not seem to be all right, somehow. he told little southdown what lord steyne had done, and the young man eyed crawley with an air which surprised the latter. he told lady jane of this second proof of steyne's bounty, and she, too, looked odd and alarmed; so did sir pitt. "she is too clever and--and gay to be allowed to go from party to party without a companion," both said. "you must go with her, rawdon, wherever she goes, and you must have somebody with her--one of the girls from queen's crawley, perhaps, though they were rather giddy guardians for her." somebody becky should have. but in the meantime it was clear that honest briggs must not lose her chance of settlement for life, and so she and her bags were packed, and she set off on her journey. and so two of rawdon's out-sentinels were in the hands of the enemy. sir pitt went and expostulated with his sister-in-law upon the subject of the dismissal of briggs and other matters of delicate family interest. in vain she pointed out to him how necessary was the protection of lord steyne for her poor husband; how cruel it would be on their part to deprive briggs of the position offered to her. cajolements, coaxings, smiles, tears could not satisfy sir pitt, and he had something very like a quarrel with his once admired becky. he spoke of the honour of the family, the unsullied reputation of the crawleys; expressed himself in indignant tones about her receiving those young frenchmen--those wild young men of fashion, my lord steyne himself, whose carriage was always at her door, who passed hours daily in her company, and whose constant presence made the world talk about her. as the head of the house he implored her to be more prudent. society was already speaking lightly of her. lord steyne, though a nobleman of the greatest station and talents, was a man whose attentions would compromise any woman; he besought, he implored, he commanded his sister-in-law to be watchful in her intercourse with that nobleman. becky promised anything and everything pitt wanted; but lord steyne came to her house as often as ever, and sir pitt's anger increased. i wonder was lady jane angry or pleased that her husband at last found fault with his favourite rebecca? lord steyne's visits continuing, his own ceased, and his wife was for refusing all further intercourse with that nobleman and declining the invitation to the charade-night which the marchioness sent to her; but sir pitt thought it was necessary to accept it, as his royal highness would be there. although he went to the party in question, sir pitt quitted it very early, and his wife, too, was very glad to come away. becky hardly so much as spoke to him or noticed her sister-in-law. pitt crawley declared her behaviour was monstrously indecorous, reprobated in strong terms the habit of play-acting and fancy dressing as highly unbecoming a british female, and after the charades were over, took his brother rawdon severely to task for appearing himself and allowing his wife to join in such improper exhibitions. rawdon said she should not join in any more such amusements--but indeed, and perhaps from hints from his elder brother and sister, he had already become a very watchful and exemplary domestic character. he left off his clubs and billiards. he never left home. he took becky out to drive; he went laboriously with her to all her parties. whenever my lord steyne called, he was sure to find the colonel. and when becky proposed to go out without her husband, or received invitations for herself, he peremptorily ordered her to refuse them: and there was that in the gentleman's manner which enforced obedience. little becky, to do her justice, was charmed with rawdon's gallantry. if he was surly, she never was. whether friends were present or absent, she had always a kind smile for him and was attentive to his pleasure and comfort. it was the early days of their marriage over again: the same good humour, prevenances, merriment, and artless confidence and regard. "how much pleasanter it is," she would say, "to have you by my side in the carriage than that foolish old briggs! let us always go on so, dear rawdon. how nice it would be, and how happy we should always be, if we had but the money!" he fell asleep after dinner in his chair; he did not see the face opposite to him, haggard, weary, and terrible; it lighted up with fresh candid smiles when he woke. it kissed him gaily. he wondered that he had ever had suspicions. no, he never had suspicions; all those dumb doubts and surly misgivings which had been gathering on his mind were mere idle jealousies. she was fond of him; she always had been. as for her shining in society, it was no fault of hers; she was formed to shine there. was there any woman who could talk, or sing, or do anything like her? if she would but like the boy! rawdon thought. but the mother and son never could be brought together. and it was while rawdon's mind was agitated with these doubts and perplexities that the incident occurred which was mentioned in the last chapter, and the unfortunate colonel found himself a prisoner away from home. chapter liii a rescue and a catastrophe friend rawdon drove on then to mr. moss's mansion in cursitor street, and was duly inducted into that dismal place of hospitality. morning was breaking over the cheerful house-tops of chancery lane as the rattling cab woke up the echoes there. a little pink-eyed jew-boy, with a head as ruddy as the rising morn, let the party into the house, and rawdon was welcomed to the ground-floor apartments by mr. moss, his travelling companion and host, who cheerfully asked him if he would like a glass of something warm after his drive. the colonel was not so depressed as some mortals would be, who, quitting a palace and a placens uxor, find themselves barred into a spunging-house; for, if the truth must be told, he had been a lodger at mr. moss's establishment once or twice before. we have not thought it necessary in the previous course of this narrative to mention these trivial little domestic incidents: but the reader may be assured that they can't unfrequently occur in the life of a man who lives on nothing a year. upon his first visit to mr. moss, the colonel, then a bachelor, had been liberated by the generosity of his aunt; on the second mishap, little becky, with the greatest spirit and kindness, had borrowed a sum of money from lord southdown and had coaxed her husband's creditor (who was her shawl, velvet-gown, lace pocket-handkerchief, trinket, and gim-crack purveyor, indeed) to take a portion of the sum claimed and rawdon's promissory note for the remainder: so on both these occasions the capture and release had been conducted with the utmost gallantry on all sides, and moss and the colonel were therefore on the very best of terms. "you'll find your old bed, colonel, and everything comfortable," that gentleman said, "as i may honestly say. you may be pretty sure its kep aired, and by the best of company, too. it was slep in the night afore last by the honorable capting famish, of the fiftieth dragoons, whose mar took him out, after a fortnight, jest to punish him, she said. but, law bless you, i promise you, he punished my champagne, and had a party ere every night--reglar tip-top swells, down from the clubs and the west end--capting ragg, the honorable deuceace, who lives in the temple, and some fellers as knows a good glass of wine, i warrant you. i've got a doctor of diwinity upstairs, five gents in the coffee-room, and mrs. moss has a tably-dy-hoty at half-past five, and a little cards or music afterwards, when we shall be most happy to see you." "i'll ring when i want anything," said rawdon and went quietly to his bedroom. he was an old soldier, we have said, and not to be disturbed by any little shocks of fate. a weaker man would have sent off a letter to his wife on the instant of his capture. "but what is the use of disturbing her night's rest?" thought rawdon. "she won't know whether i am in my room or not. it will be time enough to write to her when she has had her sleep out, and i have had mine. it's only a hundred-and-seventy, and the deuce is in it if we can't raise that." and so, thinking about little rawdon (whom he would not have know that he was in such a queer place), the colonel turned into the bed lately occupied by captain famish and fell asleep. it was ten o'clock when he woke up, and the ruddy-headed youth brought him, with conscious pride, a fine silver dressing-case, wherewith he might perform the operation of shaving. indeed mr. moss's house, though somewhat dirty, was splendid throughout. there were dirty trays, and wine-coolers en permanence on the sideboard, huge dirty gilt cornices, with dingy yellow satin hangings to the barred windows which looked into cursitor street--vast and dirty gilt picture frames surrounding pieces sporting and sacred, all of which works were by the greatest masters--and fetched the greatest prices, too, in the bill transactions, in the course of which they were sold and bought over and over again. the colonel's breakfast was served to him in the same dingy and gorgeous plated ware. miss moss, a dark-eyed maid in curl-papers, appeared with the teapot, and, smiling, asked the colonel how he had slep? and she brought him in the morning post, with the names of all the great people who had figured at lord steyne's entertainment the night before. it contained a brilliant account of the festivities and of the beautiful and accomplished mrs. rawdon crawley's admirable personifications. after a lively chat with this lady (who sat on the edge of the breakfast table in an easy attitude displaying the drapery of her stocking and an ex-white satin shoe, which was down at heel), colonel crawley called for pens and ink, and paper, and being asked how many sheets, chose one which was brought to him between miss moss's own finger and thumb. many a sheet had that dark-eyed damsel brought in; many a poor fellow had scrawled and blotted hurried lines of entreaty and paced up and down that awful room until his messenger brought back the reply. poor men always use messengers instead of the post. who has not had their letters, with the wafers wet, and the announcement that a person is waiting in the hall? now on the score of his application, rawdon had not many misgivings. dear becky, (rawdon wrote) i hope you slept well. don't be frightened if i don't bring you in your coffy. last night as i was coming home smoaking, i met with an accadent. i was nabbed by moss of cursitor street--from whose gilt and splendid parler i write this--the same that had me this time two years. miss moss brought in my tea--she is grown very fat, and, as usual, had her stockens down at heal. it's nathan's business--a hundred-and-fifty--with costs, hundred-and-seventy. please send me my desk and some cloths--i'm in pumps and a white tye (something like miss m's stockings)--i've seventy in it. and as soon as you get this, drive to nathan's--offer him seventy-five down, and ask him to renew--say i'll take wine--we may as well have some dinner sherry; but not picturs, they're too dear. if he won't stand it. take my ticker and such of your things as you can spare, and send them to balls--we must, of coarse, have the sum to-night. it won't do to let it stand over, as to-morrow's sunday; the beds here are not very clean, and there may be other things out against me--i'm glad it an't rawdon's saturday for coming home. god bless you. yours in haste, r. c. p.s. make haste and come. this letter, sealed with a wafer, was dispatched by one of the messengers who are always hanging about mr. moss's establishment, and rawdon, having seen him depart, went out in the court-yard and smoked his cigar with a tolerably easy mind--in spite of the bars overhead--for mr. moss's court-yard is railed in like a cage, lest the gentlemen who are boarding with him should take a fancy to escape from his hospitality. three hours, he calculated, would be the utmost time required, before becky should arrive and open his prison doors, and he passed these pretty cheerfully in smoking, in reading the paper, and in the coffee-room with an acquaintance, captain walker, who happened to be there, and with whom he cut for sixpences for some hours, with pretty equal luck on either side. but the day passed away and no messenger returned--no becky. mr. moss's tably-dy-hoty was served at the appointed hour of half-past five, when such of the gentlemen lodging in the house as could afford to pay for the banquet came and partook of it in the splendid front parlour before described, and with which mr. crawley's temporary lodging communicated, when miss m. (miss hem, as her papa called her) appeared without the curl-papers of the morning, and mrs. hem did the honours of a prime boiled leg of mutton and turnips, of which the colonel ate with a very faint appetite. asked whether he would "stand" a bottle of champagne for the company, he consented, and the ladies drank to his 'ealth, and mr. moss, in the most polite manner, "looked towards him." in the midst of this repast, however, the doorbell was heard--young moss of the ruddy hair rose up with the keys and answered the summons, and coming back, told the colonel that the messenger had returned with a bag, a desk and a letter, which he gave him. "no ceramony, colonel, i beg," said mrs. moss with a wave of her hand, and he opened the letter rather tremulously. it was a beautiful letter, highly scented, on a pink paper, and with a light green seal. mon pauvre cher petit, (mrs. crawley wrote) i could not sleep one wink for thinking of what had become of my odious old monstre, and only got to rest in the morning after sending for mr. blench (for i was in a fever), who gave me a composing draught and left orders with finette that i should be disturbed on no account. so that my poor old man's messenger, who had bien mauvaise mine finette says, and sentoit le genievre, remained in the hall for some hours waiting my bell. you may fancy my state when i read your poor dear old ill-spelt letter. ill as i was, i instantly called for the carriage, and as soon as i was dressed (though i couldn't drink a drop of chocolate--i assure you i couldn't without my monstre to bring it to me), i drove ventre a terre to nathan's. i saw him--i wept--i cried--i fell at his odious knees. nothing would mollify the horrid man. he would have all the money, he said, or keep my poor monstre in prison. i drove home with the intention of paying that triste visite chez mon oncle (when every trinket i have should be at your disposal though they would not fetch a hundred pounds, for some, you know, are with ce cher oncle already), and found milor there with the bulgarian old sheep-faced monster, who had come to compliment me upon last night's performances. paddington came in, too, drawling and lisping and twiddling his hair; so did champignac, and his chef--everybody with foison of compliments and pretty speeches--plaguing poor me, who longed to be rid of them, and was thinking every moment of the time of mon pauvre prisonnier. when they were gone, i went down on my knees to milor; told him we were going to pawn everything, and begged and prayed him to give me two hundred pounds. he pish'd and psha'd in a fury--told me not to be such a fool as to pawn--and said he would see whether he could lend me the money. at last he went away, promising that he would send it me in the morning: when i will bring it to my poor old monster with a kiss from his affectionate becky i am writing in bed. oh i have such a headache and such a heartache! when rawdon read over this letter, he turned so red and looked so savage that the company at the table d'hote easily perceived that bad news had reached him. all his suspicions, which he had been trying to banish, returned upon him. she could not even go out and sell her trinkets to free him. she could laugh and talk about compliments paid to her, whilst he was in prison. who had put him there? wenham had walked with him. was there.... he could hardly bear to think of what he suspected. leaving the room hurriedly, he ran into his own--opened his desk, wrote two hurried lines, which he directed to sir pitt or lady crawley, and bade the messenger carry them at once to gaunt street, bidding him to take a cab, and promising him a guinea if he was back in an hour. in the note he besought his dear brother and sister, for the sake of god, for the sake of his dear child and his honour, to come to him and relieve him from his difficulty. he was in prison, he wanted a hundred pounds to set him free--he entreated them to come to him. he went back to the dining-room after dispatching his messenger and called for more wine. he laughed and talked with a strange boisterousness, as the people thought. sometimes he laughed madly at his own fears and went on drinking for an hour, listening all the while for the carriage which was to bring his fate back. at the expiration of that time, wheels were heard whirling up to the gate--the young janitor went out with his gate-keys. it was a lady whom he let in at the bailiff's door. "colonel crawley," she said, trembling very much. he, with a knowing look, locked the outer door upon her--then unlocked and opened the inner one, and calling out, "colonel, you're wanted," led her into the back parlour, which he occupied. rawdon came in from the dining-parlour where all those people were carousing, into his back room; a flare of coarse light following him into the apartment where the lady stood, still very nervous. "it is i, rawdon," she said in a timid voice, which she strove to render cheerful. "it is jane." rawdon was quite overcome by that kind voice and presence. he ran up to her--caught her in his arms--gasped out some inarticulate words of thanks and fairly sobbed on her shoulder. she did not know the cause of his emotion. the bills of mr. moss were quickly settled, perhaps to the disappointment of that gentleman, who had counted on having the colonel as his guest over sunday at least; and jane, with beaming smiles and happiness in her eyes, carried away rawdon from the bailiff's house, and they went homewards in the cab in which she had hastened to his release. "pitt was gone to a parliamentary dinner," she said, "when rawdon's note came, and so, dear rawdon, i--i came myself"; and she put her kind hand in his. perhaps it was well for rawdon crawley that pitt was away at that dinner. rawdon thanked his sister a hundred times, and with an ardour of gratitude which touched and almost alarmed that soft-hearted woman. "oh," said he, in his rude, artless way, "you--you don't know how i'm changed since i've known you, and--and little rawdy. i--i'd like to change somehow. you see i want--i want--to be--" he did not finish the sentence, but she could interpret it. and that night after he left her, and as she sat by her own little boy's bed, she prayed humbly for that poor way-worn sinner. rawdon left her and walked home rapidly. it was nine o'clock at night. he ran across the streets and the great squares of vanity fair, and at length came up breathless opposite his own house. he started back and fell against the railings, trembling as he looked up. the drawing-room windows were blazing with light. she had said that she was in bed and ill. he stood there for some time, the light from the rooms on his pale face. he took out his door-key and let himself into the house. he could hear laughter in the upper rooms. he was in the ball-dress in which he had been captured the night before. he went silently up the stairs, leaning against the banisters at the stair-head. nobody was stirring in the house besides--all the servants had been sent away. rawdon heard laughter within--laughter and singing. becky was singing a snatch of the song of the night before; a hoarse voice shouted "brava! brava!"--it was lord steyne's. rawdon opened the door and went in. a little table with a dinner was laid out--and wine and plate. steyne was hanging over the sofa on which becky sat. the wretched woman was in a brilliant full toilette, her arms and all her fingers sparkling with bracelets and rings, and the brilliants on her breast which steyne had given her. he had her hand in his, and was bowing over it to kiss it, when becky started up with a faint scream as she caught sight of rawdon's white face. at the next instant she tried a smile, a horrid smile, as if to welcome her husband; and steyne rose up, grinding his teeth, pale, and with fury in his looks. he, too, attempted a laugh--and came forward holding out his hand. "what, come back! how d'ye do, crawley?" he said, the nerves of his mouth twitching as he tried to grin at the intruder. there was that in rawdon's face which caused becky to fling herself before him. "i am innocent, rawdon," she said; "before god, i am innocent." she clung hold of his coat, of his hands; her own were all covered with serpents, and rings, and baubles. "i am innocent. say i am innocent," she said to lord steyne. he thought a trap had been laid for him, and was as furious with the wife as with the husband. "you innocent! damn you," he screamed out. "you innocent! why every trinket you have on your body is paid for by me. i have given you thousands of pounds, which this fellow has spent and for which he has sold you. innocent, by ----! you're as innocent as your mother, the ballet-girl, and your husband the bully. don't think to frighten me as you have done others. make way, sir, and let me pass"; and lord steyne seized up his hat, and, with flame in his eyes, and looking his enemy fiercely in the face, marched upon him, never for a moment doubting that the other would give way. but rawdon crawley springing out, seized him by the neckcloth, until steyne, almost strangled, writhed and bent under his arm. "you lie, you dog!" said rawdon. "you lie, you coward and villain!" and he struck the peer twice over the face with his open hand and flung him bleeding to the ground. it was all done before rebecca could interpose. she stood there trembling before him. she admired her husband, strong, brave, and victorious. "come here," he said. she came up at once. "take off those things." she began, trembling, pulling the jewels from her arms, and the rings from her shaking fingers, and held them all in a heap, quivering and looking up at him. "throw them down," he said, and she dropped them. he tore the diamond ornament out of her breast and flung it at lord steyne. it cut him on his bald forehead. steyne wore the scar to his dying day. "come upstairs," rawdon said to his wife. "don't kill me, rawdon," she said. he laughed savagely. "i want to see if that man lies about the money as he has about me. has he given you any?" "no," said rebecca, "that is--" "give me your keys," rawdon answered, and they went out together. rebecca gave him all the keys but one, and she was in hopes that he would not have remarked the absence of that. it belonged to the little desk which amelia had given her in early days, and which she kept in a secret place. but rawdon flung open boxes and wardrobes, throwing the multifarious trumpery of their contents here and there, and at last he found the desk. the woman was forced to open it. it contained papers, love-letters many years old--all sorts of small trinkets and woman's memoranda. and it contained a pocket-book with bank-notes. some of these were dated ten years back, too, and one was quite a fresh one--a note for a thousand pounds which lord steyne had given her. "did he give you this?" rawdon said. "yes," rebecca answered. "i'll send it to him to-day," rawdon said (for day had dawned again, and many hours had passed in this search), "and i will pay briggs, who was kind to the boy, and some of the debts. you will let me know where i shall send the rest to you. you might have spared me a hundred pounds, becky, out of all this--i have always shared with you." "i am innocent," said becky. and he left her without another word. what were her thoughts when he left her? she remained for hours after he was gone, the sunshine pouring into the room, and rebecca sitting alone on the bed's edge. the drawers were all opened and their contents scattered about--dresses and feathers, scarfs and trinkets, a heap of tumbled vanities lying in a wreck. her hair was falling over her shoulders; her gown was torn where rawdon had wrenched the brilliants out of it. she heard him go downstairs a few minutes after he left her, and the door slamming and closing on him. she knew he would never come back. he was gone forever. would he kill himself?--she thought--not until after he had met lord steyne. she thought of her long past life, and all the dismal incidents of it. ah, how dreary it seemed, how miserable, lonely and profitless! should she take laudanum, and end it, to have done with all hopes, schemes, debts, and triumphs? the french maid found her in this position--sitting in the midst of her miserable ruins with clasped hands and dry eyes. the woman was her accomplice and in steyne's pay. "mon dieu, madame, what has happened?" she asked. what had happened? was she guilty or not? she said not, but who could tell what was truth which came from those lips, or if that corrupt heart was in this case pure? all her lies and her schemes, and her selfishness and her wiles, all her wit and genius had come to this bankruptcy. the woman closed the curtains and, with some entreaty and show of kindness, persuaded her mistress to lie down on the bed. then she went below and gathered up the trinkets which had been lying on the floor since rebecca dropped them there at her husband's orders, and lord steyne went away. chapter liv sunday after the battle the mansion of sir pitt crawley, in great gaunt street, was just beginning to dress itself for the day, as rawdon, in his evening costume, which he had now worn two days, passed by the scared female who was scouring the steps and entered into his brother's study. lady jane, in her morning-gown, was up and above stairs in the nursery superintending the toilettes of her children and listening to the morning prayers which the little creatures performed at her knee. every morning she and they performed this duty privately, and before the public ceremonial at which sir pitt presided and at which all the people of the household were expected to assemble. rawdon sat down in the study before the baronet's table, set out with the orderly blue books and the letters, the neatly docketed bills and symmetrical pamphlets, the locked account-books, desks, and dispatch boxes, the bible, the quarterly review, and the court guide, which all stood as if on parade awaiting the inspection of their chief. a book of family sermons, one of which sir pitt was in the habit of administering to his family on sunday mornings, lay ready on the study table, and awaiting his judicious selection. and by the sermon-book was the observer newspaper, damp and neatly folded, and for sir pitt's own private use. his gentleman alone took the opportunity of perusing the newspaper before he laid it by his master's desk. before he had brought it into the study that morning, he had read in the journal a flaming account of "festivities at gaunt house," with the names of all the distinguished personages invited by the marquis of steyne to meet his royal highness. having made comments upon this entertainment to the housekeeper and her niece as they were taking early tea and hot buttered toast in the former lady's apartment, and wondered how the rawding crawleys could git on, the valet had damped and folded the paper once more, so that it looked quite fresh and innocent against the arrival of the master of the house. poor rawdon took up the paper and began to try and read it until his brother should arrive. but the print fell blank upon his eyes, and he did not know in the least what he was reading. the government news and appointments (which sir pitt as a public man was bound to peruse, otherwise he would by no means permit the introduction of sunday papers into his household), the theatrical criticisms, the fight for a hundred pounds a side between the barking butcher and the tutbury pet, the gaunt house chronicle itself, which contained a most complimentary though guarded account of the famous charades of which mrs. becky had been the heroine--all these passed as in a haze before rawdon, as he sat waiting the arrival of the chief of the family. punctually, as the shrill-toned bell of the black marble study clock began to chime nine, sir pitt made his appearance, fresh, neat, smugly shaved, with a waxy clean face, and stiff shirt collar, his scanty hair combed and oiled, trimming his nails as he descended the stairs majestically, in a starched cravat and a grey flannel dressing-gown--a real old english gentleman, in a word--a model of neatness and every propriety. he started when he saw poor rawdon in his study in tumbled clothes, with blood-shot eyes, and his hair over his face. he thought his brother was not sober, and had been out all night on some orgy. "good gracious, rawdon," he said, with a blank face, "what brings you here at this time of the morning? why ain't you at home?" "home," said rawdon with a wild laugh. "don't be frightened, pitt. i'm not drunk. shut the door; i want to speak to you." pitt closed the door and came up to the table, where he sat down in the other arm-chair--that one placed for the reception of the steward, agent, or confidential visitor who came to transact business with the baronet--and trimmed his nails more vehemently than ever. "pitt, it's all over with me," the colonel said after a pause. "i'm done." "i always said it would come to this," the baronet cried peevishly, and beating a tune with his clean-trimmed nails. "i warned you a thousand times. i can't help you any more. every shilling of my money is tied up. even the hundred pounds that jane took you last night were promised to my lawyer to-morrow morning, and the want of it will put me to great inconvenience. i don't mean to say that i won't assist you ultimately. but as for paying your creditors in full, i might as well hope to pay the national debt. it is madness, sheer madness, to think of such a thing. you must come to a compromise. it's a painful thing for the family, but everybody does it. there was george kitely, lord ragland's son, went through the court last week, and was what they call whitewashed, i believe. lord ragland would not pay a shilling for him, and--" "it's not money i want," rawdon broke in. "i'm not come to you about myself. never mind what happens to me." "what is the matter, then?" said pitt, somewhat relieved. "it's the boy," said rawdon in a husky voice. "i want you to promise me that you will take charge of him when i'm gone. that dear good wife of yours has always been good to him; and he's fonder of her than he is of his . . .--damn it. look here, pitt--you know that i was to have had miss crawley's money. i wasn't brought up like a younger brother, but was always encouraged to be extravagant and kep idle. but for this i might have been quite a different man. i didn't do my duty with the regiment so bad. you know how i was thrown over about the money, and who got it." "after the sacrifices i have made, and the manner in which i have stood by you, i think this sort of reproach is useless," sir pitt said. "your marriage was your own doing, not mine." "that's over now," said rawdon. "that's over now." and the words were wrenched from him with a groan, which made his brother start. "good god! is she dead?" sir pitt said with a voice of genuine alarm and commiseration. "i wish i was," rawdon replied. "if it wasn't for little rawdon i'd have cut my throat this morning--and that damned villain's too." sir pitt instantly guessed the truth and surmised that lord steyne was the person whose life rawdon wished to take. the colonel told his senior briefly, and in broken accents, the circumstances of the case. "it was a regular plan between that scoundrel and her," he said. "the bailiffs were put upon me; i was taken as i was going out of his house; when i wrote to her for money, she said she was ill in bed and put me off to another day. and when i got home i found her in diamonds and sitting with that villain alone." he then went on to describe hurriedly the personal conflict with lord steyne. to an affair of that nature, of course, he said, there was but one issue, and after his conference with his brother, he was going away to make the necessary arrangements for the meeting which must ensue. "and as it may end fatally with me," rawdon said with a broken voice, "and as the boy has no mother, i must leave him to you and jane, pitt--only it will be a comfort to me if you will promise me to be his friend." the elder brother was much affected, and shook rawdon's hand with a cordiality seldom exhibited by him. rawdon passed his hand over his shaggy eyebrows. "thank you, brother," said he. "i know i can trust your word." "i will, upon my honour," the baronet said. and thus, and almost mutely, this bargain was struck between them. then rawdon took out of his pocket the little pocket-book which he had discovered in becky's desk, and from which he drew a bundle of the notes which it contained. "here's six hundred," he said--"you didn't know i was so rich. i want you to give the money to briggs, who lent it to us--and who was kind to the boy--and i've always felt ashamed of having taken the poor old woman's money. and here's some more--i've only kept back a few pounds--which becky may as well have, to get on with." as he spoke he took hold of the other notes to give to his brother, but his hands shook, and he was so agitated that the pocket-book fell from him, and out of it the thousand-pound note which had been the last of the unlucky becky's winnings. pitt stooped and picked them up, amazed at so much wealth. "not that," rawdon said. "i hope to put a bullet into the man whom that belongs to." he had thought to himself, it would be a fine revenge to wrap a ball in the note and kill steyne with it. after this colloquy the brothers once more shook hands and parted. lady jane had heard of the colonel's arrival, and was waiting for her husband in the adjoining dining-room, with female instinct, auguring evil. the door of the dining-room happened to be left open, and the lady of course was issuing from it as the two brothers passed out of the study. she held out her hand to rawdon and said she was glad he was come to breakfast, though she could perceive, by his haggard unshorn face and the dark looks of her husband, that there was very little question of breakfast between them. rawdon muttered some excuses about an engagement, squeezing hard the timid little hand which his sister-in-law reached out to him. her imploring eyes could read nothing but calamity in his face, but he went away without another word. nor did sir pitt vouchsafe her any explanation. the children came up to salute him, and he kissed them in his usual frigid manner. the mother took both of them close to herself, and held a hand of each of them as they knelt down to prayers, which sir pitt read to them, and to the servants in their sunday suits or liveries, ranged upon chairs on the other side of the hissing tea-urn. breakfast was so late that day, in consequence of the delays which had occurred, that the church-bells began to ring whilst they were sitting over their meal; and lady jane was too ill, she said, to go to church, though her thoughts had been entirely astray during the period of family devotion. rawdon crawley meanwhile hurried on from great gaunt street, and knocking at the great bronze medusa's head which stands on the portal of gaunt house, brought out the purple silenus in a red and silver waistcoat who acts as porter of that palace. the man was scared also by the colonel's dishevelled appearance, and barred the way as if afraid that the other was going to force it. but colonel crawley only took out a card and enjoined him particularly to send it in to lord steyne, and to mark the address written on it, and say that colonel crawley would be all day after one o'clock at the regent club in st. james's street--not at home. the fat red-faced man looked after him with astonishment as he strode away; so did the people in their sunday clothes who were out so early; the charity-boys with shining faces, the greengrocer lolling at his door, and the publican shutting his shutters in the sunshine, against service commenced. the people joked at the cab-stand about his appearance, as he took a carriage there, and told the driver to drive him to knightsbridge barracks. all the bells were jangling and tolling as he reached that place. he might have seen his old acquaintance amelia on her way from brompton to russell square, had he been looking out. troops of schools were on their march to church, the shiny pavement and outsides of coaches in the suburbs were thronged with people out upon their sunday pleasure; but the colonel was much too busy to take any heed of these phenomena, and, arriving at knightsbridge, speedily made his way up to the room of his old friend and comrade captain macmurdo, who crawley found, to his satisfaction, was in barracks. captain macmurdo, a veteran officer and waterloo man, greatly liked by his regiment, in which want of money alone prevented him from attaining the highest ranks, was enjoying the forenoon calmly in bed. he had been at a fast supper-party, given the night before by captain the honourable george cinqbars, at his house in brompton square, to several young men of the regiment, and a number of ladies of the corps de ballet, and old mac, who was at home with people of all ages and ranks, and consorted with generals, dog-fanciers, opera-dancers, bruisers, and every kind of person, in a word, was resting himself after the night's labours, and, not being on duty, was in bed. his room was hung round with boxing, sporting, and dancing pictures, presented to him by comrades as they retired from the regiment, and married and settled into quiet life. and as he was now nearly fifty years of age, twenty-four of which he had passed in the corps, he had a singular museum. he was one of the best shots in england, and, for a heavy man, one of the best riders; indeed, he and crawley had been rivals when the latter was in the army. to be brief, mr. macmurdo was lying in bed, reading in bell's life an account of that very fight between the tutbury pet and the barking butcher, which has been before mentioned--a venerable bristly warrior, with a little close-shaved grey head, with a silk nightcap, a red face and nose, and a great dyed moustache. when rawdon told the captain he wanted a friend, the latter knew perfectly well on what duty of friendship he was called to act, and indeed had conducted scores of affairs for his acquaintances with the greatest prudence and skill. his royal highness the late lamented commander-in-chief had had the greatest regard for macmurdo on this account, and he was the common refuge of gentlemen in trouble. "what's the row about, crawley, my boy?" said the old warrior. "no more gambling business, hay, like that when we shot captain marker?" "it's about--about my wife," crawley answered, casting down his eyes and turning very red. the other gave a whistle. "i always said she'd throw you over," he began--indeed there were bets in the regiment and at the clubs regarding the probable fate of colonel crawley, so lightly was his wife's character esteemed by his comrades and the world; but seeing the savage look with which rawdon answered the expression of this opinion, macmurdo did not think fit to enlarge upon it further. "is there no way out of it, old boy?" the captain continued in a grave tone. "is it only suspicion, you know, or--or what is it? any letters? can't you keep it quiet? best not make any noise about a thing of that sort if you can help it." "think of his only finding her out now," the captain thought to himself, and remembered a hundred particular conversations at the mess-table, in which mrs. crawley's reputation had been torn to shreds. "there's no way but one out of it," rawdon replied--"and there's only a way out of it for one of us, mac--do you understand? i was put out of the way--arrested--i found 'em alone together. i told him he was a liar and a coward, and knocked him down and thrashed him." "serve him right," macmurdo said. "who is it?" rawdon answered it was lord steyne. "the deuce! a marquis! they said he--that is, they said you--" "what the devil do you mean?" roared out rawdon; "do you mean that you ever heard a fellow doubt about my wife and didn't tell me, mac?" "the world's very censorious, old boy," the other replied. "what the deuce was the good of my telling you what any tom-fools talked about?" "it was damned unfriendly, mac," said rawdon, quite overcome; and, covering his face with his hands, he gave way to an emotion, the sight of which caused the tough old campaigner opposite him to wince with sympathy. "hold up, old boy," he said; "great man or not, we'll put a bullet in him, damn him. as for women, they're all so." "you don't know how fond i was of that one," rawdon said, half-inarticulately. "damme, i followed her like a footman. i gave up everything i had to her. i'm a beggar because i would marry her. by jove, sir, i've pawned my own watch in order to get her anything she fancied; and she--she's been making a purse for herself all the time, and grudged me a hundred pound to get me out of quod." he then fiercely and incoherently, and with an agitation under which his counsellor had never before seen him labour, told macmurdo the circumstances of the story. his adviser caught at some stray hints in it. "she may be innocent, after all," he said. "she says so. steyne has been a hundred times alone with her in the house before." "it may be so," rawdon answered sadly, "but this don't look very innocent": and he showed the captain the thousand-pound note which he had found in becky's pocket-book. "this is what he gave her, mac, and she kep it unknown to me; and with this money in the house, she refused to stand by me when i was locked up." the captain could not but own that the secreting of the money had a very ugly look. whilst they were engaged in their conference, rawdon dispatched captain macmurdo's servant to curzon street, with an order to the domestic there to give up a bag of clothes of which the colonel had great need. and during the man's absence, and with great labour and a johnson's dictionary, which stood them in much stead, rawdon and his second composed a letter, which the latter was to send to lord steyne. captain macmurdo had the honour of waiting upon the marquis of steyne, on the part of colonel rawdon crawley, and begged to intimate that he was empowered by the colonel to make any arrangements for the meeting which, he had no doubt, it was his lordship's intention to demand, and which the circumstances of the morning had rendered inevitable. captain macmurdo begged lord steyne, in the most polite manner, to appoint a friend, with whom he (captain m.m.) might communicate, and desired that the meeting might take place with as little delay as possible. in a postscript the captain stated that he had in his possession a bank-note for a large amount, which colonel crawley had reason to suppose was the property of the marquis of steyne. and he was anxious, on the colonel's behalf, to give up the note to its owner. by the time this note was composed, the captain's servant returned from his mission to colonel crawley's house in curzon street, but without the carpet-bag and portmanteau, for which he had been sent, and with a very puzzled and odd face. "they won't give 'em up," said the man; "there's a regular shinty in the house, and everything at sixes and sevens. the landlord's come in and took possession. the servants was a drinkin' up in the drawingroom. they said--they said you had gone off with the plate, colonel"--the man added after a pause--"one of the servants is off already. and simpson, the man as was very noisy and drunk indeed, says nothing shall go out of the house until his wages is paid up." the account of this little revolution in may fair astonished and gave a little gaiety to an otherwise very triste conversation. the two officers laughed at rawdon's discomfiture. "i'm glad the little 'un isn't at home," rawdon said, biting his nails. "you remember him, mac, don't you, in the riding school? how he sat the kicker to be sure! didn't he?" "that he did, old boy," said the good-natured captain. little rawdon was then sitting, one of fifty gown boys, in the chapel of whitefriars school, thinking, not about the sermon, but about going home next saturday, when his father would certainly tip him and perhaps would take him to the play. "he's a regular trump, that boy," the father went on, still musing about his son. "i say, mac, if anything goes wrong--if i drop--i should like you to--to go and see him, you know, and say that i was very fond of him, and that. and--dash it--old chap, give him these gold sleeve-buttons: it's all i've got." he covered his face with his black hands, over which the tears rolled and made furrows of white. mr. macmurdo had also occasion to take off his silk night-cap and rub it across his eyes. "go down and order some breakfast," he said to his man in a loud cheerful voice. "what'll you have, crawley? some devilled kidneys and a herring--let's say. and, clay, lay out some dressing things for the colonel: we were always pretty much of a size, rawdon, my boy, and neither of us ride so light as we did when we first entered the corps." with which, and leaving the colonel to dress himself, macmurdo turned round towards the wall, and resumed the perusal of bell's life, until such time as his friend's toilette was complete and he was at liberty to commence his own. this, as he was about to meet a lord, captain macmurdo performed with particular care. he waxed his mustachios into a state of brilliant polish and put on a tight cravat and a trim buff waistcoat, so that all the young officers in the mess-room, whither crawley had preceded his friend, complimented mac on his appearance at breakfast and asked if he was going to be married that sunday. chapter lv in which the same subject is pursued becky did not rally from the state of stupor and confusion in which the events of the previous night had plunged her intrepid spirit until the bells of the curzon street chapels were ringing for afternoon service, and rising from her bed she began to ply her own bell, in order to summon the french maid who had left her some hours before. mrs. rawdon crawley rang many times in vain; and though, on the last occasion, she rang with such vehemence as to pull down the bell-rope, mademoiselle fifine did not make her appearance--no, not though her mistress, in a great pet, and with the bell-rope in her hand, came out to the landing-place with her hair over her shoulders and screamed out repeatedly for her attendant. the truth is, she had quitted the premises for many hours, and upon that permission which is called french leave among us. after picking up the trinkets in the drawing-room, mademoiselle had ascended to her own apartments, packed and corded her own boxes there, tripped out and called a cab for herself, brought down her trunks with her own hand, and without ever so much as asking the aid of any of the other servants, who would probably have refused it, as they hated her cordially, and without wishing any one of them good-bye, had made her exit from curzon street. the game, in her opinion, was over in that little domestic establishment. fifine went off in a cab, as we have known more exalted persons of her nation to do under similar circumstances: but, more provident or lucky than these, she secured not only her own property, but some of her mistress's (if indeed that lady could be said to have any property at all)--and not only carried off the trinkets before alluded to, and some favourite dresses on which she had long kept her eye, but four richly gilt louis quatorze candlesticks, six gilt albums, keepsakes, and books of beauty, a gold enamelled snuff-box which had once belonged to madame du barri, and the sweetest little inkstand and mother-of-pearl blotting book, which becky used when she composed her charming little pink notes, had vanished from the premises in curzon street together with mademoiselle fifine, and all the silver laid on the table for the little festin which rawdon interrupted. the plated ware mademoiselle left behind her was too cumbrous, probably for which reason, no doubt, she also left the fire irons, the chimney-glasses, and the rosewood cottage piano. a lady very like her subsequently kept a milliner's shop in the rue du helder at paris, where she lived with great credit and enjoyed the patronage of my lord steyne. this person always spoke of england as of the most treacherous country in the world, and stated to her young pupils that she had been affreusement vole by natives of that island. it was no doubt compassion for her misfortunes which induced the marquis of steyne to be so very kind to madame de saint-amaranthe. may she flourish as she deserves--she appears no more in our quarter of vanity fair. hearing a buzz and a stir below, and indignant at the impudence of those servants who would not answer her summons, mrs. crawley flung her morning robe round her and descended majestically to the drawing-room, whence the noise proceeded. the cook was there with blackened face, seated on the beautiful chintz sofa by the side of mrs. raggles, to whom she was administering maraschino. the page with the sugar-loaf buttons, who carried about becky's pink notes, and jumped about her little carriage with such alacrity, was now engaged putting his fingers into a cream dish; the footman was talking to raggles, who had a face full of perplexity and woe--and yet, though the door was open, and becky had been screaming a half-dozen of times a few feet off, not one of her attendants had obeyed her call. "have a little drop, do'ee now, mrs. raggles," the cook was saying as becky entered, the white cashmere dressing-gown flouncing around her. "simpson! trotter!" the mistress of the house cried in great wrath. "how dare you stay here when you heard me call? how dare you sit down in my presence? where's my maid?" the page withdrew his fingers from his mouth with a momentary terror, but the cook took off a glass of maraschino, of which mrs. raggles had had enough, staring at becky over the little gilt glass as she drained its contents. the liquor appeared to give the odious rebel courage. "your sofy, indeed!" mrs. cook said. "i'm a settin' on mrs. raggles's sofy. don't you stir, mrs. raggles, mum. i'm a settin' on mr. and mrs. raggles's sofy, which they bought with honest money, and very dear it cost 'em, too. and i'm thinkin' if i set here until i'm paid my wages, i shall set a precious long time, mrs. raggles; and set i will, too--ha! ha!" and with this she filled herself another glass of the liquor and drank it with a more hideously satirical air. "trotter! simpson! turn that drunken wretch out," screamed mrs. crawley. "i shawn't," said trotter the footman; "turn out yourself. pay our selleries, and turn me out too. we'll go fast enough." "are you all here to insult me?" cried becky in a fury; "when colonel crawley comes home i'll--" at this the servants burst into a horse haw-haw, in which, however, raggles, who still kept a most melancholy countenance, did not join. "he ain't a coming back," mr. trotter resumed. "he sent for his things, and i wouldn't let 'em go, although mr. raggles would; and i don't b'lieve he's no more a colonel than i am. he's hoff, and i suppose you're a goin' after him. you're no better than swindlers, both on you. don't be a bullyin' me. i won't stand it. pay us our selleries, i say. pay us our selleries." it was evident, from mr. trotter's flushed countenance and defective intonation, that he, too, had had recourse to vinous stimulus. "mr. raggles," said becky in a passion of vexation, "you will not surely let me be insulted by that drunken man?" "hold your noise, trotter; do now," said simpson the page. he was affected by his mistress's deplorable situation, and succeeded in preventing an outrageous denial of the epithet "drunken" on the footman's part. "oh, m'am," said raggles, "i never thought to live to see this year day: i've known the crawley family ever since i was born. i lived butler with miss crawley for thirty years; and i little thought one of that family was a goin' to ruing me--yes, ruing me"--said the poor fellow with tears in his eyes. "har you a goin' to pay me? you've lived in this 'ouse four year. you've 'ad my substance: my plate and linning. you ho me a milk and butter bill of two 'undred pound, you must 'ave noo laid heggs for your homlets, and cream for your spanil dog." "she didn't care what her own flesh and blood had," interposed the cook. "many's the time, he'd have starved but for me." "he's a charaty-boy now, cooky," said mr. trotter, with a drunken "ha! ha!"--and honest raggles continued, in a lamentable tone, an enumeration of his griefs. all he said was true. becky and her husband had ruined him. he had bills coming due next week and no means to meet them. he would be sold up and turned out of his shop and his house, because he had trusted to the crawley family. his tears and lamentations made becky more peevish than ever. "you all seem to be against me," she said bitterly. "what do you want? i can't pay you on sunday. come back to-morrow and i'll pay you everything. i thought colonel crawley had settled with you. he will to-morrow. i declare to you upon my honour that he left home this morning with fifteen hundred pounds in his pocket-book. he has left me nothing. apply to him. give me a bonnet and shawl and let me go out and find him. there was a difference between us this morning. you all seem to know it. i promise you upon my word that you shall all be paid. he has got a good appointment. let me go out and find him." this audacious statement caused raggles and the other personages present to look at one another with a wild surprise, and with it rebecca left them. she went upstairs and dressed herself this time without the aid of her french maid. she went into rawdon's room, and there saw that a trunk and bag were packed ready for removal, with a pencil direction that they should be given when called for; then she went into the frenchwoman's garret; everything was clean, and all the drawers emptied there. she bethought herself of the trinkets which had been left on the ground and felt certain that the woman had fled. "good heavens! was ever such ill luck as mine?" she said; "to be so near, and to lose all. is it all too late?" no; there was one chance more. she dressed herself and went away unmolested this time, but alone. it was four o'clock. she went swiftly down the streets (she had no money to pay for a carriage), and never stopped until she came to sir pitt crawley's door, in great gaunt street. where was lady jane crawley? she was at church. becky was not sorry. sir pitt was in his study, and had given orders not to be disturbed--she must see him--she slipped by the sentinel in livery at once, and was in sir pitt's room before the astonished baronet had even laid down the paper. he turned red and started back from her with a look of great alarm and horror. "do not look so," she said. "i am not guilty, pitt, dear pitt; you were my friend once. before god, i am not guilty. i seem so. everything is against me. and oh! at such a moment! just when all my hopes were about to be realized: just when happiness was in store for us." "is this true, what i see in the paper then?" sir pitt said--a paragraph in which had greatly surprised him. "it is true. lord steyne told me on friday night, the night of that fatal ball. he has been promised an appointment any time these six months. mr. martyr, the colonial secretary, told him yesterday that it was made out. that unlucky arrest ensued; that horrible meeting. i was only guilty of too much devotedness to rawdon's service. i have received lord steyne alone a hundred times before. i confess i had money of which rawdon knew nothing. don't you know how careless he is of it, and could i dare to confide it to him?" and so she went on with a perfectly connected story, which she poured into the ears of her perplexed kinsman. it was to the following effect. becky owned, and with perfect frankness, but deep contrition, that having remarked lord steyne's partiality for her (at the mention of which pitt blushed), and being secure of her own virtue, she had determined to turn the great peer's attachment to the advantage of herself and her family. "i looked for a peerage for you, pitt," she said (the brother-in-law again turned red). "we have talked about it. your genius and lord steyne's interest made it more than probable, had not this dreadful calamity come to put an end to all our hopes. but, first, i own that it was my object to rescue my dear husband--him whom i love in spite of all his ill usage and suspicions of me--to remove him from the poverty and ruin which was impending over us. i saw lord steyne's partiality for me," she said, casting down her eyes. "i own that i did everything in my power to make myself pleasing to him, and as far as an honest woman may, to secure his--his esteem. it was only on friday morning that the news arrived of the death of the governor of coventry island, and my lord instantly secured the appointment for my dear husband. it was intended as a surprise for him--he was to see it in the papers to-day. even after that horrid arrest took place (the expenses of which lord steyne generously said he would settle, so that i was in a manner prevented from coming to my husband's assistance), my lord was laughing with me, and saying that my dearest rawdon would be consoled when he read of his appointment in the paper, in that shocking spun--bailiff's house. and then--then he came home. his suspicions were excited,--the dreadful scene took place between my lord and my cruel, cruel rawdon--and, o my god, what will happen next? pitt, dear pitt! pity me, and reconcile us!" and as she spoke she flung herself down on her knees, and bursting into tears, seized hold of pitt's hand, which she kissed passionately. it was in this very attitude that lady jane, who, returning from church, ran to her husband's room directly she heard mrs. rawdon crawley was closeted there, found the baronet and his sister-in-law. "i am surprised that woman has the audacity to enter this house," lady jane said, trembling in every limb and turning quite pale. (her ladyship had sent out her maid directly after breakfast, who had communicated with raggles and rawdon crawley's household, who had told her all, and a great deal more than they knew, of that story, and many others besides). "how dare mrs. crawley to enter the house of--of an honest family?" sir pitt started back, amazed at his wife's display of vigour. becky still kept her kneeling posture and clung to sir pitt's hand. "tell her that she does not know all: tell her that i am innocent, dear pitt," she whimpered out. "upon my word, my love, i think you do mrs. crawley injustice," sir pitt said; at which speech rebecca was vastly relieved. "indeed i believe her to be--" "to be what?" cried out lady jane, her clear voice thrilling and, her heart beating violently as she spoke. "to be a wicked woman--a heartless mother, a false wife? she never loved her dear little boy, who used to fly here and tell me of her cruelty to him. she never came into a family but she strove to bring misery with her and to weaken the most sacred affections with her wicked flattery and falsehoods. she has deceived her husband, as she has deceived everybody; her soul is black with vanity, worldliness, and all sorts of crime. i tremble when i touch her. i keep my children out of her sight." "lady jane!" cried sir pitt, starting up, "this is really language--" "i have been a true and faithful wife to you, sir pitt," lady jane continued, intrepidly; "i have kept my marriage vow as i made it to god and have been obedient and gentle as a wife should. but righteous obedience has its limits, and i declare that i will not bear that--that woman again under my roof; if she enters it, i and my children will leave it. she is not worthy to sit down with christian people. you--you must choose, sir, between her and me"; and with this my lady swept out of the room, fluttering with her own audacity, and leaving rebecca and sir pitt not a little astonished at it. as for becky, she was not hurt; nay, she was pleased. "it was the diamond-clasp you gave me," she said to sir pitt, reaching him out her hand; and before she left him (for which event you may be sure my lady jane was looking out from her dressing-room window in the upper story) the baronet had promised to go and seek out his brother, and endeavour to bring about a reconciliation. rawdon found some of the young fellows of the regiment seated in the mess-room at breakfast, and was induced without much difficulty to partake of that meal, and of the devilled legs of fowls and soda-water with which these young gentlemen fortified themselves. then they had a conversation befitting the day and their time of life: about the next pigeon-match at battersea, with relative bets upon ross and osbaldiston; about mademoiselle ariane of the french opera, and who had left her, and how she was consoled by panther carr; and about the fight between the butcher and the pet, and the probabilities that it was a cross. young tandyman, a hero of seventeen, laboriously endeavouring to get up a pair of mustachios, had seen the fight, and spoke in the most scientific manner about the battle and the condition of the men. it was he who had driven the butcher on to the ground in his drag and passed the whole of the previous night with him. had there not been foul play he must have won it. all the old files of the ring were in it; and tandyman wouldn't pay; no, dammy, he wouldn't pay. it was but a year since the young cornet, now so knowing a hand in cribb's parlour, had a still lingering liking for toffy, and used to be birched at eton. so they went on talking about dancers, fights, drinking, demireps, until macmurdo came down and joined the boys and the conversation. he did not appear to think that any especial reverence was due to their boyhood; the old fellow cut in with stories, to the full as choice as any the youngest rake present had to tell--nor did his own grey hairs nor their smooth faces detain him. old mac was famous for his good stories. he was not exactly a lady's man; that is, men asked him to dine rather at the houses of their mistresses than of their mothers. there can scarcely be a life lower, perhaps, than his, but he was quite contented with it, such as it was, and led it in perfect good nature, simplicity, and modesty of demeanour. by the time mac had finished a copious breakfast, most of the others had concluded their meal. young lord varinas was smoking an immense meerschaum pipe, while captain hugues was employed with a cigar: that violent little devil tandyman, with his little bull-terrier between his legs, was tossing for shillings with all his might (that fellow was always at some game or other) against captain deuceace; and mac and rawdon walked off to the club, neither, of course, having given any hint of the business which was occupying their minds. both, on the other hand, had joined pretty gaily in the conversation, for why should they interrupt it? feasting, drinking, ribaldry, laughter, go on alongside of all sorts of other occupations in vanity fair--the crowds were pouring out of church as rawdon and his friend passed down st. james's street and entered into their club. the old bucks and habitues, who ordinarily stand gaping and grinning out of the great front window of the club, had not arrived at their posts as yet--the newspaper-room was almost empty. one man was present whom rawdon did not know; another to whom he owed a little score for whist, and whom, in consequence, he did not care to meet; a third was reading the royalist (a periodical famous for its scandal and its attachment to church and king) sunday paper at the table, and looking up at crawley with some interest, said, "crawley, i congratulate you." "what do you mean?" said the colonel. "it's in the observer and the royalist too," said mr. smith. "what?" rawdon cried, turning very red. he thought that the affair with lord steyne was already in the public prints. smith looked up wondering and smiling at the agitation which the colonel exhibited as he took up the paper and, trembling, began to read. mr. smith and mr. brown (the gentleman with whom rawdon had the outstanding whist account) had been talking about the colonel just before he came in. "it is come just in the nick of time," said smith. "i suppose crawley had not a shilling in the world." "it's a wind that blows everybody good," mr. brown said. "he can't go away without paying me a pony he owes me." "what's the salary?" asked smith. "two or three thousand," answered the other. "but the climate's so infernal, they don't enjoy it long. liverseege died after eighteen months of it, and the man before went off in six weeks, i hear." "some people say his brother is a very clever man. i always found him a d------ bore," smith ejaculated. "he must have good interest, though. he must have got the colonel the place." "he!" said brown, with a sneer. "pooh. it was lord steyne got it." "how do you mean?" "a virtuous woman is a crown to her husband," answered the other enigmatically, and went to read his papers. rawdon, for his part, read in the royalist the following astonishing paragraph: governorship of coventry island.--h.m.s. yellowjack, commander jaunders, has brought letters and papers from coventry island. h. e. sir thomas liverseege had fallen a victim to the prevailing fever at swampton. his loss is deeply felt in the flourishing colony. we hear that the governorship has been offered to colonel rawdon crawley, c.b., a distinguished waterloo officer. we need not only men of acknowledged bravery, but men of administrative talents to superintend the affairs of our colonies, and we have no doubt that the gentleman selected by the colonial office to fill the lamented vacancy which has occurred at coventry island is admirably calculated for the post which he is about to occupy. "coventry island! where was it? who had appointed him to the government? you must take me out as your secretary, old boy," captain macmurdo said laughing; and as crawley and his friend sat wondering and perplexed over the announcement, the club waiter brought in to the colonel a card on which the name of mr. wenham was engraved, who begged to see colonel crawley. the colonel and his aide-de-camp went out to meet the gentleman, rightly conjecturing that he was an emissary of lord steyne. "how d'ye do, crawley? i am glad to see you," said mr. wenham with a bland smile, and grasping crawley's hand with great cordiality. "you come, i suppose, from--" "exactly," said mr. wenham. "then this is my friend captain macmurdo, of the life guards green." "delighted to know captain macmurdo, i'm sure," mr. wenham said and tendered another smile and shake of the hand to the second, as he had done to the principal. mac put out one finger, armed with a buckskin glove, and made a very frigid bow to mr. wenham over his tight cravat. he was, perhaps, discontented at being put in communication with a pekin, and thought that lord steyne should have sent him a colonel at the very least. "as macmurdo acts for me, and knows what i mean," crawley said, "i had better retire and leave you together." "of course," said macmurdo. "by no means, my dear colonel," mr. wenham said; "the interview which i had the honour of requesting was with you personally, though the company of captain macmurdo cannot fail to be also most pleasing. in fact, captain, i hope that our conversation will lead to none but the most agreeable results, very different from those which my friend colonel crawley appears to anticipate." "humph!" said captain macmurdo. be hanged to these civilians, he thought to himself, they are always for arranging and speechifying. mr. wenham took a chair which was not offered to him--took a paper from his pocket, and resumed-- "you have seen this gratifying announcement in the papers this morning, colonel? government has secured a most valuable servant, and you, if you accept office, as i presume you will, an excellent appointment. three thousand a year, delightful climate, excellent government-house, all your own way in the colony, and a certain promotion. i congratulate you with all my heart. i presume you know, gentlemen, to whom my friend is indebted for this piece of patronage?" "hanged if i know," the captain said; his principal turned very red. "to one of the most generous and kindest men in the world, as he is one of the greatest--to my excellent friend, the marquis of steyne." "i'll see him d---- before i take his place," growled out rawdon. "you are irritated against my noble friend," mr. wenham calmly resumed; "and now, in the name of common sense and justice, tell me why?" "why?" cried rawdon in surprise. "why? dammy!" said the captain, ringing his stick on the ground. "dammy, indeed," said mr. wenham with the most agreeable smile; "still, look at the matter as a man of the world--as an honest man--and see if you have not been in the wrong. you come home from a journey, and find--what?--my lord steyne supping at your house in curzon street with mrs. crawley. is the circumstance strange or novel? has he not been a hundred times before in the same position? upon my honour and word as a gentleman"--mr. wenham here put his hand on his waistcoat with a parliamentary air--"i declare i think that your suspicions are monstrous and utterly unfounded, and that they injure an honourable gentleman who has proved his good-will towards you by a thousand benefactions--and a most spotless and innocent lady." "you don't mean to say that--that crawley's mistaken?" said mr. macmurdo. "i believe that mrs. crawley is as innocent as my wife, mrs. wenham," mr. wenham said with great energy. "i believe that, misled by an infernal jealousy, my friend here strikes a blow against not only an infirm and old man of high station, his constant friend and benefactor, but against his wife, his own dearest honour, his son's future reputation, and his own prospects in life." "i will tell you what happened," mr. wenham continued with great solemnity; "i was sent for this morning by my lord steyne, and found him in a pitiable state, as, i need hardly inform colonel crawley, any man of age and infirmity would be after a personal conflict with a man of your strength. i say to your face; it was a cruel advantage you took of that strength, colonel crawley. it was not only the body of my noble and excellent friend which was wounded--his heart, sir, was bleeding. a man whom he had loaded with benefits and regarded with affection had subjected him to the foulest indignity. what was this very appointment, which appears in the journals of to-day, but a proof of his kindness to you? when i saw his lordship this morning i found him in a state pitiable indeed to see, and as anxious as you are to revenge the outrage committed upon him, by blood. you know he has given his proofs, i presume, colonel crawley?" "he has plenty of pluck," said the colonel. "nobody ever said he hadn't." "his first order to me was to write a letter of challenge, and to carry it to colonel crawley. one or other of us," he said, "must not survive the outrage of last night." crawley nodded. "you're coming to the point, wenham," he said. "i tried my utmost to calm lord steyne. 'good god! sir,' i said, 'how i regret that mrs. wenham and myself had not accepted mrs. crawley's invitation to sup with her!'" "she asked you to sup with her?" captain macmurdo said. "after the opera. here's the note of invitation--stop--no, this is another paper--i thought i had it, but it's of no consequence, and i pledge you my word to the fact. if we had come--and it was only one of mrs. wenham's headaches which prevented us--she suffers under them a good deal, especially in the spring--if we had come, and you had returned home, there would have been no quarrel, no insult, no suspicion--and so it is positively because my poor wife has a headache that you are to bring death down upon two men of honour and plunge two of the most excellent and ancient families in the kingdom into disgrace and sorrow." mr. macmurdo looked at his principal with the air of a man profoundly puzzled, and rawdon felt with a kind of rage that his prey was escaping him. he did not believe a word of the story, and yet, how discredit or disprove it? mr. wenham continued with the same fluent oratory, which in his place in parliament he had so often practised--"i sat for an hour or more by lord steyne's bedside, beseeching, imploring lord steyne to forego his intention of demanding a meeting. i pointed out to him that the circumstances were after all suspicious--they were suspicious. i acknowledge it--any man in your position might have been taken in--i said that a man furious with jealousy is to all intents and purposes a madman, and should be as such regarded--that a duel between you must lead to the disgrace of all parties concerned--that a man of his lordship's exalted station had no right in these days, when the most atrocious revolutionary principles, and the most dangerous levelling doctrines are preached among the vulgar, to create a public scandal; and that, however innocent, the common people would insist that he was guilty. in fine, i implored him not to send the challenge." "i don't believe one word of the whole story," said rawdon, grinding his teeth. "i believe it a d------ lie, and that you're in it, mr. wenham. if the challenge don't come from him, by jove it shall come from me." mr. wenham turned deadly pale at this savage interruption of the colonel and looked towards the door. but he found a champion in captain macmurdo. that gentleman rose up with an oath and rebuked rawdon for his language. "you put the affair into my hands, and you shall act as i think fit, by jove, and not as you do. you have no right to insult mr. wenham with this sort of language; and dammy, mr. wenham, you deserve an apology. and as for a challenge to lord steyne, you may get somebody else to carry it, i won't. if my lord, after being thrashed, chooses to sit still, dammy let him. and as for the affair with--with mrs. crawley, my belief is, there's nothing proved at all: that your wife's innocent, as innocent as mr. wenham says she is; and at any rate that you would be a d--fool not to take the place and hold your tongue." "captain macmurdo, you speak like a man of sense," mr. wenham cried out, immensely relieved--"i forget any words that colonel crawley has used in the irritation of the moment." "i thought you would," rawdon said with a sneer. "shut your mouth, you old stoopid," the captain said good-naturedly. "mr. wenham ain't a fighting man; and quite right, too." "this matter, in my belief," the steyne emissary cried, "ought to be buried in the most profound oblivion. a word concerning it should never pass these doors. i speak in the interest of my friend, as well as of colonel crawley, who persists in considering me his enemy." "i suppose lord steyne won't talk about it very much," said captain macmurdo; "and i don't see why our side should. the affair ain't a very pretty one, any way you take it, and the less said about it the better. it's you are thrashed, and not us; and if you are satisfied, why, i think, we should be." mr. wenham took his hat, upon this, and captain macmurdo following him to the door, shut it upon himself and lord steyne's agent, leaving rawdon chafing within. when the two were on the other side, macmurdo looked hard at the other ambassador and with an expression of anything but respect on his round jolly face. "you don't stick at a trifle, mr. wenham," he said. "you flatter me, captain macmurdo," answered the other with a smile. "upon my honour and conscience now, mrs. crawley did ask us to sup after the opera." "of course; and mrs. wenham had one of her head-aches. i say, i've got a thousand-pound note here, which i will give you if you will give me a receipt, please; and i will put the note up in an envelope for lord steyne. my man shan't fight him. but we had rather not take his money." "it was all a mistake--all a mistake, my dear sir," the other said with the utmost innocence of manner; and was bowed down the club steps by captain macmurdo, just as sir pitt crawley ascended them. there was a slight acquaintance between these two gentlemen, and the captain, going back with the baronet to the room where the latter's brother was, told sir pitt, in confidence, that he had made the affair all right between lord steyne and the colonel. sir pitt was well pleased, of course, at this intelligence, and congratulated his brother warmly upon the peaceful issue of the affair, making appropriate moral remarks upon the evils of duelling and the unsatisfactory nature of that sort of settlement of disputes. and after this preface, he tried with all his eloquence to effect a reconciliation between rawdon and his wife. he recapitulated the statements which becky had made, pointed out the probabilities of their truth, and asserted his own firm belief in her innocence. but rawdon would not hear of it. "she has kep money concealed from me these ten years," he said "she swore, last night only, she had none from steyne. she knew it was all up, directly i found it. if she's not guilty, pitt, she's as bad as guilty, and i'll never see her again--never." his head sank down on his chest as he spoke the words, and he looked quite broken and sad. "poor old boy," macmurdo said, shaking his head. rawdon crawley resisted for some time the idea of taking the place which had been procured for him by so odious a patron, and was also for removing the boy from the school where lord steyne's interest had placed him. he was induced, however, to acquiesce in these benefits by the entreaties of his brother and macmurdo, but mainly by the latter, pointing out to him what a fury steyne would be in to think that his enemy's fortune was made through his means. when the marquis of steyne came abroad after his accident, the colonial secretary bowed up to him and congratulated himself and the service upon having made so excellent an appointment. these congratulations were received with a degree of gratitude which may be imagined on the part of lord steyne. the secret of the rencontre between him and colonel crawley was buried in the profoundest oblivion, as wenham said; that is, by the seconds and the principals. but before that evening was over it was talked of at fifty dinner-tables in vanity fair. little cackleby himself went to seven evening parties and told the story with comments and emendations at each place. how mrs. washington white revelled in it! the bishopess of ealing was shocked beyond expression; the bishop went and wrote his name down in the visiting-book at gaunt house that very day. little southdown was sorry; so you may be sure was his sister lady jane, very sorry. lady southdown wrote it off to her other daughter at the cape of good hope. it was town-talk for at least three days, and was only kept out of the newspapers by the exertions of mr. wagg, acting upon a hint from mr. wenham. the bailiffs and brokers seized upon poor raggles in curzon street, and the late fair tenant of that poor little mansion was in the meanwhile--where? who cared! who asked after a day or two? was she guilty or not? we all know how charitable the world is, and how the verdict of vanity fair goes when there is a doubt. some people said she had gone to naples in pursuit of lord steyne, whilst others averred that his lordship quitted that city and fled to palermo on hearing of becky's arrival; some said she was living in bierstadt, and had become a dame d'honneur to the queen of bulgaria; some that she was at boulogne; and others, at a boarding-house at cheltenham. rawdon made her a tolerable annuity, and we may be sure that she was a woman who could make a little money go a great way, as the saying is. he would have paid his debts on leaving england, could he have got any insurance office to take his life, but the climate of coventry island was so bad that he could borrow no money on the strength of his salary. he remitted, however, to his brother punctually, and wrote to his little boy regularly every mail. he kept macmurdo in cigars and sent over quantities of shells, cayenne pepper, hot pickles, guava jelly, and colonial produce to lady jane. he sent his brother home the swamp town gazette, in which the new governor was praised with immense enthusiasm; whereas the swamp town sentinel, whose wife was not asked to government house, declared that his excellency was a tyrant, compared to whom nero was an enlightened philanthropist. little rawdon used to like to get the papers and read about his excellency. his mother never made any movement to see the child. he went home to his aunt for sundays and holidays; he soon knew every bird's nest about queen's crawley, and rode out with sir huddlestone's hounds, which he admired so on his first well-remembered visit to hampshire. chapter lvi georgy is made a gentleman georgy osborne was now fairly established in his grandfather's mansion in russell square, occupant of his father's room in the house and heir apparent of all the splendours there. the good looks, gallant bearing, and gentlemanlike appearance of the boy won the grandsire's heart for him. mr. osborne was as proud of him as ever he had been of the elder george. the child had many more luxuries and indulgences than had been awarded his father. osborne's commerce had prospered greatly of late years. his wealth and importance in the city had very much increased. he had been glad enough in former days to put the elder george to a good private school; and a commission in the army for his son had been a source of no small pride to him; for little george and his future prospects the old man looked much higher. he would make a gentleman of the little chap, was mr. osborne's constant saying regarding little georgy. he saw him in his mind's eye, a collegian, a parliament man, a baronet, perhaps. the old man thought he would die contented if he could see his grandson in a fair way to such honours. he would have none but a tip-top college man to educate him--none of your quacks and pretenders--no, no. a few years before, he used to be savage, and inveigh against all parsons, scholars, and the like declaring that they were a pack of humbugs, and quacks that weren't fit to get their living but by grinding latin and greek, and a set of supercilious dogs that pretended to look down upon british merchants and gentlemen, who could buy up half a hundred of 'em. he would mourn now, in a very solemn manner, that his own education had been neglected, and repeatedly point out, in pompous orations to georgy, the necessity and excellence of classical acquirements. when they met at dinner the grandsire used to ask the lad what he had been reading during the day, and was greatly interested at the report the boy gave of his own studies, pretending to understand little george when he spoke regarding them. he made a hundred blunders and showed his ignorance many a time. it did not increase the respect which the child had for his senior. a quick brain and a better education elsewhere showed the boy very soon that his grandsire was a dullard, and he began accordingly to command him and to look down upon him; for his previous education, humble and contracted as it had been, had made a much better gentleman of georgy than any plans of his grandfather could make him. he had been brought up by a kind, weak, and tender woman, who had no pride about anything but about him, and whose heart was so pure and whose bearing was so meek and humble that she could not but needs be a true lady. she busied herself in gentle offices and quiet duties; if she never said brilliant things, she never spoke or thought unkind ones; guileless and artless, loving and pure, indeed how could our poor little amelia be other than a real gentlewoman! young georgy lorded over this soft and yielding nature; and the contrast of its simplicity and delicacy with the coarse pomposity of the dull old man with whom he next came in contact made him lord over the latter too. if he had been a prince royal he could not have been better brought up to think well of himself. whilst his mother was yearning after him at home, and i do believe every hour of the day, and during most hours of the sad lonely nights, thinking of him, this young gentleman had a number of pleasures and consolations administered to him, which made him for his part bear the separation from amelia very easily. little boys who cry when they are going to school cry because they are going to a very uncomfortable place. it is only a few who weep from sheer affection. when you think that the eyes of your childhood dried at the sight of a piece of gingerbread, and that a plum cake was a compensation for the agony of parting with your mamma and sisters, oh my friend and brother, you need not be too confident of your own fine feelings. well, then, master george osborne had every comfort and luxury that a wealthy and lavish old grandfather thought fit to provide. the coachman was instructed to purchase for him the handsomest pony which could be bought for money, and on this george was taught to ride, first at a riding-school, whence, after having performed satisfactorily without stirrups, and over the leaping-bar, he was conducted through the new road to regent's park, and then to hyde park, where he rode in state with martin the coachman behind him. old osborne, who took matters more easily in the city now, where he left his affairs to his junior partners, would often ride out with miss o. in the same fashionable direction. as little georgy came cantering up with his dandified air and his heels down, his grandfather would nudge the lad's aunt and say, "look, miss o." and he would laugh, and his face would grow red with pleasure, as he nodded out of the window to the boy, as the groom saluted the carriage, and the footman saluted master george. here too his aunt, mrs. frederick bullock (whose chariot might daily be seen in the ring, with bullocks or emblazoned on the panels and harness, and three pasty-faced little bullocks, covered with cockades and feathers, staring from the windows) mrs. frederick bullock, i say, flung glances of the bitterest hatred at the little upstart as he rode by with his hand on his side and his hat on one ear, as proud as a lord. though he was scarcely eleven years of age, master george wore straps and the most beautiful little boots like a man. he had gilt spurs, and a gold-headed whip, and a fine pin in his handkerchief, and the neatest little kid gloves which lamb's conduit street could furnish. his mother had given him a couple of neckcloths, and carefully hemmed and made some little shirts for him; but when her eli came to see the widow, they were replaced by much finer linen. he had little jewelled buttons in the lawn shirt fronts. her humble presents had been put aside--i believe miss osborne had given them to the coachman's boy. amelia tried to think she was pleased at the change. indeed, she was happy and charmed to see the boy looking so beautiful. she had had a little black profile of him done for a shilling, and this was hung up by the side of another portrait over her bed. one day the boy came on his accustomed visit, galloping down the little street at brompton, and bringing, as usual, all the inhabitants to the windows to admire his splendour, and with great eagerness and a look of triumph in his face, he pulled a case out of his great-coat--it was a natty white great-coat, with a cape and a velvet collar--pulled out a red morocco case, which he gave her. "i bought it with my own money, mamma," he said. "i thought you'd like it." amelia opened the case, and giving a little cry of delighted affection, seized the boy and embraced him a hundred times. it was a miniature of himself, very prettily done (though not half handsome enough, we may be sure, the widow thought). his grandfather had wished to have a picture of him by an artist whose works, exhibited in a shop-window, in southampton row, had caught the old gentleman's eye; and george, who had plenty of money, bethought him of asking the painter how much a copy of the little portrait would cost, saying that he would pay for it out of his own money and that he wanted to give it to his mother. the pleased painter executed it for a small price, and old osborne himself, when he heard of the incident, growled out his satisfaction and gave the boy twice as many sovereigns as he paid for the miniature. but what was the grandfather's pleasure compared to amelia's ecstacy? that proof of the boy's affection charmed her so that she thought no child in the world was like hers for goodness. for long weeks after, the thought of his love made her happy. she slept better with the picture under her pillow, and how many many times did she kiss it and weep and pray over it! a small kindness from those she loved made that timid heart grateful. since her parting with george she had had no such joy and consolation. at his new home master george ruled like a lord; at dinner he invited the ladies to drink wine with the utmost coolness, and took off his champagne in a way which charmed his old grandfather. "look at him," the old man would say, nudging his neighbour with a delighted purple face, "did you ever see such a chap? lord, lord! he'll be ordering a dressing-case next, and razors to shave with; i'm blessed if he won't." the antics of the lad did not, however, delight mr. osborne's friends so much as they pleased the old gentleman. it gave mr. justice coffin no pleasure to hear georgy cut into the conversation and spoil his stories. colonel fogey was not interested in seeing the little boy half tipsy. mr. sergeant toffy's lady felt no particular gratitude, when, with a twist of his elbow, he tilted a glass of port-wine over her yellow satin and laughed at the disaster; nor was she better pleased, although old osborne was highly delighted, when georgy "whopped" her third boy (a young gentleman a year older than georgy, and by chance home for the holidays from dr. tickleus's at ealing school) in russell square. george's grandfather gave the boy a couple of sovereigns for that feat and promised to reward him further for every boy above his own size and age whom he whopped in a similar manner. it is difficult to say what good the old man saw in these combats; he had a vague notion that quarrelling made boys hardy, and that tyranny was a useful accomplishment for them to learn. english youth have been so educated time out of mind, and we have hundreds of thousands of apologists and admirers of injustice, misery, and brutality, as perpetrated among children. flushed with praise and victory over master toffy, george wished naturally to pursue his conquests further, and one day as he was strutting about in prodigiously dandified new clothes, near st. pancras, and a young baker's boy made sarcastic comments upon his appearance, the youthful patrician pulled off his dandy jacket with great spirit, and giving it in charge to the friend who accompanied him (master todd, of great coram street, russell square, son of the junior partner of the house of osborne and co.), george tried to whop the little baker. but the chances of war were unfavourable this time, and the little baker whopped georgy, who came home with a rueful black eye and all his fine shirt frill dabbled with the claret drawn from his own little nose. he told his grandfather that he had been in combat with a giant, and frightened his poor mother at brompton with long, and by no means authentic, accounts of the battle. this young todd, of coram street, russell square, was master george's great friend and admirer. they both had a taste for painting theatrical characters; for hardbake and raspberry tarts; for sliding and skating in the regent's park and the serpentine, when the weather permitted; for going to the play, whither they were often conducted, by mr. osborne's orders, by rowson, master george's appointed body-servant, with whom they sat in great comfort in the pit. in the company of this gentleman they visited all the principal theatres of the metropolis; knew the names of all the actors from drury lane to sadler's wells; and performed, indeed, many of the plays to the todd family and their youthful friends, with west's famous characters, on their pasteboard theatre. rowson, the footman, who was of a generous disposition, would not unfrequently, when in cash, treat his young master to oysters after the play, and to a glass of rum-shrub for a night-cap. we may be pretty certain that mr. rowson profited in his turn by his young master's liberality and gratitude for the pleasures to which the footman inducted him. a famous tailor from the west end of the town--mr. osborne would have none of your city or holborn bunglers, he said, for the boy (though a city tailor was good enough for him)--was summoned to ornament little george's person, and was told to spare no expense in so doing. so, mr. woolsey, of conduit street, gave a loose to his imagination and sent the child home fancy trousers, fancy waistcoats, and fancy jackets enough to furnish a school of little dandies. georgy had little white waistcoats for evening parties, and little cut velvet waistcoats for dinners, and a dear little darling shawl dressing-gown, for all the world like a little man. he dressed for dinner every day, "like a regular west end swell," as his grandfather remarked; one of the domestics was affected to his special service, attended him at his toilette, answered his bell, and brought him his letters always on a silver tray. georgy, after breakfast, would sit in the arm-chair in the dining-room and read the morning post, just like a grown-up man. "how he du dam and swear," the servants would cry, delighted at his precocity. those who remembered the captain his father, declared master george was his pa, every inch of him. he made the house lively by his activity, his imperiousness, his scolding, and his good-nature. george's education was confided to a neighbouring scholar and private pedagogue who "prepared young noblemen and gentlemen for the universities, the senate, and the learned professions: whose system did not embrace the degrading corporal severities still practised at the ancient places of education, and in whose family the pupils would find the elegances of refined society and the confidence and affection of a home." it was in this way that the reverend lawrence veal of hart street, bloomsbury, and domestic chaplain to the earl of bareacres, strove with mrs. veal his wife to entice pupils. by thus advertising and pushing sedulously, the domestic chaplain and his lady generally succeeded in having one or two scholars by them--who paid a high figure and were thought to be in uncommonly comfortable quarters. there was a large west indian, whom nobody came to see, with a mahogany complexion, a woolly head, and an exceedingly dandyfied appearance; there was another hulking boy of three-and-twenty whose education had been neglected and whom mr. and mrs. veal were to introduce into the polite world; there were two sons of colonel bangles of the east india company's service: these four sat down to dinner at mrs. veal's genteel board, when georgy was introduced to her establishment. georgy was, like some dozen other pupils, only a day boy; he arrived in the morning under the guardianship of his friend mr. rowson, and if it was fine, would ride away in the afternoon on his pony, followed by the groom. the wealth of his grandfather was reported in the school to be prodigious. the rev. mr. veal used to compliment georgy upon it personally, warning him that he was destined for a high station; that it became him to prepare, by sedulity and docility in youth, for the lofty duties to which he would be called in mature age; that obedience in the child was the best preparation for command in the man; and that he therefore begged george would not bring toffee into the school and ruin the health of the masters bangles, who had everything they wanted at the elegant and abundant table of mrs. veal. with respect to learning, "the curriculum," as mr. veal loved to call it, was of prodigious extent, and the young gentlemen in hart street might learn a something of every known science. the rev. mr. veal had an orrery, an electrifying machine, a turning lathe, a theatre (in the wash-house), a chemical apparatus, and what he called a select library of all the works of the best authors of ancient and modern times and languages. he took the boys to the british museum and descanted upon the antiquities and the specimens of natural history there, so that audiences would gather round him as he spoke, and all bloomsbury highly admired him as a prodigiously well-informed man. and whenever he spoke (which he did almost always), he took care to produce the very finest and longest words of which the vocabulary gave him the use, rightly judging that it was as cheap to employ a handsome, large, and sonorous epithet, as to use a little stingy one. thus he would say to george in school, "i observed on my return home from taking the indulgence of an evening's scientific conversation with my excellent friend doctor bulders--a true archaeologian, gentlemen, a true archaeologian--that the windows of your venerated grandfather's almost princely mansion in russell square were illuminated as if for the purposes of festivity. am i right in my conjecture that mr. osborne entertained a society of chosen spirits round his sumptuous board last night?" little georgy, who had considerable humour, and used to mimic mr. veal to his face with great spirit and dexterity, would reply that mr. v. was quite correct in his surmise. "then those friends who had the honour of partaking of mr. osborne's hospitality, gentlemen, had no reason, i will lay any wager, to complain of their repast. i myself have been more than once so favoured. (by the way, master osborne, you came a little late this morning, and have been a defaulter in this respect more than once.) i myself, i say, gentlemen, humble as i am, have been found not unworthy to share mr. osborne's elegant hospitality. and though i have feasted with the great and noble of the world--for i presume that i may call my excellent friend and patron, the right honourable george earl of bareacres, one of the number--yet i assure you that the board of the british merchant was to the full as richly served, and his reception as gratifying and noble. mr. bluck, sir, we will resume, if you please, that passage of eutropis, which was interrupted by the late arrival of master osborne." to this great man george's education was for some time entrusted. amelia was bewildered by his phrases, but thought him a prodigy of learning. that poor widow made friends of mrs. veal, for reasons of her own. she liked to be in the house and see georgy coming to school there. she liked to be asked to mrs. veal's conversazioni, which took place once a month (as you were informed on pink cards, with aohnh [_transcriber's note: the name of the greek goddess athene; the "o" represents a capital theta._] engraved on them), and where the professor welcomed his pupils and their friends to weak tea and scientific conversation. poor little amelia never missed one of these entertainments and thought them delicious so long as she might have georgy sitting by her. and she would walk from brompton in any weather, and embrace mrs. veal with tearful gratitude for the delightful evening she had passed, when, the company having retired and georgy gone off with mr. rowson, his attendant, poor mrs. osborne put on her cloaks and her shawls preparatory to walking home. as for the learning which georgy imbibed under this valuable master of a hundred sciences, to judge from the weekly reports which the lad took home to his grandfather, his progress was remarkable. the names of a score or more of desirable branches of knowledge were printed in a table, and the pupil's progress in each was marked by the professor. in greek georgy was pronounced aristos, in latin optimus, in french tres bien, and so forth; and everybody had prizes for everything at the end of the year. even mr. swartz, the wooly-headed young gentleman, and half-brother to the honourable mrs. mac mull, and mr. bluck, the neglected young pupil of three-and-twenty from the agricultural district, and that idle young scapegrace of a master todd before mentioned, received little eighteen-penny books, with "athene" engraved on them, and a pompous latin inscription from the professor to his young friends. the family of this master todd were hangers-on of the house of osborne. the old gentleman had advanced todd from being a clerk to be a junior partner in his establishment. mr. osborne was the godfather of young master todd (who in subsequent life wrote mr. osborne todd on his cards and became a man of decided fashion), while miss osborne had accompanied miss maria todd to the font, and gave her protegee a prayer-book, a collection of tracts, a volume of very low church poetry, or some such memento of her goodness every year. miss o. drove the todds out in her carriage now and then; when they were ill, her footman, in large plush smalls and waistcoat, brought jellies and delicacies from russell square to coram street. coram street trembled and looked up to russell square indeed, and mrs. todd, who had a pretty hand at cutting out paper trimmings for haunches of mutton, and could make flowers, ducks, &c., out of turnips and carrots in a very creditable manner, would go to "the square," as it was called, and assist in the preparations incident to a great dinner, without even so much as thinking of sitting down to the banquet. if any guest failed at the eleventh hour, todd was asked to dine. mrs. todd and maria came across in the evening, slipped in with a muffled knock, and were in the drawing-room by the time miss osborne and the ladies under her convoy reached that apartment--and ready to fire off duets and sing until the gentlemen came up. poor maria todd; poor young lady! how she had to work and thrum at these duets and sonatas in the street, before they appeared in public in the square! thus it seemed to be decreed by fate that georgy was to domineer over everybody with whom he came in contact, and that friends, relatives, and domestics were all to bow the knee before the little fellow. it must be owned that he accommodated himself very willingly to this arrangement. most people do so. and georgy liked to play the part of master and perhaps had a natural aptitude for it. in russell square everybody was afraid of mr. osborne, and mr. osborne was afraid of georgy. the boy's dashing manners, and offhand rattle about books and learning, his likeness to his father (dead unreconciled in brussels yonder) awed the old gentleman and gave the young boy the mastery. the old man would start at some hereditary feature or tone unconsciously used by the little lad, and fancy that george's father was again before him. he tried by indulgence to the grandson to make up for harshness to the elder george. people were surprised at his gentleness to the boy. he growled and swore at miss osborne as usual, and would smile when george came down late for breakfast. miss osborne, george's aunt, was a faded old spinster, broken down by more than forty years of dulness and coarse usage. it was easy for a lad of spirit to master her. and whenever george wanted anything from her, from the jam-pots in her cupboards to the cracked and dry old colours in her paint-box (the old paint-box which she had had when she was a pupil of mr. smee and was still almost young and blooming), georgy took possession of the object of his desire, which obtained, he took no further notice of his aunt. for his friends and cronies, he had a pompous old schoolmaster, who flattered him, and a toady, his senior, whom he could thrash. it was dear mrs. todd's delight to leave him with her youngest daughter, rosa jemima, a darling child of eight years old. the little pair looked so well together, she would say (but not to the folks in "the square," we may be sure) "who knows what might happen? don't they make a pretty little couple?" the fond mother thought. the broken-spirited, old, maternal grandfather was likewise subject to the little tyrant. he could not help respecting a lad who had such fine clothes and rode with a groom behind him. georgy, on his side, was in the constant habit of hearing coarse abuse and vulgar satire levelled at john sedley by his pitiless old enemy, mr. osborne. osborne used to call the other the old pauper, the old coal-man, the old bankrupt, and by many other such names of brutal contumely. how was little george to respect a man so prostrate? a few months after he was with his paternal grandfather, mrs. sedley died. there had been little love between her and the child. he did not care to show much grief. he came down to visit his mother in a fine new suit of mourning, and was very angry that he could not go to a play upon which he had set his heart. the illness of that old lady had been the occupation and perhaps the safeguard of amelia. what do men know about women's martyrdoms? we should go mad had we to endure the hundredth part of those daily pains which are meekly borne by many women. ceaseless slavery meeting with no reward; constant gentleness and kindness met by cruelty as constant; love, labour, patience, watchfulness, without even so much as the acknowledgement of a good word; all this, how many of them have to bear in quiet, and appear abroad with cheerful faces as if they felt nothing. tender slaves that they are, they must needs be hypocrites and weak. from her chair amelia's mother had taken to her bed, which she had never left, and from which mrs. osborne herself was never absent except when she ran to see george. the old lady grudged her even those rare visits; she, who had been a kind, smiling, good-natured mother once, in the days of her prosperity, but whom poverty and infirmities had broken down. her illness or estrangement did not affect amelia. they rather enabled her to support the other calamity under which she was suffering, and from the thoughts of which she was kept by the ceaseless calls of the invalid. amelia bore her harshness quite gently; smoothed the uneasy pillow; was always ready with a soft answer to the watchful, querulous voice; soothed the sufferer with words of hope, such as her pious simple heart could best feel and utter, and closed the eyes that had once looked so tenderly upon her. then all her time and tenderness were devoted to the consolation and comfort of the bereaved old father, who was stunned by the blow which had befallen him, and stood utterly alone in the world. his wife, his honour, his fortune, everything he loved best had fallen away from him. there was only amelia to stand by and support with her gentle arms the tottering, heart-broken old man. we are not going to write the history: it would be too dreary and stupid. i can see vanity fair yawning over it d'avance. one day as the young gentlemen were assembled in the study at the rev. mr. veal's, and the domestic chaplain to the right honourable the earl of bareacres was spouting away as usual, a smart carriage drove up to the door decorated with the statue of athene, and two gentlemen stepped out. the young masters bangles rushed to the window with a vague notion that their father might have arrived from bombay. the great hulking scholar of three-and-twenty, who was crying secretly over a passage of eutropius, flattened his neglected nose against the panes and looked at the drag, as the laquais de place sprang from the box and let out the persons in the carriage. "it's a fat one and a thin one," mr. bluck said as a thundering knock came to the door. everybody was interested, from the domestic chaplain himself, who hoped he saw the fathers of some future pupils, down to master georgy, glad of any pretext for laying his book down. the boy in the shabby livery with the faded copper buttons, who always thrust himself into the tight coat to open the door, came into the study and said, "two gentlemen want to see master osborne." the professor had had a trifling altercation in the morning with that young gentleman, owing to a difference about the introduction of crackers in school-time; but his face resumed its habitual expression of bland courtesy as he said, "master osborne, i give you full permission to go and see your carriage friends--to whom i beg you to convey the respectful compliments of myself and mrs. veal." georgy went into the reception-room and saw two strangers, whom he looked at with his head up, in his usual haughty manner. one was fat, with mustachios, and the other was lean and long, in a blue frock-coat, with a brown face and a grizzled head. "my god, how like he is!" said the long gentleman with a start. "can you guess who we are, george?" the boy's face flushed up, as it did usually when he was moved, and his eyes brightened. "i don't know the other," he said, "but i should think you must be major dobbin." indeed it was our old friend. his voice trembled with pleasure as he greeted the boy, and taking both the other's hands in his own, drew the lad to him. "your mother has talked to you about me--has she?" he said. "that she has," georgy answered, "hundreds and hundreds of times." chapter lvii eothen it was one of the many causes for personal pride with which old osborne chose to recreate himself that sedley, his ancient rival, enemy, and benefactor, was in his last days so utterly defeated and humiliated as to be forced to accept pecuniary obligations at the hands of the man who had most injured and insulted him. the successful man of the world cursed the old pauper and relieved him from time to time. as he furnished george with money for his mother, he gave the boy to understand by hints, delivered in his brutal, coarse way, that george's maternal grandfather was but a wretched old bankrupt and dependant, and that john sedley might thank the man to whom he already owed ever so much money for the aid which his generosity now chose to administer. george carried the pompous supplies to his mother and the shattered old widower whom it was now the main business of her life to tend and comfort. the little fellow patronized the feeble and disappointed old man. it may have shown a want of "proper pride" in amelia that she chose to accept these money benefits at the hands of her father's enemy. but proper pride and this poor lady had never had much acquaintance together. a disposition naturally simple and demanding protection; a long course of poverty and humility, of daily privations, and hard words, of kind offices and no returns, had been her lot ever since womanhood almost, or since her luckless marriage with george osborne. you who see your betters bearing up under this shame every day, meekly suffering under the slights of fortune, gentle and unpitied, poor, and rather despised for their poverty, do you ever step down from your prosperity and wash the feet of these poor wearied beggars? the very thought of them is odious and low. "there must be classes--there must be rich and poor," dives says, smacking his claret (it is well if he even sends the broken meat out to lazarus sitting under the window). very true; but think how mysterious and often unaccountable it is--that lottery of life which gives to this man the purple and fine linen and sends to the other rags for garments and dogs for comforters. so i must own that, without much repining, on the contrary with something akin to gratitude, amelia took the crumbs that her father-in-law let drop now and then, and with them fed her own parent. directly she understood it to be her duty, it was this young woman's nature (ladies, she is but thirty still, and we choose to call her a young woman even at that age) it was, i say, her nature to sacrifice herself and to fling all that she had at the feet of the beloved object. during what long thankless nights had she worked out her fingers for little georgy whilst at home with her; what buffets, scorns, privations, poverties had she endured for father and mother! and in the midst of all these solitary resignations and unseen sacrifices, she did not respect herself any more than the world respected her, but i believe thought in her heart that she was a poor-spirited, despicable little creature, whose luck in life was only too good for her merits. o you poor women! o you poor secret martyrs and victims, whose life is a torture, who are stretched on racks in your bedrooms, and who lay your heads down on the block daily at the drawing-room table; every man who watches your pains, or peers into those dark places where the torture is administered to you, must pity you--and--and thank god that he has a beard. i recollect seeing, years ago, at the prisons for idiots and madmen at bicetre, near paris, a poor wretch bent down under the bondage of his imprisonment and his personal infirmity, to whom one of our party gave a halfpenny worth of snuff in a cornet or "screw" of paper. the kindness was too much for the poor epileptic creature. he cried in an anguish of delight and gratitude: if anybody gave you and me a thousand a year, or saved our lives, we could not be so affected. and so, if you properly tyrannize over a woman, you will find a ha'p'orth of kindness act upon her and bring tears into her eyes, as though you were an angel benefiting her. some such boons as these were the best which fortune allotted to poor little amelia. her life, begun not unprosperously, had come down to this--to a mean prison and a long, ignoble bondage. little george visited her captivity sometimes and consoled it with feeble gleams of encouragement. russell square was the boundary of her prison: she might walk thither occasionally, but was always back to sleep in her cell at night; to perform cheerless duties; to watch by thankless sick-beds; to suffer the harassment and tyranny of querulous disappointed old age. how many thousands of people are there, women for the most part, who are doomed to endure this long slavery?--who are hospital nurses without wages--sisters of charity, if you like, without the romance and the sentiment of sacrifice--who strive, fast, watch, and suffer, unpitied, and fade away ignobly and unknown. the hidden and awful wisdom which apportions the destinies of mankind is pleased so to humiliate and cast down the tender, good, and wise, and to set up the selfish, the foolish, or the wicked. oh, be humble, my brother, in your prosperity! be gentle with those who are less lucky, if not more deserving. think, what right have you to be scornful, whose virtue is a deficiency of temptation, whose success may be a chance, whose rank may be an ancestor's accident, whose prosperity is very likely a satire. they buried amelia's mother in the churchyard at brompton, upon just such a rainy, dark day as amelia recollected when first she had been there to marry george. her little boy sat by her side in pompous new sables. she remembered the old pew-woman and clerk. her thoughts were away in other times as the parson read. but that she held george's hand in her own, perhaps she would have liked to change places with.... then, as usual, she felt ashamed of her selfish thoughts and prayed inwardly to be strengthened to do her duty. so she determined with all her might and strength to try and make her old father happy. she slaved, toiled, patched, and mended, sang and played backgammon, read out the newspaper, cooked dishes for old sedley, walked him out sedulously into kensington gardens or the brompton lanes, listened to his stories with untiring smiles and affectionate hypocrisy, or sat musing by his side and communing with her own thoughts and reminiscences, as the old man, feeble and querulous, sunned himself on the garden benches and prattled about his wrongs or his sorrows. what sad, unsatisfactory thoughts those of the widow were! the children running up and down the slopes and broad paths in the gardens reminded her of george, who was taken from her; the first george was taken from her; her selfish, guilty love, in both instances, had been rebuked and bitterly chastised. she strove to think it was right that she should be so punished. she was such a miserable wicked sinner. she was quite alone in the world. i know that the account of this kind of solitary imprisonment is insufferably tedious, unless there is some cheerful or humorous incident to enliven it--a tender gaoler, for instance, or a waggish commandant of the fortress, or a mouse to come out and play about latude's beard and whiskers, or a subterranean passage under the castle, dug by trenck with his nails and a toothpick: the historian has no such enlivening incident to relate in the narrative of amelia's captivity. fancy her, if you please, during this period, very sad, but always ready to smile when spoken to; in a very mean, poor, not to say vulgar position of life; singing songs, making puddings, playing cards, mending stockings, for her old father's benefit. so, never mind, whether she be a heroine or no; or you and i, however old, scolding, and bankrupt--may we have in our last days a kind soft shoulder on which to lean and a gentle hand to soothe our gouty old pillows. old sedley grew very fond of his daughter after his wife's death, and amelia had her consolation in doing her duty by the old man. but we are not going to leave these two people long in such a low and ungenteel station of life. better days, as far as worldly prosperity went, were in store for both. perhaps the ingenious reader has guessed who was the stout gentleman who called upon georgy at his school in company with our old friend major dobbin. it was another old acquaintance returned to england, and at a time when his presence was likely to be of great comfort to his relatives there. major dobbin having easily succeeded in getting leave from his good-natured commandant to proceed to madras, and thence probably to europe, on urgent private affairs, never ceased travelling night and day until he reached his journey's end, and had directed his march with such celerity that he arrived at madras in a high fever. his servants who accompanied him brought him to the house of the friend with whom he had resolved to stay until his departure for europe in a state of delirium; and it was thought for many, many days that he would never travel farther than the burying-ground of the church of st. george's, where the troops should fire a salvo over his grave, and where many a gallant officer lies far away from his home. here, as the poor fellow lay tossing in his fever, the people who watched him might have heard him raving about amelia. the idea that he should never see her again depressed him in his lucid hours. he thought his last day was come, and he made his solemn preparations for departure, setting his affairs in this world in order and leaving the little property of which he was possessed to those whom he most desired to benefit. the friend in whose house he was located witnessed his testament. he desired to be buried with a little brown hair-chain which he wore round his neck and which, if the truth must be known, he had got from amelia's maid at brussels, when the young widow's hair was cut off, during the fever which prostrated her after the death of george osborne on the plateau at mount st. john. he recovered, rallied, relapsed again, having undergone such a process of blood-letting and calomel as showed the strength of his original constitution. he was almost a skeleton when they put him on board the ramchunder east indiaman, captain bragg, from calcutta, touching at madras, and so weak and prostrate that his friend who had tended him through his illness prophesied that the honest major would never survive the voyage, and that he would pass some morning, shrouded in flag and hammock, over the ship's side, and carrying down to the sea with him the relic that he wore at his heart. but whether it was the sea air, or the hope which sprung up in him afresh, from the day that the ship spread her canvas and stood out of the roads towards home, our friend began to amend, and he was quite well (though as gaunt as a greyhound) before they reached the cape. "kirk will be disappointed of his majority this time," he said with a smile; "he will expect to find himself gazetted by the time the regiment reaches home." for it must be premised that while the major was lying ill at madras, having made such prodigious haste to go thither, the gallant --th, which had passed many years abroad, which after its return from the west indies had been baulked of its stay at home by the waterloo campaign, and had been ordered from flanders to india, had received orders home; and the major might have accompanied his comrades, had he chosen to wait for their arrival at madras. perhaps he was not inclined to put himself in his exhausted state again under the guardianship of glorvina. "i think miss o'dowd would have done for me," he said laughingly to a fellow-passenger, "if we had had her on board, and when she had sunk me, she would have fallen upon you, depend upon it, and carried you in as a prize to southampton, jos, my boy." for indeed it was no other than our stout friend who was also a passenger on board the ramchunder. he had passed ten years in bengal. constant dinners, tiffins, pale ale and claret, the prodigious labour of cutcherry, and the refreshment of brandy-pawnee which he was forced to take there, had their effect upon waterloo sedley. a voyage to europe was pronounced necessary for him--and having served his full time in india and had fine appointments which had enabled him to lay by a considerable sum of money, he was free to come home and stay with a good pension, or to return and resume that rank in the service to which his seniority and his vast talents entitled him. he was rather thinner than when we last saw him, but had gained in majesty and solemnity of demeanour. he had resumed the mustachios to which his services at waterloo entitled him, and swaggered about on deck in a magnificent velvet cap with a gold band and a profuse ornamentation of pins and jewellery about his person. he took breakfast in his cabin and dressed as solemnly to appear on the quarter-deck as if he were going to turn out for bond street, or the course at calcutta. he brought a native servant with him, who was his valet and pipe-bearer and who wore the sedley crest in silver on his turban. that oriental menial had a wretched life under the tyranny of jos sedley. jos was as vain of his person as a woman, and took as long a time at his toilette as any fading beauty. the youngsters among the passengers, young chaffers of the th, and poor little ricketts, coming home after his third fever, used to draw out sedley at the cuddy-table and make him tell prodigious stories about himself and his exploits against tigers and napoleon. he was great when he visited the emperor's tomb at longwood, when to these gentlemen and the young officers of the ship, major dobbin not being by, he described the whole battle of waterloo and all but announced that napoleon never would have gone to saint helena at all but for him, jos sedley. after leaving st. helena he became very generous, disposing of a great quantity of ship stores, claret, preserved meats, and great casks packed with soda-water, brought out for his private delectation. there were no ladies on board; the major gave the pas of precedency to the civilian, so that he was the first dignitary at table, and treated by captain bragg and the officers of the ramchunder with the respect which his rank warranted. he disappeared rather in a panic during a two-days' gale, in which he had the portholes of his cabin battened down, and remained in his cot reading the washerwoman of finchley common, left on board the ramchunder by the right honourable the lady emily hornblower, wife of the rev. silas hornblower, when on their passage out to the cape, where the reverend gentleman was a missionary; but, for common reading, he had brought a stock of novels and plays which he lent to the rest of the ship, and rendered himself agreeable to all by his kindness and condescension. many and many a night as the ship was cutting through the roaring dark sea, the moon and stars shining overhead and the bell singing out the watch, mr. sedley and the major would sit on the quarter-deck of the vessel talking about home, as the major smoked his cheroot and the civilian puffed at the hookah which his servant prepared for him. in these conversations it was wonderful with what perseverance and ingenuity major dobbin would manage to bring the talk round to the subject of amelia and her little boy. jos, a little testy about his father's misfortunes and unceremonious applications to him, was soothed down by the major, who pointed out the elder's ill fortunes and old age. he would not perhaps like to live with the old couple, whose ways and hours might not agree with those of a younger man, accustomed to different society (jos bowed at this compliment); but, the major pointed out, how advantageous it would be for jos sedley to have a house of his own in london, and not a mere bachelor's establishment as before; how his sister amelia would be the very person to preside over it; how elegant, how gentle she was, and of what refined good manners. he recounted stories of the success which mrs. george osborne had had in former days at brussels, and in london, where she was much admired by people of very great fashion; and he then hinted how becoming it would be for jos to send georgy to a good school and make a man of him, for his mother and her parents would be sure to spoil him. in a word, this artful major made the civilian promise to take charge of amelia and her unprotected child. he did not know as yet what events had happened in the little sedley family, and how death had removed the mother, and riches had carried off george from amelia. but the fact is that every day and always, this love-smitten and middle-aged gentleman was thinking about mrs. osborne, and his whole heart was bent upon doing her good. he coaxed, wheedled, cajoled, and complimented jos sedley with a perseverance and cordiality of which he was not aware himself, very likely; but some men who have unmarried sisters or daughters even, may remember how uncommonly agreeable gentlemen are to the male relations when they are courting the females; and perhaps this rogue of a dobbin was urged by a similar hypocrisy. the truth is, when major dobbin came on board the ramchumder, very sick, and for the three days she lay in the madras roads, he did not begin to rally, nor did even the appearance and recognition of his old acquaintance, mr. sedley, on board much cheer him, until after a conversation which they had one day, as the major was laid languidly on the deck. he said then he thought he was doomed; he had left a little something to his godson in his will, and he trusted mrs. osborne would remember him kindly and be happy in the marriage she was about to make. "married? not the least," jos answered; "he had heard from her: she made no mention of the marriage, and by the way, it was curious, she wrote to say that major dobbin was going to be married, and hoped that he would be happy." what were the dates of sedley's letters from europe? the civilian fetched them. they were two months later than the major's; and the ship's surgeon congratulated himself upon the treatment adopted by him towards his new patient, who had been consigned to shipboard by the madras practitioner with very small hopes indeed; for, from that day, the very day that he changed the draught, major dobbin began to mend. and thus it was that deserving officer, captain kirk, was disappointed of his majority. after they passed st. helena, major dobbin's gaiety and strength was such as to astonish all his fellow passengers. he larked with the midshipmen, played single-stick with the mates, ran up the shrouds like a boy, sang a comic song one night to the amusement of the whole party assembled over their grog after supper, and rendered himself so gay, lively, and amiable that even captain bragg, who thought there was nothing in his passenger, and considered he was a poor-spirited feller at first, was constrained to own that the major was a reserved but well-informed and meritorious officer. "he ain't got distangy manners, dammy," bragg observed to his first mate; "he wouldn't do at government house, roper, where his lordship and lady william was as kind to me, and shook hands with me before the whole company, and asking me at dinner to take beer with him, before the commander-in-chief himself; he ain't got manners, but there's something about him--" and thus captain bragg showed that he possessed discrimination as a man, as well as ability as a commander. but a calm taking place when the ramchunder was within ten days' sail of england, dobbin became so impatient and ill-humoured as to surprise those comrades who had before admired his vivacity and good temper. he did not recover until the breeze sprang up again, and was in a highly excited state when the pilot came on board. good god, how his heart beat as the two friendly spires of southampton came in sight. chapter lviii our friend the major our major had rendered himself so popular on board the ramchunder that when he and mr. sedley descended into the welcome shore-boat which was to take them from the ship, the whole crew, men and officers, the great captain bragg himself leading off, gave three cheers for major dobbin, who blushed very much and ducked his head in token of thanks. jos, who very likely thought the cheers were for himself, took off his gold-laced cap and waved it majestically to his friends, and they were pulled to shore and landed with great dignity at the pier, whence they proceeded to the royal george hotel. although the sight of that magnificent round of beef, and the silver tankard suggestive of real british home-brewed ale and porter, which perennially greet the eyes of the traveller returning from foreign parts who enters the coffee-room of the george, are so invigorating and delightful that a man entering such a comfortable snug homely english inn might well like to stop some days there, yet dobbin began to talk about a post-chaise instantly, and was no sooner at southampton than he wished to be on the road to london. jos, however, would not hear of moving that evening. why was he to pass a night in a post-chaise instead of a great large undulating downy feather-bed which was there ready to replace the horrid little narrow crib in which the portly bengal gentleman had been confined during the voyage? he could not think of moving till his baggage was cleared, or of travelling until he could do so with his chillum. so the major was forced to wait over that night, and dispatched a letter to his family announcing his arrival, entreating from jos a promise to write to his own friends. jos promised, but didn't keep his promise. the captain, the surgeon, and one or two passengers came and dined with our two gentlemen at the inn, jos exerting himself in a sumptuous way in ordering the dinner and promising to go to town the next day with the major. the landlord said it did his eyes good to see mr. sedley take off his first pint of porter. if i had time and dared to enter into digressions, i would write a chapter about that first pint of porter drunk upon english ground. ah, how good it is! it is worth-while to leave home for a year, just to enjoy that one draught. major dobbin made his appearance the next morning very neatly shaved and dressed, according to his wont. indeed, it was so early in the morning that nobody was up in the house except that wonderful boots of an inn who never seems to want sleep; and the major could hear the snores of the various inmates of the house roaring through the corridors as he creaked about in those dim passages. then the sleepless boots went shirking round from door to door, gathering up at each the bluchers, wellingtons, oxonians, which stood outside. then jos's native servant arose and began to get ready his master's ponderous dressing apparatus and prepare his hookah; then the maidservants got up, and meeting the dark man in the passages, shrieked, and mistook him for the devil. he and dobbin stumbled over their pails in the passages as they were scouring the decks of the royal george. when the first unshorn waiter appeared and unbarred the door of the inn, the major thought that the time for departure was arrived, and ordered a post-chaise to be fetched instantly, that they might set off. he then directed his steps to mr. sedley's room and opened the curtains of the great large family bed wherein mr. jos was snoring. "come, up! sedley," the major said, "it's time to be off; the chaise will be at the door in half an hour." jos growled from under the counterpane to know what the time was; but when he at last extorted from the blushing major (who never told fibs, however they might be to his advantage) what was the real hour of the morning, he broke out into a volley of bad language, which we will not repeat here, but by which he gave dobbin to understand that he would jeopardy his soul if he got up at that moment, that the major might go and be hanged, that he would not travel with dobbin, and that it was most unkind and ungentlemanlike to disturb a man out of his sleep in that way; on which the discomfited major was obliged to retreat, leaving jos to resume his interrupted slumbers. the chaise came up presently, and the major would wait no longer. if he had been an english nobleman travelling on a pleasure tour, or a newspaper courier bearing dispatches (government messages are generally carried much more quietly), he could not have travelled more quickly. the post-boys wondered at the fees he flung amongst them. how happy and green the country looked as the chaise whirled rapidly from mile-stone to mile-stone, through neat country towns where landlords came out to welcome him with smiles and bows; by pretty roadside inns, where the signs hung on the elms, and horses and waggoners were drinking under the chequered shadow of the trees; by old halls and parks; rustic hamlets clustered round ancient grey churches--and through the charming friendly english landscape. is there any in the world like it? to a traveller returning home it looks so kind--it seems to shake hands with you as you pass through it. well, major dobbin passed through all this from southampton to london, and without noting much beyond the milestones along the road. you see he was so eager to see his parents at camberwell. he grudged the time lost between piccadilly and his old haunt at the slaughters', whither he drove faithfully. long years had passed since he saw it last, since he and george, as young men, had enjoyed many a feast, and held many a revel there. he had now passed into the stage of old-fellow-hood. his hair was grizzled, and many a passion and feeling of his youth had grown grey in that interval. there, however, stood the old waiter at the door, in the same greasy black suit, with the same double chin and flaccid face, with the same huge bunch of seals at his fob, rattling his money in his pockets as before, and receiving the major as if he had gone away only a week ago. "put the major's things in twenty-three, that's his room," john said, exhibiting not the least surprise. "roast fowl for your dinner, i suppose. you ain't got married? they said you was married--the scotch surgeon of yours was here. no, it was captain humby of the thirty-third, as was quartered with the --th in injee. like any warm water? what do you come in a chay for--ain't the coach good enough?" and with this, the faithful waiter, who knew and remembered every officer who used the house, and with whom ten years were but as yesterday, led the way up to dobbin's old room, where stood the great moreen bed, and the shabby carpet, a thought more dingy, and all the old black furniture covered with faded chintz, just as the major recollected them in his youth. he remembered george pacing up and down the room, and biting his nails, and swearing that the governor must come round, and that if he didn't, he didn't care a straw, on the day before he was married. he could fancy him walking in, banging the door of dobbin's room, and his own hard by-- "you ain't got young," john said, calmly surveying his friend of former days. dobbin laughed. "ten years and a fever don't make a man young, john," he said. "it is you that are always young--no, you are always old." "what became of captain osborne's widow?" john said. "fine young fellow that. lord, how he used to spend his money. he never came back after that day he was marched from here. he owes me three pound at this minute. look here, i have it in my book. 'april , , captain osborne: pounds.' i wonder whether his father would pay me," and so saying, john of the slaughters' pulled out the very morocco pocket-book in which he had noted his loan to the captain, upon a greasy faded page still extant, with many other scrawled memoranda regarding the bygone frequenters of the house. having inducted his customer into the room, john retired with perfect calmness; and major dobbin, not without a blush and a grin at his own absurdity, chose out of his kit the very smartest and most becoming civil costume he possessed, and laughed at his own tanned face and grey hair, as he surveyed them in the dreary little toilet-glass on the dressing-table. "i'm glad old john didn't forget me," he thought. "she'll know me, too, i hope." and he sallied out of the inn, bending his steps once more in the direction of brompton. every minute incident of his last meeting with amelia was present to the constant man's mind as he walked towards her house. the arch and the achilles statue were up since he had last been in piccadilly; a hundred changes had occurred which his eye and mind vaguely noted. he began to tremble as he walked up the lane from brompton, that well-remembered lane leading to the street where she lived. was she going to be married or not? if he were to meet her with the little boy--good god, what should he do? he saw a woman coming to him with a child of five years old--was that she? he began to shake at the mere possibility. when he came up to the row of houses, at last, where she lived, and to the gate, he caught hold of it and paused. he might have heard the thumping of his own heart. "may god almighty bless her, whatever has happened," he thought to himself. "psha! she may be gone from here," he said and went in through the gate. the window of the parlour which she used to occupy was open, and there were no inmates in the room. the major thought he recognized the piano, though, with the picture over it, as it used to be in former days, and his perturbations were renewed. mr. clapp's brass plate was still on the door, at the knocker of which dobbin performed a summons. a buxom-looking lass of sixteen, with bright eyes and purple cheeks, came to answer the knock and looked hard at the major as he leant back against the little porch. he was as pale as a ghost and could hardly falter out the words--"does mrs. osborne live here?" she looked him hard in the face for a moment--and then turning white too--said, "lord bless me--it's major dobbin." she held out both her hands shaking--"don't you remember me?" she said. "i used to call you major sugarplums." on which, and i believe it was for the first time that he ever so conducted himself in his life, the major took the girl in his arms and kissed her. she began to laugh and cry hysterically, and calling out "ma, pa!" with all her voice, brought up those worthy people, who had already been surveying the major from the casement of the ornamental kitchen, and were astonished to find their daughter in the little passage in the embrace of a great tall man in a blue frock-coat and white duck trousers. "i'm an old friend," he said--not without blushing though. "don't you remember me, mrs. clapp, and those good cakes you used to make for tea? don't you recollect me, clapp? i'm george's godfather, and just come back from india." a great shaking of hands ensued--mrs. clapp was greatly affected and delighted; she called upon heaven to interpose a vast many times in that passage. the landlord and landlady of the house led the worthy major into the sedleys' room (whereof he remembered every single article of furniture, from the old brass ornamented piano, once a natty little instrument, stothard maker, to the screens and the alabaster miniature tombstone, in the midst of which ticked mr. sedley's gold watch), and there, as he sat down in the lodger's vacant arm-chair, the father, the mother, and the daughter, with a thousand ejaculatory breaks in the narrative, informed major dobbin of what we know already, but of particulars in amelia's history of which he was not aware--namely of mrs. sedley's death, of george's reconcilement with his grandfather osborne, of the way in which the widow took on at leaving him, and of other particulars of her life. twice or thrice he was going to ask about the marriage question, but his heart failed him. he did not care to lay it bare to these people. finally, he was informed that mrs. o. was gone to walk with her pa in kensington gardens, whither she always went with the old gentleman (who was very weak and peevish now, and led her a sad life, though she behaved to him like an angel, to be sure), of a fine afternoon, after dinner. "i'm very much pressed for time," the major said, "and have business to-night of importance. i should like to see mrs. osborne tho'. suppose miss polly would come with me and show me the way?" miss polly was charmed and astonished at this proposal. she knew the way. she would show major dobbin. she had often been with mr. sedley when mrs. o. was gone--was gone russell square way--and knew the bench where he liked to sit. she bounced away to her apartment and appeared presently in her best bonnet and her mamma's yellow shawl and large pebble brooch, of which she assumed the loan in order to make herself a worthy companion for the major. that officer, then, in his blue frock-coat and buckskin gloves, gave the young lady his arm, and they walked away very gaily. he was glad to have a friend at hand for the scene which he dreaded somehow. he asked a thousand more questions from his companion about amelia: his kind heart grieved to think that she should have had to part with her son. how did she bear it? did she see him often? was mr. sedley pretty comfortable now in a worldly point of view? polly answered all these questions of major sugarplums to the very best of her power. and in the midst of their walk an incident occurred which, though very simple in its nature, was productive of the greatest delight to major dobbin. a pale young man with feeble whiskers and a stiff white neckcloth came walking down the lane, en sandwich--having a lady, that is, on each arm. one was a tall and commanding middle-aged female, with features and a complexion similar to those of the clergyman of the church of england by whose side she marched, and the other a stunted little woman with a dark face, ornamented by a fine new bonnet and white ribbons, and in a smart pelisse, with a rich gold watch in the midst of her person. the gentleman, pinioned as he was by these two ladies, carried further a parasol, shawl, and basket, so that his arms were entirely engaged, and of course he was unable to touch his hat in acknowledgement of the curtsey with which miss mary clapp greeted him. he merely bowed his head in reply to her salutation, which the two ladies returned with a patronizing air, and at the same time looking severely at the individual in the blue coat and bamboo cane who accompanied miss polly. "who's that?" asked the major, amused by the group, and after he had made way for the three to pass up the lane. mary looked at him rather roguishly. "that is our curate, the reverend mr. binny (a twitch from major dobbin), and his sister miss b. lord bless us, how she did use to worret us at sunday-school; and the other lady, the little one with a cast in her eye and the handsome watch, is mrs. binny--miss grits that was; her pa was a grocer, and kept the little original gold tea pot in kensington gravel pits. they were married last month, and are just come back from margate. she's five thousand pound to her fortune; but her and miss b., who made the match, have quarrelled already." if the major had twitched before, he started now, and slapped the bamboo on the ground with an emphasis which made miss clapp cry, "law," and laugh too. he stood for a moment, silent, with open mouth, looking after the retreating young couple, while miss mary told their history; but he did not hear beyond the announcement of the reverend gentleman's marriage; his head was swimming with felicity. after this rencontre he began to walk double quick towards the place of his destination--and yet they were too soon (for he was in a great tremor at the idea of a meeting for which he had been longing any time these ten years)--through the brompton lanes, and entering at the little old portal in kensington garden wall. "there they are," said miss polly, and she felt him again start back on her arm. she was a confidante at once of the whole business. she knew the story as well as if she had read it in one of her favourite novel-books--fatherless fanny, or the scottish chiefs. "suppose you were to run on and tell her," the major said. polly ran forward, her yellow shawl streaming in the breeze. old sedley was seated on a bench, his handkerchief placed over his knees, prattling away, according to his wont, with some old story about old times to which amelia had listened and awarded a patient smile many a time before. she could of late think of her own affairs, and smile or make other marks of recognition of her father's stories, scarcely hearing a word of the old man's tales. as mary came bouncing along, and amelia caught sight of her, she started up from her bench. her first thought was that something had happened to georgy, but the sight of the messenger's eager and happy face dissipated that fear in the timorous mother's bosom. "news! news!" cried the emissary of major dobbin. "he's come! he's come!" "who is come?" said emmy, still thinking of her son. "look there," answered miss clapp, turning round and pointing; in which direction amelia looking, saw dobbin's lean figure and long shadow stalking across the grass. amelia started in her turn, blushed up, and, of course, began to cry. at all this simple little creature's fetes, the grandes eaux were accustomed to play. he looked at her--oh, how fondly--as she came running towards him, her hands before her, ready to give them to him. she wasn't changed. she was a little pale, a little stouter in figure. her eyes were the same, the kind trustful eyes. there were scarce three lines of silver in her soft brown hair. she gave him both her hands as she looked up flushing and smiling through her tears into his honest homely face. he took the two little hands between his two and held them there. he was speechless for a moment. why did he not take her in his arms and swear that he would never leave her? she must have yielded: she could not but have obeyed him. "i--i've another arrival to announce," he said after a pause. "mrs. dobbin?" amelia said, making a movement back--why didn't he speak? "no," he said, letting her hands go: "who has told you those lies? i mean, your brother jos came in the same ship with me, and is come home to make you all happy." "papa, papa!" emmy cried out, "here are news! my brother is in england. he is come to take care of you. here is major dobbin." mr. sedley started up, shaking a great deal and gathering up his thoughts. then he stepped forward and made an old-fashioned bow to the major, whom he called mr. dobbin, and hoped his worthy father, sir william, was quite well. he proposed to call upon sir william, who had done him the honour of a visit a short time ago. sir william had not called upon the old gentleman for eight years--it was that visit he was thinking of returning. "he is very much shaken," emmy whispered as dobbin went up and cordially shook hands with the old man. although he had such particular business in london that evening, the major consented to forego it upon mr. sedley's invitation to him to come home and partake of tea. amelia put her arm under that of her young friend with the yellow shawl and headed the party on their return homewards, so that mr. sedley fell to dobbin's share. the old man walked very slowly and told a number of ancient histories about himself and his poor bessy, his former prosperity, and his bankruptcy. his thoughts, as is usual with failing old men, were quite in former times. the present, with the exception of the one catastrophe which he felt, he knew little about. the major was glad to let him talk on. his eyes were fixed upon the figure in front of him--the dear little figure always present to his imagination and in his prayers, and visiting his dreams wakeful or slumbering. amelia was very happy, smiling, and active all that evening, performing her duties as hostess of the little entertainment with the utmost grace and propriety, as dobbin thought. his eyes followed her about as they sat in the twilight. how many a time had he longed for that moment and thought of her far away under hot winds and in weary marches, gentle and happy, kindly ministering to the wants of old age, and decorating poverty with sweet submission--as he saw her now. i do not say that his taste was the highest, or that it is the duty of great intellects to be content with a bread-and-butter paradise, such as sufficed our simple old friend; but his desires were of this sort, whether for good or bad, and, with amelia to help him, he was as ready to drink as many cups of tea as doctor johnson. amelia seeing this propensity, laughingly encouraged it and looked exceedingly roguish as she administered to him cup after cup. it is true she did not know that the major had had no dinner and that the cloth was laid for him at the slaughters', and a plate laid thereon to mark that the table was retained, in that very box in which the major and george had sat many a time carousing, when she was a child just come home from miss pinkerton's school. the first thing mrs. osborne showed the major was georgy's miniature, for which she ran upstairs on her arrival at home. it was not half handsome enough of course for the boy, but wasn't it noble of him to think of bringing it to his mother? whilst her papa was awake she did not talk much about georgy. to hear about mr. osborne and russell square was not agreeable to the old man, who very likely was unconscious that he had been living for some months past mainly on the bounty of his richer rival, and lost his temper if allusion was made to the other. dobbin told him all, and a little more perhaps than all, that had happened on board the ramchunder, and exaggerated jos's benevolent dispositions towards his father and resolution to make him comfortable in his old days. the truth is that during the voyage the major had impressed this duty most strongly upon his fellow-passenger and extorted promises from him that he would take charge of his sister and her child. he soothed jos's irritation with regard to the bills which the old gentleman had drawn upon him, gave a laughing account of his own sufferings on the same score and of the famous consignment of wine with which the old man had favoured him, and brought mr. jos, who was by no means an ill-natured person when well-pleased and moderately flattered, to a very good state of feeling regarding his relatives in europe. and in fine i am ashamed to say that the major stretched the truth so far as to tell old mr. sedley that it was mainly a desire to see his parent which brought jos once more to europe. at his accustomed hour mr. sedley began to doze in his chair, and then it was amelia's opportunity to commence her conversation, which she did with great eagerness--it related exclusively to georgy. she did not talk at all about her own sufferings at breaking from him, for indeed, this worthy woman, though she was half-killed by the separation from the child, yet thought it was very wicked in her to repine at losing him; but everything concerning him, his virtues, talents, and prospects, she poured out. she described his angelic beauty; narrated a hundred instances of his generosity and greatness of mind whilst living with her; how a royal duchess had stopped and admired him in kensington gardens; how splendidly he was cared for now, and how he had a groom and a pony; what quickness and cleverness he had, and what a prodigiously well-read and delightful person the reverend lawrence veal was, george's master. "he knows everything," amelia said. "he has the most delightful parties. you who are so learned yourself, and have read so much, and are so clever and accomplished--don't shake your head and say no--he always used to say you were--you will be charmed with mr. veal's parties. the last tuesday in every month. he says there is no place in the bar or the senate that georgy may not aspire to. look here," and she went to the piano-drawer and drew out a theme of georgy's composition. this great effort of genius, which is still in the possession of george's mother, is as follows: on selfishness--of all the vices which degrade the human character, selfishness is the most odious and contemptible. an undue love of self leads to the most monstrous crimes and occasions the greatest misfortunes both in states and families. as a selfish man will impoverish his family and often bring them to ruin, so a selfish king brings ruin on his people and often plunges them into war. example: the selfishness of achilles, as remarked by the poet homer, occasioned a thousand woes to the greeks--muri achaiois alge etheke--(hom. il. a. ). the selfishness of the late napoleon bonaparte occasioned innumerable wars in europe and caused him to perish, himself, in a miserable island--that of saint helena in the atlantic ocean. we see by these examples that we are not to consult our own interest and ambition, but that we are to consider the interests of others as well as our own. george s. osborne athene house, april, "think of him writing such a hand, and quoting greek too, at his age," the delighted mother said. "oh, william," she added, holding out her hand to the major, "what a treasure heaven has given me in that boy! he is the comfort of my life--and he is the image of--of him that's gone!" "ought i to be angry with her for being faithful to him?" william thought. "ought i to be jealous of my friend in the grave, or hurt that such a heart as amelia's can love only once and for ever? oh, george, george, how little you knew the prize you had, though." this sentiment passed rapidly through william's mind as he was holding amelia's hand, whilst the handkerchief was veiling her eyes. "dear friend," she said, pressing the hand which held hers, "how good, how kind you always have been to me! see! papa is stirring. you will go and see georgy tomorrow, won't you?" "not to-morrow," said poor old dobbin. "i have business." he did not like to own that he had not as yet been to his parents' and his dear sister anne--a remissness for which i am sure every well-regulated person will blame the major. and presently he took his leave, leaving his address behind him for jos, against the latter's arrival. and so the first day was over, and he had seen her. when he got back to the slaughters', the roast fowl was of course cold, in which condition he ate it for supper. and knowing what early hours his family kept, and that it would be needless to disturb their slumbers at so late an hour, it is on record, that major dobbin treated himself to half-price at the haymarket theatre that evening, where let us hope he enjoyed himself. chapter lix the old piano the major's visit left old john sedley in a great state of agitation and excitement. his daughter could not induce him to settle down to his customary occupations or amusements that night. he passed the evening fumbling amongst his boxes and desks, untying his papers with trembling hands, and sorting and arranging them against jos's arrival. he had them in the greatest order--his tapes and his files, his receipts, and his letters with lawyers and correspondents; the documents relative to the wine project (which failed from a most unaccountable accident, after commencing with the most splendid prospects), the coal project (which only a want of capital prevented from becoming the most successful scheme ever put before the public), the patent saw-mills and sawdust consolidation project, &c., &c. all night, until a very late hour, he passed in the preparation of these documents, trembling about from one room to another, with a quivering candle and shaky hands. here's the wine papers, here's the sawdust, here's the coals; here's my letters to calcutta and madras, and replies from major dobbin, c.b., and mr. joseph sedley to the same. "he shall find no irregularity about me, emmy," the old gentleman said. emmy smiled. "i don't think jos will care about seeing those papers, papa," she said. "you don't know anything about business, my dear," answered the sire, shaking his head with an important air. and it must be confessed that on this point emmy was very ignorant, and that is a pity some people are so knowing. all these twopenny documents arranged on a side table, old sedley covered them carefully over with a clean bandanna handkerchief (one out of major dobbin's lot) and enjoined the maid and landlady of the house, in the most solemn way, not to disturb those papers, which were arranged for the arrival of mr. joseph sedley the next morning, "mr. joseph sedley of the honourable east india company's bengal civil service." amelia found him up very early the next morning, more eager, more hectic, and more shaky than ever. "i didn't sleep much, emmy, my dear," he said. "i was thinking of my poor bessy. i wish she was alive, to ride in jos's carriage once again. she kept her own and became it very well." and his eyes filled with tears, which trickled down his furrowed old face. amelia wiped them away, and smilingly kissed him, and tied the old man's neckcloth in a smart bow, and put his brooch into his best shirt frill, in which, in his sunday suit of mourning, he sat from six o'clock in the morning awaiting the arrival of his son. however, when the postman made his appearance, the little party were put out of suspense by the receipt of a letter from jos to his sister, who announced that he felt a little fatigued after his voyage, and should not be able to move on that day, but that he would leave southampton early the next morning and be with his father and mother at evening. amelia, as she read out the letter to her father, paused over the latter word; her brother, it was clear, did not know what had happened in the family. nor could he, for the fact is that, though the major rightly suspected that his travelling companion never would be got into motion in so short a space as twenty-four hours, and would find some excuse for delaying, yet dobbin had not written to jos to inform him of the calamity which had befallen the sedley family, being occupied in talking with amelia until long after post-hour. there are some splendid tailors' shops in the high street of southampton, in the fine plate-glass windows of which hang gorgeous waistcoats of all sorts, of silk and velvet, and gold and crimson, and pictures of the last new fashions, in which those wonderful gentlemen with quizzing glasses, and holding on to little boys with the exceeding large eyes and curly hair, ogle ladies in riding habits prancing by the statue of achilles at apsley house. jos, although provided with some of the most splendid vests that calcutta could furnish, thought he could not go to town until he was supplied with one or two of these garments, and selected a crimson satin, embroidered with gold butterflies, and a black and red velvet tartan with white stripes and a rolling collar, with which, and a rich blue satin stock and a gold pin, consisting of a five-barred gate with a horseman in pink enamel jumping over it, he thought he might make his entry into london with some dignity. for jos's former shyness and blundering blushing timidity had given way to a more candid and courageous self-assertion of his worth. "i don't care about owning it," waterloo sedley would say to his friends, "i am a dressy man"; and though rather uneasy if the ladies looked at him at the government house balls, and though he blushed and turned away alarmed under their glances, it was chiefly from a dread lest they should make love to him that he avoided them, being averse to marriage altogether. but there was no such swell in calcutta as waterloo sedley, i have heard say, and he had the handsomest turn-out, gave the best bachelor dinners, and had the finest plate in the whole place. to make these waistcoats for a man of his size and dignity took at least a day, part of which he employed in hiring a servant to wait upon him and his native and in instructing the agent who cleared his baggage, his boxes, his books, which he never read, his chests of mangoes, chutney, and curry-powders, his shawls for presents to people whom he didn't know as yet, and the rest of his persicos apparatus. at length, he drove leisurely to london on the third day and in the new waistcoat, the native, with chattering teeth, shuddering in a shawl on the box by the side of the new european servant; jos puffing his pipe at intervals within and looking so majestic that the little boys cried hooray, and many people thought he must be a governor-general. he, i promise, did not decline the obsequious invitation of the landlords to alight and refresh himself in the neat country towns. having partaken of a copious breakfast, with fish, and rice, and hard eggs, at southampton, he had so far rallied at winchester as to think a glass of sherry necessary. at alton he stepped out of the carriage at his servant's request and imbibed some of the ale for which the place is famous. at farnham he stopped to view the bishop's castle and to partake of a light dinner of stewed eels, veal cutlets, and french beans, with a bottle of claret. he was cold over bagshot heath, where the native chattered more and more, and jos sahib took some brandy-and-water; in fact, when he drove into town he was as full of wine, beer, meat, pickles, cherry-brandy, and tobacco as the steward's cabin of a steam-packet. it was evening when his carriage thundered up to the little door in brompton, whither the affectionate fellow drove first, and before hieing to the apartments secured for him by mr. dobbin at the slaughters'. all the faces in the street were in the windows; the little maidservant flew to the wicket-gate; the mesdames clapp looked out from the casement of the ornamented kitchen; emmy, in a great flutter, was in the passage among the hats and coats; and old sedley in the parlour inside, shaking all over. jos descended from the post-chaise and down the creaking swaying steps in awful state, supported by the new valet from southampton and the shuddering native, whose brown face was now livid with cold and of the colour of a turkey's gizzard. he created an immense sensation in the passage presently, where mrs. and miss clapp, coming perhaps to listen at the parlour door, found loll jewab shaking upon the hall-bench under the coats, moaning in a strange piteous way, and showing his yellow eyeballs and white teeth. for, you see, we have adroitly shut the door upon the meeting between jos and the old father and the poor little gentle sister inside. the old man was very much affected; so, of course, was his daughter; nor was jos without feeling. in that long absence of ten years, the most selfish will think about home and early ties. distance sanctifies both. long brooding over those lost pleasures exaggerates their charm and sweetness. jos was unaffectedly glad to see and shake the hand of his father, between whom and himself there had been a coolness--glad to see his little sister, whom he remembered so pretty and smiling, and pained at the alteration which time, grief, and misfortune had made in the shattered old man. emmy had come out to the door in her black clothes and whispered to him of her mother's death, and not to speak of it to their father. there was no need of this caution, for the elder sedley himself began immediately to speak of the event, and prattled about it, and wept over it plenteously. it shocked the indian not a little and made him think of himself less than the poor fellow was accustomed to do. the result of the interview must have been very satisfactory, for when jos had reascended his post-chaise and had driven away to his hotel, emmy embraced her father tenderly, appealing to him with an air of triumph, and asking the old man whether she did not always say that her brother had a good heart? indeed, joseph sedley, affected by the humble position in which he found his relations, and in the expansiveness and overflowing of heart occasioned by the first meeting, declared that they should never suffer want or discomfort any more, that he was at home for some time at any rate, during which his house and everything he had should be theirs: and that amelia would look very pretty at the head of his table--until she would accept one of her own. she shook her head sadly and had, as usual, recourse to the waterworks. she knew what he meant. she and her young confidante, miss mary, had talked over the matter most fully, the very night of the major's visit, beyond which time the impetuous polly could not refrain from talking of the discovery which she had made, and describing the start and tremor of joy by which major dobbin betrayed himself when mr. binny passed with his bride and the major learned that he had no longer a rival to fear. "didn't you see how he shook all over when you asked if he was married and he said, 'who told you those lies?' oh, m'am," polly said, "he never kept his eyes off you, and i'm sure he's grown grey athinking of you." but amelia, looking up at her bed, over which hung the portraits of her husband and son, told her young protegee never, never, to speak on that subject again; that major dobbin had been her husband's dearest friend and her own and george's most kind and affectionate guardian; that she loved him as a brother--but that a woman who had been married to such an angel as that, and she pointed to the wall, could never think of any other union. poor polly sighed: she thought what she should do if young mr. tomkins, at the surgery, who always looked at her so at church, and who, by those mere aggressive glances had put her timorous little heart into such a flutter that she was ready to surrender at once,--what she should do if he were to die? she knew he was consumptive, his cheeks were so red and he was so uncommon thin in the waist. not that emmy, being made aware of the honest major's passion, rebuffed him in any way, or felt displeased with him. such an attachment from so true and loyal a gentleman could make no woman angry. desdemona was not angry with cassio, though there is very little doubt she saw the lieutenant's partiality for her (and i for my part believe that many more things took place in that sad affair than the worthy moorish officer ever knew of); why, miranda was even very kind to caliban, and we may be pretty sure for the same reason. not that she would encourage him in the least--the poor uncouth monster--of course not. no more would emmy by any means encourage her admirer, the major. she would give him that friendly regard, which so much excellence and fidelity merited; she would treat him with perfect cordiality and frankness until he made his proposals, and then it would be time enough for her to speak and to put an end to hopes which never could be realized. she slept, therefore, very soundly that evening, after the conversation with miss polly, and was more than ordinarily happy, in spite of jos's delaying. "i am glad he is not going to marry that miss o'dowd," she thought. "colonel o'dowd never could have a sister fit for such an accomplished man as major william." who was there amongst her little circle who would make him a good wife? not miss binny, she was too old and ill-tempered; miss osborne? too old too. little polly was too young. mrs. osborne could not find anybody to suit the major before she went to sleep. the same morning brought major dobbin a letter to the slaughters' coffee-house from his friend at southampton, begging dear dob to excuse jos for being in a rage when awakened the day before (he had a confounded headache, and was just in his first sleep), and entreating dob to engage comfortable rooms at the slaughters' for mr. sedley and his servants. the major had become necessary to jos during the voyage. he was attached to him, and hung upon him. the other passengers were away to london. young ricketts and little chaffers went away on the coach that day--ricketts on the box, and taking the reins from botley; the doctor was off to his family at portsea; bragg gone to town to his co-partners; and the first mate busy in the unloading of the ramchunder. mr. joe was very lonely at southampton, and got the landlord of the george to take a glass of wine with him that day, at the very hour at which major dobbin was seated at the table of his father, sir william, where his sister found out (for it was impossible for the major to tell fibs) that he had been to see mrs. george osborne. jos was so comfortably situated in st. martin's lane, he could enjoy his hookah there with such perfect ease, and could swagger down to the theatres, when minded, so agreeably, that, perhaps, he would have remained altogether at the slaughters' had not his friend, the major, been at his elbow. that gentleman would not let the bengalee rest until he had executed his promise of having a home for amelia and his father. jos was a soft fellow in anybody's hands, dobbin most active in anybody's concerns but his own; the civilian was, therefore, an easy victim to the guileless arts of this good-natured diplomatist and was ready to do, to purchase, hire, or relinquish whatever his friend thought fit. loll jewab, of whom the boys about st. martin's lane used to make cruel fun whenever he showed his dusky countenance in the street, was sent back to calcutta in the lady kicklebury east indiaman, in which sir william dobbin had a share, having previously taught jos's european the art of preparing curries, pilaus, and pipes. it was a matter of great delight and occupation to jos to superintend the building of a smart chariot which he and the major ordered in the neighbouring long acre: and a pair of handsome horses were jobbed, with which jos drove about in state in the park, or to call upon his indian friends. amelia was not seldom by his side on these excursions, when also major dobbin would be seen in the back seat of the carriage. at other times old sedley and his daughter took advantage of it, and miss clapp, who frequently accompanied her friend, had great pleasure in being recognized as she sat in the carriage, dressed in the famous yellow shawl, by the young gentleman at the surgery, whose face might commonly be seen over the window-blinds as she passed. shortly after jos's first appearance at brompton, a dismal scene, indeed, took place at that humble cottage at which the sedleys had passed the last ten years of their life. jos's carriage (the temporary one, not the chariot under construction) arrived one day and carried off old sedley and his daughter--to return no more. the tears that were shed by the landlady and the landlady's daughter at that event were as genuine tears of sorrow as any that have been outpoured in the course of this history. in their long acquaintanceship and intimacy they could not recall a harsh word that had been uttered by amelia. she had been all sweetness and kindness, always thankful, always gentle, even when mrs. clapp lost her own temper and pressed for the rent. when the kind creature was going away for good and all, the landlady reproached herself bitterly for ever having used a rough expression to her--how she wept, as they stuck up with wafers on the window, a paper notifying that the little rooms so long occupied were to let! they never would have such lodgers again, that was quite clear. after-life proved the truth of this melancholy prophecy, and mrs. clapp revenged herself for the deterioration of mankind by levying the most savage contributions upon the tea-caddies and legs of mutton of her locataires. most of them scolded and grumbled; some of them did not pay; none of them stayed. the landlady might well regret those old, old friends, who had left her. as for miss mary, her sorrow at amelia's departure was such as i shall not attempt to depict. from childhood upwards she had been with her daily and had attached herself so passionately to that dear good lady that when the grand barouche came to carry her off into splendour, she fainted in the arms of her friend, who was indeed scarcely less affected than the good-natured girl. amelia loved her like a daughter. during eleven years the girl had been her constant friend and associate. the separation was a very painful one indeed to her. but it was of course arranged that mary was to come and stay often at the grand new house whither mrs. osborne was going, and where mary was sure she would never be so happy as she had been in their humble cot, as miss clapp called it, in the language of the novels which she loved. let us hope she was wrong in her judgement. poor emmy's days of happiness had been very few in that humble cot. a gloomy fate had oppressed her there. she never liked to come back to the house after she had left it, or to face the landlady who had tyrannized over her when ill-humoured and unpaid, or when pleased had treated her with a coarse familiarity scarcely less odious. her servility and fulsome compliments when emmy was in prosperity were not more to that lady's liking. she cast about notes of admiration all over the new house, extolling every article of furniture or ornament; she fingered mrs. osborne's dresses and calculated their price. nothing could be too good for that sweet lady, she vowed and protested. but in the vulgar sycophant who now paid court to her, emmy always remembered the coarse tyrant who had made her miserable many a time, to whom she had been forced to put up petitions for time, when the rent was overdue; who cried out at her extravagance if she bought delicacies for her ailing mother or father; who had seen her humble and trampled upon her. nobody ever heard of these griefs, which had been part of our poor little woman's lot in life. she kept them secret from her father, whose improvidence was the cause of much of her misery. she had to bear all the blame of his misdoings, and indeed was so utterly gentle and humble as to be made by nature for a victim. i hope she is not to suffer much more of that hard usage. and, as in all griefs there is said to be some consolation, i may mention that poor mary, when left at her friend's departure in a hysterical condition, was placed under the medical treatment of the young fellow from the surgery, under whose care she rallied after a short period. emmy, when she went away from brompton, endowed mary with every article of furniture that the house contained, only taking away her pictures (the two pictures over the bed) and her piano--that little old piano which had now passed into a plaintive jingling old age, but which she loved for reasons of her own. she was a child when first she played on it, and her parents gave it her. it had been given to her again since, as the reader may remember, when her father's house was gone to ruin and the instrument was recovered out of the wreck. major dobbin was exceedingly pleased when, as he was superintending the arrangements of jos's new house--which the major insisted should be very handsome and comfortable--the cart arrived from brompton, bringing the trunks and bandboxes of the emigrants from that village, and with them the old piano. amelia would have it up in her sitting-room, a neat little apartment on the second floor, adjoining her father's chamber, and where the old gentleman sat commonly of evenings. when the men appeared then bearing this old music-box, and amelia gave orders that it should be placed in the chamber aforesaid, dobbin was quite elated. "i'm glad you've kept it," he said in a very sentimental manner. "i was afraid you didn't care about it." "i value it more than anything i have in the world," said amelia. "do you, amelia?" cried the major. the fact was, as he had bought it himself, though he never said anything about it, it never entered into his head to suppose that emmy should think anybody else was the purchaser, and as a matter of course he fancied that she knew the gift came from him. "do you, amelia?" he said; and the question, the great question of all, was trembling on his lips, when emmy replied-- "can i do otherwise?--did not he give it me?" "i did not know," said poor old dob, and his countenance fell. emmy did not note the circumstance at the time, nor take immediate heed of the very dismal expression which honest dobbin's countenance assumed, but she thought of it afterwards. and then it struck her, with inexpressible pain and mortification too, that it was william who was the giver of the piano, and not george, as she had fancied. it was not george's gift; the only one which she had received from her lover, as she thought--the thing she had cherished beyond all others--her dearest relic and prize. she had spoken to it about george; played his favourite airs upon it; sat for long evening hours, touching, to the best of her simple art, melancholy harmonies on the keys, and weeping over them in silence. it was not george's relic. it was valueless now. the next time that old sedley asked her to play, she said it was shockingly out of tune, that she had a headache, that she couldn't play. then, according to her custom, she rebuked herself for her pettishness and ingratitude and determined to make a reparation to honest william for the slight she had not expressed to him, but had felt for his piano. a few days afterwards, as they were seated in the drawing-room, where jos had fallen asleep with great comfort after dinner, amelia said with rather a faltering voice to major dobbin-- "i have to beg your pardon for something." "about what?" said he. "about--about that little square piano. i never thanked you for it when you gave it me, many, many years ago, before i was married. i thought somebody else had given it. thank you, william." she held out her hand, but the poor little woman's heart was bleeding; and as for her eyes, of course they were at their work. but william could hold no more. "amelia, amelia," he said, "i did buy it for you. i loved you then as i do now. i must tell you. i think i loved you from the first minute that i saw you, when george brought me to your house, to show me the amelia whom he was engaged to. you were but a girl, in white, with large ringlets; you came down singing--do you remember?--and we went to vauxhall. since then i have thought of but one woman in the world, and that was you. i think there is no hour in the day has passed for twelve years that i haven't thought of you. i came to tell you this before i went to india, but you did not care, and i hadn't the heart to speak. you did not care whether i stayed or went." "i was very ungrateful," amelia said. "no, only indifferent," dobbin continued desperately. "i have nothing to make a woman to be otherwise. i know what you are feeling now. you are hurt in your heart at the discovery about the piano, and that it came from me and not from george. i forgot, or i should never have spoken of it so. it is for me to ask your pardon for being a fool for a moment, and thinking that years of constancy and devotion might have pleaded with you." "it is you who are cruel now," amelia said with some spirit. "george is my husband, here and in heaven. how could i love any other but him? i am his now as when you first saw me, dear william. it was he who told me how good and generous you were, and who taught me to love you as a brother. have you not been everything to me and my boy? our dearest, truest, kindest friend and protector? had you come a few months sooner perhaps you might have spared me that--that dreadful parting. oh, it nearly killed me, william--but you didn't come, though i wished and prayed for you to come, and they took him too away from me. isn't he a noble boy, william? be his friend still and mine"--and here her voice broke, and she hid her face on his shoulder. the major folded his arms round her, holding her to him as if she was a child, and kissed her head. "i will not change, dear amelia," he said. "i ask for no more than your love. i think i would not have it otherwise. only let me stay near you and see you often." "yes, often," amelia said. and so william was at liberty to look and long--as the poor boy at school who has no money may sigh after the contents of the tart-woman's tray. chapter lx returns to the genteel world good fortune now begins to smile upon amelia. we are glad to get her out of that low sphere in which she has been creeping hitherto and introduce her into a polite circle--not so grand and refined as that in which our other female friend, mrs. becky, has appeared, but still having no small pretensions to gentility and fashion. jos's friends were all from the three presidencies, and his new house was in the comfortable anglo-indian district of which moira place is the centre. minto square, great clive street, warren street, hastings street, ochterlony place, plassy square, assaye terrace ("gardens" was a felicitous word not applied to stucco houses with asphalt terraces in front, so early as )--who does not know these respectable abodes of the retired indian aristocracy, and the quarter which mr. wenham calls the black hole, in a word? jos's position in life was not grand enough to entitle him to a house in moira place, where none can live but retired members of council, and partners of indian firms (who break, after having settled a hundred thousand pounds on their wives, and retire into comparative penury to a country place and four thousand a year); he engaged a comfortable house of a second- or third-rate order in gillespie street, purchasing the carpets, costly mirrors, and handsome and appropriate planned furniture by seddons from the assignees of mr. scape, lately admitted partner into the great calcutta house of fogle, fake, and cracksman, in which poor scape had embarked seventy thousand pounds, the earnings of a long and honourable life, taking fake's place, who retired to a princely park in sussex (the fogles have been long out of the firm, and sir horace fogle is about to be raised to the peerage as baron bandanna)--admitted, i say, partner into the great agency house of fogle and fake two years before it failed for a million and plunged half the indian public into misery and ruin. scape, ruined, honest, and broken-hearted at sixty-five years of age, went out to calcutta to wind up the affairs of the house. walter scape was withdrawn from eton and put into a merchant's house. florence scape, fanny scape, and their mother faded away to boulogne, and will be heard of no more. to be brief, jos stepped in and bought their carpets and sideboards and admired himself in the mirrors which had reflected their kind handsome faces. the scape tradesmen, all honourably paid, left their cards, and were eager to supply the new household. the large men in white waistcoats who waited at scape's dinners, greengrocers, bank-porters, and milkmen in their private capacity, left their addresses and ingratiated themselves with the butler. mr. chummy, the chimney-purifier, who had swept the last three families, tried to coax the butler and the boy under him, whose duty it was to go out covered with buttons and with stripes down his trousers, for the protection of mrs. amelia whenever she chose to walk abroad. it was a modest establishment. the butler was jos's valet also, and never was more drunk than a butler in a small family should be who has a proper regard for his master's wine. emmy was supplied with a maid, grown on sir william dobbin's suburban estate; a good girl, whose kindness and humility disarmed mrs. osborne, who was at first terrified at the idea of having a servant to wait upon herself, who did not in the least know how to use one, and who always spoke to domestics with the most reverential politeness. but this maid was very useful in the family, in dexterously tending old mr. sedley, who kept almost entirely to his own quarter of the house and never mixed in any of the gay doings which took place there. numbers of people came to see mrs. osborne. lady dobbin and daughters were delighted at her change of fortune, and waited upon her. miss osborne from russell square came in her grand chariot with the flaming hammer-cloth emblazoned with the leeds arms. jos was reported to be immensely rich. old osborne had no objection that georgy should inherit his uncle's property as well as his own. "damn it, we will make a man of the feller," he said; "and i'll see him in parliament before i die. you may go and see his mother, miss o., though i'll never set eyes on her": and miss osborne came. emmy, you may be sure, was very glad to see her, and so be brought nearer to george. that young fellow was allowed to come much more frequently than before to visit his mother. he dined once or twice a week in gillespie street and bullied the servants and his relations there, just as he did in russell square. he was always respectful to major dobbin, however, and more modest in his demeanour when that gentleman was present. he was a clever lad and afraid of the major. george could not help admiring his friend's simplicity, his good humour, his various learning quietly imparted, his general love of truth and justice. he had met no such man as yet in the course of his experience, and he had an instinctive liking for a gentleman. he hung fondly by his godfather's side, and it was his delight to walk in the parks and hear dobbin talk. william told george about his father, about india and waterloo, about everything but himself. when george was more than usually pert and conceited, the major made jokes at him, which mrs. osborne thought very cruel. one day, taking him to the play, and the boy declining to go into the pit because it was vulgar, the major took him to the boxes, left him there, and went down himself to the pit. he had not been seated there very long before he felt an arm thrust under his and a dandy little hand in a kid glove squeezing his arm. george had seen the absurdity of his ways and come down from the upper region. a tender laugh of benevolence lighted up old dobbin's face and eyes as he looked at the repentant little prodigal. he loved the boy, as he did everything that belonged to amelia. how charmed she was when she heard of this instance of george's goodness! her eyes looked more kindly on dobbin than they ever had done. she blushed, he thought, after looking at him so. georgy never tired of his praises of the major to his mother. "i like him, mamma, because he knows such lots of things; and he ain't like old veal, who is always bragging and using such long words, don't you know? the chaps call him 'longtail' at school. i gave him the name; ain't it capital? but dob reads latin like english, and french and that; and when we go out together he tells me stories about my papa, and never about himself; though i heard colonel buckler, at grandpapa's, say that he was one of the bravest officers in the army, and had distinguished himself ever so much. grandpapa was quite surprised, and said, 'that feller! why, i didn't think he could say bo to a goose'--but i know he could, couldn't he, mamma?" emmy laughed: she thought it was very likely the major could do thus much. if there was a sincere liking between george and the major, it must be confessed that between the boy and his uncle no great love existed. george had got a way of blowing out his cheeks, and putting his hands in his waistcoat pockets, and saying, "god bless my soul, you don't say so," so exactly after the fashion of old jos that it was impossible to refrain from laughter. the servants would explode at dinner if the lad, asking for something which wasn't at table, put on that countenance and used that favourite phrase. even dobbin would shoot out a sudden peal at the boy's mimicry. if george did not mimic his uncle to his face, it was only by dobbin's rebukes and amelia's terrified entreaties that the little scapegrace was induced to desist. and the worthy civilian being haunted by a dim consciousness that the lad thought him an ass, and was inclined to turn him into ridicule, used to be extremely timorous and, of course, doubly pompous and dignified in the presence of master georgy. when it was announced that the young gentleman was expected in gillespie street to dine with his mother, mr. jos commonly found that he had an engagement at the club. perhaps nobody was much grieved at his absence. on those days mr. sedley would commonly be induced to come out from his place of refuge in the upper stories, and there would be a small family party, whereof major dobbin pretty generally formed one. he was the ami de la maison--old sedley's friend, emmy's friend, georgy's friend, jos's counsel and adviser. "he might almost as well be at madras for anything we see of him," miss ann dobbin remarked at camberwell. ah! miss ann, did it not strike you that it was not you whom the major wanted to marry? joseph sedley then led a life of dignified otiosity such as became a person of his eminence. his very first point, of course, was to become a member of the oriental club, where he spent his mornings in the company of his brother indians, where he dined, or whence he brought home men to dine. amelia had to receive and entertain these gentlemen and their ladies. from these she heard how soon smith would be in council; how many lacs jones had brought home with him, how thomson's house in london had refused the bills drawn by thomson, kibobjee, and co., the bombay house, and how it was thought the calcutta house must go too; how very imprudent, to say the least of it, mrs. brown's conduct (wife of brown of the ahmednuggur irregulars) had been with young swankey of the body guard, sitting up with him on deck until all hours, and losing themselves as they were riding out at the cape; how mrs. hardyman had had out her thirteen sisters, daughters of a country curate, the rev: felix rabbits, and married eleven of them, seven high up in the service; how hornby was wild because his wife would stay in europe, and trotter was appointed collector at ummerapoora. this and similar talk took place at the grand dinners all round. they had the same conversation; the same silver dishes; the same saddles of mutton, boiled turkeys, and entrees. politics set in a short time after dessert, when the ladies retired upstairs and talked about their complaints and their children. mutato nomine, it is all the same. don't the barristers' wives talk about circuit? don't the soldiers' ladies gossip about the regiment? don't the clergymen's ladies discourse about sunday-schools and who takes whose duty? don't the very greatest ladies of all talk about that small clique of persons to whom they belong? and why should our indian friends not have their own conversation?--only i admit it is slow for the laymen whose fate it sometimes is to sit by and listen. before long emmy had a visiting-book, and was driving about regularly in a carriage, calling upon lady bludyer (wife of major-general sir roger bludyer, k.c.b., bengal army); lady huff, wife of sir g. huff, bombay ditto; mrs. pice, the lady of pice the director, &c. we are not long in using ourselves to changes in life. that carriage came round to gillespie street every day; that buttony boy sprang up and down from the box with emmy's and jos's visiting-cards; at stated hours emmy and the carriage went for jos to the club and took him an airing; or, putting old sedley into the vehicle, she drove the old man round the regent's park. the lady's maid and the chariot, the visiting-book and the buttony page, became soon as familiar to amelia as the humble routine of brompton. she accommodated herself to one as to the other. if fate had ordained that she should be a duchess, she would even have done that duty too. she was voted, in jos's female society, rather a pleasing young person--not much in her, but pleasing, and that sort of thing. the men, as usual, liked her artless kindness and simple refined demeanour. the gallant young indian dandies at home on furlough--immense dandies these--chained and moustached--driving in tearing cabs, the pillars of the theatres, living at west end hotels--nevertheless admired mrs. osborne, liked to bow to her carriage in the park, and to be admitted to have the honour of paying her a morning visit. swankey of the body guard himself, that dangerous youth, and the greatest buck of all the indian army now on leave, was one day discovered by major dobbin tete-a-tete with amelia, and describing the sport of pig-sticking to her with great humour and eloquence; and he spoke afterwards of a d--d king's officer that's always hanging about the house--a long, thin, queer-looking, oldish fellow--a dry fellow though, that took the shine out of a man in the talking line. had the major possessed a little more personal vanity he would have been jealous of so dangerous a young buck as that fascinating bengal captain. but dobbin was of too simple and generous a nature to have any doubts about amelia. he was glad that the young men should pay her respect, and that others should admire her. ever since her womanhood almost, had she not been persecuted and undervalued? it pleased him to see how kindness bought out her good qualities and how her spirits gently rose with her prosperity. any person who appreciated her paid a compliment to the major's good judgement--that is, if a man may be said to have good judgement who is under the influence of love's delusion. after jos went to court, which we may be sure he did as a loyal subject of his sovereign (showing himself in his full court suit at the club, whither dobbin came to fetch him in a very shabby old uniform) he who had always been a staunch loyalist and admirer of george iv, became such a tremendous tory and pillar of the state that he was for having amelia to go to a drawing-room, too. he somehow had worked himself up to believe that he was implicated in the maintenance of the public welfare and that the sovereign would not be happy unless jos sedley and his family appeared to rally round him at st. james's. emmy laughed. "shall i wear the family diamonds, jos?" she said. "i wish you would let me buy you some," thought the major. "i should like to see any that were too good for you." chapter lxi in which two lights are put out there came a day when the round of decorous pleasures and solemn gaieties in which mr. jos sedley's family indulged was interrupted by an event which happens in most houses. as you ascend the staircase of your house from the drawing towards the bedroom floors, you may have remarked a little arch in the wall right before you, which at once gives light to the stair which leads from the second story to the third (where the nursery and servants' chambers commonly are) and serves for another purpose of utility, of which the undertaker's men can give you a notion. they rest the coffins upon that arch, or pass them through it so as not to disturb in any unseemly manner the cold tenant slumbering within the black ark. that second-floor arch in a london house, looking up and down the well of the staircase and commanding the main thoroughfare by which the inhabitants are passing; by which cook lurks down before daylight to scour her pots and pans in the kitchen; by which young master stealthily ascends, having left his boots in the hall, and let himself in after dawn from a jolly night at the club; down which miss comes rustling in fresh ribbons and spreading muslins, brilliant and beautiful, and prepared for conquest and the ball; or master tommy slides, preferring the banisters for a mode of conveyance, and disdaining danger and the stair; down which the mother is fondly carried smiling in her strong husband's arms, as he steps steadily step by step, and followed by the monthly nurse, on the day when the medical man has pronounced that the charming patient may go downstairs; up which john lurks to bed, yawning, with a sputtering tallow candle, and to gather up before sunrise the boots which are awaiting him in the passages--that stair, up or down which babies are carried, old people are helped, guests are marshalled to the ball, the parson walks to the christening, the doctor to the sick-room, and the undertaker's men to the upper floor--what a memento of life, death, and vanity it is--that arch and stair--if you choose to consider it, and sit on the landing, looking up and down the well! the doctor will come up to us too for the last time there, my friend in motley. the nurse will look in at the curtains, and you take no notice--and then she will fling open the windows for a little and let in the air. then they will pull down all the front blinds of the house and live in the back rooms--then they will send for the lawyer and other men in black, &c. your comedy and mine will have been played then, and we shall be removed, oh, how far, from the trumpets, and the shouting, and the posture-making. if we are gentlefolks they will put hatchments over our late domicile, with gilt cherubim, and mottoes stating that there is "quiet in heaven." your son will new furnish the house, or perhaps let it, and go into a more modern quarter; your name will be among the "members deceased" in the lists of your clubs next year. however much you may be mourned, your widow will like to have her weeds neatly made--the cook will send or come up to ask about dinner--the survivor will soon bear to look at your picture over the mantelpiece, which will presently be deposed from the place of honour, to make way for the portrait of the son who reigns. which of the dead are most tenderly and passionately deplored? those who love the survivors the least, i believe. the death of a child occasions a passion of grief and frantic tears, such as your end, brother reader, will never inspire. the death of an infant which scarce knew you, which a week's absence from you would have caused to forget you, will strike you down more than the loss of your closest friend, or your first-born son--a man grown like yourself, with children of his own. we may be harsh and stern with judah and simeon--our love and pity gush out for benjamin, the little one. and if you are old, as some reader of this may be or shall be old and rich, or old and poor--you may one day be thinking for yourself--"these people are very good round about me, but they won't grieve too much when i am gone. i am very rich, and they want my inheritance--or very poor, and they are tired of supporting me." the period of mourning for mrs. sedley's death was only just concluded, and jos scarcely had had time to cast off his black and appear in the splendid waistcoats which he loved, when it became evident to those about mr. sedley that another event was at hand, and that the old man was about to go seek for his wife in the dark land whither she had preceded him. "the state of my father's health," jos sedley solemnly remarked at the club, "prevents me from giving any large parties this season: but if you will come in quietly at half-past six, chutney, my boy, and fake a homely dinner with one or two of the old set--i shall be always glad to see you." so jos and his acquaintances dined and drank their claret among themselves in silence, whilst the sands of life were running out in the old man's glass upstairs. the velvet-footed butler brought them their wine, and they composed themselves to a rubber after dinner, at which major dobbin would sometimes come and take a hand; and mrs. osborne would occasionally descend, when her patient above was settled for the night, and had commenced one of those lightly troubled slumbers which visit the pillow of old age. the old man clung to his daughter during this sickness. he would take his broths and medicines from scarcely any other hand. to tend him became almost the sole business of her life. her bed was placed close by the door which opened into his chamber, and she was alive at the slightest noise or disturbance from the couch of the querulous invalid. though, to do him justice, he lay awake many an hour, silent and without stirring, unwilling to awaken his kind and vigilant nurse. he loved his daughter with more fondness now, perhaps, than ever he had done since the days of her childhood. in the discharge of gentle offices and kind filial duties, this simple creature shone most especially. "she walks into the room as silently as a sunbeam," mr. dobbin thought as he saw her passing in and out from her father's room, a cheerful sweetness lighting up her face as she moved to and fro, graceful and noiseless. when women are brooding over their children, or busied in a sick-room, who has not seen in their faces those sweet angelic beams of love and pity? a secret feud of some years' standing was thus healed, and with a tacit reconciliation. in these last hours, and touched by her love and goodness, the old man forgot all his grief against her, and wrongs which he and his wife had many a long night debated: how she had given up everything for her boy; how she was careless of her parents in their old age and misfortune, and only thought of the child; how absurdly and foolishly, impiously indeed, she took on when george was removed from her. old sedley forgot these charges as he was making up his last account, and did justice to the gentle and uncomplaining little martyr. one night when she stole into his room, she found him awake, when the broken old man made his confession. "oh, emmy, i've been thinking we were very unkind and unjust to you," he said and put out his cold and feeble hand to her. she knelt down and prayed by his bedside, as he did too, having still hold of her hand. when our turn comes, friend, may we have such company in our prayers! perhaps as he was lying awake then, his life may have passed before him--his early hopeful struggles, his manly successes and prosperity, his downfall in his declining years, and his present helpless condition--no chance of revenge against fortune, which had had the better of him--neither name nor money to bequeath--a spent-out, bootless life of defeat and disappointment, and the end here! which, i wonder, brother reader, is the better lot, to die prosperous and famous, or poor and disappointed? to have, and to be forced to yield; or to sink out of life, having played and lost the game? that must be a strange feeling, when a day of our life comes and we say, "to-morrow, success or failure won't matter much, and the sun will rise, and all the myriads of mankind go to their work or their pleasure as usual, but i shall be out of the turmoil." so there came one morning and sunrise when all the world got up and set about its various works and pleasures, with the exception of old john sedley, who was not to fight with fortune, or to hope or scheme any more, but to go and take up a quiet and utterly unknown residence in a churchyard at brompton by the side of his old wife. major dobbin, jos, and georgy followed his remains to the grave, in a black cloth coach. jos came on purpose from the star and garter at richmond, whither he retreated after the deplorable event. he did not care to remain in the house, with the--under the circumstances, you understand. but emmy stayed and did her duty as usual. she was bowed down by no especial grief, and rather solemn than sorrowful. she prayed that her own end might be as calm and painless, and thought with trust and reverence of the words which she had heard from her father during his illness, indicative of his faith, his resignation, and his future hope. yes, i think that will be the better ending of the two, after all. suppose you are particularly rich and well-to-do and say on that last day, "i am very rich; i am tolerably well known; i have lived all my life in the best society, and thank heaven, come of a most respectable family. i have served my king and country with honour. i was in parliament for several years, where, i may say, my speeches were listened to and pretty well received. i don't owe any man a shilling: on the contrary, i lent my old college friend, jack lazarus, fifty pounds, for which my executors will not press him. i leave my daughters with ten thousand pounds apiece--very good portions for girls; i bequeath my plate and furniture, my house in baker street, with a handsome jointure, to my widow for her life; and my landed property, besides money in the funds, and my cellar of well-selected wine in baker street, to my son. i leave twenty pound a year to my valet; and i defy any man after i have gone to find anything against my character." or suppose, on the other hand, your swan sings quite a different sort of dirge and you say, "i am a poor blighted, disappointed old fellow, and have made an utter failure through life. i was not endowed either with brains or with good fortune, and confess that i have committed a hundred mistakes and blunders. i own to having forgotten my duty many a time. i can't pay what i owe. on my last bed i lie utterly helpless and humble, and i pray forgiveness for my weakness and throw myself, with a contrite heart, at the feet of the divine mercy." which of these two speeches, think you, would be the best oration for your own funeral? old sedley made the last; and in that humble frame of mind, and holding by the hand of his daughter, life and disappointment and vanity sank away from under him. "you see," said old osborne to george, "what comes of merit, and industry, and judicious speculations, and that. look at me and my banker's account. look at your poor grandfather sedley and his failure. and yet he was a better man than i was, this day twenty years--a better man, i should say, by ten thousand pound." beyond these people and mr. clapp's family, who came over from brompton to pay a visit of condolence, not a single soul alive ever cared a penny piece about old john sedley, or remembered the existence of such a person. when old osborne first heard from his friend colonel buckler (as little georgy had already informed us) how distinguished an officer major dobbin was, he exhibited a great deal of scornful incredulity and expressed his surprise how ever such a feller as that should possess either brains or reputation. but he heard of the major's fame from various members of his society. sir william dobbin had a great opinion of his son and narrated many stories illustrative of the major's learning, valour, and estimation in the world's opinion. finally, his name appeared in the lists of one or two great parties of the nobility, and this circumstance had a prodigious effect upon the old aristocrat of russell square. the major's position, as guardian to georgy, whose possession had been ceded to his grandfather, rendered some meetings between the two gentlemen inevitable; and it was in one of these that old osborne, a keen man of business, looking into the major's accounts with his ward and the boy's mother, got a hint, which staggered him very much, and at once pained and pleased him, that it was out of william dobbin's own pocket that a part of the fund had been supplied upon which the poor widow and the child had subsisted. when pressed upon the point, dobbin, who could not tell lies, blushed and stammered a good deal and finally confessed. "the marriage," he said (at which his interlocutor's face grew dark) "was very much my doing. i thought my poor friend had gone so far that retreat from his engagement would have been dishonour to him and death to mrs. osborne, and i could do no less, when she was left without resources, than give what money i could spare to maintain her." "major d.," mr. osborne said, looking hard at him and turning very red too--"you did me a great injury; but give me leave to tell you, sir, you are an honest feller. there's my hand, sir, though i little thought that my flesh and blood was living on you--" and the pair shook hands, with great confusion on major dobbin's part, thus found out in his act of charitable hypocrisy. he strove to soften the old man and reconcile him towards his son's memory. "he was such a noble fellow," he said, "that all of us loved him, and would have done anything for him. i, as a young man in those days, was flattered beyond measure by his preference for me, and was more pleased to be seen in his company than in that of the commander-in-chief. i never saw his equal for pluck and daring and all the qualities of a soldier"; and dobbin told the old father as many stories as he could remember regarding the gallantry and achievements of his son. "and georgy is so like him," the major added. "he's so like him that he makes me tremble sometimes," the grandfather said. on one or two evenings the major came to dine with mr. osborne (it was during the time of the sickness of mr. sedley), and as the two sat together in the evening after dinner, all their talk was about the departed hero. the father boasted about him according to his wont, glorifying himself in recounting his son's feats and gallantry, but his mood was at any rate better and more charitable than that in which he had been disposed until now to regard the poor fellow; and the christian heart of the kind major was pleased at these symptoms of returning peace and good-will. on the second evening old osborne called dobbin william, just as he used to do at the time when dobbin and george were boys together, and the honest gentleman was pleased by that mark of reconciliation. on the next day at breakfast, when miss osborne, with the asperity of her age and character, ventured to make some remark reflecting slightingly upon the major's appearance or behaviour--the master of the house interrupted her. "you'd have been glad enough to git him for yourself, miss o. but them grapes are sour. ha! ha! major william is a fine feller." "that he is, grandpapa," said georgy approvingly; and going up close to the old gentleman, he took a hold of his large grey whiskers, and laughed in his face good-humouredly, and kissed him. and he told the story at night to his mother, who fully agreed with the boy. "indeed he is," she said. "your dear father always said so. he is one of the best and most upright of men." dobbin happened to drop in very soon after this conversation, which made amelia blush perhaps, and the young scapegrace increased the confusion by telling dobbin the other part of the story. "i say, dob," he said, "there's such an uncommon nice girl wants to marry you. she's plenty of tin; she wears a front; and she scolds the servants from morning till night." "who is it?" asked dobbin. "it's aunt o.," the boy answered. "grandpapa said so. and i say, dob, how prime it would be to have you for my uncle." old sedley's quavering voice from the next room at this moment weakly called for amelia, and the laughing ended. that old osborne's mind was changing was pretty clear. he asked george about his uncle sometimes, and laughed at the boy's imitation of the way in which jos said "god-bless-my-soul" and gobbled his soup. then he said, "it's not respectful, sir, of you younkers to be imitating of your relations. miss o., when you go out adriving to-day, leave my card upon mr. sedley, do you hear? there's no quarrel betwigst me and him anyhow." the card was returned, and jos and the major were asked to dinner--to a dinner the most splendid and stupid that perhaps ever mr. osborne gave; every inch of the family plate was exhibited, and the best company was asked. mr. sedley took down miss o. to dinner, and she was very gracious to him; whereas she hardly spoke to the major, who sat apart from her, and by the side of mr. osborne, very timid. jos said, with great solemnity, it was the best turtle soup he had ever tasted in his life, and asked mr. osborne where he got his madeira. "it is some of sedley's wine," whispered the butler to his master. "i've had it a long time, and paid a good figure for it, too," mr. osborne said aloud to his guest, and then whispered to his right-hand neighbour how he had got it "at the old chap's sale." more than once he asked the major about--about mrs. george osborne--a theme on which the major could be very eloquent when he chose. he told mr. osborne of her sufferings--of her passionate attachment to her husband, whose memory she worshipped still--of the tender and dutiful manner in which she had supported her parents, and given up her boy, when it seemed to her her duty to do so. "you don't know what she endured, sir," said honest dobbin with a tremor in his voice, "and i hope and trust you will be reconciled to her. if she took your son away from you, she gave hers to you; and however much you loved your george, depend on it, she loved hers ten times more." "by god, you are a good feller, sir," was all mr. osborne said. it had never struck him that the widow would feel any pain at parting from the boy, or that his having a fine fortune could grieve her. a reconciliation was announced as speedy and inevitable, and amelia's heart already began to beat at the notion of the awful meeting with george's father. it was never, however, destined to take place. old sedley's lingering illness and death supervened, after which a meeting was for some time impossible. that catastrophe and other events may have worked upon mr. osborne. he was much shaken of late, and aged, and his mind was working inwardly. he had sent for his lawyers, and probably changed something in his will. the medical man who looked in pronounced him shaky, agitated, and talked of a little blood and the seaside; but he took neither of these remedies. one day when he should have come down to breakfast, his servant missing him, went into his dressing-room and found him lying at the foot of the dressing-table in a fit. miss osborne was apprised; the doctors were sent for; georgy stopped away from school; the bleeders and cuppers came. osborne partially regained cognizance, but never could speak again, though he tried dreadfully once or twice, and in four days he died. the doctors went down, and the undertaker's men went up the stairs, and all the shutters were shut towards the garden in russell square. bullock rushed from the city in a hurry. "how much money had he left to that boy? not half, surely? surely share and share alike between the three?" it was an agitating moment. what was it that poor old man tried once or twice in vain to say? i hope it was that he wanted to see amelia and be reconciled before he left the world to one dear and faithful wife of his son: it was most likely that, for his will showed that the hatred which he had so long cherished had gone out of his heart. they found in the pocket of his dressing-gown the letter with the great red seal which george had written him from waterloo. he had looked at the other papers too, relative to his son, for the key of the box in which he kept them was also in his pocket, and it was found the seals and envelopes had been broken--very likely on the night before the seizure--when the butler had taken him tea into his study, and found him reading in the great red family bible. when the will was opened, it was found that half the property was left to george, and the remainder between the two sisters. mr. bullock to continue, for their joint benefit, the affairs of the commercial house, or to go out, as he thought fit. an annuity of five hundred pounds, chargeable on george's property, was left to his mother, "the widow of my beloved son, george osborne," who was to resume the guardianship of the boy. "major william dobbin, my beloved son's friend," was appointed executor; "and as out of his kindness and bounty, and with his own private funds, he maintained my grandson and my son's widow, when they were otherwise without means of support" (the testator went on to say) "i hereby thank him heartily for his love and regard for them, and beseech him to accept such a sum as may be sufficient to purchase his commission as a lieutenant-colonel, or to be disposed of in any way he may think fit." when amelia heard that her father-in-law was reconciled to her, her heart melted, and she was grateful for the fortune left to her. but when she heard how georgy was restored to her, and knew how and by whom, and how it was william's bounty that supported her in poverty, how it was william who gave her her husband and her son--oh, then she sank on her knees, and prayed for blessings on that constant and kind heart; she bowed down and humbled herself, and kissed the feet, as it were, of that beautiful and generous affection. and gratitude was all that she had to pay back for such admirable devotion and benefits--only gratitude! if she thought of any other return, the image of george stood up out of the grave and said, "you are mine, and mine only, now and forever." william knew her feelings: had he not passed his whole life in divining them? when the nature of mr. osborne's will became known to the world, it was edifying to remark how mrs. george osborne rose in the estimation of the people forming her circle of acquaintance. the servants of jos's establishment, who used to question her humble orders and say they would "ask master" whether or not they could obey, never thought now of that sort of appeal. the cook forgot to sneer at her shabby old gowns (which, indeed, were quite eclipsed by that lady's finery when she was dressed to go to church of a sunday evening), the others no longer grumbled at the sound of her bell, or delayed to answer that summons. the coachman, who grumbled that his 'osses should be brought out and his carriage made into an hospital for that old feller and mrs. o., drove her with the utmost alacrity now, and trembling lest he should be superseded by mr. osborne's coachman, asked "what them there russell square coachmen knew about town, and whether they was fit to sit on a box before a lady?" jos's friends, male and female, suddenly became interested about emmy, and cards of condolence multiplied on her hall table. jos himself, who had looked on her as a good-natured harmless pauper, to whom it was his duty to give victuals and shelter, paid her and the rich little boy, his nephew, the greatest respect--was anxious that she should have change and amusement after her troubles and trials, "poor dear girl"--and began to appear at the breakfast-table, and most particularly to ask how she would like to dispose of the day. in her capacity of guardian to georgy, she, with the consent of the major, her fellow-trustee, begged miss osborne to live in the russell square house as long as ever she chose to dwell there; but that lady, with thanks, declared that she never could think of remaining alone in that melancholy mansion, and departed in deep mourning to cheltenham, with a couple of her old domestics. the rest were liberally paid and dismissed, the faithful old butler, whom mrs. osborne proposed to retain, resigning and preferring to invest his savings in a public-house, where, let us hope, he was not unprosperous. miss osborne not choosing to live in russell square, mrs. osborne also, after consultation, declined to occupy the gloomy old mansion there. the house was dismantled; the rich furniture and effects, the awful chandeliers and dreary blank mirrors packed away and hidden, the rich rosewood drawing-room suite was muffled in straw, the carpets were rolled up and corded, the small select library of well-bound books was stowed into two wine-chests, and the whole paraphernalia rolled away in several enormous vans to the pantechnicon, where they were to lie until georgy's majority. and the great heavy dark plate-chests went off to messrs. stumpy and rowdy, to lie in the cellars of those eminent bankers until the same period should arrive. one day emmy, with george in her hand and clad in deep sables, went to visit the deserted mansion which she had not entered since she was a girl. the place in front was littered with straw where the vans had been laden and rolled off. they went into the great blank rooms, the walls of which bore the marks where the pictures and mirrors had hung. then they went up the great blank stone staircases into the upper rooms, into that where grandpapa died, as george said in a whisper, and then higher still into george's own room. the boy was still clinging by her side, but she thought of another besides him. she knew that it had been his father's room as well as his own. she went up to one of the open windows (one of those at which she used to gaze with a sick heart when the child was first taken from her), and thence as she looked out she could see, over the trees of russell square, the old house in which she herself was born, and where she had passed so many happy days of sacred youth. they all came back to her, the pleasant holidays, the kind faces, the careless, joyful past times, and the long pains and trials that had since cast her down. she thought of these and of the man who had been her constant protector, her good genius, her sole benefactor, her tender and generous friend. "look here, mother," said georgy, "here's a g.o. scratched on the glass with a diamond, i never saw it before, i never did it." "it was your father's room long before you were born, george," she said, and she blushed as she kissed the boy. she was very silent as they drove back to richmond, where they had taken a temporary house: where the smiling lawyers used to come bustling over to see her (and we may be sure noted the visit in the bill): and where of course there was a room for major dobbin too, who rode over frequently, having much business to transact on behalf of his little ward. georgy at this time was removed from mr. veal's on an unlimited holiday, and that gentleman was engaged to prepare an inscription for a fine marble slab, to be placed up in the foundling under the monument of captain george osborne. the female bullock, aunt of georgy, although despoiled by that little monster of one-half of the sum which she expected from her father, nevertheless showed her charitableness of spirit by being reconciled to the mother and the boy. roehampton is not far from richmond, and one day the chariot, with the golden bullocks emblazoned on the panels, and the flaccid children within, drove to amelia's house at richmond; and the bullock family made an irruption into the garden, where amelia was reading a book, jos was in an arbour placidly dipping strawberries into wine, and the major in one of his indian jackets was giving a back to georgy, who chose to jump over him. he went over his head and bounded into the little advance of bullocks, with immense black bows in their hats, and huge black sashes, accompanying their mourning mamma. "he is just of the age for rosa," the fond parent thought, and glanced towards that dear child, an unwholesome little miss of seven years of age. "rosa, go and kiss your dear cousin," mrs. frederick said. "don't you know me, george? i am your aunt." "i know you well enough," george said; "but i don't like kissing, please"; and he retreated from the obedient caresses of his cousin. "take me to your dear mamma, you droll child," mrs. frederick said, and those ladies accordingly met, after an absence of more than fifteen years. during emmy's cares and poverty the other had never once thought about coming to see her, but now that she was decently prosperous in the world, her sister-in-law came to her as a matter of course. so did numbers more. our old friend, miss swartz, and her husband came thundering over from hampton court, with flaming yellow liveries, and was as impetuously fond of amelia as ever. miss swartz would have liked her always if she could have seen her. one must do her that justice. but, que voulez vous?--in this vast town one has not the time to go and seek one's friends; if they drop out of the rank they disappear, and we march on without them. who is ever missed in vanity fair? but so, in a word, and before the period of grief for mr. osborne's death had subsided, emmy found herself in the centre of a very genteel circle indeed, the members of which could not conceive that anybody belonging to it was not very lucky. there was scarce one of the ladies that hadn't a relation a peer, though the husband might be a drysalter in the city. some of the ladies were very blue and well informed, reading mrs. somerville and frequenting the royal institution; others were severe and evangelical, and held by exeter hall. emmy, it must be owned, found herself entirely at a loss in the midst of their clavers, and suffered woefully on the one or two occasions on which she was compelled to accept mrs. frederick bullock's hospitalities. that lady persisted in patronizing her and determined most graciously to form her. she found amelia's milliners for her and regulated her household and her manners. she drove over constantly from roehampton and entertained her friend with faint fashionable fiddle-faddle and feeble court slip-slop. jos liked to hear it, but the major used to go off growling at the appearance of this woman, with her twopenny gentility. he went to sleep under frederick bullock's bald head, after dinner, at one of the banker's best parties (fred was still anxious that the balance of the osborne property should be transferred from stumpy and rowdy's to them), and whilst amelia, who did not know latin, or who wrote the last crack article in the edinburgh, and did not in the least deplore, or otherwise, mr. peel's late extraordinary tergiversation on the fatal catholic relief bill, sat dumb amongst the ladies in the grand drawing-room, looking out upon velvet lawns, trim gravel walks, and glistening hot-houses. "she seems good-natured but insipid," said mrs. rowdy; "that major seems to be particularly epris." "she wants ton sadly," said mrs. hollyock. "my dear creature, you never will be able to form her." "she is dreadfully ignorant or indifferent," said mrs. glowry with a voice as if from the grave, and a sad shake of the head and turban. "i asked her if she thought that it was in , according to mr. jowls, or in , according to mr. wapshot, that the pope was to fall: and she said--'poor pope! i hope not--what has he done?'" "she is my brother's widow, my dear friends," mrs. frederick replied, "and as such i think we're all bound to give her every attention and instruction on entering into the world. you may fancy there can be no mercenary motives in those whose disappointments are well known." "that poor dear mrs. bullock," said rowdy to hollyock, as they drove away together--"she is always scheming and managing. she wants mrs. osborne's account to be taken from our house to hers--and the way in which she coaxes that boy and makes him sit by that blear-eyed little rosa is perfectly ridiculous." "i wish glowry was choked with her man of sin and her battle of armageddon," cried the other, and the carriage rolled away over putney bridge. but this sort of society was too cruelly genteel for emmy, and all jumped for joy when a foreign tour was proposed. chapter lxii am rhein the above everyday events had occurred, and a few weeks had passed, when on one fine morning, parliament being over, the summer advanced, and all the good company in london about to quit that city for their annual tour in search of pleasure or health, the batavier steamboat left the tower-stairs laden with a goodly company of english fugitives. the quarter-deck awnings were up, and the benches and gangways crowded with scores of rosy children, bustling nursemaids; ladies in the prettiest pink bonnets and summer dresses; gentlemen in travelling caps and linen-jackets, whose mustachios had just begun to sprout for the ensuing tour; and stout trim old veterans with starched neckcloths and neat-brushed hats, such as have invaded europe any time since the conclusion of the war, and carry the national goddem into every city of the continent. the congregation of hat-boxes, and bramah desks, and dressing-cases was prodigious. there were jaunty young cambridge-men travelling with their tutor, and going for a reading excursion to nonnenwerth or konigswinter; there were irish gentlemen, with the most dashing whiskers and jewellery, talking about horses incessantly, and prodigiously polite to the young ladies on board, whom, on the contrary, the cambridge lads and their pale-faced tutor avoided with maiden coyness; there were old pall mall loungers bound for ems and wiesbaden and a course of waters to clear off the dinners of the season, and a little roulette and trente-et-quarante to keep the excitement going; there was old methuselah, who had married his young wife, with captain papillon of the guards holding her parasol and guide-books; there was young may who was carrying off his bride on a pleasure tour (mrs. winter that was, and who had been at school with may's grandmother); there was sir john and my lady with a dozen children, and corresponding nursemaids; and the great grandee bareacres family that sat by themselves near the wheel, stared at everybody, and spoke to no one. their carriages, emblazoned with coronets and heaped with shining imperials, were on the foredeck, locked in with a dozen more such vehicles: it was difficult to pass in and out amongst them; and the poor inmates of the fore-cabin had scarcely any space for locomotion. these consisted of a few magnificently attired gentlemen from houndsditch, who brought their own provisions, and could have bought half the gay people in the grand saloon; a few honest fellows with mustachios and portfolios, who set to sketching before they had been half an hour on board; one or two french femmes de chambre who began to be dreadfully ill by the time the boat had passed greenwich; a groom or two who lounged in the neighbourhood of the horse-boxes under their charge, or leaned over the side by the paddle-wheels, and talked about who was good for the leger, and what they stood to win or lose for the goodwood cup. all the couriers, when they had done plunging about the ship and had settled their various masters in the cabins or on the deck, congregated together and began to chatter and smoke; the hebrew gentlemen joining them and looking at the carriages. there was sir john's great carriage that would hold thirteen people; my lord methuselah's carriage, my lord bareacres' chariot, britzska, and fourgon, that anybody might pay for who liked. it was a wonder how my lord got the ready money to pay for the expenses of the journey. the hebrew gentlemen knew how he got it. they knew what money his lordship had in his pocket at that instant, and what interest he paid for it, and who gave it him. finally there was a very neat, handsome travelling carriage, about which the gentlemen speculated. "a qui cette voiture la?" said one gentleman-courier with a large morocco money-bag and ear-rings to another with ear-rings and a large morocco money-bag. "c'est a kirsch je bense--je l'ai vu toute a l'heure--qui brenoit des sangviches dans la voiture," said the courier in a fine german french. kirsch emerging presently from the neighbourhood of the hold, where he had been bellowing instructions intermingled with polyglot oaths to the ship's men engaged in secreting the passengers' luggage, came to give an account of himself to his brother interpreters. he informed them that the carriage belonged to a nabob from calcutta and jamaica enormously rich, and with whom he was engaged to travel; and at this moment a young gentleman who had been warned off the bridge between the paddle-boxes, and who had dropped thence on to the roof of lord methuselah's carriage, from which he made his way over other carriages and imperials until he had clambered on to his own, descended thence and through the window into the body of the carriage, to the applause of the couriers looking on. "nous allons avoir une belle traversee, monsieur george," said the courier with a grin, as he lifted his gold-laced cap. "d---- your french," said the young gentleman, "where's the biscuits, ay?" whereupon kirsch answered him in the english language or in such an imitation of it as he could command--for though he was familiar with all languages, mr. kirsch was not acquainted with a single one, and spoke all with indifferent volubility and incorrectness. the imperious young gentleman who gobbled the biscuits (and indeed it was time to refresh himself, for he had breakfasted at richmond full three hours before) was our young friend george osborne. uncle jos and his mamma were on the quarter-deck with a gentleman of whom they used to see a good deal, and the four were about to make a summer tour. jos was seated at that moment on deck under the awning, and pretty nearly opposite to the earl of bareacres and his family, whose proceedings absorbed the bengalee almost entirely. both the noble couple looked rather younger than in the eventful year ' , when jos remembered to have seen them at brussels (indeed, he always gave out in india that he was intimately acquainted with them). lady bareacres' hair, which was then dark, was now a beautiful golden auburn, whereas lord bareacres' whiskers, formerly red, were at present of a rich black with purple and green reflections in the light. but changed as they were, the movements of the noble pair occupied jos's mind entirely. the presence of a lord fascinated him, and he could look at nothing else. "those people seem to interest you a good deal," said dobbin, laughing and watching him. amelia too laughed. she was in a straw bonnet with black ribbons, and otherwise dressed in mourning, but the little bustle and holiday of the journey pleased and excited her, and she looked particularly happy. "what a heavenly day!" emmy said and added, with great originality, "i hope we shall have a calm passage." jos waved his hand, scornfully glancing at the same time under his eyelids at the great folks opposite. "if you had made the voyages we have," he said, "you wouldn't much care about the weather." but nevertheless, traveller as he was, he passed the night direfully sick in his carriage, where his courier tended him with brandy-and-water and every luxury. in due time this happy party landed at the quays of rotterdam, whence they were transported by another steamer to the city of cologne. here the carriage and the family took to the shore, and jos was not a little gratified to see his arrival announced in the cologne newspapers as "herr graf lord von sedley nebst begleitung aus london." he had his court dress with him; he had insisted that dobbin should bring his regimental paraphernalia; he announced that it was his intention to be presented at some foreign courts, and pay his respects to the sovereigns of the countries which he honoured with a visit. wherever the party stopped, and an opportunity was offered, mr. jos left his own card and the major's upon "our minister." it was with great difficulty that he could be restrained from putting on his cocked hat and tights to wait upon the english consul at the free city of judenstadt, when that hospitable functionary asked our travellers to dinner. he kept a journal of his voyage and noted elaborately the defects or excellences of the various inns at which he put up, and of the wines and dishes of which he partook. as for emmy, she was very happy and pleased. dobbin used to carry about for her her stool and sketch-book, and admired the drawings of the good-natured little artist as they never had been admired before. she sat upon steamers' decks and drew crags and castles, or she mounted upon donkeys and ascended to ancient robber-towers, attended by her two aides-de-camp, georgy and dobbin. she laughed, and the major did too, at his droll figure on donkey-back, with his long legs touching the ground. he was the interpreter for the party; having a good military knowledge of the german language, and he and the delighted george fought the campaigns of the rhine and the palatinate. in the course of a few weeks, and by assiduously conversing with herr kirsch on the box of the carriage, georgy made prodigious advance in the knowledge of high dutch, and could talk to hotel waiters and postilions in a way that charmed his mother and amused his guardian. mr. jos did not much engage in the afternoon excursions of his fellow-travellers. he slept a good deal after dinner, or basked in the arbours of the pleasant inn-gardens. pleasant rhine gardens! fair scenes of peace and sunshine--noble purple mountains, whose crests are reflected in the magnificent stream--who has ever seen you that has not a grateful memory of those scenes of friendly repose and beauty? to lay down the pen and even to think of that beautiful rhineland makes one happy. at this time of summer evening, the cows are trooping down from the hills, lowing and with their bells tinkling, to the old town, with its old moats, and gates, and spires, and chestnut-trees, with long blue shadows stretching over the grass; the sky and the river below flame in crimson and gold; and the moon is already out, looking pale towards the sunset. the sun sinks behind the great castle-crested mountains, the night falls suddenly, the river grows darker and darker, lights quiver in it from the windows in the old ramparts, and twinkle peacefully in the villages under the hills on the opposite shore. so jos used to go to sleep a good deal with his bandanna over his face and be very comfortable, and read all the english news, and every word of galignani's admirable newspaper (may the blessings of all englishmen who have ever been abroad rest on the founders and proprietors of that piratical print! ) and whether he woke or slept, his friends did not very much miss him. yes, they were very happy. they went to the opera often of evenings--to those snug, unassuming, dear old operas in the german towns, where the noblesse sits and cries, and knits stockings on the one side, over against the bourgeoisie on the other; and his transparency the duke and his transparent family, all very fat and good-natured, come and occupy the great box in the middle; and the pit is full of the most elegant slim-waisted officers with straw-coloured mustachios, and twopence a day on full pay. here it was that emmy found her delight, and was introduced for the first time to the wonders of mozart and cimarosa. the major's musical taste has been before alluded to, and his performances on the flute commended. but perhaps the chief pleasure he had in these operas was in watching emmy's rapture while listening to them. a new world of love and beauty broke upon her when she was introduced to those divine compositions; this lady had the keenest and finest sensibility, and how could she be indifferent when she heard mozart? the tender parts of "don juan" awakened in her raptures so exquisite that she would ask herself when she went to say her prayers of a night whether it was not wicked to feel so much delight as that with which "vedrai carino" and "batti batti" filled her gentle little bosom? but the major, whom she consulted upon this head, as her theological adviser (and who himself had a pious and reverent soul), said that for his part, every beauty of art or nature made him thankful as well as happy, and that the pleasure to be had in listening to fine music, as in looking at the stars in the sky, or at a beautiful landscape or picture, was a benefit for which we might thank heaven as sincerely as for any other worldly blessing. and in reply to some faint objections of mrs. amelia's (taken from certain theological works like the washerwoman of finchley common and others of that school, with which mrs. osborne had been furnished during her life at brompton) he told her an eastern fable of the owl who thought that the sunshine was unbearable for the eyes and that the nightingale was a most overrated bird. "it is one's nature to sing and the other's to hoot," he said, laughing, "and with such a sweet voice as you have yourself, you must belong to the bulbul faction." i like to dwell upon this period of her life and to think that she was cheerful and happy. you see, she has not had too much of that sort of existence as yet, and has not fallen in the way of means to educate her tastes or her intelligence. she has been domineered over hitherto by vulgar intellects. it is the lot of many a woman. and as every one of the dear sex is the rival of the rest of her kind, timidity passes for folly in their charitable judgments; and gentleness for dulness; and silence--which is but timid denial of the unwelcome assertion of ruling folks, and tacit protestantism--above all, finds no mercy at the hands of the female inquisition. thus, my dear and civilized reader, if you and i were to find ourselves this evening in a society of greengrocers, let us say, it is probable that our conversation would not be brilliant; if, on the other hand, a greengrocer should find himself at your refined and polite tea-table, where everybody was saying witty things, and everybody of fashion and repute tearing her friends to pieces in the most delightful manner, it is possible that the stranger would not be very talkative and by no means interesting or interested. and it must be remembered that this poor lady had never met a gentleman in her life until this present moment. perhaps these are rarer personages than some of us think for. which of us can point out many such in his circle--men whose aims are generous, whose truth is constant, and not only constant in its kind but elevated in its degree; whose want of meanness makes them simple; who can look the world honestly in the face with an equal manly sympathy for the great and the small? we all know a hundred whose coats are very well made, and a score who have excellent manners, and one or two happy beings who are what they call in the inner circles, and have shot into the very centre and bull's-eye of the fashion; but of gentlemen how many? let us take a little scrap of paper and each make out his list. my friend the major i write, without any doubt, in mine. he had very long legs, a yellow face, and a slight lisp, which at first was rather ridiculous. but his thoughts were just, his brains were fairly good, his life was honest and pure, and his heart warm and humble. he certainly had very large hands and feet, which the two george osbornes used to caricature and laugh at; and their jeers and laughter perhaps led poor little emmy astray as to his worth. but have we not all been misled about our heroes and changed our opinions a hundred times? emmy, in this happy time, found that hers underwent a very great change in respect of the merits of the major. perhaps it was the happiest time of both their lives, indeed, if they did but know it--and who does? which of us can point out and say that was the culmination--that was the summit of human joy? but at all events, this couple were very decently contented, and enjoyed as pleasant a summer tour as any pair that left england that year. georgy was always present at the play, but it was the major who put emmy's shawl on after the entertainment; and in the walks and excursions the young lad would be on ahead, and up a tower-stair or a tree, whilst the soberer couple were below, the major smoking his cigar with great placidity and constancy, whilst emmy sketched the site or the ruin. it was on this very tour that i, the present writer of a history of which every word is true, had the pleasure to see them first and to make their acquaintance. it was at the little comfortable ducal town of pumpernickel (that very place where sir pitt crawley had been so distinguished as an attache; but that was in early early days, and before the news of the battle of austerlitz sent all the english diplomatists in germany to the right about) that i first saw colonel dobbin and his party. they had arrived with the carriage and courier at the erbprinz hotel, the best of the town, and the whole party dined at the table d'hote. everybody remarked the majesty of jos and the knowing way in which he sipped, or rather sucked, the johannisberger, which he ordered for dinner. the little boy, too, we observed, had a famous appetite, and consumed schinken, and braten, and kartoffeln, and cranberry jam, and salad, and pudding, and roast fowls, and sweetmeats, with a gallantry that did honour to his nation. after about fifteen dishes, he concluded the repast with dessert, some of which he even carried out of doors, for some young gentlemen at table, amused with his coolness and gallant free-and-easy manner, induced him to pocket a handful of macaroons, which he discussed on his way to the theatre, whither everybody went in the cheery social little german place. the lady in black, the boy's mamma, laughed and blushed, and looked exceedingly pleased and shy as the dinner went on, and at the various feats and instances of espieglerie on the part of her son. the colonel--for so he became very soon afterwards--i remember joked the boy with a great deal of grave fun, pointing out dishes which he hadn't tried, and entreating him not to baulk his appetite, but to have a second supply of this or that. it was what they call a gast-rolle night at the royal grand ducal pumpernickelisch hof--or court theatre--and madame schroeder devrient, then in the bloom of her beauty and genius, performed the part of the heroine in the wonderful opera of fidelio. from our places in the stalls we could see our four friends of the table d'hote in the loge which schwendler of the erbprinz kept for his best guests, and i could not help remarking the effect which the magnificent actress and music produced upon mrs. osborne, for so we heard the stout gentleman in the mustachios call her. during the astonishing chorus of the prisoners, over which the delightful voice of the actress rose and soared in the most ravishing harmony, the english lady's face wore such an expression of wonder and delight that it struck even little fipps, the blase attache, who drawled out, as he fixed his glass upon her, "gayd, it really does one good to see a woman caypable of that stayt of excaytement." and in the prison scene, where fidelio, rushing to her husband, cries, "nichts, nichts, mein florestan," she fairly lost herself and covered her face with her handkerchief. every woman in the house was snivelling at the time, but i suppose it was because it was predestined that i was to write this particular lady's memoirs that i remarked her. the next day they gave another piece of beethoven, die schlacht bei vittoria. malbrook is introduced at the beginning of the performance, as indicative of the brisk advance of the french army. then come drums, trumpets, thunders of artillery, and groans of the dying, and at last, in a grand triumphal swell, "god save the king" is performed. there may have been a score of englishmen in the house, but at the burst of that beloved and well-known music, every one of them, we young fellows in the stalls, sir john and lady bullminster (who had taken a house at pumpernickel for the education of their nine children), the fat gentleman with the mustachios, the long major in white duck trousers, and the lady with the little boy upon whom he was so sweet, even kirsch, the courier in the gallery, stood bolt upright in their places and proclaimed themselves to be members of the dear old british nation. as for tapeworm, the charge d'affaires, he rose up in his box and bowed and simpered, as if he would represent the whole empire. tapeworm was nephew and heir of old marshal tiptoff, who has been introduced in this story as general tiptoff, just before waterloo, who was colonel of the --th regiment in which major dobbin served, and who died in this year full of honours, and of an aspic of plovers' eggs; when the regiment was graciously given by his majesty to colonel sir michael o'dowd, k.c.b. who had commanded it in many glorious fields. tapeworm must have met with colonel dobbin at the house of the colonel's colonel, the marshal, for he recognized him on this night at the theatre, and with the utmost condescension, his majesty's minister came over from his own box and publicly shook hands with his new-found friend. "look at that infernal sly-boots of a tapeworm," fipps whispered, examining his chief from the stalls. "wherever there's a pretty woman he always twists himself in." and i wonder what were diplomatists made for but for that? "have i the honour of addressing myself to mrs. dobbin?" asked the secretary with a most insinuating grin. georgy burst out laughing and said, "by jove, that was a good 'un." emmy and the major blushed: we saw them from the stalls. "this lady is mrs. george osborne," said the major, "and this is her brother, mr. sedley, a distinguished officer of the bengal civil service: permit me to introduce him to your lordship." my lord nearly sent jos off his legs with the most fascinating smile. "are you going to stop in pumpernickel?" he said. "it is a dull place, but we want some nice people, and we would try and make it so agreeable to you. mr.--ahum--mrs.--oho. i shall do myself the honour of calling upon you to-morrow at your inn." and he went away with a parthian grin and glance which he thought must finish mrs. osborne completely. the performance over, the young fellows lounged about the lobbies, and we saw the society take its departure. the duchess dowager went off in her jingling old coach, attended by two faithful and withered old maids of honour, and a little snuffy spindle-shanked gentleman in waiting, in a brown jasey and a green coat covered with orders--of which the star and the grand yellow cordon of the order of st. michael of pumpernickel were most conspicuous. the drums rolled, the guards saluted, and the old carriage drove away. then came his transparency the duke and transparent family, with his great officers of state and household. he bowed serenely to everybody. and amid the saluting of the guards and the flaring of the torches of the running footmen, clad in scarlet, the transparent carriages drove away to the old ducal schloss, with its towers and pinacles standing on the schlossberg. everybody in pumpernickel knew everybody. no sooner was a foreigner seen there than the minister of foreign affairs, or some other great or small officer of state, went round to the erbprinz and found out the name of the new arrival. we watched them, too, out of the theatre. tapeworm had just walked off, enveloped in his cloak, with which his gigantic chasseur was always in attendance, and looking as much as possible like don juan. the prime minister's lady had just squeezed herself into her sedan, and her daughter, the charming ida, had put on her calash and clogs; when the english party came out, the boy yawning drearily, the major taking great pains in keeping the shawl over mrs. osborne's head, and mr. sedley looking grand, with a crush opera-hat on one side of his head and his hand in the stomach of a voluminous white waistcoat. we took off our hats to our acquaintances of the table d'hote, and the lady, in return, presented us with a little smile and a curtsey, for which everybody might be thankful. the carriage from the inn, under the superintendence of the bustling mr. kirsch, was in waiting to convey the party; but the fat man said he would walk and smoke his cigar on his way homewards, so the other three, with nods and smiles to us, went without mr. sedley, kirsch, with the cigar case, following in his master's wake. we all walked together and talked to the stout gentleman about the agremens of the place. it was very agreeable for the english. there were shooting-parties and battues; there was a plenty of balls and entertainments at the hospitable court; the society was generally good; the theatre excellent; and the living cheap. "and our minister seems a most delightful and affable person," our new friend said. "with such a representative, and--and a good medical man, i can fancy the place to be most eligible. good-night, gentlemen." and jos creaked up the stairs to bedward, followed by kirsch with a flambeau. we rather hoped that nice-looking woman would be induced to stay some time in the town. chapter lxiii in which we meet an old acquaintance such polite behaviour as that of lord tapeworm did not fail to have the most favourable effect upon mr. sedley's mind, and the very next morning, at breakfast, he pronounced his opinion that pumpernickel was the pleasantest little place of any which he had visited on their tour. jos's motives and artifices were not very difficult of comprehension, and dobbin laughed in his sleeve, like a hypocrite as he was, when he found, by the knowing air of the civilian and the offhand manner in which the latter talked about tapeworm castle and the other members of the family, that jos had been up already in the morning, consulting his travelling peerage. yes, he had seen the right honourable the earl of bagwig, his lordship's father; he was sure he had, he had met him at--at the levee--didn't dob remember? and when the diplomatist called on the party, faithful to his promise, jos received him with such a salute and honours as were seldom accorded to the little envoy. he winked at kirsch on his excellency's arrival, and that emissary, instructed before-hand, went out and superintended an entertainment of cold meats, jellies, and other delicacies, brought in upon trays, and of which mr. jos absolutely insisted that his noble guest should partake. tapeworm, so long as he could have an opportunity of admiring the bright eyes of mrs. osborne (whose freshness of complexion bore daylight remarkably well) was not ill pleased to accept any invitation to stay in mr. sedley's lodgings; he put one or two dexterous questions to him about india and the dancing-girls there; asked amelia about that beautiful boy who had been with her; and complimented the astonished little woman upon the prodigious sensation which she had made in the house; and tried to fascinate dobbin by talking of the late war and the exploits of the pumpernickel contingent under the command of the hereditary prince, now duke of pumpernickel. lord tapeworm inherited no little portion of the family gallantry, and it was his happy belief that almost every woman upon whom he himself cast friendly eyes was in love with him. he left emmy under the persuasion that she was slain by his wit and attractions and went home to his lodgings to write a pretty little note to her. she was not fascinated, only puzzled, by his grinning, his simpering, his scented cambric handkerchief, and his high-heeled lacquered boots. she did not understand one-half the compliments which he paid; she had never, in her small experience of mankind, met a professional ladies' man as yet, and looked upon my lord as something curious rather than pleasant; and if she did not admire, certainly wondered at him. jos, on the contrary, was delighted. "how very affable his lordship is," he said; "how very kind of his lordship to say he would send his medical man! kirsch, you will carry our cards to the count de schlusselback directly; the major and i will have the greatest pleasure in paying our respects at court as soon as possible. put out my uniform, kirsch--both our uniforms. it is a mark of politeness which every english gentleman ought to show to the countries which he visits to pay his respects to the sovereigns of those countries as to the representatives of his own." when tapeworm's doctor came, doctor von glauber, body physician to h.s.h. the duke, he speedily convinced jos that the pumpernickel mineral springs and the doctor's particular treatment would infallibly restore the bengalee to youth and slimness. "dere came here last year," he said, "sheneral bulkeley, an english sheneral, tvice so pic as you, sir. i sent him back qvite tin after tree months, and he danced vid baroness glauber at the end of two." jos's mind was made up; the springs, the doctor, the court, and the charge d'affaires convinced him, and he proposed to spend the autumn in these delightful quarters. and punctual to his word, on the next day the charge d'affaires presented jos and the major to victor aurelius xvii, being conducted to their audience with that sovereign by the count de schlusselback, marshal of the court. they were straightway invited to dinner at court, and their intention of staying in the town being announced, the politest ladies of the whole town instantly called upon mrs. osborne; and as not one of these, however poor they might be, was under the rank of a baroness, jos's delight was beyond expression. he wrote off to chutney at the club to say that the service was highly appreciated in germany, that he was going to show his friend, the count de schlusselback, how to stick a pig in the indian fashion, and that his august friends, the duke and duchess, were everything that was kind and civil. emmy, too, was presented to the august family, and as mourning is not admitted in court on certain days, she appeared in a pink crape dress with a diamond ornament in the corsage, presented to her by her brother, and she looked so pretty in this costume that the duke and court (putting out of the question the major, who had scarcely ever seen her before in an evening dress, and vowed that she did not look five-and-twenty) all admired her excessively. in this dress she walked a polonaise with major dobbin at a court ball, in which easy dance mr. jos had the honour of leading out the countess of schlusselback, an old lady with a hump back, but with sixteen good quarters of nobility and related to half the royal houses of germany. pumpernickel stands in the midst of a happy valley through which sparkles--to mingle with the rhine somewhere, but i have not the map at hand to say exactly at what point--the fertilizing stream of the pump. in some places the river is big enough to support a ferry-boat, in others to turn a mill; in pumpernickel itself, the last transparency but three, the great and renowned victor aurelius xiv built a magnificent bridge, on which his own statue rises, surrounded by water-nymphs and emblems of victory, peace, and plenty; he has his foot on the neck of a prostrate turk--history says he engaged and ran a janissary through the body at the relief of vienna by sobieski--but, quite undisturbed by the agonies of that prostrate mahometan, who writhes at his feet in the most ghastly manner, the prince smiles blandly and points with his truncheon in the direction of the aurelius platz, where he began to erect a new palace that would have been the wonder of his age had the great-souled prince but had funds to complete it. but the completion of monplaisir (monblaisir the honest german folks call it) was stopped for lack of ready money, and it and its park and garden are now in rather a faded condition, and not more than ten times big enough to accommodate the court of the reigning sovereign. the gardens were arranged to emulate those of versailles, and amidst the terraces and groves there are some huge allegorical waterworks still, which spout and froth stupendously upon fete-days, and frighten one with their enormous aquatic insurrections. there is the trophonius' cave in which, by some artifice, the leaden tritons are made not only to spout water, but to play the most dreadful groans out of their lead conchs--there is the nymphbath and the niagara cataract, which the people of the neighbourhood admire beyond expression, when they come to the yearly fair at the opening of the chamber, or to the fetes with which the happy little nation still celebrates the birthdays and marriage-days of its princely governors. then from all the towns of the duchy, which stretches for nearly ten mile--from bolkum, which lies on its western frontier bidding defiance to prussia, from grogwitz, where the prince has a hunting-lodge, and where his dominions are separated by the pump river from those of the neighbouring prince of potzenthal; from all the little villages, which besides these three great cities, dot over the happy principality--from the farms and the mills along the pump come troops of people in red petticoats and velvet head-dresses, or with three-cornered hats and pipes in their mouths, who flock to the residenz and share in the pleasures of the fair and the festivities there. then the theatre is open for nothing, then the waters of monblaisir begin to play (it is lucky that there is company to behold them, for one would be afraid to see them alone)--then there come mountebanks and riding troops (the way in which his transparency was fascinated by one of the horse-riders is well known, and it is believed that la petite vivandiere, as she was called, was a spy in the french interest), and the delighted people are permitted to march through room after room of the grand ducal palace and admire the slippery floor, the rich hangings, and the spittoons at the doors of all the innumerable chambers. there is one pavilion at monblaisir which aurelius victor xv had arranged--a great prince but too fond of pleasure--and which i am told is a perfect wonder of licentious elegance. it is painted with the story of bacchus and ariadne, and the table works in and out of the room by means of a windlass, so that the company was served without any intervention of domestics. but the place was shut up by barbara, aurelius xv's widow, a severe and devout princess of the house of bolkum and regent of the duchy during her son's glorious minority, and after the death of her husband, cut off in the pride of his pleasures. the theatre of pumpernickel is known and famous in that quarter of germany. it languished a little when the present duke in his youth insisted upon having his own operas played there, and it is said one day, in a fury, from his place in the orchestra, when he attended a rehearsal, broke a bassoon on the head of the chapel master, who was conducting, and led too slow; and during which time the duchess sophia wrote domestic comedies, which must have been very dreary to witness. but the prince executes his music in private now, and the duchess only gives away her plays to the foreigners of distinction who visit her kind little court. it is conducted with no small comfort and splendour. when there are balls, though there may be four hundred people at supper, there is a servant in scarlet and lace to attend upon every four, and every one is served on silver. there are festivals and entertainments going continually on, and the duke has his chamberlains and equerries, and the duchess her mistress of the wardrobe and ladies of honour, just like any other and more potent potentates. the constitution is or was a moderate despotism, tempered by a chamber that might or might not be elected. i never certainly could hear of its sitting in my time at pumpernickel. the prime minister had lodgings in a second floor, and the foreign secretary occupied the comfortable lodgings over zwieback's conditorey. the army consisted of a magnificent band that also did duty on the stage, where it was quite pleasant to see the worthy fellows marching in turkish dresses with rouge on and wooden scimitars, or as roman warriors with ophicleides and trombones--to see them again, i say, at night, after one had listened to them all the morning in the aurelius platz, where they performed opposite the cafe where we breakfasted. besides the band, there was a rich and numerous staff of officers, and, i believe, a few men. besides the regular sentries, three or four men, habited as hussars, used to do duty at the palace, but i never saw them on horseback, and au fait, what was the use of cavalry in a time of profound peace?--and whither the deuce should the hussars ride? everybody--everybody that was noble of course, for as for the bourgeois we could not quite be expected to take notice of them--visited his neighbour. h. e. madame de burst received once a week, h. e. madame de schnurrbart had her night--the theatre was open twice a week, the court graciously received once, so that a man's life might in fact be a perfect round of pleasure in the unpretending pumpernickel way. that there were feuds in the place, no one can deny. politics ran very high at pumpernickel, and parties were very bitter. there was the strumpff faction and the lederlung party, the one supported by our envoy and the other by the french charge d'affaires, m. de macabau. indeed it sufficed for our minister to stand up for madame strumpff, who was clearly the greater singer of the two, and had three more notes in her voice than madame lederlung her rival--it sufficed, i say, for our minister to advance any opinion to have it instantly contradicted by the french diplomatist. everybody in the town was ranged in one or other of these factions. the lederlung was a prettyish little creature certainly, and her voice (what there was of it) was very sweet, and there is no doubt that the strumpff was not in her first youth and beauty, and certainly too stout; when she came on in the last scene of the sonnambula, for instance, in her night-chemise with a lamp in her hand, and had to go out of the window, and pass over the plank of the mill, it was all she could do to squeeze out of the window, and the plank used to bend and creak again under her weight--but how she poured out the finale of the opera! and with what a burst of feeling she rushed into elvino's arms--almost fit to smother him! whereas the little lederlung--but a truce to this gossip--the fact is that these two women were the two flags of the french and the english party at pumpernickel, and the society was divided in its allegiance to those two great nations. we had on our side the home minister, the master of the horse, the duke's private secretary, and the prince's tutor; whereas of the french party were the foreign minister, the commander-in-chief's lady, who had served under napoleon, and the hof-marschall and his wife, who was glad enough to get the fashions from paris, and always had them and her caps by m. de macabau's courier. the secretary of his chancery was little grignac, a young fellow, as malicious as satan, and who made caricatures of tapeworm in all the albums of the place. their headquarters and table d'hote were established at the pariser hof, the other inn of the town; and though, of course, these gentlemen were obliged to be civil in public, yet they cut at each other with epigrams that were as sharp as razors, as i have seen a couple of wrestlers in devonshire, lashing at each other's shins and never showing their agony upon a muscle of their faces. neither tapeworm nor macabau ever sent home a dispatch to his government without a most savage series of attacks upon his rival. for instance, on our side we would write, "the interests of great britain in this place, and throughout the whole of germany, are perilled by the continuance in office of the present french envoy; this man is of a character so infamous that he will stick at no falsehood, or hesitate at no crime, to attain his ends. he poisons the mind of the court against the english minister, represents the conduct of great britain in the most odious and atrocious light, and is unhappily backed by a minister whose ignorance and necessities are as notorious as his influence is fatal." on their side they would say, "m. de tapeworm continues his system of stupid insular arrogance and vulgar falsehood against the greatest nation in the world. yesterday he was heard to speak lightly of her royal highness madame the duchess of berri; on a former occasion he insulted the heroic duke of angouleme and dared to insinuate that h.r.h. the duke of orleans was conspiring against the august throne of the lilies. his gold is prodigated in every direction which his stupid menaces fail to frighten. by one and the other, he has won over creatures of the court here--and, in fine, pumpernickel will not be quiet, germany tranquil, france respected, or europe content until this poisonous viper be crushed under heel": and so on. when one side or the other had written any particularly spicy dispatch, news of it was sure to slip out. before the winter was far advanced, it is actually on record that emmy took a night and received company with great propriety and modesty. she had a french master, who complimented her upon the purity of her accent and her facility of learning; the fact is she had learned long ago and grounded herself subsequently in the grammar so as to be able to teach it to george; and madam strumpff came to give her lessons in singing, which she performed so well and with such a true voice that the major's windows, who had lodgings opposite under the prime minister, were always open to hear the lesson. some of the german ladies, who are very sentimental and simple in their tastes, fell in love with her and began to call her du at once. these are trivial details, but they relate to happy times. the major made himself george's tutor and read caesar and mathematics with him, and they had a german master and rode out of evenings by the side of emmy's carriage--she was always too timid, and made a dreadful outcry at the slightest disturbance on horse-back. so she drove about with one of her dear german friends, and jos asleep on the back-seat of the barouche. he was becoming very sweet upon the grafinn fanny de butterbrod, a very gentle tender-hearted and unassuming young creature, a canoness and countess in her own right, but with scarcely ten pounds per year to her fortune, and fanny for her part declared that to be amelia's sister was the greatest delight that heaven could bestow on her, and jos might have put a countess's shield and coronet by the side of his own arms on his carriage and forks; when--when events occurred, and those grand fetes given upon the marriage of the hereditary prince of pumpernickel with the lovely princess amelia of humbourg-schlippenschloppen took place. at this festival the magnificence displayed was such as had not been known in the little german place since the days of the prodigal victor xiv. all the neighbouring princes, princesses, and grandees were invited to the feast. beds rose to half a crown per night in pumpernickel, and the army was exhausted in providing guards of honour for the highnesses, serenities, and excellencies who arrived from all quarters. the princess was married by proxy, at her father's residence, by the count de schlusselback. snuff-boxes were given away in profusion (as we learned from the court jeweller, who sold and afterwards bought them again), and bushels of the order of saint michael of pumpernickel were sent to the nobles of the court, while hampers of the cordons and decorations of the wheel of st. catherine of schlippenschloppen were brought to ours. the french envoy got both. "he is covered with ribbons like a prize cart-horse," tapeworm said, who was not allowed by the rules of his service to take any decorations: "let him have the cordons; but with whom is the victory?" the fact is, it was a triumph of british diplomacy, the french party having proposed and tried their utmost to carry a marriage with a princess of the house of potztausend-donnerwetter, whom, as a matter of course, we opposed. everybody was asked to the fetes of the marriage. garlands and triumphal arches were hung across the road to welcome the young bride. the great saint michael's fountain ran with uncommonly sour wine, while that in the artillery place frothed with beer. the great waters played; and poles were put up in the park and gardens for the happy peasantry, which they might climb at their leisure, carrying off watches, silver forks, prize sausages hung with pink ribbon, &c., at the top. georgy got one, wrenching it off, having swarmed up the pole to the delight of the spectators, and sliding down with the rapidity of a fall of water. but it was for the glory's sake merely. the boy gave the sausage to a peasant, who had very nearly seized it, and stood at the foot of the mast, blubbering, because he was unsuccessful. at the french chancellerie they had six more lampions in their illumination than ours had; but our transparency, which represented the young couple advancing and discord flying away, with the most ludicrous likeness to the french ambassador, beat the french picture hollow; and i have no doubt got tapeworm the advancement and the cross of the bath which he subsequently attained. crowds of foreigners arrived for the fetes, and of english, of course. besides the court balls, public balls were given at the town hall and the redoute, and in the former place there was a room for trente-et-quarante and roulette established, for the week of the festivities only, and by one of the great german companies from ems or aix-la-chapelle. the officers or inhabitants of the town were not allowed to play at these games, but strangers, peasants, ladies were admitted, and any one who chose to lose or win money. that little scapegrace georgy osborne amongst others, whose pockets were always full of dollars and whose relations were away at the grand festival of the court, came to the stadthaus ball in company of his uncle's courier, mr. kirsch, and having only peeped into a play-room at baden-baden when he hung on dobbin's arm, and where, of course, he was not permitted to gamble, came eagerly to this part of the entertainment and hankered round the tables where the croupiers and the punters were at work. women were playing; they were masked, some of them; this license was allowed in these wild times of carnival. a woman with light hair, in a low dress by no means so fresh as it had been, and with a black mask on, through the eyelets of which her eyes twinkled strangely, was seated at one of the roulette-tables with a card and a pin and a couple of florins before her. as the croupier called out the colour and number, she pricked on the card with great care and regularity, and only ventured her money on the colours after the red or black had come up a certain number of times. it was strange to look at her. but in spite of her care and assiduity she guessed wrong and the last two florins followed each other under the croupier's rake, as he cried out with his inexorable voice the winning colour and number. she gave a sigh, a shrug with her shoulders, which were already too much out of her gown, and dashing the pin through the card on to the table, sat thrumming it for a while. then she looked round her and saw georgy's honest face staring at the scene. the little scamp! what business had he to be there? when she saw the boy, at whose face she looked hard through her shining eyes and mask, she said, "monsieur n'est pas joueur?" "non, madame," said the boy; but she must have known, from his accent, of what country he was, for she answered him with a slight foreign tone. "you have nevare played--will you do me a littl' favor?" "what is it?" said georgy, blushing again. mr. kirsch was at work for his part at the rouge et noir and did not see his young master. "play this for me, if you please; put it on any number, any number." and she took from her bosom a purse, and out of it a gold piece, the only coin there, and she put it into george's hand. the boy laughed and did as he was bid. the number came up sure enough. there is a power that arranges that, they say, for beginners. "thank you," said she, pulling the money towards her, "thank you. what is your name?" "my name's osborne," said georgy, and was fingering in his own pockets for dollars, and just about to make a trial, when the major, in his uniform, and jos, en marquis, from the court ball, made their appearance. other people, finding the entertainment stupid and preferring the fun at the stadthaus, had quitted the palace ball earlier; but it is probable the major and jos had gone home and found the boy's absence, for the former instantly went up to him and, taking him by the shoulder, pulled him briskly back from the place of temptation. then, looking round the room, he saw kirsch employed as we have said, and going up to him, asked how he dared to bring mr. george to such a place. "laissez-moi tranquille," said mr. kirsch, very much excited by play and wine. "il faut s'amuser, parbleu. je ne suis pas au service de monsieur." seeing his condition the major did not choose to argue with the man, but contented himself with drawing away george and asking jos if he would come away. he was standing close by the lady in the mask, who was playing with pretty good luck now, and looking on much interested at the game. "hadn't you better come, jos," the major said, "with george and me?" "i'll stop and go home with that rascal, kirsch," jos said; and for the same reason of modesty, which he thought ought to be preserved before the boy, dobbin did not care to remonstrate with jos, but left him and walked home with georgy. "did you play?" asked the major when they were out and on their way home. the boy said "no." "give me your word of honour as a gentleman that you never will." "why?" said the boy; "it seems very good fun." and, in a very eloquent and impressive manner, the major showed him why he shouldn't, and would have enforced his precepts by the example of georgy's own father, had he liked to say anything that should reflect on the other's memory. when he had housed him, he went to bed and saw his light, in the little room outside of amelia's, presently disappear. amelia's followed half an hour afterwards. i don't know what made the major note it so accurately. jos, however, remained behind over the play-table; he was no gambler, but not averse to the little excitement of the sport now and then, and he had some napoleons chinking in the embroidered pockets of his court waistcoat. he put down one over the fair shoulder of the little gambler before him, and they won. she made a little movement to make room for him by her side, and just took the skirt of her gown from a vacant chair there. "come and give me good luck," she said, still in a foreign accent, quite different from that frank and perfectly english "thank you," with which she had saluted georgy's coup in her favour. the portly gentleman, looking round to see that nobody of rank observed him, sat down; he muttered--"ah, really, well now, god bless my soul. i'm very fortunate; i'm sure to give you good fortune," and other words of compliment and confusion. "do you play much?" the foreign mask said. "i put a nap or two down," said jos with a superb air, flinging down a gold piece. "yes; ay nap after dinner," said the mask archly. but jos looking frightened, she continued, in her pretty french accent, "you do not play to win. no more do i. i play to forget, but i cannot. i cannot forget old times, monsieur. your little nephew is the image of his father; and you--you are not changed--but yes, you are. everybody changes, everybody forgets; nobody has any heart." "good god, who is it?" asked jos in a flutter. "can't you guess, joseph sedley?" said the little woman in a sad voice, and undoing her mask, she looked at him. "you have forgotten me." "good heavens! mrs. crawley!" gasped out jos. "rebecca," said the other, putting her hand on his; but she followed the game still, all the time she was looking at him. "i am stopping at the elephant," she continued. "ask for madame de raudon. i saw my dear amelia to-day; how pretty she looked, and how happy! so do you! everybody but me, who am wretched, joseph sedley." and she put her money over from the red to the black, as if by a chance movement of her hand, and while she was wiping her eyes with a pocket-handkerchief fringed with torn lace. the red came up again, and she lost the whole of that stake. "come away," she said. "come with me a little--we are old friends, are we not, dear mr. sedley?" and mr. kirsch having lost all his money by this time, followed his master out into the moonlight, where the illuminations were winking out and the transparency over our mission was scarcely visible. chapter lxiv a vagabond chapter we must pass over a part of mrs. rebecca crawley's biography with that lightness and delicacy which the world demands--the moral world, that has, perhaps, no particular objection to vice, but an insuperable repugnance to hearing vice called by its proper name. there are things we do and know perfectly well in vanity fair, though we never speak of them: as the ahrimanians worship the devil, but don't mention him: and a polite public will no more bear to read an authentic description of vice than a truly refined english or american female will permit the word breeches to be pronounced in her chaste hearing. and yet, madam, both are walking the world before our faces every day, without much shocking us. if you were to blush every time they went by, what complexions you would have! it is only when their naughty names are called out that your modesty has any occasion to show alarm or sense of outrage, and it has been the wish of the present writer, all through this story, deferentially to submit to the fashion at present prevailing, and only to hint at the existence of wickedness in a light, easy, and agreeable manner, so that nobody's fine feelings may be offended. i defy any one to say that our becky, who has certainly some vices, has not been presented to the public in a perfectly genteel and inoffensive manner. in describing this siren, singing and smiling, coaxing and cajoling, the author, with modest pride, asks his readers all round, has he once forgotten the laws of politeness, and showed the monster's hideous tail above water? no! those who like may peep down under waves that are pretty transparent and see it writhing and twirling, diabolically hideous and slimy, flapping amongst bones, or curling round corpses; but above the waterline, i ask, has not everything been proper, agreeable, and decorous, and has any the most squeamish immoralist in vanity fair a right to cry fie? when, however, the siren disappears and dives below, down among the dead men, the water of course grows turbid over her, and it is labour lost to look into it ever so curiously. they look pretty enough when they sit upon a rock, twanging their harps and combing their hair, and sing, and beckon to you to come and hold the looking-glass; but when they sink into their native element, depend on it, those mermaids are about no good, and we had best not examine the fiendish marine cannibals, revelling and feasting on their wretched pickled victims. and so, when becky is out of the way, be sure that she is not particularly well employed, and that the less that is said about her doings is in fact the better. if we were to give a full account of her proceedings during a couple of years that followed after the curzon street catastrophe, there might be some reason for people to say this book was improper. the actions of very vain, heartless, pleasure-seeking people are very often improper (as are many of yours, my friend with the grave face and spotless reputation--but that is merely by the way); and what are those of a woman without faith--or love--or character? and i am inclined to think that there was a period in mrs becky's life when she was seized, not by remorse, but by a kind of despair, and absolutely neglected her person and did not even care for her reputation. this abattement and degradation did not take place all at once; it was brought about by degrees, after her calamity, and after many struggles to keep up--as a man who goes overboard hangs on to a spar whilst any hope is left, and then flings it away and goes down, when he finds that struggling is in vain. she lingered about london whilst her husband was making preparations for his departure to his seat of government, and it is believed made more than one attempt to see her brother-in-law, sir pitt crawley, and to work upon his feelings, which she had almost enlisted in her favour. as sir pitt and mr. wenham were walking down to the house of commons, the latter spied mrs. rawdon in a black veil, and lurking near the palace of the legislature. she sneaked away when her eyes met those of wenham, and indeed never succeeded in her designs upon the baronet. probably lady jane interposed. i have heard that she quite astonished her husband by the spirit which she exhibited in this quarrel, and her determination to disown mrs. becky. of her own movement, she invited rawdon to come and stop in gaunt street until his departure for coventry island, knowing that with him for a guard mrs. becky would not try to force her door; and she looked curiously at the superscriptions of all the letters which arrived for sir pitt, lest he and his sister-in-law should be corresponding. not but that rebecca could have written had she a mind, but she did not try to see or to write to pitt at his own house, and after one or two attempts consented to his demand that the correspondence regarding her conjugal differences should be carried on by lawyers only. the fact was that pitt's mind had been poisoned against her. a short time after lord steyne's accident wenham had been with the baronet and given him such a biography of mrs. becky as had astonished the member for queen's crawley. he knew everything regarding her: who her father was; in what year her mother danced at the opera; what had been her previous history; and what her conduct during her married life--as i have no doubt that the greater part of the story was false and dictated by interested malevolence, it shall not be repeated here. but becky was left with a sad sad reputation in the esteem of a country gentleman and relative who had been once rather partial to her. the revenues of the governor of coventry island are not large. a part of them were set aside by his excellency for the payment of certain outstanding debts and liabilities, the charges incident on his high situation required considerable expense; finally, it was found that he could not spare to his wife more than three hundred pounds a year, which he proposed to pay to her on an undertaking that she would never trouble him. otherwise, scandal, separation, doctors' commons would ensue. but it was mr. wenham's business, lord steyne's business, rawdon's, everybody's--to get her out of the country, and hush up a most disagreeable affair. she was probably so much occupied in arranging these affairs of business with her husband's lawyers that she forgot to take any step whatever about her son, the little rawdon, and did not even once propose to go and see him. that young gentleman was consigned to the entire guardianship of his aunt and uncle, the former of whom had always possessed a great share of the child's affection. his mamma wrote him a neat letter from boulogne, when she quitted england, in which she requested him to mind his book, and said she was going to take a continental tour, during which she would have the pleasure of writing to him again. but she never did for a year afterwards, and not, indeed, until sir pitt's only boy, always sickly, died of hooping-cough and measles--then rawdon's mamma wrote the most affectionate composition to her darling son, who was made heir of queen's crawley by this accident, and drawn more closely than ever to the kind lady, whose tender heart had already adopted him. rawdon crawley, then grown a tall, fine lad, blushed when he got the letter. "oh, aunt jane, you are my mother!" he said; "and not--and not that one." but he wrote back a kind and respectful letter to mrs. rebecca, then living at a boarding-house at florence. but we are advancing matters. our darling becky's first flight was not very far. she perched upon the french coast at boulogne, that refuge of so much exiled english innocence, and there lived in rather a genteel, widowed manner, with a femme de chambre and a couple of rooms, at an hotel. she dined at the table d'hote, where people thought her very pleasant, and where she entertained her neighbours by stories of her brother, sir pitt, and her great london acquaintance, talking that easy, fashionable slip-slop which has so much effect upon certain folks of small breeding. she passed with many of them for a person of importance; she gave little tea-parties in her private room and shared in the innocent amusements of the place in sea-bathing, and in jaunts in open carriages, in strolls on the sands, and in visits to the play. mrs. burjoice, the printer's lady, who was boarding with her family at the hotel for the summer, and to whom her burjoice came of a saturday and sunday, voted her charming, until that little rogue of a burjoice began to pay her too much attention. but there was nothing in the story, only that becky was always affable, easy, and good-natured--and with men especially. numbers of people were going abroad as usual at the end of the season, and becky had plenty of opportunities of finding out by the behaviour of her acquaintances of the great london world the opinion of "society" as regarded her conduct. one day it was lady partlet and her daughters whom becky confronted as she was walking modestly on boulogne pier, the cliffs of albion shining in the distance across the deep blue sea. lady partlet marshalled all her daughters round her with a sweep of her parasol and retreated from the pier, darting savage glances at poor little becky who stood alone there. on another day the packet came in. it had been blowing fresh, and it always suited becky's humour to see the droll woe-begone faces of the people as they emerged from the boat. lady slingstone happened to be on board this day. her ladyship had been exceedingly ill in her carriage, and was greatly exhausted and scarcely fit to walk up the plank from the ship to the pier. but all her energies rallied the instant she saw becky smiling roguishly under a pink bonnet, and giving her a glance of scorn such as would have shrivelled up most women, she walked into the custom house quite unsupported. becky only laughed: but i don't think she liked it. she felt she was alone, quite alone, and the far-off shining cliffs of england were impassable to her. the behaviour of the men had undergone too i don't know what change. grinstone showed his teeth and laughed in her face with a familiarity that was not pleasant. little bob suckling, who was cap in hand to her three months before, and would walk a mile in the rain to see for her carriage in the line at gaunt house, was talking to fitzoof of the guards (lord heehaw's son) one day upon the jetty, as becky took her walk there. little bobby nodded to her over his shoulder, without moving his hat, and continued his conversation with the heir of heehaw. tom raikes tried to walk into her sitting-room at the inn with a cigar in his mouth, but she closed the door upon him, and would have locked it, only that his fingers were inside. she began to feel that she was very lonely indeed. "if he'd been here," she said, "those cowards would never have dared to insult me." she thought about "him" with great sadness and perhaps longing--about his honest, stupid, constant kindness and fidelity; his never-ceasing obedience; his good humour; his bravery and courage. very likely she cried, for she was particularly lively, and had put on a little extra rouge, when she came down to dinner. she rouged regularly now; and--and her maid got cognac for her besides that which was charged in the hotel bill. perhaps the insults of the men were not, however, so intolerable to her as the sympathy of certain women. mrs. crackenbury and mrs. washington white passed through boulogne on their way to switzerland. the party were protected by colonel horner, young beaumoris, and of course old crackenbury, and mrs. white's little girl. they did not avoid her. they giggled, cackled, tattled, condoled, consoled, and patronized her until they drove her almost wild with rage. to be patronized by them! she thought, as they went away simpering after kissing her. and she heard beaumoris's laugh ringing on the stair and knew quite well how to interpret his hilarity. it was after this visit that becky, who had paid her weekly bills, becky who had made herself agreeable to everybody in the house, who smiled at the landlady, called the waiters "monsieur," and paid the chambermaids in politeness and apologies, what far more than compensated for a little niggardliness in point of money (of which becky never was free), that becky, we say, received a notice to quit from the landlord, who had been told by some one that she was quite an unfit person to have at his hotel, where english ladies would not sit down with her. and she was forced to fly into lodgings of which the dulness and solitude were most wearisome to her. still she held up, in spite of these rebuffs, and tried to make a character for herself and conquer scandal. she went to church very regularly and sang louder than anybody there. she took up the cause of the widows of the shipwrecked fishermen, and gave work and drawings for the quashyboo mission; she subscribed to the assembly and wouldn't waltz. in a word, she did everything that was respectable, and that is why we dwell upon this part of her career with more fondness than upon subsequent parts of her history, which are not so pleasant. she saw people avoiding her, and still laboriously smiled upon them; you never could suppose from her countenance what pangs of humiliation she might be enduring inwardly. her history was after all a mystery. parties were divided about her. some people who took the trouble to busy themselves in the matter said that she was the criminal, whilst others vowed that she was as innocent as a lamb and that her odious husband was in fault. she won over a good many by bursting into tears about her boy and exhibiting the most frantic grief when his name was mentioned, or she saw anybody like him. she gained good mrs. alderney's heart in that way, who was rather the queen of british boulogne and gave the most dinners and balls of all the residents there, by weeping when master alderney came from dr. swishtail's academy to pass his holidays with his mother. "he and her rawdon were of the same age, and so like," becky said in a voice choking with agony; whereas there was five years' difference between the boys' ages, and no more likeness between them than between my respected reader and his humble servant. wenham, when he was going abroad, on his way to kissingen to join lord steyne, enlightened mrs. alderney on this point and told her how he was much more able to describe little rawdon than his mamma, who notoriously hated him and never saw him; how he was thirteen years old, while little alderney was but nine, fair, while the other darling was dark--in a word, caused the lady in question to repent of her good humour. whenever becky made a little circle for herself with incredible toils and labour, somebody came and swept it down rudely, and she had all her work to begin over again. it was very hard; very hard; lonely and disheartening. there was mrs. newbright, who took her up for some time, attracted by the sweetness of her singing at church and by her proper views upon serious subjects, concerning which in former days, at queen's crawley, mrs. becky had had a good deal of instruction. well, she not only took tracts, but she read them. she worked flannel petticoats for the quashyboos--cotton night-caps for the cocoanut indians--painted handscreens for the conversion of the pope and the jews--sat under mr. rowls on wednesdays, mr. huggleton on thursdays, attended two sunday services at church, besides mr. bawler, the darbyite, in the evening, and all in vain. mrs. newbright had occasion to correspond with the countess of southdown about the warmingpan fund for the fiji islanders (for the management of which admirable charity both these ladies formed part of a female committee), and having mentioned her "sweet friend," mrs. rawdon crawley, the dowager countess wrote back such a letter regarding becky, with such particulars, hints, facts, falsehoods, and general comminations, that intimacy between mrs. newbright and mrs. crawley ceased forthwith, and all the serious world of tours, where this misfortune took place, immediately parted company with the reprobate. those who know the english colonies abroad know that we carry with us us our pride, pills, prejudices, harvey-sauces, cayenne-peppers, and other lares, making a little britain wherever we settle down. from one colony to another becky fled uneasily. from boulogne to dieppe, from dieppe to caen, from caen to tours--trying with all her might to be respectable, and alas! always found out some day or other and pecked out of the cage by the real daws. mrs. hook eagles took her up at one of these places--a woman without a blemish in her character and a house in portman square. she was staying at the hotel at dieppe, whither becky fled, and they made each other's acquaintance first at sea, where they were swimming together, and subsequently at the table d'hote of the hotel. mrs eagles had heard--who indeed had not?--some of the scandal of the steyne affair; but after a conversation with becky, she pronounced that mrs. crawley was an angel, her husband a ruffian, lord steyne an unprincipled wretch, as everybody knew, and the whole case against mrs. crawley an infamous and wicked conspiracy of that rascal wenham. "if you were a man of any spirit, mr. eagles, you would box the wretch's ears the next time you see him at the club," she said to her husband. but eagles was only a quiet old gentleman, husband to mrs. eagles, with a taste for geology, and not tall enough to reach anybody's ears. the eagles then patronized mrs. rawdon, took her to live with her at her own house at paris, quarrelled with the ambassador's wife because she would not receive her protegee, and did all that lay in woman's power to keep becky straight in the paths of virtue and good repute. becky was very respectable and orderly at first, but the life of humdrum virtue grew utterly tedious to her before long. it was the same routine every day, the same dulness and comfort, the same drive over the same stupid bois de boulogne, the same company of an evening, the same blair's sermon of a sunday night--the same opera always being acted over and over again; becky was dying of weariness, when, luckily for her, young mr. eagles came from cambridge, and his mother, seeing the impression which her little friend made upon him, straightway gave becky warning. then she tried keeping house with a female friend; then the double menage began to quarrel and get into debt. then she determined upon a boarding-house existence and lived for some time at that famous mansion kept by madame de saint amour, in the rue royale, at paris, where she began exercising her graces and fascinations upon the shabby dandies and fly-blown beauties who frequented her landlady's salons. becky loved society and, indeed, could no more exist without it than an opium-eater without his dram, and she was happy enough at the period of her boarding-house life. "the women here are as amusing as those in may fair," she told an old london friend who met her, "only, their dresses are not quite so fresh. the men wear cleaned gloves, and are sad rogues, certainly, but they are not worse than jack this and tom that. the mistress of the house is a little vulgar, but i don't think she is so vulgar as lady ------" and here she named the name of a great leader of fashion that i would die rather than reveal. in fact, when you saw madame de saint amour's rooms lighted up of a night, men with plaques and cordons at the ecarte tables, and the women at a little distance, you might fancy yourself for a while in good society, and that madame was a real countess. many people did so fancy, and becky was for a while one of the most dashing ladies of the countess's salons. but it is probable that her old creditors of found her out and caused her to leave paris, for the poor little woman was forced to fly from the city rather suddenly, and went thence to brussels. how well she remembered the place! she grinned as she looked up at the little entresol which she had occupied, and thought of the bareacres family, bawling for horses and flight, as their carriage stood in the porte-cochere of the hotel. she went to waterloo and to laeken, where george osborne's monument much struck her. she made a little sketch of it. "that poor cupid!" she said; "how dreadfully he was in love with me, and what a fool he was! i wonder whether little emmy is alive. it was a good little creature; and that fat brother of hers. i have his funny fat picture still among my papers. they were kind simple people." at brussels becky arrived, recommended by madame de saint amour to her friend, madame la comtesse de borodino, widow of napoleon's general, the famous count de borodino, who was left with no resource by the deceased hero but that of a table d'hote and an ecarte table. second-rate dandies and roues, widow-ladies who always have a lawsuit, and very simple english folks, who fancy they see "continental society" at these houses, put down their money, or ate their meals, at madame de borodino's tables. the gallant young fellows treated the company round to champagne at the table d'hote, rode out with the women, or hired horses on country excursions, clubbed money to take boxes at the play or the opera, betted over the fair shoulders of the ladies at the ecarte tables, and wrote home to their parents in devonshire about their felicitous introduction to foreign society. here, as at paris, becky was a boarding-house queen, and ruled in select pensions. she never refused the champagne, or the bouquets, or the drives into the country, or the private boxes; but what she preferred was the ecarte at night,--and she played audaciously. first she played only for a little, then for five-franc pieces, then for napoleons, then for notes: then she would not be able to pay her month's pension: then she borrowed from the young gentlemen: then she got into cash again and bullied madame de borodino, whom she had coaxed and wheedled before: then she was playing for ten sous at a time, and in a dire state of poverty: then her quarter's allowance would come in, and she would pay off madame de borodino's score and would once more take the cards against monsieur de rossignol, or the chevalier de raff. when becky left brussels, the sad truth is that she owed three months' pension to madame de borodino, of which fact, and of the gambling, and of the drinking, and of the going down on her knees to the reverend mr. muff, ministre anglican, and borrowing money of him, and of her coaxing and flirting with milor noodle, son of sir noodle, pupil of the rev. mr. muff, whom she used to take into her private room, and of whom she won large sums at ecarte--of which fact, i say, and of a hundred of her other knaveries, the countess de borodino informs every english person who stops at her establishment, and announces that madame rawdon was no better than a vipere. so our little wanderer went about setting up her tent in various cities of europe, as restless as ulysses or bampfylde moore carew. her taste for disrespectability grew more and more remarkable. she became a perfect bohemian ere long, herding with people whom it would make your hair stand on end to meet. there is no town of any mark in europe but it has its little colony of english raffs--men whose names mr. hemp the officer reads out periodically at the sheriffs' court--young gentlemen of very good family often, only that the latter disowns them; frequenters of billiard-rooms and estaminets, patrons of foreign races and gaming-tables. they people the debtors' prisons--they drink and swagger--they fight and brawl--they run away without paying--they have duels with french and german officers--they cheat mr. spooney at ecarte--they get the money and drive off to baden in magnificent britzkas--they try their infallible martingale and lurk about the tables with empty pockets, shabby bullies, penniless bucks, until they can swindle a jew banker with a sham bill of exchange, or find another mr. spooney to rob. the alternations of splendour and misery which these people undergo are very queer to view. their life must be one of great excitement. becky--must it be owned?--took to this life, and took to it not unkindly. she went about from town to town among these bohemians. the lucky mrs. rawdon was known at every play-table in germany. she and madame de cruchecassee kept house at florence together. it is said she was ordered out of munich, and my friend mr. frederick pigeon avers that it was at her house at lausanne that he was hocussed at supper and lost eight hundred pounds to major loder and the honourable mr. deuceace. we are bound, you see, to give some account of becky's biography, but of this part, the less, perhaps, that is said the better. they say that, when mrs. crawley was particularly down on her luck, she gave concerts and lessons in music here and there. there was a madame de raudon, who certainly had a matinee musicale at wildbad, accompanied by herr spoff, premier pianist to the hospodar of wallachia, and my little friend mr. eaves, who knew everybody and had travelled everywhere, always used to declare that he was at strasburg in the year , when a certain madame rebecque made her appearance in the opera of the dame blanche, giving occasion to a furious row in the theatre there. she was hissed off the stage by the audience, partly from her own incompetency, but chiefly from the ill-advised sympathy of some persons in the parquet, (where the officers of the garrison had their admissions); and eaves was certain that the unfortunate debutante in question was no other than mrs. rawdon crawley. she was, in fact, no better than a vagabond upon this earth. when she got her money she gambled; when she had gambled it she was put to shifts to live; who knows how or by what means she succeeded? it is said that she was once seen at st. petersburg, but was summarily dismissed from that capital by the police, so that there cannot be any possibility of truth in the report that she was a russian spy at toplitz and vienna afterwards. i have even been informed that at paris she discovered a relation of her own, no less a person than her maternal grandmother, who was not by any means a montmorenci, but a hideous old box-opener at a theatre on the boulevards. the meeting between them, of which other persons, as it is hinted elsewhere, seem to have been acquainted, must have been a very affecting interview. the present historian can give no certain details regarding the event. it happened at rome once that mrs. de rawdon's half-year's salary had just been paid into the principal banker's there, and, as everybody who had a balance of above five hundred scudi was invited to the balls which this prince of merchants gave during the winter, becky had the honour of a card, and appeared at one of the prince and princess polonia's splendid evening entertainments. the princess was of the family of pompili, lineally descended from the second king of rome, and egeria of the house of olympus, while the prince's grandfather, alessandro polonia, sold wash-balls, essences, tobacco, and pocket-handkerchiefs, ran errands for gentlemen, and lent money in a small way. all the great company in rome thronged to his saloons--princes, dukes, ambassadors, artists, fiddlers, monsignori, young bears with their leaders--every rank and condition of man. his halls blazed with light and magnificence; were resplendent with gilt frames (containing pictures), and dubious antiques; and the enormous gilt crown and arms of the princely owner, a gold mushroom on a crimson field (the colour of the pocket-handkerchiefs which he sold), and the silver fountain of the pompili family shone all over the roof, doors, and panels of the house, and over the grand velvet baldaquins prepared to receive popes and emperors. so becky, who had arrived in the diligence from florence, and was lodged at an inn in a very modest way, got a card for prince polonia's entertainment, and her maid dressed her with unusual care, and she went to this fine ball leaning on the arm of major loder, with whom she happened to be travelling at the time--(the same man who shot prince ravoli at naples the next year, and was caned by sir john buckskin for carrying four kings in his hat besides those which he used in playing at ecarte )--and this pair went into the rooms together, and becky saw a number of old faces which she remembered in happier days, when she was not innocent, but not found out. major loder knew a great number of foreigners, keen-looking whiskered men with dirty striped ribbons in their buttonholes, and a very small display of linen; but his own countrymen, it might be remarked, eschewed the major. becky, too, knew some ladies here and there--french widows, dubious italian countesses, whose husbands had treated them ill--faugh--what shall we say, we who have moved among some of the finest company of vanity fair, of this refuse and sediment of rascals? if we play, let it be with clean cards, and not with this dirty pack. but every man who has formed one of the innumerable army of travellers has seen these marauding irregulars hanging on, like nym and pistol, to the main force, wearing the king's colours and boasting of his commission, but pillaging for themselves, and occasionally gibbeted by the roadside. well, she was hanging on the arm of major loder, and they went through the rooms together, and drank a great quantity of champagne at the buffet, where the people, and especially the major's irregular corps, struggled furiously for refreshments, of which when the pair had had enough, they pushed on until they reached the duchess's own pink velvet saloon, at the end of the suite of apartments (where the statue of the venus is, and the great venice looking-glasses, framed in silver), and where the princely family were entertaining their most distinguished guests at a round table at supper. it was just such a little select banquet as that of which becky recollected that she had partaken at lord steyne's--and there he sat at polonia's table, and she saw him. the scar cut by the diamond on his white, bald, shining forehead made a burning red mark; his red whiskers were dyed of a purple hue, which made his pale face look still paler. he wore his collar and orders, his blue ribbon and garter. he was a greater prince than any there, though there was a reigning duke and a royal highness, with their princesses, and near his lordship was seated the beautiful countess of belladonna, nee de glandier, whose husband (the count paolo della belladonna), so well known for his brilliant entomological collections, had been long absent on a mission to the emperor of morocco. when becky beheld that familiar and illustrious face, how vulgar all of a sudden did major loder appear to her, and how that odious captain rook did smell of tobacco! in one instant she reassumed her fine-ladyship and tried to look and feel as if she were in may fair once more. "that woman looks stupid and ill-humoured," she thought; "i am sure she can't amuse him. no, he must be bored by her--he never was by me." a hundred such touching hopes, fears, and memories palpitated in her little heart, as she looked with her brightest eyes (the rouge which she wore up to her eyelids made them twinkle) towards the great nobleman. of a star and garter night lord steyne used also to put on his grandest manner and to look and speak like a great prince, as he was. becky admired him smiling sumptuously, easy, lofty, and stately. ah, bon dieu, what a pleasant companion he was, what a brilliant wit, what a rich fund of talk, what a grand manner!--and she had exchanged this for major loder, reeking of cigars and brandy-and-water, and captain rook with his horsejockey jokes and prize-ring slang, and their like. "i wonder whether he will know me," she thought. lord steyne was talking and laughing with a great and illustrious lady at his side, when he looked up and saw becky. she was all over in a flutter as their eyes met, and she put on the very best smile she could muster, and dropped him a little, timid, imploring curtsey. he stared aghast at her for a minute, as macbeth might on beholding banquo's sudden appearance at his ball-supper, and remained looking at her with open mouth, when that horrid major loder pulled her away. "come away into the supper-room, mrs. r.," was that gentleman's remark: "seeing these nobs grubbing away has made me peckish too. let's go and try the old governor's champagne." becky thought the major had had a great deal too much already. the day after she went to walk on the pincian hill--the hyde park of the roman idlers--possibly in hopes to have another sight of lord steyne. but she met another acquaintance there: it was mr. fiche, his lordship's confidential man, who came up nodding to her rather familiarly and putting a finger to his hat. "i knew that madame was here," he said; "i followed her from her hotel. i have some advice to give madame." "from the marquis of steyne?" becky asked, resuming as much of her dignity as she could muster, and not a little agitated by hope and expectation. "no," said the valet; "it is from me. rome is very unwholesome." "not at this season, monsieur fiche--not till after easter." "i tell madame it is unwholesome now. there is always malaria for some people. that cursed marsh wind kills many at all seasons. look, madame crawley, you were always bon enfant, and i have an interest in you, parole d'honneur. be warned. go away from rome, i tell you--or you will be ill and die." becky laughed, though in rage and fury. "what! assassinate poor little me?" she said. "how romantic! does my lord carry bravos for couriers, and stilettos in the fourgons? bah! i will stay, if but to plague him. i have those who will defend me whilst i am here." it was monsieur fiche's turn to laugh now. "defend you," he said, "and who? the major, the captain, any one of those gambling men whom madame sees would take her life for a hundred louis. we know things about major loder (he is no more a major than i am my lord the marquis) which would send him to the galleys or worse. we know everything and have friends everywhere. we know whom you saw at paris, and what relations you found there. yes, madame may stare, but we do. how was it that no minister on the continent would receive madame? she has offended somebody: who never forgives--whose rage redoubled when he saw you. he was like a madman last night when he came home. madame de belladonna made him a scene about you and fired off in one of her furies." "oh, it was madame de belladonna, was it?" becky said, relieved a little, for the information she had just got had scared her. "no--she does not matter--she is always jealous. i tell you it was monseigneur. you did wrong to show yourself to him. and if you stay here you will repent it. mark my words. go. here is my lord's carriage"--and seizing becky's arm, he rushed down an alley of the garden as lord steyne's barouche, blazing with heraldic devices, came whirling along the avenue, borne by the almost priceless horses, and bearing madame de belladonna lolling on the cushions, dark, sulky, and blooming, a king charles in her lap, a white parasol swaying over her head, and old steyne stretched at her side with a livid face and ghastly eyes. hate, or anger, or desire caused them to brighten now and then still, but ordinarily, they gave no light, and seemed tired of looking out on a world of which almost all the pleasure and all the best beauty had palled upon the worn-out wicked old man. "monseigneur has never recovered the shock of that night, never," monsieur fiche whispered to mrs. crawley as the carriage flashed by, and she peeped out at it from behind the shrubs that hid her. "that was a consolation at any rate," becky thought. whether my lord really had murderous intentions towards mrs. becky as monsieur fiche said (since monseigneur's death he has returned to his native country, where he lives much respected, and has purchased from his prince the title of baron ficci), and the factotum objected to have to do with assassination; or whether he simply had a commission to frighten mrs. crawley out of a city where his lordship proposed to pass the winter, and the sight of her would be eminently disagreeable to the great nobleman, is a point which has never been ascertained: but the threat had its effect upon the little woman, and she sought no more to intrude herself upon the presence of her old patron. everybody knows the melancholy end of that nobleman, which befell at naples two months after the french revolution of ; when the most honourable george gustavus, marquis of steyne, earl of gaunt and of gaunt castle, in the peerage of ireland, viscount hellborough, baron pitchley and grillsby, a knight of the most noble order of the garter, of the golden fleece of spain, of the russian order of saint nicholas of the first class, of the turkish order of the crescent, first lord of the powder closet and groom of the back stairs, colonel of the gaunt or regent's own regiment of militia, a trustee of the british museum, an elder brother of the trinity house, a governor of the white friars, and d.c.l.--died after a series of fits brought on, as the papers said, by the shock occasioned to his lordship's sensibilities by the downfall of the ancient french monarchy. an eloquent catalogue appeared in a weekly print, describing his virtues, his magnificence, his talents, and his good actions. his sensibility, his attachment to the illustrious house of bourbon, with which he claimed an alliance, were such that he could not survive the misfortunes of his august kinsmen. his body was buried at naples, and his heart--that heart which always beat with every generous and noble emotion was brought back to castle gaunt in a silver urn. "in him," mr. wagg said, "the poor and the fine arts have lost a beneficent patron, society one of its most brilliant ornaments, and england one of her loftiest patriots and statesmen," &c., &c. his will was a good deal disputed, and an attempt was made to force from madame de belladonna the celebrated jewel called the "jew's-eye" diamond, which his lordship always wore on his forefinger, and which it was said that she removed from it after his lamented demise. but his confidential friend and attendant, monsieur fiche proved that the ring had been presented to the said madame de belladonna two days before the marquis's death, as were the bank-notes, jewels, neapolitan and french bonds, &c., found in his lordship's secretaire and claimed by his heirs from that injured woman. chapter lxv full of business and pleasure the day after the meeting at the play-table, jos had himself arrayed with unusual care and splendour, and without thinking it necessary to say a word to any member of his family regarding the occurrences of the previous night, or asking for their company in his walk, he sallied forth at an early hour, and was presently seen making inquiries at the door of the elephant hotel. in consequence of the fetes the house was full of company, the tables in the street were already surrounded by persons smoking and drinking the national small-beer, the public rooms were in a cloud of smoke, and mr. jos having, in his pompous way, and with his clumsy german, made inquiries for the person of whom he was in search, was directed to the very top of the house, above the first-floor rooms where some travelling pedlars had lived, and were exhibiting their jewellery and brocades; above the second-floor apartments occupied by the etat major of the gambling firm; above the third-floor rooms, tenanted by the band of renowned bohemian vaulters and tumblers; and so on to the little cabins of the roof, where, among students, bagmen, small tradesmen, and country-folks come in for the festival, becky had found a little nest--as dirty a little refuge as ever beauty lay hid in. becky liked the life. she was at home with everybody in the place, pedlars, punters, tumblers, students and all. she was of a wild, roving nature, inherited from father and mother, who were both bohemians, by taste and circumstance; if a lord was not by, she would talk to his courier with the greatest pleasure; the din, the stir, the drink, the smoke, the tattle of the hebrew pedlars, the solemn, braggart ways of the poor tumblers, the sournois talk of the gambling-table officials, the songs and swagger of the students, and the general buzz and hum of the place had pleased and tickled the little woman, even when her luck was down and she had not wherewithal to pay her bill. how pleasant was all the bustle to her now that her purse was full of the money which little georgy had won for her the night before! as jos came creaking and puffing up the final stairs, and was speechless when he got to the landing, and began to wipe his face and then to look for no. , the room where he was directed to seek for the person he wanted, the door of the opposite chamber, no. , was open, and a student, in jack-boots and a dirty schlafrock, was lying on the bed smoking a long pipe; whilst another student in long yellow hair and a braided coat, exceeding smart and dirty too, was actually on his knees at no. , bawling through the keyhole supplications to the person within. "go away," said a well-known voice, which made jos thrill, "i expect somebody; i expect my grandpapa. he mustn't see you there." "angel englanderinn!" bellowed the kneeling student with the whity-brown ringlets and the large finger-ring, "do take compassion upon us. make an appointment. dine with me and fritz at the inn in the park. we will have roast pheasants and porter, plum-pudding and french wine. we shall die if you don't." "that we will," said the young nobleman on the bed; and this colloquy jos overheard, though he did not comprehend it, for the reason that he had never studied the language in which it was carried on. "newmero kattervang dooze, si vous plait," jos said in his grandest manner, when he was able to speak. "quater fang tooce!" said the student, starting up, and he bounced into his own room, where he locked the door, and where jos heard him laughing with his comrade on the bed. the gentleman from bengal was standing, disconcerted by this incident, when the door of the opened of itself and becky's little head peeped out full of archness and mischief. she lighted on jos. "it's you," she said, coming out. "how i have been waiting for you! stop! not yet--in one minute you shall come in." in that instant she put a rouge-pot, a brandy bottle, and a plate of broken meat into the bed, gave one smooth to her hair, and finally let in her visitor. she had, by way of morning robe, a pink domino, a trifle faded and soiled, and marked here and there with pomaturn; but her arms shone out from the loose sleeves of the dress very white and fair, and it was tied round her little waist so as not ill to set off the trim little figure of the wearer. she led jos by the hand into her garret. "come in," she said. "come and talk to me. sit yonder on the chair"; and she gave the civilian's hand a little squeeze and laughingly placed him upon it. as for herself, she placed herself on the bed--not on the bottle and plate, you may be sure--on which jos might have reposed, had he chosen that seat; and so there she sat and talked with her old admirer. "how little years have changed you," she said with a look of tender interest. "i should have known you anywhere. what a comfort it is amongst strangers to see once more the frank honest face of an old friend!" the frank honest face, to tell the truth, at this moment bore any expression but one of openness and honesty: it was, on the contrary, much perturbed and puzzled in look. jos was surveying the queer little apartment in which he found his old flame. one of her gowns hung over the bed, another depending from a hook of the door; her bonnet obscured half the looking-glass, on which, too, lay the prettiest little pair of bronze boots; a french novel was on the table by the bedside, with a candle, not of wax. becky thought of popping that into the bed too, but she only put in the little paper night-cap with which she had put the candle out on going to sleep. "i should have known you anywhere," she continued; "a woman never forgets some things. and you were the first man i ever--i ever saw." "was i really?" said jos. "god bless my soul, you--you don't say so." "when i came with your sister from chiswick, i was scarcely more than a child," becky said. "how is that, dear love? oh, her husband was a sad wicked man, and of course it was of me that the poor dear was jealous. as if i cared about him, heigho! when there was somebody--but no--don't let us talk of old times"; and she passed her handkerchief with the tattered lace across her eyelids. "is not this a strange place," she continued, "for a woman, who has lived in a very different world too, to be found in? i have had so many griefs and wrongs, joseph sedley; i have been made to suffer so cruelly that i am almost made mad sometimes. i can't stay still in any place, but wander about always restless and unhappy. all my friends have been false to me--all. there is no such thing as an honest man in the world. i was the truest wife that ever lived, though i married my husband out of pique, because somebody else--but never mind that. i was true, and he trampled upon me and deserted me. i was the fondest mother. i had but one child, one darling, one hope, one joy, which i held to my heart with a mother's affection, which was my life, my prayer, my--my blessing; and they--they tore it from me--tore it from me"; and she put her hand to her heart with a passionate gesture of despair, burying her face for a moment on the bed. the brandy-bottle inside clinked up against the plate which held the cold sausage. both were moved, no doubt, by the exhibition of so much grief. max and fritz were at the door, listening with wonder to mrs. becky's sobs and cries. jos, too, was a good deal frightened and affected at seeing his old flame in this condition. and she began, forthwith, to tell her story--a tale so neat, simple, and artless that it was quite evident from hearing her that if ever there was a white-robed angel escaped from heaven to be subject to the infernal machinations and villainy of fiends here below, that spotless being--that miserable unsullied martyr, was present on the bed before jos--on the bed, sitting on the brandy-bottle. they had a very long, amicable, and confidential talk there, in the course of which jos sedley was somehow made aware (but in a manner that did not in the least scare or offend him) that becky's heart had first learned to beat at his enchanting presence; that george osborne had certainly paid an unjustifiable court to her, which might account for amelia's jealousy and their little rupture; but that becky never gave the least encouragement to the unfortunate officer, and that she had never ceased to think about jos from the very first day she had seen him, though, of course, her duties as a married woman were paramount--duties which she had always preserved, and would, to her dying day, or until the proverbially bad climate in which colonel crawley was living should release her from a yoke which his cruelty had rendered odious to her. jos went away, convinced that she was the most virtuous, as she was one of the most fascinating of women, and revolving in his mind all sorts of benevolent schemes for her welfare. her persecutions ought to be ended: she ought to return to the society of which she was an ornament. he would see what ought to be done. she must quit that place and take a quiet lodging. amelia must come and see her and befriend her. he would go and settle about it, and consult with the major. she wept tears of heart-felt gratitude as she parted from him, and pressed his hand as the gallant stout gentleman stooped down to kiss hers. so becky bowed jos out of her little garret with as much grace as if it was a palace of which she did the honours; and that heavy gentleman having disappeared down the stairs, max and fritz came out of their hole, pipe in mouth, and she amused herself by mimicking jos to them as she munched her cold bread and sausage and took draughts of her favourite brandy-and-water. jos walked over to dobbin's lodgings with great solemnity and there imparted to him the affecting history with which he had just been made acquainted, without, however, mentioning the play business of the night before. and the two gentlemen were laying their heads together and consulting as to the best means of being useful to mrs. becky, while she was finishing her interrupted dejeuner a la fourchette. how was it that she had come to that little town? how was it that she had no friends and was wandering about alone? little boys at school are taught in their earliest latin book that the path of avernus is very easy of descent. let us skip over the interval in the history of her downward progress. she was not worse now than she had been in the days of her prosperity--only a little down on her luck. as for mrs. amelia, she was a woman of such a soft and foolish disposition that when she heard of anybody unhappy, her heart straightway melted towards the sufferer; and as she had never thought or done anything mortally guilty herself, she had not that abhorrence for wickedness which distinguishes moralists much more knowing. if she spoiled everybody who came near her with kindness and compliments--if she begged pardon of all her servants for troubling them to answer the bell--if she apologized to a shopboy who showed her a piece of silk, or made a curtsey to a street-sweeper with a complimentary remark upon the elegant state of his crossing--and she was almost capable of every one of these follies--the notion that an old acquaintance was miserable was sure to soften her heart; nor would she hear of anybody's being deservedly unhappy. a world under such legislation as hers would not be a very orderly place of abode; but there are not many women, at least not of the rulers, who are of her sort. this lady, i believe, would have abolished all gaols, punishments, handcuffs, whippings, poverty, sickness, hunger, in the world, and was such a mean-spirited creature that--we are obliged to confess it--she could even forget a mortal injury. when the major heard from jos of the sentimental adventure which had just befallen the latter, he was not, it must be owned, nearly as much interested as the gentleman from bengal. on the contrary, his excitement was quite the reverse from a pleasurable one; he made use of a brief but improper expression regarding a poor woman in distress, saying, in fact, "the little minx, has she come to light again?" he never had had the slightest liking for her, but had heartily mistrusted her from the very first moment when her green eyes had looked at, and turned away from, his own. "that little devil brings mischief wherever she goes," the major said disrespectfully. "who knows what sort of life she has been leading? and what business has she here abroad and alone? don't tell me about persecutors and enemies; an honest woman always has friends and never is separated from her family. why has she left her husband? he may have been disreputable and wicked, as you say. he always was. i remember the confounded blackleg and the way in which he used to cheat and hoodwink poor george. wasn't there a scandal about their separation? i think i heard something," cried out major dobbin, who did not care much about gossip, and whom jos tried in vain to convince that mrs. becky was in all respects a most injured and virtuous female. "well, well; let's ask mrs. george," said that arch-diplomatist of a major. "only let us go and consult her. i suppose you will allow that she is a good judge at any rate, and knows what is right in such matters." "hm! emmy is very well," said jos, who did not happen to be in love with his sister. "very well? by gad, sir, she's the finest lady i ever met in my life," bounced out the major. "i say at once, let us go and ask her if this woman ought to be visited or not--i will be content with her verdict." now this odious, artful rogue of a major was thinking in his own mind that he was sure of his case. emmy, he remembered, was at one time cruelly and deservedly jealous of rebecca, never mentioned her name but with a shrinking and terror--a jealous woman never forgives, thought dobbin: and so the pair went across the street to mrs. george's house, where she was contentedly warbling at a music lesson with madame strumpff. when that lady took her leave, jos opened the business with his usual pomp of words. "amelia, my dear," said he, "i have just had the most extraordinary--yes--god bless my soul! the most extraordinary adventure--an old friend--yes, a most interesting old friend of yours, and i may say in old times, has just arrived here, and i should like you to see her." "her!" said amelia, "who is it? major dobbin, if you please not to break my scissors." the major was twirling them round by the little chain from which they sometimes hung to their lady's waist, and was thereby endangering his own eye. "it is a woman whom i dislike very much," said the major, doggedly, "and whom you have no cause to love." "it is rebecca, i'm sure it is rebecca," amelia said, blushing and being very much agitated. "you are right; you always are," dobbin answered. brussels, waterloo, old, old times, griefs, pangs, remembrances, rushed back into amelia's gentle heart and caused a cruel agitation there. "don't let me see her," emmy continued. "i couldn't see her." "i told you so," dobbin said to jos. "she is very unhappy, and--and that sort of thing," jos urged. "she is very poor and unprotected, and has been ill--exceedingly ill--and that scoundrel of a husband has deserted her." "ah!" said amelia. "she hasn't a friend in the world," jos went on, not undexterously, "and she said she thought she might trust in you. she's so miserable, emmy. she has been almost mad with grief. her story quite affected me--'pon my word and honour, it did--never was such a cruel persecution borne so angelically, i may say. her family has been most cruel to her." "poor creature!" amelia said. "and if she can get no friend, she says she thinks she'll die," jos proceeded in a low tremulous voice. "god bless my soul! do you know that she tried to kill herself? she carries laudanum with her--i saw the bottle in her room--such a miserable little room--at a third-rate house, the elephant, up in the roof at the top of all. i went there." this did not seem to affect emmy. she even smiled a little. perhaps she figured jos to herself panting up the stair. "she's beside herself with grief," he resumed. "the agonies that woman has endured are quite frightful to hear of. she had a little boy, of the same age as georgy." "yes, yes, i think i remember," emmy remarked. "well?" "the most beautiful child ever seen," jos said, who was very fat, and easily moved, and had been touched by the story becky told; "a perfect angel, who adored his mother. the ruffians tore him shrieking out of her arms, and have never allowed him to see her." "dear joseph," emmy cried out, starting up at once, "let us go and see her this minute." and she ran into her adjoining bedchamber, tied on her bonnet in a flutter, came out with her shawl on her arm, and ordered dobbin to follow. he went and put her shawl--it was a white cashmere, consigned to her by the major himself from india--over her shoulders. he saw there was nothing for it but to obey, and she put her hand into his arm, and they went away. "it is number , up four pair of stairs," jos said, perhaps not very willing to ascend the steps again; but he placed himself in the window of his drawing-room, which commands the place on which the elephant stands, and saw the pair marching through the market. it was as well that becky saw them too from her garret, for she and the two students were chattering and laughing there; they had been joking about the appearance of becky's grandpapa--whose arrival and departure they had witnessed--but she had time to dismiss them, and have her little room clear before the landlord of the elephant, who knew that mrs. osborne was a great favourite at the serene court, and respected her accordingly, led the way up the stairs to the roof story, encouraging miladi and the herr major as they achieved the ascent. "gracious lady, gracious lady!" said the landlord, knocking at becky's door; he had called her madame the day before, and was by no means courteous to her. "who is it?" becky said, putting out her head, and she gave a little scream. there stood emmy in a tremble, and dobbin, the tall major, with his cane. he stood still watching, and very much interested at the scene; but emmy sprang forward with open arms towards rebecca, and forgave her at that moment, and embraced her and kissed her with all her heart. ah, poor wretch, when was your lip pressed before by such pure kisses? chapter lxvi amantium irae frankness and kindness like amelia's were likely to touch even such a hardened little reprobate as becky. she returned emmy's caresses and kind speeches with something very like gratitude, and an emotion which, if it was not lasting, for a moment was almost genuine. that was a lucky stroke of hers about the child "torn from her arms shrieking." it was by that harrowing misfortune that becky had won her friend back, and it was one of the very first points, we may be certain, upon which our poor simple little emmy began to talk to her new-found acquaintance. "and so they took your darling child from you?" our simpleton cried out. "oh, rebecca, my poor dear suffering friend, i know what it is to lose a boy, and to feel for those who have lost one. but please heaven yours will be restored to you, as a merciful merciful providence has brought me back mine." "the child, my child? oh, yes, my agonies were frightful," becky owned, not perhaps without a twinge of conscience. it jarred upon her to be obliged to commence instantly to tell lies in reply to so much confidence and simplicity. but that is the misfortune of beginning with this kind of forgery. when one fib becomes due as it were, you must forge another to take up the old acceptance; and so the stock of your lies in circulation inevitably multiplies, and the danger of detection increases every day. "my agonies," becky continued, "were terrible (i hope she won't sit down on the bottle) when they took him away from me; i thought i should die; but i fortunately had a brain fever, during which my doctor gave me up, and--and i recovered, and--and here i am, poor and friendless." "how old is he?" emmy asked. "eleven," said becky. "eleven!" cried the other. "why, he was born the same year with georgy, who is--" "i know, i know," becky cried out, who had in fact quite forgotten all about little rawdon's age. "grief has made me forget so many things, dearest amelia. i am very much changed: half-wild sometimes. he was eleven when they took him away from me. bless his sweet face; i have never seen it again." "was he fair or dark?" went on that absurd little emmy. "show me his hair." becky almost laughed at her simplicity. "not to-day, love--some other time, when my trunks arrive from leipzig, whence i came to this place--and a little drawing of him, which i made in happy days." "poor becky, poor becky!" said emmy. "how thankful, how thankful i ought to be"; (though i doubt whether that practice of piety inculcated upon us by our womankind in early youth, namely, to be thankful because we are better off than somebody else, be a very rational religious exercise) and then she began to think, as usual, how her son was the handsomest, the best, and the cleverest boy in the whole world. "you will see my georgy," was the best thing emmy could think of to console becky. if anything could make her comfortable that would. and so the two women continued talking for an hour or more, during which becky had the opportunity of giving her new friend a full and complete version of her private history. she showed how her marriage with rawdon crawley had always been viewed by the family with feelings of the utmost hostility; how her sister-in-law (an artful woman) had poisoned her husband's mind against her; how he had formed odious connections, which had estranged his affections from her: how she had borne everything--poverty, neglect, coldness from the being whom she most loved--and all for the sake of her child; how, finally, and by the most flagrant outrage, she had been driven into demanding a separation from her husband, when the wretch did not scruple to ask that she should sacrifice her own fair fame so that he might procure advancement through the means of a very great and powerful but unprincipled man--the marquis of steyne, indeed. the atrocious monster! this part of her eventful history becky gave with the utmost feminine delicacy and the most indignant virtue. forced to fly her husband's roof by this insult, the coward had pursued his revenge by taking her child from her. and thus becky said she was a wanderer, poor, unprotected, friendless, and wretched. emmy received this story, which was told at some length, as those persons who are acquainted with her character may imagine that she would. she quivered with indignation at the account of the conduct of the miserable rawdon and the unprincipled steyne. her eyes made notes of admiration for every one of the sentences in which becky described the persecutions of her aristocratic relatives and the falling away of her husband. (becky did not abuse him. she spoke rather in sorrow than in anger. she had loved him only too fondly: and was he not the father of her boy?) and as for the separation scene from the child, while becky was reciting it, emmy retired altogether behind her pocket-handkerchief, so that the consummate little tragedian must have been charmed to see the effect which her performance produced on her audience. whilst the ladies were carrying on their conversation, amelia's constant escort, the major (who, of course, did not wish to interrupt their conference, and found himself rather tired of creaking about the narrow stair passage of which the roof brushed the nap from his hat) descended to the ground-floor of the house and into the great room common to all the frequenters of the elephant, out of which the stair led. this apartment is always in a fume of smoke and liberally sprinkled with beer. on a dirty table stand scores of corresponding brass candlesticks with tallow candles for the lodgers, whose keys hang up in rows over the candles. emmy had passed blushing through the room anon, where all sorts of people were collected; tyrolese glove-sellers and danubian linen-merchants, with their packs; students recruiting themselves with butterbrods and meat; idlers, playing cards or dominoes on the sloppy, beery tables; tumblers refreshing during the cessation of their performances--in a word, all the fumum and strepitus of a german inn in fair time. the waiter brought the major a mug of beer, as a matter of course, and he took out a cigar and amused himself with that pernicious vegetable and a newspaper until his charge should come down to claim him. max and fritz came presently downstairs, their caps on one side, their spurs jingling, their pipes splendid with coats of arms and full-blown tassels, and they hung up the key of no. on the board and called for the ration of butterbrod and beer. the pair sat down by the major and fell into a conversation of which he could not help hearing somewhat. it was mainly about "fuchs" and "philister," and duels and drinking-bouts at the neighbouring university of schoppenhausen, from which renowned seat of learning they had just come in the eilwagen, with becky, as it appeared, by their side, and in order to be present at the bridal fetes at pumpernickel. "the title englanderinn seems to be en bays de gonnoisance," said max, who knew the french language, to fritz, his comrade. "after the fat grandfather went away, there came a pretty little compatriot. i heard them chattering and whimpering together in the little woman's chamber." "we must take the tickets for her concert," fritz said. "hast thou any money, max?" "bah," said the other, "the concert is a concert in nubibus. hans said that she advertised one at leipzig, and the burschen took many tickets. but she went off without singing. she said in the coach yesterday that her pianist had fallen ill at dresden. she cannot sing, it is my belief: her voice is as cracked as thine, o thou beer-soaking renowner!" "it is cracked; i hear her trying out of her window a schrecklich english ballad, called 'de rose upon de balgony.'" "saufen and singen go not together," observed fritz with the red nose, who evidently preferred the former amusement. "no, thou shalt take none of her tickets. she won money at the trente and quarante last night. i saw her: she made a little english boy play for her. we will spend thy money there or at the theatre, or we will treat her to french wine or cognac in the aurelius garden, but the tickets we will not buy. what sayest thou? yet, another mug of beer?" and one and another successively having buried their blond whiskers in the mawkish draught, curled them and swaggered off into the fair. the major, who had seen the key of no. put up on its hook and had heard the conversation of the two young university bloods, was not at a loss to understand that their talk related to becky. "the little devil is at her old tricks," he thought, and he smiled as he recalled old days, when he had witnessed the desperate flirtation with jos and the ludicrous end of that adventure. he and george had often laughed over it subsequently, and until a few weeks after george's marriage, when he also was caught in the little circe's toils, and had an understanding with her which his comrade certainly suspected, but preferred to ignore. william was too much hurt or ashamed to ask to fathom that disgraceful mystery, although once, and evidently with remorse on his mind, george had alluded to it. it was on the morning of waterloo, as the young men stood together in front of their line, surveying the black masses of frenchmen who crowned the opposite heights, and as the rain was coming down, "i have been mixing in a foolish intrigue with a woman," george said. "i am glad we were marched away. if i drop, i hope emmy will never know of that business. i wish to god it had never been begun!" and william was pleased to think, and had more than once soothed poor george's widow with the narrative, that osborne, after quitting his wife, and after the action of quatre bras, on the first day, spoke gravely and affectionately to his comrade of his father and his wife. on these facts, too, william had insisted very strongly in his conversations with the elder osborne, and had thus been the means of reconciling the old gentleman to his son's memory, just at the close of the elder man's life. "and so this devil is still going on with her intrigues," thought william. "i wish she were a hundred miles from here. she brings mischief wherever she goes." and he was pursuing these forebodings and this uncomfortable train of thought, with his head between his hands, and the pumpernickel gazette of last week unread under his nose, when somebody tapped his shoulder with a parasol, and he looked up and saw mrs. amelia. this woman had a way of tyrannizing over major dobbin (for the weakest of all people will domineer over somebody), and she ordered him about, and patted him, and made him fetch and carry just as if he was a great newfoundland dog. he liked, so to speak, to jump into the water if she said "high, dobbin!" and to trot behind her with her reticule in his mouth. this history has been written to very little purpose if the reader has not perceived that the major was a spooney. "why did you not wait for me, sir, to escort me downstairs?" she said, giving a little toss of her head and a most sarcastic curtsey. "i couldn't stand up in the passage," he answered with a comical deprecatory look; and, delighted to give her his arm and to take her out of the horrid smoky place, he would have walked off without even so much as remembering the waiter, had not the young fellow run after him and stopped him on the threshold of the elephant to make him pay for the beer which he had not consumed. emmy laughed: she called him a naughty man, who wanted to run away in debt, and, in fact, made some jokes suitable to the occasion and the small-beer. she was in high spirits and good humour, and tripped across the market-place very briskly. she wanted to see jos that instant. the major laughed at the impetuous affection mrs. amelia exhibited; for, in truth, it was not very often that she wanted her brother "that instant." they found the civilian in his saloon on the first-floor; he had been pacing the room, and biting his nails, and looking over the market-place towards the elephant a hundred times at least during the past hour whilst emmy was closeted with her friend in the garret and the major was beating the tattoo on the sloppy tables of the public room below, and he was, on his side too, very anxious to see mrs. osborne. "well?" said he. "the poor dear creature, how she has suffered!" emmy said. "god bless my soul, yes," jos said, wagging his head, so that his cheeks quivered like jellies. "she may have payne's room, who can go upstairs," emmy continued. payne was a staid english maid and personal attendant upon mrs. osborne, to whom the courier, as in duty bound, paid court, and whom georgy used to "lark" dreadfully with accounts of german robbers and ghosts. she passed her time chiefly in grumbling, in ordering about her mistress, and in stating her intention to return the next morning to her native village of clapham. "she may have payne's room," emmy said. "why, you don't mean to say you are going to have that woman into the house?" bounced out the major, jumping up. "of course we are," said amelia in the most innocent way in the world. "don't be angry and break the furniture, major dobbin. of course we are going to have her here." "of course, my dear," jos said. "the poor creature, after all her sufferings," emmy continued; "her horrid banker broken and run away; her husband--wicked wretch--having deserted her and taken her child away from her" (here she doubled her two little fists and held them in a most menacing attitude before her, so that the major was charmed to see such a dauntless virago) "the poor dear thing! quite alone and absolutely forced to give lessons in singing to get her bread--and not have her here!" "take lessons, my dear mrs. george," cried the major, "but don't have her in the house. i implore you don't." "pooh," said jos. "you who are always good and kind--always used to be at any rate--i'm astonished at you, major william," amelia cried. "why, what is the moment to help her but when she is so miserable? now is the time to be of service to her. the oldest friend i ever had, and not--" "she was not always your friend, amelia," the major said, for he was quite angry. this allusion was too much for emmy, who, looking the major almost fiercely in the face, said, "for shame, major dobbin!" and after having fired this shot, she walked out of the room with a most majestic air and shut her own door briskly on herself and her outraged dignity. "to allude to that!" she said, when the door was closed. "oh, it was cruel of him to remind me of it," and she looked up at george's picture, which hung there as usual, with the portrait of the boy underneath. "it was cruel of him. if i had forgiven it, ought he to have spoken? no. and it is from his own lips that i know how wicked and groundless my jealousy was; and that you were pure--oh, yes, you were pure, my saint in heaven!" she paced the room, trembling and indignant. she went and leaned on the chest of drawers over which the picture hung, and gazed and gazed at it. its eyes seemed to look down on her with a reproach that deepened as she looked. the early dear, dear memories of that brief prime of love rushed back upon her. the wound which years had scarcely cicatrized bled afresh, and oh, how bitterly! she could not bear the reproaches of the husband there before her. it couldn't be. never, never. poor dobbin; poor old william! that unlucky word had undone the work of many a year--the long laborious edifice of a life of love and constancy--raised too upon what secret and hidden foundations, wherein lay buried passions, uncounted struggles, unknown sacrifices--a little word was spoken, and down fell the fair palace of hope--one word, and away flew the bird which he had been trying all his life to lure! william, though he saw by amelia's looks that a great crisis had come, nevertheless continued to implore sedley, in the most energetic terms, to beware of rebecca; and he eagerly, almost frantically, adjured jos not to receive her. he besought mr. sedley to inquire at least regarding her; told him how he had heard that she was in the company of gamblers and people of ill repute; pointed out what evil she had done in former days, how she and crawley had misled poor george into ruin, how she was now parted from her husband, by her own confession, and, perhaps, for good reason. what a dangerous companion she would be for his sister, who knew nothing of the affairs of the world! william implored jos, with all the eloquence which he could bring to bear, and a great deal more energy than this quiet gentleman was ordinarily in the habit of showing, to keep rebecca out of his household. had he been less violent, or more dexterous, he might have succeeded in his supplications to jos; but the civilian was not a little jealous of the airs of superiority which the major constantly exhibited towards him, as he fancied (indeed, he had imparted his opinions to mr. kirsch, the courier, whose bills major dobbin checked on this journey, and who sided with his master), and he began a blustering speech about his competency to defend his own honour, his desire not to have his affairs meddled with, his intention, in fine, to rebel against the major, when the colloquy--rather a long and stormy one--was put an end to in the simplest way possible, namely, by the arrival of mrs. becky, with a porter from the elephant hotel in charge of her very meagre baggage. she greeted her host with affectionate respect and made a shrinking, but amicable salutation to major dobbin, who, as her instinct assured her at once, was her enemy, and had been speaking against her; and the bustle and clatter consequent upon her arrival brought amelia out of her room. emmy went up and embraced her guest with the greatest warmth, and took no notice of the major, except to fling him an angry look--the most unjust and scornful glance that had perhaps ever appeared in that poor little woman's face since she was born. but she had private reasons of her own, and was bent upon being angry with him. and dobbin, indignant at the injustice, not at the defeat, went off, making her a bow quite as haughty as the killing curtsey with which the little woman chose to bid him farewell. he being gone, emmy was particularly lively and affectionate to rebecca, and bustled about the apartments and installed her guest in her room with an eagerness and activity seldom exhibited by our placid little friend. but when an act of injustice is to be done, especially by weak people, it is best that it should be done quickly, and emmy thought she was displaying a great deal of firmness and proper feeling and veneration for the late captain osborne in her present behaviour. georgy came in from the fetes for dinner-time and found four covers laid as usual; but one of the places was occupied by a lady, instead of by major dobbin. "hullo! where's dob?" the young gentleman asked with his usual simplicity of language. "major dobbin is dining out, i suppose," his mother said, and, drawing the boy to her, kissed him a great deal, and put his hair off his forehead, and introduced him to mrs. crawley. "this is my boy, rebecca," mrs. osborne said--as much as to say--can the world produce anything like that? becky looked at him with rapture and pressed his hand fondly. "dear boy!" she said--"he is just like my--" emotion choked her further utterance, but amelia understood, as well as if she had spoken, that becky was thinking of her own blessed child. however, the company of her friend consoled mrs. crawley, and she ate a very good dinner. during the repast, she had occasion to speak several times, when georgy eyed her and listened to her. at the desert emmy was gone out to superintend further domestic arrangements; jos was in his great chair dozing over galignani; georgy and the new arrival sat close to each other--he had continued to look at her knowingly more than once, and at last he laid down the nutcrackers. "i say," said georgy. "what do you say?" becky said, laughing. "you're the lady i saw in the mask at the rouge et noir." "hush! you little sly creature," becky said, taking up his hand and kissing it. "your uncle was there too, and mamma mustn't know." "oh, no--not by no means," answered the little fellow. "you see we are quite good friends already," becky said to emmy, who now re-entered; and it must be owned that mrs. osborne had introduced a most judicious and amiable companion into her house. william, in a state of great indignation, though still unaware of all the treason that was in store for him, walked about the town wildly until he fell upon the secretary of legation, tapeworm, who invited him to dinner. as they were discussing that meal, he took occasion to ask the secretary whether he knew anything about a certain mrs. rawdon crawley, who had, he believed, made some noise in london; and then tapeworm, who of course knew all the london gossip, and was besides a relative of lady gaunt, poured out into the astonished major's ears such a history about becky and her husband as astonished the querist, and supplied all the points of this narrative, for it was at that very table years ago that the present writer had the pleasure of hearing the tale. tufto, steyne, the crawleys, and their history--everything connected with becky and her previous life passed under the record of the bitter diplomatist. he knew everything and a great deal besides, about all the world--in a word, he made the most astounding revelations to the simple-hearted major. when dobbin said that mrs. osborne and mr. sedley had taken her into their house, tapeworm burst into a peal of laughter which shocked the major, and asked if they had not better send into the prison and take in one or two of the gentlemen in shaved heads and yellow jackets who swept the streets of pumpernickel, chained in pairs, to board and lodge, and act as tutor to that little scapegrace georgy. this information astonished and horrified the major not a little. it had been agreed in the morning (before meeting with rebecca) that amelia should go to the court ball that night. there would be the place where he should tell her. the major went home, and dressed himself in his uniform, and repaired to court, in hopes to see mrs. osborne. she never came. when he returned to his lodgings all the lights in the sedley tenement were put out. he could not see her till the morning. i don't know what sort of a night's rest he had with this frightful secret in bed with him. at the earliest convenient hour in the morning he sent his servant across the way with a note, saying that he wished very particularly to speak with her. a message came back to say that mrs. osborne was exceedingly unwell and was keeping her room. she, too, had been awake all that night. she had been thinking of a thing which had agitated her mind a hundred times before. a hundred times on the point of yielding, she had shrunk back from a sacrifice which she felt was too much for her. she couldn't, in spite of his love and constancy and her own acknowledged regard, respect, and gratitude. what are benefits, what is constancy, or merit? one curl of a girl's ringlet, one hair of a whisker, will turn the scale against them all in a minute. they did not weigh with emmy more than with other women. she had tried them; wanted to make them pass; could not; and the pitiless little woman had found a pretext, and determined to be free. when at length, in the afternoon, the major gained admission to amelia, instead of the cordial and affectionate greeting, to which he had been accustomed now for many a long day, he received the salutation of a curtsey, and of a little gloved hand, retracted the moment after it was accorded to him. rebecca, too, was in the room, and advanced to meet him with a smile and an extended hand. dobbin drew back rather confusedly, "i--i beg your pardon, m'am," he said; "but i am bound to tell you that it is not as your friend that i am come here now." "pooh! damn; don't let us have this sort of thing!" jos cried out, alarmed, and anxious to get rid of a scene. "i wonder what major dobbin has to say against rebecca?" amelia said in a low, clear voice with a slight quiver in it, and a very determined look about the eyes. "i will not have this sort of thing in my house," jos again interposed. "i say i will not have it; and dobbin, i beg, sir, you'll stop it." and he looked round, trembling and turning very red, and gave a great puff, and made for his door. "dear friend!" rebecca said with angelic sweetness, "do hear what major dobbin has to say against me." "i will not hear it, i say," squeaked out jos at the top of his voice, and, gathering up his dressing-gown, he was gone. "we are only two women," amelia said. "you can speak now, sir." "this manner towards me is one which scarcely becomes you, amelia," the major answered haughtily; "nor i believe am i guilty of habitual harshness to women. it is not a pleasure to me to do the duty which i am come to do." "pray proceed with it quickly, if you please, major dobbin," said amelia, who was more and more in a pet. the expression of dobbin's face, as she spoke in this imperious manner, was not pleasant. "i came to say--and as you stay, mrs. crawley, i must say it in your presence--that i think you--you ought not to form a member of the family of my friends. a lady who is separated from her husband, who travels not under her own name, who frequents public gaming-tables--" "it was to the ball i went," cried out becky. "--is not a fit companion for mrs. osborne and her son," dobbin went on: "and i may add that there are people here who know you, and who profess to know that regarding your conduct about which i don't even wish to speak before--before mrs. osborne." "yours is a very modest and convenient sort of calumny, major dobbin," rebecca said. "you leave me under the weight of an accusation which, after all, is unsaid. what is it? is it unfaithfulness to my husband? i scorn it and defy anybody to prove it--i defy you, i say. my honour is as untouched as that of the bitterest enemy who ever maligned me. is it of being poor, forsaken, wretched, that you accuse me? yes, i am guilty of those faults, and punished for them every day. let me go, emmy. it is only to suppose that i have not met you, and i am no worse to-day than i was yesterday. it is only to suppose that the night is over and the poor wanderer is on her way. don't you remember the song we used to sing in old, dear old days? i have been wandering ever since then--a poor castaway, scorned for being miserable, and insulted because i am alone. let me go: my stay here interferes with the plans of this gentleman." "indeed it does, madam," said the major. "if i have any authority in this house--" "authority, none!" broke out amelia "rebecca, you stay with me. i won't desert you because you have been persecuted, or insult you because--because major dobbin chooses to do so. come away, dear." and the two women made towards the door. william opened it. as they were going out, however, he took amelia's hand and said--"will you stay a moment and speak to me?" "he wishes to speak to you away from me," said becky, looking like a martyr. amelia gripped her hand in reply. "upon my honour it is not about you that i am going to speak," dobbin said. "come back, amelia," and she came. dobbin bowed to mrs. crawley, as he shut the door upon her. amelia looked at him, leaning against the glass: her face and her lips were quite white. "i was confused when i spoke just now," the major said after a pause, "and i misused the word authority." "you did," said amelia with her teeth chattering. "at least i have claims to be heard," dobbin continued. "it is generous to remind me of our obligations to you," the woman answered. "the claims i mean are those left me by george's father," william said. "yes, and you insulted his memory. you did yesterday. you know you did. and i will never forgive you. never!" said amelia. she shot out each little sentence in a tremor of anger and emotion. "you don't mean that, amelia?" william said sadly. "you don't mean that these words, uttered in a hurried moment, are to weigh against a whole life's devotion? i think that george's memory has not been injured by the way in which i have dealt with it, and if we are come to bandying reproaches, i at least merit none from his widow and the mother of his son. reflect, afterwards when--when you are at leisure, and your conscience will withdraw this accusation. it does even now." amelia held down her head. "it is not that speech of yesterday," he continued, "which moves you. that is but the pretext, amelia, or i have loved you and watched you for fifteen years in vain. have i not learned in that time to read all your feelings and look into your thoughts? i know what your heart is capable of: it can cling faithfully to a recollection and cherish a fancy, but it can't feel such an attachment as mine deserves to mate with, and such as i would have won from a woman more generous than you. no, you are not worthy of the love which i have devoted to you. i knew all along that the prize i had set my life on was not worth the winning; that i was a fool, with fond fancies, too, bartering away my all of truth and ardour against your little feeble remnant of love. i will bargain no more: i withdraw. i find no fault with you. you are very good-natured, and have done your best, but you couldn't--you couldn't reach up to the height of the attachment which i bore you, and which a loftier soul than yours might have been proud to share. good-bye, amelia! i have watched your struggle. let it end. we are both weary of it." amelia stood scared and silent as william thus suddenly broke the chain by which she held him and declared his independence and superiority. he had placed himself at her feet so long that the poor little woman had been accustomed to trample upon him. she didn't wish to marry him, but she wished to keep him. she wished to give him nothing, but that he should give her all. it is a bargain not unfrequently levied in love. william's sally had quite broken and cast her down. her assault was long since over and beaten back. "am i to understand then, that you are going--away, william?" she said. he gave a sad laugh. "i went once before," he said, "and came back after twelve years. we were young then, amelia. good-bye. i have spent enough of my life at this play." whilst they had been talking, the door into mrs. osborne's room had opened ever so little; indeed, becky had kept a hold of the handle and had turned it on the instant when dobbin quitted it, and she heard every word of the conversation that had passed between these two. "what a noble heart that man has," she thought, "and how shamefully that woman plays with it!" she admired dobbin; she bore him no rancour for the part he had taken against her. it was an open move in the game, and played fairly. "ah!" she thought, "if i could have had such a husband as that--a man with a heart and brains too! i would not have minded his large feet"; and running into her room, she absolutely bethought herself of something, and wrote him a note, beseeching him to stop for a few days--not to think of going--and that she could serve him with a. the parting was over. once more poor william walked to the door and was gone; and the little widow, the author of all this work, had her will, and had won her victory, and was left to enjoy it as she best might. let the ladies envy her triumph. at the romantic hour of dinner, mr. georgy made his appearance and again remarked the absence of "old dob." the meal was eaten in silence by the party. jos's appetite not being diminished, but emmy taking nothing at all. after the meal, georgy was lolling in the cushions of the old window, a large window, with three sides of glass abutting from the gable, and commanding on one side the market-place, where the elephant is, his mother being busy hard by, when he remarked symptoms of movement at the major's house on the other side of the street. "hullo!" said he, "there's dob's trap--they are bringing it out of the court-yard." the "trap" in question was a carriage which the major had bought for six pounds sterling, and about which they used to rally him a good deal. emmy gave a little start, but said nothing. "hullo!" georgy continued, "there's francis coming out with the portmanteaus, and kunz, the one-eyed postilion, coming down the market with three schimmels. look at his boots and yellow jacket--ain't he a rum one? why--they're putting the horses to dob's carriage. is he going anywhere?" "yes," said emmy, "he is going on a journey." "going on a journey; and when is he coming back?" "he is--not coming back," answered emmy. "not coming back!" cried out georgy, jumping up. "stay here, sir," roared out jos. "stay, georgy," said his mother with a very sad face. the boy stopped, kicked about the room, jumped up and down from the window-seat with his knees, and showed every symptom of uneasiness and curiosity. the horses were put to. the baggage was strapped on. francis came out with his master's sword, cane, and umbrella tied up together, and laid them in the well, and his desk and old tin cocked-hat case, which he placed under the seat. francis brought out the stained old blue cloak lined with red camlet, which had wrapped the owner up any time these fifteen years, and had manchen sturm erlebt, as a favourite song of those days said. it had been new for the campaign of waterloo and had covered george and william after the night of quatre bras. old burcke, the landlord of the lodgings, came out, then francis, with more packages--final packages--then major william--burcke wanted to kiss him. the major was adored by all people with whom he had to do. it was with difficulty he could escape from this demonstration of attachment. "by jove, i will go!" screamed out george. "give him this," said becky, quite interested, and put a paper into the boy's hand. he had rushed down the stairs and flung across the street in a minute--the yellow postilion was cracking his whip gently. william had got into the carriage, released from the embraces of his landlord. george bounded in afterwards, and flung his arms round the major's neck (as they saw from the window), and began asking him multiplied questions. then he felt in his waistcoat pocket and gave him a note. william seized at it rather eagerly, he opened it trembling, but instantly his countenance changed, and he tore the paper in two and dropped it out of the carriage. he kissed georgy on the head, and the boy got out, doubling his fists into his eyes, and with the aid of francis. he lingered with his hand on the panel. fort, schwager! the yellow postilion cracked his whip prodigiously, up sprang francis to the box, away went the schimmels, and dobbin with his head on his breast. he never looked up as they passed under amelia's window, and georgy, left alone in the street, burst out crying in the face of all the crowd. emmy's maid heard him howling again during the night and brought him some preserved apricots to console him. she mingled her lamentations with his. all the poor, all the humble, all honest folks, all good men who knew him, loved that kind-hearted and simple gentleman. as for emmy, had she not done her duty? she had her picture of george for a consolation. chapter lxvii which contains births, marriages, and deaths whatever becky's private plan might be by which dobbin's true love was to be crowned with success, the little woman thought that the secret might keep, and indeed, being by no means so much interested about anybody's welfare as about her own, she had a great number of things pertaining to herself to consider, and which concerned her a great deal more than major dobbin's happiness in this life. she found herself suddenly and unexpectedly in snug comfortable quarters, surrounded by friends, kindness, and good-natured simple people such as she had not met with for many a long day; and, wanderer as she was by force and inclination, there were moments when rest was pleasant to her. as the most hardened arab that ever careered across the desert over the hump of a dromedary likes to repose sometimes under the date-trees by the water, or to come into the cities, walk into the bazaars, refresh himself in the baths, and say his prayers in the mosques, before he goes out again marauding, so jos's tents and pilau were pleasant to this little ishmaelite. she picketed her steed, hung up her weapons, and warmed herself comfortably by his fire. the halt in that roving, restless life was inexpressibly soothing and pleasant to her. so, pleased herself, she tried with all her might to please everybody; and we know that she was eminent and successful as a practitioner in the art of giving pleasure. as for jos, even in that little interview in the garret at the elephant inn, she had found means to win back a great deal of his good-will. in the course of a week, the civilian was her sworn slave and frantic admirer. he didn't go to sleep after dinner, as his custom was in the much less lively society of amelia. he drove out with becky in his open carriage. he asked little parties and invented festivities to do her honour. tapeworm, the charge d'affaires, who had abused her so cruelly, came to dine with jos, and then came every day to pay his respects to becky. poor emmy, who was never very talkative, and more glum and silent than ever after dobbin's departure, was quite forgotten when this superior genius made her appearance. the french minister was as much charmed with her as his english rival. the german ladies, never particularly squeamish as regards morals, especially in english people, were delighted with the cleverness and wit of mrs. osborne's charming friend, and though she did not ask to go to court, yet the most august and transparent personages there heard of her fascinations and were quite curious to know her. when it became known that she was noble, of an ancient english family, that her husband was a colonel of the guard, excellenz and governor of an island, only separated from his lady by one of those trifling differences which are of little account in a country where werther is still read and the wahlverwandtschaften of goethe is considered an edifying moral book, nobody thought of refusing to receive her in the very highest society of the little duchy; and the ladies were even more ready to call her du and to swear eternal friendship for her than they had been to bestow the same inestimable benefits upon amelia. love and liberty are interpreted by those simple germans in a way which honest folks in yorkshire and somersetshire little understand, and a lady might, in some philosophic and civilized towns, be divorced ever so many times from her respective husbands and keep her character in society. jos's house never was so pleasant since he had a house of his own as rebecca caused it to be. she sang, she played, she laughed, she talked in two or three languages, she brought everybody to the house, and she made jos believe that it was his own great social talents and wit which gathered the society of the place round about him. as for emmy, who found herself not in the least mistress of her own house, except when the bills were to be paid, becky soon discovered the way to soothe and please her. she talked to her perpetually about major dobbin sent about his business, and made no scruple of declaring her admiration for that excellent, high-minded gentleman, and of telling emmy that she had behaved most cruelly regarding him. emmy defended her conduct and showed that it was dictated only by the purest religious principles; that a woman once, &c., and to such an angel as him whom she had had the good fortune to marry, was married forever; but she had no objection to hear the major praised as much as ever becky chose to praise him, and indeed, brought the conversation round to the dobbin subject a score of times every day. means were easily found to win the favour of georgy and the servants. amelia's maid, it has been said, was heart and soul in favour of the generous major. having at first disliked becky for being the means of dismissing him from the presence of her mistress, she was reconciled to mrs. crawley subsequently, because the latter became william's most ardent admirer and champion. and in those nightly conclaves in which the two ladies indulged after their parties, and while miss payne was "brushing their 'airs," as she called the yellow locks of the one and the soft brown tresses of the other, this girl always put in her word for that dear good gentleman major dobbin. her advocacy did not make amelia angry any more than rebecca's admiration of him. she made george write to him constantly and persisted in sending mamma's kind love in a postscript. and as she looked at her husband's portrait of nights, it no longer reproached her--perhaps she reproached it, now william was gone. emmy was not very happy after her heroic sacrifice. she was very distraite, nervous, silent, and ill to please. the family had never known her so peevish. she grew pale and ill. she used to try to sing certain songs ("einsam bin ich nicht alleine," was one of them, that tender love-song of weber's which in old-fashioned days, young ladies, and when you were scarcely born, showed that those who lived before you knew too how to love and to sing) certain songs, i say, to which the major was partial; and as she warbled them in the twilight in the drawing-room, she would break off in the midst of the song, and walk into her neighbouring apartment, and there, no doubt, take refuge in the miniature of her husband. some books still subsisted, after dobbin's departure, with his name written in them; a german dictionary, for instance, with "william dobbin, --th reg.," in the fly-leaf; a guide-book with his initials; and one or two other volumes which belonged to the major. emmy cleared these away and put them on the drawers, where she placed her work-box, her desk, her bible, and prayer-book, under the pictures of the two georges. and the major, on going away, having left his gloves behind him, it is a fact that georgy, rummaging his mother's desk some time afterwards, found the gloves neatly folded up and put away in what they call the secret-drawers of the desk. not caring for society, and moping there a great deal, emmy's chief pleasure in the summer evenings was to take long walks with georgy (during which rebecca was left to the society of mr. joseph), and then the mother and son used to talk about the major in a way which even made the boy smile. she told him that she thought major william was the best man in all the world--the gentlest and the kindest, the bravest and the humblest. over and over again she told him how they owed everything which they possessed in the world to that kind friend's benevolent care of them; how he had befriended them all through their poverty and misfortunes; watched over them when nobody cared for them; how all his comrades admired him though he never spoke of his own gallant actions; how georgy's father trusted him beyond all other men, and had been constantly befriended by the good william. "why, when your papa was a little boy," she said, "he often told me that it was william who defended him against a tyrant at the school where they were; and their friendship never ceased from that day until the last, when your dear father fell." "did dobbin kill the man who killed papa?" georgy said. "i'm sure he did, or he would if he could have caught him, wouldn't he, mother? when i'm in the army, won't i hate the french?--that's all." in such colloquies the mother and the child passed a great deal of their time together. the artless woman had made a confidant of the boy. he was as much william's friend as everybody else who knew him well. by the way, mrs. becky, not to be behind hand in sentiment, had got a miniature too hanging up in her room, to the surprise and amusement of most people, and the delight of the original, who was no other than our friend jos. on her first coming to favour the sedleys with a visit, the little woman, who had arrived with a remarkably small shabby kit, was perhaps ashamed of the meanness of her trunks and bandboxes, and often spoke with great respect about her baggage left behind at leipzig, which she must have from that city. when a traveller talks to you perpetually about the splendour of his luggage, which he does not happen to have with him, my son, beware of that traveller! he is, ten to one, an impostor. neither jos nor emmy knew this important maxim. it seemed to them of no consequence whether becky had a quantity of very fine clothes in invisible trunks; but as her present supply was exceedingly shabby, emmy supplied her out of her own stores, or took her to the best milliner in the town and there fitted her out. it was no more torn collars now, i promise you, and faded silks trailing off at the shoulder. becky changed her habits with her situation in life--the rouge-pot was suspended--another excitement to which she had accustomed herself was also put aside, or at least only indulged in in privacy, as when she was prevailed on by jos of a summer evening, emmy and the boy being absent on their walks, to take a little spirit-and-water. but if she did not indulge--the courier did: that rascal kirsch could not be kept from the bottle, nor could he tell how much he took when he applied to it. he was sometimes surprised himself at the way in which mr. sedley's cognac diminished. well, well, this is a painful subject. becky did not very likely indulge so much as she used before she entered a decorous family. at last the much-bragged-about boxes arrived from leipzig; three of them not by any means large or splendid; nor did becky appear to take out any sort of dresses or ornaments from the boxes when they did arrive. but out of one, which contained a mass of her papers (it was that very box which rawdon crawley had ransacked in his furious hunt for becky's concealed money), she took a picture with great glee, which she pinned up in her room, and to which she introduced jos. it was the portrait of a gentleman in pencil, his face having the advantage of being painted up in pink. he was riding on an elephant away from some cocoa-nut trees and a pagoda: it was an eastern scene. "god bless my soul, it is my portrait," jos cried out. it was he indeed, blooming in youth and beauty, in a nankeen jacket of the cut of . it was the old picture that used to hang up in russell square. "i bought it," said becky in a voice trembling with emotion; "i went to see if i could be of any use to my kind friends. i have never parted with that picture--i never will." "won't you?" jos cried with a look of unutterable rapture and satisfaction. "did you really now value it for my sake?" "you know i did, well enough," said becky; "but why speak--why think--why look back! it is too late now!" that evening's conversation was delicious for jos. emmy only came in to go to bed very tired and unwell. jos and his fair guest had a charming tete-a-tete, and his sister could hear, as she lay awake in her adjoining chamber, rebecca singing over to jos the old songs of . he did not sleep, for a wonder, that night, any more than amelia. it was june, and, by consequence, high season in london; jos, who read the incomparable galignani (the exile's best friend) through every day, used to favour the ladies with extracts from his paper during their breakfast. every week in this paper there is a full account of military movements, in which jos, as a man who had seen service, was especially interested. on one occasion he read out--"arrival of the --th regiment. gravesend, june .--the ramchunder, east indiaman, came into the river this morning, having on board officers, and rank and file of this gallant corps. they have been absent from england fourteen years, having been embarked the year after waterloo, in which glorious conflict they took an active part, and having subsequently distinguished themselves in the burmese war. the veteran colonel, sir michael o'dowd, k.c.b., with his lady and sister, landed here yesterday, with captains posky, stubble, macraw, malony; lieutenants smith, jones, thompson, f. thomson; ensigns hicks and grady; the band on the pier playing the national anthem, and the crowd loudly cheering the gallant veterans as they went into wayte's hotel, where a sumptuous banquet was provided for the defenders of old england. during the repast, which we need not say was served up in wayte's best style, the cheering continued so enthusiastically that lady o'dowd and the colonel came forward to the balcony and drank the healths of their fellow-countrymen in a bumper of wayte's best claret." on a second occasion jos read a brief announcement--major dobbin had joined the --th regiment at chatham; and subsequently he promulgated accounts of the presentations at the drawing-room of colonel sir michael o'dowd, k.c.b., lady o'dowd (by mrs. malloy malony of ballymalony), and miss glorvina o'dowd (by lady o'dowd). almost directly after this, dobbin's name appeared among the lieutenant-colonels: for old marshal tiptoff had died during the passage of the --th from madras, and the sovereign was pleased to advance colonel sir michael o'dowd to the rank of major-general on his return to england, with an intimation that he should be colonel of the distinguished regiment which he had so long commanded. amelia had been made aware of some of these movements. the correspondence between george and his guardian had not ceased by any means: william had even written once or twice to her since his departure, but in a manner so unconstrainedly cold that the poor woman felt now in her turn that she had lost her power over him and that, as he had said, he was free. he had left her, and she was wretched. the memory of his almost countless services, and lofty and affectionate regard, now presented itself to her and rebuked her day and night. she brooded over those recollections according to her wont, saw the purity and beauty of the affection with which she had trifled, and reproached herself for having flung away such a treasure. it was gone indeed. william had spent it all out. he loved her no more, he thought, as he had loved her. he never could again. that sort of regard, which he had proffered to her for so many faithful years, can't be flung down and shattered and mended so as to show no scars. the little heedless tyrant had so destroyed it. no, william thought again and again, "it was myself i deluded and persisted in cajoling; had she been worthy of the love i gave her, she would have returned it long ago. it was a fond mistake. isn't the whole course of life made up of such? and suppose i had won her, should i not have been disenchanted the day after my victory? why pine, or be ashamed of my defeat?" the more he thought of this long passage of his life, the more clearly he saw his deception. "i'll go into harness again," he said, "and do my duty in that state of life in which it has pleased heaven to place me. i will see that the buttons of the recruits are properly bright and that the sergeants make no mistakes in their accounts. i will dine at mess and listen to the scotch surgeon telling his stories. when i am old and broken, i will go on half-pay, and my old sisters shall scold me. i have geliebt und gelebet, as the girl in 'wallenstein' says. i am done. pay the bills and get me a cigar: find out what there is at the play to-night, francis; to-morrow we cross by the batavier." he made the above speech, whereof francis only heard the last two lines, pacing up and down the boompjes at rotterdam. the batavier was lying in the basin. he could see the place on the quarter-deck where he and emmy had sat on the happy voyage out. what had that little mrs. crawley to say to him? psha; to-morrow we will put to sea, and return to england, home, and duty! after june all the little court society of pumpernickel used to separate, according to the german plan, and make for a hundred watering-places, where they drank at the wells, rode upon donkeys, gambled at the redoutes if they had money and a mind, rushed with hundreds of their kind to gourmandise at the tables d'hote, and idled away the summer. the english diplomatists went off to teoplitz and kissingen, their french rivals shut up their chancellerie and whisked away to their darling boulevard de gand. the transparent reigning family took too to the waters, or retired to their hunting lodges. everybody went away having any pretensions to politeness, and of course, with them, doctor von glauber, the court doctor, and his baroness. the seasons for the baths were the most productive periods of the doctor's practice--he united business with pleasure, and his chief place of resort was ostend, which is much frequented by germans, and where the doctor treated himself and his spouse to what he called a "dib" in the sea. his interesting patient, jos, was a regular milch-cow to the doctor, and he easily persuaded the civilian, both for his own health's sake and that of his charming sister, which was really very much shattered, to pass the summer at that hideous seaport town. emmy did not care where she went much. georgy jumped at the idea of a move. as for becky, she came as a matter of course in the fourth place inside of the fine barouche mr. jos had bought, the two domestics being on the box in front. she might have some misgivings about the friends whom she should meet at ostend, and who might be likely to tell ugly stories--but bah! she was strong enough to hold her own. she had cast such an anchor in jos now as would require a strong storm to shake. that incident of the picture had finished him. becky took down her elephant and put it into the little box which she had had from amelia ever so many years ago. emmy also came off with her lares--her two pictures--and the party, finally, were, lodged in an exceedingly dear and uncomfortable house at ostend. there amelia began to take baths and get what good she could from them, and though scores of people of becky's acquaintance passed her and cut her, yet mrs. osborne, who walked about with her, and who knew nobody, was not aware of the treatment experienced by the friend whom she had chosen so judiciously as a companion; indeed, becky never thought fit to tell her what was passing under her innocent eyes. some of mrs. rawdon crawley's acquaintances, however, acknowledged her readily enough,--perhaps more readily than she would have desired. among those were major loder (unattached), and captain rook (late of the rifles), who might be seen any day on the dike, smoking and staring at the women, and who speedily got an introduction to the hospitable board and select circle of mr. joseph sedley. in fact they would take no denial; they burst into the house whether becky was at home or not, walked into mrs. osborne's drawing-room, which they perfumed with their coats and mustachios, called jos "old buck," and invaded his dinner-table, and laughed and drank for long hours there. "what can they mean?" asked georgy, who did not like these gentlemen. "i heard the major say to mrs. crawley yesterday, 'no, no, becky, you shan't keep the old buck to yourself. we must have the bones in, or, dammy, i'll split.' what could the major mean, mamma?" "major! don't call him major!" emmy said. "i'm sure i can't tell what he meant." his presence and that of his friend inspired the little lady with intolerable terror and aversion. they paid her tipsy compliments; they leered at her over the dinner-table. and the captain made her advances that filled her with sickening dismay, nor would she ever see him unless she had george by her side. rebecca, to do her justice, never would let either of these men remain alone with amelia; the major was disengaged too, and swore he would be the winner of her. a couple of ruffians were fighting for this innocent creature, gambling for her at her own table, and though she was not aware of the rascals' designs upon her, yet she felt a horror and uneasiness in their presence and longed to fly. she besought, she entreated jos to go. not he. he was slow of movement, tied to his doctor, and perhaps to some other leading-strings. at least becky was not anxious to go to england. at last she took a great resolution--made the great plunge. she wrote off a letter to a friend whom she had on the other side of the water, a letter about which she did not speak a word to anybody, which she carried herself to the post under her shawl; nor was any remark made about it, only that she looked very much flushed and agitated when georgy met her, and she kissed him, and hung over him a great deal that night. she did not come out of her room after her return from her walk. becky thought it was major loder and the captain who frightened her. "she mustn't stop here," becky reasoned with herself. "she must go away, the silly little fool. she is still whimpering after that gaby of a husband--dead (and served right!) these fifteen years. she shan't marry either of these men. it's too bad of loder. no; she shall marry the bamboo cane, i'll settle it this very night." so becky took a cup of tea to amelia in her private apartment and found that lady in the company of her miniatures, and in a most melancholy and nervous condition. she laid down the cup of tea. "thank you," said amelia. "listen to me, amelia," said becky, marching up and down the room before the other and surveying her with a sort of contemptuous kindness. "i want to talk to you. you must go away from here and from the impertinences of these men. i won't have you harassed by them: and they will insult you if you stay. i tell you they are rascals: men fit to send to the hulks. never mind how i know them. i know everybody. jos can't protect you; he is too weak and wants a protector himself. you are no more fit to live in the world than a baby in arms. you must marry, or you and your precious boy will go to ruin. you must have a husband, you fool; and one of the best gentlemen i ever saw has offered you a hundred times, and you have rejected him, you silly, heartless, ungrateful little creature!" "i tried--i tried my best, indeed i did, rebecca," said amelia deprecatingly, "but i couldn't forget--"; and she finished the sentence by looking up at the portrait. "couldn't forget him!" cried out becky, "that selfish humbug, that low-bred cockney dandy, that padded booby, who had neither wit, nor manners, nor heart, and was no more to be compared to your friend with the bamboo cane than you are to queen elizabeth. why, the man was weary of you, and would have jilted you, but that dobbin forced him to keep his word. he owned it to me. he never cared for you. he used to sneer about you to me, time after time, and made love to me the week after he married you." "it's false! it's false! rebecca," cried out amelia, starting up. "look there, you fool," becky said, still with provoking good humour, and taking a little paper out of her belt, she opened it and flung it into emmy's lap. "you know his handwriting. he wrote that to me--wanted me to run away with him--gave it me under your nose, the day before he was shot--and served him right!" becky repeated. emmy did not hear her; she was looking at the letter. it was that which george had put into the bouquet and given to becky on the night of the duchess of richmond's ball. it was as she said: the foolish young man had asked her to fly. emmy's head sank down, and for almost the last time in which she shall be called upon to weep in this history, she commenced that work. her head fell to her bosom, and her hands went up to her eyes; and there for a while, she gave way to her emotions, as becky stood on and regarded her. who shall analyse those tears and say whether they were sweet or bitter? was she most grieved because the idol of her life was tumbled down and shivered at her feet, or indignant that her love had been so despised, or glad because the barrier was removed which modesty had placed between her and a new, a real affection? "there is nothing to forbid me now," she thought. "i may love him with all my heart now. oh, i will, i will, if he will but let me and forgive me." i believe it was this feeling rushed over all the others which agitated that gentle little bosom. indeed, she did not cry so much as becky expected--the other soothed and kissed her--a rare mark of sympathy with mrs. becky. she treated emmy like a child and patted her head. "and now let us get pen and ink and write to him to come this minute," she said. "i--i wrote to him this morning," emmy said, blushing exceedingly. becky screamed with laughter--"un biglietto," she sang out with rosina, "eccolo qua!"--the whole house echoed with her shrill singing. two mornings after this little scene, although the day was rainy and gusty, and amelia had had an exceedingly wakeful night, listening to the wind roaring, and pitying all travellers by land and by water, yet she got up early and insisted upon taking a walk on the dike with georgy; and there she paced as the rain beat into her face, and she looked out westward across the dark sea line and over the swollen billows which came tumbling and frothing to the shore. neither spoke much, except now and then, when the boy said a few words to his timid companion, indicative of sympathy and protection. "i hope he won't cross in such weather," emmy said. "i bet ten to one he does," the boy answered. "look, mother, there's the smoke of the steamer." it was that signal, sure enough. but though the steamer was under way, he might not be on board; he might not have got the letter; he might not choose to come. a hundred fears poured one over the other into the little heart, as fast as the waves on to the dike. the boat followed the smoke into sight. georgy had a dandy telescope and got the vessel under view in the most skilful manner. and he made appropriate nautical comments upon the manner of the approach of the steamer as she came nearer and nearer, dipping and rising in the water. the signal of an english steamer in sight went fluttering up to the mast on the pier. i daresay mrs. amelia's heart was in a similar flutter. emmy tried to look through the telescope over george's shoulder, but she could make nothing of it. she only saw a black eclipse bobbing up and down before her eyes. george took the glass again and raked the vessel. "how she does pitch!" he said. "there goes a wave slap over her bows. there's only two people on deck besides the steersman. there's a man lying down, and a--chap in a--cloak with a--hooray!--it's dob, by jingo!" he clapped to the telescope and flung his arms round his mother. as for that lady, let us say what she did in the words of a favourite poet--"dakruoen gelasasa." she was sure it was william. it could be no other. what she had said about hoping that he would not come was all hypocrisy. of course he would come; what could he do else but come? she knew he would come. the ship came swiftly nearer and nearer. as they went in to meet her at the landing-place at the quay, emmy's knees trembled so that she scarcely could run. she would have liked to kneel down and say her prayers of thanks there. oh, she thought, she would be all her life saying them! it was such a bad day that as the vessel came alongside of the quay there were no idlers abroad, scarcely even a commissioner on the look out for the few passengers in the steamer. that young scapegrace george had fled too, and as the gentleman in the old cloak lined with red stuff stepped on to the shore, there was scarcely any one present to see what took place, which was briefly this: a lady in a dripping white bonnet and shawl, with her two little hands out before her, went up to him, and in the next minute she had altogether disappeared under the folds of the old cloak, and was kissing one of his hands with all her might; whilst the other, i suppose, was engaged in holding her to his heart (which her head just about reached) and in preventing her from tumbling down. she was murmuring something about--forgive--dear william--dear, dear, dearest friend--kiss, kiss, kiss, and so forth--and in fact went on under the cloak in an absurd manner. when emmy emerged from it, she still kept tight hold of one of william's hands, and looked up in his face. it was full of sadness and tender love and pity. she understood its reproach and hung down her head. "it was time you sent for me, dear amelia," he said. "you will never go again, william?" "no, never," he answered, and pressed the dear little soul once more to his heart. as they issued out of the custom-house precincts, georgy broke out on them, with his telescope up to his eye, and a loud laugh of welcome; he danced round the couple and performed many facetious antics as he led them up to the house. jos wasn't up yet; becky not visible (though she looked at them through the blinds). georgy ran off to see about breakfast. emmy, whose shawl and bonnet were off in the passage in the hands of mrs. payne, now went to undo the clasp of william's cloak, and--we will, if you please, go with george, and look after breakfast for the colonel. the vessel is in port. he has got the prize he has been trying for all his life. the bird has come in at last. there it is with its head on his shoulder, billing and cooing close up to his heart, with soft outstretched fluttering wings. this is what he has asked for every day and hour for eighteen years. this is what he pined after. here it is--the summit, the end--the last page of the third volume. good-bye, colonel--god bless you, honest william!--farewell, dear amelia--grow green again, tender little parasite, round the rugged old oak to which you cling! perhaps it was compunction towards the kind and simple creature, who had been the first in life to defend her, perhaps it was a dislike to all such sentimental scenes--but rebecca, satisfied with her part in the transaction, never presented herself before colonel dobbin and the lady whom he married. "particular business," she said, took her to bruges, whither she went, and only georgy and his uncle were present at the marriage ceremony. when it was over, and georgy had rejoined his parents, mrs. becky returned (just for a few days) to comfort the solitary bachelor, joseph sedley. he preferred a continental life, he said, and declined to join in housekeeping with his sister and her husband. emmy was very glad in her heart to think that she had written to her husband before she read or knew of that letter of george's. "i knew it all along," william said; "but could i use that weapon against the poor fellow's memory? it was that which made me suffer so when you--" "never speak of that day again," emmy cried out, so contrite and humble that william turned off the conversation by his account of glorvina and dear old peggy o'dowd, with whom he was sitting when the letter of recall reached him. "if you hadn't sent for me," he added with a laugh, "who knows what glorvina's name might be now?" at present it is glorvina posky (now mrs. major posky); she took him on the death of his first wife, having resolved never to marry out of the regiment. lady o'dowd is also so attached to it that, she says, if anything were to happen to mick, bedad she'd come back and marry some of 'em. but the major-general is quite well and lives in great splendour at o'dowdstown, with a pack of beagles, and (with the exception of perhaps their neighbour, hoggarty of castle hoggarty) he is the first man of his county. her ladyship still dances jigs, and insisted on standing up with the master of the horse at the lord lieutenant's last ball. both she and glorvina declared that dobbin had used the latter sheamfully, but posky falling in, glorvina was consoled, and a beautiful turban from paris appeased the wrath of lady o'dowd. when colonel dobbin quitted the service, which he did immediately after his marriage, he rented a pretty little country place in hampshire, not far from queen's crawley, where, after the passing of the reform bill, sir pitt and his family constantly resided now. all idea of a peerage was out of the question, the baronet's two seats in parliament being lost. he was both out of pocket and out of spirits by that catastrophe, failed in his health, and prophesied the speedy ruin of the empire. lady jane and mrs. dobbin became great friends--there was a perpetual crossing of pony-chaises between the hall and the evergreens, the colonel's place (rented of his friend major ponto, who was abroad with his family). her ladyship was godmother to mrs. dobbin's child, which bore her name, and was christened by the rev. james crawley, who succeeded his father in the living: and a pretty close friendship subsisted between the two lads, george and rawdon, who hunted and shot together in the vacations, were both entered of the same college at cambridge, and quarrelled with each other about lady jane's daughter, with whom they were both, of course, in love. a match between george and that young lady was long a favourite scheme of both the matrons, though i have heard that miss crawley herself inclined towards her cousin. mrs. rawdon crawley's name was never mentioned by either family. there were reasons why all should be silent regarding her. for wherever mr. joseph sedley went, she travelled likewise, and that infatuated man seemed to be entirely her slave. the colonel's lawyers informed him that his brother-in-law had effected a heavy insurance upon his life, whence it was probable that he had been raising money to discharge debts. he procured prolonged leave of absence from the east india house, and indeed, his infirmities were daily increasing. on hearing the news about the insurance, amelia, in a good deal of alarm, entreated her husband to go to brussels, where jos then was, and inquire into the state of his affairs. the colonel quitted home with reluctance (for he was deeply immersed in his history of the punjaub which still occupies him, and much alarmed about his little daughter, whom he idolizes, and who was just recovering from the chicken-pox) and went to brussels and found jos living at one of the enormous hotels in that city. mrs. crawley, who had her carriage, gave entertainments, and lived in a very genteel manner, occupied another suite of apartments in the same hotel. the colonel, of course, did not desire to see that lady, or even think proper to notify his arrival at brussels, except privately to jos by a message through his valet. jos begged the colonel to come and see him that night, when mrs. crawley would be at a soiree, and when they could meet alone. he found his brother-in-law in a condition of pitiable infirmity--and dreadfully afraid of rebecca, though eager in his praises of her. she tended him through a series of unheard-of illnesses with a fidelity most admirable. she had been a daughter to him. "but--but--oh, for god's sake, do come and live near me, and--and--see me sometimes," whimpered out the unfortunate man. the colonel's brow darkened at this. "we can't, jos," he said. "considering the circumstances, amelia can't visit you." "i swear to you--i swear to you on the bible," gasped out joseph, wanting to kiss the book, "that she is as innocent as a child, as spotless as your own wife." "it may be so," said the colonel gloomily, "but emmy can't come to you. be a man, jos: break off this disreputable connection. come home to your family. we hear your affairs are involved." "involved!" cried jos. "who has told such calumnies? all my money is placed out most advantageously. mrs. crawley--that is--i mean--it is laid out to the best interest." "you are not in debt, then? why did you insure your life?" "i thought--a little present to her--in case anything happened; and you know my health is so delicate--common gratitude you know--and i intend to leave all my money to you--and i can spare it out of my income, indeed i can," cried out william's weak brother-in-law. the colonel besought jos to fly at once--to go back to india, whither mrs. crawley could not follow him; to do anything to break off a connection which might have the most fatal consequences to him. jos clasped his hands and cried, "he would go back to india. he would do anything, only he must have time: they mustn't say anything to mrs. crawley--she'd--she'd kill me if she knew it. you don't know what a terrible woman she is," the poor wretch said. "then, why not come away with me?" said dobbin in reply; but jos had not the courage. "he would see dobbin again in the morning; he must on no account say that he had been there. he must go now. becky might come in." and dobbin quitted him, full of forebodings. he never saw jos more. three months afterwards joseph sedley died at aix-la-chapelle. it was found that all his property had been muddled away in speculations, and was represented by valueless shares in different bubble companies. all his available assets were the two thousand pounds for which his life was insured, and which were left equally between his beloved "sister amelia, wife of, &c., and his friend and invaluable attendant during sickness, rebecca, wife of lieutenant-colonel rawdon crawley, c.b.," who was appointed administratrix. the solicitor of the insurance company swore it was the blackest case that ever had come before him, talked of sending a commission to aix to examine into the death, and the company refused payment of the policy. but mrs., or lady crawley, as she styled herself, came to town at once (attended with her solicitors, messrs. burke, thurtell, and hayes, of thavies inn) and dared the company to refuse the payment. they invited examination, they declared that she was the object of an infamous conspiracy, which had been pursuing her all through life, and triumphed finally. the money was paid, and her character established, but colonel dobbin sent back his share of the legacy to the insurance office and rigidly declined to hold any communication with rebecca. she never was lady crawley, though she continued so to call herself. his excellency colonel rawdon crawley died of yellow fever at coventry island, most deeply beloved and deplored, and six weeks before the demise of his brother, sir pitt. the estate consequently devolved upon the present sir rawdon crawley, bart. he, too, has declined to see his mother, to whom he makes a liberal allowance, and who, besides, appears to be very wealthy. the baronet lives entirely at queen's crawley, with lady jane and her daughter, whilst rebecca, lady crawley, chiefly hangs about bath and cheltenham, where a very strong party of excellent people consider her to be a most injured woman. she has her enemies. who has not? her life is her answer to them. she busies herself in works of piety. she goes to church, and never without a footman. her name is in all the charity lists. the destitute orange-girl, the neglected washerwoman, the distressed muffin-man find in her a fast and generous friend. she is always having stalls at fancy fairs for the benefit of these hapless beings. emmy, her children, and the colonel, coming to london some time back, found themselves suddenly before her at one of these fairs. she cast down her eyes demurely and smiled as they started away from her; emmy scurrying off on the arm of george (now grown a dashing young gentleman) and the colonel seizing up his little janey, of whom he is fonder than of anything in the world--fonder even than of his history of the punjaub. "fonder than he is of me," emmy thinks with a sigh. but he never said a word to amelia that was not kind and gentle, or thought of a want of hers that he did not try to gratify. ah! vanitas vanitatum! which of us is happy in this world? which of us has his desire? or, having it, is satisfied?--come, children, let us shut up the box and the puppets, for our play is played out. _bell's indian and colonial library_ wellington's men _uniform with this volume_ by w.h. fitchett, b.a., ll.d. in paper covers or cloth deeds that won the empire. historic battle scenes. with portraits and plans. fights for the flag. with portraits and plans. how england saved europe. the story of the great war, - . four volumes. with portraits, facsimiles, and plans. wellington's men some soldier autobiographies _kincaid's "adventures in the rifle brigade"; "rifleman harris"; anton's "military life"; mercer's "waterloo"_ edited by w.h. fitchett, b.a., ll.d. author of "deeds that won the empire," "fights for the flag," "how england saved europe," etc. [illustration] london george bell & sons and bombay _this edition is issued for circulation in india and the colonies only._ contents page the soldier in literature i. from torres vedras to waterloo-- i. a young soldier ii. retreats and pursuits iii. some famous battles iv. the imminent deadly breach v. in the pyrenees vi. quatre bras vii. the rifles at waterloo ii. one of craufurd's veterans-- i. the king's shilling ii. in the peninsula iii. when the fight is over iv. a memorable retreat v. stern scenes vi. some famous soldiers vii. the "tommy atkins" of a century ago iii. a royal highlander-- i. about soldiers' wives ii. fighting in the pyrenees iii. the hillside at toulouse iv. the nd at quatre bras v. the highlanders at waterloo iv. with the guns at waterloo-- i. waiting for the guns ii. on march to the field iii. quatre bras iv. the retreat to waterloo v. waterloo vi. after the fight the soldier in literature wellington's men the soldier in literature this volume is an attempt to rescue from undeserved oblivion a cluster of soldierly autobiographies; and to give to the general reader some pictures of famous battles, not as described by the historian or analysed by the philosopher, but as seen by the eyes of men who fought in them. history treats the men who do the actual fighting in war very ill. it commonly forgets all about them. if it occasionally sheds a few drops of careless ink upon them, it is without either comprehension or sympathy. from the orthodox historian's point of view, the private soldier is a mere unconsidered pawn in the passionless chess of some cold-brained strategist. as a matter of fact a battle is an event which pulsates with the fiercest human passions--passions bred of terror and of daring; of the anguish of wounds and of the rapture of victory; of the fear and awe of human souls over whom there suddenly sweeps the mystery of death. but under conventional literary treatment all this evaporates. to the historian a battle is as completely drained of human emotion as a chemical formula. it is evaporated into a haze of cold and cloudy generalities. but this is certainly to miss what is, for the human imagination, the most characteristic feature of a great fight. a battle offers the spectacle of, say, a hundred thousand men lifted up suddenly and simultaneously into a mood of intensest passion--heroic or diabolical--eager to kill and willing to be killed; a mood in which death and wounds count for nothing and victory for everything. this is the feature of war which stirs the common imagination of the race; which makes gentle women weep, and wise philosophers stare, and the average hot-blooded human male turn half-frenzied with excitement. what does each separate human atom feel, when caught in that whirling tornado of passion and of peril? who shall make visible to us the actual faces in the fighting-line; or make audible the words--stern order, broken prayer, blasphemous jest--spoken amid the tumult? who shall give us, in a word, an adequate picture of the soldier's life in actual war-time, with its hardships, its excitements, its escapes, its exultation and despair? if the soldier attempts to tell the tale himself he commonly fails. in ninety-nine cases out of a hundred he belongs to the inarticulate classes. he lacks the gift of description. he can do a great deed, but cannot describe it when it is done. if knowledge were linked in them to an adequate gift of literary expression, soldiers would be the great literary artists of the race. for who else lives through so wide and so wild a range of experience and emotion. when, as in the case of napier, a soldier emerges with a distinct touch of literary genius, the result is an immortal book. but usually the soldier has to be content with making history; he leaves to others the tamer business of writing it, and generally himself suffers the injustice of being forgotten in the process. literature is congested with books which describe the soldier from the outside; which tell the tale of his hardships and heroisms, his follies and vices, as they are seen by the remote and uncomprehending spectator. what the world needs is the tale of the bayonet and of "brown bess," written by the hand which has actually used those weapons. now, the narratives which these pages offer afresh to the world are of exactly this character. they are pages of battle-literature written by the hands of soldiers. they are not attempts at history, but exercises in autobiography. so they are actual human documents, with the salt of truth, of sincerity, and of reality in every syllable. the faded leaves of these memoirs are still stained with the red wine of battle. in their words--to the imaginative and sympathetic hearer, at all events--there are still audible the shouts of charging men, the roll of musketry volleys, the wild cheer of the stormers at ciudad rodrigo or badajos, the earth-shaking thunder of waterloo. passages from four of such autobiographies are woven into the pages of this book: captain kincaid's "adventures in the rifle brigade in the peninsula, &c."; sergeant anton's "recollections of service in the nd"; the tale of "rifleman harris" in the old th; and mercer's experiences in command of a battery at waterloo. all these books are old; three, at least, are out of print, and form the rare prizes to be picked up by the fortunate collector in second-hand bookshops. anton's book was published in , kincaid's in , and is endorsed "very scarce." captain curling edited "rifleman harris" in . mercer's "journal of the waterloo campaign" was written in , and published as late as . but it consists of two volumes, in which the story of the great battle is only an episode, and it has never reached any wide circle of readers. yet mercer's account of waterloo is the best personal narrative of the great fight in english literature. all these books are thus of rare interest and value. they belong to the era of "brown bess," of the peninsula, and of waterloo. each writer represents a distinct type of soldiership. kincaid was a captain in one of the most famous regiments in british history--the rifles in craufurd's light division. harris was a private in another battalion of the same regiment. mercer commanded battery g--fondly described by its captain as "the finest troop in the service"--at waterloo. anton was a scottish soldier in that not least famous of scottish regiments--the nd, or royal highlanders. they all took part in that chain of memorable victories, which stretches from roliça to waterloo, and they were all--though in widely different ways--fighting men of the highest quality. kincaid led a forlorn hope at ciudad rodrigo. harris was one of the unconquerable, much-enduring rearguard in moore's retreat to corunna. anton shared in the wild fighting of the nd at toulouse. mercer fought his battery at waterloo until, out of fine horses in his troop, lay dead or dying; while of the men not enough survived to man four guns; and these, as the great battle came to its end, fell, smoke-blackened and exhausted, in slumber beside their blood-splashed guns. each writer, too, had, in an amusing degree, an intense pride in the particular body to which he belonged. the army with him counted for little, the regiment was everything. kincaid says, with entire frankness, if anybody who had not the good fortune to belong to the "rifles" expects to be named in his book, he was "most confoundedly mistaken." "neither," he adds, "will i mention any regiment but my own, if i can possibly avoid it. for there is none other that i like so much, and none else so much deserves it. for we were the light regiment of the light division, and fired the first and last shot in almost every battle, siege, and skirmish, in which the army was engaged during the war." kincaid admits that the rd and nd--the other regiments that formed the immortal light division--deserved to be remembered, too; but the most flattering compliment he can pay them is to say, "wherever we were, they were." "whenever it came to a pinch," he adds, "we had only to look behind to see a line"--consisting of these two regiments--"in which we might place a degree of confidence almost equal to our hopes in heaven. there never was such a corps of riflemen with such supporters!" harris, again, cherishes the comforting persuasion that his particular battalion could outmarch, outshoot, outlaugh, outdare--perhaps even outdrink--any other in the british army. "we were," he says, "always at the front in an advance, and at the rear in a retreat." he praises the army as a whole, but it is only for the sake of erecting a pedestal on which some new monument to the glory of the "rifles" can be placed. he recalls the memory of the british army as it approached salamanca. "the men," he says, "seemed invincible. nothing, i thought, could have beaten them." yet the cream of it all was the "rifles"! harris's working creed, in brief, consists of three articles: ( ) that the finest army in the world was that which wellington led; ( ) that the finest regiment in that army was the th; and ( ) that the best battalion in the regiment was that his major commanded! "we had some of as desperate fellows in the rifles as had ever toiled under the burning sun of an enemy's country in any age. there never were such a set of devil-may-care fellows so completely up to their business as the th. they were in the mess before the others began, and were the last to leave off. it was their business to be so.... there was, perhaps, as intelligent and talented a set of men amongst us as ever carried a weapon in any country. they seemed at times to need but a glance at what was going on to know all about its 'why and wherefore.'" sergeant anton, again, has all a good scotchman's austere pride in the superiority of a scotch regiment over any other that ever carried muskets. he has nothing but an imperfectly disguised pity for those unfortunate people who have the bad taste to be born south of the tweed. any scotch regiment, he visibly holds, is necessarily better than any possible regiment not brought up on porridge. and if amongst the scottish regiments there was any quite equal to the royal highlanders, sergeant anton, at least, would like to know the name of that surprising body. in the same fashion captain mercer, the one educated man in this cluster of soldier-scribes, plainly cherishes a hearty belief that battery g has the finest horses, the best equipment, the smartest men, and the most perfect discipline, not merely in the british army, but in any army known to history! pride in the regiment to which the soldier happens to belong is a fine element of military strength. under modern short-service conditions it grows faint; but amongst wellington's veterans it had almost the fervours of a religion. it may be added that these writers are curiously distinct, and look at war through very diverse eyes. kincaid represents a type of officer in which the british army of all days is rich; and whose qualities explain some of the failures, and most of the triumphs of that army. he was gallant in every drop of his blood; cool, hardy, athletic, a fit leader of the fighting line. he had been reared in luxury, accustomed to feed daintily every day, to lie softly every night; he was full of the pride of his caste; yet in the actual business of fighting, kincaid, like all officers of the type to which he belonged, could outmarch the privates in the ranks. he fared as hardly as they, shared their scanty rations, lay like them on the wet soil, endured in every way as much, and grumbled less. he was not only first in the charge, but last in the retreat, and took it all--hunger, wet, cold, perils--with smiling face, as part of the day's work. harris, who views his officers through a private's eyes, is never weary of dwelling on their hardihood, as well as their pluck. "the gentlemen," he says, "bear it best." "it is usually found," he adds, "that those whose birth and station might reasonably have made them fastidious under hardship and toil, bear their miseries without a murmur; while those whose previous life might have better prepared them for the toil of war, are the first to cry out and complain of their hard fate." kincaid belongs to this fine type of officer; but he had all the limitations of his type. he knew nothing of the scientific side of his profession. he fought by the light of nature, and looked on a battle as a game of football. he was a true product of the english public schools; gay, plucky, hardy, reckless. he lived under the empire of great feelings--of patriotism, honour, &c.--but tortures would not make him use great words to describe them. a shy and proud self-disparagement is the note of kincaid's type. they are almost more afraid of being detected in doing a fine thing than others are of being proved guilty of doing a base thing. kincaid himself describes how ciudad rodrigo was carried, but omits to mention the circumstance that he volunteered for the forlorn hope, and led it. the tone of his book is that of the officers' mess, bright, off-hand, jesting at peril, making light of hardships. he tells the tale of heroic deeds--his own or others'--with the severest economy of admiring adjectives. the only adjectives, indeed, kincaid admits are those of a comminatory sort. harris is a fair sample of the unconquerable british private of the peninsular age, with all the virtues, and all the limitations of his class. he is stocky in body, stubborn in temper, untaught and primitive in nature. he seems to have had no education. his horizon is singularly limited. he sees little beyond the files to right and left of him. the major who commands the battalion is the biggest figure in his world. his endurance is wonderful. laden like a donkey, with ill-fitting boots and half-filled stomach, he can splash along the muddy spanish roads, under the falling rain, or sweat beneath the spanish mid-summer heats, from gray dawn to gathering dusk. he will toil on, indeed, with dogged courage until his brain reels, his eyes grow blind, and the over-wrought muscles can no longer stir the leaden feet. harris is loyal to his comrades; cherishes an undoubting confidence in his officers; believes that, man for man, any british regiment can beat twice its numbers of any other nation; while his own particular regiment, the th, will cheerfully take in hand four times that ratio of foes. harris has no hate for a frenchman; he respects and likes him indeed, but he always expects to thrash him, and having shot his french foe he is quite prepared to explore his pockets in search of booty. for the british private in the peninsula was by no means an angel in a red coat. his vices, like his virtues, were of a primitive sort. he drank, he swore, and alas, he plundered. if the valour which raged at the great breach of badajos, or swept up the slope of rugged stones at san sebastian, was of almost incredible fire, so the brutality which plundered and ravished and slew after the city was carried, was of almost incredible fierceness. harris had no education or almost none; yet he learned to write, and write well. his style, it is true, is that of the uneducated man. he is most sensitive to things that touch himself. he is conscious of the weight of his knapsack, of the blisters on his feet, of the hunger in his stomach, and he drags all these emotions into his tale. yet harris had, somehow, by gift of nature, an unusual literary faculty. he sees, and he makes you see. it is true the area of his vision is narrow. it is almost filled up, as we have said, by his right- and left-hand files. it never goes beyond the battalion. but on that narrow canvas he paints with the minuteness and fidelity of a dutch artist. sergeant-major anton is really an economical and domestically inclined scotchman, whom chance has thrust into the ranks of the royal highlanders; and who, finding himself a soldier, devotes himself to the business with that hard-headed and unsentimental thoroughness which makes the lowland scot about the most formidable fighting man the world knows. for anton is a lowlander; heavy-footed, heavy-bodied, dour, with nothing of a highlander's excitability or clan-sentiment. a story is current of how, in storming a kopje in south africa, a highland soldier dislodged a boer, and, with threatening bayonet, brought him to a stand against a wall of rock. as he lingered for the final and fatal lunge, another eager scot called out "oot o' the way, jock, and gie me room tae get a poke at him." "na, na, tam," shouted his frugal and practically-minded comrade, "awa' wi' ye and find a boer tae yersel'." there is a touch of this severely practical spirit in anton, and in this, no doubt, he reflects his regiment. given a french battery to be stormed, here are men who, with bent heads, wooden faces, and steady bayonets, will push on into the very flame of the guns, and each man will do his separate part with a conscientious thoroughness that no foe can withstand. the story of the fight on the hillside at toulouse illustrates this stern quality in scottish soldiership. but the domestic side of anton's nature is always visible. he was one of the few married men in his regiment, and he is never wearied of describing what snug nests he built for his mate and himself in the intervals betwixt marching and fighting, or when the troops had gone into winter quarters. the value of anton's book, indeed, lies largely in the light it sheds on the fortunes and sufferings of the hardy women, sharp of tongue and strong of body, who marched in the rear of wellington's troops; and who, to their honour be it recorded, were usually faithful wives to the rough soldiers whose fortunes they shared. anton, it is amusing to note, is the only one of the group who makes deliberate--and, it may be added, singularly unhappy--attempts at fine writing. he indulges in frequent apostrophes to the reader, to posterity, to his native country, and to the universe at large. in his many-jointed sentences linger echoes of ancient sermons; far-off flavours of the shorter catechism are discoverable in them. anton, however, can be simple and direct when he has an actual tale of fighting to tell. he forgets his simplicity only when he moralises over the battle-field the next day. mercer is much the ablest and most accomplished writer of the four. he belonged to the scientific branch of the army, the artillery, and he had studied his art with the thoroughness of a scholar. that mercer was a cool and gallant soldier of the finest type cannot be doubted. he has, indeed, a fine military record, and rose to the rank of general, and held command of the th brigade of royal artillery. but mercer was a many-sided man in a quite curious degree. he was a scholar; a lover of books; a country gentleman, with a country gentleman's delight in horse-flesh and crops. he was, moreover, an artist, with a ruskinesque, not to say a turneresque, sense of colour and form. a fine landscape was for him a feast, only rivalled by the joy of a good book. he lingers on the very edge of quatre bras, while the thunder of cannon shakes the air, and while his own guns are floundering up a steep hill path, to note and describe the far-stretching landscape, the glow of the evening sky, the salvator-like trees, the sparkle of glassy pools, &c. mercer is so good an artillery officer that he sees every buckle in the harness of his horses, and every button on the uniforms of his men; and yet he is sensitive to every tint and change in the landscape through which his guns are galloping. on the morning after waterloo, his face still black with its smoke, and his ears stunned with its roar, he picks his way across the turf, thick with the bodies of the slain, into the garden of hougoumont. the bodies of the dead lie there, too; but mercer is almost intoxicated with the cool verdure of the trees, with the chant of a stray nightingale, and even with "the exuberant vegetation of turnips and cabbages," as well as with the scent of flowers! it is this combination of keen artistic sensibility with the finest type of courage--courage which, if gentle in form, was yet of the ice-brook's temper--which makes mercer interesting. here was a man who might have fished with izaak walton, or discussed hymns with cowper, or philosophy with coleridge; yet this pensive, gentle, artistic, bookish man fought g battery at waterloo till two-thirds of his troop were killed, and has written the best account of the great battle, from the human and personal side, to be found in english literature. here, then, are four human documents, of genuine historic value, as well as of keen personal interest. they have their defects. there is no perspective in their pages. to rifleman harris, for example, the state of his boots is of as much importance, and is described with as much detail, as the issue of the battle. these memoirs will not give the reader the battle as a whole; still less the campaign; least of all will they give the politics behind the campaign. but a magic is in them, the magic of reality and of personal experience. they seem to put the reader in the actual battle-line, to fill his nostrils with the scent of gunpowder, to make his eyes tingle with the pungency of ancient battle-smoke. it may be added that these books give pictures of such battle landscapes as will never be witnessed again. they belong to the period when war had much more of the picturesque and human element than it has to-day. "brown bess" was short of range, and the fighting-lines came so near to each other that each man could see his foeman's face, and hear his shout or oath. war appealed to every sense. it filled the eyes. it registered itself in drifting continents of smoke. it deafened the ear with blast of cannon and ring of steel. it adorned itself in all the colours of the rainbow. the uniforms of napoleon's troops, as they were drawn up on the slopes of la belle alliance, were a sort of debauch of colour. houssaye gives a catalogue of the regiments--infantry of the line in blue coats, white breeches, and gaiters; heavy cavalry with glittering cuirasses and pennoned lances; chasseurs in green and purple and yellow; hussars with dolmans and shakos of all tints--sky-blue, scarlet, green, and red; dragoons with white shoulder-belts and turban-helmets of tiger-skin, surmounted by a gleaming cone of brass; lancers in green, with silken cords on their helmets; carabineers, giants of six feet, clad in white, with breastplates of gold and lofty helmets with red plumes; grenadiers in blue, faced with scarlet, yellow epaulettes, and high bearskin caps; the red lancers--red-breeched, red-capped, with floating white plumes half a yard long; the young guard; the old guard, with bearskin helmets, blue trousers and coats; the artillery of the guard, with bearskin helmets, &c. such a host, looked at from the picturesque point of view, was a sort of human rainbow, with a many-coloured gleam of metal--gold and silver, steel and brass--added. and colour counts at least in attracting recruits. harris joined the th because his eyes were dazzled with the "smartness" of its uniform. lord roberts has told the world how he joined the bengal horse artillery purely because he found their white buckskin breeches, and the leopard skin and red plumes on the men's helmets, irresistible! napoleon, it will be remembered, turned the spectacular aspect of his army to martial use. on the morning of waterloo he brought his troops over the slope of the hill in eleven stately columns; he spread them out like a mighty glittering fan in the sight of the coolly watching british. to foes of more sensitive imagination the spectacle of that vast and iris-tinted host might well have chilled their courage. but the british--whether to their credit or their discredit may be disputed--keep their imagination and their courage in separate compartments. they are not liable to be discouraged, still less put to rout, by the most magnificent display of what may be called the millinery of war. but that aspect of war has faded, never to revive. khaki kills the picturesque. battle has grown grey, remote, invisible. it consists of trenches miles long, in which crouch unseen riflemen, shooting at moving specks of grey, distant thousands of yards; or in guns perched on hills five miles apart bellowing to each other across the intervening valleys. it is not merely that in a battle of to-day a soldier cannot see the features of the man he kills; he probably does not see him at all. the highlanders at the modder marched, panted, thirsted, killed, and were killed, for eight hours, and never saw a boer! the soldier to-day sees neither the pin-pricks of flame nor the whiff of grey smoke which tell that somebody is shooting at him. for these are days of smokeless powder and long-range rifles. the man shot at only learns that circumstance as he catches the air-scurry of the passing bullet, and the atmosphere about him grows full of what one half-terrified war correspondent calls "little whimpering air-devils." the interest of these books is that they bring back to us living pictures, as seen through living human eyes, of the great battles of a century ago--battles which have grown obsolete in fashion, but which changed the currents of the world's history, and of whose gain we are the heirs to-day. it is curious, in a sense even amusing, to note how diversely their famous commander impressed these four soldiers, each occupied in recording for the benefit of posterity what he saw. anton apparently never sees wellington. the human horizon for the scottish sergeant is filled with the colonel of his regiment. harris gravely records how he saw the great duke take his hat off on the field of vimiero; for the rest, he held the ordinary view of the rank and file of the peninsula that the duke's long nose on a battle-field was worth , men. kincaid says he was so anxious to see the duke when he joined the army that, as he puts it, "i never should have forgiven the frenchman that killed me before i effected it." he was soon gratified, but seems quite unable to give any description of the great soldier. he contemplated him with the sort of frightened awe with which the youngest boy at eton would look at "the head" arrayed in his official robes; a vision to be contemplated from a safe distance, without the least desire for a nearer and personal acquaintance. mercer came closer to the great duke, and regards him with a cooler and therefore a severer judgment. mercer had boundless confidence in wellington as a battle-leader, but not the least affection for him as a man, and it is plain he had no special reasons for affection. wellington had many fine moral qualities, but anxious consideration for other people, or even calm justice in his dealings with them, is not to be included in their catalogue. the famous general order he issued after the retreat from burgos is an example of the undiscriminating harshness with which wellington could treat an entire army. and that element of harshness--of swift, impatient, relentless discipline that could not stay to discriminate, to weigh evidence, or even to hear it--was one great defect of wellington as a general. about his soldiers he had as little human feeling as a good chess-player has about his pawns. mercer never came into intercourse with the duke but with disaster to himself, a disaster edged with injustice. when his troop was in france, mercer says he ran an equal risk of falling under the duke's displeasure for systematically plundering the farmers, or for not plundering them! if a commander of a battery allowed his horses to look in worse condition than those of another battery he was relentlessly punished. "the quick eye of the duke would see the difference. he asked no questions, attended to no justification, but condemned the unfortunate captain as unworthy of the command he held, and perhaps sent him from the army." but the official amount of forage supplied was quite insufficient for the purpose of keeping the horses in high condition. other troops supplemented the supply by "borrowing" from the farmers, and there was no resource but to imitate them, or to risk professional ruin by presenting at parade horses inferior in look to those of other troops nourished on mere felony. wellington forgave neither the unlicensed "borrowing" of the officers nor the want of condition in their horses. yet one fault or the other was inevitable. the duke, it seems, "had no love for the artillery," and all his harshness was expended on that branch of the service. "the duke of wellington's ideas of discipline," says mercer, "are rigid; his modes of administering them are summary, and he is frequently led into acts of the grossest injustice." thus the owner of a building where some of mercer's men were quartered--a thorough rogue--complained to the duke that the lead piping of his house had been plundered and sold by the guilty british gunners. wellington made no inquiry, took no evidence. a staff officer rode to mercer's quarters one day with a copy of this complaint, on the margin of which was written in the duke's own hand-writing: "colonel scovell will find out whose troop this is, and they shall pay double." this was the first intimation the unfortunate mercer had received of the charge against him. the frenchman pretended to estimate his loss at francs, and mercer was advised, in high quarters, to pay this sum in order to escape the duke's wrath. mercer appealed to sir george wood, who told him his only chance lay in evading payment as long as he could; then the duke might be caught in a more amiable mood. the actual thief--one of the french villagers--was discovered and convicted; but this circumstance, mercer records, "has not in the least altered my position with the duke of wellington; for none dare tell him the story; and even sir edward barnes, who kindly attempted it, met with a most ungracious rebuff!" the french scoundrel, meanwhile, was dunning mercer to get his francs. the situation remained thus for weeks, till the audacious frenchman ventured on a second interview with the duke. the duke had dismounted, as it happened, in a very ill humour, at the door of his hotel, and the frenchman pursued him up the grand staircase with his complaint. the duke turned roughly upon him, "what the devil do you want, sir?" the frenchman presented his bill with a flourish, whereupon the duke exclaimed to his aide-de-camp, "pooh! kick the rascal downstairs!" the frenchman and his bill thus vanished from the scene; but mercer's comment is "that i eventually escaped paying a heavy sum for depredations committed by others is due, not to the duke's sense of justice, but only to the irritability of his temper." on another occasion sir augustus fraser, meeting him, said, "mercer, you are released from arrest." mercer stared: but on inquiry, discovered that he had been officially under arrest for a fortnight without knowing it. at a review, just before passing the saluting point, a horse in the rear division of his battery got its leg over the trace. the limber gunners leaped smartly off, put things straight, and jumped to their places again; but the division, with their -pounders, had to trot to regain place, and were just pulling up when they reached the saluting point. the precise and rhythmical order of the troop was a little disturbed, and wellington, in a burst of wrath, put sir augustus fraser himself, who was in command of all the artillery, the major in command of the brigade, and mercer, the captain of the guilty troop, under arrest, where--happily all unconscious--they remained for a fortnight. later mercer wished to apply for leave of absence, but sir george wood declined to present the request, as he said, "'it would not be prudent just now to remind the duke of me in any way.' rather hard and unjust this," is mercer's comment. mercer, however, tells one story, which shows that the duke of wellington was capable of sly satire at the expense of the french. an english officer walking on the boulevard was rudely pushed into the gutter by a french gentleman, whom the englishman promptly knocked down. the frenchman, it turned out, was a marshal. he complained to the duke, but could not identify the officer who had knocked him down. the duke thereupon issued a general order, desiring that "british officers would, in future, abstain from beating marshals of france." i from torres vedras to waterloo i.--from torres vedras to waterloo kincaid, the author of "adventures in the rifle brigade," was born at dalheath, near falkirk, in . he held a lieutenant's commission in the north york militia, but in when only twenty-two years old, joined, as a volunteer, the second battalion of the famous th--the "rifles" in the immortal light division. his first military service was of an unhappy sort. he took part in the walcheren expedition, and, spite of a cheerful temper and a good constitution, fell a victim to the swamp-bred agues and fevers which destroyed that ill-led and ill-fated expedition. he emerged from his first campaign with shattered health and no glory. in his battalion was ordered to the peninsula, and with it kincaid marched and fought from the lines of torres vedras to waterloo. in the hard fighting of those stern days the rifles played a brilliant part. kincaid kept guard in the great hill-defences of torres vedras, joined in the pursuit of massena, when that general fell suddenly back, shared in the fury of the breaches at ciudad rodrigo, and in the yet wilder assault on the great breach at badajos, and took part in all the great battles of those years from fuentes to vittoria. he survived the stubborn and bloody combats in the pyrenees, fought at toulouse, quatre bras, and on the famous ridge at waterloo. his battalion stood almost in the centre of wellington's battle-line on that fierce day, and the most desperate fighting of the day eddied round it. kincaid was thus a gallant soldier, in a gallant regiment, and played a part in great events. but his promotion was slow; he only received his captain's commission in . he was more fortunate, indeed, after he left the army than while he served in it. he was given a place in the yeomen of the guard in , was knighted in , and died in , aged seventy-five. kincaid's "adventures in the rifle brigade" is a book of great merits and of great faults. it is brisk, stirring, and picturesque, and paints with great vividness the life of a subaltern in a fighting regiment and during fighting times. but the book lacks order. dates are dropped into it, or are left out of it, with the most airy caprice. it has no intelligible relationship to history. it never gives the reader a glimpse of the history-making events which serve as a background to the marching and the fighting of the rifles. kincaid, in a word, races through his campaigns as a youth might race across the hills in a harrier-chase; or, rather, as a boy with a lively sense of humour, might saunter through a fair--without a plan, except to get all the fun he can, and stopping, now to laugh at a clown, now to stare at a mimic tragedy, now to exchange a jest with some other boy. his choice of incident is determined absolutely by the "fun" they include--the flavour of humour, or the gleam of the picturesque, which he can discover in them. he makes no pretension, that is, to connected and adequate narrative. but his record of adventures is always amusing, often vivid, and sometimes has a certain thrilling quality which, after the lapse of so many years, yet keeps its power. kincaid's tale is best served by re-grouping its incidents under distinct heads. in his earlier chapters, for example, he gives curiously interesting sketches of what may be called the non-fighting side of a soldier's life--the marches, the bivouacs; the gossip of the camp fires; the hardships--of muddy roads, of rain-filled skies, or of dust and heat and thirst, of non-existent rations, and of sleepless nights--which the soldier has to endure. so the reader gets a glimpse the orthodox historians quite fail to give of the hardy, resourceful, much-enduring british soldier of the peninsula. kincaid may be left to tell all this in his own words, though with generous condensation. chapter i a young soldier kincaid dismisses, as not worth remembering or recording, all the tame days of his life before he became a soldier on active service, and plunges abruptly into his tale:-- "i joined the nd battalion rifle brigade (then the th), at hythe barracks, in the spring of , and, in a month after, we proceeded to form a part of the expedition to holland, under the earl of chatham. "with the usual quixotic feelings of a youngster, i remember how desirous i was, on the march to deal, to impress the minds of the natives with a suitable notion of the magnitude of my importance, by carrying a donkey-load of pistols in my belt, and screwing my naturally placid countenance up to a pitch of ferocity beyond what it was calculated to bear. "we embarked in the downs, on board the _hussar_ frigate, and afterwards removed to the _namur_, a seventy-four, in which we were conveyed to our destination. we landed on the island of south beeveland, where we remained about three weeks, playing at soldiers, smoking mynheer's long clay pipes, and drinking his vrow's butter-milk, for which i paid liberally with my precious blood to their infernal mosquitoes; not to mention that i had all the extra valour shaken out of me by a horrible ague, which commenced a campaign on my carcass, and compelled me to retire upon scotland, for the aid of my native air, by virtue of which it was ultimately routed. "i shall not carry my first chapter beyond my first campaign, as i am anxious that my reader should not expend more than his first breath upon an event which cost too many their last. "i rejoined the battalion, at hythe, in the spring of , and, finding that the company to which i belonged had embarked to join the first battalion in the peninsula, and that they were waiting at spithead for a fair wind, i immediately applied, and obtained permission, to join them. we anchored in the tagus in september; no thanks to the ship, for she was a leaky one, and wishing foul winds to the skipper, for he was a bad one. "to look at lisbon from the tagus, there are few cities in the universe that can promise so much, and none, i hope, that can keep it so badly. i only got on shore one day for a few hours, and as i never again had an opportunity of correcting the impression, i have no objection to its being considered an uncharitable one; but i wandered for a time amid the abominations of its streets and squares, in the vain hope that i had got involved among a congregation of stables and out-houses; but i was at length compelled to admit it as the miserable apology for the fair city that i had seen from the harbour. "it pleased the great disposer of naval events to remove us to another and a better ship, and to send us off for figuera next day with a foul wind. sailing at the rate of one mile in two hours, we reached figuera's bay at the end of eight days, and were welcomed by about a hundred hideous-looking portuguese women, whose joy was so excessive that they waded up to their arm-pits through a heavy surf, and insisted on carrying us on shore on their backs! i never clearly ascertained whether they had been actuated by the purity of love or gold." kincaid joined wellington's forces at what might well have seemed a very gloomy juncture. the british army was in full retreat. the star of massena shone in the ascendant. talavera and busaco had been fought, and fought apparently in vain. spain was abandoned, portugal invaded. wellington seemed to be retreating to his ships. the secret of the great lines of torres vedras, which were to finally arrest massena's advance, and save not only portugal, but the peninsula--perhaps europe--had been so well kept that even wellington's own forces were in ignorance of their existence. yet kincaid shows an easy and careless unconsciousness of the disquieting aspect the campaign wore. it was enough for him that he marched and fought with his regiment, and shared all its fortunes. he scarcely looks beyond the files of his own company, and has no doubt whatever that the french will be satisfactorily thrashed in the end! "we proceeded next morning to join the army; and as our route lay through the city of coimbra we came to the magnanimous resolution of providing ourselves with all manner of comforts and equipments for the campaign on our arrival there; but when we entered it at the end of the second day, our disappointment was quite eclipsed by astonishment at finding ourselves the only living things in the city, which ought to have been furnished with twenty thousand souls. "lord wellington was then in the course of his retreat from the frontiers of spain to the lines of torres vedras, and had compelled the inhabitants on the line of march to abandon their homes, and to destroy or carry away everything that could be of service to the enemy. it was a measure that ultimately saved their country, though ruinous and distressing to those concerned, and on no class of individuals did it bear harder, for the moment, than our own little detachment, a company of rosy-cheeked, chubbed youths, who, after three months' feeding on ship's dumplings, were thus thrust, at a moment of extreme activity, in the face of an advancing foe, supported by a pound of raw beef, drawn every day fresh from the bullock, and a mouldy biscuit. "the difficulties we encountered were nothing out of the usual course of old campaigners; but, untrained and unprovided as i was, i still looked back upon the twelve or fourteen days following the battle of busaco as the most trying i have ever experienced, for we were on our legs from daylight until dark, in daily contact with the enemy; and, to satisfy the stomach of an ostrich, i had, as already stated, only a pound of beef, a pound of biscuit, and one glass of rum. a brother-officer was kind enough to strap my boat-cloak and portmanteau on the mule carrying his heavy baggage, which, on account of the proximity of the foe, was never permitted to be within a day's march of us, so that, in addition to my simple uniform, my only covering every night was the canopy of heaven, from whence the dews descended so refreshingly that i generally awoke, at the end of an hour, chilled, and wet to the skin; and i could only purchase an equal length of additional repose by jumping up and running about until i acquired a sleeping quantity of warmth. nothing in life can be more ridiculous than seeing a lean, lank fellow start from a profound sleep at midnight, and begin lashing away at the highland fling as if st. andrew himself had been playing the bagpipes; but it was a measure that i very often had recourse to, as the cleverest method of producing heat. in short, though the prudent general may preach the propriety of light baggage in the enemy's presence, i will ever maintain that there is marvellous small personal comfort in travelling so fast and so lightly as i did. "the portuguese farmers will tell you that the beauty of their climate consists in their crops receiving from the nightly dews the refreshing influence of a summer's shower, and that they ripen in the daily sun. but they are a sordid set of rascals! whereas i speak with the enlightened views of a man of war, and say, that it is poor consolation to me, after having been deprived of my needful repose, and kept all night in a fever, dancing wet and cold, to be told that i shall be warm enough in the morning? it is like frying a person after he has been boiled; and i insisted upon it, that if their sun had been milder and their dews lighter i should have found it much more pleasant. "having now brought myself regularly into the field, under the renowned wellington, should this narrative, by any accident, fall into the hands of others who served there, and who may be unreasonable enough to expect their names to be mentioned in it, let me tell them that they are most confoundedly mistaken! every man may write a book for himself, if he likes; but this is mine; and, as i borrow no man's story, neither will i give any man a particle of credit for his deed, as i have got so little for my own that i have none to spare. neither will i mention any regiment but my own, if i can possibly avoid it, for there is none other that i like so much, and none else so much deserves it; for we were the light regiment of the light division, and fired the first and last shot in almost every battle, siege, and skirmish in which the army was engaged during the war. "in stating the foregoing resolution, however, with regard to regiments, i beg to be understood as identifying our old and gallant associates, the rd and nd, as a part of ourselves, for they bore their share in everything, and i love them as i hope to do my better half (when i come to be divided); wherever we were, they were; and although the nature of our arm generally gave us more employment in the way of skirmishing, yet, whenever it came to a pinch, independent of a suitable mixture of them among us, we had only to look behind to see a line, in which we might place a degree of confidence, almost equal to our hopes in heaven; nor were we ever disappointed. there never was a corps of riflemen in the hands of such supporters!" on october , wellington entered the lines of torres vedras, and massena found his advance barred by frowning lines of trenched and gun-crowned hills, the screen behind which his great antagonist had vanished. during the last few days of the retreat and pursuit the pace of events quickened; the british rearguard was sharply pressed, and kincaid, for once grows consecutive and orderly in his narrative:-- "_october , ._--we stood to our arms at daylight this morning, on a hill in front of coimbra; and, as the enemy soon after came on in force, we retired before them through the city. the civil authorities, in making their own hurried escape, had totally forgotten that they had left a jail full of rogues unprovided for, and who, as we were passing near them, made the most hideous screaming for relief. our quarter-master-general very humanely took some men, who broke open the doors, and the whole of them were soon seen howling along the bridge into the wide world, in the most delightful delirium, with the french dragoons at their heels. "we retired the same night through condacia, where the commissariat were destroying quantities of stores that they were unable to carry off. they handed out shoes and shirts to any one that would take them, and the streets were literally running ankle deep with rum, in which the soldiers were dipping their cups and helping themselves as they marched along. the commissariat, some years afterwards, called for a return of the men who had received shirts and shoes on this occasion, with a view of making us pay for them, but we very briefly replied that the one-half were dead, and the other half would be d----d before they would pay anything. "we retired this day to leria, and, at the entrance of the city, saw an english and a portuguese soldier dangling by the bough of a tree--the first summary example i had ever seen of martial law. "we halted one night near the convent of batalha, one of the finest buildings in portugal. it has, i believe, been clearly established, that a living man in ever so bad health is better than two dead ones; but it appears that the latter will vary in value according to circumstances, for we found here, in very high preservation, the body of king john of portugal, who founded the edifice in commemoration of some victory, god knows how long ago; and though he would have been reckoned a highly valuable antique, within a glass case, in an apothecary's hall in england, yet he was held so cheap in his own house, that the very finger which most probably pointed the way to the victory alluded to, is now in the baggage of the rifle brigade. reader, point not thy finger at me, for i am not the man. "retired on the morning of a very wet, stormy day to allenquer, a small town on the top of a mountain, surrounded by still higher ones; and, as the enemy had not shown themselves the evening before, we took possession of the houses, with a tolerable prospect of being permitted the unusual treat of eating a dinner under cover. but by the time that the pound of beef was parboiled, and while an officer of dragoons was in the act of reporting that he had just patrolled six leagues to the front, without seeing any signs of an enemy, we saw the indefatigable rascals, on the mountains opposite our windows, just beginning to wind round us, with a mixture of cavalry and infantry; the wind blowing so strong that the long tail of each particular horse stuck as stiffly out in the face of the one behind, as if the whole had been strung upon a cable and dragged by the leaders. we turned out a few companies, and kept them in check while the division was getting under arms, spilt the soup as usual, and, transferring the smoking solids to the haversack, for future mastication, we continued our retreat. "our long retreat ended at midnight, on our arrival at the handsome little town of arruda, which was destined to be the piquet post of our division, in front of the fortified lines. the quartering of our division, whether by night or by day, was an affair of about five minutes. the quarter-master-general preceded the troops, accompanied by the brigade-majors and the quarter-masters of regiments; and after marking off certain houses for his general and staff, he split the remainder of the town between the majors of brigades; they, in their turn, provided for their generals and staff, and then made a wholesale division of streets among the quarter-masters of regiments, who, after providing for their commanding officers and staff, retailed the remaining houses, in equal proportions, among the companies; so that, by the time that the regiment arrived, there was nothing to be done beyond the quarter-master's simply telling each captain, 'here's a certain number of houses for you.' "like all other places on the line of march, we found arruda totally deserted; and its inhabitants had fled in such a hurry, that the keys of their house doors were the only things they carried away, so that when we got admission through our usual key--transmitting a rifle-ball through the keyhole: it opens every lock--we were not a little gratified to find that the houses were not only regularly furnished, but most of them had some food in the larder, and a plentiful supply of good wines in the cellar; and, in short, that they only required a few lodgers capable of appreciating the good things which the gods had provided; and the deuce is in it if we were not the very folks who could! "those who wish a description of the lines of torres vedras, must part. i know nothing, excepting that i was told that one end of them rested on the tagus, and the other somewhere on the sea; and i saw, with my own eyes, a variety of redoubts and fieldworks on the various hills which stand between. this, however, i do know, that we have since kicked the french out of more formidable-looking and stronger places; and, with all due deference be it spoken, i think that the prince of essling ought to have tried his luck against them, as he could only have been beaten by fighting, as he afterwards was without it! and if he thinks that he would have lost as many men by trying, as he did by not trying, he must allow me to differ in opinion with him. "in very warm or very wet weather it was customary to put us under cover in the town during the day, but we were always moved back to our bivouac on the heights during the night; and it was rather amusing to observe the different notions of individual comfort, in the selection of furniture, which officers transferred from their town house to their no house on the heights. a sofa, or a mattress, one would have thought most likely to be put in requisition; but it was not unusual to see a full-length looking-glass preferred to either. "we certainly lived in clover while we remained here; everything we saw was our own, seeing no one there who had a more legitimate claim; and every field was a vineyard. ultimately it was considered too much trouble to pluck the grapes, as there were a number of poor native thieves in the habit of coming from the rear every day to steal some, so that a soldier had nothing to do but to watch one until he was marching off with his basket full, when he would very deliberately place his back against that of the portuguese, and relieve him of his load, without wasting any words about the bargain. the poor wretch would follow the soldier to the camp, in the hope of having his basket returned, as it generally was, when emptied." massena held on to his position in front of the great lines he dared not attack till november , then he fell back to santarem, whence he could still keep wellington blockaded. he held this position till march , nearly five months in all--months of cold, rain, and hunger--a miracle of stubborn and sullen endurance. kincaid, acting on his usual principle that all time not occupied in actively doing something is to be counted as non-existent, passes over the tale of these months in a dozen lines. his narrative only becomes full again when wellington sallies out of his hilly stronghold and presses in pursuit of massena. we then have graphic pictures of the hardships of a soldier's life:-- "massena, conceiving any attack upon our lines to be hopeless, as his troops were rapidly mouldering away with sickness and want, at length began to withdraw them nearer to the source of his supplies. he abandoned his position, opposite to us, on the night of november , leaving some stuffed-straw gentlemen occupying their usual posts. some of them were cavalry, some infantry, and they seemed such respectable representatives of their spectral predecessors, that, in the haze of the following morning, we thought that they had been joined by some well-fed ones from the rear; and it was late in the day before we discovered the mistake, and advanced in pursuit. "it was late ere we halted for the night, on the side of the road, near to allenquer, and i got under cover in a small house, which looked as if it had been honoured as the headquarters of the tailor-general of the french army, for the floor was strewed with variegated threads, various complexioned buttons, with particles and remnants of cabbage; and, if it could not boast of the flesh and fowl of noah's ark, there was an abundance of the creeping things which it were to be wished that that commander had not left behind. "on our arrival at valle, on november , we found the enemy behind the rio maior, occupying the heights of santarem, and exchanged some shots with their advanced posts. in the course of the night we experienced one of those tremendous thunderstorms which used to precede the wellington victories, and which induced us to expect a general action on the following day. i had disposed myself to sleep in a beautiful green hollow way, and, before i had time even to dream of the effects of their heavy rains, i found myself floating most majestically towards the river, in a fair way of becoming food for the fishes. i ever after gave those inviting-looking spots a wide berth, as i found that they were regular watercourses. "next morning our division crossed the river, and commenced a false attack on the enemy's left, with a view of making them show their force; and it was to have been turned into a real attack, if their position was found to be occupied by a rearguard only; but, after keeping up a smart skirmishing fire the great part of the day, lord wellington was satisfied that their whole army was present; we were consequently withdrawn. "this affair terminated the campaign of . our division took possession of the village of valle and its adjacents, and the rest of the army was placed in cantonments, under whatever cover the neighbouring country afforded." here are some of kincaid's pictures of a british army in winter quarters, with one fierce campaign behind it, and another, almost sterner still in character, before it:-- "our battalion was stationed in some empty farm-houses, near the end of the bridge of santarem, which was nearly half a mile long; and our sentries and those of the enemy were within pistol-shot of each other on the bridge. "i do not mean to insinuate that a country is never so much at peace as when at open war; but i do say that a soldier can nowhere sleep so soundly, nor is he anywhere so secure from surprise, as when within musket-shot of his enemy. "we lay four months in this situation, divided only by a rivulet, without once exchanging shots. every evening, at the hour 'when bucks to dinner go, and cits to sup,' it was our practice to dress for sleep: we saddled our horses, buckled on our armour, and lay down, with the bare floor for a bed, and a stone for a pillow, ready for anything, and reckless of everything but the honour of our corps and country; for i will say (to save the expense of a trumpeter) that a more devoted set of fellows were never associated. we stood to our arms every morning at an hour before daybreak, and remained there until a grey horse could be seen a mile off (which is the military criterion by which daylight is acknowledged, and the hour of surprise past), when we proceeded to unharness and to indulge in such luxuries as our toilet and our table afforded. "our piquet-post, at the bridge, became a regular lounge for the winter to all manner of folks. i used to be much amused at seeing our naval officers come up from lisbon riding on mules, with huge ships' spy-glasses, like six-pounders, strapped across the backs of their saddles. their first question invariably was, 'who is that fellow there' (pointing to the enemy's sentry close to us), and, on being told that he was a frenchman, 'then why the devil don't you shoot him!' "repeated acts of civility passed between the french and us during this tacit suspension of hostilities. the greyhounds of an officer followed a hare, on one occasion, into their lines, and they very politely returned them. i was one night on piquet at the end of the bridge when a ball came from the french sentry and struck the burning billet of wood round which we were sitting, and they sent in a flag of truce next morning to apologise for the accident, and to say that it had been done by a stupid fellow of a sentry, who imagined that people were advancing upon him. we admitted the apology, though we knew well enough that it had been done by a malicious rather than a stupid fellow from the situation we occupied. "general junot, one day reconnoitring, was severely wounded by a sentry, and lord wellington, knowing that they were at that time destitute of everything in the shape of comfort, sent to request his acceptance of anything that lisbon afforded that could be of any service to him; but the french general was too much of a politician to admit the want of anything." chapter ii retreats and pursuits the campaign of - is not the least memorable of the immortal campaigns in the peninsula. it saw fuentes, albuera, and salamanca fought; it includes the great sieges of ciudad rodrigo and of badajos; it witnessed the failure at burgos. we give kincaid's account of these great events in other chapters; in this we are simply grouping his pictures of soldiers on the march--in retreat or pursuit--with the hardships and combats which attend such movements. this campaign is specially rich in such pictures. it begins with the fierce marches in which wellington pursued massena beyond the portuguese frontier, and closes with the disastrous and memorable retreat from burgos:-- "the campaign of commenced on march , by the retreat of the enemy from santarem. "lord wellington seemed to be perfectly acquainted with their intentions, for he sent to apprise our piquets the evening before that they were going off, and to desire that they should feel for them occasionally during the night, and give the earliest information of their having started. it was not, however, until daylight that we were quite certain of their having gone, and our division was instantly put in motion after them, passing through the town of santarem, around which their camp fires were still burning. "santarem is finely situated, and probably had been a handsome town. i had never seen it in prosperity, and it now looked like a city of the plague, represented by empty dogs and empty houses; and, but for the tolling of a convent bell by some unseen hand, its appearance was altogether inhuman. we halted for the night near pyrnes. this little town, and the few wretched inhabitants who had been induced to remain in it, under the faithless promises of the french generals, showed fearful signs of a late visit from a barbarous and merciless foe. young women were lying in their houses brutally violated--the streets were strewn with broken furniture, intermixed with the putrid carcasses of murdered peasants, mules, and donkeys, and every description of filth, that filled the air with pestilential nausea. the few starved male inhabitants who were stalking amid the wreck of their friends and property, looked like so many skeletons who had been permitted to leave their graves for the purpose of taking vengeance on their oppressors, and the mangled body of every frenchman who was unfortunate or imprudent enough to stray from his column showed how religiously they performed their mission. "_march ._--we overtook their rearguard this evening, snugly put up for the night in a little village, the name of which i do not recollect, but a couple of six-pounders, supported by a few of our rifles, induced them to extend their walk. "_march ._--as it is possible that some of my readers might never have had the misfortune to experience the comforts of a bivouac, and as the one which i am now in contains but a small quantity of sleep, i shall devote a waking hour for their edification. "when a regiment arrives at its ground for the night it is formed in columns of companies at full, half, or quarter distance, according to the space which circumstances will permit it to occupy. the officer commanding each company then receives his orders; and, after communicating whatever may be necessary to the men, he desires them to 'pile arms, and make themselves comfortable for the night.' now, i pray thee, most sanguine reader, suffer not thy fervid imagination to transport thee into elysian fields at the pleasing exhortation conveyed in the concluding part of the captain's address, but rest thee contentedly in the one where it is made, which in all probability is a ploughed one, and that, too, in a state of preparation to take a model of thy very beautiful person, under the melting influence of a shower of rain. the soldiers of each company have a hereditary claim to the ground next to their arms, as have their officers to a wider range on the same line, limited to the end of a bugle sound, if not by a neighbouring corps, or one that is not neighbourly, for the nearer a man is to his enemy the nearer he likes to be to his friends. suffice it, that each individual knows his place as well as if he had been born on the estate, and takes immediate possession accordingly. in a ploughed or a stubble field there is scarcely a choice of quarters; but whenever there is a sprinkling of trees it is always an object to secure a good one, as it affords shelter from the sun by day and the dews by night, besides being a sort of home or signpost for a group of officers, as denoting the best place of entertainment; for they hang their spare clothing and accoutrements among the branches, barricade themselves on each side with their saddles, canteens, and portmanteaus, and, with a blazing fire in their front, they indulge, according to their various humours, in a complete state of gipsyfication. "there are several degrees of comfort to be reckoned in a bivouac, two of which will suffice. "the first, and worst, is to arrive at the end of a cold, wet day, too dark to see your ground, and too near the enemy to be permitted to unpack the knapsacks or to take off accoutrements; where, unencumbered with baggage or eatables of any kind, you have the consolation of knowing that things are now at their worst, and that any change must be for the better. you keep yourself alive for a while in collecting material to feed your fire with. you take a smell at your empty calabash, which recalls to your remembrance the delicious flavour of its last drop of wine. you curse your servant for not having contrived to send you something or other from the baggage (though you know that it was impossible). you then d---- the enemy for being so near you, though, probably, as in the present instance, it was you that came so near them. and, finally, you take a whiff at the end of a cigar, if you have one, and keep grumbling through the smoke, like distant thunder through a cloud, until you tumble into a most warlike sleep. "the next, and most common one, is when you are not required to look quite so sharp, and when the light baggage and provisions come in at the heel of the regiment. if it is early in the day, the first thing to be done is to make some tea, the most sovereign restorative for jaded spirits. we then proceed to our various duties. the officers of each company form a mess of themselves. one remains in camp to attend to the duties of the regiment; a second attends to the mess; he goes to the regimental butcher and bespeaks a portion of the only purchasable commodities--hearts, livers, and kidneys; and also to see whether he cannot do the commissary out of a few extra biscuits, or a canteen of brandy; and the remainder are gentlemen at large for the day. but while they go hunting among the neighbouring regiments for news, and the neighbouring houses for curiosity, they have always an eye to their mess, and omit no opportunity of adding to the general stock. "dinner-hour, for fear of accident, is always the hour when dinner can be got ready; and the th section of the articles of war is always most rigidly attended to by every good officer parading himself round the camp-kettle at the time fixed, with his haversack in his hand. a haversack on service is a sort of dumb waiter. the mess have a good many things in common, but the contents of the haversack are exclusively the property of its owner. "after doing justice to the dinner, if we feel in a humour for additional society, we transfer ourselves to some neighbouring mess, taking our cups and whatever we mean to drink along with us, for in those times there is nothing to be expected from our friends beyond the pleasure of their conversation; and, finally, we retire to rest. to avoid inconvenience by the tossing off of the bed-clothes, each officer has a blanket sewed up at the side, like a sack, into which he scrambles, and, with a green sod or a smooth stone for a pillow, composes himself to sleep, and, under such a glorious reflecting canopy as the heavens, it would be a subject of mortification to an astronomer to see the celerity with which he tumbles into it. habit gives endurance, and fatigue is the best nightcap; no matter that the veteran's countenance is alternately stormed with torrents of rain, heavy dews, and hoar-frosts; no matter that his ears are assailed by a million mouths of chattering locusts, and by some villainous donkey, who every half-hour pitches a bray note, which is instantly taken up by every mule and donkey in the army, and sent echoing from regiment to regiment, over hill and valley, until it dies away in the distance; no matter that the scorpion is lurking beneath his pillow, the snake winding is slimy way by his side, and the lizard galloping over his face, wiping his eyes with its long, cold tail. "all are unheeded, until the warning voice of the brazen instrument sounds to arms. strange it is that the ear which is impervious to what would disturb the rest of the world besides, should alone be alive to one, and that, too, a sound which is likely to soothe the sleep of the citizens, or at most to set them dreaming of their loves. but so it is. the first note of the melodious bugle places the soldier on his legs, like lightning; when, muttering a few curses at the unseasonableness of the hour, he plants himself on his alarm post, without knowing or caring about the cause. "such is a bivouac; and our sleep-breaker having just sounded, the reader will find what occurred by reading on. "_march ._--we stood to our arms before daylight. finding that the enemy had quitted the position in our front, we proceeded to follow them; and had not gone far before we heard the usual morning's salutation of a couple of shots between their rear and our advanced guard. on driving in their outposts, we found their whole army drawn out on the plain, near redinha, and instantly quarrelled with them on a large scale." here is a picture of one of the almost constant skirmishes which marked wellington's advance and massena's slow and stubborn retreat:-- "as everybody has read 'waverley' and the 'scottish chiefs,' and knows that one battle is just like another, inasmuch as they always conclude by one or both sides running away, and as it is nothing to me what this or t'other regiment did, nor do i care three buttons what this or t'other person thinks he did, i shall limit all my descriptions to such events as immediately concerned the important personage most interested in this history. "be it known, then, that i was one of a crowd of skirmishers who were enabling the french ones to carry the news of their own defeat through a thick wood at an infantry canter when i found myself all at once within a few yards of one of their regiments in line, which opened such a fire that had i not, rifleman-like, taken instant advantage of the cover of a good fir-tree, my name would have unquestionably been transmitted to posterity by that night's gazette. and however opposed it may be to the usual system of drill, i will maintain, from that day's experience, that the cleverest method of teaching a recruit to stand at attention is to place him behind a tree and fire balls at him; as had our late worthy disciplinarian, sir david dundas himself, been looking on, i think that even he must have admitted that he never saw any one stand so fiercely upright as i did behind mine, while the balls were rapping into it as fast as if a fellow had been hammering a nail on the opposite side, not to mention the numbers that were whistling past within the eighth of an inch of every part of my body, both before and behind, particularly in the vicinity of my nose, for which the upper part of the tree could barely afford protection. "this was a last and a desperate stand made by their rearguard, for their own safety, immediately above the town, as their sole chance of escape depended upon their being able to hold the post until the only bridge across the river was clear of the other fugitives. but they could not hold it long enough; for, while we were undergoing a temporary sort of purgatory in their front, our comrades went working round their flanks, which quickly sent them flying, with us intermixed, at full cry down the streets. "when we reached the bridge, the scene became exceedingly interesting, for it was choked up by the fugitives, who were, as usual, impeding each other's progress, and we did not find that the application of our swords to those nearest to us tended at all towards lessening their disorder, for it induced about a hundred of them to rush into an adjoining house for shelter, but that was getting regularly out of the frying-pan into the fire, for the house happened to be really in flames, and too hot to hold them, so that the same hundred were quickly seen unkennelling again, half-cooked, into the very jaws of their consumers. "john bull, however, is not a bloodthirsty person, so that those who could not better themselves, had only to submit to a simple transfer of personal property to ensure his protection. we, consequently, made many prisoners at the bridge, and followed their army about a league beyond it, keeping up a flying fight until dark. "_march ._--arrived on the hill above condacia in time to see that handsome little town in flames. every species of barbarity continued to mark the enemy's retreating steps. they burnt every town or village through which they passed, and if we entered a church which, by accident, had been spared, it was to see the murdered bodies of the peasantry on the altar. * * * * * "our post that night was one of terrific grandeur. the hills behind were in a blaze of light with the british camp-fires, as were those in our front with the french ones. both hills were abrupt and lofty, not above eight hundred yards asunder, and we were in the burning village in the valley beyond. the roofs of houses every instant falling in, and the sparks and flames ascending to the clouds. the streets were strewed with the dying and the dead,--some had been murdered and some killed in action, which, together with the half-famished wretches whom we had saved from burning, contributed in making it a scene which was well calculated to shake a stout heart, as was proved in the instance of one of our sentries, a well-known 'devil-may-care' sort of fellow. i know not what appearances the burning rafters might have reflected on the neighbouring trees at the time, but he had not been long on his post before he came running into the piquet, and swore, by all the saints in the calendar, that he saw six dead frenchmen advancing upon him with hatchets over their shoulders! "we found by the buttons on the coats of some of the fallen foe, that we had this day been opposed to the french th regiment (the same number as we were then), and i cut off several of them, which i preserved as trophies." here is another picture of a brilliant skirmish at the passage of the ceira. in this combat wellington showed himself keener in vision and swifter in stroke than ney, and inflicted on that general both disgrace and loss. ney was, as a result, relieved of his command of the french rearguard, and sent to france under something like a cloud. here he joined napoleon, and took part in the perils and horrors of the russian campaign--once more, there, commanding a french rearguard in retreat:-- "_march ._--we overtook the enemy a little before dark this afternoon. they were drawn up behind the ceira, at fez d'aronce, with their rearguard, under marshal ney, imprudently posted on our side of the river, a circumstance which lord wellington took immediate advantage of; and, by a furious attack, dislodged them in such confusion that they blew up the bridge before half of their own people had time to get over. those who were thereby left behind, not choosing to put themselves to the pain of being shot, took to the river, which received them so hospitably that few of them ever quitted it. "about the middle of the action, i observed some inexperienced light troops rushing up a deep roadway to certain destruction, and ran to warn them out of it, but i only arrived in time to partake the reward of their indiscretion, for i was instantly struck with a musket-ball above the left ear, which deposited me at full length in the mud. "i know not how long i lay insensible, but, on recovering, my first feeling was for my head, to ascertain if any part of it was still standing, for it appeared to me as if nothing remained above the mouth; but, after repeated applications of all my fingers and thumbs to the doubtful parts, i at length proved to myself satisfactorily, that it had rather increased than diminished by the concussion; and jumping on my legs, and hearing, by the whistling of the balls from both sides, that the rascals who had got me into the scrape had been driven back and left me there, i snatched my cap, which had saved my life, and which had been spun off my head to the distance of ten or twelve yards, and joined them a short distance in the rear, when one of them, a soldier of the th, came and told me that an officer of ours had been killed a short time before, pointing to the spot where i myself had fallen, and that he had tried to take his jacket off, but that the advance of the enemy had prevented him. i told him that i was the one that had been killed, and that i was deucedly obliged to him for his kind intentions, while i felt still more so to the enemy for their timely advance, otherwise, i have no doubt, but my friend would have taken a fancy to my trousers also, for i found that he had absolutely unbuttoned my jacket. "there is nothing so gratifying to frail mortality as a good dinner when most wanted and least expected. it was perfectly dark before the action finished, but, on going to take advantage of the fires which the enemy had evacuated, we found their soup kettles in full operation, and every man's mess of biscuit lying beside them, in stockings, as was the french mode of carrying them; and it is needless to say how unceremoniously we proceeded to do the honours of the feast. it ever after became a saying among the soldiers, whenever they were on short allowance, 'well d-- my eyes, we must either fall in with the french or the commissary to-day, i don't care which.' "_march ._--we, this day, captured the aide-de-camp of general loison, together with his wife, who was dressed in a splendid hussar uniform. he was a portuguese, and a traitor, and looked very like a man who would be hanged. she was a spaniard, and very handsome, and looked very like a woman who would get married again. "_march ._--we had now been three days without anything in the shape of bread, and meat without it after a time becomes almost loathsome. hearing that we were not likely to march quite so early as usual this morning, i started before daylight to a village about two miles off, in the face of the sierra d'estrella, in the hopes of being able to purchase something, as it lay out of the hostile line of movements. on my arrival there, i found some nuns who had fled from a neighbouring convent, waiting outside the building of the village oven for some indian-corn leaven, which they had carried there to be baked, and, when i explained my pressing wants, two of them, very kindly, transferred me their shares, for which i gave each a kiss and a dollar between. they took the former as an unusual favour; but looked at the latter, as much as to say, 'our poverty, and not our will, consents.' i ran off with my half-baked dough, and joined my comrades, just as they were getting under arms. "_march ._--at daylight, this morning, we moved to our right, along the ridge of mountains, to guarda; on our arrival there, we saw the imposing spectacle of the whole of the french army winding through the valley below, just out of gunshot. on taking possession of one of the villages which they had just evacuated, we found the body of a well-dressed female, whom they had murdered by a horrible refinement in cruelty. she had been placed upon her back, alive, in the middle of the street, with the fragment of a rock upon her breast, which it required four of our men to remove. "_april ._--we overtook the enemy this afternoon in position behind coa, at sabugal, with their advanced posts on our side of the river. i was sent on piquet for the night, and had my sentries within half musket-shot of theirs; it was wet, dark, and stormy when i went, about midnight, to visit them, and i was not a little annoyed to find one missing. recollecting who he was, a steady old soldier, and the last man in the world to desert his post, i called his name aloud, when his answering voice, followed by the discharge of a musket, reached me nearly at the same time, from the direction of one of the french sentries; and, after some inquiry, i found that, in walking his lonely round, in a brown study, no doubt, he had each turn taken ten or twelve paces to his front, and only half that number to the rear, until he had gradually worked himself up to within a few yards of his adversary; and it would be difficult to say which of the two was most astonished--the one at hearing a voice, or the other a shot so near, but all my rhetoric, aided by the testimony of the sergeant and the other sentries, could not convince the fellow that he was not on the identical spot on which i had posted him." on april , , was fought the battle of sabugal, which is told elsewhere. we take up kincaid's sketches of a soldier's bivouac and marching experiences after fuentes, during the pause while ciudad rodrigo was being blockaded:-- "our battalion occupied atalya, a little village at the foot of the sierra de gata, and in front of the river vadilla. on taking possession of my quarter, the people showed me an outhouse, which, they said, i might use as a stable, and i took my horse into it, but, seeing the floor strewed with what appeared to be a small brown seed, heaps of which lay in each corner, as if shovelled together in readiness to take to market, i took up a handful, out of curiosity, and truly, they were a curiosity, for i found that they were all regular fleas, and that they were proceeding to eat both me and my horse, without the smallest ceremony. i rushed out of the place, and knocked them down by fistfuls, and never yet could comprehend the cause of their congregating together in such a place." marmont, who now commanded the french army, charged with the defence of ciudad rodrigo, advanced, towards the end of september, for its relief, and wellington at once fell back. kincaid's cheerful spirits can extract fun out of even a night march and a retreat! "about the middle of the night we received an order to stand to our arms with as little noise as possible, and to commence retiring, the rest of the army having been already withdrawn, unknown to us; an instance of the rapidity and uncertainty of our movements which proved fatal to the liberty of several amateurs and followers of the army, who, seeing an army of sixty thousand men lying asleep around their camp-fires, at ten o'clock at night, naturally concluded that they might safely indulge in a bed in the village behind until daylight, without the risk of being caught napping; but, long ere that time they found themselves on the high-road to ciudad rodrigo, in the rude grasp of an enemy. amongst others, was the chaplain of our division, whose outward man conveyed no very exalted notion of the respectability of his profession, and who was treated with greater indignity than usually fell to the lot of prisoners, for, after keeping him a couple of days, and finding that, however gifted he might have been in spiritual lore, he was as ignorant as dominie sampson on military matters; and, conceiving good provisions to be thrown away upon him, they stripped him nearly naked and dismissed him, like the barber in 'gil blas,' with a kick in the breech, and sent him into us in a woeful state. "in every interval between our active services we indulged in all manner of childish trick and amusement with an avidity and delight of which it is impossible to convey an adequate idea. we lived united, as men always are who are daily staring death in the face on the same side, and who, caring little about it, look upon each new day added to their lives as one more to rejoice in. "we invited the villagers every evening to a dance at our quarters alternately. a spanish peasant girl has an address about her which i have never met with in the same class of any other country; and she at once enters into society with the ease and confidence of one who had been accustomed to it all her life. we used to flourish away at the bolero, fandango, and waltz, and wound up early in the evening with a supper of roasted chestnuts. "our village belles, as already stated, made themselves perfectly at home in our society, and we, too, should have enjoyed theirs for a season; but when month after month and year after year continued to roll along, without producing any change, we found that the cherry cheek and sparkling eye of rustic beauty furnished but a very poor apology for the illuminated portion of nature's fairest works, and ardently longed for an opportunity of once more feasting our eyes on a lady." after the glory of salamanca came, by way of anti-climax, the inglorious failure at burgos. kincaid's battalion took part in the toils and suffering of the retreat from burgos. there is no note of grumbling in his tale. yet seldom has an army suffered more than during those bitter november days, when wellington's soldiers, with the discouraging memory of the failure at burgos chilling their imaginations, toiled in retreat along muddy roads, across swollen rivers, through blinding and incessant rain, almost without food; while fiercely on their rear hung the pursuing french cavalry. wellington made a brief halt on november at salamanca, and we take up kincaid's story at this point:-- "_november ._--halted this night at alba de tormes, and next day marched into quarters in salamanca, where we rejoined lord wellington with the army from burgos. "on the th the british army concentrated on the field of their former glory, in consequence of a part of the french army having effected the passage of the river above alba de tormes. on the th the whole of the enemy's force having passed the river a cannonade commenced early in the day; and it was the general belief that, ere night, a second battle of salamanca would be recorded. but as all the french armies in spain were now united in our front, and outnumbered us so far, lord wellington, seeing no decided advantage to be gained by risking a battle, at length ordered a retreat, which we commenced about three in the afternoon. our division halted for the night at the entrance of a forest about four miles from salamanca. "the heavy rains which usually precede the spanish winter had set in the day before; and as the roads in that part of the country cease to be roads for the remainder of the season, we were now walking nearly knee-deep in a stiff mud, into which no man could thrust his foot with the certainty of having a shoe at the end of it when he pulled it out again; and that we might not be miserable by halves, we had this evening to regale our chops with the last morsel of biscuit that they were destined to grind during the retreat. "we cut some boughs of trees to keep us out of the mud, and lay down to sleep on them, wet to the skin; but the cannonade of the afternoon had been succeeded after dark by a continued firing of musketry, which led us to believe that our piquets were attacked, and, in momentary expectation of an order to stand to our arms, we kept ourselves awake the whole night, and were not a little provoked when we found next morning that it had been occasioned by numerous stragglers from the different regiments shooting at the pigs belonging to the peasantry, which were grazing in the wood. "_november ._--retiring from daylight until dark through the same description of roads. the french dragoons kept close behind, but did not attempt to molest us. it still continued to rain hard, and we again passed the night in a wood. i was very industriously employed during the early part of it feeling, in the dark, for acorns as a substitute for bread. "_november ._--we were much surprised in the course of the forenoon to hear a sharp firing commence behind us on the very road by which we were retiring; and it was not until we reached the spot that we learnt that the troops, who were retreating by a road parallel to ours, had left it too soon, and enabled some french dragoons, under cover of the forest, to advance unperceived to the flank of our line of march, who, seeing an interval between two divisions of infantry, which was filled with light baggage and some passing officers, dashed at it and made some prisoners in the scramble of the moment, amongst whom was lieutenant-general sir edward paget. "our division formed on the heights above samunoz to cover the passage of the rivulet, which was so swollen with the heavy rains, as only to be passable at particular fords. while we waited there for the passage of the rest of the army, the enemy, under cover of the forest, was, at the same time, assembling in force close around us; and the moment that we began to descend the hill, towards the rivulet, we were assailed by a heavy fire of cannon and musketry, while their powerful cavalry were in readiness to take advantage of any confusion which might have occurred. we effected the passage, however, in excellent order, and formed on the opposite bank of the stream, where we continued under a cannonade and engaged in a sharp skirmish until dark. "when the firing ceased, we received the usual order 'to make ourselves comfortable for the night,' and i never remember an instance in which we had so much difficulty in obeying it; for the ground we occupied was a perfect flat, which was flooded more than ankle-deep with water, excepting here and there, where the higher ground around the roots of trees presented circles of a few feet of visible earth, upon which we grouped ourselves. some few fires were kindled, at which we roasted some bits of raw beef on the points of our swords, and ate them by way of a dinner. there was plenty of water to apologise for the want of better fluids, but bread sent no apology at all. "it made my very heart rejoice to see my brigadier's servant commence boiling some chocolate and frying a beef-steak. i watched its progress with a keenness which intense hunger alone could inspire, and was on the very point of having my desires consummated, when the general, getting uneasy at not having received any communication relative to the movements of the morning, and, without considering how feelingly my stomach yearned for a better acquaintance with the contents of his frying-pan, desired me to ride to general alten for orders. i found the general at a neighbouring tree; but he cut off all hopes of my timely return, by desiring me to remain with him until he received the report of an officer whom he had sent to ascertain the progress of the other divisions. "while i was toasting myself at his fire, so sharply set that i could have eaten one of my boots, i observed his german orderly dragoon at an adjoining fire stirring up the contents of a camp-kettle, that once more revived my departing hopes, and i presently had the satisfaction of seeing him dipping in some basins, presenting one to the general, one to the aide-de-camp, and a third to myself. the mess which it contained i found, after swallowing the whole at a draught, was neither more nor less than the produce of a piece of beef boiled in plain water; and though it would have been enough to have physicked a dromedary at any other time, yet, as i could then have made a good hole in the dromedary himself, it sufficiently satisfied my cravings to make me equal to anything for the remainder of the day. "on november we arrived at the convent of caridad, near ciudad rodrigo, and once more experienced the comforts of our baggage and provisions. my boots had not been off since the th, and i found it necessary to cut them to pieces to get my swollen feet out of them. "up to this period lord wellington had been adored by the army, in consideration of his brilliant achievements, and for his noble and manly bearing in all things; but, in consequence of some disgraceful irregularities which took place during the retreat, he immediately after issued an order conveying a sweeping censure on the whole army. his general conduct was too upright for even the finger of malice itself to point at; but as his censure on this occasion was not strictly confined to the guilty, it afforded a handle to disappointed persons, and excited a feeling against him on the part of individuals which has probably never since been obliterated. "it began by telling us that we had suffered no privations; and, though this was hard to be digested on an empty stomach, yet, taking it in its more liberal meaning, that our privations were not of an extent to justify any irregularities, which i readily admit; still, as many regiments were not guilty of any irregularities, it is not to be wondered if such should have felt at first a little sulky to find, in the general reproof, that no loop-hole whatever had been left for them to creep through; for, i believe i am justified in saying that neither our own, nor the two gallant corps associated with us, had a single man absent that we could not satisfactorily account for. but it touched us still more tenderly in not excepting us from his general charge of inexpertness in camp arrangements; for it was our belief, and in which we were in some measure borne out by circumstances, that had he placed us at the same moment in the same field with an equal number of the best troops in france, that he would not only have seen our fires as quickly lit, but every frenchman roasting on them to the bargain, if they waited long enough to be dressed, for there perhaps never was, nor ever again will be, such a war-brigade as that which was composed of the rd, nd, and the rifles." found the rifles once more taking part in marches which taxed the endurance of the soldiers to the uttermost; but this time the temper of the troops was gay and exultant in the highest degree. they were taking part in the great movement which thrust the french back to vittoria. the elation of coming and assured victory was in the soldiers' blood. the rifles, after days of toilsome marches through wild and mountainous country, at last reached the fruitful valley of the ebro. here is a pleasant campaign scene:-- "we started at daylight on june , through a dreary region of solid rock, bearing an abundant crop of loose stones, without a particle of soil or vegetation visible to the naked eye in any direction. after leaving nearly twenty miles of this horrible wilderness behind us, our weary minds clogged with an imaginary view of nearly as much more of it in our front, we found ourselves all at once looking down upon the valley of the ebro, near the village of arenas, one of the richest, loveliest, and most romantic spots that i ever beheld. the influence of such a scene on the mind can scarcely be believed. five minutes before we were all as lively as stones. in a moment we were all fruits and flowers; and many a pair of legs, that one would have thought had not a kick left in them, were, in five minutes after, seen dancing across the bridge to the tune of 'the downfall of paris,' which struck up from the bands of the different regiments. "i lay down that night in a cottage garden, with my head on a melon, and my eye on a cherry-tree, and resigned myself to a repose which did not require a long courtship. "we resumed our march at daybreak on the th. the road, in the first instance, wound through orchards and luxurious gardens, and then closed in to the edge of the river, through a difficult and formidable pass, where the rocks on each side, arising to a prodigious height, hung over each other in fearful grandeur, and in many places nearly met together over our heads. "after following the course of the river for nearly two miles, the rocks on each side gradually expanded into another valley, lovely as the one we had left, and where we found the fifth division of our army lying encamped. they were still asleep; and the rising sun, and a beautiful morning, gave additional sublimity to the scene; for there was nothing but the tops of the white tents peeping above the fruit trees; and an occasional sentinel pacing his post, that gave any indication of what a nest of hornets the blast of a bugle could bring out of that apparently peaceful solitude. "we were welcomed into every town or village through which we passed by the peasant girls, who were in the habit of meeting us with garlands of flowers, and dancing before us in a peculiar style of their own; and it not unfrequently happened, that while they were so employed with one regiment, the preceding one was diligently engaged in pulling down some of their houses for firewood, a measure which we were sometimes obliged to have recourse to, where no other fuel could be had, and for which they were ultimately paid by the british government; but it was a measure that was more likely to have set the poor souls dancing mad than for joy, had they foreseen the consequences of our visit." at this stage the march brought the british into actual contact with the enemy, and there ensued much brisk skirmishing, in which the rifles found huge enjoyment:-- "on the morning of the th, we were ordered to march to san milan, a small town, about two leagues off; and where, on our arrival on the hill above it, we found a division of french infantry, as strong as ourselves, in the act of crossing our path. the surprise, i believe, was mutual, though i doubt whether the pleasure was equally so; for we were red-hot for an opportunity of retaliating for the salamanca retreat; and, as the old saying goes, 'there is no opportunity like the present.' their leading brigade had nearly passed before we came up, but not a moment was lost after we did. our battalion dispersing among the brushwood, went down the hill upon them; and, with a destructive fire, broke through their line of march, supported by the rest of the brigade. those that had passed made no attempt at a stand, but continued their flight, keeping up as good a fire as their circumstances would permit; while we kept hanging on their flank and rear, through a good rifle country, which enabled us to make considerable havoc among them. their general's aide-de-camp, amongst others, was mortally wounded; and a lady, on a white horse, who probably was his wife, remained beside him, until we came very near. she appeared to be in great distress; but, though we called to her to remain, and not to be alarmed, yet she galloped off as soon as a decided step became necessary. the object of her solicitude did not survive many minutes after we reached him." chapter iii some famous battles kincaid shared in all the bloody fights of the peninsula, from sabugal to toulouse. his descriptions of these fights are hasty and planless; they give no hint of the strategy behind them or of the results which followed them. but they are always vivid, racy, and rich in personal incident, and we give in this chapter some transcripts from them. sabugal was the last combat fought on portuguese soil in massena's sullen retreat from the lines of torres vedras. massena was never so dangerous as in retreat, and ney, with all his fiery valour, commanded his rearguard. the french, too, were in a mood of almost reckless savagery, and they greatly exceeded in numbers the force pursuing them. it may be imagined, then, what an incessant splutter of fierce and angry skirmishes raged betwixt wellington's advance-guard and the french rear. yet the veterans on both sides maintained a singularly cool and business-like attitude towards each other, an attitude not unflavoured with gleams of unprofessional friendliness. thus as the french were falling back after the disastrous fight at redinha, night fell while the skirmishers of the rifles were still eagerly pressing on the tired french rearguard. the officer commanding the french suddenly held up his sword in the grey dusk with a white handkerchief tied to it. an officer of the rifles went forward to parley, when the frenchman explained that he thought both sides needed a rest after a hard day's work. to this the officers of the rifles cheerfully agreed, and politely invited the frenchman and his subalterns to share their rations. this proposal was accepted; the french and english officers sat merrily round a common fire, and shared a common meal; then parted, and before daybreak became pursuers and pursued again! sabugal was described by wellington himself as "one of the most glorious actions british troops ever engaged in"; but it was little better than a gallant blunder. the day was one of drifting fog and blinding rain. wellington's plan was with three divisions--a force , strong--to envelop and crush massena's left wing, commanded by regnier, but erskine, who commanded the light division, failed to understand his orders, wandered off with his cavalry in the fog, and left beckwith with four companies of the rifles and the rd lying sheltered near the ford across the coa. when wellington's general attack was developed, beckwith was to cross the river and attack. a staff officer stumbled upon him early in the day, before the other troops had moved, and demanded, with a note of anger in his voice, why he did not attack? beckwith instantly led his men across the stream, and with one bayonet battalion and four companies of rifles, proceeded to attack , french infantry supported by cavalry and guns! and in a combat so strange, against chances so apparently hopeless, the handful of british won! here is kincaid's story:-- "_april , ._--early this morning our division moved still farther to its right, and our brigade led the way across a ford, which took us up to the middle; while the balls from the enemy's advanced posts were hissing in the water around us, we drove in their light troops and commenced a furious assault upon their main body. thus far all was right; but a thick, drizzling rain now came on, in consequence of which the third division, which was to have made a simultaneous attack to our left, missed their way, and a brigade of dragoons, under sir william erskine, who were to have covered our right, went the lord knows where, but certainly not into the fight, although they started at the same time that we did, and had the 'music' of our rifles to guide them; and even the second brigade of our division could not afford us any support for nearly an hour, so that we were thus unconsciously left with about fifteen hundred men, in the very impertinent attempt to carry a formidable position on which stood as many thousands. "the weather, which had deprived us of the aid of our friends, favoured us so far as to prevent the enemy from seeing the amount of our paltry force; and the conduct of our gallant fellows, led on by sir sidney beckwith, was so truly heroic, that, incredible as it may seem, we had the best of the fight throughout. our first attack was met by such overwhelming numbers, that we were forced back and followed by three heavy columns, before which we retired slowly, and keeping up a destructive fire, to the nearest rising ground, where we re-formed and instantly charged their advancing masses, sending them flying at the point of the bayonet, and entering their position along with them, where we were assailed by fresh forces. three times did the very same thing occur. in our third attempt we got possession of one of their howitzers, for which a desperate struggle was making, when we were at the same moment charged by infantry in front and cavalry on the right, and again compelled to fall back; but, fortunately at this moment we were reinforced by the arrival of the second brigade, and with their aid we once more stormed their position and secured the well-earned howitzer, while the third division came at the same time upon their flank, and they were driven from the field in the greatest disorder. "lord wellington's despatch on this occasion did ample justice to sir sidney beckwith and his brave brigade. never were troops more judiciously or more gallantly led. never was a leader more devotedly followed. "in the course of the action a man of the name of knight fell dead at my feet, and though i heard a musket ball strike him, i could neither find blood nor wound. there was a little spaniel belonging to one of our officers running about the whole time, barking at the balls, and i saw him once smelling at a live shell, which exploded in his face without hurting him." it may be added that, when the fight was over, round that fiercely disputed howitzer dead bodies were found piled! an amusing instance of the cool and business-like temper with which the veterans of the rifles fought occurred in this combat. a rifleman named flinn had covered a frenchman, and was in the act of drawing the trigger, when a hare leaped out of the fern in front of him. flinn found this game more tempting; he took quick aim at it, and shot it. his officer rebuked him when the fight was over for that wasted shot. "sure, your honour," was his reply, "we can kill a frenchman any day, but it isn't always i can bag a hare for your supper." on may , , began the confused manoeuvring and fierce combats, stretching through two days, known as the battle of fuentes d'onore. in the middle of the fight wellington had to change his front, swing his right wing back across the open plain--then in possession of the triumphant french cavalry--to a ridge at right angles to his former front. the light division formed part of the force executing this movement. it was formed in three squares, flanking each other. masses of french cavalry eddied furiously round them as they marched. but the stern and disciplined ranks of the light division never wavered. they moved, says napier, "in the most majestic manner"; and, he adds, that "all the cavalry that ever charged under tamerlane or genghis khan would have failed to break their lines." kincaid's account is graphic, and betrays no consciousness of the exceptional nature of the deed performed by his division:-- "_may , ._--the day began to dawn, this fine may morning, with a rattling fire of musketry on the extreme right of our position, which the enemy had attacked, and to which point our division was rapidly moved. "our battalion was thrown into a wood, a little to the left and front of the division engaged, and was instantly warmly opposed to the french skirmishers; in the course of which i was struck with a musket ball on the left breast, which made me stagger a yard or two backward, and, as i felt no pain, i concluded that i was dangerously wounded; but it turned out to be owing to my not being hurt. while our operations here were confined to a tame skirmish, and our view to the oaks with which we were mingled, we found, by the evidence of our ears, that the division which we had come to support was involved in a more serious onset, for there was a successive rattle of artillery, the wild hurrah of charging squadrons, and the repulsing volley of musketry; until lord wellington, finding his right too much extended, directed that division to fall back behind the small river touronne, and ours to join the main body of the army. the execution of our movement presented a magnificent military spectacle, as the plain between us and the right of the army, was by this time in possession of the french cavalry, and, while we were retiring through it with the order and precision of a common field-day, they kept dancing around us, and every instant threatening a charge, without daring to execute it. "we took up our new position at a right angle with the then right of the british line, on which our left rested, and with our right on the touronne. the enemy followed our movement with a heavy column of infantry; but, when they came near enough to exchange shots, they did not seem to like our looks, as we occupied a low ridge of broken rocks, against which even a rat could scarcely have hoped to advance alive; and they again fell back, and opened a tremendous fire of artillery, which was returned by a battery of our guns. "the battle continued to rage with fury in and about the village, while we were lying by our arms under a burning hot sun, some stray cannon-shot passing over and about us, whose progress we watched for want of other employment. one of them bounded along in the direction of an 'amateur,' whom we had for some time been observing, securely placed, as he imagined, behind a piece of rock, which stood about five feet above the ground, and over which nothing but his head was shown, sheltered from the sun by an umbrella. the shot in question touched the ground three or four times between us and him; he saw it coming--lowered his umbrella, and withdrew his head. its expiring bound carried it into the very spot where he had that instant disappeared. i hope he was not hurt; but the thing looked so ridiculous that it excited a shout of laughter, and we saw no more of him. "a little before dusk, in the evening, our battalion was ordered forward to relieve the troops engaged in the village, part of which still remained in possession of the enemy, and i saw, by the mixed nature of the dead, in every part of the streets, that it had been successively in possession of both sides. the firing ceased with the daylight, and i was sent, with a section of men, in charge of one of the streets for the night. there was a wounded sergeant of highlanders lying on my post. a ball had passed through the back part of his head, from which the brain was oozing, and his only sign of life was a convulsive hiccough every two or three seconds. i sent for a medical friend to look at him, who told me that he could not survive; i then got a mattress from the nearest house, placed the poor fellow on it, and made use of one corner as a pillow for myself, on which, after the fatigues of the day, and though called occasionally to visit my sentries, i slept most soundly. the highlander died in the course of the night. "when we stood to our arms at daybreak next morning, we found the enemy busy throwing up a six-gun battery immediately in front of our company's post, and we immediately set to work, with our whole hearts and souls, and placed a wall, about twelve feet thick, between us, which, no doubt, still remains there in the same garden, as a monument of what can be effected in a few minutes by a hundred modern men, when their personal safety is concerned, not but that the proprietor, in the midst of his admiration, would rather see a good bed of garlic on the spot manured with the bodies of the architects. "when the sun began to shine on the pacific disposition of the enemy, we proceeded to consign the dead to their last earthly mansions, giving every englishman a grave to himself, and putting as many frenchmen into one as it could conveniently accommodate. whilst in the superintendence of this melancholy duty, and ruminating on the words of the poet:-- 'there's not a form of all that lie thus ghastly, wild and bare, tost, bleeding, in the stormy sky, black in the burning air, but to his knee some infant clung, but on his heart some fond heart hung!' "i was grieved to think that the souls of deceased warriors should be so selfish as to take to flight in their regimentals, for i never saw the body of one with a rag on after battle. "the day after one of those negative sort of victories is always one of intense interest. the movements on each side are most jealously watched, and each side is diligently occupied in strengthening such points as the fight of the preceding day had proved to be the most vulnerable. they had made a few prisoners, chiefly guardsmen and highlanders, whom they marched past the front of our position, in the most ostentatious way, on the forenoon of the th; and, the day following, a number of their regiments were paraded in the most imposing manner for review. they looked uncommonly well, and we were proud to think that we had beaten such fine-looking fellows so lately!" in the tangled and hurried marches which preceded the battle of salamanca, the rifles took, of course, an active part. they were probably the quickest-footed and most hardy regiment under wellington's command. but in the great battle itself kincaid's battalion played a small part, being held in reserve. kincaid's account is both amusing and interesting:-- "hitherto we had been fighting the description of battle in which john bull glories so much--gaining a brilliant and useless victory against great odds. but we were now about to contend for fame on equal terms; and, having tried both, i will say, without partiality, that i would rather fight one man than two any day; for i have never been quite satisfied that the additional quantum of glory altogether compensated for the proportionate loss of substance; a victory of that kind being a doubtful and most unsatisfactory one to the performers, with each occupying the same ground after that they did before; and the whole merit resting with the side which did not happen to begin it. "marmont came down upon us the first night with a thundering cannonade, and placed his army _en masse_ on the plain before us, almost within gunshot. i was told that, while lord wellington was riding along the line, under a fire of artillery, and accompanied by a numerous staff, a brace of greyhounds in pursuit of a hare passed close to him. he was at the moment in earnest conversation with general castanos; but the instant he observed them he gave the view hallo and went after them at full speed, to the utter astonishment of his foreign accompaniments. nor did he stop until he saw the hare killed; when he returned and resumed the commander-in-chief as if nothing had occurred. "i was sent on piquet on the evening of the th, to watch a portion of the plain before us; and, soon after sunrise on the following morning, a cannonade commenced behind a hill to my right; and though the combatants were not visible, it was evident that they were not dealing in blank-cartridge, as mine happened to be the pitching-post of all the enemy's round shot. while i was attentively watching its progress, there arose all at once, behind the rising ground to my left, a yell of the most terrific import; and, convinced that it would give instantaneous birth to as hideous a body, it made me look with an eye of lightning at the ground around me; and, seeing a broad deep ditch within a hundred yards, i lost not a moment in placing it between my piquet and the extraordinary sound. i had scarcely effected the movement when lord wellington, with his staff, and a cloud of french and english dragoons and horse artillery intermixed, came over the hill at full cry, and all hammering at each other's heads, in one confused mass over the very ground i had that instant quitted. it appeared that his lordship had gone there to reconnoitre, covered by two guns and two squadrons of cavalry, who by some accident were surprised and charged by a superior body of the enemy, and sent tumbling in upon us in the manner described. "a piquet of the rd had formed on our right, and we were obliged to remain passive spectators of such an extraordinary scene going on within a few yards of us, as we could not fire without an equal chance of shooting some of our own side. lord wellington and his staff, with the two guns, took shelter for a moment behind us, while the cavalry went sweeping along our front, where, i suppose, they picked up some reinforcement, for they returned almost instantly in the same confused mass; but the french were now the fliers; and, i must do them the justice to say, that they got off in a manner highly creditable to themselves. i saw one, in particular, defending himself against two of ours; and he would have made his escape from both, but an officer of our dragoons came down the hill, and took him in the flank at full speed, sending man and horse rolling headlong on the plain. "i was highly interested all this time in observing the distinguished characters which this unlooked-for turn-up had assembled around us. marshal beresford and the greater part of the staff remained with their swords drawn, and the duke himself did not look more than half-pleased, while he silently despatched some of them with orders. general alten and his huge german orderly dragoon, with their swords drawn, cursed the whole time to a very large amount; but, as it was in german, i had not the full benefit of it. he had an opposition swearer in captain jenkinson of the artillery, who commanded the two guns, and whose oaths were chiefly aimed at himself for his folly, as far as i could understand, in putting so much confidence in his covering party, that he had not thought it necessary to unfix the catch which horse-artillerymen, i believe, had to prevent their swords quitting the scabbards when they are not wanted, and which on this occasion prevented their jumping forth when they were so unexpectedly called for. "the straggling enemy had scarcely cleared away from our front when lord combermere came from the right with a reinforcement of cavalry; and our piquet was at the same moment ordered to join the battalion. "the movements which followed presented the most beautiful military spectacle imaginable. the enemy were endeavouring to turn our left; and, in making a counteracting movement, the two armies were marching in parallel lines close to each other on a perfect plain, each ready to take advantage of any opening of the other, and exchanging round shot as they moved along. our division brought up the rear of the infantry, marching with the order and precision of a field-day, in open column of companies, and in perfect readiness to receive the enemy in any shape, who, on their part, had a huge cavalry force close at hand and equally ready to pounce upon us. "_july ._--a sharp fire of musketry commenced at daylight in the morning; but as it did not immediately concern us and was nothing unusual we took no notice of it, but busied ourselves in getting our arms and our bodies disengaged from the rust and the wet engendered by the storm of the past night. about ten o'clock our division was ordered to stand to their arms. the enemy were to be seen in motion on the opposite ridges, and a straggling fire of musketry, with an occasional gun, acted as a sort of prelude to the approaching conflict. we heard, about this time, that marmont had just sent to his _ci-devant_ landlord in salamanca to desire that he would have the usual dinner ready for himself and staff at six o'clock; and so satisfied was 'mine host' of the infallibility of the french marshal, that he absolutely set about making the necessary preparations. "there assuredly never was an army so anxious as ours was to be brought into action on this occasion. they were a magnificent body of well-tried soldiers, highly equipped, and in the highest health and spirits, with the most devoted confidence in their leader, and an invincible confidence in themselves. the retreat of the four preceding days had annoyed us beyond measure, for we believed that we were nearly equal to the enemy in point of numbers, and the idea of our retiring before an equal number of any troops in the world was not to be endured with common patience. "we were kept the whole of the forenoon in the most torturing state of suspense through contradictory reports. one passing officer telling us that he had just heard the order given to attack, and the next asserting with equal confidence that he had just heard the order to retreat; and it was not until about two o'clock in the afternoon that affairs began to wear a more decided aspect; and when our own eyes and ears at length conveyed the wished-for tidings that a battle was inevitable, for we saw the enemy beginning to close upon our right, and the cannonade had become general along the whole line. lord wellington about the same time ordered the movement which decided the fate of the day--that of bringing the third division from beyond the river on our left rapidly to our extreme right, turning the enemy in their attempt to turn us, and commencing the offensive with the whole of his right wing. "the effect was instantaneous and decisive, for although some obstinate and desperate fighting took place in the centre, with various success, yet the victory was never for a moment in doubt, and the enemy were soon in full retreat, leaving seven thousand prisoners, two eagles, and eleven pieces of artillery in our hands. had we been favoured with two hours' more daylight, their loss would have been incalculable, for they committed a blunder at starting which they never got time to retrieve, and their retreat was therefore commenced in such disorder, and with a river in their rear, that nothing but darkness could have saved them. "the third division, under sir edward pakenham, the artillery, and some regiments of dragoons, particularly distinguished themselves. but our division, very much to our annoyance, came in for a very slender portion of this day's glory. we were exposed to a cannonade the whole of the afternoon, but, as we were not permitted to advance until very late, we had only an opportunity of throwing a few straggling shot at the fugitives before we lost sight of them in the dark, and then bivouacked for the night near the village of huerta (i think it was called). "we started after them at daylight next morning, and crossing at a ford of the tormes we found their rearguard, consisting of three regiments of infantry, with some cavalry and artillery, posted on a formidable height above the village of serna. general bock, with his brigade of heavy german dragoons, immediately went at them, and putting their cavalry to flight, he broke through their infantry, and took or destroyed the whole of them. this was one of the most gallant charges recorded in history. i saw many of these fine fellows lying dead along with their horses, on which they were still astride, with the sword firmly grasped in the hand, as they had fought the instant before, and several of them still wearing a look of fierce defiance, which death itself had been unable to quench." in the mountain march which turned the french right, and drove joseph's whole army, burdened with the plunder of a kingdom, back into the fatal valley of vittoria, the rifles had a full share. in the actual fighting of june , , their part was brilliant. they fired the first shot in the fight; they were first across the river; they were first up the central hill of arinez, where the fury of the great battle culminated; and they captured the first gun taken. barnard's daring advance with his riflemen really enabled the third and seventh divisions to carry the bridge of mendoza. barnard opened so cruel a flank fire on the french guns and infantry guarding the bridge that they fell back in confusion, and the british crossed practically without confusion. it is needless to add that the hardy and active rifles led in the pursuit of the defeated french far into the night after the battle, and early on the succeeding day:-- "_june , ._--our division got under arms this morning before daylight, passed the base of the mountain by its left, through the camp of the fourth division, who were still asleep in their tents, to the banks of the river zadora, at the village of tres puentes. the opposite side of the river was occupied by the enemy's advanced posts, and we saw their army on the hills beyond, while the spires of vittoria were visible in the distance. we felt as if there was likely to be a battle; but as that was an event we were never sure of until we found ourselves actually in it, we lay for some time just out of musket-shot, uncertain what was likely to turn up, and waiting for orders. at length a sharp fire of musketry was heard to our right, and on looking in that direction we saw the head of sir rowland hill's corps, together with some spanish troops, attempting to force the mountain which marked the enemy's left. the three battalions of our regiment were, at the same moment, ordered forward to feel the enemy, who lined the opposite banks of the river, with whom we were quickly engaged in a warm skirmish. the affair with sir rowland hill became gradually warmer, but ours had apparently no other object than to amuse those who were opposite to us for the moment, so that for about two hours longer it seemed as if there would be nothing but an affair of outposts. "about twelve o'clock, however, we were moved rapidly to our left, followed by the rest of the division, till we came to an abrupt turn of the river, where we found a bridge, unoccupied by the enemy, which we immediately crossed and took possession of what appeared to me to be an old field-work on the other side. we had not been many seconds there before we observed the bayonets of the third and seventh divisions glittering above the standing corn, and advancing upon another bridge which stood about a quarter of a mile farther to our left, and where, on their arrival, they were warmly opposed by the enemy's light troops, who lined the bank of the river (which we ourselves were now on), in great force, for the defence of the bridge. as soon as this was observed by our division, colonel barnard advanced with our battalion, and took them in flank with such a furious fire as quickly dislodged them, and thereby opened a passage for these two divisions free of expense, which must otherwise have cost them dearly. what with the rapidity of our movement, the colour of our dress, and our close contact with the enemy before they would abandon their post, we had the misfortune to be identified with them for some time by a battery of our own guns, who, not observing the movement, continued to serve it out indiscriminately, and all the while admiring their practice upon us; nor was it until the red coats of the third division joined us that they discovered their mistake. "on the mountain to our extreme right the action continued to be general and obstinate, though we observed that the enemy were giving ground slowly to sir rowland hill. the passage of the river by our division had turned the enemy's outpost at the bridge on our right, where we had been engaged in the morning, and they were now retreating, followed by the fourth division. the plain between them and sir rowland hill was occupied by the british cavalry, who were now seen filing out of a wood, squadron after squadron, galloping into form as they gradually cleared it. the hills behind were covered with spectators, and the third and the light divisions, covered by our battalion, advanced rapidly upon a formidable hill in front of the enemy's centre, which they had neglected to occupy in sufficient force. "in the course of our progress our men kept picking off the french vedettes, who were imprudent enough to hover too near us; and many a horse, bounding along the plain, dragging his late rider by the stirrup-irons, contributed in making it a scene of extraordinary and exhilarating interest. "old picton rode at the head of the third division, dressed in a blue coat and a round hat, and swore as roundly all the way as if he had been wearing two cocked ones. our battalion soon cleared the hill in question of the enemy's light troops; but we were pulled up on the opposite side of it by one of their lines, which occupied a wall at the entrance of a village immediately under us. "during the few minutes that we stopped there, while a brigade of the third division was deploying into line, two of our companies lost two officers and thirty men, chiefly from the fire of artillery bearing on the spot from the french position. one of their shells burst immediately under my nose, part of it struck my boot and stirrup-iron, and the rest of it kicked up such a dust about me that my charger refused to obey orders; and while i was spurring and he capering i heard a voice behind me, which i knew to be lord wellington's, calling out, in a tone of reproof, 'look to keeping your men together, sir;' and though, god knows, i had not the remotest idea that he was within a mile of me at the time, yet so sensible was i that circumstances warranted his supposing that i was a young officer cutting a caper, by way of bravado, before him, that worlds would not have tempted me to look round at the moment. the french fled from the wall as soon as they received a volley from part of the third division, and we instantly dashed down the hill and charged them through the village, capturing three of their guns; the first, i believe, that were taken that day. they received a reinforcement, and drove us back before our supports could come to our assistance; but, in the scramble of the moment, our men were knowing enough to cut the traces and carry off the horses, so that when we retook the village immediately after the guns still remained in our possession. "the battle now became general along the whole line, and the cannonade was tremendous. at one period we held on one side of a wall, near the village, while the french were on the other, so that any person who chose to put his head over from either side was sure of getting a sword or a bayonet up his nostrils. this situation was, of course, too good to be of long endurance. the victory, i believe, was never for a moment doubtful. the enemy were so completely out-generalled, and the superiority of our troops was such, that to carry their positions required little more than the time necessary to march to them. after forcing their centre the fourth division and our own got on the flank and rather in rear of the enemy's left wing, who were retreating before sir rowland hill, and who, to effect their escape, were now obliged to fly in one confused mass. had a single regiment of our dragoons been at hand, or even a squadron, to have forced them into shape for a few minutes, we must have taken from ten to twenty thousand prisoners. after marching alongside of them for nearly two miles, and as a disorderly body will always move faster than an orderly one, we had the mortification to see them gradually heading us, until they finally made their escape. "our elevated situation at this time afforded a good view of the field of battle to our left, and i could not help being struck with an unusual appearance of unsteadiness and want of confidence among the french troops. i saw a dense mass of many thousands occupying a good defensible post, who gave way in the greatest confusion before a single line of the third division, almost without feeling them. if there was nothing in any other part of the position to justify the movement, and i do not think there was, they ought to have been flogged, every man, from the general downwards. "the ground was particularly favourable to the retreating foe, as every half mile afforded a fresh and formidable position, so that from the commencement of the action to the city of vittoria, a distance of six or eight miles, we were involved in one continued hard skirmish. on passing vittoria, however, the scene became quite new and infinitely more amusing, as the french had made no provision for a retreat; and sir thomas graham having seized upon the great road to france, the only one left open was that leading by pampeluna; and it was not open long, for their fugitive army and their myriads of followers, with baggage, guns, carriages, &c., being all precipitated upon it at the same moment, it got choked up about a mile beyond the town, in the most glorious state of confusion; and the drivers, finding that one pair of legs was worth two pair of wheels, abandoned it all to the victors. "it is much to be lamented, on those occasions, that the people who contribute most to the victory should profit the least by it; not that i am an advocate for plunder--on the contrary, i would much rather that all our fighting was for pure love; but as everything of value falls into the hands of the followers and scoundrels who skulk from the ranks for the double purpose of plundering and saving their dastardly carcasses, what i regret is that the man who deserts his post should thereby have an opportunity of enriching himself with impunity, while the true man gets nothing; but the evil, i believe, is irremediable. sir james kempt, who commanded our brigade, in passing one of the captured waggons in the evening, saw a soldier loading himself with money, and was about to have him conveyed to the camp as a prisoner, when the fellow begged hard to be released, and to be allowed to retain what he had got, telling the general that all the boxes in the waggon were filled with gold. sir james, with his usual liberality, immediately adopted the idea of securing it as a reward to his brigade for their gallantry; and, getting a fatigue party, he caused the boxes to be removed to his tent, and ordered an officer and some men from each regiment to parade there next morning to receive their proportions of it; but when they opened the boxes they found them filled with 'hammers, nails, and horse-shoes!' "as not only the body, but the mind, had been in constant occupation since three o'clock in the morning, circumstances no sooner permitted--about ten at night--than i threw myself on the ground, and fell into a profound sleep, from which i did not awake until broad daylight, when i found a french soldier squatted near me, intensely watching for the opening of my 'shutters.' he had contrived to conceal himself there during the night; and when he saw that i was awake, he immediately jumped on his legs, and very obsequiously presented me with a map of france, telling me that as there was now a probability of our visiting his native country, he could make himself very useful, and would be glad if i would accept of his services. i thought it unfair, however, to deprive him of the present opportunity of seeing a little more of the world himself; and therefore sent him to join the rest of the prisoners, which would insure him a trip to england, free of expense." on the rough and shaggy field of the pyrenees, with its deep and tangled valleys and wind-scourged summits, where soult was maintaining a gallant and obstinate fight against wellington, the british endured and achieved much. kincaid's account of the carrying of the great rhune, of the passage of the bidassoa and of the nivelle, and of all the fighting which led up to toulouse, is worth giving:-- "_november , ._--petite la rhune was allotted to our division as their first point of attack; and, accordingly, on the th being the day fixed, we moved to our ground at midnight on the th. the abrupt ridges in the neighbourhood enabled us to lodge ourselves, unperceived, within half musket-shot of their piquets; and we had left every description of animal behind us in camp, in order that neither the barking of dogs nor the neighing of steeds should give indication of our intentions. our signal of attack was to be a gun from sir john hope, who had now succeeded sir thomas graham in the command of the left wing of the army. "we stood to our arms at dawn of day, which was soon followed by the signal gun; and each commanding officer, according to previous instructions, led gallantly off to his point of attack. the french must have been, no doubt, astonished to see such an armed force spring out of the ground almost under their noses, but they were nevertheless prepared behind their entrenchments, and caused us some loss in passing the short space between us; but the whole place was carried within the time required to walk over it, and in less than half-an-hour from the commencement of the attack it was in our possession, with all their tents left standing. "petite la rhune was more of an outpost than a part of their position, the latter being a chain of stupendous mountains in its rear; so that, while our battalion followed their skirmishers into the valley between, the remainder of our division were forming for the attack on the main position and waiting for the co-operation of the other divisions, the thunder of whose artillery, echoing along the valleys, proclaimed that they were engaged far and wide on both sides of us. about mid-day our division advanced to the grand attack on the most formidable-looking part of the whole of the enemy's position, and, much to our surprise, we carried it with more ease and less loss than the outpost in the morning, a circumstance which we could only account for by supposing that it had been defended by the same troops, and that they did not choose to sustain two hard beatings on the same day. the attack succeeded at every point, and in the evening we had the satisfaction of seeing the left wing of the army marching into st. jean de luz." barnard, the gallant leader of the rifles, was shot through the breast when pressing in pursuit of the broken french, who had been driven from the little rhune. he fell from his horse, and it was evident that the lung was pierced, for blood and air issued from the wound, while blood ran from the fallen man's mouth. "do you think i am dying?" asked barnard coolly of an officer bending over him. "did you ever see a man so wounded recover?" he was told there were cases of recovery from such a wound. "then," said barnard, "if any man can recover, i know that i shall." and he did, his resolve not to die materially helping him to survive. for so much does a cool and strong will count! kincaid's account of toulouse is singularly brief. the rifles were placed so as to connect picton's left with the spaniards under freire, who were to attack the shoulder of mont rave. thus kincaid was able to watch, and afterwards describe, the memorable rout of the spaniards, which forms the most picturesque feature of the battle. the rifles themselves were engaged in a sharp musketry fire with the convent, and as they advanced a great open sewer had to be crossed and held. the rifles, according to the regimental record, suffered more from the odours of the sewer than from the bullets of the french:-- "we crossed the river, and advanced sufficiently near to the enemy's position to be just out of reach of their fire, where we waited until dispositions were made for the attack. "on our side of the river the spanish army, which had never hitherto taken an active part in any of our general actions, now claimed the post of honour, and advanced to storm the strongest part of the heights. our division was ordered to support them in the low grounds, and at the same time to threaten a point of the canal; and picton, who was on our right, was ordered to make a false attack on the canal. these were all that were visible to us. the remaining divisions of the army were in continuation to the left. "the spaniards, anxious to monopolise all the glory, i rather think, moved on to the attack a little too soon, and before the british divisions on their left were in readiness to co-operate. however, be that as it may, they were soon in a blaze of fire, and began walking through it at first with a great show of gallantry and determination; but their courage was not altogether screwed up to the sticking-point, and the nearer they came to the critical pass the less prepared they seemed to meet it, until they all finally faced to the right-about, and came back upon us as fast as their heels could carry them, pursued by the enemy. "we instantly advanced to their relief, and concluded that they would have rallied behind us, but they had no idea of doing anything of the kind, for when with cuesta and some of the other spanish generals they had been accustomed, under such circumstances, to run a hundred miles at a time; so that, passing through the intervals of our division, they went clear off to the rear, and we never saw them more. the moment the french found us interpose between them and the spaniards they retired within their works. "the only remark that lord wellington was said to have made on their conduct, after waiting to see whether they would stand after they got out of the reach of the enemy's shot, was, 'well, d---- me, if ever i saw ten thousand men run a race before!' however, notwithstanding their disaster, many of their officers certainly evinced great bravery, and on their account it is to be regretted that the attack was made so soon, for they would otherwise have carried their point with little loss, either of life or credit, as the british divisions on the left soon after stormed and carried all the other works, and obliged those who had been opposed to the spaniards to evacuate theirs without firing another shot. "when the enemy were driven from the heights, they retired within the town, and the canal then became their line of defence, which they maintained the whole of the next day; but in the course of the following night they left the town altogether, and we took possession of it on the morning of the th. "the inhabitants of toulouse hoisted the white flag, and declared for the bourbons the moment that the french army had left it; and, in the course of the same day, colonel cooke arrived from paris with the extraordinary news of napoleon's abdication. soult has been accused of having been in possession of that fact prior to the battle of toulouse; but, to disprove such an assertion, it can only be necessary to think, for a moment, whether he would not have made it public the day after the battle, while he yet held possession of the town, as it would not only have enabled him to keep it, but, to those who knew no better, it might have given him a shadow of claim to the victory, if he chose to avail himself of it--and i have known a victory claimed by a french marshal on more slender grounds. in place of knowing it then, he did not even believe it now; and we were absolutely obliged to follow him a day's march beyond toulouse before he agreed to an armistice." chapter iv the imminent deadly breach of the three great and memorable sieges of the peninsula--ciudad rodrigo, badajos, and san sebastian--kincaid took part in the first two, and has left a curiously interesting account of his experiences in them. wellington's capture of ciudad rodrigo was a very swift and dazzling stroke of war. the place was a great frontier fortress; it held vast magazines of warlike material. while in french hands it barred wellington's advance into spain. if captured, it would furnish a secure base for such an advance. marmont and soult, each in command of an army stronger than that under wellington, kept watch over the great fortress. to pluck it from their very hands would have been judged beforehand an impossible thing. yet wellington did it! he achieved the feat by a combination of secrecy, audacity, and speed rarely excelled in war. he hid his preparations beneath a veil of profoundest silence and mystery. then, when his foes had been thrown completely off their guard, he leaped on the doomed fortress; and almost before the thunder of his guns had reached the ears of soult and of marmont the fortress was lost! wellington had everything against him. his supplies were scanty, his siege train miserable. the weather was bitter, and rains incessant, the ground rocky. yet the siege never faltered nor paused. wellington broke ground on january ; he stormed the city on january . never was a great warlike operation conceived more subtly, or executed with greater fire and swiftness. kincaid has a special right to tell the tale of this siege. he shared in the hardships of the trenches, and led the storming party at one of the breaches. "_january , ._--the campaign of commenced with the siege of ciudad rodrigo, which was invested by our division on the th of january. "there was a smartish frost, with some snow on the ground, and, when we arrived opposite the fortress, about mid-day, the garrison did not appear to think that we were in earnest, for a number of their officers came out, under the shelter of a stone wall, within half musket-shot, and amused themselves in saluting and bowing to us in ridicule; but, ere the day was done, some of them had occasion to wear the laugh on the opposite side of the countenance. "we lay by our arms until dark, when a party, consisting of a hundred volunteers from each regiment, under colonel colborne of the nd, stormed and carried the fort of st. francisco, after a short, sharp action, in which the whole of its garrison were taken or destroyed. the officer who commanded it was a chattering little fellow, and acknowledged himself to have been one of our saluting friends of the morning. he kept incessantly repeating a few words of english which he had picked up during the assault, and the only ones, i fancy, that were spoken, viz., 'dem eyes, b--t eyes!' and, in demanding the meaning of them, he required that we should also explain why we stormed a place without first besieging it; for, he said, that another officer would have relieved him of his charge at daylight, had we not relieved him of it sooner. "the enemy had calculated that this outwork would have kept us at bay for a fortnight or three weeks; whereas its capture the first night enabled us to break ground at once, within breaching distance of the walls of the town. they kept up a very heavy fire the whole night on the working parties; but, as they aimed at random, we did not suffer much, and made such good use of our time that, when daylight enabled them to see what we were doing, we had dug ourselves under tolerable cover. "in addition to ours, the first, third, and fourth divisions were employed in the siege. each took the duties for twenty-four hours alternately, and returned to their cantonments during the interval. we were relieved by the first division, under sir thomas graham, on the morning of the th, and marched to our quarters. "_january ._--at ten o'clock this morning we resumed the duties of the siege. it still continued to be dry, frosty weather; and, as we were obliged to ford the agueda, up to the middle, every man carried a pair of iced breeches into the trenches with him. "my turn of duty did not arrive until eight in the morning, when i was ordered to take thirty men with shovels to dig holes for ourselves, as near as possible to the walls, for the delectable amusement of firing at the embrasures for the remainder of the night. the enemy threw frequent fire-balls among us, to see where we were; but, as we always lay snug until their blaze was extinguished, they were not much the wiser, except by finding, from having some one popped off from their guns every instant, that they had got some neighbours whom they would have been glad to get rid of. we were relieved as usual at ten next morning, and returned to our cantonments. "_january ._--entered on our third day's duty, and found the breaching batteries in full operation, and our approaches close to the walls on every side. when we arrived on the ground i was sent to take command of the highland company which we had at that time in the regiment, and which was with the left wing, under colonel cameron. i found them on piquet, between the right of the trenches and the river, half of them posted at a mud cottage and the other half in a ruined convent close under the walls. it was a very tolerable post when at it; but it is no joke travelling by daylight up to within a stone's throw of a wall on which there is a parcel of fellows who have no other amusement but to fire at everybody they see. "we could not show our noses at any point without being fired at; but, as we were merely posted there to protect the right flank of the trenches from any sortie, we did not fire at them, and kept as quiet as could be, considering the deadly blast that was blowing around us. there are few situations in life where something cannot be learnt, and i myself stand indebted to my twenty-four hours' residence there for a more correct knowledge of martial sounds than in the study of my whole life-time besides. they must be an unmusical pair of ears that cannot inform the wearer whether a cannon or a musket played last, but the various notes, emanating from their respective mouths, admit of nice distinctions. my party was too small and too well sheltered to repay the enemy for the expense of shells and round shot; but the quantity of grape and musketry aimed at our particular heads made a good concert of first and second whistles, while the more sonorous voice of the round shot, travelling to our friends on the left, acted as a thorough bass; and there was not a shell, that passed over us to the trenches, that did not send back a fragment among us as soon as it burst, as if to gratify a curiosity that i was far from expressing. "everything is by comparison in this world, and it is curious to observe how men's feelings change with circumstances. in cool blood a man would rather go a little out of his way than expose himself to unnecessary danger; but we found, this morning, that by crossing the river where we then were and running the gantlet for a mile exposed to the fire of two pieces of artillery, that we should be saved the distance of two or three miles in returning to our quarters. after coming out of such a furnace as we had been frying in, the other fire was not considered a fire at all, and passed without a moment's hesitation. "_january , ._--we moved to the scene of operations about two o'clock this afternoon; and, as it was a day before our regular turn, we concluded that we were called there to lend a hand in finishing the job we had begun so well. nor were we disappointed, for we found that two practicable breaches had been effected, and that the place was to be stormed in the evening by the third and light divisions, the former by the right breach, and the latter by the left, while some portuguese troops were to attempt an escalade on the opposite sides of the town. "about eight o'clock in the evening our division was accordingly formed for the assault, behind a convent, near the left breach. "at a given signal the different columns advanced to the assault; the night was tolerably clear, and the enemy evidently expected us, for as soon as we turned the corner of the convent wall, the space between us and the breach became one blaze of light with their fire-balls, which, while they lighted us on to glory, lightened not a few of their lives and limbs; for the whole glacis was in consequence swept by a well-directed fire of grape and musketry, and they are the devil's own brooms; but our gallant fellows walked through it to the point of attack, with the most determined steadiness, excepting the portuguese sack-bearers, most of whom lay down behind their bags, to wait the result, while the few that were thrown into the ditch looked so like dead bodies, that, when i leapt into it, i tried to avoid them. "the advantage of being on a storming party is considered as giving the prior claim to be 'put out of pain,' for they receive the first fire, which is generally the best, not to mention that they are also expected to receive the earliest salutations from the beams of timber, hand-grenades, and other missiles which the garrison are generally prepared to transfer from the top of the wall, to the tops of the heads of their foremost visitors. but i cannot say that i myself experienced any such preference, for every ball has a considerable distance to travel, and i have generally found them equally ready to pick up their man at the end as at the beginning of their flight. "we had some difficulty at first in finding the breach, as we had entered the ditch opposite to a ravelin, which we mistook for a bastion. i tried first one side of it and then the other, and seeing one corner of it a good deal battered, with a ladder placed against it, i concluded that it must be the breach, and calling to the soldiers near me to follow, i mounted with the most ferocious intent, carrying a sword in one hand and a pistol in the other; but, when i got up, i found nobody to fight with, except two of our own men, who were already laid dead across the top of the ladder. i saw in a moment that i had got into the wrong box, and was about to descend again, when i heard a shout from the opposite side that the breach was there; and, moving in that direction, i dropped myself from the ravelin, and landed in the ditch, opposite to the foot of the breach, where i found the head of the storming party just beginning to fight their way into it. the combat was of short duration, and, in less than half-an-hour from the commencement of the attack, the place was in our possession. "after carrying the breach, we met with no further opposition, and moved round the ramparts to see that they were perfectly clear of the enemy, previous to entering the town. i was fortunate enough to take the left-hand circuit, by accident, and thereby escape the fate which befel a great portion of those who went to the right, and who were blown up, along with some of the third division, by the accidental explosion of a magazine. "i was highly amused, in moving round the ramparts, to find some of the portuguese troops just commencing their escalade, on the opposite side near the bridge, in ignorance of the place having already fallen. gallantly headed by their officers, they had got some ladders placed against the wall, while about two thousand voices from the rear were cheering with all their might for mutual encouragement; and, like most other troops under similar circumstances, it appeared to me that their feet and their tongues went at a more equal pace after we gave them the hint. on going a little farther we came opposite to the ravelin which had been my chief annoyance during my last day's piquet. it was still crowded by the enemy, who had now thrown down their arms and endeavoured to excite our pity by virtue of their being 'pauvres italianos'; but our men had somehow imbibed a horrible antipathy to the italians, and every appeal they made in that name was invariably answered with: 'you're italians, are you? then d--n you, here's a shot for you'; and the action instantly followed the word. "we continued our course round the ramparts until we met the head of the column which had gone by the right, and then descended into the town. at the entrance of the first street, a french officer came out of a door and claimed my protection, giving me his sword. he told me that there was another officer in the same house who was afraid to venture out, and entreated that i would go in for him. i, accordingly, followed him up to the landing-place of a dark stair, and, while he was calling to his friend, by name to come down 'as there was an english officer present who would protect him,' a violent screaming broke through a door at my elbow. i pushed it open, and found the landlady struggling with an english soldier, whom i immediately transferred to the bottom of the stair head foremost. the french officer had followed me in at the door, and was so astonished at all he saw, that he held up his hands, turned up the whites of his eyes, and resolved himself into a state of most eloquent silence. "as the other officer could not be found, i descended into the street again with my prisoner; and, finding the current of soldiers setting towards the centre of the town, i followed the stream, which conducted me into the great square, on one side of which the late garrison were drawn up as prisoners, and the rest of it was filled with british and portuguese intermixed without any order or regularity. i had been there but a very short time, when they all commenced firing, without any ostensible cause; some fired in at the doors and windows, some at the roofs of houses, and others at the clouds; and at last some heads began to be blown from their shoulders in the general hurricane, when the voice of sir thomas picton, with the power of twenty trumpets, began to proclaim damnation to everybody, while colonel barnard, colonel cameron, and some other active officers, were carrying it into effect with a strong hand; for seizing the broken barrels of muskets which were lying about in great abundance, they belaboured every fellow most unmercifully about the head who attempted either to load or fire, and finally succeeded in reducing them to order. in the midst of the scuffle, however, three of the houses in the square were set on fire; and the confusion was such that nothing could be done to save them; but, by the extraordinary exertions of colonel barnard during the whole of the night, the flames were prevented from communicating to the adjoining buildings. "we succeeded in getting a great portion of our battalion together by one o'clock in the morning, and withdrew with them to the ramparts, where we lay by our arms until daylight. "there is nothing in this life half so enviable as the feelings of a soldier after a victory. previous to a battle there is a certain sort of something that pervades the mind which is not easily defined; it is neither akin to joy or fear, and, probably, anxiety may be nearer to it than any other word in the dictionary; but, when the battle is over, and crowned with victory, he finds himself elevated for a while into the regions of absolute bliss! it had ever been the summit of my ambition to attain a post at the head of a storming party--my wish had now been accomplished and gloriously ended; and i do think that, after all was over, and our men laid asleep on the ramparts, that i strutted about as important a personage, in my own opinion, as ever trod the face of the earth; and, had the ghost of the renowned jack-the-giant-killer itself passed that way at the time, i venture to say that i would have given it a kick in the breech without the smallest ceremony. but, as the sun began to rise, i began to fall from the heroics; and, when he showed his face, i took a look at my own and found that i was too unclean a spirit to worship, for i was covered with mud and dirt, with the greater part of my dress torn to rags. "the fifth division, which had not been employed in the siege, marched in and took charge of the town on the morning of the th, and we prepared to return to our cantonments. lord wellington happened to be riding in at the gate at the time that we were marching out, and had the curiosity to ask the officer of the leading company what regiment it was; for there was scarcely a vestige of uniform among the men, some of whom were dressed in frenchmen's coats, some in white breeches and huge jack-boots, some with cocked hats and queues; most of their swords were fixed on the rifles, and stuck full of hams, tongues, and loaves of bread, and not a few were carrying bird-cages! there never was a better masked corps! "among other things carried from ciudad rodrigo, one of our men had the misfortune to carry his death in his hands, under the mistaken shape of amusement. he thought that it was a cannon-ball, and took it for the purpose of playing at the game of nine-holes, but it happened to be a live shell. in rolling it along it went over a bed of burning ashes, and ignited without his observing it. just as he had got it between his legs, and was in the act of discharging it a second time, it exploded, and nearly blew him to pieces." the story of the siege of badajos is darker and more tragical than that of the capture of ciudad rodrigo. the defences of badajos were much more formidable than those of the sister fortress, the garrison was more numerous, the defence more stubborn and skilful. phillipon, the commander of the assailed city, has, indeed, won enduring fame by the skill and valour of his defence. yet the siege only lasted twenty days. it was begun on march ; on april the city was stormed. it was carried by a night assault; but the breaches were imperfect, and the art of phillipon had made the great breach practically impregnable. but the fierce and unquailing valour with which the british stormers flung themselves on the breaches, and died on their rough and blood-splashed slopes, makes one of the most thrilling stories in the history of war. all the attacks on the breeches failed; but picton carried the castle by escalcade, and leith forced his way over the bastion of st. vincent, where no breach existed, and where the scarp was thirty feet high; and so the town was carried. it was one of the rifles of whom napier tells the story, that in his resolution to win, he thrust himself beneath the chained sword-blades at the summit of the great breach, and there suffered the enemy to dash his head to pieces with the ends of their muskets. of major o'hare, who led the stormers of the rifles, a grim story is told. as his men were moving off in the darkness he shook hands with a brother officer, and said: 'a lieutenant-colonel or cold meat in a few hours.' he fell, shot dead on the breach itself ten minutes afterwards. as kincaid led one of the storming parties at ciudad rodrigo, a lighter part was assigned to him at badajos. he commanded a strong party whose business it was to line the glacis and keep down the fire from the ramparts. he tells the tale briefly:-- "on the th of march , the third, fourth, and light divisions encamped around badajos, embracing the whole of the inland side of the town on the left bank of the guadiana, and commenced breaking ground before it immediately after dark the same night. "the elements on this occasion adopted the cause of the besieged, for we had scarcely taken up our ground when a heavy rain commenced, and continued, almost without intermission, for a fortnight; in consequence thereof the pontoon bridge, connecting us with our supplies from elvas, was carried away by the rapid increase of the river, and the duties of the trenches were otherwise rendered extremely harassing. we had a smaller force employed than at rodrigo, and the scale of operations was so much greater that it required every man to be actually in the trenches six hours every day, and the same length of time every night, which, with the time required to march to and from them, through fields more than ankle-deep in a stiff mud, left us never more than eight hours out of the twenty-four in camp, and we never were dry the whole time. "one day's trench work is as like another as the days themselves, and like nothing better than serving an apprenticeship to the double calling of gravedigger and gamekeeper, for we found ample employment both for the spade and the rifle. "the portuguese artillery, under british officers, was uncommonly good. i used to be much amused in looking at a twelve-gun breaching-battery of theirs. they knew the position of all the enemy's guns which could bear upon them, and had one man posted to watch them, to give notice of what was coming, whether a shot or a shell, who accordingly kept calling out, 'bomba, balla, balla, bomba,' and they ducked their heads until the missile passed; but sometimes he would see a general discharge from all arms, when he threw himself down, screaming out, 'jesus, todos, todos!' meaning 'everything.' "an officer of ours was sent one morning before daylight with ten men to dig holes for themselves opposite to one of the enemy's guns which had been doing a great deal of mischief the day before, and he had soon the satisfaction of knowing the effect of his practice by seeing them stopping up the embrasure with sand-bags. after waiting a little he saw them beginning to remove the bags, when he made his men open upon it again, and they were instantly replaced without the guns being fired. presently he saw the huge cocked hat of a french officer make its appearance on the rampart near the embrasure, but knowing by experience that the head was somewhere in the neighbourhood, he watched until the flash of a musket through the long grass showed the position of the owner, and calling one of his best shots, he desired him to take deliberate aim at the spot, and lent his shoulder as a rest to give it more elevation. bang went the shot, and it was the finishing flash for the frenchman, for they saw no more of him, although his cocked hat maintained its post until dark. "in proportion as the grand crisis approached, the anxiety of the soldiers increased, not on account of any doubt or dread as to the result, but for fear that the place should be surrendered without standing an assault; for, singular as it may appear, although there was a certainty of about one man out of every three being knocked down, there were, perhaps, not three men in the three divisions who would not rather have braved all the chances than receive it tamely from the hands of the enemy. so great was the rage for passports into eternity in our battalion on that occasion that even the officers' servants insisted on taking their places in the ranks, and i was obliged to leave my baggage in charge of a man who had been wounded some days before. "on the th of april three practicable breaches had been effected, and arrangements were made for assaulting the town that night: the third division by escalade at the castle, a brigade of the fifth division by escalade at the opposite side of the town, while the fourth and light divisions were to storm the breaches. the whole were ordered to be formed for the attack at eight o'clock. "_april , ._--our division formed for the attack of the left breach in the same order as at ciudad rodrigo. the command of it had now devolved upon our commandant, colonel barnard. i was then the acting adjutant of four companies, under colonel cameron, who were to line the crest of the glacis, and to fire at the ramparts and the top of the left breach. "the enemy seemed aware of our intentions. the fire of artillery and musketry, which for three weeks before had been incessant, both from the town and trenches, had now entirely ceased as if by mutual consent, and a death-like silence of nearly an hour preceded the awful scene of carnage. "the signal to advance was made about nine o'clock, and our four companies led the way. colonel cameron and myself had reconnoitred the ground so accurately by daylight that we succeeded in bringing the head of our column to the very spot agreed on, opposite to the left breach, and then formed line to the left without a word being spoken, each man lying down as he got into line, with the muzzle of his rifle over the edge of the ditch, between the palisades, all ready to open. it was tolerably clear above, and we distinctly saw their heads lining the ramparts, but there was a sort of haze on the ground which, with the colour of our dress, prevented them from seeing us, although only a few yards asunder. one of their sentries, however, challenged us twice, "qui vive," and, receiving no reply, he fired off his musket, which was followed by their drums beating to arms; but we still remained perfectly quiet, and all was silence again for the space of five or ten minutes, when the head of the forlorn hope at length came up, and we took advantage of the first fire while the enemy's heads were yet visible. "the scene that ensued furnished as respectable a representation of hell itself as fire and sword and human sacrifices could make it, for in one instant every engine of destruction was in full operation. it is in vain to attempt a description of it. we were entirely excluded from the right breach by an inundation which the heavy rains had enabled the enemy to form, and the two others were rendered totally impracticable by their interior defences. "the five succeeding hours were therefore passed in the most gallant and hopeless attempts on the part of individual officers, forming up fifty or a hundred men at a time at the foot of the breach, and endeavouring to carry it by desperate bravery; and, fatal as it proved to each gallant band in succession, yet, fast as one dissolved, another was formed. we were informed about twelve at night that the third division had established themselves in the castle; but as its situation and construction did not permit them to extend their operations beyond it at the moment, it did not in the least affect our opponents at the breach, whose defence continued as obstinate as ever. "i was near colonel barnard after midnight, when he received repeated messages from lord wellington to withdraw from the breach and to form the division for a renewal of the attack at daylight; but as fresh attempts continued to be made, and the troops were still pressing forward into the ditch, it went against his gallant soul to order a retreat while yet a chance remained; but after heading repeated attempts himself, he saw that it was hopeless, and the order was reluctantly given about two o'clock in the morning. we fell back about three hundred yards, and re-formed all that remained to us. "our regiment alone had to lament the loss of twenty-two officers killed and wounded, ten of whom were killed, or afterwards died of their wounds. we had scarcely got our men together when we were informed of the success of the fifth division in their escalade, and that the enemy were, in consequence, abandoning the breaches, and we were immediately ordered forward to take possession of them. on our arrival we found them entirely evacuated, and had not occasion to fire another shot; but we found the utmost difficulty and even danger in getting in in the dark, even without opposition. as soon as we succeeded in establishing our battalion inside, we sent piquets into the different streets and lanes leading from the breach, and kept the remainder in hand until day should throw some light on our situation. "when i was in the act of posting one of the piquets a man of ours brought me a prisoner, telling me that he was the governor; but the other immediately said that he had only called himself so the better to ensure his protection, and then added that he was the colonel of one of the french regiments, and that all his surviving officers were assembled at his quarters, in a street close by, and would surrender themselves to any officer who would go with him for that purpose. i accordingly took two or three men with me, and, accompanying him there, found fifteen or sixteen of them assembled, and all seeming very much surprised at the unexpected termination of the siege. they could not comprehend under what circumstances the town had been lost, and repeatedly asked me how i had got in; but i did not choose to explain further than simply telling them that i had entered at the breach, coupling the information with a look which was calculated to convey somewhat more than i knew myself; for, in truth, when i began to recollect that a few minutes before had seen me retiring from the breach under a fanciful overload of degradation, i thought that i had now as good a right as any man to be astonished at finding myself lording it over the officers of a french battalion; nor was i much wiser than they were as to the manner of its accomplishment. "they were all very much dejected, excepting their major, who was a big, jolly-looking dutchman, with medals enough on his left breast to have furnished the window of a tolerable toy-shop. his accomplishments were after the manner of captain dugald dalgetty; and while he cracked his joke he was not inattentive to the cracking of the corks from the many wine bottles which his colonel placed on the table successively, along with some cold meat, for general refreshment, prior to marching into captivity, and which i, though a free man, was not too proud to join them in. "when i had allowed their chief a reasonable time to secure what valuables he wished about his person, he told me that he had two horses in the stable, which, as he would no longer be permitted to keep, he recommended me to take; and as a horse is the only thing on such occasions that an officer can permit himself to consider a legal prize, i caused one of them to be saddled, and his handsome black mare thereby became my charger during the remainder of the war. "in proceeding with my prisoners towards the breach i took, by mistake, a different road to that i came; and as numbers of frenchmen were lurking about for a safe opportunity of surrendering themselves, about a hundred additional ones added themselves to my column as we moved along, jabbering their native dialect so loudly as nearly to occasion a dire catastrophe, as it prevented me from hearing some one challenge in my front; but, fortunately, it was repeated and i instantly answered; for colonel barnard and sir colin campbell had a piquet of our men drawn across the street on the point of sending a volley into us, thinking that we were a rallied body of the enemy. "the whole of the garrison were marched off as prisoners to elvas, about ten o'clock in the morning, and our men were then permitted to fall out to enjoy themselves for the remainder of the day, as a reward for having kept together so long as they were wanted. the whole of the three divisions were by this time loose in the town, and the usual frightful scene of plunder commenced, which the officers thought it necessary to avoid for the moment by retiring to the camp. "we went into the town on the morning of the th to endeavour to collect our men, but only succeeded in part, as the same extraordinary scene of plunder and rioting still continued. wherever there was anything to eat or drink, the only saleable commodities, the soldiers had turned the shopkeepers out of doors and placed themselves regularly behind the counter, selling off the contents of the shop. by-and-by another and a stronger party would kick those out in their turn, and there was no end to the succession of self-elected shopkeepers, until lord wellington found that to restore order severe measures must be resorted to. on the third day he caused a portuguese brigade to be marched in and kept standing to their arms in the great square, where the provost-marshal erected a gallows and proceeded to suspend a few of the delinquents, which very quickly cleared the town of the remainder, and enabled us to give a more satisfactory account of our battalion than we had hitherto been able to do. "the third day after the fall of the town, i rode, with colonel cameron, to take a bathe in the guadiana, and, in passing the verge of the camp of the fifth division, we saw two soldiers standing at the door of a small shed, or outhouse, shouting, waving their caps, and making signs that they wanted to speak to us. we rode up to see what they wanted, and found that the poor fellows had each lost a leg. they told us that a surgeon had dressed their wounds on the night of the assault, but that they had ever since been without food or assistance of any kind, although they, each day, had opportunities of soliciting the aid of many of their comrades, from whom they could obtain nothing but promises. in short, surrounded by thousands of their countrymen within call, and not more than three hundred yards from their own regiment, they were unable to interest any one in their behalf, and they were literally starving. it is unnecessary to say that we instantly galloped back to camp and had them removed to the hospital. "on the morning of the th, when some of our officers were performing the last duties to their fallen comrades, one of them had collected the bodies of four young officers who had been slain. he was in the act of digging a grave for them, when an officer of the guards arrived on the spot, from a distant division of the army, and demanded tidings of his brother, who was at that moment lying a naked lifeless corpse under his very eyes. the officer had the presence of mind to see that the corpse was not recognised, and, wishing to spare the others feelings, told him that his brother was dangerously wounded, but he would hear more of him by going out to the camp; and thither the other immediately bent his steps, with a seeming presentiment of the sad intelligence that awaited him." one curious incident in the siege of badajos may be related. the day after the assault two spanish ladies, the younger a beautiful girl of fourteen, appealed for help to two officers of the rifles, who were passing through one of the streets of the town. their dress was torn, their ears, from which rings had been roughly snatched, were bleeding, and to escape outrage or death they cast themselves on the protection of the first british officers they met. one of the officers was captain harry smith of the rifles. two years later he married the girl he had saved in a scene so wild. captain harry smith, in after years, served at the cape as sir harry, and this spanish girl, as lady smith, gave her name to the historic town which sir george white defended with such stubborn valour. the two great sieges of badajos and of ladysmith are separated from each other by nearly a century; but there exists this interesting human link betwixt them. chapter v in the pyrenees the great battles and sieges, of course, arrest the attention of the historian, and their tale has been told over and over again. but what may be called the unrecorded marches and skirmishes of the campaign have genuine interest; and kincaid, as we have seen, describes these with great vividness. another set of such pictures is supplied by the campaign in the pyrenees, where the soldiers marched and fought in wild and sunless ravines, on the wild-blown crests of mighty hills, or in deep and roadless valleys. here are some of kincaid's pyrenean reminiscences. the month is july . wellington is pushing the broken french back through the hill passes towards the french frontiers:-- "we advanced along the banks of the bidassoa, through a succession of beautiful little fertile valleys, thickly studded with clean, respectable-looking farm-houses and little villages, and bounded by stupendous, picturesque, and well-wooded mountains, until we came to the hill next to the village of bera, which we found occupied by a small force of the enemy, who, after receiving a few shots from our people, retired through the village into their position behind it. our line of demarcation was then clearly seen. the mountain which the french army occupied was the last ridge of the pyrenees; and their sentries stood on the face of it, within pistol-shot of the village of bera, which now became the advanced post of our division. the left wing of the army, under sir thomas graham, now commenced the siege of st. sebastian; and as lord wellington had, at the same time, to cover both that and the blockade of pampeluna, our army occupied an extended position of many miles. "marshal soult having succeeded to the command of the french army, and finding, towards the end of july, that st. sebastian was about to be stormed, and that the garrison of pampeluna were beginning to get on short allowance, he determined on making a bold push for the relief of both places; and, assembling the whole of his army, he forced the pass of maya, and advanced rapidly upon pampeluna. lord wellington was never to be caught napping. his army occupied too extended a position to offer effectual resistance at any of their advanced posts; but, by the time that marshal soult had worked his way to the last ridge of the pyrenees, and within sight of 'the haven of his wishes,' he found his lordship waiting for him, with four divisions of the army, who treated him to one of the most signal and sanguinary defeats that he ever experienced. "our division during the important movements on our right was employed in keeping up the communication between the troops under the immediate command of lord wellington and those under sir thomas graham, at st. sebastian. we retired, the first day, to the mountains behind le secca; and, just as we were about to lie down for the night, we were again ordered under arms, and continued our retreat in utter darkness, through a mountain path, where, in many places, a false step might have rolled a fellow as far as the other world. the consequence was, that, although we were kept on our legs during the whole of the night, we found, when daylight broke, that the tail of the column had not got a quarter of a mile from their starting-post. on a good broad road it is all very well, but on a narrow, bad road a night march is like a nightmare, harassing a man to no purpose. "on the th, we occupied a ridge of mountain near enough to hear the battle, though not in a situation to see it; and remained the whole of the day in the greatest torture for want of news. about midnight we heard the joyful tidings of the enemy's defeat, with the loss of four thousand prisoners. our division proceeded in pursuit at daylight on the following morning. we moved rapidly by the same road on which we had retired; and, after a forced march, found ourselves, when near sunset, on the flank of their retiring column on the bidassoa, near the bridge of janca, and immediately proceeded to business. "the sight of a frenchman always acted like a cordial on the spirits of a rifleman; and the fatigues of the day were forgotten, as our three battalions extended among the brushwood, and went down to 'knock the dust out of their hairy knapsacks,'[ ] as our men were in the habit of expressing themselves; but, in place of knocking the dust out of them, i believe that most of their knapsacks were knocked in the dust; for the greater part of those who were not floored along with their knapsacks, shook them off, by way of enabling the owner to make a smarter scramble across that portion of the road on which our leaden shower was pouring; and, foes as they were, it was impossible not to feel a degree of pity for their situation; pressed by an enemy in the rear, an inaccessible mountain on their right, and a river on their left, lined by an invisible foe, from whom there was no escape but the desperate one of running the gantlet. "we advanced next morning, and occupied our former post at bera. the enemy still continued to hold the mountain of echelar, which, as it rose out of the right end of our ridge, was, properly speaking, a part of our property, and we concluded that a sense of justice would have induced them to leave it of their own accord in the course of the day; but, when towards the afternoon, they showed no symptoms of quitting, our division, leaving their kettles on the fire, proceeded to eject them. as we approached the mountain, the peak of it caught a passing cloud, that gradually descended in a thick fog and excluded them from our view. our three battalions, however, having been let loose, under colonel barnard, we soon made ourselves 'children of the mist'; and, guided to our opponents by the whistling of their balls, made them descend from their 'high estate'; and, handing them across the valley into their own position, we then retired to ours, where we found our tables ready spread, and a comfortable dinner waiting for us. "this was one of the most gentleman-like day's fighting that i ever experienced, although we had to lament the vacant seats of one or two of our messmates. "_august ._--i narrowly escaped being taken prisoner this morning, very foolishly. a division of spaniards occupied the ground to our left, beyond the bidassoa; and having mounted my horse to take a look at their post, i passed through a small village, and then got on a rugged path winding along the edge of the river, where i expected to find their outposts. the river at that place was not above knee-deep, and about ten or twelve yards across; and though i saw a number of soldiers gathering chestnuts from a row of trees which lined the opposite bank, i concluded that they were spaniards, and kept moving onwards; but, observing at last, that i was an object of greater curiosity than i ought to be to people who had been in the daily habit of seeing the uniform, it induced me to take a more particular look at my neighbours, when, to my consternation, i saw the french eagle ornamenting the front of every cap. i instantly wheeled my horse to the right about; and seeing that i had a full quarter of a mile to traverse at a walk, before i could get clear of them, i began to whistle, with as much unconcern as i could muster, while my eye was searching like lightning for the means of escape in the event of their trying to cut me off. i had soon the satisfaction of observing that none of them had firelocks, which reduced my capture to the chances of a race! for, though the hill on my right was inaccessible to a horseman, it was not so to a dismounted scotchman; and i therefore determined, in case of necessity, to abandon my horse, and show them what i could do on my own bottom at a pinch. fortunately they did not attempt it; and i could scarcely credit my good luck when i found myself once more in my own tent." no fighting in the whole peninsular campaign was more stubborn than that which took place in the pyrenees towards the close of . soult showed great skill and audacity as a general. he was fighting to keep the invader's foot from profaning the "sacred" soil of france, and his genius shines at its brightest in the combats fought in the wild country betwixt san sebastian and bayonne. but wellington's troops were veterans, flushed with victory and full of pride in themselves and confidence in their leader; and they were irresistible. one or two of kincaid's sketches of fighting in the pyrenees may be given:-- "the ensuing month passed by without producing the slightest novelty, and we began to get heartily tired of our situation. our souls, in fact, were strung for war, and peace afforded no enjoyment, unless the place did, and there was none to be found in a valley of the pyrenees, which the ravages of contending armies had reduced to a desert. the labours of the french on the opposite mountain had, in the first instance, been confined to fortification; but, as the season advanced, they seemed to think that the branch of a tree, or a sheet of canvas, was too slender a barrier between them and a frosty night, and their fortified camp was gradually becoming a fortified town of regular brick and mortar. though we were living under the influence of the same sky, we did not think it necessary to give ourselves the same trouble, but reasoned on their proceedings like philosophers, and calculated, from the aspect of the times, that there was a probability of a speedy transfer of property, and that it might still be reserved for us to give their town a name; nor were we disappointed. late on the night of the th of october, colonel barnard arrived from headquarters with the intelligence that the next was to be the day of trial. accordingly, on the morning of the th, the fourth division came up to support us, and we immediately marched down to the foot of the enemy's position, shook off our knapsacks before their faces, and went at them. "the action commenced by five companies of our third battalion advancing, under colonel ross, to dislodge the enemy from a hill which they occupied in front of their entrenchments; and there never was a movement more beautifully executed, for they walked quietly and steadily up, and swept them regularly off without firing a single shot until the enemy had turned their backs, when they then served them out with a most destructive discharge. the movement excited the admiration of all who witnessed it, and added another laurel to the already crowded wreath which adorned the name of that distinguished officer. "at the first look of the enemy's position it appeared as if our brigade had got the most difficult task to perform; but as the capture of this hill showed us a way round the flank of their entrenchments, we carried one after the other until we finally gained the summit, with very little loss. our second brigade, however, were obliged to take 'the bull by the horns' on their side, and suffered more severely; but they rushed at everything with a determination that defied resistance, carrying redoubt after redoubt at the point of the bayonet, until they finally joined us on the summit of the mountain, with three hundred prisoners in their possession. "we now found ourselves firmly established within the french territory, with a prospect before us that was truly refreshing, considering that we had not seen the sea for three years, and that our views for months had been confined to fogs and the peaks of mountains. on our left the bay of biscay lay extended as far as the horizon, while several of our ships of war were seen sporting upon her bosom. beneath us lay the pretty little town of st. jean de luz, which looked as if it had just been framed out of the liliputian scenery of a toy-shop. the town of bayonne, too, was visible in the distance, and the view to the right embraced a beautiful, well-wooded country, thickly studded with towns and villages, as far as the eye could reach. "on the morning of the th we turned out as usual an hour before daylight. the sound of musketry to our right in our own hemisphere announced that the french and spaniards had resumed their unfinished argument of last night relative to the occupation of la rhune; while at the same time 'from our throne of clouds' we had an opportunity of contemplating, with some astonishment, the proceedings of the nether world. a french ship of war, considering st. jean de luz no longer a free port, had endeavoured, under cover of the night, to steal alongshore to bayonne, and when daylight broke they had an opportunity of seeing that they were not only within sight of their port, but within sight of a british gun-brig, and if they entertained any doubts as to which of the two was nearest, their minds were quickly relieved on that point by finding that they were not within reach of their port, and strictly within reach of the guns of the brig, while two british frigates were bearing down with a press of canvas. the frenchman returned a few broadsides. he was double the size of the one opposed to him, but, conceiving his case to be hopeless, he at length set fire to the ship and took to his boats. we watched the progress of the flames, until she finally blew up and disappeared in a column of smoke. the boats of our gun-brig were afterwards seen employed in picking up the odds and ends. "the french, after leaving la rhune, established their advanced post on petite la rhune, a mountain that stood as high as most of its neighbours; but, as its name betokens, it was but a child to its gigantic namesake, of which it seemed as if it had at a former period formed a part; but having been shaken off like a useless galoche, it now stood gaping, open-mouthed, at the place it had left (and which had now become our advanced post), while the enemy proceeded to furnish its jaws with a set of teeth, or, in other words, to face it with breastworks, &c., a measure which they invariably had recourse to in every new position. "encamped on the face of la rhune, we remained a whole month idle spectators of their preparations, and dearly longing for the day that should afford us an opportunity of penetrating into the more hospitable-looking low country beyond them; for the weather had become excessively cold, and our camp stood exposed to the utmost fury of the almost nightly tempest. oft have i in the middle of the night awoke from a sound sleep and found my tent on the point of disappearing in the air like a balloon, and, leaving my warm blankets, been obliged to snatch the mallet and rush out in the midst of a hailstorm to peg it down. i think that i now see myself looking like one of those gay creatures of the elements who dwelt, as shakespeare has it, among the rainbows! "by way of contributing to the warmth of my tent, i dug a hole inside, which i arranged as a fireplace, carrying the smoke underneath the walls, and building a turf-chimney outside. i was not long in proving the experiment, and, finding that it went exceedingly well, i was not a little vain of the invention. however, it came on to rain very hard while i was dining at a neighbouring tent, and on my return to my own i found the fire not only extinguished, but a fountain playing from the same place up to the roof, watering my bed and baggage, and all sides of it, most refreshingly. "it is very singular that, notwithstanding our exposure to all the severities of the worst of weather, we had not a single sick man in the battalion while we remained there." to this period belongs the stern fighting near bayonne betwixt december and , . "we turned out at daylight on the th, but as there was a thick drizzling rain which prevented us from seeing anything, we soon turned in again. my servant soon after came to tell me that sir lowry cole and some of his staff had just ascended to the top of the château, a piece of information which did not quite please me, for i fancied that the general had just discovered our quarter to be better than his own, and had come for the purpose of taking possession of it. however, in less than five minutes we received an order for our battalion to move up instantly to the support of the piquets; and on my descending to the door to mount my horse, i found sir lowry standing there, who asked if we had received any orders, and on my telling him that we had been ordered up to support the piquets, he immediately desired a staff-officer to order up one of his brigades to the rear of the château. this was one of the numerous instances in which we had occasion to admire the prudence and forethought of the great wellington! he had foreseen the attack that would take place, and had his different divisions disposed to meet it. "the enemy came up to the opposite ridge in formidable numbers, and began blazing at our windows and loopholes and showing some disposition to attempt it by storm; but they thought better of it, and withdrew their columns a short distance to the rear, leaving the nearest hedge lined with their skirmishers. an officer of ours, mr. hopewood, and one of our sergeants, had been killed in the field opposite, within twenty yards of where the enemy's skirmishers now were. we were very anxious to get possession of their bodies, but had not force enough to effect it. several french soldiers came through the hedge at different times with the intention, as we thought, of plundering, but our men shot every one who attempted to go near them, until towards evening, when a french officer approached, waving a white handkerchief and pointing to some of his men who were following him with shovels. seeing that his intention was to bury them we instantly ceased firing, nor did we renew it again that night. "the rd, from their post at the church, kept up an incessant shower of musketry the whole of the day, at what was conceived at the time to be a very long range; but from the quantity of balls which were afterwards found sticking in every tree where the enemy stood, it was evident that their berth must have been rather uncomfortable. one of our officers, in the course of the day, had been passing through a deep roadway between two banks with hedgerows, when, to his astonishment, a dragoon and his horse tumbled heels over head into the road, as if they had been fired out of a cloud. neither of them were the least hurt; but it must have been no joke that tempted him to take such a flight. general alten and sir james kempt took up their quarters with us in the château; our sentries and those of the enemy stood within pistol-shot of each other in the ravine below. "on the th there was heavy firing and hard fighting all day to our left, but we remained perfectly quiet. towards the afternoon sir james kempt formed our brigade for the purpose of expelling the enemy from the hill next to the château, to which he thought them rather too near; but, just as we reached our different points for commencing the attack, we were recalled, and nothing further occurred. "i went about one o'clock in the morning to visit our different piquets, and seeing an unusual number of fires in the enemy's lines, i concluded that they had lit them to mask some movement; and, taking a patrol with me, i stole cautiously forward and found that they had left the ground altogether. i immediately returned and reported the circumstance to general alten, who sent off a despatch to apprise lord wellington. "as soon as day began to dawn on the morning of the th, a tremendous fire of artillery and musketry was heard to our right. soult had withdrawn everything from our front in the course of the night, and had now attacked sir rowland hill with his whole force. lord wellington, in expectation of this attack, had last night reinforced sir rowland hill with the sixth division; which enabled him to occupy his contracted position so strongly that soult, unable to bring more than his own front to bear upon him, sustained a signal and sanguinary defeat. "lord wellington galloped into the yard of our château soon after the attack had commenced, and demanded, with his usual quickness, what was to be seen? sir james kempt, who was spying at the action from an upper window, told him; and, after desiring sir james to order sir lowry cole to follow him with the fourth division, he galloped off to the scene of action. in the afternoon, when all was over, he called in again on his return to headquarters, and told us, 'that it was the most glorious affair that he had ever seen; and that the enemy had absolutely left upwards of five thousand men killed and wounded on the ground.'" footnotes: [footnote : the french knapsack is made of unshorn goatskin.] chapter vi quatre bras napoleon escaped from elba on january , ; on march he reached fontainebleau, and louis xviii. fled from paris. instantly the flames of war were rekindled throughout europe. england hurried her best troops into the netherlands, where a great army under wellington was assembling. amongst the first of the regiments to embark were naturally the famous rifles. kincaid had persuaded himself that his fighting days were ended, and he was peacefully shooting woodcocks in scotland when summoned to join his regiment at speed. his battalion had sailed, and he caught the first boat leaving leith for rotterdam. it took ten days to reach the coast of holland, and then went helplessly ashore. kincaid got safely to land, and pushed on to brussels, when he found his battalion forming part of the fifth division under picton. a fortnight's pause followed, while the prussian and english armies watched and listened for the first sign or sound which would show where napoleon's blow was about to fall. it was the fate of the rifles to take a gallant part in the stern fight at quatre bras, and kincaid tells the story very graphically:-- "as our division was composed of crack regiments under crack commanders, and headed by fire-eating generals, we had little to do the first fortnight after my arrival beyond indulging in all the amusements of our delightful quarter; but, as the middle of june approached, we began to get a little more on the _qui vive_, for we were aware that napoleon was about to make a dash at some particular point; and, as he was not the sort of general to give his opponent an idea of the when and the where, the greater part of our army was necessarily disposed along the frontier, to meet him at his own place. they were, of course, too much extended to offer effectual resistance in their advanced position; but as our division and the duke of brunswick's corps were held in reserve at brussels, in readiness to be thrust at whatever point might be attacked, they were a sufficient additional force to check the enemy for the time required to concentrate the army. "we were, the whole of june th, on the most anxious lookout for news from the front; but no report had been received prior to the hour of dinner. i went, about seven in the evening, to take a stroll in the park, and meeting one of the duke's staff he asked me, _en passant_, whether my pack-saddles were all ready? i told him that they were nearly so, and added, 'i suppose they won't be wanted, at all events, before to-morrow?' to which he replied, in the act of leaving me, 'if you have any preparation to make, i would recommend you not to delay so long.' i took the hint, and, returning to quarters, remained in momentary expectation of an order to move. the bugles sounded to arms about two hours after. "to the credit of our battalion, be it recorded that, although the greater part were in bed when the assembly sounded, and billeted over the most distant parts of that extensive city, every man was on his alarm-post before eleven o'clock in a complete state of marching order; whereas it was nearly two o'clock in the morning before we were joined by the others. "as a grand ball was to take place the same night at the duchess of richmond's, the order for the assembling of the troops was accompanied by permission for any officer who chose, to remain for the ball, provided that he joined his regiment early in the morning. several of ours took advantage of it. "waiting for the arrival of the other regiments, we endeavoured to snatch an hour's repose on the pavement; but we were every instant disturbed, by ladies as well as gentlemen, some stumbling over us in the dark--some shaking us out of our sleep to be told the news--and not a few conceiving their immediate safety depending upon our standing in place of lying. all those who applied for the benefit of my advice, i recommended to go home to bed, to keep themselves perfectly cool, and to rest assured that, if their departure from the city became necessary (which i very much doubted), they would have at least one whole day to prepare for it, as we were leaving some beef and potatoes behind us, for which, i was sure, we would fight rather than abandon! "the whole of the division having at length assembled, we were put in motion about three o'clock on the morning of the th, and advanced to the village of waterloo, where, forming in a field adjoining the road, our men were allowed to prepare their breakfasts. i succeeded in getting mine in a small inn on the left-hand side of the village. lord wellington joined us about nine o'clock; and from his very particular orders to see that the roads were kept clear of baggage, and everything likely to impede the movements of the troops, i have since been convinced that his lordship had thought it probable that the position of waterloo might, even that day, have become the scene of action; for it was a good broad road, on which there were neither the quantity of baggage nor of troops moving at the time to excite the slightest apprehension of confusion. leaving us halted, he galloped on to the front, followed by his staff; and we were soon after joined by the duke of brunswick, with his corps of the army. "his highness dismounted near the place where i was standing, and seated himself on the roadside, along with his adjutant-general. he soon after despatched his companion on some duty; and i was much amused to see the vacated place immediately filled by an old beggar-man, who, seeing nothing in the black hussar uniform beside him denoting the high rank of the wearer, began to grunt and scratch himself most luxuriously! the duke showed a degree of courage which few would under such circumstances; for he maintained his post until the return of his officer, when he very jocularly said, 'well, o----n, you see that your place was not long unoccupied!' how little idea had i, at the time, that the life of the illustrious speaker was limited to three short hours! "about twelve o'clock an order arrived for the troops to advance, leaving their baggage behind; and though it sounded warlike, yet we did not expect to come in contact with the enemy, at all events, on that day. but, as we moved forward, the symptoms of their immediate presence kept gradually increasing; for we presently met a cartload of wounded belgians; and, after passing through genappe, the distant sound of a solitary gun struck on the listening ear. but all doubt on the subject was quickly removed; for, on ascending the rising ground where stands the village of quatre bras, we saw a considerable plain in our front, flanked on each side by a wood, and on another acclivity beyond, we could perceive the enemy descending towards us in most imposing numbers. "quatre bras, at that time, consisted of only three or four houses; and, as its name betokens, i believe, stood at the junction of four roads, on one of which we were moving; a second inclined to the right; a third, in the same degree, to the left; and the fourth, i conclude, must have gone backwards; but, as i had not an eye in that direction, i did not see it. the village was occupied by some belgians, under the prince of orange, who had an advanced post in a large farmhouse at the foot of the road, which inclined to the right; and a part of his division also occupied the wood on the same side. "lord wellington, i believe, after leaving us at waterloo, galloped on to the prussian position at ligny, where he had an interview with blucher, in which they concerted measures for their mutual co-operation. when we arrived at quatre bras, however, we found him in a field near the belgian outpost; and the enemy's guns were just beginning to play upon the spot where he stood, surrounded by a numerous staff. "we halted for a moment on the brow of the hill; and as sir andrew barnard galloped forward to the headquarter group, i followed, to be in readiness to convey any orders to the battalion. the moment we approached, lord fitzroy somerset, separating himself from the duke, said, 'barnard, you are wanted instantly; take your battalion and endeavour to get possession of that village,' pointing to one on the face of the rising ground, down which the enemy were moving; 'but if you cannot do that, secure that wood on the left, and keep the road open for communication with the prussians.' we instantly moved in the given direction; but, ere we had got half-way to the village, we had the mortification to see the enemy throw such a force into it as rendered any attempt to retake it, with our numbers, utterly hopeless; and as another strong body of them were hastening towards the wood, which was the second object pointed out to us, we immediately brought them to action, and secured it. in moving to that point, one of our men went raving mad, from excessive heat. the poor fellow cut a few extraordinary capers, and died in the course of a few minutes. "while our battalion reserve occupied the front of the wood, our skirmishers lined the side of the road, which was the prussian line of communication. the road itself, however, was crossed by such a shower of balls, that none but a desperate traveller would have undertaken a journey on it. we were presently reinforced by a small battalion of foreign light troops, with whose assistance we were in hopes to have driven the enemy a little farther from it; but they were a raw body of men, who had never before been under fire, and, as they could not be prevailed upon to join our skirmishers, we could make no use of them whatever. sir andrew barnard repeatedly pointed out to them which was the french, and which was our side; and, after explaining that they were not to fire a shot until they joined our skirmishers, the word 'march!' was given; but march to them was always the signal to fire, for they stood fast, and began blazing away, chiefly at our skirmishers too, the officers commanding whom were every time sending back to say that we were shooting them: until we were at last obliged to be satisfied with whatever advantages their appearance could give, as even that was of some consequence where troops were so scarce. "bonaparte's attack on the prussians had already commenced, and the fire of artillery and musketry in that direction was tremendous; but the intervening higher ground prevented us from seeing any part of it. "the plain to our right which we had just quitted had likewise become the scene of a sanguinary and unequal contest. our division after we left it deployed into line, and, in advancing, met and routed the french infantry; but in following up their advantage they encountered a furious charge of cavalry, and were obliged to throw themselves into squares to receive it. with the exception of one regiment, however, which had two companies cut to pieces, they were not only successful in resisting the attack, but made awful havoc in the enemy's ranks, who, nevertheless, continued their forward career, and went sweeping past them like a whirlwind up to the village of quatre bras, to the confusion and consternation of the numerous useless appendages of our army who wore there assembled waiting the result of the battle. "the forward movement of the enemy's cavalry gave their infantry time to rally; and strongly reinforced with fresh troops, they again advanced to the attack. this was a crisis in which, according to bonaparte's theory, the victory was theirs by all the rules of war, for they held superior numbers both before and behind us; but the gallant old picton, who had been trained in a different school, did not choose to confine himself to rules in those matters. despising the force in his rear, he advanced, charged, and routed those in his front, which created such a panic among the others that they galloped back through the intervals in his division with no other object in view but their own safety. after this desperate conflict the firing on both sides lulled almost to a calm for nearly an hour, while each was busy in renewing their order of battle. "the battle, on the side of the prussians, still continued to rage in an unceasing roar of artillery. about four in the afternoon a troop of their dragoons came, as a patrol, to inquire how it fared with us, and told us in passing that they still maintained their position. their day, however, was still to be decided, and, indeed, for that matter, so was our own; for, although the firing for the moment had nearly ceased, i had not yet clearly made up my mind which side had been the offensive, which the defensive, or which the winning. i had merely the satisfaction of knowing that we had not lost it; for we had met fairly in the middle of a field (or, rather unfairly, considering that they had two to one), and, after the scramble was over, our division still held the ground they fought on. all doubts on the subject, however, began to be removed about five o'clock. the enemy's artillery once more opened, and on running to the brow of the hill to ascertain the cause, we perceived our old light-division general, count alten, at the head of a fresh british division, moving gallantly down the road towards us. it was, indeed, a joyful sight; for, as already mentioned, our division had suffered so severely that we could not help looking forward to a renewal of the action, with such a disparity of force, with considerable anxiety. but this reinforcement gave us new life, and, as soon as they came near enough to afford support, we commenced the offensive, and driving in the skirmishers opposed to us, succeeded in gaining a considerable portion of the position originally occupied by the enemy, when darkness obliged us to desist. in justice to the foreign battalion which had been all day attached to us, i must say that, in this last movement, they joined us cordially and behaved exceedingly well. they had a very gallant young fellow at their head; and their conduct in the earlier part of the day can therefore only be ascribed to its being their first appearance on such a stage. "leaving general alten in possession of the ground which we had assisted in winning, we returned in search of our division, and reached them about eleven at night, lying asleep in their glory on the field where they had fought, which contained many a bloody trace of the day's work. the firing, on the side of the prussians, had altogether ceased before dark, but recommenced with redoubled fury about an hour after; and it was then, as we afterwards learnt, that they lost the battle. "we lay down by our arms near the farmhouse already mentioned, in front of quatre bras; and the deuce is in it if we were not in good trim for sleeping, seeing that we had been either marching or fighting for twenty-six successive hours." in the retreat from quatre bras to waterloo, made necessary by the defeat of blucher at ligny, the rifles formed part of the rearguard. says kincaid:-- "_june ._--as last night's fighting only ceased with the daylight, the scene this morning presented a savage, unsettled appearance; the fields were strewed with the bodies of men, horses, torn clothing, and shattered cuirasses; and, though no movements appeared to be going on on either side, yet, as occasional shots continued to be exchanged at different points, it kept every one wide awake. we had the satisfaction of knowing that the whole of our army had assembled on the hill behind in the course of the night. "about nine o'clock we received the news of blucher's defeat, and of his retreat to wavre. lord wellington, therefore, immediately began to withdraw his army to the position of waterloo. sir andrew barnard was ordered to remain as long as possible with our battalion, to mask the retreat of the others; and was told, if we were attacked, that the whole of the british cavalry were in readiness to advance to our relief. i had an idea, however, that a single rifle battalion in the midst of ten thousand dragoons, would come but indifferently off in the event of a general crash, and was by no means sorry when, between eleven and twelve o'clock, every regiment had got clear off, and we followed before the enemy had put anything in motion against us. "after leaving the village of quatre bras, and passing through our cavalry who were formed on each side of the road, we drew up at the entrance of genappe. the rain at that moment began to descend in torrents, and our men were allowed to shelter themselves in the nearest houses; but we were obliged to turn out again in the midst of it in less than five minutes, as we found the french cavalry and ours already exchanging shots, and the latter were falling back to the more favourable ground behind genappe; we therefore retired with them _en masse_ through the village, and formed again on the rising ground beyond. "while we remained there we had an opportunity of seeing the different affairs of cavalry; and it did one's heart good to see how cordially the life guards went at their work. they had no idea of anything but straight-forward fighting, and sent their opponents flying in all directions. the only young thing they showed was in every one who got a roll in the mud (and, owing to the slipperiness of the ground, there were many) going off to the rear, according to their hyde park custom, as being no longer fit to appear on parade! i thought at first that they had been all wounded, but, on finding how the case stood, i could not help telling them that theirs was now the situation to verify the old proverb, 'the uglier the better soldier!' "the roads as well as the fields had now become so heavy that our progress to the rear was very slow; and it was six in the evening before we drew into the position of waterloo. our battalion took post in the second line that night, with its right resting on the namur road, behind la haye sainte, near a small mud cottage, which sir andrew barnard occupied as a quarter. the enemy arrived in front in considerable force about an hour after us, and a cannonade took place in different parts of the line, which ended at dark, and we lay down by our arms. it rained excessively hard the greater part of the night, nevertheless, having succeeded in getting a bundle of hay for my horse, and one of straw for myself, i secured the horse to his bundle, by tying him to one of the men's swords stuck in the ground, and, placing mine under his nose, i laid myself down upon it, and never opened my eyes again until daylight." chapter vii the rifles at waterloo nothing in kincaid's "adventures" is finer than his account of waterloo. he tells, it is true, only that which took place about himself, and, as the grey and strangling battle-smoke lay for hours on the ridge where kincaid stood, he could see only a very tiny patch of the great landscape of the battle. waterloo, for him, might be described as a ring of imprisoning smoke, over which bellowed and echoed constantly the roar of a hundred guns, and out of which, at irregular intervals, broke lines of french infantry--sometimes as a spray of skirmishers, sometimes as massed battalions. sometimes, by way of change, a column of horsemen--helmeted dragoons, cuirassiers in glittering breastplates, red lancers of the guard--broke through the fog, rode at the stubborn line of the rifles, and reeled off into the fog again, pursued by darting musketry volleys. to endure and to repel incessant attacks, hour after hour, was the business of the dwindling companies of the rifles. the third battalion, to which kincaid belonged, formed part of adams's brigade. it stood a hundred yards to the rear of la haye sainte, a little to the left of wellington's centre. the famous sandpit was in the immediate front of the battalion, and was held by three companies of rifles. on this point in the british line the utmost strength of the french attack--horse, foot, and artillery--was expended, and no men that day saw fiercer fighting than did kincaid and his fellow-riflemen. kincaid, therefore, has this right to tell the story of waterloo: he fought through the whole of that fateful day in the very heart of the great struggle:-- "when i awoke this morning at daylight, i found myself drenched with rain. i had slept so long and so soundly that i had, at first, but a very confused notion of my situation; but having a bright idea that my horse had been my companion when i went to sleep, i was rather startled at finding that i was now alone, nor could i rub my eyes clear enough to procure a sight of him, which was vexatious enough; for, independent of his value as a horse, his services were indispensable, and an adjutant might as well think of going into action without his arms as without such a supporter. but whatever my feelings might have been towards him, it was evident that he had none for me, from having drawn his sword and marched off. the chances of finding him again, amid ten thousand others, were about equal to the odds against the needle in a bundle of hay; but for once the single chance was gained, as, after a diligent search of an hour, he was discovered between two artillery horses, about half a mile from where he broke loose. "the weather cleared up as the morning advanced; and, though everything remained quiet at the moment, we were confident that the day would not pass off without an engagement, and, therefore, proceeded to put our arms in order, as, also, to get ourselves dried and made as comfortable as circumstances would permit. "we made a fire against the wall of sir andrew barnard's cottage, and boiled a huge camp-kettle full of tea, mixed up with a suitable quantity of milk and sugar, for breakfast; and, as it stood on the edge of the high-road, where all the big-wigs of the army had occasion to pass, in the early part of the morning, i believe almost every one of them, from the duke downwards, claimed a cupful. about ten o'clock an unusual bustle was observable among the staff-officers, and we soon after received an order to stand to our arms. the troops who had been stationed in our front during the night were then moved off to the right, and our division took up its fighting position. "our battalion stood on what was considered the left centre of the position. we had our right resting on the brussels road, about a hundred yards in the rear of the farmhouse of la haye sainte, and our left extending behind a broken hedge, which ran along the ridge to the left. immediately in our front, and divided from la haye sainte only by the great road, stood a small knoll, with a sand-hole in its farthest side, which we occupied, as an advanced post, with three companies. the remainder of the division was formed in two lines; the first, consisting chiefly of light troops, behind the hedge, in continuation from the left of our battalion reserve, and the second, about a hundred yards in its rear. the guns were placed in the intervals between the brigades, two pieces were in the roadway on our right, and a rocket brigade in the centre. "the road had been cut through the rising ground, and was about twenty or thirty feet deep where our right rested, and which, in a manner, separated us from all the troops beyond. the division, i believe, under general alten occupied the ground next to us, on the right. "shortly after we had taken up our ground, some columns, from the enemy's left, were seen in motion towards hougoumont, and were soon warmly engaged with the right of our army. a cannon ball, too, came from the lord knows where, for it was not fired at us and took the head off our right-hand man. that part of their position, in our own immediate front, next claimed our undivided attention. it had hitherto been looking suspiciously innocent, with scarcely a human being upon it; but innumerable black specks were now seen taking post at regular distances in its front, and recognising them as so many pieces of artillery, i knew, from experience, although nothing else was yet visible, that they were unerring symptoms of our not being destined to be idle spectators. "from the moment we took possession of the knoll we had busied ourselves in collecting branches of trees and other things, for the purpose of making an abatis to block up the road between that and the farmhouse, and soon completed one, which we thought looked sufficiently formidable to keep out the whole of the french cavalry; but it was put to the proof sooner than we expected, by a troop of our own light dragoons, who, having occasion to gallop through, astonished us not a little by clearing away every stick of it. we had just time to replace the scattered branches, when the whole of the enemy's artillery opened, and their countless columns began to advance under cover of it." the attack on hougoumont, it will be remembered, was intended by napoleon to be a mere feint, serving to draw off wellington's attention from the real attack, the onfall of d'erlon's huge columns on the left centre of the british position, which napoleon hoped to pierce and destroy. napoleon's tactics broke down first at hougoumont, for the feigned attack grew persistent and obstinate, and drew into its madness more than twelve thousand good infantry, and after all failed. d'erlon's great infantry attack was defeated by the stubbornness of picton's slender lines, and by the sudden and overwhelming onfall of the life guards, inniskillings, and greys. kincaid tells how he watched the french columns taking position for their attack:-- "the scene at that moment was grand and imposing, and we had a few minutes to spare for observation. the column destined as 'our' particular 'friends,' first attracted our notice, and seemed to consist of about ten thousand infantry. a smaller body of infantry and one of cavalry moved on their right; and, on their left, another huge column of infantry, and a formidable body of cuirassiers, while beyond them it seemed one moving mass. "we saw bonaparte himself take post on the side of the road immediately in our front, surrounded by a numerous staff; and each regiment, as they passed him, rent the air with shouts of 'vive l'empereur,' nor did they cease after they had passed, but, backed by the thunder of their artillery, and carrying with them the rub-a-dub of drums and the tantarara of trumpets, in addition to their increasing shouts, it looked at first as if they had some hopes of scaring us off the ground, for it was a singular contrast to the stern silence reigning on our side, where nothing as yet but the voices of our great guns told that we had mouths to open when we chose to use them. our rifles were, however, in a very few seconds required to play their parts, and opened such a fire on the advancing skirmishers as quickly brought them to a standstill; but their columns advanced steadily through them, although our incessant tiralade was telling in their centre with fearful exactness, and our post was quickly turned in both flanks, which compelled us to fall back and join our comrades behind the hedge, though not before some of our officers and theirs had been engaged in personal combat. "when the heads of their columns showed over the knoll which we had just quitted, they received such a fire from our first line that they wavered and hung behind it a little; but, cheered and encouraged by the gallantry of their officers, who were dancing and flourishing their swords in front, they at last boldly advanced to the opposite side of our hedge and began to deploy. our first line, in the meantime, was getting so thinned that picton found it necessary to bring up his second, but fell in the act of doing it. the command of the division at that critical moment devolved upon sir james kempt, who was galloping along the line, animating the men to steadiness. he called to me by name, where i happened to be standing on the right of our battalion, and desired 'that i would never quit that spot.' i told him that 'he might depend upon it;' and in another instant i found myself in a fair way of keeping my promise more religiously than i intended; for, glancing my eye to the right, i saw the next field covered with the cuirassiers, some of whom were making directly for the gap in the hedge where i was standing. "i had not hitherto drawn my sword, as it was generally to be had at a moment's warning; but from its having been exposed to the last night's rain, it had now got rusted in the scabbard and refused to come forth! i was in a precious scrape. mounted on my strong flanders mare, and with my good old sword in my hand, i would have braved all the chances without a moment's hesitation; but i confess that i felt considerable doubts as to the propriety of standing there to be sacrificed without the means of making a scramble for it. my mind, however, was happily relieved from such an embarrassing consideration before my decision was required; for the next moment the cuirassiers were charged by our household brigade, and the infantry in our front, giving way at the same time under our terrific shower of musketry, the flying cuirassiers tumbled in among the routed infantry, followed by the life guards, who were cutting away in all directions. hundreds of the infantry threw themselves down and pretended to be dead, while the cavalry galloped over them, and then got up and ran away. i never saw such a scene in all my life. "lord wellington had given orders that the troops were on no account to leave the position to follow up any temporary advantage; so that we now resumed our post, as we stood at the commencement of the battle, and with three companies again advanced on the knoll. i was told it was very ridiculous at that moment to see the number of vacant spots that were left nearly along the whole of the line, where a great part of the dark-dressed foreign troops had stood, intermixed with the british, when the action began. "our division got considerably reduced in numbers during the last attack; but lord wellington's fostering hand sent sir john lambert to our support with the sixth division, and we now stood prepared for another and a more desperate struggle. our battalion had already lost three officers killed and six or seven wounded; among the latter were sir andrew barnard and colonel cameron. "some one asking me what had become of my horse's ear was the first intimation i had of his being wounded; and i now found that, independent of one ear having been shaved close to his head (i suppose by a cannon-shot), a musket-ball had grazed across his forehead and another gone through one of his legs, but he did not seem much the worse for either of them. "between two and three o'clock we were tolerably quiet, except from a thundering cannonade; and the enemy had by that time got the range of our position so accurately that every shot brought a ticket for somebody's head. an occasional gun beyond the plain, far to our left, marked the approach of the prussians; but their progress was too slow to afford a hope of their arriving in time to take any share in the battle. on our right the roar of cannon and musketry had been incessant from the time of its commencement; but the higher ground near us prevented our seeing anything of what was going on." the anguish of the fight, as far as the rifles were concerned, came when la haye sainte was carried by the french. this gave them cover at half-musket range, whence they could waste the british front with their fire. their elation at having carried the farmhouse, it may be added, gave them new fire and audacity. they believed they had broken the british centre, that the day was won, that the stubborn british line was about to crumble and flee! and french soldiers are never so dangerous as when the rapture of real or imagined victory is kindling their blood. the pressure on the sadly-thinned lines of the rifles was cruel, but it was borne with cool and stubborn valour:-- "between three and four o'clock the storm gathered again in our front. our three companies on the knoll were soon involved in a furious fire. the germans occupying la haye sainte expended all their ammunition and fled from the post. the french took possession of it; and as it flanked our knoll we were obliged to abandon it also and fall back again behind the hedge. "the loss of la haye sainte was of the most serious consequence as it afforded the enemy an establishment within our position. they immediately brought up two guns on our side of it, and began serving out some grape to us; but they were so very near that we destroyed their artillerymen before they could give us a second round. "the silencing of these guns was succeeded by a very extraordinary scene on the same spot. a strong regiment of hanoverians advanced in line to charge the enemy out of la haye sainte; but they were themselves charged by a brigade of cuirassiers, and, excepting one officer, on a little black horse, who went off to the rear like a shot out of a shovel, i do believe that every man of them was put to death in about five seconds. a brigade of british light dragoons advanced to their relief, and a few on each side began exchanging thrusts; but it seemed likely to be a drawn battle between them, without much harm being done, when our men brought it to a crisis sooner than either side anticipated, for they previously had their rifles eagerly pointed at the cuirassiers, with a view of saving the perishing hanoverians; but the fear of killing their friends withheld them, until the others were utterly overwhelmed, when they instantly opened a terrific fire on the whole concern, sending both sides to flight; so that, on the small space of ground, within a hundred yards of us, where five thousand men had been fighting the instant before, there was not now a living soul to be seen. "it made me mad to see the cuirassiers in their retreat stooping and stabbing at our wounded men as they lay on the ground. how i wished that i had been blessed with omnipotent power for a moment, that i might have blighted them! "the same field continued to be a wild one the whole of the afternoon. it was a sort of duelling-post between the two armies, every half-hour showing a meeting of some kind upon it; but they never exceeded a short scramble, for men's lives were held very cheap there. "for the two or three succeeding hours there was no variety with us, but one continued blaze of musketry. the smoke hung so thick about, that, although not more than eighty yards asunder, we could only distinguish each other by the flashes of the pieces. "i shall never forget the scene which the field of battle presented about seven in the evening. i felt weary and worn out, less from fatigue than anxiety. our division, which had stood upwards of five thousand men at the commencement of the battle, had gradually dwindled down into a solitary line of skirmishers. the th regiment were lying literally dead, in square, a few yards behind us. my horse had received another shot through the leg, and one through the flap of the saddle, which lodged in his body, sending him a step beyond the pension-list. the smoke still hung so thick about us that we could see nothing. i walked a little way to each flank, to endeavour to get a glimpse of what was going on; but nothing met my eye except the mangled remains of men and horses, and i was obliged to return to my post as wise as i went. "i had never yet heard of a battle in which everybody was killed; but this seemed likely to be an exception, as all were going by turns. we got excessively impatient under the tame similitude of the latter part of the process, and burned with desire to have a last thrust at our respective _vis-a-vis_; for, however desperate our affairs were, we had still the satisfaction of seeing that theirs were worse. sir john lambert continued to stand as our support at the head of three good old regiments, one dead (the th) and two living ones, and we took the liberty of soliciting him to aid our views; but the duke's orders on that head were so very particular that the gallant general had no choice. "presently a cheer, which we knew to be british, commenced far to the right, and made every one prick up his ears--it was lord wellington's long-wished-for orders to advance; it gradually approached, growing louder as it drew near--we took it up by instinct, charged through the hedge down upon the old knoll, sending our adversaries flying at the point of the bayonet. lord wellington galloped up to us at the instant, and our men began to cheer him; but he called out, 'no cheering, my lads, but forward, and complete your victory!' "this movement had carried us clear of the smoke; and, to people who had been for so many hours enveloped in darkness, in the midst of destruction, and naturally anxious about the result of the day, the scene which now met the eye conveyed a feeling of more exquisite gratification than can be conceived. it was a fine summer's evening, just before sunset. the french were flying in one confused mass. british lines were seen in close pursuit, and in admirable order, as far as the eye could reach to the right, while the plain to the left was filled with prussians. the enemy made one last attempt at a stand on the rising ground to our right of la belle alliance; but a charge from general adams's brigade again threw them into a state of confusion, which was now inextricable, and their ruin was complete. artillery, baggage, and everything belonging to them fell into our hands. after pursuing them until dark, we halted about two miles beyond the field of battle, leaving the prussians to follow up the victory. "this was the last, the greatest, and the most uncomfortable heap of glory that i ever had a hand in, and may the deuce take me if i think that everybody waited there to see the end of it, otherwise it never could have been so troublesome to those who did. we were, take us all in all, a very bad army. our foreign auxiliaries, who constituted more than half of our numerical strength, with some exceptions, were little better than a raw militia--a body without a soul, or like an inflated pillow, that gives to the touch and resumes its shape again when the pressure ceases--not to mention the many who went clear out of the field, and were only seen while plundering our baggage in their retreat. "our heavy cavalry made some brilliant charges in the early part of the day; but they never knew when to stop, their ardour in following their advantages carrying them headlong on, until many of them 'burnt their fingers,' and got dispersed or destroyed. of that gallant corps, the royal artillery, it is enough to say that they maintained their former reputation--the first in the world--and it was a serious loss to us in the latter part of the day to be deprived of this more powerful co-operation, from the causes already mentioned. "if lord wellington had been at the head of his old peninsula army, i am confident that he would have swept his opponents off the face of the earth immediately after their first attack; but, with such a heterogeneous mixture under his command, he was obliged to submit to a longer day. "the field of battle next morning presented a frightful scene of carnage; it seemed as if the world had tumbled to pieces and three-fourths of everything destroyed in the wreck. the ground running parallel to the front of where we had stood was so thickly strewed with fallen men and horses, that it was difficult to step clear of their bodies; many of the former still alive, and imploring assistance, which it was not in our power to bestow. the usual salutation on meeting an acquaintance of another regiment after an action was to ask who had been hit? but on this occasion it was, 'who's alive?' meeting one next morning, a very little fellow, i asked what had happened to them yesterday? 'i'll be hanged,' says he, 'if i know anything at all about the matter, for i was all day trodden in the mud and galloped over by every scoundrel who had a horse; and, in short, that i only owe my existence to my insignificance.' "two of our men, on the morning of the th, lost their lives by a very melancholy accident. they were cutting up a captured ammunition waggon for firewood, when one of their swords, striking against a nail, sent a spark among the powder. when i looked in the direction of the explosion, i saw the two poor fellows about twenty or thirty feet up in the air. on falling to the ground, though lying on their backs and bellies, some extraordinary effort of nature, caused by the agony of the moment, made them spring from that position five or six times, to the height of eight or ten feet, just as a fish does when thrown on the ground after being newly caught. it was so unlike a scene in real life that it was impossible to witness it without forgetting, for a moment, the horror of their situation. "i ran to the spot along with others, and found that every stitch of clothes had been burnt off, and they were black as ink all over. they were still alive, and told us their names, otherwise we could not have recognised them; and, singular enough, they were able to walk off the ground with a little support, but died shortly after. "about twelve o'clock on the day after the battle we commenced our march for paris. i shall, therefore, leave my readers at waterloo, in the hope that, among the many stories of romance to which that and the other celebrated fields gave birth, the foregoing unsophisticated one of an eye-witness may not have been found altogether uninteresting." ii one of craufurd's veterans ii.--one of craufurd's veterans "rifleman" harris, an innocent-looking sheep-boy, his face brown with the winds and rains of the dorsetshire downs, drifted, so to speak, into a soldier's life pretty much as a floating leaf, blown from some rustic valley and fallen into a rustic stream, might drift into a great historic river, furrowed by a thousand keels, and be swept away to unknown seas. his autobiography is curious alike in what it omits and in what it tells. it is so barren of one class of personal details that we are left in ignorance of when the writer was born. he leaves himself in his own volume without a christian name. we are not told why he enlisted, nor where. unlike most people undertaking an autobiography, rifleman harris appears to have had no interest whatever in himself, and he was incapable of imagining that anybody else would be interested. but he was keenly concerned in all the personal incidents of a soldier's life, and he describes them with a simplicity and a directness, an economy of adjectives, and a felicity of substantives, which makes his "recollections" one of the freshest and most interesting soldier autobiographies ever written. he had some good luck as a soldier. he belonged to a famous regiment; he served under some famous commanders; he heard the first shots fired by british muskets in the peninsula. but he had also much ill-luck. he tramped, perspired, and probably swore, under south american suns in that most ignominious of all expeditions, under the most contemptible leader that ever wore a cocked hat--whitelocke's fiasco at buenos ayres. he next served in portugal, and took part in the fighting at roliça and vimiero. under sir john moore he shared in the heroism and the horrors of the dreadful retreat to corunna, or rather to vigo. that harris survived snow and rain and hunger, the inexpressible toils of the long marches, the biting cold of the black unsheltered nights, as well as the sabres of the pursuing french horsemen and the bullets of the french skirmishers, is little less than marvellous. but he did, and landed at spithead, ragged, bare-footed, unshaven, with rusty musket, hollow cheeks, and eyes that had almost gone sightless with mere fatigue--about as stiff and hardy and unconquerable a bit of soldierly flesh and blood as the world of that day could produce. a british private who had known the shame of whitelocke's south american expedition and the distress of moore's immortal retreat might well think he had exhausted all the evil possibilities of a soldier's life. but the unfortunate harris had one more evil experience. he found a place in the unhappy walcheren expedition, and crept out of it with wrecked constitution and ague-poisoned blood. he served after this in a veteran battalion; tried hard for service in the peninsula, but, to his unspeakable disgust, was disqualified by a doctor with an unsympathetic temper and an inelastic conscience, and while still only thirty-two was discharged on a pension of sixpence a day. "for the first time," he says, "since i had been a shepherd-lad on the blandford downs i found myself in plain clothes and with liberty to go and come where i liked." but harris never received a sixpence of his hard-earned pension, bought with blood and sweat. before the first payment became due napoleon had escaped from elba; the veterans were called back to the ranks. harris, wasted with fever and shaken with ague--legacies from walcheren swamps--was unable to join, and forfeited his pension. he had to spend the rest of his days making shoes and writing his "recollections of a rifleman." in view of this record, perhaps, the most striking thing in harris' "recollections" is their unconquerable good humour. the writer never grumbles. no faintest accent of discontent ever steals into his voice. his cheerfulness is invincible. he is proud of his officers; in the best of temper with his comrades; takes mud, rain, toil, empty stomach, and too heavy knapsack, a couch on the wet grass and under weeping skies, the pain of wounds, and the peril of death, all as part of the day's work, about which nobody has any right to grumble. a soldier's life, he plainly holds, is the pleasantest in the world. no one is better qualified than rifleman harris to tell to a modern and ease-loving generation how the men of the peninsula marched, suffered, fought, and conquered. chapter i the king's shilling harris's "recollections" begin with the simplicity and directness of one of de foe's tales:-- "my father was a shepherd, and i was a sheep-boy from my earliest youth. indeed, as soon almost as i could run i began helping my father to look after the sheep on the downs of blandford, in dorsetshire, where i was born. whilst i continued to tend the flocks and herds under my charge, and occasionally in the long winter nights to learn the art of making shoes, i grew a hardy little chap, and was one fine day, in the year , drawn as a soldier for the army of reserve. thus, without troubling myself much about the change which was to take place in the hitherto quiet routine of my days, i was drafted into the th regiment of foot, bade good-bye to my shepherd companions, and was obliged to leave my father without an assistant to collect his flocks, just as he was beginning more than ever to require one; nay, indeed, i may say to want tending and looking after himself, for old age and infirmity were coming on him, his hair was growing as white as the sleet of our downs, and his countenance becoming as furrowed as the ploughed fields around. however, as i had no choice in the matter, it was quite as well that i did not grieve over my fate. "my father tried hard to buy me off, and would have persuaded the sergeant of the th that i was of no use as a soldier from having maimed my right hand (by breaking the forefinger when a child). the sergeant, however, said i was just the sort of little chap he wanted, and off he went, carrying me (amongst a batch of recruits he had collected) away with him." harris's earliest experiences as a soldier naturally made the deepest impressions upon him. he found himself in a new world, with new comrades, and under strange new laws--laws with sanctions, swift, inevitable, and terrible--behind them. here is one of his earlier stories:-- "whilst lying at winchester (where we remained three months), young as i was in the profession, i was picked out amongst others to perform a piece of duty that for many years afterwards remained deeply impressed upon my mind, and gave me the first impression of the stern duties of a soldier's life. a private of the th regiment had deserted from that corps, and afterwards enlisted into several other regiments, indeed i was told at the time (though i cannot answer for so great a number) that sixteen different times he had received the bounty and then stolen off. being, however, caught at last, he was brought to trial at portsmouth, and sentenced by general court-martial to be shot. "the th received a route to portsmouth to be present on the occasion, and as the execution would be a good hint to us young 'uns, there were four lads picked out of our corps to assist in this piece of duty, myself being one of the number chosen. "besides these men, four soldiers from three other regiments were ordered on the firing-party, making sixteen in all. the place of execution was portsdown hill, near hilsea barracks, and the different regiments assembled must have composed a force of about fifteen thousand men, having been assembled from the isle of wight, from chichester, gosport, and other places. the sight was very imposing, and appeared to make a deep impression on all there. as for myself, i felt that i would have given a good round sum (had i possessed it) to have been in any situation rather than the one in which i now found myself; and when i looked into the faces of my companions, i saw, by the pallor and anxiety depicted in each countenance, the reflection of my own feelings. when all was ready, we were moved to the front, and the culprit was brought out. he made a short speech to the parade, acknowledging the justice of his sentence, and that drinking and evil company had brought the punishment upon him. "he behaved himself firmly and well, and did not seem at all to flinch. after being blindfolded, he was desired to kneel down behind a coffin which was placed on the ground, and the drum-major of the hilsea depôt, giving us an expressive glance, we immediately commenced loading. "this was done in the deepest silence, and the next moment we were primed and ready. there was then a dreadful pause for a few moments, and the drum-major, again looking towards us, gave the signal before agreed upon (a flourish of his cane) and we levelled and fired. we had been previously strictly enjoined to be steady and take good aim, and the poor fellow, pierced by several balls, fell heavily upon his back; and as he lay, with his arms pinioned to his sides, i observed that his hands waved for a few moments, like the fins of a fish, when in the agonies of death. the drum-major also observed the movement, and, making another signal, four of our party immediately stepped up to the prostrate body, and placing the muzzles of their pieces to the head, fired, and put him out of his misery. the different regiments then fell back by companies, and the word being given to march past in slow time, when each company came in line with the body the word was given to 'mark time,' and then 'eyes left,' in order that we might all observe the terrible example. we then moved onwards, and marched from the ground to our different quarters. "the th stopped that night about three miles from portsdown hill, and in the morning we returned to winchester. the officer in command that day, i remember, was general whitelocke, who was afterwards brought to court-martial himself. this was the first time of our seeing that officer. the next meeting was at buenos ayres, and during the confusion of that day one of us received an order from the fiery craufurd to shoot the traitor dead if he could see him in the battle, many others of the rifles receiving the same order from that fine and chivalrous officer. "the unfortunate issue of the buenos ayres affair is matter of history, and i have nothing to say about it, but i well remember the impression it made upon us all at the time, and that sir john moore was present at whitelocke's court-martial; general craufurd, and i think general auchmuty, captain eleder of the rifles, captain dickson, and one of our privates being witnesses. "so enraged was craufurd against him, that i heard say he strove hard to have him shot. whitelocke's father i also heard was at his son's trial, and cried like an infant during the proceedings. whitelocke's sword was broken over his head, i was told, and for months afterwards, when our men took their glass, they used to give as a toast, 'success to "grey hairs," but bad luck to "white-locks."' indeed, that toast was drunk in all the public-houses around for many a day." the th was shortly afterwards sent to ireland; and harris, who had shown himself smart and intelligent, was put into the light company of his regiment. while in dublin he saw some companies of the famous th rifles marching. they bore the signature of sir john moore's soldierly hand on them; and harris records that "i fell so in love with their smart, dashing, and devil-may-care appearance that nothing would serve me till i was a rifleman myself," and meeting a recruiting party of the regiment, he volunteered into the second battalion. he gives a strangely interesting account of the recruits which formed the raw material out of which wellington evolved the magnificent soldiers of the peninsula--men with whom, to use wellington's own words, he "could go anywhere, and do anything." rougher, wilder material--half savage and half child-like--than these recruits can hardly be imagined. certainly no such strange human material finds its way into british barracks to-day:-- "this recruiting-party were all irishmen, and had been sent over from england to collect (amongst others) men from the irish militia, and were just about to return to england. i think they were as reckless and devil-may-care a set of men as ever i beheld, either before or since. "being joined by a sergeant of the nd highlanders, and a highland piper of the same regiment (also a pair of real rollicking blades), i thought we should all have gone mad together. we started on our journey, one beautiful morning, in tip-top spirits, from the royal oak, at cashel; the whole lot of us (early as it was) being three sheets in the wind. when we paraded before the door of the royal oak, the landlord and landlady of the inn, who were quite as lively, came reeling forth, with two decanters of whisky, which they thrust into the fists of the sergeants, making them a present of decanters and all, to carry along with them, and refresh themselves on the march. the piper then struck up, the sergeants flourished their decanters, and the whole rout commenced a terrific yell. we then all began to dance, and danced through the town, every now and then stopping for another pull at the whisky decanters. thus we kept it up till we had danced, drank, shouted, and piped thirteen irish miles, from cashel to clonmel. such a day, i think, i never spent, as i enjoyed with these fellows; and on arriving at clonmel, we were as 'glorious' as any soldiers in all christendom need wish to be. "in about ten days after this, our sergeants had collected together a good batch of recruits, and we started for england. some few days before we embarked (as if we had not been bothered enough already with the unruly paddies), we were nearly pestered to death with a detachment of old irishwomen, who came from different parts (on hearing of their sons having enlisted), in order to endeavour to get them away from us. following us down to the water's edge, they hung to their offspring and, dragging them away, sent forth such dismal howls and moans that it was quite distracting to hear them. the lieutenant commanding the party, ordered me (being the only englishman present) to endeavour to keep them back. it was, however, as much as i could do to preserve myself being torn to pieces by them, and i was glad to escape out of their hands. "at length we got our lads safe on board, and set sail for england. no sooner were we out at sea, however, than our troubles began afresh with these hot-headed paddies; for, having now nothing else to do, they got up a dreadful quarrel amongst themselves, and a religious row immediately took place, the catholics reviling the protestants to such a degree that a general fight ensued. the poor protestants (being few in number) soon got the worst of it, and as fast as we made matters up among them, they broke out afresh and began the riot again. "from bath we marched to andover, and when we came upon salisbury plain, our irish friends got up a fresh row. at first they appeared uncommonly pleased with the scene, and, dispersing over the soft carpet of the downs, commenced a series of irish jigs till at length as one of the catholics was setting to his partner (a protestant), he gave a whoop and a leap into the air, and at the same time (as if he couldn't bear the partnership of a heretic any longer), dealt him a tremendous blow with his shillelagh, and stretched him upon the sod. this was quite enough, and the bludgeons immediately began playing away at a tremendous rate. "the poor protestants were again quickly disposed of, and then arose a cry of 'huzza for the wicklow boys,' 'huzza for the connaught boys,' 'huzza for munster,' and 'huzza for ulster!' they then recommenced the fight as if they were determined to make an end of their soldiering altogether upon salisbury plains. we had, i remember, four officers with us, and they did their best to pacify their pugnacious recruits. one thrust himself amongst them, but was instantly knocked down for his pains, so that he was glad enough to escape. after they had completely tired themselves, they began to slacken in their endeavours, and apparently to feel the effect of the blows they dealt each other, and at length suffering themselves to be pacified, the officers got them into andover. "scarcely had we been a couple of hours there, and obtained some refreshment, ere these incorrigible blackguards again commenced quarrelling, and collecting together in the streets, created so serious a disturbance that the officers, getting together a body of constables, seized some of the most violent and succeeded in thrusting them into the town jail; upon this their companions again collected, and endeavoured to break open the prison gates. "baffled in this attempt, they rushed through the streets knocking down everybody they met. the drums now commenced beating up for a volunteer corps of the town, which, quickly mustering, drew up in the street before the jail, and immediately were ordered to load with ball. this somewhat pacified the rioters, and our officers persuading them to listen to a promise of pardon for the past, peace was at length restored amongst them." harris's first experience of active service was in that obscure and more than half-forgotten expedition to copenhagen in . harris found that coming under fire was, on the whole, an exhilarating experience. certainly the manner in which he bore himself when first he heard the whistle of hostile bullets showed he had the makings of a good soldier. "the expedition consisted of about , men, and at the moment of our getting on shore, the whole force set up one simultaneous and tremendous cheer, a sound i cannot describe, it seemed so inspiring. this, indeed, was the first time of my hearing the style in which our men give tongue when they get near the enemy, though afterwards my ears became pretty well accustomed to such sounds. "as soon as we got on shore the rifles were pushed forward as the advance, in chain order, through some thick woods of fir, and when we had cleared these woods and approached copenhagen, sentries were posted on the roads and openings leading towards the town, in order to intercept all comers and prevent all supplies. such posts we occupied for about three days and nights, whilst the town was being fired on by our shipping. i rather think this was the first time of congreve rockets being brought into play, and as they rushed through the air in the dark, they appeared like so many fiery serpents, creating, i should think, terrible dismay amongst the besieged. "as the main army came up, we advanced and got as near under the walls of the place as we could without being endangered by the fire from our own shipping. we now received orders ourselves to commence firing, and the rattling of the guns i shall not easily forget. "i felt so much exhilarated that i could hardly keep back, and was checked by the commander of the company (captain leech), who called to me by name to keep my place. about this time, my front-rank man, a tall fellow named jack johnson, showed a disposition as though the firing had on him an effect the reverse of what it had on many others of the company, for he seemed inclined to hang back, and once or twice turned round in my face. i was a rear-rank man, and porting my piece, in the excitement of the moment i swore that if he did not keep his ground, i would shoot him dead on the spot, so that he found it would be quite as dangerous for him to return as to go on. "i feel sorry to record the want of courage of this man, but i do so with the less pain as it gives me the opportunity of saying that during many years' arduous service, it is the only instance i remember of a british soldier endeavouring to hold back when his comrades were going forward. indeed, johnson was never again held in estimation amongst the rifle corps; for the story got wind that i had threatened to shoot him for cowardice in the field, and lieutenant cox mentioned to the colonel that he had overheard my doing so; and such was the contempt the man was held in by the rifles, that he was soon afterwards removed from amongst us to a veteran battalion." chapter ii in the peninsula harris's peninsular experiences began in . the rifles formed part of a modest force of less than , men about to sail for a raid on the spanish colonies in south america. but napoleon had just effected the highly ingenious but quite felonious transfer of the spanish crown to the head of his brother joseph. as a result all spain rose in revolt against french arms; and what yesterday had been for england an enemy to be plundered, became to-day an ally to be helped. the expedition which was intended to destroy spanish colonies was, therefore, despatched to assist in the deliverance of spain itself. an even larger share than usual of the national gift for blundering at the beginning of a campaign was shown at the start of the great operations in the peninsula. the force despatched was utterly inadequate. it was , men against , . but even this little force was broken into fragments and despatched on totally unrelated adventures. spencer was sent with , men to cadiz; another body of , was despatched to the tagus. by a happy chance--perhaps it would be fair to say by a happy flash of insight--wellesley was given command of this latter expedition; but sir harry burrard was promptly despatched to supersede wellesley, and sir hew dalrymple to supersede sir harry burrard! under this delightful arrangement the astonished british army had three distinct commanders within the space of twenty-four hours. harris describes the long and loitering pause at cork, where the ships lay for six weeks, without disembarking the unfortunate soldiers. at last, on july , , the expedition sailed. the landing-place chosen was the mouth of the mondego. the rifles, harris records with delight, "were the first out of the ships. we were, indeed, always in the front in an advance and in the rear in a retreat." the heats of a spanish summer lay on the plains and the hills; the roads were mere ribbons of sand, the watercourses were parched; and harris's first experience of marching under service conditions, and on sandy spanish roads, was very trying. he says:-- "the weight i myself toiled under was tremendous, and i often wonder at the strength i possessed at this period, which enabled me to endure it; for, indeed, i am convinced that many of our infantry sank and died under the weight of their knapsacks alone. for my own part, being a handicraft, i marched under a weight sufficient to impede the free motions of a donkey! for besides my well-filled kit, there was the greatcoat rolled on its top, my blanket and camp kettle, my haversack, stuffed full of leather for repairing the men's shoes, together with a hammer and other tools (the lap-stone i took the liberty of flinging to the devil), ship-biscuit and beef for three days. i also carried my canteen filled with water, my hatchet and rifle, and eighty rounds of ball cartridge in my pouch; this last, except the beef and biscuit, being the best thing i owned, and which i always gave the enemy the benefit of when opportunity offered. "altogether the quantity of things i had on my shoulders was enough and more than enough for my wants, sufficient, indeed, to sink a little fellow of five feet seven inches into the earth. nay, so awkwardly was the load our men bore in those days placed upon their backs, that the free motion of the body was impeded, the head held down from the pile at the back of the neck, and the soldier half beaten before he came to the scratch." a pleasanter description is given of the march on the following day. he says:-- "the next day we again advanced, and being in a state of the utmost anxiety to come up with the french, neither the heat of the burning sun, long miles, nor heavy knapsacks were able to diminish our ardour. indeed, i often look back with wonder at the light-hearted style, the jollity, and reckless indifference with which men who were destined in so short a time to fall, hurried onwards to the field of strife; seemingly without a thought of anything but the sheer love of meeting the foe and the excitement of the battle." harris's "recollections" have absolutely no chronology, or chronology only of the most distracted and planless character. a clear thread of narrative is to be obtained only by the process of re-arranging all his incidents. the opening skirmish--the first splutter of british muskets in the long peninsular campaigns--took place on august , and naturally the th, which formed the british outposts, were the actors in the combat. they erred by over-vehemence. they fell on so eagerly, and pursued so fast and so far, that they presently found themselves charging the entire french army, and were drawn off with some loss. harris's description is brief:-- "it was on the th of august when we first came up with the french, and their skirmishers immediately commenced operations by raining a shower of balls upon us as we advanced, which we returned without delay. "the first man that was hit was lieutenant bunbury; he fell pierced through the head with a musket-ball, and died almost immediately. i thought i never heard such a tremendous noise as the firing made on this occasion, and the men on both sides of me, i could occasionally observe, were falling fast. being over-matched, we retired to a rising ground, or hillock, in our rear, and formed there all round its summit, standing three deep, the front rank kneeling. in this position we remained all night, expecting the whole host upon us every moment. at daybreak, however, we received instructions to fall back as quickly as possible upon the main body. having done so, we now lay down for a few hours' rest, and then again advanced to feel for the enemy." wellington described the affair as "unpleasant" from the general's point of view; but apparently the rifles found it very enjoyable. on august roliça was fought. the british again erred by over-eagerness, the th in particular suffering heavy losses owing to the fact that the regiment went straight at the enemy's front instead of turning its flank. the battle, however, was on the british side a bit of characteristic, dogged, and straight-forward fighting. the french flank was turned, their front driven in, and they were compelled to fall back from one position to another till they finally abandoned the fight. here is harris's account, collated from the different parts of his volume:-- "on the th, being still in front, we again came up with the french, and i remember observing the pleasing effect afforded by the sun's rays glancing upon their arms as they formed in order of battle to receive us. moving on in extended order under whatever cover the nature of the ground afforded, together with some companies of the th, we began a sharp fire upon them, and thus commenced the battle of roliça. "i do not pretend to give a description of this or any other battle i have been present at. all i can do is to tell the things which happened immediately around me, and that, i think, is as much as a private soldier can be expected to do. "soon afterwards the firing commenced, and we had advanced pretty close upon the enemy. taking advantage of whatever cover i could find i threw myself down behind a small bank, where i lay so secure, that although the frenchmen's bullets fell pretty thickly around, i was enabled to knock several over without being dislodged, in fact, i fired away every round i had in my pouch whilst lying on this spot. at length after a sharp contest we forced them to give ground, and following them up, drove them from their position in the heights, and hung upon their skirts till they made another stand, and then the game began again. "the th regiment received so terrible a fire that i saw the right wing almost annihilated, and the colonel (i think his name was lennox[ ]) lay sprawling amongst the rest. we had ourselves caught it pretty handsomely, for there was no cover for us, and we were rather too near. the living skirmishers were lying beside heaps of their own dead, but still we had held our own till the battalion regiments came up. 'fire and retire'[ ] is a very good sound, but the rifles were not over fond of such notes. we never performed that manoeuvre except when it was made pretty plain to us that it was quite necessary; the th, however, had got their faring here at this time, and the shock of that fire seemed to stagger the whole line and make them recoil. at the moment a little confusion appeared in the ranks, i thought. lord hill was near at hand and saw it, and i observed him come galloping up. he put himself at the head of the regiment and restored them to order in a moment. pouring a regular and sharp fire upon the enemy he galled them in return; and, remaining with the th till he brought them to the charge, quickly sent the foe to the right-about. it seemed to me that few men could have conducted the business with more coolness and quietude of manner under such a storm of balls as he was exposed to. indeed i have never forgotten him from that day. "at the time i was remarking these matters (loading and firing as i lay), another circumstance divided my attention for a while, and made me forget even the gallant conduct of general hill. a man near me uttered a scream of agony, and looking from the th, who were on my right, to the left, whence the screech had come, i saw one of our sergeants, named fraser, sitting in a doubled-up position, and swaying backwards and forwards as though he had got a terrible pain in his bowels. he continued to make so much complaint that i arose and went to him, for he was rather a crony of mine. "'oh, harris,' said he, as i took him in my arms, 'i shall die! i shall die! the agony is so great that i cannot bear it.' "it was, indeed, dreadful to look upon him; the froth came from his mouth, and the perspiration poured from his face. thank heaven! he was soon out of pain, and, laying him down, i returned to my place. poor fellow! he suffered more for the short time that he was dying than any man i think i ever saw in the same circumstances. i had the curiosity to return and look at him after the battle. a musket-ball, i found, had taken him sideways and gone through both groins. "within about half-an-hour after this i left sergeant fraser, and, indeed, for the time had as completely forgotten him as if he had died a hundred years back. the sight of so much bloodshed around will not suffer the mind to dwell long on any particular casualty, even though it happen to one's dearest friend. there was no time either to think, for all was action with us rifles just at this moment, and the barrel of my piece was so hot from continual firing that i could hardly bear to touch it, and was obliged to grasp the stock beneath the iron, as i continued to blaze away. "james ponton was another crony of mine (a gallant fellow!); he had pushed himself in front of me, and was checked by one of our officers for his rashness. 'keep back, you ponton!' the lieutenant said to him more than once. but ponton was not to be restrained by anything but a bullet when in action. this time he got one which, striking him in the thigh, i suppose cut an artery, for he died quickly. the frenchmen's balls were flying very wickedly at that moment; and i crept up to ponton, and took shelter by lying behind, and making a rest for my rifle of his dead body. it strikes me that i revenged his death by the assistance of his carcass. at any rate i tried my best to hit his enemies hard. "there were two small buildings in our front, and the french, having managed to get into them, annoyed us much from that quarter. a small rise in the ground close before these houses also favoured them; and our men were being handled very severely in consequence. they became angry, and wouldn't stand it any longer. one of the skirmishers jumping up, rushed forward, crying, 'over boys!--over! over!' when instantly the whole line responded to the cry, 'over! over! over!' they ran along the grass like wildfire, and dashed at the rise, fixing their sword-bayonets as they ran. the french light bobs could not stand the sight, but turned about and fled, and, getting possession of their ground, we were soon inside the buildings. "after the battle was over i stepped across to the other house i have mentioned, in order to see what was going on there, for the one i remained in was now pretty well filled with the wounded (both french and english) who had managed to get there for a little shelter. two or three surgeons also had arrived at this house, and were busily engaged in giving their assistance to the wounded, now also here lying as thickly as in the building which i had left; but what struck me most forcibly was, that from the circumstance of some wine-butts having been left in the apartment, and their having in the engagement been perforated by bullets, and otherwise broken, the red wine had escaped most plentifully, and ran down upon the earthen floor where the wounded were lying, so that many of them were soaked in the wine with which their blood was mingled. "the rifles fought well this day, and we lost many men. they seemed in high spirits, and delighted at having driven the enemy before them. joseph cochan was by my side loading and firing very industriously about this period of the day. thirsting with heat and action he lifted his canteen to his mouth, 'here's to you, old boy,' he said, as he took a pull at its contents. as he did so a bullet went through the canteen, and, perforating his brain, killed him in a moment. another man fell close to him almost immediately, struck by a ball in the thigh. indeed, we caught it severely just here, and the old iron was also playing its part amongst our poor fellows very merrily. when the roll was called after the battle, the females who missed their husbands came along the front of the line to inquire of the survivors whether they knew anything about them. amongst other names i heard that of cochan called in a female voice, without being replied to. "the name struck me, and i observed the poor woman who had called it, as she stood sobbing before us, and apparently afraid to make further inquiries about her husband. no man had answered to his name, or had any account to give of his fate. i myself had observed him fall, as related before, whilst drinking from his canteen; but as i looked at the poor sobbing creature before me, i felt unable to tell her of his death. at length captain leech observed her, and called out to the company-- "'does any man here know what has happened to cochan? if so, let him speak out at once.' "upon this order i immediately related what i had seen, and told the manner of his death. after a while mrs. cochan appeared anxious to seek the spot where her husband fell, and, in the hope of still finding him alive, asked me to accompany her over the field. she trusted, notwithstanding what i had told her, to find him yet alive. "'do you think you could find it?' said captain leech, upon being referred to. "i told him i was sure i could, as i had remarked many objects whilst looking for cover during the skirmishing. "'go then,' said the captain, 'and show the poor woman the spot, as she seems so desirous of finding the body.' "i accordingly took my way over the ground we had fought upon, she following and sobbing after me, and, quickly reaching the spot where her husband's body lay, pointed it out to her. "she now soon discovered all her hopes were in vain; she embraced a stiffened corpse, and after rising and contemplating his disfigured face for some minutes, with hands clasped and tears streaming down her cheeks, she took a prayer-book from her pocket, and, kneeling down, repeated the service for the dead over the body. when she had finished she appeared a good deal comforted, and i took the opportunity of beckoning to a pioneer i saw near with some other men, and together we dug a hole and quickly buried the body. mrs. cochan then returned with me to the company to which her husband had been attached, and laid herself down upon the heath near us. she lay amongst some other females who were in the same distressing circumstances with herself, with the sky for her canopy and a turf for her pillow, for we had no tents with us. poor woman! i pitied her much; but there was no remedy. if she had been a duchess she must have fared the same. she was a handsome woman, i remember, and the circumstance of my having seen her husband fall, and accompanied her to find his body, begot a sort of intimacy between us. what little attention i could pay her during the hardships of the march i did, and i also offered on the first opportunity to marry her. 'she had, however, received too great a shock on the occasion of her husband's death ever to think of another soldier,' she said; she therefore thanked me for my good feeling towards her, but declined my offer, and left us soon afterwards for england. "after i had left the house i have alluded to in the account of the battle of roliça, i walked a few paces onwards, when i saw some of the rifles lying about and resting. i laid myself down amongst them, for i felt fatigued. a great many of the french skirmishers were lying dead just about this spot. i recollect that they had long white frock-coats on, with the eagle in front of their caps. this was one of the places from which they had greatly annoyed us; and, to judge from the appearance of the dead and wounded strewed around, we had returned the compliment pretty handsomely. i lay upon my back, and, resting upon my knapsack, examined the enemy in the distance. whilst i lay watching them, i observed a dead man directly opposite to me whose singular appearance had not at first caught my eye. he was lying on his side amongst some burnt-up bushes, and whether the heat of the firing here had set these bushes on fire, or from whatever cause they had been ignited, i cannot take upon me to say; but certain it is (for several of my companions saw it as well as myself, and cracked many a joke upon the poor fellow's appearance), that this man, whom we guessed to have been french, was as completely roasted as if he had been spitted before a good kitchen-fire. he was burnt quite brown, every stitch of clothes was singed off, and he was drawn all up like a dried frog. i called the attention of one or two men near me, and we examined him, turning him about with our rifles with no little curiosity. i remember now, with some surprise, that the miserable fate of this poor fellow called forth from us very little sympathy, but seemed only to be a subject of mirth." vimiero followed hard on roliça, being fought only four days afterwards. in this battle the french attacked, and their onfall was marked by high daring and tactical skill. but the british out-fought as their general out-manoeuvred the french, and junot was only saved from complete destruction by the circumstance that sir harry burrard, at the very moment of victory, displaced wellesley in command, and ordered the pursuit to cease. the rifles were in the skirmishing line, and were naturally driven back when the french advanced in mass. the steadfast british line, however, took very badly the retreat of the skirmishers, as harris, in amusing fashion, records. harris's account is interesting as a picture of what may be called the domestic details of the fighting, the preparations for it, the rough jesting of the fighting line, the fashion in which individual soldiers fought and died. there is, indeed, an almost homeric touch in harris's picture of individual combats. here is his story of how the rifles fought at vimiero:-- "it was on the st of august that we commenced fighting the battle of vimiero. "the french came down upon us in a column, and the riflemen immediately commenced a sharp fire upon them from whatever cover they could get a shelter behind, whilst our cannon played upon them from our rear. i saw regular lanes torn through their ranks as they advanced, which were immediately closed up again as they marched steadily on. whenever we saw a round shot thus go through the mass we raised a shout of delight. "one of our corporals, named murphy, was the first man in the rifles who was hit that morning, and i remember more particularly remarking the circumstance from his apparently having a presentiment of his fate before the battle began. he was usually an active fellow, and up to this time had shown himself a good and brave soldier, but on this morning he seemed unequal to his duty. general fane and major travers were standing together on an early part of this day. the general had a spy-glass in his hand, and for some time looked anxiously at the enemy. suddenly he gave the word to fall in, and immediately all was bustle amongst us. the honourable captain pakenham spoke very sharply to murphy, who appeared quite dejected and out of spirits, i observed. he had a presentiment of death, which is by no means an uncommon circumstance, and i have observed it once or twice since this battle. "others beside myself noticed murphy on this morning, and as we had reason to know he was not ordinarily deficient in courage, the circumstance was talked of after the battle was over. he was the first man shot that day. "just before the battle commenced in earnest, and whilst the officers were busily engaged with their companies, shouting the word of command, and arranging matters of moment, captain leech ordered a section of our men to move off, at double quick, and take possession of a windmill, which was on our left. i was amongst this section, and set off full cry towards the mill, when captain leech espied and roared out to me by name to return--'hello there! you harris!' he called, 'fall out of that section directly. we want you here, my man.' i, therefore, wheeled out of the rank, and returned to him. 'you fall in amongst the men here, harris,' he said, 'i shall not send you to that post. the cannon will play upon the mill in a few moments like hail; and what shall we do,' he continued laughing, 'without our head shoemaker to repair our shoes?' "it is long since these transactions took place. but i remember the words of the captain as if they had been uttered but yesterday; for that which was spoken in former years in the field has made a singular impression on my mind. as i looked about me, whilst standing enranked, and just before the commencement of the battle, i thought it the most imposing sight the world could produce. our lines glittering with bright arms; the stern features of the men, as they stood with their eyes fixed unalterably upon the enemy; the proud colours of england floating over the heads of the different battalions; and the dark cannon on the rising ground, and all in readiness to commence the awful work of death, with a noise that would deafen the whole multitude. altogether, the sight had a singular and terrible effect upon the feelings of a youth, who, a few short months before, had been a solitary shepherd upon the downs of dorsetshire, and had never contemplated any other sort of life than the peaceful occupation of watching the innocent sheep as they fed upon the grassy turf. "the first cannon shot i saw fired, i remember, was a miss. the artilleryman made a sad bungle, and the ball went wide of the mark. we were all looking anxiously to see the effect of this shot; and another of the gunners (a red-haired man) rushed at the fellow who had fired, and in the excitement of the moment, knocked him head over heels with his fists. 'd-- you for a fool,' he said; 'what sort of a shot do you call that? let me take the gun.' he accordingly fired the next shot himself, as soon as the gun was loaded, and so truly did he point it at the french column on the hillside, that we saw the fatal effect of the destructive missile by the lane it made and the confusion it caused. "our riflemen (who at the moment were amongst the guns) upon seeing this, set up a tremendous shout of delight, and the battle commencing immediately, we were all soon hard at work. "i myself was very soon so hotly engaged, loading and firing away, enveloped in the smoke i created, and the cloud which hung about me from the continued fire of my comrades, that i could see nothing for a few minutes but the red flash of my own piece amongst the white vapour clinging to my very clothes. this has often seemed to me the greatest drawback upon our present system of fighting; for whilst in such state, on a calm day, until some friendly breeze of wind clears the space around, a soldier knows no more of his position and what is about to happen in his front, or what has happened (even amongst his own companions) than the very dead lying around. "such is my remembrance of the commencement of the battle of vimiero. the battle began on a fine bright day, and the sun played on the arms of the enemy's battalions, as they came on, as if they had been tipped with gold. the battle soon became general; the smoke thickened around, and often i was obliged to stop firing and dash it aside from my face, and try in vain to get sight of what was going on, whilst groans and shouts and a noise of cannon and musketry appeared almost to shake the very ground. it seemed hell upon earth, i thought. "a man named john low stood before me at this moment, and he turned round during a pause in our exertions, and addressed me: 'harris, you humbug,' he said, 'you have plenty of money about you, i know, for you are always staying about and picking up what you can find on the field. but i think this will be your last field-day, old boy. a good many of us will catch it, i suspect, to-day,' 'you are right, low,' i said, 'i have got nine guineas in my pack, and if i get shot to-day, and you yourself escape, it's quite at your service. in the meantime, however, if you see any symptoms of my wishing to flinch in this business, i hope you will shoot me with your own hand.' "low as well as myself survived this battle, and after it was over, whilst we sat down with our comrades and rested, amongst other matters talked over, low told them of our conversation during the heat of the day, and the money i had collected, and the rifles from that time had a great respect for me. it is, indeed, singular how a man loses or gains caste with his comrades from his behaviour, and how closely he is observed in the field. the officers, too, are commented upon and closely observed. the men are very proud of those who are brave in the field, and kind and considerate to the soldiers under them. an act of kindness done by an officer has often during the battle been the cause of his life being saved. nay, whatever folks may say upon the matter, i know from experience that in our army the men like best to be officered by gentlemen, men whose education has rendered them more kind in manners than your coarse officer, sprung from obscure origin, and whose style is brutal and overbearing. "during the battle i remarked the gallant style in which the th, major napier's regiment, came to the charge. they dashed upon the enemy like a torrent breaking bounds, and the french, unable even to bear the sight of them, turned and fled. methinks at this moment i can hear the cheer of the british soldiers in the charge, and the clatter of the frenchmen's accoutrements, as they turned in an instant, and went off as hard as they could run for it. i remember, too, our feelings towards the enemy on that occasion was the north side of friendly, for they had been firing upon us rifles very sharply, greatly outnumbering our skirmishers, and appearing inclined to drive us off the face of the earth. their lights, and grenadiers, i, for the first time, particularly remarked on that day. the grenadiers (the th, i think), our men seemed to know well. they were all fine-looking young men, wearing red shoulder-knots and tremendous-looking moustaches. as they came swarming upon us, they rained a perfect shower of balls, which we returned quite as sharply. whenever one of them was knocked over our men called out, 'there goes another of boney's invincibles.' "in the main body immediately in our rear, were the second battalion nd, the th, the second battalion rd, and a german corps, whose number i do not remember, besides several other regiments. the whole line seemed annoyed and angered at seeing the rifles outnumbered by the invincibles, and as we fell back, 'firing and retiring,' galling them handsomely as we did so, the men cried out (as it were with one voice) to charge. 'd--n them!' they roared, 'charge! charge!' general fane, however, restrained their impetuosity. he desired them to stand fast and keep their ground. "'don't be too eager, men,' he said, as coolly as if we were on drill-parade in old england; 'i don't want you to advance just yet. well done, th!' he called out, as he galloped up and down the line; 'well done, rd, nd, and well done all. i'll not forget, if i live, to report your conduct to-day. they shall hear of it in england, my lads!' "a man named brotherwood, of the th, at this moment rushed up to the general, and presented him with a green feather, which he had torn out of the cap of a french light-infantry soldier he had killed. 'god bless you, general!' he said; 'wear this for the sake of the th.' i saw the general take the feather and stick it in his cocked hat. the next minute he gave the word to charge, and down came the whole line, through a tremendous fire of cannon and musketry--and dreadful was the slaughter as they rushed onwards. as they came up with us, we sprang to our feet, gave one hearty cheer, and charged along with them, treading over our own dead and wounded, who lay in the front. the th were next us as we went, and i recollect, as i said, the firmness of that regiment in the charge. they appeared like a wall of iron. the enemy turned and fled, the cavalry dashing upon them as they went off. "it was just at the close of the battle of vimiero; the dreadful turmoil and noise of the engagement had hardly subsided, and i began to look into the faces of the men close around me, to see who had escaped the dangers of the hour. four or five days back i had done the same thing at roliça. one feels, indeed, a sort of curiosity to know, after such a scene, who is remaining alive amongst the companions endeared by good conduct, or disliked for bad character, during the hardships of the campaign. i saw that the ranks of the riflemen looked very thin; it seemed to me one-half had gone down. we had four companies of the th, and were commanded that day by major travers. he was a tight hand, but a soldier likes that better than a slovenly officer; and indeed, he was deservedly beloved by all who knew him. "i had observed him more than once during this day, spurring here and there, keeping the men well up, and apparently in the highest spirits. he could not have enjoyed himself more, i am sure, if he had been at a horse-race, or following a good pack of hounds. the battle was just over; a flag of truce had come over from the french; general kellerman, i think, brought it. we threw ourselves down where we were standing when the fire ceased. a frenchman lay close beside me; he was dying, and called to me for water, which i understood him to require more from his manner than his words (he pointed to his mouth). i need not say that i got up and gave it him. whilst i did so, down galloped the major in front, just in the same good spirits he had been all day; plunging along, avoiding, with some little difficulty, the dead and dying which were strewed about. he was never a very good-looking man, being hard-featured and thin--a hatchet-faced man, as we used to say. but he was a regular good 'un--a real english soldier, and that's better than if he had been the handsomest ladies' man in the army. "the major just now disclosed what none of us, i believe, knew before, namely, that his head was bald as a coot's, and that he covered the nakedness of his nob, up to the present time, by a flowing caxon, which, during the heat of the action, had somehow been dislodged, and was lost; yet was the major riding hither and thither, digging the spurs into his horse's flanks, and just as busy as before the firing had ceased. 'a guinea,' he kept crying as he rode, 'to any man who will find my wig!' the men, i remember, notwithstanding the sight of the wounded and dead around them, burst into shouts of laughter at him as he went; and, 'a guinea to any man who will find my wig,' was the saying amongst us long after that affair." footnotes: [footnote : it was colonel lake.] [footnote : "fire and retire"--one of the bugle sounds to the skirmishers when hard pressed.] chapter iii when the fight is over harris sees with characteristic clearness of vision, and describes, with almost appalling _vraisemblance_, the grim scenes of the battle-field after the fiery tide of battle has ebbed from it. he says:-- "after the day's work was over, whilst strolling about the field, just upon the spot where this charge had taken place, i remarked a soldier of the rd and a french grenadier both dead, and lying close together. they had apparently killed each other at the same moment, for both weapons remained in the bodies of the slain. brotherwood was lying next me during a part of this day; he was a leicestershire man, and was killed afterwards by a cannon ball at vittoria. i remember his death more particularly from the circumstance of that very ball killing three of the company at the same moment, viz., lieutenant hopwood, patrick mahone, and himself. brotherwood was amongst the skirmishers with me on this day. he was always a lively fellow, but rather irritable in disposition. just as the french went to the right-about, i remember he d--d them furiously, and all his bullets being gone, he grabbed a razor from his haversack, rammed it down, and fired it after them. "during this day i myself narrowly escaped being killed by our own dragoons, for somehow or other in the confusion i fell whilst they were charging, and the whole squadron thundering past just missed me as i lay amongst the dead and wounded. tired and over-weighted with my knapsack and all my shoemaking implements, i lay where i had fallen for a short time and watched the cavalry as they gained the enemy. i observed a fine gallant-looking officer leading them on in that charge. he was a brave fellow, and bore himself like a hero; with his sword waving in the air he cheered the men on, as he went dashing upon the enemy and hewing and slashing at them in tremendous style. i watched for him as the dragoons came off after that charge, but saw him no more; he had fallen. fine fellow! his conduct indeed made an impression upon me that i shall never forget, and i was told afterwards that he was a brother of sir john eustace. "a french soldier was lying beside me at this time; he was badly wounded, and hearing him moan as he lay, after i had done looking at the cavalry i turned my attention to him, and getting up lifted his head and poured some water into his mouth. he was dying fast; but he thanked me in a foreign language, which, although i did not exactly understand, i could easily make out by the look he gave me. mullins, of the rifles, who stepped up whilst i supported his head, d--d me for a fool for my pains. 'better knock out his brains, harris,' said he, 'he has done us mischief enough, i'll be bound for it, to-day.'" harris, it will be noticed, has no reserves. he relates incidents which can hardly be regarded as creditable to the character of the british private, and does it with an amusing unconsciousness as to the impression his stories will produce on readers of a more sensitive age. the british soldier of that day had a rough chivalry of his own. he faced his foe gallantly on the battle-field. he would maintain a friendly barter of spirits and rations with him when night had fallen on contiguous bivouacs. but when his enemy was dead, and no more fighting remained to be done, and no exchange of clandestine brandy was possible, then the british private would empty his foeman's pockets or take a pair of serviceable boots from his feet with the easiest nonchalance. the transaction, he considered, did not injure the dead, and it contributed to the comfort of the living. so harris's tale of the plundering and the night scenes of a battle-field resemble those to be found in smollett's "count fathom"--with this superiority on the side of harris, that his tales are transcripts of actual facts:-- "after the battle i strolled about the field, in order to see if there was anything to be found worth picking up amongst the dead. the first thing i saw was a three-pronged silver fork, which, as it lay by itself, had most likely been dropped by some person who had been on the lookout before me. a little farther on i saw a french soldier sitting against a small rise in the ground or bank. he was wounded in the throat and appeared very faint, the bosom of his coat being saturated with the blood which had flowed down. by his side lay his cap, and close to that was a bundle containing a quantity of gold and silver crosses, which i concluded he had plundered from some convent or church. he looked the picture of a sacrilegious thief, dying hopelessly, and overtaken by divine wrath. i kicked over his cap, which was also full of plunder, but i declined taking anything from him. i felt fearful of incurring the wrath of heaven for the like offence, so i left him, and passed on. "a little farther off lay an officer of the th regiment. i knew him by sight, and recognised him as he lay. he was quite dead, and lying on his back. he had been plundered, and his clothes were torn open. three bullet-holes were close together in the pit of his stomach. beside him lay an empty pocket-book, and his epaulette had been pulled from his shoulder. "i had moved on but a few paces, when i recollected that perhaps the officer's shoes might serve me, my own being considerably the worse for wear, so i returned again, went back, pulled one of his shoes off, and knelt down on one knee to try it on. it was not much better than my own; however, i determined on the exchange, and proceeded to take off its fellow. as i did so i was startled by the sharp report of a firelock, and at the same moment a bullet whistled close by my head. instantly starting up i turned and looked in the direction whence the shot had come. there was no person near me in this part of the field. the dead and the dying lay thickly all around, but nothing else could i see. i looked to the priming of my rifle, and again turned to the dead officer of the th. it was evident that some plundering scoundrel had taken a shot at me, and the fact of his doing so proclaimed him one of the enemy. to distinguish him amongst the bodies strewn about was impossible; perhaps he might himself be one of the wounded. hardly had i effected the exchange, put on the dead officer's shoes, and resumed my rifle, when another shot took place, and a second ball whistled past me. this time i was ready, and turning quickly i saw my man; he was just about to squat down behind a small mound about twenty paces from me. i took a haphazard shot at him, and instantly knocked him over. i immediately ran up to him; he had fallen on his face, and i heaved him over on his back, bestrode his body, and drew my sword-bayonet. there was, however, no occasion for the precaution, as he was even then in the agonies of death. "it was a relief to me to find i had not been mistaken. he was a french light infantry man, and i therefore took it quite in the way of business--he had attempted my life, and lost his own. it was the fortune of war; so stooping down with my sword i cut the green string that sustained his calabash, and took a hearty pull to quench my thirst. "after i had shot the french light infantry man, and quenched my thirst from his calabash, finding he was quite dead, i proceeded to search him. whilst i turned him about in the endeavour at finding the booty i felt pretty certain he had gathered from the slain, an officer of the th approached and accosted me. "'what, looking for money, my lad,' said he, 'eh?' "'i am, sir,' i answered; 'but i cannot discover where this fellow has hid his hoard.' "'you knocked him over, my man,' he said, 'in good style, and deserve something for the shot. here,' he continued, stooping down, and feeling in the lining of the frenchman's coat, 'this is the place where these rascals generally carry their coin. rip up the lining of his coat, and then search in his stock. i know them better than you seem to do.' "thanking the officer for his courtesy, i proceeded to cut open the lining of his jacket with my sword-bayonet, and was quickly rewarded for my labour by finding a yellow silk purse, wrapped up in an old black silk handkerchief. the purse contained several doubloons, three or four napoleons, and a few dollars. whilst i was counting the money, the value of which, except the dollars, i did not then know, i heard the bugle of the rifles sound out the assembly, so i touched my cap to the officer and returned towards them. "the men were standing at ease, with the officers in front. as i approached them, major travers, who was in command of the four companies, called me to him. "'what have you got there, sir?' he said. 'show me.' "i handed him the purse, expecting a reprimand for my pains. he, however, only laughed as he examined it, and turning showed it to his brother officers. "'you did that well, harris,' he said, 'and i am sorry the purse is not better filled. fall in.' in saying this, he handed me back the purse, and i joined my company. soon afterwards, the roll being called, we were all ordered to lie down and gain a little rest after our day's work. "we lay as we had stood enranked upon the field, and in a few minutes, i dare say, one-half of that green line, over-wearied with their exertions, were asleep upon the ground they had so short a time before been fighting on. after we had lain for some little time i saw several men strolling about the fields, so i again quietly rose, with one or two others of the rifles, and once more looked about me to see what i could pick up amongst the slain. "i had rambled some distance when i saw a french officer running towards me with all his might, pursued by at least half-a-dozen horsemen. the frenchman was a tall, handsome-looking man, dressed in a blue uniform; he ran as swiftly as a wild indian, turning and doubling like a hare. i held up my hand, and called to his pursuers not to hurt him. one of the horsemen, however, cut him down with a desperate blow when close beside me, and the next, wheeling round as he leaned from his saddle, passed his sword through the body. "i am sorry to say there was an english dragoon amongst these scoundrels; the rest, by their dress, i judged to be portuguese cavalry. whether the frenchman thus slaughtered was a prisoner trying to escape, or what was the cause of this cold-blooded piece of cruelty, i know not, as the horsemen immediately galloped off without a word of explanation; and, feeling quite disgusted with the scene i had witnessed, i returned to my comrades, and again throwing myself down, was soon as fast asleep as any there." the plundering exploits of the british private were not always confined to his foes, living or dead. his own officers sometimes suffered. says harris:-- "i remember there was an officer, named, i think, cardo, with the rifles. he was a great beau; but although rather effeminate and ladylike in manners, so much so as to be remarked by the whole regiment at that time, yet he was found to be a most gallant officer when we were engaged with the enemy in the field. he was killed whilst fighting bravely in the pyrenees; and amongst other jewellery he wore, he had a ring on his finger worth guineas. "as he lay dead on the field, one of our riflemen, named orr, observed the sparkling gem, and immediately resolved to make prize of it. the ring, however, was so firmly fixed that orr could not draw it from the finger, and, whipping out his knife, cut the finger off by the joint. after the battle orr offered the ring for sale amongst the officers, and on inquiry the manner in which he had obtained it transpired. orr was in consequence tried by court-martial, and sentenced to receive five hundred lashes, which sentence was carried into execution." chapter iv a memorable retreat harris found a new commander-in-chief in sir john moore, and it was his fortune to share in the sufferings and glory of the immortal retreat to corunna. moore has never yet come to his true inheritance of fame as a commander. the great figure of wellington hides him almost from human memory. yet no british general, perhaps, ever conceived and executed a more audacious stroke of soldiership than did moore when he made his famous stroke at napoleon's communication, and spoiled the whole plans of that master-spirit in war for the conquest of southern spain, and brought him and his far-scattered columns hurrying up to the north-west angle of the peninsula. napoleon had assumed in person the command of the french armies in spain, and had , veterans under his eagles. he had shattered the spanish armies, was in possession of the spanish capital, and was on the point of marching to overwhelm the rich provinces as yet unravaged by war to the south. moore, with , men under his command, resolved to strike boldly at napoleon's communications, and so arrest the southward march of all the french columns. when, in this manner, he had paralysed the strategy of the french, moore calculated he could outmarch all the converging columns rushing to destroy him, and escape. but he was accepting a terrific risk. moore's generalship, though it was followed by the tragedy of the retreat to corunna, and his own death in the battle at that place, was perfectly successful. he wrecked napoleon's strategy, and yet escaped his counter-stroke. he secured a breathing-space for the spanish nation. he arrested and brought to a close napoleon's personal career in that country. he made possible wellington's great peninsular campaigns. it is one of the examples of the irony of history that to moore, one of the greatest soldiers england has produced, success brought no adequate fame, and it cost him his own life. the second battalion of the rifles, to which harris belonged, joined moore's forces at sahagun, and the great retreat began almost immediately afterwards. on december moore turned his columns westward for their march to his sea-base at corunna. it was a march of some miles, through rugged mountainous country, with the french hanging on his rear or pushing past his flank, while the bitter tempests of the winter in northern spain blackened the skies above the toiling troops, and scourged them almost incessantly with snow and sleet and rain. at astorga, moore divided his army, and part, under craufurd, took the road to vigo. the rifles formed part of craufurd's force, and harris's account thus sheds light on what is the least known branch of the famous retreat. the retreat lasted in all eighteen days, and some men fell from the ranks, slain by mere hardship and exposure, during that comparatively brief period; yet the retreating british did not lose a flag or a gun in the retreat, and when they turned to bay at corunna they proved that neither their discipline nor their fighting power had been in the least impaired by their sufferings. harris's account is really a bit of very fine descriptive writing, though its charm lies in its simplicity and its unconscious realism. it must be remembered that when the second battalion of the rifles joined moore's forces at sahagun they were worn out with long marches, and the fame of roliça and vimiero lay upon them. moore's forces had up to that time seen no fighting, and still carried in face and uniform something of the freshness of barrack life:-- "at sahagun we fell in with the army under command of sir john moore. i forget how many thousand men there were; but they were lying in and around the town when we arrived. the rifles marched to an old convent, some two miles from sahagun, where we were quartered, together with a part of the th hussars, some of the welsh fusiliers, and straggling bodies of men belonging to various other regiments, all seeming on the _qui vive_, and expecting the french to fall in with them every hour. as our small and wayworn party came to a halt before the walls of the convent, the men from these different regiments came swarming out to greet us, loudly cheering us as they rushed up and seized our hands. the difference in appearance between ourselves and these new-comers was indeed (just then) very great. they looked fresh from good quarters and good rations. their clothes and accoutrements were comparatively new and clean, and their cheeks ruddy with the glow of health and strength; whilst our men, on the contrary, were gaunt-looking, wayworn, and ragged; our faces burnt almost to the hue of an asiatic's by the sun, our accoutrements rent and torn, and many without even shoes to their feet. however, we had some work in us yet, and perhaps were in better condition for it than our more fresh-looking comrades." harris describes how, just before the retreat began, he was summoned at midnight to undertake, on somewhat alarming conditions, a very practical bit of preparation for the march:-- "in the middle of the night i remember, as well as if the sounds were at this moment in my ear, that my name was called out many times without my being completely awakened by the summons. from weariness and the weight of my knapsack and the quantity of implements i carried, i was at first quite unable to gain my legs; but when i did so i found that quarter-master surtees was the person who was thus disturbing my rest. "'come, be quick there, harris!' he said, as i picked my way by the light of the candle he held in his hand; 'look amongst the men, and rouse up all the shoemakers you have in the four companies. i have a job for them which must be done instantly.' "with some little trouble, and not a few curses from them as i stirred them up with the butt of my rifle, i succeeded in waking several of our snoring handicrafts; and the quarter-master bidding us instantly follow him, led the way to the very top of the convent stairs. passing then into a ruinous-looking apartment, along which we walked upon the rafters, there being no flooring, he stopped when he arrived at its farther extremity. here he proceeded to call our attention to a quantity of barrels of gunpowder lying beside a large heap of raw bullocks' hides. 'now, harris,' said he, 'keep your eyes open, and mind what you are about here. general craufurd orders you instantly to set to work and sew up every one of these barrels in the hides lying before you. you are to sew the skins with the hair outwards, and be quick about it, for the general swears that if the job is not finished in half-an-hour he will hang you.' "the latter part of this order was anything but pleasant, and whether the general ever really gave it i never had an opportunity of ascertaining. well knowing the stuff craufurd was made of, i received the candle from the hands of surtees, and bidding the men get needles and waxed thread from their knapsacks, as the quarter-master withdrew, i instantly prepared to set about the job. "i often think of that night's work as i sit strapping away in my little shop in richmond street, soho. it was a curious scene to look at, and the task neither very easy nor safe. the riflemen were wearied, unwilling, and out of temper; and it was as much as i could do to get them to assist me. moreover, they were so reckless that they seemed rather to wish to blow the convent into the air than to get on with their work. one moment the candle was dropped and nearly extinguished; the next they lost their implements between the rafters of the floor, flaring the light about amongst the barrels, and wishing, as i remonstrated with them, that the powder might ignite and blow me, themselves, and the general to ----. such were the riflemen of the peninsular war--daring, gallant, reckless fellows. i had a hard task to get the work safely finished; but at length between coaxing and bullying these dare-devils i managed to do so, and together we returned down the convent stairs; and, finding surtees awaiting us in the passage below, he reported to general craufurd that his order had been obeyed. after which we were permitted again to lie down and sleep till the bugle awoke us next morning." the exact moment when the advance for the purpose of falling on soult was exchanged for retreat at speed before napoleon's fiercely converging columns to the sea-coast is dramatically marked in harris's "recollections." from the first, it will be noted, the retreat was pushed with the utmost sternness and energy, and at the cost of great suffering to the men. moore had daringly advanced till his scanty columns were almost caught by the overwhelming forces of the french closing upon him; and to escape destruction the british had to tax their own strength and energy to the utmost:-- "general craufurd was in command of the brigade, and riding in front, when i observed a dragoon come spurring furiously along the road to meet us. he delivered a letter to the general, who turned round in his saddle the moment he had read a few lines, and thundered out the word 'to halt!' a few minutes more and we were all turned to the right-about, and retracing our steps of the night before--the contents of that epistle serving to furnish our men with many a surmise during the retrograde movement. when we again neared sahagun, i remember seeing the wives and children of the men come rushing into the ranks, and embracing the husbands and fathers they expected never to see again. "the entire rifle corps entered the same convent we had before been quartered in; but this time we remained enranked in its apartments and passages, no man being allowed to quit his arms or lie down. we stood leaning upon the muzzles of our rifles, and dozed as we stood. after remaining thus for about an hour, we were then ordered out of the convent, and the word was again given to march. there was a sort of thaw on this day, and the rain fell fast. as we passed the walls of the convent, i observed our general (craufurd) as he sat upon his horse, looking at us on the march, and remarked the peculiar sternness of his features; he did not like to see us going rearwards at all, and many of us judged there must be something wrong, by his severe look and scowling eye. "'keep your ranks there, men!' he said, spurring his horse towards some riflemen who were avoiding a small rivulet. 'keep your ranks and move on--no straggling from the main body.' "we pushed on all that day without halting; and i recollect the first thing that struck us as somewhat odd was our passing one of the commissariat waggons, overturned and stuck fast in the mud, and which was abandoned without an effort to save any of its contents. a sergeant of the nd highlanders, just about this time, fell dead with fatigue, and no one stopped as we passed to offer him any assistance. night came down upon us, without our having tasted food or halted--i speak for myself and those around me--and all night long we continued this dreadful march. men began to look into each other's faces, and ask the question, 'are we ever to be halted again?' and many of the weaker sort were now seen to stagger, make a few desperate efforts, and then fall, perhaps to rise no more. most of us had devoured all we carried in our haversacks, and endeavoured to catch up anything we could snatch from hut or cottage in our route. many, even at this period, would have straggled from the ranks and perished had not craufurd held them together with a firm rein. one such bold and stern commander in the east, during a memorable disaster, and that devoted army had reached its refuge unbroken! thus we staggered on night and day for about four days, before we discovered the reason of this continued forced march. the discovery was made to our company by a good-tempered, jolly fellow, named patrick mclauchlan. he inquired of an officer marching directly in his front, the destination intended. "'by j--s! musther hills,' i heard him say, 'where the d--l is this you're taking us to?' "'to england, mclauchlan,' returned the officer, with a melancholy smile upon his face as he gave the answer--'if we can get there.'" the rifles formed part of the rearguard, and to the hardships and sufferings common to the whole retreating force was added, in their case, the strain of constant engagement with the enemy. as a matter of fact, this served as a tonic to the men. it preserved their discipline. it gave them what they felt to be a delightful distraction from the monotony of splashing wet, hungry and faint, along muddy roads. they forgot the blinding rain, the eddying snowflakes, the pinch of hunger, as they turned a score of times in the day at bay and drove back with the roll of their volleys the pursuing french cavalry. here are some pictures of how a british rearguard bears itself in adverse circumstances:-- "the information mclauchlan obtained from lieutenant hill quickly spread amongst us, and we now began to see more clearly the horrors of our situation, and the men to murmur at not being permitted to turn and stand at bay, cursing the french, and swearing they would rather die ten thousand deaths, with their rifles in their hands in opposition, than endure the present toil. we were in the rear at this time, and following that part of the army which made for vigo, whilst the other portion of the british, being on the main road to corunna, were at this moment closely pursued and harassed by the enemy, as i should judge from the continued thunder of their cannon and rattle of their musketry. craufurd seemed to sniff the sound of battle from afar with peculiar feelings. he halted us for a few minutes occasionally, when the distant clamour became more distinct, and his face turned towards the sound, and seemed to light up and become less stern. it was then, indeed, that every poor fellow clutched his weapon more firmly and wished for a sight of the enemy. "before long they had their wish: the enemy's cavalry were on our skirts that night; and as we rushed out of a small village, the name of which i cannot now recollect, we turned to bay. behind broken-down carts and tumbrils, huge trunks of trees, and everything we could scrape together, the rifles lay and blazed away at the advancing cavalry. "we passed the night thus engaged, holding our own as well as we could. towards morning we moved down towards a small bridge, still followed by the enemy, whom, however, we had sharply galled, and obliged to be more wary in their efforts. the rain was pouring down in torrents on this morning, i recollect, and we remained many hours with our arms ported, standing in this manner, and staring the french cavalry in the face, the water actually running out of the muzzles of our rifles. i do not recollect seeing a single regiment of infantry amongst the french force on this day; it seemed to me a tremendous body of cavalry--some said nine or ten thousand strong--commanded, as i heard, by general lefebvre. "whilst we stood thus, face to face, i remember the horsemen of the enemy sat watching us very intently, as if waiting for a favourable moment to dash upon us like beasts of prey; and every now and then their trumpets would ring out a lively strain of music as if to encourage them. as the night drew on, our cavalry moved a little to the front, together with several field-pieces, and succeeded in crossing the bridge; after which we also advanced and threw ourselves into some hilly ground on either side the road; whilst the rd and nd lay behind some carts, trunks of trees, and other materials with which they had formed a barrier. "general craufurd was standing behind this barricade, when he ordered the rifles to push still farther in front, and conceal themselves amongst the hills on either side. a man named higgins was my front-rank man at this moment. 'harris,' he said, 'let you and i gain the very top of the mountain, and look out what those french thieves are at on the other side.' "my feet were sore and bleeding, and the sinews of my legs ached as if they would burst, but i resolved to accompany him. in our wearied state the task was not easy, but, by the aid of higgins, a tall and powerful fellow, i managed to reach the top of the mountain, where we placed ourselves in a sort of gully or ditch, and looked over to the enemy's side, concealing ourselves by lying flat in the ditch as we did so. thus, in favourable situations, like cats watching for their prey, were the rest of the rifles lying perdu upon the hills that night. the mountain we found was neither so steep nor so precipitous on the enemy's side. the ascent, on the contrary, was so easy that one or two of the videttes of the french cavalry were prowling about very near where we lay. as we had received orders not to make more noise than we could help, not even to speak to each other, except in whispers, although one of these horsemen approached close to where i lay, i forbore to fire upon him. "at length he stopped so near me that i saw it was almost impossible he could avoid discovering that the rifles were in such close proximity to his person. he gazed cautiously along the ridge, took off his helmet, and wiped his face, as he appeared to meditate upon the propriety of crossing the ditch in which we lay, when suddenly our eyes met, and in an instant he plucked a pistol from his holster, fired it in my face, and, wheeling his horse, plunged down the hillside. for the moment i thought i was hit, as the ball grazed my neck, and stuck fast in my knapsack, where i found it, when, many days afterwards, i unpacked my kit on shipboard. about a quarter of an hour after this, as we still lay in the gully, i heard some person clambering up behind us, and, upon turning quickly round, i found it was general craufurd. the general was wrapped in his greatcoat, and, like ourselves, had been for many hours drenched to the skin, for the rain was coming down furiously. he carried in his hand a canteen full of rum and a small cup, with which he was occasionally endeavouring to refresh some of the men. he offered me a drink as he passed, and then proceeded onwards along the ridge. after he had emptied his canteen, he came past us again, and himself gave us instructions as to our future proceedings. "'when all is ready, riflemen,' said he, 'you will immediately get the word, and pass over the bridge. be careful, and mind what you are about.' "accordingly, a short time after he had left us, we were ordered to descend the mountain side in single file, and having gained the road, were quickly upon the bridge. meanwhile the staff corps had been hard at work mining the very centre of the structure, which was filled with gunpowder, a narrow plank being all the aid we had by which to pass over. for my own part, i was now so utterly helpless that i felt as if all was nearly up with me, and that, if i could steady myself so as to reach the farther end of the plank, it would be all i should be able to accomplish. however, we managed all of us to reach the other side in safety, when, almost immediately afterwards, the bridge blew up with a tremendous report, and a house at its extremity burst into flames. what with the concussion of the explosion and the tremulous state of my limbs, i was thrown to the ground, and lay flat upon my face for some time, almost in a state of insensibility. after a while i somewhat recovered; but it was not without extreme difficulty, and many times falling again, that i succeeded in regaining the column. "soon after i had done so, we reached benevento, and immediately took refuge in a convent. already three parts of it were filled with other troops, among which were mingled the th hussars, the german legion, and the th dragoons; the horses of these regiments standing as close as they could stand, with the men dismounted between each horse, the animals' heads to the walls of the building, and all in readiness to turn out on the instant. liquor was handed to us by the dragoons, but having had nothing for some time to eat, many of our men became sick instead of receiving any benefit from it. "before we had been in the convent as long a time as i have been describing our arrival, every man of us was down on the floor, and well nigh asleep; and before we had slept half-an-hour, we were again aroused from our slumbers by the clatter of the horses, the clash of the men's sabres, and their shouts for us to clear the way. "'the enemy! the enemy!' i heard shouted out. "'clear the way, rifles! up, boys, and clear the way!' "in short, the dragoons hardly gave us time to rise before they were leading their horses amongst us, and getting out of the convent as fast as they could scamper, whilst we ourselves were not long in following their example. as we did so, we discovered that the french cavalry, having found the bridge blown up, had dashed into the stream and succeeded in crossing. our cavalry, however, quickly formed, and charged them in gallant style. "the shock of that encounter was tremendous to look upon, and we stood for some time enranked watching the combatants. the horsemen had it all to themselves; our dragoons fought like tigers, and, although greatly over-matched, drove the enemy back like a torrent, and forced them again into the river. a private of the th hussars--his name, i think, was franklin--dashed into the stream after their general (lefebvre), assailed him, sword in hand, in the water, captured, and brought him a prisoner on shore again. if i remember rightly, franklin, or whatever else was his name, was made a sergeant on the spot. the french general was delivered into our custody on that occasion, and we cheered the men heartily as we received him. "after the enemy had received this check from our cavalry, and which considerably damped their ardour, making them a trifle more shy of us for a while, we pushed onwards on our painful march. i remember marching close beside the french general during some part of this day, and observing his chapfallen and dejected look as he rode along in the midst of the green jackets." in spite of all his own sufferings, harris was still able to note, with an unconsciously artistic eye, the scenes--wild, tragic, and picturesque--which the retreat afforded:-- "being constantly in rear of the main body, the scenes of distress and misery i witnessed were dreadful to contemplate, particularly amongst the women and children, who were lagging and falling behind, their husbands and fathers being in the main body in our front. we came to the edge of a deep ravine, the descent so steep and precipitous, that it was impossible to keep our feet in getting down, and we were sometimes obliged to sit and slide along on our backs; whilst before us rose a ridge of mountains quite as steep and difficult of ascent. there was, however, no pause in our exertion, but, slinging our rifles round our necks, down the hill we went; whilst mules with the baggage on their backs, wearied and urged beyond their strength, were seen rolling from top to bottom, many of them breaking their necks with the fall, and the baggage crushed, smashed, and abandoned. "i remember as i descended this hill remarking the extraordinary sight afforded by the thousands of our redcoats, who were creeping like snails, and toiling up the ascent before us, their muskets slung round their necks, and clambering with both hands as they hauled themselves up. as soon as we ourselves had gained the ascent we were halted for a few minutes, in order to give us breath for another effort, and then onwards we moved again. "it is impossible for me to keep any account of time in this description, as i never exactly knew how many days and nights we marched; but i well know we kept on for many successive days and nights without rest, or much in the way of food. the long day found us still pushing on, and the night caused us no halt. "we pushed on still cursing the enemy for not again showing themselves, that we might revenge some of our present miseries upon their heads. "'why don't they come on like men,' they cried, 'whilst we've strength left in us to fight them?' "we were now upon the mountains; the night was bitter cold, and the snow falling fast. as day broke, i remember hearing lieutenant hill say to another officer (who, by the way, afterwards sank down and died), 'this is new year's day; and i think if we live to see another we shall not easily forget it.' "the mountains were now becoming more wild-looking and steep as we proceeded, whilst those few huts we occasionally passed seemed so utterly forlorn and wretched-looking, it appeared quite a wonder how human beings could live in so desolate a home. after the snow commenced the hills became so slippery (being in many parts covered with ice), that several of our men frequently slipped and fell, and being unable to rise, gave themselves up to despair and died. there was now no endeavour to assist one another after a fall; it was every one for himself, and god for us all! "the enemy, i should think, were at this time frequently close upon our trail; and i thought at times i heard their trumpets come down the wind as we marched. towards the dusk of the evening of this day i remember passing a man and woman lying clasped in each other's arms, and dying in the snow. i knew them both, but it was impossible to help them. they belonged to the rifles and were man and wife. the man's name was joseph sitdown. during this retreat, as he had not been in good health previously, himself and wife had been allowed to get on in the best way they could in the front. they had, however, now given in, and the last we ever saw of poor sitdown and his wife was on that night lying perishing in each other's arms in the snow. "many trivial things which happened during the retreat to corunna, and which on any other occasion might have entirely passed from my memory, have been, as it were, branded into my remembrance, and i recollect the most trifling incidents which occurred from day to day during that march. i remember, amongst other matters, that we were joined, if i may so term it, by a young recruit, when such an addition was anything but wished for during the disasters of the hour. one of the men's wives (who was struggling forward in the ranks with us, presenting a ghastly picture of illness, misery, and fatigue), being very large in the family-way, towards evening stepped from amongst the crowd and laid herself down amidst the snow, a little out of the main road. her husband remained with her; and i heard one or two hasty observations amongst our men that they had taken possession of their last resting-place. the enemy were, indeed, not far behind at this time, the night was coming down, and their chance seemed in truth but a bad one. "to remain behind the column of march in such weather was to perish, and we accordingly soon forgot all about them. to my surprise, however, i some little time afterwards (being myself then in the rear of our party) again saw the woman. she was hurrying with her husband after us, and in her arms she carried the babe she had just given birth to. her husband and herself between them managed to carry that infant to the end of the retreat, where we embarked. god tempers the wind, it is said, to the shorn lamb, and many years afterwards i saw that boy a strong and healthy lad. the woman's name was m'guire, a sturdy and hardy irishwoman; and lucky was it for herself and babe that she was so, as that night of cold and sleet was in itself sufficient to try the constitution of most females. i lost sight of her, i recollect, on this night when the darkness came upon us, but with the dawn, to my surprise she was still amongst us." chapter v stern scenes the sufferings of the retreat steadily increased. the weather grew more bitter, the country more difficult, the supply of food scantier. under the strain of incessant marching, the strength of the men gave way. all were ragged and hungry; many were bare-footed; many were sick, racked with coughs, shaken with ague, or burning with fever. their discipline seemed to go to pieces. nothing survived but a spirit of dogged, sullen courage that seized, with a thrill of something like fierce delight, every opportunity of turning on their relentless pursuers:-- "the shoes and boots of our party were now mostly either destroyed or useless to us, from foul roads and long miles, and many of the men were entirely bare-footed, with knapsacks and accoutrements altogether in a dilapidated state. the officers were also, for the most part, in as miserable a plight. they were pallid, wayworn, their feet bleeding, and their faces overgrown with beards of many days' growth. what a contrast did our corps display, even at this period of the retreat, to my remembrance of them on the morning their dashing appearance captivated my fancy in ireland! many of the poor fellows, now near sinking with fatigue, reeled as if in a state of drunkenness, and altogether i thought we looked the ghosts of our former selves; still we held on resolutely. our officers behaved nobly, and craufurd was not to be daunted by long miles, fatigue, or foul weather. many a man in that retreat caught courage from his stern eye and gallant bearing. indeed, i do not think the world ever saw a more perfect soldier than general craufurd. "as the day began to dawn, we passed through another village--a long, straggling place. the houses were all closed at this early hour, and the inhabitants mostly buried in sleep, and, i dare say, unconscious of the armed thousands who were pouring through their silent streets. when about a couple of miles from this village, craufurd again halted us for about a quarter of an hour. it appeared to me that, with returning daylight, he wished to have a good look at us this morning, for he mingled amongst the men as we stood leaning upon our rifles, gazing earnestly in our faces as he passed, in order to judge of our plight by our countenances. he himself appeared anxious, but full of fire and spirit, occasionally giving directions to the different officers, and then speaking words of encouragement to the men. it is my pride now to remember that general craufurd seldom omitted a word in passing to myself. on this occasion, he stopped in the midst and addressed a few words to me, and, glancing down at my feet, observed-- "'what! no shoes, harris, i see, eh?' "'none, sir,' i replied; 'they have been gone many days back.' he smiled, and passing on spoke to another man, and so on through the whole body. "craufurd was, i remember, terribly severe during this retreat, if he caught anything like pilfering amongst the men. as we stood, however, during this short halt, a very tempting turnip field was close on the side of us, and several of the men were so ravenous, that although he was in our very ranks, they stepped into the field and helped themselves to the turnips, devouring them like famishing wolves. he either did not or would not observe the delinquency this time, and soon afterwards gave the word and we moved on once more. "about this period i remember another sight, which i shall not to my dying day forget; and it causes me a sore heart even now as i remember it. soon after our halt beside the turnip field the screams of a child near me caught my ear, and drew my attention to one of our women, who was endeavouring to drag along a little boy of about seven or eight years of age. the poor child was apparently completely exhausted, and his legs falling under him. the mother had occasionally, up to this time, been assisted by some of the men, taking it in turn to help the little fellow on; but now all further appeal was in vain. no man had more strength than was necessary for the support of his own carcass, and the mother could no longer raise the child in her arms, as her reeling pace too plainly showed. still, however, she continued to drag the child along with her. it was a pitiable sight, and wonderful to behold the efforts the poor woman made to keep the boy amongst us. at last the little fellow had not even strength to cry, but, with mouth wide open, stumbled onwards, until both sank down to rise no more. the poor woman herself had, for some time, looked a moving corpse, and when the shades of evening came down, they were far behind amongst the dead or dying in the road." hunger and desperation sometimes tempted even the veterans of the rifles to leave the ranks in the hope of discovering, in some fold of the lonely asturian hills, a shepherd's hut, or a little farmhouse, where food might be got at and an hour's shelter enjoyed. harris describes one such adventure undertaken by himself:-- "towards evening we came to a part of the country of a yet wilder and more desolate appearance even than that we had already traversed; a dreary wilderness it appeared at this inclement season, and our men, spite of the vigilance of the general, seemed many of them resolved to stray into the open country rather than traverse the road before them. the coming night favoured their designs, and many were before morning lost to us through their own wilfulness. amongst others i found myself completely bewildered and lost upon the heath, and should doubtless have perished had i not fallen in with another of our corps in the same situation. as soon as we recognised each other i found my companion in adversity was a strapping resolute fellow named james brooks, a north of ireland man. he was afterwards killed at toulouse. he was delighted at having met with me, and we resolved not to desert each other during the night. brooks, as i have said, was a strong, active, and resolute fellow, as indeed i had on more occasions than one witnessed in portugal. at the present time his strength was useful to both of us. "'catch hold of my jacket, harris,' said he; 'the ground here is soft, and we must help each other to-night or we shall be lost in the bogs.' "before long that which brooks feared happened, and he found himself stuck so fast in the morass that although i used my best efforts to draw him out i only shared in the same disaster, so that, leaving him, i turned and endeavoured to save my own life if possible, calling to him to follow before he sank over head and ears. this was an unlucky chance in our wearied state, as the more we floundered in the dark, not knowing which way to gain a firmer foundation, the faster we fixed ourselves. poor brooks was so disheartened that he actually blubbered like a child. at length, during a pause in our exertions, i thought i heard something like the bark of a dog come down the wind. i bade brooks listen, and we both distinctly heard it--the sound gave us new hope just as we were about to abandon ourselves to our fate. i advised brooks to lay himself as flat as he could and drag himself out of the slough, as i had found some hard tufts of grass in the direction i tried; and so, by degrees, we gained a firmer footing, and eventually succeeded in extricating ourselves, though in such an exhausted state that for some time we lay helplessly upon the ground unable to proceed. "at length, with great caution, we ventured to move forwards in the direction of the sounds we had just heard. we found, however, that our situation was still very perilous, for in the darkness we hardly dared to move a step in any direction without probing the ground with our rifles, lest we should again sink and be eventually smothered in the morasses we had strayed amongst. on a sudden, however, as we carefully felt our way, we heard voices shouting in the distance, and calling out 'men lost! men lost!' which we immediately concluded were the cries of some of our own people who were situated like ourselves. "after a while i thought i saw, far away, something like a dancing light, which seemed to flicker about, vanish, and reappear, similar to a jack-o'-lantern. i pointed it out to brooks, and we agreed to alter our course and move towards it. as we did so the light seemed to approach us and grow larger. presently another and another appeared, like small twinkling stars, till they looked something like the lamps upon one of our london bridges as seen from afar. the sight revived our spirits, more especially as we could now distinctly hear the shouts of people who appeared in search of the stragglers, and as they approached us we perceived that such was indeed the case. the lights, we now discovered, were furnished by bundles of straw and dried twigs tied on the ends of long poles and dipped in tar. they were borne in the hands of several spanish peasants, from a village near at hand, whom craufurd had thus sent to our rescue. "to return to my own adventures on this night. when brooks and myself reached the village i have mentioned we found it filled with soldiers, standing and lying huddled together like cattle in a fair. a most extraordinary sight it appeared as the torches of the peasants flashed upon the wayworn and gaunt figures of our army. the rain was coming down, too, on this night, i remember; and soon after i reached our corps i fell helplessly to the ground in a miserable plight. brooks was himself greatly exhausted, but he behaved nobly, and remained beside me, trying to persuade some of our men to assist him in lifting me up, and gaining shelter in one of the houses at hand. 'may i be ----!' i heard him say, 'if i leave harris to be butchered in the streets by the cowardly spaniards the moment our division leaves the town.' "at length brooks succeeded in getting a man to help him, and together they supported me into the passage of a house, where i lay upon the floor for some time. after a while, by the help of some wine they procured, i rallied and sat up, till eventually i got once more upon my legs, and, arm in arm, we proceeded again into the streets and joined our corps. poor brooks certainly saved my life that night. he was one of the many good fellows whom i have seen out, and i often think of him with feelings of gratitude as i sit at my work in richmond street, soho." there were certainly not many men, even in craufurd's rearguard, stronger in body or hardier in temper than harris, yet at last even his iron strength and dauntless energy failed him. he began to lag behind, making occasional and desperate rallies to keep up with his battalion. he says:-- "i remember sir dudley hill passing me on a mule this day. he wore a spanish straw hat and had his cloak on. he looked back when he had passed, and addressed me: 'harris,' said he, 'i see you cannot keep up.' he appeared sorry for me, for he knew me well. 'you must do your best,' he said, 'my man, and keep with us, or you will fall into the hands of the enemy.' as the day wore on i grew weaker and weaker, and at last, in spite of all my efforts, i saw the main body leave me hopelessly in the lurch. brooks himself was getting weaker too; he saw it was of little use to urge me on, and at length, assenting to my repeated request to be left behind, he hurried on as well as he was able without a word of farewell. i now soon sank down in the road and lay beside another man who had also fallen and was apparently dead, and whom i recognised as one of our sergeants. "whilst we lay exhausted in the road the rearguard, which was now endeavouring to drive on the stragglers, approached, and a sergeant of the rifles came up and stopped to look at us. he addressed himself to me, and ordered me to rise; but i told him it was useless for him to trouble himself about me as i was unable to move a step farther. whilst he was urging me to endeavour to rise up, the officer in command of the rearguard also stepped up. the name of this officer was lieutenant cox; he was a brave and good man, and observing that the sergeant was rough in his language and manner towards me, he silenced him and bade the guard proceed and leave me. 'let him die quietly, hicks,' he said to the sergeant. 'i know him well; he's not the man to lie here if he could get on. i am sorry, harris,' he said, 'to see you reduced to this, for i fear there is no help to be had now.' he then moved on after his men, and left me to my fate. "after lying still for a while, i felt somewhat restored and sat up to look about me. the sight was by no means cheering. on the road behind me i saw men, women, mules, and horses lying at intervals, both dead and dying; whilst far away in front i could just discern the enfeebled army crawling out of sight, the women[ ] huddled together in its rear, trying their best to get forward amongst those of the sick soldiery, who were now unable to keep up with the main body. after a while i found that my companion, the sergeant, who lay beside me, had also recovered a little, and i tried to cheer him up. i told him that opposite to where we were lying there was a lane, down which we might possibly find some place of shelter if we could muster strength to explore it. the sergeant consented to make the effort, but after two or three attempts to rise, gave it up. i myself was more fortunate; with the aid of my rifle i got upon my legs, and seeing death in my companion's face, i resolved to try and save myself, since it was quite evident to me that i could render him no assistance. "after hobbling some distance down the lane, to my great joy i espied a small hut or cabin with a little garden in its front; i therefore opened the small door of the hovel, and was about to enter when i considered that most likely i should be immediately knocked on the head by the inmates if i did so. the rain, i remember, was coming down in torrents at this time, and, reflecting that to remain outside was but to die, i resolved at all events to try my luck within. i had not much strength left, but i resolved to sell myself as dearly as i could. i therefore brought up my rifle and stepped across the threshold. as soon as i had done so i observed an old woman seated beside a small fire upon the hearth. she turned her head as i entered, and immediately upon seeing a strange soldier, she arose and filled the hovel with her screams. as i drew back within the doorway an elderly man, followed by two, who were apparently his sons, rushed from a room in the interior. they immediately approached me; but i brought up my rifle again and cocked it, bidding them keep their distance. "after i had thus brought them to a parley i got together what little spanish i was master of, and begged for shelter for the night and a morsel of food, at the same time lifting my feet and displaying them a mass of bleeding sores. it was not, however, till they had held a tolerably long conversation among themselves that they consented to afford me shelter, and then only upon the condition that i left by daylight on the following morning. i accepted the conditions with joy. had they refused me i should indeed not have been here to tell the tale. knowing the treachery of the spanish character, i however refused to relinquish possession of my rifle, and my right hand was ready in an instant to unsheath my bayonet, as they sat and stared at me whilst i devoured the food they offered. "all they gave me was some coarse black bread, and a pitcher of sour wine. it was, however, acceptable to a half-famished man; and i felt greatly revived by it. whilst i supped, the old hag, who sat close beside the hearth, stirred up the embers, that they might have a better view of their guest, and the party meanwhile overwhelmed me with questions, which i could neither comprehend nor had strength to answer. i soon made signs to them that i was unable to maintain the conversation, and begged of them, as well as i could, to show me some place where i might lay my wearied limbs till dawn. "notwithstanding the weariness which pervaded my whole body, i was unable for some time to sleep except by fitful snatches, such was the fear i entertained of having my throat cut by the savage-looking wretches still seated before the fire. besides which, the place they had permitted me to crawl into was more like an oven than anything else, and being merely a sort of berth scooped out of the wall, was so filled with fleas and other vermin, that i was stung and tormented most miserably all night long. "bad as they had been, however, i felt somewhat restored by my lodging and supper, and with the dawn i crawled out of my lair, left the hut; retraced my steps along the lane, and once more emerged upon the high-road, where i found my companion, the sergeant, dead, and lying where i had left him the night before. "i now made the best of my way along the road in the direction in which i had last seen our army retreating the night before. a solitary individual, i seemed left behind amongst those who had perished. it was still raining, i remember, on this morning, and the very dead looked comfortless in their last sleep as i passed them occasionally lying on the line of march. it had pleased heaven to give me an iron constitution, or i must have failed, i think, on this day, for the solitary journey and the miserable spectacles i beheld rather damped my spirits. "after progressing some miles, i came up with a cluster of poor devils who were still alive, but apparently, both men and women, unable to proceed. they were sitting huddled together in the road, their heads drooping forward, and apparently patiently awaiting their end. "soon after passing these unfortunates, i overtook a party who were being urged forward under charge of an officer of the nd highlanders. he was pushing them along pretty much as a drover would keep together a tired flock of sheep. they presented a curious example of a retreating force. many of them had thrown away their weapons, and were linked together arm-in-arm, in order to support each other, like a party of drunkards. they were, i saw, composed of various regiments; many were bareheaded and without shoes, and some with their heads tied up in old rags and fragments of handkerchiefs. i marched in company with this party for some time, but as i felt after my night's lodging and refreshment in better condition, i ventured to push forward, in the hope of rejoining the main body, and which i once more came up with in the street of a village. "on falling in with the rifles, i again found brooks, who was surprised at seeing me still alive, and we both entered a house, and begged for something to drink. i remember that i had a shirt upon my back at this time, which i had purchased of a drummer of the th regiment before the commencement of the retreat. it was the only good one i had. i stripped, with the assistance of brooks, and took it off, and exchanged it with a spanish woman for a loaf of bread, which brooks, myself, and two other men, shared amongst us. "i remember to have again remarked craufurd at this period of the retreat. he was in no whit altered in his desire to keep the force together, i thought; but, still active and vigilant as ever, he seemed to keep his eye upon those who were now most likely to hold out. i myself marched during many hours close beside him this day. he looked stern and pale, but the very picture of a warrior. i shall never forget craufurd if i live to a hundred years, i think. he was in everything a soldier. "slowly and dejectedly crawled our army along. their spirit of endurance was now considerably worn out, and, judging from my own sensations, i felt confident that, if the sea was much farther from us, we must be content to come to a halt at last without gaining it. i felt something like the approach of death as i proceeded--a sort of horror, mixed up with my sense of illness; a reeling i have never experienced before or since. still i held on; but with all my efforts, the main body again left me behind. had the enemy's cavalry come up at this time i think they would have had little else to do but ride us down without striking a blow." at last the great retreat, with its horrors and sufferings, drew to a close. the sea was reached, and not even xenophon's ten thousand, as they caught from some hill summit the purple gleam of the far-off sea, knew a keener delight than did craufurd's bare-footed, famine-wasted veterans. says harris:-- "it is astonishing how man clings to life. i am certain that had i lain down at this period, i should have found my last billet on the spot i sank upon. suddenly i heard a shout in front, which was prolonged in a sort of hubbub. even the stragglers whom i saw dotting the road in front of me seemed to have caught at something like hope; and as the poor fellows now reached the top of a hill we were ascending, i heard an occasional exclamation of joy--the first note of the sort i had heard for many days. when i reached the top of the hill the thing spoke for itself. there, far away in our front, the english shipping lay in sight. "its view had indeed acted like a restorative to our force, and the men, at the prospect of a termination to the march, had plucked up spirit for a last effort. fellows who, like myself, seemed to have hardly strength in their legs to creep up the ascent, seemed now to have picked up a fresh pair to get down with. such is hope to us poor mortals! "as we proceeded down the hill we now met with the first symptoms of the good feeling from the inhabitants it was our fortune to experience during our retreat. a number of old women stood on either side of the road, and occasionally handed us fragments of bread as we passed them. it was on this day, and whilst i looked anxiously upon the english shipping in the distance, that i first began to find my eyesight failing, and it appeared to me that i was fast growing blind. the thought was alarming, and i made desperate efforts to get on. bell, however, won the race this time. he was a very athletic and strong-built fellow, and left me far behind, so that i believe at that time i was the very last of the retreating force that reached the beach, though, doubtless, many stragglers came dropping up after the ships had sailed, and were left behind. "as it was, when i did manage to gain the seashore, it was only by the aid of my rifle that i could stand, and my eyes were now so dim and heavy that with difficulty i made out a boat, which seemed the last that had put off. "fearful of being left half blind in the lurch, i took off my cap, and placed it on the muzzle of my rifle as a signal, for i was totally unable to call out. luckily, lieutenant cox, who was aboard the boat, saw me and ordered the men to return, and making one more effort i walked into the water, and a sailor, stretching his body over the gunwale, seized me as if i had been an infant and hauled me on board. his words were characteristic of the english sailor, i thought. "'hullo, there, you lazy lubber!' he said, as he grasped hold of me, 'who the ---- do you think is to stay hum-bugging all day for such a fellow as you?'" here is harris's description of how, after a stormy passage, the transports reached the english coast, and the wrecks of moore's gallant battalions were allowed to land:-- "after remaining off spithead for about five or six days, one fine morning we received orders to disembark, and our poor bare feet once more touched english ground. the inhabitants flocked down to the beach to see us as we did so, and they must have been a good deal surprised at the spectacle we presented. our beards were long and ragged; almost all were without shoes and stockings; many had their clothes and accoutrements in fragments, with their heads swathed in old rags, and our weapons were covered with rust; whilst not a few had now from toil and fatigue become quite blind. "let not the reader, however, think that even now we were to be despised as soldiers. long marches, inclement weather, and want of food had done their work upon us; but we were perhaps better than we appeared, as the sequel showed. under the gallant craufurd we had made some tremendous marches, and even galled our enemies severely, making good our retreat by the way of vigo. but our comrades in adversity, and who had retired by the other road to corunna, under general moore, turned to bay there, and showed the enemy that the english soldier is not to be beaten even under the most adverse circumstances. "the field of death and slaughter, the march, the bivouac, and the retreat, are no bad places in which to judge of men. i have had some opportunities of judging them in all these situations, and i should say that the british are amongst the most splendid soldiers in the world. give them fair-play, and they are unconquerable. for my own part, i can only say that i enjoyed life more whilst on active service than i have ever done since; and as i sit at my work in my shop in richmond street, soho, i look back upon that portion of my time spent in the fields of the peninsula as the only part worthy of remembrance. it is at such times that scenes long past come back upon my mind as if they had taken place but yesterday. i remember even the very appearance of some of the regiments engaged; and comrades, long mouldered to dust, i see again performing the acts of heroes." harris gives a bit of dreadful arithmetic, which shows the losses sustained in the retreat:-- "after the disastrous retreat to corunna, the rifles were reduced to a sickly skeleton, if i may so term it. out of perhaps nine hundred of as active and fine fellows as ever held a weapon in the field of an enemy's country, we paraded some three hundred weak and crestfallen invalids. "i myself stood the third man in my own company, which was reduced from near a hundred men to but three. indeed, i think we had scarce a company on parade stronger than ten or twelve men at the first parade. after a few parades, however, our companies gradually were augmented by those of the sick who recovered, but many of those who did not sink in hospital were never more of much service as soldiers." footnotes: [footnote : some of these poor wretches cut a ludicrous figure, having the men's greatcoats buttoned over their heads, whilst their clothing, being extremely ragged and scanty, their naked legs were very conspicuous. they looked a tribe of travelling beggars.] chapter vi some famous soldiers harris's "recollections" abound in what may be called thumb-nail sketches of his comrades and his officers. he had a quick eye for character as well as for incident; and his descriptions are always interesting and often very amusing. harris was naturally more interested, perhaps, in his comrades than in his officers and his generals. he was closer to them and understood them better. yet he gives some sharply-drawn pictures of famous british battle-leaders as they were seen by the eyes of the men whom they led. here, for example, is a picture of general--afterwards lord--hill, just before the battle of roliça. "farmer" hill was his sobriquet amongst the men, and he owed that title as much to his homely and kindly spirit as to his red, broad, and farmer-like face. says harris:-- "we were pelting along through the streets of a village, the name of which i do not think i ever knew, so i cannot name it. i was in the front and had just cleared the village when i recollect observing general hill (afterwards lord hill) and another officer ride up to a house, and give their horses to some of the soldiery to hold. our bugles at that moment sounded the halt, and i stood leaning upon my rifle near the door of the mansion which general hill had entered; there was a little garden before the house, and i stood by the gate. whilst i remained there the officer who had entered with general hill came to the door and called to me. 'rifleman,' said he, 'come here.' i entered the gate and approached him. 'go,' he continued, handing me a dollar, 'and try if you can get some wine! for we are devilish thirsty here.' taking the dollar i made my way back to the village. at a wine-house, where the men were crowding around the door, and clamouring for drink (for the day was intensely hot), i succeeded, after some little difficulty, in getting a small pipkin full of wine, but the crowd was so great that i found as much trouble in paying for it as in getting it; so i returned back as fast as i was able, fearing that the general would be impatient, and move off before i reached him. "i remember lord hill was loosening his sword-belt as i handed him the wine. 'drink first, rifleman,' said he, and i took a good pull at the pipkin and held it to him again. he looked at it as i did so, and told me i might drink it all up, for it appeared greasy; so i swallowed the remainder, and handed him back the dollar which i had received from the officer. 'keep the money,' he said, 'my man. go back to the village once more and try if you cannot get me another draught.' saying this, he handed me a second dollar, and told me to be quick. i made my way back to the village, got another pipkin full, and returned as fast as i could. the general was pleased with my promptness, and drank with great satisfaction, handing the remainder to the officer who attended him; and i dare say, if he ever recollected the circumstance afterwards, that was as sweet a draught, after the toil of the morning march, as he has drunk at many a nobleman's board in old england since." of beresford, again--who, if he was not a great general, was at least a terrible fighter--harris gives an amusing sketch:-- "i remember a great many of the leaders and heroes of the wars of my own time. alas! they have been cleared off of late pretty handsomely! a few years more and the world will be without another living remembrancer of either them or their deeds. the ranks are getting thin, too, amongst those who, like myself, were the tools with which the great men of former days won their renown. i don't know a single living man now who was a comrade during the time i served. very nearly fifteen years back, i remember, however, meeting with robert liston, and that meeting brings marshal beresford to my mind. "robert liston was a corporal in the second battalion of the rifles, when we lay for a few days in the passages of a convent in portugal. we were then making for the frontiers of spain, when we were swept into that disastrous retreat to corunna. there was a punishment parade in the square of this convent. a soldier of the nd or th was the culprit, and the kilts were formed to witness the performance. some of the rifles were looking from the windows of the convent at the punishment of the highlander, when a brickbat was hurled from one of the casements and fell at the very toe of the lieutenant-colonel, who was standing in the midst, and in command of the regiment. the lieutenant-colonel (whose name i never knew) was, of course, indignant at such an act; he gazed up at the window from which the brick had been thrown, and caused an inquiry instantly to be made. it was between the lights when this happened, and it was impossible to discover who had done it; however, two or three men of the rifles were confined on suspicion. a man named baker flatly accused corporal liston of the act; upon which liston was marched a prisoner to salamanca (a distance, i should think, of some hundred miles); and often did he complain of his hard fate in being a prisoner so long. when we got to salamanca we halted there for eight days; and liston, being tried by general court-martial, was sentenced to receive eight hundred lashes. the whole brigade turned out on the occasion, and i remember that the drummers of the th regiment were the inflicters of the lash. liston received the whole sentence without a murmur. he had, indeed, been a good soldier, and we were all truly sorry for him; in fact, he always declared solemnly that he had no more to do with the brickbat than marshal beresford who commanded the brigade. whoever committed the act, in my opinion, well deserved what liston got. "marshal beresford was in command of the brigade at this time; and i well remember what a fine-looking soldier he was. he was equal to his business, too, i should say; and he, amongst others of our generals, often made me think that the french army had nothing to show in the shape of officers who could at all compare with ours. there was a noble bearing in our leaders, which they on the french side (as far as i was capable of observing) had not; and i am convinced that the english soldier is even better pleased to be commanded by some men of rank in his own country than by one who has risen from his own station. "they are a strange set, the english! and so determined and unconquerable, that they will have their way if they can. indeed, it requires one who has authority in his face, as well as at his back, to make them respect and obey him. "i never saw liston after that punishment whilst in spain; and i suppose he remained behind, and got on in the best manner he was able in the rear; but, about ten years afterwards, as i was passing down sloane street, chelsea, i observed a watchman calling the hour. it struck me that i knew his face, and, turning back, i stopped him, asking if he was not robert liston, formerly a corporal in the th rifles? after answering in the affirmative, the first words he spoke were, 'oh, harris! do you remember what happened to me at salamanca?' "'i do well,' i said. "'i was never guilty,' he continued. 'there is no occasion for me to deny it now; but i tell you that i was never guilty of the crime for which i suffered. baker was a villain, and i believe that he was himself the culprit.' "i recollect marshal beresford making a speech on the subject of the buttons of our greatcoats; and, however such a subject may appear trifling for a general officer to speak on, i can tell you it was a discourse which our men (some of them) much needed; for they had been in the habit of tearing off the buttons from their coats, and after hammering them flat, passing them as english coin, in exchange for the good wines of spain. so that, at last, the spaniards, finding they got nothing by the exchange but trumpery bits of battered lead, and the children in that country not being in the habit of playing at dumps as ours are, they made complaints to the marshal. halting the brigade, therefore, one day, he gave them a speech upon this fraud, and ended by promising a handsome flogging to the first man he found thereafter whose greatcoat would not keep buttoned in windy weather." of another yet more famous soldier, napier, we get an interesting glimpse in harris's pages:-- "i remember meeting with general napier before the battle of vimiero. he was then, i think, a major; and the meeting made so great an impression on me that i have never forgotten him. i was posted in a wood the night before the battle, in front of our army, where two roads crossed each other. the night was gloomy, and i was the very out-sentry of the british army. as i stood on my post, peering into the thick wood around me, i was aware of footsteps approaching, and challenged in a low voice. receiving no answer, i brought my rifle to the port, and bade the strangers come forward. they were major napier (then of the th foot, i think), and an officer of the rifles. the major advanced close up to me, and looked hard in my face. "'be alert here, sentry,' said he, 'for i expect the enemy upon us to-night, and i know not how soon.' "i was a young soldier then, and the lonely situation i was in, together with the impressive manner in which major napier delivered his caution, made a great impression on me, and from that hour i have never forgotten him. indeed, i kept careful watch all night, listening to the slightest breeze amongst the foliage, in expectation of the sudden approach of the french." of wellington himself--then sir arthur wellesley--we have a brief sketch at vimiero:-- "i remember seeing the duke of wellington during the battle of vimiero; and in these days, when so much anxiety is displayed to catch even a glance of that great man's figure as he gallops along the streets of london, it seems gratifying to me to recollect seeing him in his proper element, 'the raging and bloody field,' and i have frequently taxed my mind to remember each action and look i caught of him at that time. "i remember seeing the great duke take his hat off in the field of vimiero, and methinks it is something to have seen that wonderful man even do so commonplace a thing as lift his hat to another officer in the battle-field. we were generally enveloped in smoke and fire, and sometimes unable to distinguish or make remarks upon what was going on around, whilst we blazed away at our opponents; but occasionally we found time to make our comments upon the game we were playing. two or three fellows near me were observing what was going on just in the rear, and i heard one man remark, 'here comes sir arthur and his staff'; upon which i also looked back, and caught sight of him just meeting two other officers of high rank. they all uncovered as they met, and i saw the duke, as i said (then sir arthur wellesley), take off his hat and bow to the other two. the names of the new-comers, however they were learnt, whether from some of the men who had before seen them, or picked up on the instant from an officer, seemed to be well known, as well as the business they were engaged in talking of; for it ran along the line from one to the other that sir hew dalrymple and sir harry burrard were about to take the command, instead of sir arthur wellesley, a circumstance which, of course, could only be a random guess amongst these fellows at the moment." the real hero of harris's pages, however, is craufurd, the stern and even rashly heroic leader of the light division, who ended his career on the great breach at badajos. harris came into close contact with craufurd, studied him with a curious vividness of insight, and felt for him an admiring loyalty almost too great for words. his account of craufurd gives us what is very rare in literature--a description of a great commander by one of the privates who trudged in the battalions he commanded. harris, in the retreat to vigo, saw craufurd under conditions which might well tax to the uttermost the resources and temper of a general. "i do not think i ever admired any man who wore the british uniform more than i did general craufurd. i could fill a book with descriptions of him, for i frequently had my eye upon him in the hurry of action. it was gratifying to me, too, to think he did not altogether think ill of me, since he has often addressed me kindly when, from adverse circumstances, you might have thought that he had scarcely spirits to cheer up the men under him. the rifles liked him, but they also feared him, for he could be terrible when insubordination showed itself in the ranks. 'you think, because you are riflemen, you may do whatever you think proper,' said he one day to the miserable and savage-looking crew around him in the retreat to corunna; 'but i'll teach you the difference before i have done with you.' i remember one evening during the retreat he detected two men straying away from the main body; it was in the early stage of that disastrous flight, and craufurd knew well that he must do his utmost to keep the division together. he halted the brigade with a voice of thunder, ordered a drum-head court-martial on the instant, and they were sentenced to a hundred apiece. whilst this hasty trial was taking place, craufurd dismounting from his horse stood in the midst, looking stern and angry as a worried bulldog. he did not like retreating at all, that man. "the three men nearest him as he stood, were jagger, dan howans, and myself. all were worn, dejected, and savage, though nothing to what we were after a few days more of the retreat. the whole brigade were in a grumbling and discontented mood, and craufurd, doubtless, felt ill-pleased with the aspect of affairs altogether. "'d--n his eyes!' muttered howans, 'he had much better try to get us something to eat and drink than harass us in this way.' "no sooner had howans disburdened his conscience of this growl than craufurd, who had overheard it, turning sharply round, seized the rifle out of jagger's hand, and felled him to the earth with the butt-end. "'it was not i who spoke,' said jagger, getting up and shaking his head. 'you shouldn't knock me about.' "'i heard you, sir,' said craufurd, 'and i will bring you also to a court-martial.' "'i am the man who spoke,' said howans. 'ben jagger never said a word.' "'very well,' returned craufurd, 'then i'll try you, sir.' "and, accordingly, when the other affair was disposed of, howans's case came on. by the time the three men were tried it was too dark to inflict the punishment. howans, however, had got the complement of three hundred promised to him; so crauford gave the word to the brigade to move on. he marched all that night on foot, and when the morning dawned i remember that, like the rest of us, his hair, beard, and eyebrows were covered with the frost, as if he had grown white with age. we were, indeed, all of us in the same condition. scarcely had i time to notice the appearance of morning before the general once more called a halt--we were then on the hills. ordering a square to be formed, he spoke to the brigade, as well as i can remember, in these words, after having ordered the three before-named men of the th to be brought into the square:-- "'although,' said he, 'i should obtain the goodwill neither of the officers nor the men of the brigade here by so doing, i am resolved to punish these three men according to the sentence awarded, even though the french are at our heels. begin with daniel howans.' "this was indeed no time to be lax in discipline, and the general knew it. the men, as i said, were some of them becoming careless and ruffianly in their demeanour, whilst others again i saw with the tears falling down their cheeks from the agony of their bleeding feet, and many were ill with dysentery from the effects of the bad food they had got hold of and devoured on the road. our knapsacks, too, were a bitter enemy on this prolonged march. many a man died, i am convinced, who would have borne up well to the end of the retreat, but for the infernal load we carried on our backs. my own knapsack was my bitterest enemy; i felt it press me to the earth almost at times, and more than once felt as if i should die under its deadly embrace. the knapsacks, in my opinion, should have been abandoned at the very commencement of the retrograde movement, as it would have been better to have lost them altogether, if, by such loss, we could have saved the poor fellows who, as it was, died strapped to them on the road. "there was some difficulty in finding a place to tie howans up, as the light brigade carried no halberts. however, they led him to a slender ash tree which grew near at hand. "'don't trouble yourself about tying me up,' said howans, folding his arms, 'i'll take my punishment like a man!' "he did so without a murmur, receiving the whole three hundred. his wife, who was present with us, i remember, was a strong, hardy irishwoman. when it was over, she stepped up and covered howans with his grey greatcoat. the general then gave the word to move on. i rather think he knew the enemy was too near to punish the other two delinquents just then; so we proceeded out of the corn-field in which we had been halted, and toiled away upon the hills once more, howans's wife carrying the jacket, knapsack, and pouch, which the lacerated state of the man's back would not permit him to bear. "it could not have been, i should think, more than an hour after the punishment had been inflicted upon howans, when the general again gave the word for the brigade to halt, and once more formed them into a square. we had begun to suppose that he intended to allow the other two delinquents to escape, under the present difficulties and hardships of the retreat. he was not, however, one of the forgetful sort, when the discipline of the army under him made severity necessary. "'bring out the other two men of the th,' said he, 'who were tried last night.' "the men were brought forth accordingly, and their lieutenant-colonel, hamilton wade, at the same time stepped forth. he walked up to the general, and lowering his sword, requested that he would forgive these men, as they were both of them good soldiers, and had fought in all the battles of portugal. "'i order you, sir,' said the general, 'to do your duty. these men shall be punished.' "the lieutenant-colonel, therefore, recovering his sword, turned about, and fell back to the front of the rifles. one of the men, upon this (i think it was armstrong), immediately began to unstrap his knapsack, and prepare for the lash. craufurd had turned about meanwhile, and walked up to one side of the square. apparently he suddenly relented a little, and, again turning sharply around, returned towards the two prisoners. 'stop,' said he. 'in consequence of the intercession of your lieutenant-colonel, i will allow you thus much: you shall draw lots and the winner shall escape; but one of the two i am determined to make an example of.' "the square was formed in a stubble-field, and the sergeant-major of the rifles, immediately stooping down, plucked up two straws, and the men coming forward, drew. i cannot be quite certain, but i think it was armstrong who drew the longest straw, and won the safety of his hide; and his fellow-gamester was in quick time tied to a tree, and the punishment commenced. a hundred was the sentence; but when the bugler had counted seventy-five, the general granted him a further indulgence, and ordered him to be taken down and to join his company. the general calling for his horse, now mounted for the first time for many hours; for he had not ridden all night, not indeed since the drum-head court-martial had taken place. before he put the brigade in motion again, he gave us another short specimen of his eloquence, pretty much, i remember, after this style:-- "'i give you all notice,' said he, 'that i will halt the brigade again the very first moment i perceive any man disobeying my orders, and try him by court-martial on the spot.' he then gave us the word, and we resumed our march. "many who read this, especially in these peaceful times, may suppose this was a cruel and unnecessary severity under the dreadful and harassing circumstances of that retreat; but i, who was there, and was, besides, a common soldier of the very regiment to which these men belonged, say it was quite necessary. no man but one formed of stuff like general craufurd could have saved the brigade from perishing altogether; and if he flogged two, he saved hundreds from death by his management. "it was perhaps a couple of days after this had taken place that we came to a river. it was tolerably wide, but not very deep, which was just as well for us; for, had it been deep as the dark regions, we must have somehow or other got through. the avenger was behind us, and craufurd was along with us, and the two together kept us moving, whatever was in the road. accordingly, into the stream went the light brigade, and craufurd, as busy as a shepherd with his flock, riding in and out of the water, to keep his wearied band from being drowned as they crossed over. presently he spied an officer who, to save himself from being wet through, i suppose, and wearing a damp pair of breeches for the remainder of the day, had mounted on the back of one of his men. the sight of such a piece of effeminacy was enough to raise the choler of the general, and in a very short time he was plunging and splashing through the water after them both. "'put him down, sir! put him down! i desire you to put that officer down instantly!' and the soldier, in an instant, i dare say nothing loath, dropping his burden like a hot potato into the stream, continued his progress through. 'return back, sir,' said crauford to the officer, 'and go through the water like the others. i will not allow my officers to ride upon the men's backs through the rivers; all must take their share alike here.' "wearied as we were, this affair caused all who saw it to shout almost with laughter, and was never forgotten by those who survived the retreat. "general craufurd was indeed one of the few men who was apparently created for command during such dreadful scenes as we were familiar with in this retreat. he seemed an iron man; nothing daunted him--nothing turned him from his purpose. war was his very element, and toil and danger seemed to call forth only an increasing determination to surmount them. i was sometimes amused with his appearance, and that of the men around us; for, the rifles being always at his heels, he seemed to think them his familiars. if he stopped his horse, and halted to deliver one of his stern reprimands, you would see half-a-dozen lean, unshaven, shoeless, and savage riflemen, standing for the moment leaning upon their weapons, and scowling up in his face as he scolded; and when he dashed the spurs into his reeking horse, they would throw up their rifles upon their shoulders and hobble after him again. he was sometimes to be seen in the front, then in the rear, and then you would fall in with him again in the midst, dismounted, and marching on foot, that the men might see he took an equal share in the toils which they were enduring. he had a mortal dislike, i remember, to a commissary. many a time have i heard him storming at the neglect of those gentry; when the men were starving for rations, and nothing but excuses forthcoming. "twice i remember he was in command of the light brigade. the second time he joined them he made, i heard, something like these remarks, after they had been some little time in spain:-- "'when i commanded you before,' he said, 'i know full well that you disliked me, for you thought me severe. this time i am glad to find there is a change in yourselves.'" chapter vii the "tommy atkins" of a century ago. harris's descriptions of his comrades are always kindly, but they are keen. there is a touch of barrack freedom about them, and they have a dutch realism which sometimes makes them unquotable. they give an excellent idea of the british soldier of a bygone generation, the men who constituted the rank and file of the most famous army that ever marched beneath the british flag--the men of the peninsula. perhaps nowhere else in literature can be found descriptions so homely and real of the soldier as seen--on the march, in the firing line, and by the camp-fire--by his own comrade. harris's attention is naturally most arrested by the human oddities amongst his comrades, or by such of them as had in their appearance, or in their fate, a gleam of the picturesque. here are some of the portraits in his picture gallery:-- "a youth joined the rifles soon after i myself put on the green jacket, whose name was medley. he was but a small chap, being under the standard one inch[ ]; but our officers thought he promised fair to become a tall fellow, and he was, accordingly, not rejected. medley did not deceive them, for, on the day he first joined the rifles, he was five feet one inch in height, and on the day he was killed, at barossa, he was exactly six feet one. he was celebrated for being the greatest grumbler, the greatest eater, and the most quarrelsome fellow in the whole corps. i remember he cut a most desperate figure in the retreat to corunna; for there he had enough to bear both of fatigue and hunger; and a very little of either of these disagreeables would make him extremely bad company at any time. it was dangerous, too, to bid him hold his tongue sometimes; for he had picked up so amongst us since he was only five feet one, and grown so bony as well as tall, that he would challenge and thrash any man in the corps. corunna, however, though it could not stop his growling, took the desire of boxing quite out of him, and he sprawled, scrambled, and swore, till he somehow got through that business. if general craufurd could have heard but the twentieth part of what i heard him utter about him on that retreat, i think he would have cut medley in half. he was, as i said, a capital feeder, and his own allowance was not half enough to satisfy his cravings, so that he often got some of his comrades to help him out with a portion of theirs. he was killed at barossa, as i said, and he carried his ill-humour with him to the very last hour of his life; for, being knocked over by a musket-ball in the thigh, he was spoken to as he lay by some of his comrades, who, asking if they should assist him, and carry him to the rear, he told them to 'go and be d--d!' and bidding them mind their own business, abused them till they passed on and left him. i was told this last anecdote of him by the very men who had spoken to him and got his blessing as he lay. * * * * * "we had another tall fellow in the four companies of rifles who were in that retreat. his name was thomas higgins; he was six feet one and a half, and quite as lank and bony as medley. he also was an ill-tempered fellow, but nothing to compare with him either in eating or grumbling. the tall men, i have often observed, bore fatigue much worse than the short ones; and higgins amongst others of the big 'uns was dreadfully put to it to keep on. we lost him entirely when about half through this business, i remember; for, during a short halt of about ten minutes, he was reprimanded by one of our officers for the slovenly state of his clothing and accoutrements; his dress almost dropping from his lower limbs, and his knapsack hanging by a strap or two down about his waist. higgins did not take it at all kind being quarrelled with at such a time, and, uttering sundry impertinences, desired to know if they were ever to be allowed to halt any more, adding that he did not see very well how he was to be very smart after what he had already gone through. the officer spoke to one of the sergeants upon this, and bid him remember, if they got to their journey's end, to give higgins an extra guard for his behaviour. 'oh! then, d--n me,' says higgins, 'if ever i take it!' and turning about, as we all moved on at the word to march, he marched off in the contrary direction, and we never either saw or heard of him from that hour; and it was supposed afterwards, amongst us, that he had either perished alone in the night, or joined the french, who were at our heels. these were the two tallest men in the four companies of rifles; and both were in the company i belonged to. higgins was the right-hand, and medley the left-hand man. * * * * * "thomas mayberry was a man well known at that time in the rifles. he was a sergeant in my day, and was much thought of by our officers as a very active and useful non-commissioned officer, being considered, up to the time of his committing the slight mistake i shall have to tell of, one of the most honest men in the army. with the men he was not altogether so well liked, as he was considered rather too blusterous and tyrannical. whilst in the town of hythe, he got the fingering of about two hundred pounds for the purpose of paying for necessaries purchased for the men of his company, and which two hundred pounds he had, in a very short space of time, managed to make away with, and lose in the society of a party of gamblers, who at that time infested the town of hythe. he was brought to court-martial, together with two other men, whom he had seduced to become partners in his gambling transactions; and, on the inquiry, it was further discovered that he had been in the habit of cheating the men of his company out of a farthing a week each for the last ten months. that was, perhaps, the worst thing against him. he was sentenced to receive seven hundred lashes. "when mayberry was tied up, he was offered, as was then customary, the option of banishment; but he refused it, notwithstanding considerable entreaty was made to him by his two comrades to accept it, as, by so doing, they thought they all would escape the lash. however, mayberry decided to take the seven hundred, and bore the sentence without a murmur. not so the two others; morrisson screamed and struggled so much, that he capsized the triangle, and all came sprawling together, so that he was obliged to be held by a man at each side. devine came last. he was rather an effeminate-looking man, and the colonel rode round and told him he lamented being obliged to break so fair a skin, but he must do his duty. however, as he had borne a good character, and was not so much to blame as the other two, he let him down after five-and-twenty. "mayberry after this was much scouted by his fellow-soldiers, and also ill-thought-of by the officers; and, on a detachment being sent to portugal, he volunteered for the expedition. captain hart, however, would fain have declined taking him, as he had so bad an opinion of him after this affair; but mayberry showed himself so desirous of going, that at last he consented, and took him. at the siege of badajos, mayberry wiped off, in a measure, all his former ill-conduct. he was seen by captain hart to behave so bravely in the breach, that he commended him on the spot. "'well done, mayberry!' said he; 'you have this day done enough to obliterate your disgrace; and, if we live, i will endeavour to restore you to your former rank. go now to the rear; you have done enough for one day.' mayberry, however, refused to retire, although covered with wounds; for he was known to have killed seven with his own hand, with his rifle sword-bayonet. "'no going to the rear for me,' he said. 'i'll restore myself to my comrades' opinion, or make a finish of myself altogether.' "he accordingly continued in the front of all, till at last he was seen to be cut down, in the clear light of the fire-balls, by a tremendous sword-cut, which cleft his skull almost in twain. morrisson, i heard, also died at that siege. devine returned safe home, and died of fatigue at fermoy. * * * * * "the intelligence of these men was indeed very great, and i could relate instances of their recklessness and management which would amuse the reader much. i remember a fellow, named jackman, getting close up to the walls at flushing, and working a hole in the earth with his sword, into which he laid himself, and remained there alone, in spite of all the efforts of the enemy and their various missiles to dislodge him. he was known, thus earthed, to have killed, with the utmost coolness and deliberation, eleven of the french artillerymen as they worked at their guns. as fast as they relieved each fallen comrade did jackman pick them off; after which he took to his heels, and got safe back to his comrades. * * * * * "there were three brothers in the rifles named hart--john, mike, and peter--and three more perfectly reckless fellows, perhaps, never existed. nothing ever escaped their notice; and they would create the greatest fun and laughter, even when advancing under the hottest fire of the enemy, and their comrades being shot down beside them. i remember lieutenant molly, who was himself 'as fine a soldier as ever stepped, and as full of life in the midst of death' as these harts, being obliged to check them at vimiero. 'd--n you!' he said to them, 'keep back, and get under cover. do you think you are fighting here with your fists that you are running into the teeth of the french?' "i never saw those three men, to appearance, in the least degree worse for hard work during the time we remained in portugal. they could run like deer, and were, indeed, formed by nature and disposition for the hardships, difficulties, and privations of the sort of life we then led. they were, however, all three pretty well done up during the retreat to corunna; though, even in that dreadful business, their lightheartedness and attempts at fun served to keep up the spirits of many a man who would else have been broken-hearted before the english shipping appeared in sight. they even carried their pleasantry on that occasion so far as to make a jest of their own appearance, and the miserable plight of the whole turn-out, as we disembarked upon the beach at portsmouth. one of them even went so far as to observe, 'that we looked more like the rakings of h-- than the fragments of an army!' "nothing, indeed, but that grave of battalions, that unwholesome fen, flushing, could have broken the spirits of three such soldiers as john, mike, and peter hart. a few weeks, however, of that country sufficed to quiet them for evermore. one, i remember, died; and the other two, although they lived to return, were never worth a rush afterwards, but, like myself, remained living examples of what climate can bring even a constitution and body framed as if of iron to. "nothing i suppose could exceed the dreadful appearance we cut on the occasion of the disembarkation from corunna; and the inhabitants of portsmouth, who had assembled in some numbers to see us land, were horror-stricken with the sight of their countrymen and relatives returning to england in such a ghastly state; whilst the three harts, with feet swathed in bloody rags, clothing that hardly covered their nakedness, accoutrements in shreds, beards covering their faces, eyes dimmed with toil (for some were even blind), arms nearly useless to those who had them left, the rifles being encrusted with rust, and the swords glued to the scabbard--these three brothers, i say (for i heard them myself), as they hobbled up the beach, were making all sorts of remarks, and cracking their jokes upon the misery of our situation and the appearance they themselves cut. * * * * * "whilst we lay near cork we were joined by one richard pullen, amongst others; he had exchanged from the english militia into the irish, and volunteered to us rifles from the north mayo. he brought with him little else to boast of but his wife and his two children, charles and susan. charles was a mischievous boy of about twelve, and susan was a pretty little lass of about fourteen years of age. i remember they all went with us to copenhagen, and got through that expedition pretty well. that affair suited a man of pullen's description, for he didn't like too much service; and we soon found he was rather a shy cock. i remember remarking that pullen (even on the first day of the retreat to corunna) looked very chapfallen and seedy; and he was beginning even then to complain that he could not stand much more. the wife and children, too, were dropping behind. they all thought, poor souls! that when night came on they were, of course, to be billeted; but the open world was now their only refuge, and no allowance to stop or lie down, even on the bare heath, at that time. i saw pullen again on the third or fourth day; neither the wife nor children were then with him, nor could he tell where they were; he could only answer for himself, and expected to drop dead, he said, every step. that's all i saw of pullen and his wife and children on the retreat, or even thought of them; for i had enough to do to keep my own strength up. when we landed at portsmouth, both myself and others (to our no small surprise) saw pullen once more; and much we wondered at the sight of him, when so many better and stronger soldiers had died before half of that retreat was accomplished. we found that he had left behind him, and knew nothing of the fate of either his wife or his children, charles and susan. as the men continued to disembark, however, there was pullen inquiring anxiously of every one for some tidings of them. none, however, could he get. at last he saw his wife coming up the beach, and hobbled off to meet her, each at the same moment inquiring for the children, charles and susan. he trusted they were with the wife; and she hoped they were with the husband; and both sat down upon the beach and cried in concert. "all our men thought it useless of them to continue their inquiries; but they never failed to ask after their offspring of every fresh face they fell in with who had been in that retreat. in about a fortnight's time, not satisfied, they advertised charles and susan in the public newspapers; and we all laughed at the very idea of their ever finding them again, and told them they might have spared the money. to our no small surprise, however, the artillery at plymouth answered their advertisement, stating that a little girl had been heard screaming upon the mountains in spain by them in the night, and that they had taken care of her as well as they could, and had her then with them. the description answering, the girl was forwarded to hythe; and pullen and his wife once more embraced their daughter susan. * * * * * "there was, i recollect, a man of the name of bell, of the rifles, who had been during this day holding a sort of creeping race with me--we had passed and repassed each other as our strength served. bell was rather a discontented fellow at the best of times; but during this retreat he had given full scope to his ill-temper, cursing the hour he was born, and wishing his mother had strangled him when he came into the world, in order to have saved him from his present toil. he had not now spoken for some time, and the sight of the english shipping had apparently a very beneficial effect upon him. he burst into tears as he stood and looked at it. "'harris,' he said, 'if it pleases god to let me reach those ships, i swear never to utter a bad or discontented word again.' * * * * * "the history of sergeant-major adams is somewhat singular. i was his great friend at this time, and he confided some part of it to me. he had been a croppy (a rebel) and had fought at vinegar hill. when the rebels were defeated he escaped, and lived some time in the wilds of connemara. he afterwards thought it best to enlist in the donegal militia, and then volunteered to the rifles. here he soon rose (whilst in spain) to the rank of sergeant. during the retreat to corunna, sergeant-major crosby failed, and craufurd promoted adams in his place. at st. sebastian he was noticed by general graham for his bravery with the forlorn hope; a commission was given him, and he afterwards joined a regiment in gibraltar, where he was made adjutant. he then went to america, where he served with credit till he died. i believe i was the only man in the regiment who knew of his having been a rebel, and i kept the secret faithfully till his death. * * * * * "the story of demon, whom i myself enlisted from the leicester militia, is not a little curious. demon was a smart and very active man, and serving as corporal in the light company of the leicestershire, when i persuaded him to join our corps, where he was immediately made a sergeant in the third battalion then just forming, and from which he eventually rose to be a commissioned officer in one of our line regiments. the cause which led to demon's merits being first noticed was not a little curious, being neither more nor less than a race. "it happened that at shoreham cliff, soon after he joined, a race was got up among some kentish men who were noted for their swiftness, and one of them, who had beaten his companions, challenged any soldier in the rifles to run against him for two hundred pounds. the sum was large, and the runner was of so much celebrity that, although we had some active young fellows amongst us, no one seemed inclined to take the chance, either officers or men, till at length demon stepped forth and said he would run against this kentish boaster or any man on the face of the earth, and fight him afterwards into the bargain, if any one could be found to make up the money. upon this an officer subscribed the money, and the race was arranged. "the affair made quite a sensation, and the inhabitants of the different villages from miles around flocked to see the sport; besides which the men from different regiments in the neighbourhood, infantry, cavalry, and artillery, also were much interested, and managed to be present, which caused the scene to be a very gay one. in short the race commenced, and the odds were much against the soldier at starting, as he was a much less man than the other, and did not at all look like the winner. he, however, kept well up with his antagonist, and the affair seemed likely to end in a dead heat, which would undoubtedly have been the case, but demon, when close upon the winning-post, gave one tremendous spring forward, and won it by his body's length. "this race, in short, led on to notice and promotion. general mackenzie was in command of the garrison at hythe. he was present, and was highly delighted at the rifleman beating the bumpkin, and saw that the winner was the very cut of a soldier, and, in short, that demon was a very smart fellow, so that eventually the news of the race reached the first battalion then fighting in spain. sir andrew barnard at the time was then in command of the rifles in spain; upon being told of the circumstance, remarked that, as demon was such a smart runner in england, there was very good ground for a rifleman to use his legs in spain. he was accordingly ordered out with the next draft to that country, where he so much distinguished himself that he obtained his commission, as already mentioned." one gleam of the more tender sentiments which shines in harris's "recollections"--almost the solitary love affair he records--was of a very amusing kind. he was the shoemaker of the company, and when in lisbon he was detailed, with three other men, to discover a shoemaker's shop, where all the worn-out shoes of the battalion might be mended. says harris:-- "we carried with us three small sacks filled with old boots and shoes, and entering lisbon went into the first shoemaker's shop we saw. here i endeavoured in vain to make myself understood for some time. there was a master shoemaker at work and three men. they did not seem to like our intrusion, and looked very sulky, asking us various questions which i could not understand, the only words i could at all comprehend being, 'bonos irelandos, brutu englisa.' i thought, considering we had come so far to fight their battles for them, that this was the north side of civil; so i signed to the men, and, by way of explanation of our wishes, and in order to cut the matter short, they emptied the three sackful of boots and shoes upon the floor. we now explained what we would be at; the boots and shoes of the rifles spoke for themselves, and, seating ourselves, we commenced work forthwith. in this way we continued employed whilst the army lay near lisbon, every morning coming in to work and returning to the camp every night to sleep. "after we had been there several days, our landlord's family had the curiosity to come occasionally and take a peep at us. my companions were noisy, good-tempered, jolly fellows, and usually sang all the time they hammered and strapped. the mistress of the house, seeing i was the head-man, occasionally came and sat down beside me as i worked, bringing her daughter, a very handsome dark-eyed spanish girl, and as a matter of course i fell in love. "we soon became better acquainted, and the mother one evening, after having sat and chatted to me, serving me with wine and other good things, on my rising to leave the shop, made a signal for me to follow her. she had managed to pick up a little english, and i knew a few words of the spanish language, so that we could pretty well comprehend each other's meaning; and after leading me into their sitting-room, she brought her handsome daughter, and, without more circumstance, offered her to me for a wife. the offer was a tempting one, but the conditions of the marriage made it impossible for me to comply, since i was to change my religion and desert my colours. the old dame proposed to conceal me effectually when the army marched, after which i was to live like a gentleman, with the handsome maria for a wife. "it was hard to refuse so tempting an offer, with the pretty maria endeavouring to back her mother's proposal. i, however, made them understand that nothing would tempt me to desert, and, promising to try and get my discharge when i returned to england, protested i would then return and marry maria. "soon after this the army marched for spain; the rifles paraded in the very street where the shop i had so long worked at was situated, and i saw maria at the window. as our bugles struck up she waved her handkerchief; i returned the salute, and in half-an-hour had forgotten all about her. so much for a soldier's love!" footnotes: [footnote : the standard at that time, when men were quickly used up, was five feet two with us.] iii a royal highlander iii.--a royal highlander james anton, who rose to be quarter-master-sergeant of the nd, or royal highlanders, and wrote a "retrospect of military life," published in , was a typical scottish soldier of the ranks. his memoir gives, quite unconsciously, an amusing picture of the writer. he was but an infant when his father died. his mother, a scottish peasant woman, hardy and frugal like all her class, reared her child with an even greater economy of oatmeal and a more plentiful allowance of the shorter catechism than is common in the poorest scottish homes. anton is fond of describing his experiences in large literary terms. of his mother he says, "sparta never had her equal in respect to what may be called self-denial. she ceased not by precept, as well as example, to impress on me the same contempt for ease and luxury she herself entertained." probably anton's mother had the vaguest notion of what such words as "ease and luxury" meant. she worked like a slave, fared like a trappist monk, and trained her child to thin diet, long lessons, and hard work from his tenderest years. like most scottish mothers, she was a god-fearing woman, rich in the homely wisdom of peasant life. a love of education burns in scottish blood of all ranks, and young anton was drilled in grammar and the multiplication table, plentifully flavoured with the shorter catechism, the proverbs of solomon, the psalms of david, and scripture history generally. he emerged from the process lean and stunted physically--he was rejected at first for the militia as being under the standard, and only succeeded in striking the gauge on a second test by standing on half tip-toe. but he had some of the qualities which go to make a good soldier. he was cool, shrewd, tough, rich, after the fashion of scottish youth, in hard-headed common-sense, with a stomach that could extract nutriment from the sternest diet, and a frugality which could accumulate savings from the very scantiest pay. he records with true scottish complacency that when he entered the militia he had saved the magnificent sum of £ ; and before he left that corps for the line this had grown to £ . that was a very remarkable record for a private soldier; and, characteristically enough, he adds that during this whole process he sent a £ note at regular intervals to his mother--a form of domestic piety in which a scottish lad, peasant or soldier, does not often fail. it may be asked what impulse sent a youth of this type--under-sized, lean, frugal, canny--to a soldier's life? but a fighting impulse is native to scottish blood, whether lowland or highland; and anton, in addition, had wit enough to see that a soldier's career for the sober, frugal, order-obeying, pence-accumulating scottish peasant had many advantages. certainly, anton himself did not do badly as a private of the nd. anton joined the militia in . while serving in aberdeen the militiamen were allowed to sell their labour, when drill was over, to the contractors then occupied in building a bridge over the denburn; and anton, of course, worked hard and long, and so the pence in his pouch grew fast. he records, quaintly, his joy in the very frugality of the rations served out to him and his fellow-militiamen. they received half a pound of beef or mutton per man daily; and this was a quarter of a pound less than the orthodox allowance. but, anton argues, "if we did not get it, we did not pay for it. indeed, small allowances of provisions are always best. why force upon us," he asks indignantly, "more than is barely necessary for subsistence, when--when, in brief, more meal in the platter means fewer pence in the pocket?" it was not for nothing that anton had been brought up with something more than spartan rigour! anton entered the army just in time to see one ridiculous custom disappear. the long, elaborate, flour-besprinkled and grease-besmeared queue of marlborough's days still dangled down the unfortunate soldier's back. anton records the deliverance of the army from this barbaric ornament with a touch of unusual feeling:-- "during the time that the regiment was quartered in musselburgh, a general order was issued for the army to discontinue the tying of the hair, and to have it cropped. never was an order received with more heartfelt satisfaction than this, or obeyed with more alacrity, notwithstanding the foolish predictions of some old superannuated gentlemen that it would cause a mutiny in the army. the tying was a daily penance, and a severe one, to which every man had to submit; and there is little doubt but this practice had been introduced by some foreign fops, and enforced by antiquated prigs as necessary to the cleanly appearance of the soldier. it had been very injurious in its effects on the general comforts of those who were obliged to submit to it, and the soldier looks back to the task with the painful remembrance of the punishment he suffered every morning, daubing the side of his head with dirty grease, soap, and flour, until every hair stood like the burr of a thistle, and the back was padded and pulled so that every hair had to keep its due place; if one less subordinate than the rest chanced to start up in spite of grease, soap-lather, and flour, the poor man had to sit down and submit his head to another dressing, and afterwards parade for inspection among the defaulters of the regiment. "a certain latitude and longitude was assigned for the breadth and length of the queue, to which a gauge was frequently applied, in the same manner as some modern sticklers for uniformity at this day use a measure to ascertain the dimensions of the soldiers' folded greatcoats at guard mounting; but with this difference, the coat receives no bad impression from the stickler's gauge, whereas the greased and powdered hair retained the mark, and the poor fellow who had the misfortune to have the powder brushed aside by his awkward inspector, stood a chance of being turned off parade to have his hair dressed afresh, just as if the unlucky mark rendered him unfit for any military movement, or divested him of all the requisites of a soldier. indeed, it was no uncommon circumstance for us, when on the guard-bench and asleep, to have the rats and mice scrambling about our heads, eating the filthy stuff with which our hair was bedaubed." in anton joined the nd, and his professional life as a soldier began. chapter i about soldiers' wives anton's officers were quick to discover his steadiness, his frugality, his methodical loyalty to every duty of a soldier. he was first put on recruiting service, and then had his reward in the form which most delighted him. he was allowed to marry. only to a certain proportion of soldiers in each regiment was granted this privilege; and anton, who was an odd combination of soft domestic instincts and hard soldierly pluck, welcomed with a joy which he takes no pains to conceal the permission to impose on the object of his affections the hardships and the perils which must befall the wife of a soldier who accompanies her husband on active service. anton plainly showed all his usual scottish sense in his choice of a helpmate. she was a hardy peasant girl, plain-featured and strong-bodied, as frugal, as uncomplaining, and as canny as anton himself; and one chief merit of anton's memoirs is the picture it offers of a woman's experiences, caught in the rush and whirl of the great history-making campaigns of the peninsula. anton was still happier when, on his regiment being ordered on active service, he was allowed to take his wife with him. this was a very rare privilege indeed. only four women were permitted to follow each company of the regiment; and anton tells how, when the regiment had reached ostend, at the beginning of the waterloo campaign, even this privilege was suddenly narrowed, and instructions were received that only two women could be allowed to go with each company. half the women of the regiment were thus left stranded, penniless and friendless, in a foreign port, and saw their red-coated husbands march off into space with many a backward look at their weeping wives. but the hardy women of the barracks are not easily defeated. "we had been only two days in ghent," says anton, "when the women left at ostend found their way to the regiment." they had marched on their own account in the regiment's track, and presented themselves bedraggled and footsore at its quarters in ghent. the authorities were inexorable, and the weeping women were again conveyed back to the same place from which they escaped, and there closely watched. but woman's wit and wiles proved too much for the sentinels. in a week or two the forsaken but enterprising wives eluded the vigilance of the sentries, and joined their husbands once more; and as no official reports were made to their prejudice, they were allowed to follow the fortunes of their husbands during the campaign. anton, somewhat ungratefully--considering the devotion and sufferings of his own wife--says that, in his judgment, women ought not to be allowed to accompany the soldiers through a campaign. he writes:-- "on all occasions of troops being despatched to the scene of expected hostilities women should not be permitted to accompany them. if any exception is made in one single instance it only gives room for pressing and almost irresistible applications from others, and throws the performance of a very painful duty, namely, refusing permission, on the officers commanding companies. every private soldier conceives that he has as good a right to this indulgence for his wife as the first non-commissioned officer in the regiment, and certainly he is right; she will prove much more useful than one who, instead of being serviceable, considers herself entitled to be served, assumes the consequence of a lady without any of the good qualifications or accomplishments of one, and helps to embitter the domestic enjoyments of others by exciting petty jealousies that otherwise would never exist." anton gives very sensibly, and from the private soldier's point of view, his opinion of how the soldier's wife should be treated:-- "it is generally the case in selecting women to follow the army to a foreign station, that choice is made of those without children, as they are considered more capable of performing the services that may be required of them than those encumbered with a family. this, though just as regards our wants, is not so with respect to many a well-deserving woman, who is thus cast on the public or left to her own exertions, which too often fail her in the endeavour to support herself and children, while the childless woman is selected to profit from that circumstance. "a woman who is permitted to accompany her husband receives a half ration free; a child above seven years, one-third; and one under seven years, a quarter of a ration; and although this is but a very trifling allowance, would it not do much better to give it to those of good character who are not permitted to accompany their husbands? i must also remark that, on foreign stations where this allowance is made to the women and children, it will be found that the least necessitous are the first to apply and the first to be placed on this benevolent list. i have seen privates' wives, with three or more children, without rations; while the wives and children of sergeant-majors and quartermaster-sergeants were getting them." anton gives--quite incidentally, and without betraying any consciousness that he is adding a very exceptional chapter to military records--an account of his own experiences as a married soldier, which is very amusing and sometimes very touching. here is his story of an early spanish bivouac, and one cannot but pity the feelings of a modest scottish girl in such an environment:-- "after having seen the provisions distributed i set about looking out for some accommodation for my wife, for we had not as yet been accustomed to lie on the open field, as in bivouac, nor even seen the like, and the tent was far from comfortable for a poor, wearied, young woman; i shall not mention delicacy, for that would be out of place--we must submit to circumstances. the names of seventeen men were on the roll of the tent besides myself, so it may be easily guessed how crowded it must have been had the whole been off duty, but this was seldom the case. however, as no other shelter was to be had we took a berth under it. "eleven soldiers lay in it that night along with us, all stretched with their feet to the centre and their heads to the curtain of the tent, every man's knapsack below his head, and his clothes and accoutrements on his body; the one-half of the blankets under, and the other spread over the whole, so that we all lay in one bed. often did my poor wife look up to the thin canvas that screened her face from the night-dew and wish for the approaching morn. it was announced at last, before daybreak, by an exclamation of 'rouse!' which passed from tent to tent along the lines, when every man started up, folded his blanket, and strapped it on the back of his knapsack, ready for a march, and soon afterwards the sound of bugle and drum echoed from hill to hill; meanwhile, the army stood to arms, each regiment at its alarm post, until about sunrise." the regiment was in camp here for a short time, and anton resolved on securing better accommodation for his wife. he says:-- "i now set about erecting a hut for myself and wife, resolving, if possible, not to mix blankets with so many bedfellows again. this i was the more anxious to do, because at that time the whole of the men were affected with an eruption on their skin similar to the itch, and their clothing was in a very filthy state, owing to its being seldom shifted, and always kept on during the night. "with the assistance of a few willing hands i finished the hut in the course of the day, so that it served for a temporary shelter, and prevented myself and wife from depriving the men of their very limited accommodation in the tent. when i stretched myself down at night in my new habitation, my head rested against the one end, while my feet touched the other, at which was the entrance; my wife's apron being hung up as a substitute for a door, a couple of pins on each side served for lock and hinges, and feeble as that barrier was, none of the men entered when that was suspended, and we might have left it to its own keeping from morning till night without an article being abstracted. thieving, indeed, was unknown in the regiment; but, in fact, there was little of worth to steal amongst us." later--in october, when the bitter winds were beginning to awake on the cold summits of the pyrenees--the division encamped on the heights above urdach. anton then tried his fortunes once more with a hut. but disaster followed. he writes:-- "here i erected a hut, larger than my former one and more substantial. having occupied that which i had left nearly four weeks, i considered that, if i were to occupy this the half of that time, i should be satisfied in bestowing more labour on it, and making my accommodation more complete; but rain continued to fall for two days in succession, and placed us in a very unpleasant situation. i had cut a trench round the outside of my hut so as to carry off the torrents which rushed against it from the declivities above, and my poor wife was no less busily employed in securing the few articles within. "when the weather cleared i set about re-thatching my new habitation, but the first night after i had finished my work a violent gale struck every tent in the camp, and swept my little hut completely off. i had thrown my blanket over it and fixed it down with cords and pegs, on purpose to secure the thatch; having thus secured the roof, or i may rather say my hut, for it was all roof and ends, we stretched ourselves down, and the roaring of the wind in a few minutes lulled us to sleep, for we felt confident of having made all secure. "our repose, however, was short; we were awakened by the feeble branches which composed the rafters falling on our heads, and, on looking up, no roof sheltered us from the blast. the stars shone brightly between the flying clouds, and the busy hum of a thousand voices rose on the wind as the men strove to re-pitch the fallen tents. we started to secure the few loose articles around us; we looked for our blanket, but it was gone with the thatch and several minor articles that were no more to be seen. the men lay close under the fallen, fluttering tents, whilst i and my trembling companion found shelter in the lee of a rock, until morning roused every soldier to arms. "my wife in the meantime nastily collected a few of the scattered branches of the hut, and huddled them together, so as to cover an umbrella, which served as a ceiling to the thatchless roof, until i should return from duty and construct a more substantial dwelling. our loss, trifling as it may seem, was the more severely felt as there was no opportunity of replacing it by any fair means of purchase. our day's provisions were among the articles missing, and this was far from being a comfortable lookout for the day, as i had to mount the advance picket that morning: however, we had a little money, and, scarce as bread was, it was to be had for a good price. "the advance picket was more than two miles from the camp, and as i had not taken any provisions with me for the day, my wife bought a small loaf and a little wine; this last she mulled and mixed with some of the bread, and was bringing it to me, but in her too great anxiety to reach me soon, by short roads, she slipped on one of the steep banks and rolled down a considerable declivity. fortunately, she was not hurt, but heartily vexed at her own mishap, returned to the camp, made a fresh purchase, and again hastened to me. the tear was in her eye as she related the misfortunes of the day, but she returned to camp gratified at having provided me with an unexpected and comfortable refreshment. "i speak not of these casualties as sufferings on my part, for there were many worse off than i; but i point them out as some of the privations to which the poor women following the army had to submit, and which many of them were ill able to endure, and received but little sympathy from their husbands while patiently bearing them." perseverance is a scottish virtue, and anton, with the industry of a robinson crusoe in kilts, set to work to invent a third hut. it represented a gallant but melancholy attempt to secure the comforts of domestic life amid the severities of war:-- "i set about constructing a hut that should be proof against wind and rain. one of my officers (lieutenant d. farquharson) very kindly made an offer of any pecuniary assistance i might require, and gave me a blanket to replace that which was lost. the latter i accepted gratefully, it was more than money could purchase; the former i declined, as i was far from being in want. "i now became a complete robinson crusoe in my daily labour, when regimental duties permitted; and much i owe in gratitude to the memory of those who then superintended those duties for the indulgent manner in which i was treated, and not being troubled with vexatious interruptions to draw me off from my domestic avocations. they are now no more; they have fallen on the battle-field of a foreign land. a few men willingly afforded me every assistance; their only recompense being a small drop of spirits, which my wife had carefully reserved from my daily allowance. the wood was at no great distance, and the face of the hills was covered with broad ferns, which served for thatch. "i now laboured hard for three days, and every spare hour, when off duty, was dedicated to the rendering of my hut proof against the weather. my friend fraser gave me the use of the intrenching tools, and i dug an ample space within, three feet deep, and a trench around the outside, four feet deep; this was to carry off the water from the roof, and the latter i secured more substantially than many of our highland bothies are in the north of scotland, or than the cabins in the remote districts of ireland. we were enjoying the comfort of its nightly shelter, and i was adding something daily towards its stability for upwards of two weeks; at last i constructed a fireplace under the roof, and one of the men had brought a bundle of sticks for fuel, and the fire was lighted for the first time. "i was sitting on my knapsack taking a late dinner, quite at home, with the dish on my knee, for i had no table, when the drum beat 'orders.' i set down my dish (a wooden canteen, the one end of which was taken out) unfinished, attended the call, and with no small regret heard that the camp was to be struck, and everything ready to be moved off that night (november , ). i cannot express how vexed i was to leave my little habitation, my sole property, which i held by military right; but i was bound to follow my feudal superior. i had reared it at the expense of a blister on every finger, and i exulted as much over it, in secret, as the rich man in the gospel did over his extensive possessions and his plentiful stores. on leaving the camp that night, many of the married people set fire to their huts, but i left mine with too much regret to become its incendiary; and my poor mary shed tears as she looked back upon it, as a bower of happiness which she was leaving behind." what the poor soldier's wife felt as she hung in the rear of the fighting line and watched the drifting smoke, pierced with gleams of red flame, where her husband stood to shoot and to be shot at; or with what emotion she scrutinised the figure of each wounded soldier limping, or being carried, to the rear cannot be guessed; and anton does not stop to tell. perhaps he had not imagination enough to understand any such emotions in his wife's bosom. nothing, indeed, is more wonderful than the unconquerable cheerfulness anton shows, as a husband, under all conditions; and if his wife ever grumbled, anton does not allow her complaints to become audible to us. after the passage of the nivelle the regiment encamped on the actual scene of the fighting. says anton:-- "we bivouacked on the field until morning, and fortunately for us the night was fair, though cold and frosty. this was the first night on which my wife and i had to lie down with no other covering than a blanket between us and the sky, but we had many worse nights than this afterwards, and worse fields before us; however, on looking around, we generally saw many worse off than ourselves; and, doubtless, were we always to look into others' misfortunes or sufferings, when we suffer ourselves, we would find some cause for self-congratulation amidst the most distressing hardships." it would be interesting to know whether mrs. anton shared her husband's stubborn scottish philosophy. but she is the inarticulate figure of the two. her notes on her husband's memoirs would be very interesting; but, unfortunately, they are not handed down to us. occasional glimpses are afforded us of the experience of other wives whose husbands probably had less of resource and address than anton. here is another picture of a woman's experiences in a campaign:-- "in the neighbourhood of our bivouac were a few straggling houses, in which some staff officers took up their quarters, and our guard was posted under the leafless branches of a chestnut tree in the close vicinity. the sergeant of our guard, being a married man, considered himself very fortunate in having secured a small pig-sty near his post for his wife's accommodation, and the poor woman felt happy in the possession, small as it was; for its roof was a shelter from the wintry blasts, and its contiguity to the guard left no room to fear danger, were she permitted to keep possession; however, this was not to be the case. "our adjutant's clerk, who had never occasion to approach the field in time of danger, had taken up his quarters in one of the adjoining houses, after the action ceased, but, being dispossessed by some superiors, and every other place preoccupied by soldiers who would not suffer his intrusion, he meanly invaded the miserable shelter selected for the poor woman. in vain she remonstrated with him, in vain she requested him with tears to allow her the sole possession of a place so unfit for his accommodation, and which she had laboured hard to clean out for her own; but to no purpose, she might remain if she pleased, but he should not depart. it is doubtful whether we had a woman in the regiment so regardless of her character as to have taken a night's shelter, in the absence of her husband, otherwise than with the crowd, where no advantage could be taken of her situation or weakness; but every man acted towards a modest woman with that kindness which he would towards a sister. indeed, we had women in the regiment that, if they had been in possession, would have kept him out and put him at defiance to enter, but this one was not possessed of that masculine boldness; she therefore bundled up her few articles, and, hastening across the road, the only distance by which she had been separated from her husband, threw herself in his arms and burst into tears. "three months only had elapsed since this couple joined the regiment. she was a comely, modest, interesting young woman, and always unassumingly but cleanly and decently dressed. but allowing that she had had but few or no accomplishments or amiable qualifications to recommend her to sympathy, it is but natural to think that whatever distressed her affected the husband. they had as yet seen or experienced but little of the petulant intrusions or consequential presumptuous ill-manners to which soldiers and their wives are sometimes obliged to submit without remonstrance. 'what is the matter with you, dear?' the sergeant asked, somewhat astonished at her unexpected appearance. 'oh!' she exclaimed, 'i've been turned out o' yon bit placey that i was in, an' i'm come to stop wi' you a' night.' 'who turned you out?' the sergeant hastily inquired. 'oh, say naething about it, i'll be as well here wi' you as i would ha'e been yonder by mysel'; let us mak' no disagreement about the matter wi' them that we canna shake oursel's free o'; let the proud little creature keep it to himsel' in quietness; we are strangers as yet, so dinna let angry words be heard.' 'but what creature turned you out? surely it was not a man.' 'ay, he thinks himsel' ane;' she whispered, 'it was g--t.' 'is it possible,' said the sergeant, 'that a married man can be possessed of so little feeling as to turn you out to the inclemency of the night, and neither his wife nor child accompanying him to plead for the accommodation?' 'i am happier with you,' she replied, 'than if i had lain all night in yon hole; but, dear, oh, dear, how hard it rains; the fire will be drowned out, an' we'll be starved to death before mornin'.' "'poor body!' the sergeant ejaculated, as he wrapped the blanket round her shoulders, 'i'll soon make a good fire; sit you under that branch of the tree, the reek will annoy you less, and the drops will not fall so thick nor so heavy.' 'i'm well enough,' she returned, 'and i care na' for the reek or the rain when wi' you; but dinna min' the fire till this heavy dag's o'er, ye'll get yoursel' a' wet.' the sergeant threw a faggot of wood on the fire, and in a short time nothing was heard but the rattling of rain and hailstones, the braying of mules, and the tinkling of their bells. "this was a severe night, the rain poured down in torrents until midnight, when it was succeeded by snow, which covered the face of the country before daybreak." it may be suspected that anton, who is much given to literary excursions and alarums, has infused a little of what he regarded as appropriate pathos into this scene. nevertheless, it is a picture with real human interest. here are some additional examples of what the soldiers' wives in wellington's campaign suffered. the troops had to ford the adour, whose ice-fed and ice-cold waters were swollen with winter rains. says anton:-- "in passing through, the men supported each other as well as they could, so as to prevent them falling, for the stones in the bottom were very slippery. the wife of a sergeant of one of the regiments attempted to pass on a donkey with a child in her arms, and owing to some sudden stumble or slip of the animal, the child gave a start and dropped into the stream; the distracted mother gave a shriek, leaped after the infant, and both were swept off by the rapid current in the presence of the husband, who plunged into the water in hopes to recover them, but they were gone for ever, and he himself was with difficulty rescued. after this accident, the women who were following the army remained until the bridge was so far repaired as to enable them to pass over." anton's own wife had an unfortunate experience on the adour:-- "after having crossed the river, we marched a few miles up the right bank, or contiguous thereto, on the main road, and took up our camp-ground for the night in a newly-ploughed field, rendered a complete mire by the rain and hail which fell upon us with dreadful fury as we were piling our arms on the broken ridges. yet, notwithstanding the severity of this headlong torrent, a hundred fires were blazing in a few minutes along the side of the fences that bordered the fields. fortunately for us, general pack had taken up his quarters in the farmhouse adjoining, and allowed straw, of which there was abundance, to be taken for the bottom of the tents; this was an unexpected indulgence, even although the straw was rather wet. "i was general pack's orderly this night, and had a good roof over my head, and the dry floor of a cartshed, with plenty of dry straw for a bed; but my poor wife was absent, for the first time since we left home. she was detained, along with several other women, on the right bank of the adour, until the bridge was repaired. while this was doing, one of the women belonging to the regiment begged her to take charge of a little ass-colt with a couple of bundles, until she should go back to st. severe to make some purchases; she complied, and before the other returned, the bridge was repaired. one regiment had passed, and she followed, driving the colt before her; but before she got to the farther end, the stubborn animal stood still and would not move a foot. another regiment was advancing, the passage was impeded, and what to do she knew not. "she was in the act of removing the woman's bundles from the beast's back, and struggling to get out of the way, determined to leave the animal, when a grenadier of the advancing regiment, casting his eye on a finely-polished horn with the masonic arms cut on it, and slung over her shoulder, stepped aside, saying, 'poor creature, i shall not see you left struggling there, for the sake of what is slung by your side.' at the same time, handing his musket to one of his comrades, he lifted the colt in his arms and carried it to the end of the bridge. my poor wife thanked him with the tear in her eye, the only acknowledgment she could make for his kindness." in the fighting at toulouse, one of the married men in the regiment was killed, and anton gives a somewhat laboured, but touching, account of the grief of the soldier's widow:-- * * * * * "here fell cunningham, a corporal in the grenadier company, a man much esteemed in the regiment; he was a married man, but young, and was interred before his wife entered the dear-bought field; but she had heard of his fate, and flew, in spite of every opposition, to the field; she looked around among the yet unburied soldiers to find her own, but she found him not. she flew to the place where the wreck of the regiment lay on the field. 'tell me,' she asked, 'where cunningham is laid, that i may see him and lay him in the grave with my own hand!' a tear rose in the soldier's eye as he pointed towards the place, and twenty men started up to accompany her to the spot, for they respected the man and esteemed the woman. "they lifted the corpse; the wounds were in his breast; she washed them, and pressing his cold lips to hers, wept over him, wrapped the body in a blanket, and the soldiers consigned it to the grave. mournful she stood over the spot where her husband was laid, the earth was again closed over him, and she now stood a lonely, unprotected being, far from her country or the home of her childhood. i should not, perhaps, say unprotected, for, however callous our feelings may occasionally be, amidst a thousand distressing objects that surround us, any one of which, if individually presented to our consideration at any other time or place than the battle-field, would excite our sympathy, yet amidst all these neither the widow nor the orphan is left unregarded, or in some measure unprovided for. in this instance, the officer who commanded the company to which cunningham belonged, having been severely wounded, sent for the widow; she became his sick-nurse, and under his protection was restored in decent respectability to her home. "the only protection a poor soldier can offer to a woman, suddenly bereft of her husband, far from her kinsfolk, and without a residence or home, would, under more favourable circumstances, be considered as an insult, and perhaps under these, from the pressure of grief that actually weighs her down, be extremely indelicate. "i make free to offer this remark, in justification of many a good woman, who, in a few months, perhaps weeks, after her sudden bereavement, becomes the wife of a second husband; and, although slightingly spoken of by some of little feeling, in and out of the army, yet this is, perhaps, the only alternative to save a lone, innocent woman's reputation; and the soldier who offers himself may be as little inclined to the connection through any selfish motive as the woman may be from any desire of his love, but the peculiar situation in which she is placed renders it necessary, without consulting false feelings, or regarding the idle remarks that may be made, to feel grateful for a protector, and in a soldier, the most binding is the surest." chapter ii fighting in the pyrenees anton's own adventures in the peninsula were brief, but of a stern and exciting quality. his regiment embarked on august , , and thus reached spain when the war had come to its latest stage--on the rough and hilly floor of the pyrenees. the nd landed at passages on september . the first sound of war which reached its ears was the sullen and distant boom of the guns thundering on san sebastian. anton had an eye for the picturesque, and he gives some interesting pictures of the scenery of the pyrenees. here is his description of a scene which met his eyes one daybreak shortly after landing:-- "the view from the summits of these mountains at that early hour, when the sun began to gild their tops, and to throw his cheering rays on the white canvas which speckled their sides, was grand beyond description. the valleys below were hidden under an ocean of white, wreathing mist, over which the hills, like a thousand islands, raised their rocky summits amidst the pure serenity of a cloudless atmosphere; the white tents of a british army spotted their sides, while ten thousand bayonets glittered around. the drums, fifes, bugles, and wild, warlike strains of the highland bag-pipe, drowned the notes of a hundred useless instruments that offered their softer sounds to the soldiers' ears. flocks of vultures hovered around to feed on the bodies of men who had fallen in sequestered spots by the hostile bullet, and were left to wolves and birds of prey, along with the carcasses of the exhausted animals that had failed in bearing their oppressive burdens to the expectant camp. "as the sun rose over the mountains, the misty vapours rolled away, and all the vales, woods, streams, and distant cottages appeared to view. what a lovely prospect this must have been to the once happy native of the soil!" on october the nd had its first near glimpse of mountain fighting, though the regiment took no actual part in the combat:-- "on october we advanced towards the heights of urdach, and descended a few paces on the brow of that part of the mountain which overlooks the valley of that name and the distant course of the nivelle. a thick cloud hovered beneath us, and hid the country from our view. the loud report of guns in the valley shook the hills and echoed throughout the dark woody ravines below, while the quick rounds of musketry prepared us to expect an order to descend to the scene of action. the division stood in columns of brigade, or in lines along the mountain paths, as the position could be taken up. "we remained upwards of two hours enveloped in the misty clouds, every man full of anxiety to view the contest below. at last our wishes were gratified; the curtain arose, and the interesting scene burst all at once on our view. a far-discerning eye might see the skirmishers of both armies approaching close to each other, each man with well-directed aim looking along the deadly tube that sent the intended messenger of death to the opposing adversary. vineyards, orchards, straggling bushy fences, and streamlets with steep banks intersected the country, and afforded occasional cover to both sides, as well as a rest to the marksman's musket in taking a deliberate aim. the ascent of the cloud, which had hovered beneath us and over the combatants, afforded them a view of our columns and lines ready to descend, a prospect no less discouraging to the enemy than animating to our friends." anton's first personal experience in the stirring business of war was at the passage of the nivelle. the river, it will be remembered, was approached by a night march. anton's account is interesting, though marred by a laborious attempt at fine writing:-- "the moon shone in the cloudless vault of heaven as we descended the narrow paths of the mountains; behind us were our camp-fires and blazing huts, while the ill-clothed and worse-disciplined troops of spain were hurrying up the mountain path to occupy the ground we had left. to our right appeared the enemy's watch-fires, blazing brightly on the distant brow of one of the diverging ridges that jut out from the main body of the pyrenees, their pickets little dreaming that we were worming our way through the intricate windings so near their posts, in order to rouse them to work in the morning. on our left a deep, woody ravine, with its roaring stream, skirted our path; before us the narrow ridge jutted out between two of those ravines, in a peninsula form, until its extremity overlooked the valley where we had witnessed the contest on october . the path led us down by many a circuitous and steep descent to the vale of urdach, which we reached by daybreak. "we were now approaching the nivelle, and all its woody margins were lined with light troops, our battalions forming in columns about two furlongs from the bank of the river: not a musket was yet fired. the guns were already posted on all the commanding eminences on the left of the river. the generals had given their orders regarding the attack about to be made, the movements likely to follow, and their aides-de-camp were flying from corps to corps with the preparatory directions. no voice was heard, save that of command, until the foot of the advanced skirmisher was dipped in the stream; the bullet arrests him in his advance, and, as if at the command of some necromancer, thick and obscuring clouds rise from bank to bank, from eminence to eminence, as the loud thunder of war bursts from ten thousand muskets. "the river is passed, and the soldiers of france retire or fall before their stern invaders. we pass through a wood and come to the bottom of a steep hill (the heights of ainhoe), the face of which presents long ridges of formidable breastworks, behind which the enemy keeps up a heavy fire of musketry, and fears no danger in the security of his cover. on the summit overlooking these works is a battery which commands that part of the river within its range. "the th regiment was now ordered to ascend and storm those breastworks, and never did a regiment perform a task so dangerous, so obstructed, and apparently impracticable, with better success or in better order. its line was preserved without a break, not only in climbing the hill but in springing over the breastworks, bayoneting those that waited its approach, even until it cleared the battery on the western summit, where, justly proud of its conquest, it made the hills echo to its loud huzzahs. "meantime our regiment advanced more to the right, where, on a gentle slope of the hill, stood the huts (the recent camp or quarters) of the enemy. some of those huts caught fire, and, owing to the combustible material of which they were constructed, the whole were nearly enveloped in one blaze. the position which the enemy had occupied in the morning was now in our possession, and the sixth division crowned the heights of ainhoe. "the regiment's loss this day did not exceed twenty-seven killed and wounded; among the latter were captain mungo m'pherson and lieutenant kenneth m'dougall. "this was the first engagement i was in, and i considered myself no longer a recruit. i had now smelled the enemy's powder, as the old soldiers boastingly exclaimed; i had heard his bullets whistling past my ears, seen them dropping harmless at my feet, and burrowing in the ground. i had observed, during this contest, the men whom i knew to be the greatest boasters in the company, men who never ceased enlarging on the exploits they had accomplished, the actions they had witnessed, or the hardships they had endured, when they had such a one as myself to listen to their stories; i observed some of those boasters very closely, and i could not help remarking that the men who spoke less acted better. "it is, perhaps, needless to observe that it is scarcely in the power of an individual foot-soldier to perform any enterprising feat in the field of action, unless he be on some detached duty in front, such as is frequently the case with the skirmishers. if he is with the battalion he must keep in his ranks; it is on the united movement of the whole body that general success depends; and he that rushes forward is equally blamable with him who lags behind, though certainly the former may do so with less chance of censure, and no dread of shame. a man may drop behind in the field but this is a dreadful risk to his reputation, and even attended with immediate personal danger, while within the range of shot and shells; and woe to the man that does it, whether through fatigue, sudden sickness, or fear--let him seek death, and welcome it from the hand of a foe, rather than give room for any surmise respecting his courage; for when others are boasting of what they have seen, suffered, or performed, he must remain in silent mortification. "i have seen it frequently remarked, in the periodicals of the time, that the loss in killed and wounded was greater than was actually acknowledged on our side; that we overrated the enemy's loss, and underrated our own; but this is not the case. the loss of the enemy, of course, is a guess rather than a certainty, until we become possessed of their official returns; but that of our own is never underrated. indeed, a soldier feels a greater pride in boasting of his wounds than in trying to conceal them; mere scratches are often magnified into wounds, and stated as such in the returns. "i never yet, among the many i have seen wounded, knew but one individual who kept his wound from being placed on the list; his name was stewart. we were evacuating a redoubt on the heights of toulouse, when a bullet struck him behind, pierced through his cartridge-box, cut his clothes, and hit him smartly on the breech. 'i shall give that to the rascal again,' he said, as he recovered himself and picked up the bullet. 'i shall be ashamed,' he added, 'to let it be known that i was struck behind.' had this bullet struck him on the breast or limbs, there would have been one more on our list of that day's casualties." late in november the army went into cantonments; but on the night of december , the troops were in motion again. says anton:-- "on the night of december , our division was under arms in columns of brigades until nearly daybreak, the artificers being employed in placing a bridge of pontoons over the river, below the town. as soon as this was finished, the troops began to pass along, while the drummers, left behind, beat the reveille at the usual places. this circumstance induced the enemy to conclude that we still occupied our quarters, although we were forming our columns silently in their neighbourhood, concealed amidst a dense mist. as soon as objects were discernible, a signal gun announced our time of advance. a wooden bridge still remained over the river at ustritz, but so far broken down by the enemy as to be impassable; the discharge of this gun, however, so alarmed the french conscript sentries posted at the end of the bridge, on the right bank, that they retired in great haste towards the picket to which they belonged, and our artificers lost no time in making the necessary repairs for the passage of the troops and stores. "the greater part of this day's action consisted in skirmishing, in which the light infantry companies sustained the principal brunt. towards the close of the day, the enemy retired upon a farmhouse situated on a commanding eminence, having some of the adjoining fields enclosed by low dry-stone walls and quickset hedges, behind which they appeared in considerable force, supported by some artillery. in dislodging these troops, captain george stewart and lieutenant james stewart, both of the light company, were killed on the spot, and lieutenant brander was severely wounded." a sudden burst of tempestuous weather arrested the movements of the troops, and the men returned to their camps. directly the rains ceased, however, soult was once more in movement. swiftly marching to his right, he threw the whole strength of his army on the british left, holding the jean de luz road. failing here, he faced about, pushed on at speed to his left, and leaped on the british right. in the toilsome marches and bloody combats of these operations, the nd had a full share. here is a picture by anton of the fighting near bayonne:-- "on the sixth division's attaining the heights overlooking bayonne, its movements were immediately directed to its right, so as to support more effectually the left of the second; and sir denis pack ordered the nd to advance to the main road, by which a brigade of the enemy was retiring. our colonel was as anxious to execute the order as the men were proud to have been selected to perform it, but he led us into such a brake of furze, thorns, and brambles that it would have been impossible to have taken our bare-thighed regiment through its impenetrable meshes. the general, observing our painful but ineffectual struggling, withdrew us from that spot, and pointed to another place by which we should have advanced, and which would have been practicable; but by this time the enemy had passed our mark, and were descending towards the valley of the adour, where, joined by another brigade, they made a determined stand against the nd highlanders, that were coming round on the other flank. "the ground at that place was intersected with deep drains, loose stone walls, and thorn bushes. here a contest ensued, which cannot be described with justice to both parties; perhaps the like seldom or never occurred during the war. the enemy, although on their retreat, were within a short distance of their own fortified position of bayonne, and in view of their own army and people, from whom praise or censure was to be expected; they were also in the animating discharge of an urgent duty, namely, that of opposing the invaders of their beloved country. yet, notwithstanding all these stimulants, the gallant nd bore down every opposition. the guns ceased to play upon this spot, so closely were both parties intermixed. muskets were broken, bayonets bent, and stones were thrown with deadly vengeance. victory crowned our native band, but it was dearly bought. fourteen officers, eight sergeants, and rank and file lay killed and wounded on the spot, and thrice that number of the enemy were scattered in heaps around them. "the sun sank over the blue waves of the bay of biscay, and darkness rested on the fields, before the fire of the skirmishers ceased. both armies, wearied of the struggle, rested on the ground during the night, the pickets occupying the dilapidated remains of the houses in front; to these the wounded men crawled for shelter, or were carried thither if near the spot. "the unfortunate men who had fallen in remote places were suffered to remain under the inclement sky, until morning brought them relief, or death ended their sufferings. the rain poured down heavily during the night, and those who had crawled for shelter to the dry ditches along the roads or fields breathed their last beneath the gathering floods." the bitter, incessant rain now drove the army into permanent winter quarters, and the british troops shivered in their bleak camps from december , , to february , . on the latter date camps were broken up, and the campaign of began. anton's account of the first great fight of that campaign--orthez--is naturally concerned only in the doings of his own regiment:-- "on the afternoon of the th we were ordered to halt, just as we were about to ford the gave, below a large farmhouse, where the river is fordable, but was said to have been set with spikes, so as to form an obstruction to our passage. perhaps there was no truth in this report; however, we suddenly retrograded and passed on pontoons, not far from a small village, in which we were quartered for the night. on the following day we approached the neighbourhood of orthez, where we pitched camp on the south side of the gently rising heights, the north side of which forms the left bank of the pau and overlooks the handsome town beyond. "an explosion, occasioned by the blowing up of a bridge, excited the curiosity of a few to steal up the height, notwithstanding that we had been charged against discovering ourselves to the enemy. others followed the example, and as no measures were taken, or perhaps were necessary, to prevent it, the men indulged themselves with a view of orthez, the beautiful valley, with the pau stealing softly along its south side, while the long range of mountain heights bounding it on the north rose abruptly over the road leading from bayonne and peyrehorade. many a man gazed on that mountain range who little thought that before to-morrow's sun should go down, he would be stretched upon it a lifeless corpse." orthez was, in many respects, a memorable fight. soult was superior in numbers, held an almost impregnable position, fought with great skill, and for one delusive golden moment believed he had beaten wellington! as he saw the british columns which had attacked both his right and left flanks reeling back, broken and disordered, it is said that he smote his thigh and exclaimed with excitement, "at last i have them!" the battle was won by the obstinate valour of the british soldiers, especially of the immortal light division and the swiftness of wellington's counter-stroke at soult's centre. soult's left was covered by the pau, and his centre by what seemed to be an impassable marsh. two diverging and hilly ridges, thrust out like the horns of a bull, constituted his right and left flanks. beresford's attack on the french right, though urged five times over, failed. picton's assault on the horn which formed soult's left, urged with equal fire, also failed. wellington won by sending the light division across the marsh and breaking soult's centre. the nd formed part of picton's attacking force, and the onfall of such troops under such a leader is not easily arrested; but the position held by the french was practically impregnable. in a private letter picton wrote: "we were for nearly two hours exposed to the most continued and severe cannonade i ever witnessed. one of our -pounders had every man killed by round shot." in anton's account the fire of this fierce fight is somehow chilled:-- "early on the morning of sunday, the th, we marched down the left bank of the pau, passed over on a pontoon bridge, and directed our course upon the main road up the valley towards orthez. two divisions of the army were already on the road before us. the heights on our left appeared to be in the possession of the enemy, and as our movements were plainly to attack his centre or his left, which was posted in and above the town, corresponding movements became necessary on his part, and his ranks were seen advancing along the ridge parallel with ours. as the mountain approaches that place where the road to st. severe passes over it from orthez, there is a downward bend of about a mile; it rises, however, to a considerable height on the east side of that road, and commands the town and its approaches. "on our coming near this bending, our brigade was ordered to move to its left; several enclosures were in our way, but this was no time to respect them, as the enemy was welcoming us with round shot and shell. the gardens and nurseries were trodden down in an instant, and a forest of bayonets glittered round a small farmhouse that overlooked a wooded ravine on the north side. "the light companies which had preceded the brigade were keeping up a sharp fire upon the enemy's skirmishers, and our grenadier company was ordered to take post along the bank overlooking the ravine, and commanding a narrow road below. no place seemed less practicable for cavalry to act, but the enemy were determined to make every effort to re-establish their lines on the heights from which they had been driven by the light troops, and some of their squadrons were seen approaching to drive back our advance, which by this time was reinforced by the grenadiers, but the more effectually to repel an attack, two additional companies were despatched to reinforce those already sent, and these had scarcely been formed when the charge of cavalry was announced; it was met and repulsed; men and horses were tumbled over the steep bank on the narrow road below, skirting the ravine. "the gallant young officer who led that charge, passed through the ranks like a lion pouncing on his prey, and was made prisoner by m'namara of the grenadier company. this man, if my memory serve me well, gave the horse and sword to one of our captains, who was afterwards appointed brevet-major; but poor m'namara, who was more of a soldier than a courtier, rose not to corporal. after this repulse of the cavalry, we passed through the ravine, and moved towards the road that passes over the bending of the hill. the light infantry companies of the brigade, under the command of major cowel, were skirmishing in front. the major was severely wounded, and carried to the rear. "the hill rises rather abruptly on the east side of the road, and slopes gradually towards the north side, to which our advance was directed, in order to turn the enemy's right, which had fallen back as we advanced. there is a small village consisting of one street on that brow of the hill towards the north, upon which the enemy was driven back, and from this kept up a destructive fire of musketry from garden walls, windows, and loopholes. our regiment was ordered to drive him from that annoying post, which i may say had now become the right of his position. the bearer of this order was lieutenant innes, who was then acting brigade-major to sir d. pack; he preceded the regiment, and may be said to have led it on. the word of command to advance at the charge was received with loud animating cheers. "no movement in the field is made with greater confidence of success than that of the charge; it affords little time for thinking, while it creates a fearless excitement, and tends to give a fresh impulse to the blood of the advancing soldier, rouses his courage, strengthens every nerve, and drowns every fear of danger or of death; thus emboldened, amidst the deafening shouts that anticipate victory, he rushes on and mingles with the flying foe. "in an instant the village was in our possession, and the fugitives were partly intercepted by the advance of the second division of the army, under lord hill, which had passed the pau above orthez, and was now approaching round the east end of the heights. "the enemy, thus dispossessed of his last position of any importance, commenced a hasty retreat through some enclosed fields and young plantations, through which his columns directed their course, until impeded by intersecting ditches which induced them to take the main road; there the ranks were broken, confusion ensued, and a complete rout was the consequence. "fortunately for them the sun was nearly set, and although the pursuit continued for several miles, they succeeded in keeping the lead, and having reassembled during the night, continued their retreat towards the adour. "the loss of the regiment in this battle was four officers, six sergeants, and eighty-eight rank and file. we left behind us our dead, our dying, and our wounded; the former careless who shut those eyes that looked up to heaven from their gory bed, or who should consign their naked limbs to a grave in the field of a strange land. night suspended hostilities, and the army bivouacked in columns on the fields bordering the road leading to st. severe. "night after a battle is always glorious to the undisputed victors; they draw close to one another to hear and tell of the hazards of the day, while some show the petty prizes snatched off the field, and curse some inter-meddling satrap that would not let them linger behind to get a better. the batmen and baggage-guard join the jocund circles round the camp-fires, and exhibit some full canteens of wine, the hastily snatched spoil of the day, or the plunder of some poultry-house, baker's oven, or farmer's pantry, no less acceptable to men long used to mouldy ship biscuit and scanty fare than silver or gold would have been to those who experienced no want. "midnight shuts our eyes in welcome slumber, and nought is heard to break the awful stillness that prevails, save the tinkling of the mule-bells and the tread of a silent soldier round the expiring embers of a camp-fire." the pursuit of the enemy after orthez witnessed some wild and some amusing scenes:-- "on the th we advanced on the road leading to st. severe, our cavalry in front pursuing and harassing the enemy's rear, and making a number of his stragglers prisoners. many of these were deeply gashed by sabre wounds, and, being unable to get on so fast as the escorts urged, they fell down by the roadside faint from loss of blood, or panting with thirst, frequently soliciting a little water to cool their parched tongues. it is but justice to say that the british soldier attended to their appeals and relieved them when in his power so to do, and sympathised as much for them as if they had never fired a shot at him. "we halted this day about three leagues from st. severe, where the road is crossed by a considerable stream. a considerable quantity of vine-supporters lay scattered in bundles contiguous to our regiment's camp ground, and dry wood being always a desirable article for those who had the culinary duties to perform, a general charge was made in order to secure a quantity before the other regiments came to the knowledge of it. "our colonel had just dismounted, and was about to proceed to a farmhouse adjoining to stable his horse, when the sudden rush of the men, after having piled their arms and thrown down their knapsacks, attracted his attention. he gazed upon them with astonishment, hesitated a moment, and asked one of the guard the cause of so sudden a movement. this soon discovered itself, for the men were loaded with armsful of sticks, and rejoicing over their booty and good luck, anticipating the comfortable warmth it would afford during the drizzly night. sir denis pack had taken up his quarters in the farmhouse, or was supposed to have done so, and nothing was more likely than that he would take an interest in protecting the owner's property. the colonel, whether in dread of the general, or a mistaken sense of justice, called out to the marauders, as he was pleased to call them, to carry back their burdens. some obeyed, others dropped them at their feet, and a few less obedient persisted in bringing them along; but the whole seemed rather unwilling to comply. the colonel, dissatisfied at the apathy displayed in obeying his orders, darted among the offenders and personally chastised those who seemed the most reluctant to obey. "among the most refractory of those wood foragers were two men of singular dispositions; their names were henderson and doury. the former was a contradictory, obstinate, careless, awkward fellow. his visage was long, his lips thick, his mouth always open, and, to use a scotch term, slavering. his feet were flat-soled, without any spring, and he marched like a wearied pedlar under a pack, jolting along the road. he had not seen much service, but, like many old soldiers, he had much to say--he was nicknamed 'the gomeral.' doury was a silly, good-natured simpleton, the butt of every man's jest, yet no jester himself; for, when excited, his utterance failed so far that it was little else than a breathless gibbering of inarticulate sounds. such another couple was not in the regiment, or perhaps in the brigade, and would not be accepted of for the service in time of peace. those two were bringing in their burdens notwithstanding the interdiction, and had entered the field on which the colonel was standing. the colonel, observing that henderson led the other on, strode hastily forward to enforce obedience. doury was the first to observe him, fled past his companion, dropped the sticks at his feet, and escaped. not so henderson: he fell over the bundle dropped at his feet, with his face pressed against the soft, miry field; the colonel overtook him as he recovered, seized him by the kilt, the pins of which yielded to the tug, and left his naked flesh to some merited chastisement. this excited bursts of laughter from all the men, and the poor fellow afterwards declared that he was more vexed at the laughter than hurt by the punishment." war is a rough school, and under its hard experiences all the finery of an army quickly vanishes. colours fade, feathers moult, bright metals turn rusty, uniforms grow ragged, and the once "smart" army becomes, from the tailor's point of view, a thing to weep over or to shudder at. here is a picture of a gallant army in rags and sandals:-- "at this time the clothing of the army at large, but the highland brigade in particular, was in a very tattered state. the clothing of the st regiment had been two years in wear; the men were thus under the necessity of repairing their old garments in the best manner they could: some had the elbows of their coats mended with grey cloth, others had the one-half of the sleeve of a different colour from the body; and their trousers were in equally as bad a condition as their coats. "the nd, which was the only corps in the brigade that wore the kilt, was beginning to lose it by degrees; men falling sick and left in the rear frequently got the kilt made into trousers, and on joining the regiment again no plaid could be furnished to supply the loss. thus a great want of uniformity prevailed; but this was of minor importance when compared to the want of shoes. as our march continued daily, no time was to be found to repair them until completely worn out; this left a number to march with bare feet or, as we termed it, to pad the hoof. these men being occasionally permitted to straggle out of the ranks to select the soft part of the roads or fields adjoining, others who had not the same reason to offer for this indulgence followed the example, until each regiment marched regardless of keeping in rank, and sometimes mixed with other corps in front and rear. to put a stop to this irregularity, the men without shoes were formed by themselves and marched, under the command of officers and non-commissioned officers, in rear of the brigade. "it is impossible to describe the painful state that some of those shoeless men were in, crippling along the way, their feet cut or torn by sharp stones or brambles. to remedy the want of shoes, the raw hides of the newly-slaughtered bullocks were given to cut up, on purpose to form a sort of buskins for the bare-footed soldiers. this served as a substitute for shoes, and enabled the wearers to march in the ranks of their respective companies. "our knapsacks were also by this time beginning to display, from their torn ends, their worthless contents; and as our line of march was in an opposite direction from our expected supplies, our exterior appearance was daily getting worse; but the real spirit of the soldier was improving, and i make little doubt but we would have followed our leaders to the extremity of europe without grumbling. we were getting hardier and stronger every day in person; the more we suffered, the more confidence we felt in our strength; all in health, and no sickness. the man in patched clothes and a piece of untanned hide about his feet, when he looked around him, saw others in some respects as ill appointed as himself; and he almost felt a pride in despising any new-comer with dangling plumes, plaited or crimped frills, white gloves, and handsome shoes--all good-for-nothing frippery to the hardy, toil-worn soldier, the man of flint, powder, and steel, as he thought himself. his was the gloveless hand and the shoeless foot that braved alike the cold and the heat, the toil of the field and the fatigue of the march; nothing came wrong to him; he started in the morning from his hard pillow and harder bed, required no time to blacken his shoes, but braced up his knapsack, regardless of the state of the roads or weather, and was ready to march off. "i have already mentioned that there was some skirmishing with the enemy this day, as we advanced. here we had three men killed and several wounded. one of those who were killed had been doing the duty of pioneer previous to this day; doubtless he had considered this a degrading duty, and had pressingly requested to be permitted to join the ranks. his request was granted; this was his first entry on the field since he obtained that indulgence, and here he fell. he lay on the field adjoining the road; some one had rifled his knapsack, but had thrown the blanket over him. having the general's baggage in charge i was following the brigade with the guard and the mules when i observed some soldiers examining to what regiment the killed belonged; one bore off the knapsack, but left the blanket carelessly cast on the corpse, a batman was making a prize of the blanket, and a portuguese muleteer was about to take off the kilt. "i could be at no loss to know to what regiment he belonged, as the nd was the only corps in the division that had that dress, and i desired one of the guard to recover the blanket, and to spread it over the body, for we had no time to inter it. he sprang on the spoilers in an instant, snatched the blanket from the batman, and seizing the muleteer rather roughly, tumbled him into the ditch that lined the road; then, spreading the blanket over the corpse, left it; but doubtless to be soon stripped again. thus falls the poor soldier." chapter iii the hillside at toulouse anton attempts a more ambitious account of the battle of toulouse than of any other fight in which he was engaged; and there is some reason for this. it was a cluster of scottish regiments--the nd conspicuous amongst them--which, by mere invincible and all-enduring valour, saved wellington from failure in that great fight. soult, it will be remembered, knew toulouse almost with the familiarity of a native. a strong place by nature, he had made it almost impregnable by the energy and skill with which he had multiplied its defences during the long pause before the british advanced. wellington delivered his attack at three points. hill assailed the west front of the city; picton the north; beresford the east. the first two attacks were, perhaps, not seriously meant, and certainly failed. freire, with his spaniards, whose task it was to carry the northern shoulder of mont rave, fell on gallantly, but was smitten into utter rout, extorting from wellington the grim comment, "well, ---- me, if ever i saw ten thousand men run a race before!" beresford's task was perilous in the highest degree; to any other troops than those he led, it might well have proved impossible. he had to toil for two miles along a road which was little better than a strip of marsh, past the flank of mont rave, strongly held by the french. on his left was the river ers. the road was so difficult that the guns were left behind. there was deadly peril at every step that the french might overwhelm the toiling column with a flank attack; or break through betwixt it and the main body of the british army. but beresford--who had fought albuera--was exactly the man for a task which required blind and desperate valour. his men splashed doggedly on their way; on their right the foe, tormenting their flank with his fire; the fordless river to their left; their guns left behind them. when they had reached the southern extremity of the ridge, the regiments brought up their left shoulder, and proceeded to carry the hill. it was seamed with trenches, and bristled with guns. soult, who saw that this was the one point of peril to his battle-line, had brought up two divisions to the threatened point, and the french, gallantly led, and confident in their numbers, in their advantage of position, and in their success at the other attacked points, came boldly down the hill to crush beresford's slender and extended line. nothing, however--not the slippery hill-slope, the cruel fire of the french guns, nor the onfall of the solid french battalions--could stay beresford's men. soult's columns were smashed with rolling musketry volleys. the batteries were carried with the bayonet, and the hill was won. the nd played a most gallant part in this great fight, and endured dreadful losses. anton came through it all untouched, and tells the whole story in a spirited fashion. he sees nothing, however, and describes nothing, but what takes place immediately about himself:-- "we broke up camp a little after midnight, on the morning of easter sunday, april , and marched towards toulouse. the moon shone bright in the unclouded heavens, and reflected a stream of light from the muskets of our advanced columns, for our arms had not then received the brown varnish that now 'dims their shine.' "general pack's brigade was formed in contiguous columns of regiments to the left of the road leading to toulouse. at this time the spaniards, who were in advance and ascending the heights, were attacked with such fury that they gave way in all directions. it was apprehended that the enemy would have borne down upon us in the impetuosity of the movement, and we deployed into lines. the th regiment was at this time in front of the nd, and general pack, anticipating a charge from the enemy's victorious and elated infantry, after thus scattering the spaniards, gave orders to the th to receive them with a volley, immediately form four deep, face about, and pass through the ranks of the nd. the latter received orders to form four deep, as soon as the former had given its fire; let the line pass through, then form up, give a volley, and charge. this was providing against what might have taken place, but did not, for the enemy was recalled, and the spaniards were afterwards rallied. "we now moved off to our left, along a green embankment, a small lake or large pond [really a flooded river] on our left, and a wet ditch and marshy meadow on the right. the shot and shell were flying over our heads into the lake, but the range was too elevated to hurt us, and we ran along the bank until we came to a place where we could leap the ditch and form on the swampy ground beyond it. we had scarcely formed, when a strong column of the enemy, with drums beating a march, descended the hill in our front, and thinking from the nature of the ground that we should be neither able to advance nor retreat, rushed down confident of success. for us to retire would have been scarcely practicable; the bank from which we had leaped down and over the ditch was too high in several places for us to leap back from such uncertain footing, for we were sinking to the ankles, and sometimes deeper at every step; to advance was the only alternative, and it was taken. "the light companies of the division were by this time in our front, and without any hesitation dashed forward; we followed fast, and the opposing column reascended the hill, and left us the undisputed masters of the valley. we now ascended at double quick time, and the whole of the division crowned the eastern summit of the heights. here we were exposed to a destructive fire of round shot, shell, grape, and musketry, while we had not as yet got up one gun, owing to the numerous obstructions that lay in the way. the ground we occupied sloped towards one of the main roads that run over the hill to the city, and the fields on the opposite side of the road were in possession of the enemy, and extremely broken and intersected by deep cross-roads, breastworks, and redoubts, but could, from our present position, have been commanded by artillery, had it been practicable to bring a few guns forward; but this required some time, and indefatigable labour. "the light companies of the division advanced beyond the road, and maintained a very unequal skirmish with the enemy, who lay securely posted behind their breastworks and batteries, and in their redoubts, from all of which they took the most deadly aim. the st regiment was ordered forward to support the skirmishers, and became the marked object of the enemy's batteries, from which incessant showers of grape cut down that corps by sections, while soult was, perhaps, not losing a man, being so safely sheltered from our musketry; it was, therefore, seen necessary to withdraw the skeleton of that regiment to the road, on which we had taken post after its advance. it was now warmly welcomed back, for its retreat was no defeat, and its loss was scarcely equalled by any corps in the field. not a subaltern left the field without a wound, and the honour of the colours was assigned to sergeants. "the enemy, emboldened by this momentary success, on his part, began to advance towards the road, and our regiment was ordered to advance by wings and storm one of the redoubts. "our colonel was a brave man, but there are moments when a well-timed manoeuvre is of more advantage than courage. the regiment stood on the road with its front exactly to the enemy, and if the left wing had been ordered forward, it could have sprung up the bank in line and dashed forward on the enemy at once. instead of this, the colonel faced the right wing to its right, countermarched in rear of the left, and when the leading rank cleared the left flank it was made to file up the bank, and as soon as it made its appearance the shot, shell, and musketry poured in with deadly destruction; and in this exposed position we had to make a second countermarch, on purpose to bring our front to the enemy. these movements consumed much time, and by this unnecessary exposure exasperated the men to madness. "the word 'forward--double quick!' dispelled the gloom, and forward we drove, in the face of apparent destruction. the field had been lately rough ploughed or under fallow, and when a man fell he tripped the one behind, thus the ranks were opening as we approached the point whence all this hostile vengeance proceeded; but the rush forward had received an impulse from desperation, 'the spring of the men's patience had been strained until ready to snap, and when left to the freedom of its own extension, ceased not to act until the point to which it was directed was attained.' in a minute every obstacle was surmounted; the enemy fled as we leaped over the trenches and mounds like a pack of noisy hounds in pursuit, frightening them more by our wild hurrahs than actually hurting them by ball or bayonet. "the redoubt thus obtained consisted of an old country farm cottage, the lower part of its walls stone, the upper part mud or clay. it stood in the corner of what had been a garden, having one door to a road or broad lane, and another to the garden; the whole forming a square which had been lately fortified on three sides by a deep but dry trench, from which the earth had been cast inwards, and formed a considerable bank, sloping inwards, but presenting a perpendicular face of layers of green turf outwards. the cottage served as a temporary magazine, and the mound or embankment as a cover to the enemy from the fire of our troops; and from this place our men had been dreadfully cut down. "it cannot be for an instant supposed that all this could have been effected without very much deranging our ranks, and as the enemy had still a powerful force, and other works commanding this, time would not permit of particularity, and a brisk independent fire was kept up with more noise than good effect by our small groups upon our not yet defeated enemy. our muskets were getting useless by the frequent discharges, and several of the men were having recourse to the french pieces that lay scattered about, but they had been as freely used as our own, and were equally unserviceable. our number of effective hands was also decreasing, and that of the again approaching foe seemed irresistible. "two officers (captain campbell and lieutenant young) and about sixty of inferior rank were all that now remained without a wound of the right wing of the regiment that entered the field in the morning. the flag was hanging in tatters, and stained with the blood of those who had fallen over it. the standard cut in two, had been successively placed in the hands of three officers, who fell as we advanced; it was now borne by a sergeant, while the few remaining soldiers who rallied around it, defiled with mire, sweat, smoke, and blood, stood ready to oppose with the bayonet the advancing column, the front files of which were pouring in destructive showers of musketry among our confused ranks. to have disputed the post with such overwhelming numbers, would have been the hazarding the loss of our colours, and could serve no general interest to our army, as we stood between the front of our advancing support and the enemy; we were therefore ordered to retire. the greater number passed through the cottage, now filled with wounded and dying, and leaped from the door that was over the road into the trench of the redoubt, among the killed and wounded. "we were now between two fires of musketry, the enemy to our left and rear, the th and left wing of our own regiment in our front. fortunately, the intermediate space did not exceed a hundred paces, and our safe retreat depended upon the speed with which we could perform it. we rushed along like a crowd of boys pursuing the bounding ball to its distant limit, and in an instant plunged into a trench that had been cut across the road; the balls were whistling amongst us and over us; while those in front were struggling to get out, those behind were holding them fast for assistance, and we became firmly wedged together, until a horse without a rider came plunging down on the heads and bayonets of those in his way; they on whom he fell were drowned or smothered, and the gap thus made gave way for the rest to get out. "the right wing of the regiment, thus broken down and in disorder, was rallied by captain campbell (afterwards brevet lieutenant-colonel) and the adjutant (lieutenant young) on a narrow road, the steep banks of which served as a cover from the showers of grape that swept over our heads. "in this contest, besides our colonel, who was wounded as he gave the word of command, 'forward,' the regiment lost, in killed and wounded, twenty officers, one sergeant-major, and four hundred and thirty-six of inferior rank. "meantime the portuguese brigade was ordered to take possession of the evacuated redoubt, which was accomplished with little loss, for the enemy had been backward of entering, lest we might have been drawing them into an ambush, or had an intention of blowing up the cottage, in which a considerable quantity of loose cartridges had been left near a large fire by themselves when they were driven out, and most likely intended for that purpose against us, but we had removed the whole to a place of less danger. "thus far the left flank of our army was secured; the spaniards, farther to the right, were making good their advances, our artillery was about getting posted on commanding eminences, while only one battery remained on the western summit in the enemy's possession, and before sunset it was stormed also, and all the heights overlooking toulouse remained in our possession." as soon as the fight is over anton proceeds to mount the pulpit and deliver himself of a homily on the night-scene after a battle, which may be usefully abridged:-- "night after battle is always glorious to the undisputed victors, and whatever the loss may have been, the idea of it seems to be banished from our thoughtless minds. here, however, by the first early dawning of the morning, let us more seriously cast our eye over this scene of slaughter, where the blood of the commander and the commanded mix indiscriminately together over the field. "here lies many a gallant soldier, whose name or fame will never pass to another generation; yet the annals of our country will do justice to the general merit of the whole; from my feeble pen no lasting fame can be expected; time blots it out as i write; and even were i to attempt to pass an eulogy it might be considered contemptible from so humble an individual, by those who survive and witnessed the action. "i trust i shall not be considered egotistical in saying that i had some narrow escapes this day; but what soldier entered the field and came safe out of it had not narrow escapes? a musket-ball struck my halberd in line with my cheek, another passed between my arm and my side, and lodged in my knapsack, another struck the handle of my sword, and a fourth passed through my bonnet and knocked it off my head; had the ball been two inches lower, or i that much higher, the reader would have been saved the trouble of perusing this narrative. the company in which i was doing duty lost four officers, three sergeants, and forty-seven rank and file, in killed and wounded. the officers were:--lieutenant d. m'kenzie severely wounded, lieutenants farquharson and watson mortally wounded, and ensign latta killed. "there was one officer of the regiment taken prisoner this day: he had lately joined us from the st royals, in which he had been cadet, and had not the uniform of the regiment; but his deficiency of the uniform betrayed no lack of personal courage; the charm of the bonnet and plume, though wanting, did not make him less the soldier; he fell, wounded, near to lieutenant farquharson, at the side of the redoubt, as we entered it, and when we fell back he was made prisoner. "i have already mentioned that before the regiment advanced to storm the redoubt, we were posted on the main road that passes over the heights. during the short time we were in that position we had orders not to raise our heads above the bank, nor let the enemy see where we were posted. notwithstanding this prohibition, our sergeant-major, as brave a man as ever entered a field, was despatched from the right flank to warn those on the left to comply with this order, for several were rising up occasionally and sending a bullet at the enemy, and thus, perhaps, defeating the intention of the order. he went, but though cautioned to stoop as he proceeded, he considered this unmanly, and never did he walk with a more upright dauntless carriage of the body or a firmer step: it was his last march; a bullet pierced his brain and stretched him lifeless, without a sigh. "there was a man of the name of wighton in the regiment, a grumbling, discontented, disaffected sort of a character. he was one of the men attached to the tent placed under my charge on joining the regiment. some men take all for the best; not so with wighton, he took everything for the worst; indeed, his very countenance indicated something malignant, misanthropical, and even sottish in his disposition. he was a low, thick, squat fellow, with a dark yellowish swarthy complexion, and his broad face bore a strong resemblance to that of a calmuc tartar. as he rushed along the field his front-rank man exclaimed, 'god almighty preserve us, this is dreadful!' 'you be d--d,' wighton replied, 'you have been importuning god almighty this half-dozen of years, and it would be no wonder although he were to knock you down at last for troubling him so often; as for myself, i do not believe there is one; if there were, he would never have brought us here!' the last word hung unfinished on his tongue; the messenger of death sealed his lips in everlasting silence. "the contest that raged upwards of an hour around the redoubt, of which we had gained possession, was maintained without much regard to order or strict discipline; in short, it was rather tumultuary. every man was sensible of the necessity of having order restored, but thought himself the only orderly man of all the rest, and his voice was heard over that of his commander calling out 'form up.' in the meantime, his own attention was more engaged in keeping in the crowd, to load his piece, and afterwards pushing forward, to send a bullet to the enemy as often as he possibly could load and discharge, than attending to formation. "a grenadier of the th regiment, for both regiments (the nd and th) were somewhat intermixed, rushed forward, discharged his piece with effect, and suddenly turning the musket so as to grasp the muzzle, dealt deadly blows around him; he fell, grasping one of the enemy in one hand, and the broken firelock in the other. another sprung up on the top of the bank, called on his comrades to follow, and with a loud cheer, in which many joined that did not follow, he rushed forward in the same manner as his brave companion had done, and like him shared a similar fate. "it is only in this disorganised kind of conflict that individual courage may best act and best be seen. in united, orderly movements, the whole acquires the praise; and in this each individual is comprised, and proud of contributing his part to the honour of his corps, does his duty without attempting those feats of romantic daring which ancient historians record, but which modern tactics render nugatory or almost useless. individual daring is lost in orderly movements." chapter iv the nd at quatre bras the return of napoleon from elba found the nd on duty in ireland. but when great britain was pouring her choicest troops into the netherlands, in readiness for the last great struggle, so famous a regiment as the nd could not be left behind. the regiment embarked at cork on may , , for ostend, and thence marched in leisurely fashion to brussels. anton discovers quite a new justification for the duchess of richmond's famous ball, which will live in history longer than any other ball at which men and maidens ever danced. he says:-- "on the night of june , we were roused from our peaceful slumbers by the sounding of bugles, the rolling of drums, and the loud notes of our highland bagpipes, which threw their wild, warlike strains on the midnight breeze, to awaken the plaided sons of caledonia to arms. until daybreak of the th we stood to our arms on the streets of brussels, and here we were served out with four days' provisions for each man. the grand ball was broken up, and our highland dancers, who had been invited to display their active movements before the assembled lords, ladies, and military chieftains, were sent to their respective regiments to prepare for other sport--that of glorious battle. "i have heard some passing animadversions upon our great commander, for thus passing away time upon the eve of so momentous an affair as that about to take place. i think, as a soldier, and one who was on the spot, i have as good a right to give my opinion concerning it as any of those croaking politicians who were hundreds of miles from the scene of operations; and in giving my opinion, i give it as that of every soldier who was in brussels at the time, and i believe we are not the worst judges of what is most likely to forward a ready assembling, or a speedy concentration of the troops, in order to attain the end in view. "owing to this general assembly of all our principal officers, the duke had not only all his personal staff about him, but that of the generals under his command. they, again, had around them all the commanding officers of corps, to whom they could personally communicate their orders. the unusually late hour at which the despatches from the scene of hostilities had arrived, and the information respecting the intended movements of our allies, in consequence of their having unexpectedly had to retreat from the bravely contested field, might have changed all our commander's plans. if this should have been the case, he had all those about him to whom he could communicate his designs, without passing hours at the desk, and sending orderlies off to the quarters of officers in a city, the language of whose inhabitants was foreign to us. all this trouble, happily for us and for britain, was saved by this fortunate ball." quatre bras was not the least perilous of wellington's battles. ney's onfall took the iron duke by surprise, and that quatre bras was not a british defeat was due as much to ney's blunders in attack as to wellington's fine skill in defence, and to the magnificent courage of his troops. ney could, with ease, have thrown , men into the fight. wellington, at the beginning of the battle, had in hand only dutch-belgian troops, with seventeen guns. picton's division only reached the field in the afternoon, having started on their long march from brussels at five o'clock in the morning. later, reinforcements came trickling in, till, just as night was darkening, the guards reached the scene of action. but the british came up in fragments, and at remote intervals of time. wellington had very inefficient artillery, and no horsemen; and a fight under such conditions might well have gone wrong. fortunately, ney left half his forces out of the fight, and attacked with , instead of overwhelming the british with , . the highland regiments formed pack's brigade. they came up almost exhausted with their long march, and were flung hurriedly into the strife. the nd, in particular, fared very badly. in the whirl and passion of the fight it changed commanders no less than four times in little more than as many minutes. but disaster itself could hardly shake the ranks of the veterans of the peninsula. here is anton's description of quatre bras. it gives a most spirited account of the struggle betwixt horsemen and infantry:-- "on the morning of june , before the sun rose over the dark forest of soignes, our brigade, consisting of the st, th, and nd regiments, stood in column, sir denis pack at its head, waiting impatiently for the nd, the commanding officer of which was chidden severely by sir denis for being so dilatory. we took our place in the column, and the whole marched off to the strains of martial music, and amidst the shouts of the surrounding multitude. we passed through the ancient gate of the city, and hundreds left it in health and high spirits who before night were lifeless corpses on the field to which they were hastening. "as we entered the forest of soignes, our stream of ranks following ranks, in successive sections, moved on in silent but speedy course, like some river confined between two equal banks. the forest is of immense extent, and we continued to move on under its welcome shade until we came to a small hamlet, or auberge, embosomed in the wood to the right of the road. here we turned to our left, halted, and were in the act of lighting fires on purpose to set about cooking. we were flattering ourselves that we were to rest there until next day; for whatever reports had reached the ears of our commanders, no alarm had yet rung on ours. some were stretched under the shade to rest; others sat in groups draining the cup, and we always loved a large one, and it was now almost emptied of three days' allowance of spirits, a greater quantity than was usually served out at once to us on a campaign; others were busily occupied in bringing water and preparing the camp-kettles, for we were of the opinion, as i have already said, that we were to halt there for the day. "but, 'hark! a gun!' one exclaims; every ear is set to catch the sound, and every mouth seems half opened, as if to supersede the faithless ear that doubts of hearing. again another and another feebly floats through the forest. every ear now catches the sound, and every man grasps his musket. the distant report of the guns becomes more loud, and our march is urged on with greater speed. quatre bras appears in view; the frightened peasantry come running breathless and panting along the way. we move on to the left of the road, behind a gently rising eminence, form column of companies, regardless of the growing crop, and ascend the rising ground; a beautiful plain appears in view, surrounded with belts of wood, and the main road from brussels runs through it. "we now descended to the plain by an echelon movement towards our right, halted on the road (from which we had lately diverged to the left), formed in line, fronting a bank on the right side, whilst the other regiments took up their position to right and left, as directed by our general. a luxuriant crop of grain hid from our view the contending skirmishers beyond, and presented a considerable obstacle to our advance. we were in the act of lying down by the side of the road, in our usual careless manner, as we were wont when enjoying a rest on the line of march, some throwing back their heads on their knapsacks, intending to take a sleep, when general pack came galloping up, and chid the colonel for not having the bayonets fixed. this roused our attention, and the bayonets were instantly on the pieces. "there is something animating to a soldier in the clash of the fixing bayonet; more particularly so when it is thought that the scabbard is not to receive it until it drinks the blood of its foe. "our pieces were loaded, and perhaps never did a regiment in the field seem so short taken. we were all ready and in line--'forward!' was the word of command, and forward we hastened, though we saw no enemy in front. the stalks of the rye, like the reeds that grow on the margin of some swamp, opposed our advance; the tops were up to our bonnets, and we strode and groped our way through as fast as we could. by the time we reached a field of clover on the other side we were very much straggled; however, we united in line as fast as time and our speedy advance would permit. the belgic skirmishers retired through our ranks, and in an instant we were on their victorious pursuers. "our sudden appearance seemed to paralyse their advance. the singular appearance of our dress, combined, no doubt, with our sudden début, tended to stagger their resolution: we were on them, our pieces were loaded, and our bayonets glittered, impatient to drink their blood. those who had so proudly driven the belgians before them, turned now to fly, whilst our loud cheers made the fields echo to our wild hurrahs. "we drove on so fast that we almost appeared like a mob following the rout of some defeated faction. marshal ney, who commanded the enemy, observed our wild unguarded zeal, and ordered a regiment of lancers to bear down upon us. we saw their approach at a distance, as they issued from a wood, and took them for brunswickers coming to cut up the flying infantry; and as cavalry on all occasions have the advantage of retreating foot, on a fair field, we were halted in order to let them take their way; they were approaching our right flank, from which our skirmishers were extended, and we were far from being in a formation fit to repel an attack, if intended, or to afford regular support to our friends if requiring our aid. i think we stood with too much confidence, gazing towards them as if they had been our friends, anticipating the gallant charge they would make on the flying foe, and we were making no preparative movement to receive them as enemies, further than the reloading of the muskets, until a german orderly dragoon galloped up, exclaiming, 'franchee! franchee!' and, wheeling about, galloped off. "we instantly formed a rallying square; no time for particularity; every man's piece was loaded, and our enemies approached at full charge; the feet of their horses seemed to tear up the ground. our skirmishers having been impressed with the same opinion that these were brunswick cavalry, fell beneath their lances, and few escaped death or wounds; our brave colonel fell at this time, pierced through the chin until the point of the lance reached the brain. captain (now major) menzies fell, covered with wounds, and a momentary conflict took place over him; he was a powerful man, and, hand to hand, more than a match for six ordinary men. the grenadiers, whom he commanded, pressed round to save or avenge him, but fell beneath the enemies' lances. "of all descriptions of cavalry, certainly the lancers seem the most formidable to infantry, as the lance can be projected with considerable precision, and with deadly effect, without bringing the horse to the point of the bayonet; and it was only by the rapid and well-directed fire of musketry that these formidable assailants were repulsed. "colonel dick [who afterwards fell at sobraon] assumed the command on the fall of sir robert macara, and was severely wounded. brevet-major davidson succeeded, and was mortally wounded; to him succeeded brevet-major campbell (now lieutenant-colonel on the unattached list). thus, in a few minutes, we had been placed under four different commanding officers. "an attempt was now made to form us in line; for we stood mixed in one irregular mass--grenadier, light, and battalion companies--a noisy group; such is the inevitable consequence of a rapid succession of commanders. our covering sergeants were called out on purpose that each company might form on the right of its sergeant; an excellent plan had it been adopted, but a cry arose that another charge of cavalry was approaching, and this plan was abandoned. we now formed a line on the left of the grenadiers, while the cavalry that had been announced were cutting through the ranks of the th regiment. meantime the other regiments to our right and left, suffered no less than we; the superiority of the enemy in cavalry afforded him a decided advantage on the open plain, for our british cavalry and artillery had not yet reached the field. "we were at this time about two furlongs past the farm of quatre bras, as i suppose, and a line of french infantry was about the same distance from us in front, and we had commenced firing at that line, when we were ordered to form square to oppose cavalry. general pack was at our head, and major campbell commanded the regiment. we formed square in an instant; in the centre were several wounded french soldiers witnessing our formation round them; they doubtless considered themselves devoted to certain death among us seeming barbarians, but they had no occasion to speak ill of us afterwards; for as they were already incapable of injuring us, we moved about them regardful of their wounds and suffering. "our last file had got into square, and into its proper place, so far as unequalised companies could form a square, when the cuirassiers dashed full on two of its faces; their heavy horses and steel armour seemed sufficient to bury us under them, had they been pushed forward on our bayonets. "a moment's pause ensued; it was the pause of death. general pack was on the right angle of the front face of the square, and he lifted his hat towards the french officer, as he was wont to do when returning a salute. i suppose our assailants construed our forbearance as an indication of surrendering; a false idea; not a blow had been struck nor a musket levelled, but when the general raised his hat, it served as a signal, though not a preconcerted one, but entirely accidental; for we were doubtful whether our officer commanding was protracting the order, waiting for the general's command, as he was present. be this as it may, a most destructive fire was opened; riders cased in heavy armour, fell tumbling from their horses; the horses reared, plunged, and fell on the dismounted riders; steel helmets and cuirasses rang against unsheathed sabres as they fell to the ground; shrieks and groans of men, the neighing of horses, and the discharge of musketry, rent the air, as men and horses mixed together in one heap of indiscriminate slaughter. those who were able to fly, fled towards a wood on our right, whence they had issued to the attack, and which seemed to afford an extensive cover to an immense reserve not yet brought into action. "once more clear of these formidable and daring assailants we formed line, examined our ammunition boxes, and found them getting empty. our officer commanding pointed towards the pouches of our dead and dying comrades, and from them a sufficient supply was obtained. we lay down behind the gentle rise of a trodden-down field of grain, and enjoyed a few minutes' rest to our wearied limbs; but not in safety from the flying messengers of death, the whistling music of which was far from lulling us to sleep. "afternoon was now far spent, and we were resting in line, without having equalised the companies, for this would have been extremely dangerous in so exposed a position, for the field afforded no cover, and we were in advance of the other regiments. the enemy were at no great distance, and, i may add, firing very actively upon us. we had wasted a deal of ammunition this day, and surely to very little effect, otherwise every one of our adversaries must have bled before this time. our commanding officer cautioned us against this useless expenditure, and we became a little more economical. "our position being, as i have already observed, without any cover from the fire of the enemy, we were commanded to retire to the rear of the farm, where we took up our bivouac on the field for the night. the day's contest at a close, our attention was directed to the casualties which had occurred in our ranks. we had lost, in killed, one colonel, one lieutenant, one ensign, one sergeant-major, two sergeants, and forty-eight rank and file. one brevet lieutenant-colonel, five captains, five lieutenants, two ensigns, fourteen sergeants, one drummer, and two hundred and fourteen rank and file composed our list of wounded. six privates fell into the enemy's hands; among these was a little lad (smith fyfe) about five feet high. the french general, on seeing this diminutive-looking lad, is said to have lifted him up by the collar or breech and exclaimed to the soldiers who were near him, 'behold the sample of the men of whom you seem afraid!' this lad returned a few days afterwards, dressed in the clothing of a french grenadier, and was saluted by the name of napoleon, which he retained until he was discharged. "the night passed off in silence: no fires were lit, every man lay down in rear of his arms, and silence was enjoined for the night. round us lay the dying and the dead, the latter not yet interred, and many of the former, wishing to breathe their last where they fell, slept to death with their heads on the same pillow on which those who had to toil through the future fortunes of the field reposed." chapter v the highlanders at waterloo anton's account of the retreat from quatre bras to waterloo, of the camp on the historic ridge through the falling rains and blackness of the night before the great battle, and of the tumult and passion, the perils and the triumph, of the memorable day, has many merits. but it is marred by a perfect paroxysm of apostrophes to posterity, to the spirits of the fallen, to freedom, to all sorts of more or less heroic and non-existent abstractions. in describing the struggle in which he was a microscopic and almost nameless actor, anton feels it necessary to mount on the tallest literary stilts available, and walking on stilts is not usually a very graceful performance. anton's account of the battle, in a word, recalls the famous description of a scotch haggis. it contains much good substance, but in a very confused and planless state. his story, indeed, only becomes intelligible by virtue of generous omissions. here is anton's tale of the march from quatre bras:-- "on the morning of the th the unclouded heavens began to present the approach of day, our usual signal to rise from our sky-canopied bed. we started to arms and took up a new line on the field, facing our yet silent foe. here, after arranging our ranks and equalising the companies, we piled our arms, and commenced to prepare our yesterday's dinner, which served us for an excellent breakfast. "the men not thus engaged were now busily employed in burying the dead, and those who had been attending the wounded in the adjoining houses had not neglected the interest of their respective messes. besides our own allowances of meat which we had brought from brussels, there was not a mess without a turkey, goose, duck, or fowl floating in the seething kettle; and an abundance of vegetables from the neighbouring gardens helped to add to the richness of the soup which was preparing, and which we got good time to take, and for this we were truly thankful, for we were very hungry. "a passing fog hung over the plain a short time, but soon disappeared, and left us with a cloudless sky. a general retrograde movement now took place, and we retired on the main road by which we had advanced from brussels. "it was with regret that many of us left that field, on which some of our men lay breathing their last. among this number was a young man whose wound was in his forehead, from which the brain protruded. in this state he had lain on the field during the night; his eyes were open, with a death film over them; two of his comrades were watching the last throb of his expiring breath before they would consign his body to the grave, already opened to receive it, when the call to arms made us leave him on the field to the hands of strangers. "the sun shone brightly on our arms as we left the fields of quatre bras, and passed the farms round which the remains of some thousands of brave men, british, brunswick, belgic, and french, were interred; and many yet lay scattered over the fields, and may have remained hidden amidst the grain which still continued standing, until the sickle or the scythe laid the fields bare. "the enemy did not as yet seem to notice our movement, and we continued our march until we had passed the village, half-way to waterloo. here we turned off the road to our right, formed in columns, and halted; and, short as that halt was, it afforded time for one of our regiments to hold a drum-head court-martial and carry the sentence into effect on the spot. examples of this kind are absolutely necessary, whatever philanthropists may say to the contrary. they tend to preserve regularity, order, and discipline; and although an individual may suffer a punishment which is debasing and cruel, yet it is better that this should be awarded and inflicted than to see hundreds fall victims to the rapacity that might ensue from not timely visiting the aggressor with punishment. "we had now attained the undulating height of mont st. jean, and wellington said, 'we shall retire no farther.' the thunder ceased to roll its awful peals through the heavens, the thick embodied clouds deployed, spread wide, and half dissolved in drizzly mist, but, as if doubtful of man's resolves, resumed again their threatening aspect, as if to secure our halt." at waterloo sir denis pack's brigade--the st, nd, th, and nd--formed part of picton's division, and held the line immediately to the left of the great brussels road. it was on this part of wellington's battle-front that napoleon launched his first great infantry attack--d'erlon's corps, four close-massed columns--over , bayonets in all--with the fire of seventy-four guns sweeping the path in their front as with a besom of flame. the story of how picton's slender lines met this mighty onfall, shook the french columns into retreat with actual bayonet push, and how the life guards, inniskillings, and greys swept down the slope and utterly wrecked d'erlon's swaying battalions is one of the most dramatic passages in the story of the famous day. anton's account of the night before waterloo is graphic:-- "our lines now formed behind the long-extended ridge of mont st. jean, having the village of waterloo a mile or two in our rear, and at no less a distance the dark forest of soignes, which extends to brussels. the right of our front british line extended beyond hougoumont as far as merke braine; the left is said to have extended to wavre! sir t. picton's division consisted of the th, nd, th, and the th (rifle corps), under the command of sir james kempt; and the st, nd, th, and nd regiments, under the command of sir denis pack, extended from the left of the brussels road to a copse on a rising ground which probably overlooked the whole field. the extensive farm-houses and offices of la haye sainte were to the right of the division, but in front and on the right side of the road. "before us was a line of belgic and dutch troops; a narrow road, lined with stunted quickset hedges, runs between this line of foreigners (or i may, with more justice, say natives) and us. this road commands a view of the enemy's position, and the side next to us is the artillery's post; the hedges in front form a feeble cover from the enemy's view, but no defence against his shot, shell, or musketry. "our line, being on the slope next to waterloo, was hidden from the enemy, who took up his position on the heights of la belle alliance, parallel to those of st. jean: a valley corresponding to those wavy heights on either side divides the two armies, a distance of about half a musket-shot intervening between the adverse fronts. "we piled our arms, kindled fires, and stood round the welcome blaze to warm ourselves and dry our dripping clothes. midnight approached, and all the fields towards the artillery's post were hid in darkness, save what the fitful gleams of our fires cast over them. silence prevailed, and wet although we were, we were falling asleep sitting round the fires or stretched on scattered branches brought for fuel. at this time a very heavy shower poured down upon us, and occasioned some movement or noisy murmur in the french army or line of belgians. this induced our sentries to give an alarm. in an instant each man of the brigade stood by his musket; the bayonets were already on the pieces, and these all loaded, notwithstanding the rain. we stood thus to our arms for nearly an hour, sinking to our ankles amongst the soft muddy soil of the field, when the alarm was found to be false, and we again sat or lay down to repose. "long-looked-for day at last began to break; we stood to our useless arms for a few minutes, and then began to examine their contents. the powder was moistened in the piece and completely washed out of the pan. the shots were drawn, muskets sponged out, locks oiled, and everything put to rights." anton's description of the actual on-coming of the french and of the charge of the greys is in his worst style; turgid, windy, unreal. yet it is the story of a man who actually plied 'brown bess' in the central passion of the fight, and ran in with levelled bayonet on d'erlon's grenadiers, and cheered the gallant greys as they rode past on their famous charge. had anton told his tale with the prosaic simplicity of de foe or the stern realism of swift, we might have had a battle picture memorable in literature. as it is, we must be thankful for small mercies. the present reader at least shall be spared anton's incessant apostrophes:-- "now, on our right, napoleon urged on his heavy columns, while a like movement was made against our left. the guns opened their war-breathing mouths in thundering peals, and all along the ridge of mont st. jean arose one dense cloud of smoke. "france now pushed forward on the line of our belgic allies, drove them from their post, and rolled them in one promiscuous mass of confusion through the ranks of our brigade, which instantly advanced to repel the pursuers, who came pushing on in broken disorder, in the eagerness of pursuit, till obstructed by the hedge and narrow road, while a like obstruction presented itself to us on the other side. we might have forced ourselves through as the belgians had done, but our bare thighs had no protection from the piercing thorns; and doubtless those runaways had more wisdom in shunning death, though at the hazard of laceration, than we would have shown in rushing forward upon it in disorder, with self-inflicted torture. the foe beheld our front and paused; a sudden terror seized his flushed ranks. we were in the act of breaking through the hedge, when our general gave orders to open our ranks. in an instant our cavalry passed through, leaped both hedges, and plunged on the panic-stricken foe. 'scotland for ever!' burst from the mouth of each highlander as the scots greys pass through our ranks. "what pen can describe the scene? horses' hoofs sinking in men's breasts. riders' swords streaming in blood, waving over their heads, and descending in deadly vengeance. stroke follows stroke, like the turning of a flail in the hand of a dexterous thresher; the living stream gushes red from the ghastly wound. there the piercing shrieks and dying groans; here the loud cheering of an exulting army, animating the slayers to deeds of signal vengeance upon a daring foe. it was a scene of vehement destruction, yells and shrieks, wounds and death; and the bodies of the dead served as pillows for the dying. "a thousand prisoners are driven in before our cavalry as they return over the corpse-strewn field, and the loud shouts of ten thousand soldiers welcome the victors back. but long and loud are the enthusiastic cheerings of the proud highlanders as they greet the gallant greys' approach. 'glory of scotland!' bursts spontaneously from the mouth of each highlander, while rending shouts of 'england!' or 'ireland!' welcome the st and inniskilling dragoons, and echo along the lines. this dreadful charge made by our cavalry in our immediate front gave an impulse bordering on enthusiasm to our spirits that nothing could depress. but the enemy, as if dreading more than common opposition at this spot, forbore to press upon it during the remaining part of the day. "the right and left both sustained the impetuous onset of napoleon's cavalry, and these on each occasion met with powerful opposition, and were driven back in wild confusion. but on the right and centre he seems to urge his greatest force throughout the whole day. la haye sainte is one pool of blood; against it napoleon's artillery incessantly play, and columns of infantry are urged on to drive the brave defenders out. but these meet them with fire and steel, and repel them with determined resolution. here a never-ceasing combat rages throughout the day, and forms an interesting object in the general picture of the field. hougoumont is no less a scene of slaughter; there, every effort is made to obtain possession and to break in upon our right wing. sometimes in the heat of a charge they rush past its bounds, but meet with wounds or death as they fly back; for it is only when the enemy occasionally pursues his apparently victorious course beyond his lines and past our guns that he gets a view of our columns or lines of infantry, which immediately take advantage of his disordered front, and drive him back, with immense loss, beyond our guns and down the descent; they then retire to their well-chosen ground and send out a company or two of skirmishers from each regiment to keep up a never-ceasing fire, save when driven back on their respective columns in those repeated charges. "the sun, as he hastens down, bursts through the hazy clouds and gleams in brightness over the long-contested field. it is the setting sun of napoleon's greatness. "the loss of the regiment this day was trifling, if compared with that which it sustained on the th at quatre bras: we had only six men killed; one captain, three lieutenants, and thirty-three rank and file wounded. brussels, which had been kept in a state of excitement since the night of the th, heard the glad tidings of the result of the battle, and the doors were opened wide for the reception of the bleeding soldiers, who had been conveyed thither on waggons or had dragged their maimed limbs along the way without assistance. the poor women, who had been forced back to the rear of the army when the battle commenced, were hurried amidst the mingled mass of fugitives, panic-struck batmen, mules, horses, and cattle, back to the gates of brussels; but on entering, found no friendly hand stretched out to take them off the streets. "night passes over the groaning field of waterloo, and morning gives its early light to the survivors of the battle to return to the heights of st. jean, on purpose to succour the wounded or bury the dead. here may be seen the dismounted gun, the wheels of the carriage half sunk in the mire; the hand of the gunner rests on the nave, his body half-buried in a pool of blood, and his eyes open to heaven, whither his spirit has already fled. here are spread, promiscuously, heaps of mangled bodies--some without head, or arms, or legs: others lie stretched naked, their features betraying no mark of violent suffering. "the population of brussels, prompted by a justifiable curiosity, approach the field to see the remains of the strangers who fell to save their spoil-devoted city, and to pick up some fragment as a memorial of the battle, or as a relic for other days. of these the field affords an abundant harvest; cuirasses, helmets, medals, swords, pistols, and all the various weapons of destruction in military use, besides the balls and bullets, which may be ploughed up a thousand years hence. here also are hundreds of blankets, ripped-up knapsacks, torn shirts, stockings, and all the simple contents of the fallen soldiers' kits. letters and memoranda of the slain strew the field in every direction, which are picked up by the curious and carefully preserved." iv with the guns at waterloo iv.--with the guns at waterloo mercer, the author of the "journal of the waterloo campaign," came of a soldierly stock. his father belonged to the royal engineers, served on the staff of sir henry clinton in the american war of independence, and rose to the rank of general. cavalie mercer, with whose book we are concerned, was born in , passed through the military academy at woolwich, obtained a commission in the artillery at sixteen, and had not reached the retired list when he died at the age of eighty-five. but though his career as a soldier was long and honourable, it cannot--except for the three great days of quatre bras and waterloo--be called very inspiring. mercer's first military service was in ireland at the time of the rebellion. war is always hateful, but its blackest form is civil war. mercer was next unfortunate enough to take part in the most ignoble expedition known to british arms--whitelocke's shameful and unhappy performance at buenos ayres. this was the worst school imaginable for a young soldier, but mercer had fine military gifts, and though he was shut out from the peninsular campaigns, when he made his appearance on the field of waterloo he showed himself to be an artillery officer of very fine quality--cool, skilful, and gallant. he served after the peace in north america, and commanded the artillery in nova scotia in the troubled days of the maine boundary-line dispute, when it seemed likely that england and the united states would drift into war. mercer's long military career found its climax in the three memorable days of june - , ; and the splendours and terrors, the bloodshed and the triumph of those mighty battles are vividly reflected in his pages. chapter i waiting for the guns mercer held the rank of second captain only in troop g, but sir alexander dickson, whose troop it was, being employed on other duties, mercer was in actual command. it was a fine troop, perfect in drill, and splendidly horsed. it owed this latter circumstance, perhaps, to a characteristic bit of war office administration. the artillery was being reduced to the level of a peace establishment when napoleon broke loose from elba, and there came the sudden summons to war. a second troop of horse-artillery was at that moment in colchester barracks. it was broken up, and troop g took the picked horses of both batteries--"thus," says mercer proudly, "making it the finest troop in the service." one fine troop was in this way made out of two half-dismantled batteries. the troop was made up of eighty gunners and eighty-four drivers, with the usual proportion of officers and non-commissioned officers. the horses numbered no less than . there were six guns--five of them being nine-pounders, and one a heavy five-and-a-half inch howitzer. mercer has the wholesome pride of a good officer in his own men and guns. he tells with pardonable complacency the story of how his troop shone in a grand cavalry review held on may , near gramont:-- "about two o'clock the duke of wellington and prince blucher, followed by an immense cortège, in which were to be seen many of the most distinguished officers and almost every uniform in europe, arrived on the ground. need i say that the foreigners were loud in praise of the martial air, fine persons, and complete equipment of the men and horses, and of the strength and beauty of the latter? and my vanity on that occasion was most fully gratified, for on arriving where we stood, the duke not only called old blucher's attention to 'the beautiful battery,' but, instead of proceeding straight through the ranks, as they had done everywhere else, each sub-division--nay, each individual horse--was closely scrutinised, blucher repeating continually that he had never seen anything so superb in his life, and concluding by exclaiming, 'mein gott, dere is not von orse in dies batterie wich is not goot for veldt marshal': and wellington agreed with him. it certainly was a splendid collection of horses. however, except asking sir george wood whose troop it was, his grace never even bestowed a regard on me as i followed from sub-division to sub-division." the troop, as mercer's story shows, was literally smashed up at waterloo; but mercer, with great energy and skill, quickly built it up again, and at a great review in paris, where the allied sovereigns were present, the english guns were once more the admired of all observers. he writes:-- "it seems that we have been the _rara avis_ of the day ever since our review. the rapidity of our movements, close-wheeling, perfection of our equipment, &c., &c., excited universal astonishment and admiration. the consequence of this was an application to the duke for a closer inspection, which he most magnanimously granted, and ordered ross's troop out for that purpose. they paraded in the fields near clichy. the reviewers, i understand, were _marechaux de france_; but there was also a great concourse of officers of all nations. after the manoeuvres the troop was dismounted, and a most deliberate inspection of ammunition, and even of the men's kits, appointments, shoeing, construction of carriages, &c., &c., took place. i believe they were equally astonished and pleased with what they saw, and as there were several among them taking notes, have no doubt that we shall soon see improvements introduced into the continental artillery." mercer, curiously enough, declares that the british artilleryman of his day had no affection for his horse, and in this respect compares very ill with the german artilleryman; the same thing, he says, applies to british and german cavalry:-- "affection for, and care of, his horse is the trait _par excellence_ which distinguishes the german dragoon from the english. the former would sell everything to feed his horse; the latter would sell his horse itself for spirits, or the means of obtaining them. the one never thinks of himself until his horse is provided for; the other looks upon the animal as a curse and a source of perpetual drudgery to himself, and gives himself no concern about it when once away from under his officer's eye. the german accustoms his horse to partake of his own fare. i remember a beautiful mare, belonging to a sergeant of the rd hussars, k.g.l., which would even eat onions. she was one of the very few that escaped after the disastrous retreat of corunna, and had been saved and smuggled on board ship by the sergeant himself. in the peninsula the only means of enforcing some attention to their horses amongst our english regiments was to make every man walk and carry his saddle-bags whose horse died or was ill." all branches of the british army, it may be added, did not impress the allied sovereigns in the same favourable manner as the artillery. the british infantry seemed under-sized as compared with austrians, prussians, &c. mercer's account of the memorable review, held only five weeks after waterloo, is interesting:-- "at length the approach of the sovereigns was announced, and they came preceded and followed by a most numerous and brilliant cortège, in which figured, perhaps, some of almost every arm of every army in europe. it was a splendid and most interesting sight. first came the emperor alexander and the king of prussia, in their respective green and blue uniforms, riding together--the former, as usual, all smiles; the latter taciturn and melancholy. a little in their rear followed the austrian emperor, in a white uniform, turned up with red, but quite plain--a thin, dried-up, thread-paper of a man, not of the most distinguished bearing; his lean, brown visage, however, bore an expression of kindness and _bonhomie_, which folk say his true character in no way belies. they passed along, scanning our people with evident interest and curiosity; and in passing me (as they did to every commanding officer), pulled off their hats, and saluted me with most gracious smiles. i wonder if they do the same to their own. until yesterday i had not seen any british infantry under arms since the evening the troops from america arrived at garges, and, in the meantime, have constantly seen corps of foreign infantry. "these are all uncommonly well dressed in new clothes, smartly made, setting the men off to the greatest advantage--add to which their coiffure of high broad-topped shakos, or enormous caps of bearskin. our infantry--indeed our whole army--appeared at the review in the same clothes in which they had marched, slept, and fought for months. the colour had faded to a dusky brick-dust hue; their coats, originally not very smartly made, had acquired by constant wearing that loose, easy set so characteristic of old clothes, comfortable to the wearer, but not calculated to add grace to his appearance. _pour surcroît de laideur_, their cap is perhaps the meanest, ugliest thing ever invented. from all these causes it arose that our infantry appeared to the utmost disadvantage--dirty, shabby, mean, and very small. some such impression was, i fear, made on the sovereigns, for a report has reached us this morning that they remarked to the duke what very small men the english were. 'ay,' replied our noble chief, 'they are small; but your majesties will find none who fight so well.' i wonder if this is true. however small our men and mean their appearance, yet it was evident that they were objects of intense interest from the immense time and close scrutiny of the inspection." mercer, with his troop, embarked at harwich on april , and landed at ostend on the th. thence he marched, with frequent halts, to brussels. his account of the marches and experiences of his troop is very interesting, if only as showing that even under a great commander like wellington, amazing blunders and much distracted confusion were possible. nothing more absurd can well be imagined than the fashion in which mercer's fine troop was disembarked at ostend; and nothing could be more planless and belated than the marching--or rather the loitering--of troop g towards brussels. wellington used to complain afterwards that in the waterloo campaign he had the most villainous staff with which an unhappy general was ever afflicted; and the helpless quality of wellington's staff is reflected in mercer's account of the orders he received--or did not receive--directing his march to the front. here is mercer's account of how his troops started from their english barracks on the march which was to end on the smoky ridge at waterloo:-- "on the morning of the th, the troop paraded at half-past seven o'clock with as much regularity and as quietly as if only going to a field-day; not a man either absent or intoxicated, and every part of the guns and appointments in the most perfect order. at eight, the hour named in orders, we marched off the parade. the weather was fine, the scenery, as we skirted the beautiful banks of the stour, charming, and the occasion exhilarating. near manningtree we halted a short time to feed our horses, and then, pursuing our route, arrived at harwich about three o'clock in the afternoon. here we found the transports--the _adventure_, _philarea_, and _salus_, in which last i embarked. "about p.m. on the th, a light breeze from the n.w. induced our agent to get under way, and we repaired on board our respective ships with every prospect of a good and speedy passage. in this, however, we were disappointed, for the breeze dying away as the sun went down, we anchored, by signal, at the harbour's mouth, just as it got dark. "the evening was splendid. a clear sky studded with myriads of stars overhead, and below a calm unruffled sea, reflecting on its glassy surface the lights of the distant town, the low murmuring sounds from which, and the rippling of the water under the ships' bows, were the only interruptions to the solemn stillness that prevailed after the people had retired to their berths. in our more immediate neighbourhood stretched out the long, low, sandy tract, on the seaward extremity of which the dark masses and landguard fort could just be distinguished. "with daybreak on the morning of the th came a favourable wind, though light, and again we took up our anchors and proceeded to sea. for some distance after clearing the harbour our course lay along the suffolk coast, and so near in that objects on shore were plainly discernible. to us who had long been stationed at woodbridge, only a few miles inland, this was highly interesting. we knew every village, every copse, every knoll--nay, almost every tree. there were the houses in which we had so oft been hospitably entertained; there were the sheep-walks on which we had so often manoeuvred; and there in the distance, as we passed the mouth of the deben, our glasses showed us the very barrack on the hill, with its tiled roofs illumined by the noontide sun. about bawdsey we left the coast, and steered straight over with a light but favourable wind; the low, sandy shores of suffolk soon sank beneath the horizon. "during the night a light breeze right aft and smooth water enabled us to make good progress; but towards morning ( th) the wind had very considerably increased, and although the coast was not in sight, we were sensible of its neighbourhood from the number of curious heavy-looking boats plying round us in all directions, having the foremast with its huge lug-sail stuck right up in the bow or rather inclining over it. "nothing, certainly, could be more repulsive than the appearance of the coast--sandhills as far as the eye could reach, broken only by the grey and lugubrious works and buildings of ostend, and further west by the spires of mittelkerke and nieuport peering above the sandhills. the day, too, was one little calculated to enliven the scene. a fresh breeze and cloudy sky; the sea black, rough, and chilly; the land all under one uniform cold grey tint, presenting scarcely any relief of light and shadow, consequently no feature. upon reconnoitring it, however, closer, we found that this forbidding exterior was only an outer coating to a lovely gem. through the openings between the sandhills could be seen a rich level country of the liveliest verdure, studded with villages and farms interspersed amongst avenues of trees and small patches of wood. "a black-looking mass of timber rising from the waters off the entrance of the harbour, and which we understood to be a fort, now became the principal object of our attention. the harbour of ostend is an artificial one, formed by _jetées_ of piles projecting as far as low-water mark. the right on entering is merely a row of piles running along in front of the works of the town; but on the left is a long mole or _jetée_ on the extremity of which is a small fort. behind this mole to the north-east the shore curving inwards forms a bight, presenting an extent of flat sandy beach on which the water is never more than a few feet deep even at the highest tides. a tremendous surf breaks on this whenever it blows from the westward. "followed by a crowd of other craft of all sorts and sizes, we shot rapidly along towards that part of the harbour where a dense assemblage of shipping filled up its whole breadth and forbade further progress, so that one wondered what was to become of the numerous vessels in our wake. the mystery was soon explained, for each having attained the point, turning her prow to the town, ran bump on the sands and there stuck fast. those immediately above us had just arrived, and from them a regiment of light dragoons was in the act of disembarking, by throwing their horses overboard and then hauling them ashore by a long rope attached to their head-collars. what a scene! what hallooing, shouting, vociferating, and plunging! the poor horses did not appear much gratified by their sudden transition from the warm hold to a cold bath. "our keel had scarcely touched the sand ere we were abruptly boarded by a naval officer (captain hill) with a gang of sailors, who, _sans cérémonie_, instantly commenced hoisting our horses out, and throwing them, as well as our saddlery, &c., overboard, without ever giving time for making any disposition to receive or secure the one or the other. to my remonstrance his answer was, 'i can't help it, sir; the duke's orders are positive that no delay is to take place in landing the troops as they arrive, and the ships sent back again; so you must be out of her before dark.' it was then about p.m., and i thought this a most uncomfortable arrangement. "the scramble and confusion that ensued baffle all description. bundles of harness went over the side in rapid succession as well as horses. in vain we urged the loss and damage that must accrue from such a proceeding. 'can't help it--no business of mine--duke's orders are positive,' &c., &c., was our only answer. meantime the ebb had begun to diminish the depth of water alongside, and enabled us to send parties overboard and to the beach to collect and carry our things ashore, as well as to haul and secure the horses. the same operation commenced from the other vessels as they arrived, and the bustle and noise were inconceivable. the dragoons and our men (some nearly, others quite, naked) were dashing in and out of the water, struggling with the affrighted horses, or securing their wet accoutrements as best they could. some of the former were saddling their dripping horses, and others mounting and marching off in small parties. disconsolate-looking groups of women and children were to be seen here and there sitting on their poor duds, or roaming about in search of their husbands, or mayhap of a stray child, all clamouring, lamenting, and materially increasing the babel-like confusion. "it was not without difficulty that i succeeded at last in impressing upon captain hill the necessity of leaving our guns and ammunition-waggons, &c., on board for the night--otherwise his furious zeal would have turned all out to stand on the wet sand or be washed away. meantime, although we were on shore, we were without orders what to do next. not an officer, either of the staff, the garrison, or even of our own corps, came near us. night approached, and with it bad weather evidently. our poor shivering horses and heaps of wet harness could not remain on the sands much longer, when the flood began to make again; and it was necessary to look about and see what could be done. with this intent, therefore, leaving the officers to collect their divisions, i got one of my horses saddled and rode into the town. here was the same bustle (although not the same confusion) as on the sands. the streets were thronged with british officers, and the quays with guns, waggons, horses, baggage, &c. "one would hardly expect to meet with any delay in finding the commandant of a fortress, yet such was my case; and it was not until after long and repeated inquiry that i discovered lieut.-colonel gregory, th regiment, to be that personage, and found his residence. from him, however, i could obtain nothing. he seemed hardly to have expected the compliment of reporting our arrival, and stated that he had no other orders but that the troops of every arm should march for ghent the moment they landed, without halting a single day in ostend. "strange to say neither i nor the colonel recollected there was such a person in ostend as an assistant-quarter-master-general, who should be referred to on such an occasion. yet this was the case; and that officer, instead of attending to the debarkation of the troops, or making himself acquainted with the arrivals, kept out of sight altogether. baffled at all points, i was returning to the sands when i met major drummond on the quai impérial, and related my story. his advice was to march to ghystelle (a village about six miles from ostend), and after putting up there for the night, to return and disembark my guns, &c., in the morning. while speaking, however, some one (i forget who) came up with the agreeable information that ghystelle was already fully occupied by the th dragoons. he, however, gave me directions for some large sheds about a mile off, where his own horses had passed the preceding night. "this was some consolation: so riding off immediately to reconnoitre the place and the road to it, i returned to the beach just as it got dark; and a most miserable scene of confusion i there found. our saddles, harness, baggage, &c., were still strewed about the sand, and these the flood, which was now making, threatened soon to submerge. _pour surcroît de malheur_, the rain came down in torrents, and a storm, which had been brewing up the whole afternoon, now burst over us most furiously. the lightning was quite tremendous, whilst a hurricane, howling horribly through the rigging of the ships, was only exceeded in noise by the loud explosions and rattling of the incessant claps of thunder. "our people, meantime, blinded by the lightning, had borrowed some lanterns from the ship, and were busily employed searching for the numerous articles still missing. the obscurity, however, between the vivid flashes was such that we were only enabled to keep together by repeatedly calling to each other, and it was not without difficulty and great watchfulness that we escaped being caught by the tide, which flowed rapidly in over the flat sands. at length, having collected as many of our things as was possible, and saddled our horses (some two or three of which had escaped altogether), we began our march for the sheds a little after midnight, with a farrier and another dismounted man carrying lanterns at the head of our column. "the rain continued pouring, but flashes of lightning occurred now only at intervals, and the more subdued rolling of the thunder told us that it was passing away in the distance. our route lay through the town, to gain which we found some advanced ditch to be crossed by a very frail wooden bridge. half the column, perhaps, might have cleared this, when, 'crack,' down it went, precipitating all who were on it at the moment into the mud below, and completely cutting off those in the rear. here was a dilemma. ignorant of the localities, and without a guide, how was the rear of the column to join us, or how were the people in the ditch, with their horses, to be extricated? luckily none were hurt seriously, and the depth was not great--not more, perhaps, than six or eight feet; but that was enough to baffle all our attempts at extricating the horses. some belgic soldiers of a neighbouring guard, of which we were not aware, fortunately heard us, and came to our assistance; and one of them, crossing the ditch, undertook to guide the rear of our column and those below to another gate, whilst one accompanied us to the quai impérial, where, after waiting a while, we were at length assembled, drenched with rain and starving of cold and hunger. "the quai was silent and dark; the only light gleamed dimly through the wet from a miserable lamp over the door of a café, in which people were still moving; and the only sounds that broke the stillness of the quarter were the splashing of the rain and the clattering of our steel scabbards and horses' feet as we moved dejectedly on--winding our way through unknown avenues (for in the dark i found it impossible to recognise the narrow streets through which i had so hurriedly passed in the afternoon), occasionally illuminated by a solitary lamp, the feeble light of which, however, was somewhat increased by reflection on the wet pavement. after following for some time this devious course, i began to fear i had missed the road, when again we stumbled upon a belgic guard, by whose direction and guidance we at length reached the outer barrier. here we again came to a standstill, the officer in charge refusing to let us out. some altercation ensued; i forget the particulars, but it ended in his opening the gate. "once clear of the town, we hoped soon to reach our lodging; but had scarcely advanced a hundred yards ere we found that result was more distant than we had fancied, and that patience was still requisite. the rain had rendered the fat soil so slippery that our horses could scarcely keep their legs, and the road running along the narrow summit of a dyke, with ditches on each side, rendered precaution and slow movement imperative. every moment the fall of some horse impeded the column; our lanterns went out; and after wandering a considerable time, we at length ascertained, by knocking up the people at a house by the wayside, that we had overshot our mark, and it was not until two in the morning that we succeeded in finding the sheds. these were immensely long buildings attached to some saw-mills, for what use i know not, unless to store planks, &c., for they were now empty; but they were admirably adapted to our purpose, since we could range all our horses along one side, while the men occupied the other, in one of them. a quantity of hay, and some straw, left by our predecessors, was a valuable acquisition to man and beast under such circumstances. all our enjoyments are the effect of contrast. it would be considered miserable enough to be obliged to pass the night under such equivocal shelter as these sheds afforded, and that, too, in wet clothes; yet did we now, after twelve hours of harassing work and exposure to the weather, look upon them as palaces, and having cared for our poor beasts as far as circumstances would permit, proceeded to prepare for that repose so necessary and so longed for. "our road back to the town, now we had daylight, appeared very short, and having dried considerably, was not so slippery as last night. the gates were not yet opened when we arrived; a crowd of workmen of different kinds had already assembled and were waiting for admission, as were we, for a few minutes. at last they opened, and we proceeded to the harbour in search of our ship. the quais, beach, &c., were thronged as on the day before, and we added to the bustle in disembarking our guns and carriages, &c. this was completed by eleven o'clock, and we were ready to march forward; but the commissariat detained us waiting the issue of our rations until p.m.--four mortal hours, considering our eagerness to get on and explore this new country, and the bore of being confined to one spot, since it was impossible to wander about the town, seeing that we could not calculate the moment when these gentry might find it convenient to supply us. of our horses two were still missing, as were some saddle-bags and a number of smaller articles; and this is not to be wondered at when the scandalous manner in which they were thrown overboard, the badness of the weather, the darkness of the night, together with the ebbing and flowing of the tide, are taken into consideration. "the appearance, too, of the troop was vexatious in the extreme. our noble horses, yesterday morning so sleek and spirited, now stood with drooping heads and rough staring coats, plainly indicating the mischief they had sustained in being taken from a hot hold, plunged into cold water, and then exposed for more than seven hours on an open beach to such a tempest of wind and rain as that we experienced last night. here was a practical illustration of the folly of grooming and pampering military horses, destined as they are to such exposures and privations. as for our men, they looked jaded, their clothes all soiled with mud and wet, the sabres rusty, and the bearskins of their helmets flattened down by the rain. still, however, they displayed the same spirit and alacrity as that which has always been a characteristic of the horse-artillery, more particularly of g troop." the tedium of waiting for so many hours on ostend beach was relieved by a naval incident of an exciting quality:-- "a loud cry of dismay suddenly pervaded the crowd, and all simultaneously rushed to the ramparts. i followed this movement. the morning, though somewhat overcast, had been fine, and the wind moderate; but as the day advanced, and the flood-tide set in, the south-westerly breeze had gradually increased to a gale. on reaching the rampart, i immediately observed that the flat shore to the northward, as far as the eye could reach, was covered with a sheet of white foam from the tremendous surf breaking on it; whilst the spray, rising in clouds and borne along before the blast, involved the whole neighbourhood in a thick salt mist. nothing could be more savage and wild than the appearance of the coast. "in the offing, numerous vessels under small sail were running for the harbour. one small brig had missed, and before assistance could be given, had been whirled round the _jetée_, and cast broadside on amongst the breakers. her situation was truly awful. the surf broke over her in a frightful manner, sending its spray higher than her masts, and causing her to roll from side to side until her yards dipped in the water, and induced a belief every moment that she must roll over. every now and then a huge wave, larger than its predecessor, would raise her bodily, and then, rapidly receding, suddenly let her fall again on the ground with a concussion that made the masts bend and vibrate like fishing-rods, and seemed to threaten instant annihilation. of her sails, some were torn to rags, and others, flying loose, flapped and fluttered with a noise that was audible from the rampart, despite the roaring of the surf. the people on board appeared in great agitation, and kept shouting to those on shore for assistance, which they were unable to give. "intense anxiety pervaded the assembled multitude as the shattered vessel alternately rose to view or was buried in a sea of foam. numbers ran down to the sands opposite to her; and from them she could not have been twenty yards distant, yet could they not afford the despairing crew the slightest aid. whilst thus attending in breathless expectation the horrid catastrophe, the return of our quarter-master with the rations summoned us unwillingly from the rampart to commence our march. we afterwards learnt that a boat from the harbour had succeeded in saving the crew (she had no troops on board); but the unfortunate pilot who thus gallantly risked his own life for them was killed by the boat rising suddenly under the vessel's counter as he stood in the bow, which dashed his brains out." chapter ii on march to the field mercer's description of his march across the low countries is full of keen observation, and rich in pictures of peasant life. at ghent the troop halted for seven days. here the much-wandering louis xviii. held his court, and mercer gives an entertaining account of the scenes he witnessed:-- "during the seven days we remained in ghent our time was so occupied by duties that there was little leisure to look about us. amongst other duties, it fell to our lot to furnish a guard of honour to louis xviii., then residing in ghent, his own troops having been sent to alost to make room for the british, which were continually passing through. our subalterns were very well pleased with this arrangement, for the duty was nothing. they found an excellent table, and passed their time very agreeably with the young men of the _gardes du corps_, some of whom were always in attendance. many of these were mere boys, and the ante-room of his most christian majesty frequently exhibited bolstering matches and other amusements, savouring strongly of the boarding-school. however, they were good-natured, and always most attentive to the comforts of the officer on guard. the royal stud was in the barrack stables, and consisted principally of grey horses, eighteen or twenty of which had been purchased in england at a sale of 'cast horses' from the scots greys. "we frequently met french officers of all ranks, and formed acquaintance with many gentlemanly, well-informed men. at the lion d'or and hôtel de flandre we found there was a _table d'hôte_ every night at eight o'clock, and, by way of passing the evening, usually resorted to one or the other for supper. here we were sure of meeting many frenchmen, and as the same people were generally constant attendants, we became intimate, and discussed the merits of our national troops respectively over our wine or _ponche_. it was the first time most of them had had an opportunity of inspecting british troops closely, though many had often met them in the field; and they were very curious in their inquiries into the organisation, government, and equipment of our army. although allowing all due credit to the bravery displayed by our troops in the peninsula, and the talents of our general (the duke), yet were they unanimous in their belief that neither would avail in the approaching conflict, and that we must succumb before their idol and his grand army, for though these gentlemen had deserted napoleon to follow the fortunes of louis xviii., it was evident they still revered the former. "their admiration of our troops, particularly of the cavalry, was very great, but they expressed astonishment at seeing so few decorations. it was in vain we asserted that medals were rarely given in the british army, and then only to commanding officers, &c. they shook their heads, appeared incredulous, and asked, 'where are the troops that fought in spain?' there might have been something more than mere curiosity in all this; there might have been an anxiety to ascertain whether their countrymen were about to cope with veterans or young soldiers. it might have been thrown out as a lure to provoke information relative to the present employment of those veteran bands. moreover, i shrewdly suspected many of the gentlemen were actually spies. "amongst others who had followed louis xviii. was marmont. i think it was the day after our arrival, passing over the open space near the place d'armes by the river, i saw a french general officer exercising a horse in the _manège_, and learnt with astonishment that this was marmont; for the man in question had two good arms, whereas for years past i had, in common with most people in england, looked upon it as a fact that he had left one at salamanca. french deserters, both officers and privates, were daily coming in; it was said they deserted by hundreds." on april the troop received orders to resume its march, its next quarters being at thermonde, or, as it ought to have been spelt, dendermonde. from dendermonde, on may , the troop was ordered to march to strytem. mercer had neither map, nor directions, nor guides, and his account of the incidents of the march, and the fashion in which (as though he were exploring some absolutely unknown land) he had to "discover" strytem is amusing:-- "_may ._--i still slept, when at five o'clock in the morning our sergeant-major aroused me to read a note brought by an orderly hussar. it was most laconic--_la voici_: 'captain mercer's troop of horse artillery will march to strytem without delay. signed,' &c., &c. "where is strytem? and for what this sudden move? these were questions to which i could get no answer. the hussar knew nothing, and the people about me less. one thing was positive, and that was that we must be under weigh instanter, and pick out strytem as best we might. the sergeant-major, therefore, was despatched to give the alert; and having given the hussar a receipt in full for his important despatch, i proceeded to clothe my person for the journey, having hitherto been _en chemise_. as the trumpeter was lodged in a house close by with my own grooms, the 'boot and saddle' quickly reverberated through the village, and set its whole population in movement. "to my questions respecting strytem, monsieur could give no satisfactory answers. 'it lay in a very fine country somewhere in the neighbourhood of brussels, and we had better take the road to that city in the first instance, and trust for further information to the peasantry as we went along.' these people are singularly ignorant in this respect, having no knowledge, generally speaking, of any place more than two or three miles from home. monsieur, however, invited me to follow him to his study--a small room all in a litter--over the gateway, and there, after some hunting amongst books, old clothes, &c., &c., he rummaged out the mutilated fragment of an old but very excellent map, which he insisted on my putting into my sabre-tache, which i did, and still keep for his sake. "'prepare to mount!' 'mount!' the trumpets sound a march, and waving a last adieu to the group at the gate of my late home, i turn my back on it for ever perhaps. the men were in high spirits, and horses fat as pigs and sleek as moles--thanks to rest, good stabling, and abundance of _tref_. most of the peasants on whom many of our men had been billeted accompanied them to the parade, and it was interesting to witness the kindness with which they shook hands at parting, and the complacency with which, patting the horses on the neck, they scanned them all over, as if proud of their good condition. "passing through lebbeke, we found the three brigades of -pounders also getting on march, and the whole village astir. the officers told us their orders were to march direct to brussels, and they were fully persuaded the french army had advanced. "at assche we found a battery of belgian horse artillery in quarters. then men lounging about in undress, or without their jackets, without any appearance of a move, induced us to believe our own was, after all, only another change of quarters--and we were right. the people here knew strytem, which they said was only a few miles distant, to the southward of the road we were on. accordingly i despatched an officer to precede us, and make the necessary arrangements for our reception; at the same time, quitting the _chaussée_, we plunged into a villainous cross-road, all up and down, and every bottom occupied by a stream crossed by bridges of loose planks, which to us were rather annoying, from their apparent insecurity, as well as from the boggy state of the ground for some yards at either end of them. "the road became worse than ever--deep, tenacious mud, sadly broken up. after marching a short distance we passed a wheelwright's shop; then came to a broader space, where stood a small mean-looking church, a miserable cabaret, a forge, two very large farm establishments, with a few wretched-looking cottages--this our guide gave us to understand was strytem." at strytem, where the troop halted for some time, mercer had an opportunity of seeing something of the cavalry corps which the duc de berri was forming in the bourbon interest. the duc de berri, according to mercer, was a very ill-mannered brute. says mercer:-- "one day i had a good opportunity of seeing this curious corps and its savage leader. the former presented a most grotesque appearance--cuirassiers, hussars, grenadiers _à cheval_, and chasseurs, dragoons and lancers, officers and privates, with a few of the new _gardes du corps_, were indiscriminately mingled in the ranks. one file were colonels, the next privates, and so on, and all wearing their proper uniforms and mounted on their proper horses, so that these were of all sizes and colours. there might have been about two hundred men, divided into two or three squadrons, the commanders of which were generals. the prince, as i have said, was drill-master. a more intemperate, brutal, and (in his situation) impolitic one, can scarcely be conceived. the slightest fault (frequently occasioned by his own blunders) was visited by showers of low-life abuse--using on all occasions the most odious language. "one unfortunate squadron officer (a general!) offended him, and was immediately charged with such violence that i expected a catastrophe. reining up his horse, however, close to the unhappy man, his vociferation and villainous abuse were those of a perfect madman; shaking his sabre at him, and even at one time thrusting the pommel of it into his face, and, as far as i could see, pushing it against his nose! such a scene! yet all the others sat mute as mice, and witnessed all this humiliation of their comrade, and the degradation of him for whom they had forsaken napoleon. just at this moment one of our troop-dogs ran barking at the heels of the prince's horse. boiling with rage before, he now boiled over in earnest, and, stooping, made a furious cut at the dog, which, eluding the weapon, continued his annoyance. the duke, quitting the unfortunate _chef d'escadron_, now turned seriously at the dog, but he, accustomed to horses, kept circling about, yapping and snapping, and always out of reach; and it was not until he had tired himself with the fruitless pursuit that, foaming with rage, he returned to his doomed squadrons, who had sat quietly looking on at this exhibition." as the early days of june passed, and napoleon was preparing for his daring leap on the allied forces, the general strain grew more tense. french spies were busy all through the english and prussian posts. mercer describes a visit paid by a particularly daring spy to his own post:-- "it was on the evening of the th june, and about sunset or a little later, that an officer of hussars rode into the village of yseringen, leathes being at the time at dinner with me at our château. he was dressed as our hussars usually were when riding about the country--blue frock, scarlet waistcoat laced with gold, pantaloons, and forage-cap of the th hussars. he was mounted on a smart pony, with plain saddle and bridle; was without a sword or sash, and carried a small whip--in short, his costume and _monture_ were correct in every particular. moreover, he aped to the very life that 'devil-may-care' nonchalant air so frequently characterising our young men of fashion. seeing some of our gunners standing at the door of a house, he desired them to go for their officer, as he wished to see him. they called the sergeant, who told him that the officer was not in the village. "in an authoritative tone he then demanded how many men and horses were quartered there, whose troop they belonged to, where the remainder of the troop was quartered, and of what it consisted? when all these questions were answered, he told the sergeant that he had been sent by lord uxbridge to order accommodation to be provided for two hundred horses, and that ours must consequently be put up as close as possible. the sergeant replied that there was not room in the village for a single additional horse. 'oh, we'll soon see that,' said he, pointing to one of the men who stood by, 'do you go and tell the maire to come instantly to me.' the maire came and confirmed the sergeant's statement, upon which our friend, flying into a passion, commenced in excellent french to abuse the poor functionary like a pickpocket, threatening to send a whole regiment into the village; and then, after a little further conversation with the sergeant, he mounted his pony and rode off just as leathes returned to the village. "upon reporting the circumstances to the officer, the sergeant stated that he thought this man had appeared anxious to avoid him, having ridden off rather in a hurry when he appeared, which together with a slight foreign accent, then for the first time excited a suspicion of his being a spy, which had not occurred to the sergeant before, as he knew there were several foreign officers in our hussars, and that the th was actually then commanded by one--colonel quentin. the suspicion was afterwards confirmed, for upon inquiry, i found that no officer had been sent by lord uxbridge on any such mission. our friend deserved to escape, for he was a bold and clever fellow." chapter iii quatre bras napoleon's plan for what was to prove the last campaign in his own wonderful career was daring and subtle. he had to face two armies, each almost equal in strength to his own; and though the forces of blucher and of wellington were scattered over a very wide front, yet their outposts touched each other where the great road from charleroi ran northwards to brussels. napoleon, with equal audacity and genius, resolved to smite at the point of junction betwixt the two armies, and overthrow each in turn. the risks of this strategy were immense, for if his enemies succeeded in concentrating and fighting in concert, he would be overwhelmed and destroyed--as actually happened at waterloo. napoleon, however, calculated to win by the swiftness and suddenness of his stroke, destroying blucher before wellington could concentrate for his help, and then, in turn, overwhelming wellington. by what a narrow interval that great plan failed of success is not always realised. both blucher and wellington were off their guard. on june , at the very moment when napoleon's columns were crossing the belgian frontier, wellington was writing a leisurely despatch to the czar explaining his intention to take the offensive at the end of the month. blucher, only a few days before, as houssaye records, had written to his wife, "we shall soon enter france. we might remain here another year, for bonaparte will never attack us." yet with miraculous energy and skill, napoleon, in ten days, had gathered a host of , men, over distances ranging from to miles, and held them, almost unsuspected, within cannon-shot of the allied outposts. on june , while the stars in the eastern summer sky were growing faint in the coming dawn, the french columns were crossing at three separate points the belgian frontier, and the great campaign had begun. its history is compressed into three furious days. on the th napoleon defeated blucher at ligny, while wellington, with obstinate courage and fine skill, aided by many blunders on his enemy's part, and much good luck on his own, succeeded in holding quatre bras against ney. on the th wellington fell back before the combined armies of napoleon and ney to waterloo. on the th the great battle, which sealed the fate of napoleon and gave a long peace to europe, was fought. napoleon's strategy had fatally broken down. he aimed to separate the english and the prussian armies while keeping his own concentrated. the exact opposite happened. blucher's bold westward march from wavre to waterloo united the allied forces, while napoleon's force was fatally divided--grouchy, with , troops, being left "in the air" far to the east. napoleon, in a word, suffered the exact strategic disaster he sought to inflict on his opponents. we take up the thread of the adventures of mercer and battery g as active operations begin. it offers a curious picture of the distraction and confusion of a great campaign:-- "_june ._--i was sound asleep when my servant, bustling into the room, awoke me _en sursaut_. he brought a note, which an orderly hussar had left and ridden off immediately. the note had nothing official in its appearance, and might have been an invitation to dinner; but the unceremonious manner in which the hussar had gone off without his receipt looked curious. my despatch was totally deficient in date, so that time and place were left to conjecture; its contents pithy--they were as follows, viz.:-- "'captain mercer's troop will proceed with the utmost diligence to enghien, where he will meet major m'donald, who will point out the ground on which it is to bivouac to-night. 'signed, ----, d.a.q.m.-gen.' that we were to move forward, then, was certain. it was rather sudden, to be sure, and all the whys and wherefores were left to conjecture; but the suddenness of it, and the importance of arriving quickly at the appointed place, rather alarmed me, for upon reflection i remembered that i had been guilty of two or three imprudences. "first, all my officers were absent; secondly, all my country waggons were absent; thirdly, a whole division (one-third of my troop) was absent at yseringen. 'send the sergeant-major here,' was the first order, as i drew on my stockings. 'send for mr. coates' (my commissariat officer), the second, as i got one leg into my overalls. 'william, make haste and get breakfast,' the third, as i buttoned them up. the sergeant-major soon came, and received his orders to turn out instanter, with the three days' provisions and forage in the haversacks and on the horses; also to send an express for the first division. he withdrew, and immediately the fine martial clang of 'boot and saddle' resounded through the village and courts of the château, making the woods ring again, and even the frogs stop to listen. "the commissary soon made his appearance. 'what! are we off, sir?' 'yes, without delay; and you must collect your waggons as quickly as possible.' 'i fear, captain mercer, that will take some time, for st. cyr's are gone to ninove.' my folly here stared me full in the face. mr. coates said he would do his utmost to collect them; and as he was a most active, intelligent, and indefatigable fellow, i communicated to him my orders and determination not to wait, desiring him to follow us as soon as he possibly could. my first enumerated care was speedily removed, for i learned that the officers had just arrived and were preparing for the march, having known of it at brussels ere we did. the two divisions in strytem were ready to turn out in a few minutes after the 'boot and saddle' had resounded, but, as i feared, the first kept us waiting until near seven o'clock before it made its appearance. at length the first division arrived, and the animating and soul-stirring notes of the 'turn-out' again awoke the echoes of the hills and woods. up jumped my old dog bal, and away to parade and increase the bustle by jumping at the horses' noses and barking, as parade formed. away went the officers to inspect their divisions, and milward is leading my impatient charger, cossac, up and down the court. "we had cleared the village and marched some miles well enough, being within the range of my daily rides; but, this limit passed, i was immediately sensible of another error--that of having started without a guide; for the roads became so numerous, intricate, and bad, often resembling only woodmen's tracks, that i was sorely puzzled, spite of the map i carried in my sabre-tache, to pick out my way. but a graver error still i had now to reproach myself with, and one that might have been attended with fatal consequences. eager to get on, and delayed by the badness of the roads, i left all my ammunition waggons behind, under charge of old hall, my quartermaster-sergeant, to follow us, and then pushed on with the guns alone, thus foolishly enough dividing my troop into three columns--viz., the guns, ammunition waggons, and the column of provision waggons under the commissary. for this piece of folly i paid dearly in the anxiety i suffered throughout this eventful day, which at times was excessive. "rid of all encumbrances, we trotted merrily on whenever the road permitted, and, arriving at castre (an old roman legionary station), found there the rd light dragoons just turning out, having also received orders to march upon enghien. a captain dance, with whom i rode a short distance, told me he had been at the ball at brussels last night, and that, when he left the room, the report was that blucher had been attacked in the morning, but that he had repulsed the enemy with great slaughter, was following up the blow, and that our advance was to support him. the road for the last few miles had been upon a more elevated country, not so wooded--a sort of plateau, consequently hard and dry; but immediately on passing castre, we came to a piece which appeared almost impassable for about a hundred yards--a perfect black bog, across which a corduroy road had been made, but not kept in repair, consequently the logs, having decayed, left immense gaps. "the rd floundered through this with difficulty, and left us behind. how we got through with our -pounders, the horses slipping up to the shoulders between the logs every minute, i know not; but through we did get, and without accident, but it took time to do so. about noon, after threading our way through more mud and many watery lanes, doubtful if we were in the right direction, we came out upon a more open and dry country, close to a park, which upon inquiry proved to be that of enghien. to the same point various columns of cavalry were converging, and under the park wall we found sir ormsby vandeleur's brigade of light dragoons dismounted, and feeding their horses. here we also dismounted to await the arrival of major m'donald; and as i looked upon the day's march as finished, deferred feeding until our bivouac should be established--another folly, for an officer in campaign should never lose an opportunity of feeding, watering, or resting his horses, &c. having waited a good half-hour, and no major m'donald appearing, i began to look about for some one who could give me information, but no staff-officer was to be seen, and no one else knew anything about the matter. corps after corps arrived and passed on, generally without even halting, yet all professing ignorance of their destination. pleasant situation this! "sir ormsby's dragoons were by this time bridling up their horses and rolling up their nosebags, evidently with the intention of moving off. seeing this, i sought out the general, whom i found seated against a bank that, instead of a hedge, bordered the road. whether naturally a savage, or that he feared committing himself, i know not, but sir ormsby cut my queries short with an asperity totally uncalled for. 'i know nothing about you, sir! i know nothing at all about you!' 'but you will perhaps have the goodness to tell me where you are going yourself?' 'i know nothing at all about it, sir! i told you already i know nothing at all about you!' and starting abruptly from his seat, my friend mounted his horse, and (i suppose by instinct) took the road towards steenkerke, followed by his brigade, leaving me and mine alone in the road, more disagreeably situated than ever. i now began to reflect very seriously on the 'to stay' or 'not to stay.' in the former case, i bade fair to have the ground all to myself, for although everybody i spoke to denied having any orders, yet all kept moving in one and the same direction. in the latter case, my orders in writing certainly were to stay; but circumstances might have occurred since to change this, and the new order might not have reached me. moreover, it was better to get into a scrape for fighting than keeping out of the way, so i made up my mind to move forward too. "accordingly i had already mounted my people when sir h. vivian's brigade of hussars, followed by major bull's troop of our horse artillery, passed. bull, i found, was, like myself, without orders, but he thought it best to stick close to the cavalry, and advised me to do the same, which i did, following him and them on the road to steenkerke. the country about this place appeared more bare and forbidding than any i had yet seen in the pays bas. just as we moved off, the column of household troops made its appearance, advancing from ninove, and taking the same direction. "it was now that the recollection of my absent waggons began to torment me, and i actually feared never to see them again. however, there was no help for it now, and i continued onward. a few miles farther we crossed the senne by an old stone bridge, and about four in the afternoon arrived at braine le comte, almost ravenous with hunger, and roasted alive by the burning sun, under which we had been marching all day. "we found several regiments drawn up in close columns, dismounted and feeding. it was somewhere between enghien and braine le comte that we met an aide-de-camp (i believe one of the duke's) posting away as fast as his poor tired beast could get along, and dressed in his embroidered suit, white pantaloons, &c., &c., having evidently mounted as he left the ballroom. this, i remember, struck us at the time as rather odd, but we had no idea of the real state of our affairs. "we had formed up, and were feeding also, but the nosebags were scarcely put on the poor horse's heads than the cavalry corps, mounting again, moved off, one after the other, and we were constrained to follow ere the animals had half finished. here, as before, i could obtain no intelligence respecting our march, the direction and meaning of which all i spoke to professed a profound ignorance. whilst halting, hitchins, slipping into the town, brought us out a couple of bottles of wine, the which we passed round from one to the other without any scruple about sucking it all out of one muzzle. "a little hamlet (long tour, i think) lay at the foot of the hills, the straggling street of which we found so crowded with baggage-waggons of some hanoverian or other foreign corps that for a long while we were unable to pass. the cavalry, therefore, left us behind, for they broke into the adjoining fields until they had cleared the impediment. although annoyed at being thus hindered, i could not but admire the lightness, and even elegance, of the little waggons, with their neat white tilts, and as neat and pretty _jungfrauen_ who were snugly seated under them. we found the ascent of the hills more difficult than we expected, the road, which went up in a zigzag (indeed, it could not have been otherwise), little better than a woodman's track, much cut up, and exceedingly steep--so much so, that we found it necessary to double-horse all our carriages by taking only half up at once." now, at last, the sullen guns from quatre bras began to make themselves audible. mercer's gunners were chiefly recruits; they had never yet heard the deep, vibrating sounds that tell of the shock of mighty hosts. that far-off call of angry guns stirred their blood and quickened their march; but the troop reached quatre bras only when the battle ended. mercer's narrative, however, gives a striking picture of how a great battle affects everything within sound of its guns:-- "at length the whole of our carriages were on the summit, but we were now quite alone, all the cavalry having gone on; and thus we continued our march on an elevated plateau, still covered with forest, thicker and more gloomy than ever. at length we had crossed the forest, and found ourselves on the verge of a declivity which stretched away less abruptly than the one we had ascended, consequently presenting a more extensive slope, down which our road continued. a most extensive view lay before us; and now, for the first time, as emerging from the woods, we became sensible of a dull, sullen sound that filled the air, somewhat resembling that of a distant water-mill, or still more distant thunder. on clearing the wood it became more distinct, and its character was no longer questionable--heavy firing of cannon and musketry, which could now be distinguished from each other plainly. we could also hear the musketry in volleys and independent firing. the extensive view below us was bounded towards the horizon by a dark line of wood, above which, in the direction of the cannonade, volumes of grey smoke arose, leaving no doubt of what was going on. the object of our march was now evident, and we commenced descending the long slope with an animation we had not felt before. "it was here that major m'donald overtook us, and without adverting to the bivouac at enghien, of which probably he had never heard, gave me orders to attach myself to the household brigade, under lord edward somerset, but no instructions where or when. i took care not to tell him they were in the rear, lest he might order us to halt for them, which would have been a sore punishment to people excited as we now were by the increasing roar of the battle evidently going on, and hoped that by marching faster they might soon overtake us. just at this moment a cabriolet, driving at a smart pace, passed us. in it was seated an officer of the guards, coat open and snuff-box in hand. i could not but admire the perfect nonchalance with which my man was thus hurrying forward to join in a bloody combat--much, perhaps, in the same manner, though certainly not in the same costume, as he might drive to epsom or ascot heath. the descent terminated in a picturesque hollow, with a broad pool, dark and calm, and beyond it an old mill, perfectly in keeping with the scene. the opportunity of watering our poor brutes was too good to be missed, and i accordingly ordered a halt for that purpose. whilst so employed, an aide-de-camp, descending from a singular knoll above us, on which i had noticed a group of officers looking out with their glasses in the direction of the battle, came to summon me to sir hussey vivian, who was one of them. "on ascending the knoll sir hussey called to me in a hurried manner to make haste. 'who do you belong to?' said he. i told him, as also that the brigade was yet in the rear. 'well,' he replied, 'never mind; there is something serious going on, to judge from that heavy firing, and artillery must be wanted; therefore bring up your guns as fast as you can, and join my hussars; can you keep up?' 'i hope so, sir.' 'well, come along without delay; we must move smartly.' in a few minutes our people, guns and all, were on the hill. the hussars, mounted, set off at a brisk trot, and we followed. alas! thought i, where are my ammunition waggons? the hussars, to lighten their horses, untied the nets containing their hay, and the mouths of their corn-bags, which, falling from them as they trotted on, the road was soon covered with hay and oats. we did not follow their example, and although dragging with us -pounders preserved our forage and also our place in the column. "by-and-by a large town appeared in front of us, and the increasing intensity of the cannonade and volumes of smoke about the trees led us to suppose the battle near at hand, and on the hill just beyond the town. this town was nivelle. "beyond the town the ground rose, also in shadowy obscurity, crowned with sombre woods, over which ascended the greyish-blue smoke of the battle, now apparently so near that we fancied we could hear the shouts of the combatants--a fancy strengthened by crowds of people on the heights, whom we mistook for troops--inhabitants of nivelle, as we soon discovered, seeking to get a sight of the fearful tragedy then enacting. before entering the town we halted for a moment, lighted our slow matches, put shot into our leathern cartouches, loaded the guns with powder, and stuck priming wires into the vents to prevent the cartridges slipping forward, and, thus prepared for immediate action, again moved on. "on entering the town what a scene presented itself! all was confusion, agitation, and movement. the danger was impending; explosion after explosion, startling from their vicinity, and clattering peals of musketry, like those lengthened thunder-claps which announce to us so awfully the immediate neighbourhood of the electric cloud. the whole population of nivelle was in the streets, doors and windows all wide open, whilst the inmates of the houses, male and female, stood huddled together in little groups like frightened sheep, or were hurrying along with the distracted air of people uncertain where they are going or what they are doing. in a sort of square which we traversed a few soldiers, with the air of citizens, probably a municipal guard, were drawn up in line, looking anxiously about them at the numerous bleeding figures which we now began to meet. "some were staggering along unaided, the blood falling from them in large drops as they went. one man we met was wounded in the head; pale and ghastly, with affrighted looks and uncertain step, he evidently knew little of where he was or what passed about him, though still he staggered forward, the blood streaming down his face on to the greatcoat which he wore rolled over his left shoulder. an anxious crowd was collecting round him as we passed on. then came others supported between two comrades, their faces deadly pale and knees yielding at every step. at every step, in short, we met numbers, more or less wounded, hurrying along in search of that assistance which many would never live to receive, and others receive too late. priests were running to and fro, hastening to assist at the last moments of a dying man; all were in haste--all wore that abstracted air so inseparable from those engaged in an absorbing pursuit. many would run up, and, patting our horses' necks, would call down benedictions on us, and bid us hasten to the fight ere it were yet too late, or uttering trembling and not loud shouts of 'vivent les anglais!' "a few there were who stood apart, with gloomy, discontented looks, eyeing their fellow-citizens with evident contempt and us with scowls, not unmixed with derision, as they marked our dusty and jaded appearance. through all this crowd we held our way, and soon began to ascend the hill beyond the town, where we entered a fine _chaussée_ bordered by elms, expecting every moment to enter on the field of action, the roar of which appeared quite close to us. it was, however, yet distant. "the road was covered with soldiers, many of them wounded, but also many apparently untouched. the numbers thus leaving the field appeared extraordinary. many of the wounded had six, eight, ten, and even more attendants. when questioned about the battle, and why they left it, the answer was invariable: 'monsieur, tout est perdu! les anglais sont abîmes, en déroute, abîmes, tous, tous, tous!' and then, nothing abashed, these fellows would resume their hurried route. my countrymen will rejoice to learn that amongst this dastardly crew not one briton appeared. whether they were of nassau or belgians i know not; they were one or the other--i think the latter. "one redcoat we did meet--not a fugitive though, for he was severely wounded. this man was a private of the nd (gordon highlanders), a short, rough, hardy-looking fellow, with the national high cheek-bones, and a complexion that spoke of many a bivouac. he came limping along, evidently with difficulty and suffering. i stopped him to ask news of the battle, telling him what i had heard from the others, 'na, na, sir, it's aw a damned lee; they war fechtin' yat an' i laft 'em; but it's a bludy business, and thar's na saying fat may be the end on't. oor ragiment was nigh clean swapt aff, and oor colonel kilt just as i cam' awa'. upon inquiring about his own wound, we found that a musket ball had lodged in his knee, or near it; accordingly hitchins, dismounting, seated him on the parapet of a little bridge we happened to be on, extracted the ball in a few minutes, and, binding up the wound, sent him hobbling along towards nivelle, not having extracted a single exclamation from the poor man, who gratefully thanked him as he resumed his way. "a little farther on, and as it began to grow dusk, we traversed the village of hautain le val, where a very different scene presented itself. here, in a large cabaret by the roadside, we saw through the open windows the rooms filled with soldiers, cavalry and infantry; some standing about in earnest conversation, others seated around tables, smoking, carousing, and thumping the board with clenched fists, as they related with loud voices--what?--most likely their own gallant exploits. about the door their poor horses, tied to a rail, showed by their drooping heads, shifting legs, and the sweat drying and fuming on their soiled coats, that their exertions at least had been of no trivial nature. "the firing began to grow slacker, and even intermitting, as we entered on the field of quatre bras--our horses stumbling from time to time over corpses of the slain, which they were too tired to step over. the shot and shell which flew over our line of march from time to time (some of the latter bursting beyond us) were sufficient to enable us to say we had been in the battle of quatre bras, for such was the name of the place where we now arrived, just too late to be useful. in all directions the busy hum of human voices was heard; the wood along the skirts of which we marched re-echoed clearly and loudly the tones of the bugle, which ever and anon were overpowered by the sullen roar of cannon, or the sharper rattle of musketry; dark crowds of men moved in the increasing obscurity of evening, and the whole scene seemed alive with them. what a moment of excitement and anxiety as we proceeded amongst all this tumult, and amidst the dead and dying, ignorant as yet how the affair had terminated! arrived at a mass of buildings, where four roads met (_les quatre bras_), major m'donald again came up with orders for us to bivouac on an adjoining field, where, accordingly, we established ourselves amongst the remains of a wheat crop. "_june ._--a popping fire of musketry, apparently close at hand, aroused me again to consciousness of my situation. at first i could not imagine where i was. i looked straight up, and the stars were twinkling over me in a clear sky. i put out a hand from beneath my cloak, and felt clods of damp earth and stalks of straw. the rattle of musketry increased, and then the consciousness of my situation came gradually over me. although somewhat chilly, i was still drowsy, and regardless of what might be going on, had turned on my side and began to doze again, when one of my neighbours started up with the exclamation, 'i wonder what all that firing means!' this in an instant dispelled all desire to sleep; and up i got too, mechanically repeating his words, and rubbing my eyes as i began to peer about. "one of the first, and certainly the most gratifying, sights that met my inquiring gaze, was quarter-master hall, who had arrived during the night with all his charge safe and sound. he had neither seen nor heard, however, of mr. coates and his train of country waggons, for whom i began now to entertain serious apprehensions. from whatever the musketry might proceed, we could see nothing--not even the flashes; but the increasing light allowed me to distinguish numberless dark forms on the ground all around me, people slumbering still, regardless of the firing that had aroused me. at a little distance numerous white discs, which were continually in motion, changing place and disappearing, to be succeeded by others, puzzled me exceedingly, and i could not even form a conjecture as to what they might be. watching them attentively, i was still more surprised when some of these white objects ascended from the ground and suddenly disappeared; but the mystery was soon explained by the increasing light, which gave to my view a corps of nassau troops lying on the ground, having white tops to their shakos. "daylight now gradually unfolded to us our situation. we were on a plateau which had been covered with corn, now almost everywhere trodden down. four roads, as already mentioned, met a little to the right of our front, and just at that point stood a farmhouse, which, with its outbuildings, yard, &c., was enclosed by a very high wall. this was the farm of quatre bras. beyond it, looking obliquely to the right, the wood (in which the battle still lingered when we arrived last night) stretched away some distance along the roads to nivelle and charleroi, which last we understood lay in front." chapter iv the retreat to waterloo. mercer's battery formed part of the british rearguard in the retreat from quatre bras to waterloo, and his gunners had some very breathless and exciting experiences on the road, with the thunder rolling over their heads and the french cavalry charging furiously on their rear. mercer tells the story with great vividness and spirit:-- "on the charleroi road and in the plain was a small village (frasnes), with its church, just beyond which the road ascended the heights, on the open part of which, between the road and the wood towards the left, was the bivouac of the french army opposed to us. its advanced posts were in the valley near frasnes, and ours opposite to them--our main body occupying the ground between quatre bras and the wood on the left. a smart skirmish was going on amongst the hedges, &c., already mentioned, and this was the firing we had heard all the morning. our infantry were lying about, cleaning their arms, cooking, or amusing themselves, totally regardless of the skirmish. this, however, from our position, was a very interesting sight to me, for the slope of the ground enabled me to see distinctly all the manoeuvres of both parties, as on a plan. after much firing from the edge of the wood, opposite which our riflemen occupied all the hedges, i saw the french chasseurs suddenly make a rush forward in all directions, whilst the fire of our people became thicker and faster than ever. many of the former scampered across the open fields until they reached the nearest hedges, whilst others ran crouching under cover of those perpendicular to their front, and the whole succeeded in establishing themselves--thus forcing back and gaining ground on our men. "the fire then again became sharper than ever--sometimes the french were driven back; and this alternation i watched with great interest until summoned to major m'donald, who brought us orders for the day. from him i first learned the result of the action of yesterday--the retreat of the prussians, and that we were to do so too. his directions to me were that i should follow some corps of infantry, or something of the sort; for what followed caused me to forget it all: 'major ramsay's troop,' he said, 'will remain in the rear with the cavalry to cover the retreat; but i will not conceal from you that it falls to your turn to do this, if you choose it.' the major looked rather conscience-stricken as he made this avowal, so, to relieve him, i begged he would give the devil his due and me mine. accordingly all the others marched off, and as nothing was likely to take place immediately, we amused ourselves by looking on at what was doing. "just at this moment an amazing outcry arose amongst the infantry at the farm, who were running towards us in a confused mass, shouting and bellowing, jostling and pushing each other. i made sure the enemy's cavalry had made a dash amongst them, especially as the fire of the skirmishers became thicker and apparently nearer, when the thing was explained by a large pig, squealing as if already stuck, bursting from the throng by which he was beset in all directions. some struck at him with axes, others with the butts of their muskets, others stabbed at him with bayonets. the chase would have been amusing had it not been so brutal; and i have seldom experienced greater horror than i did on this occasion, when the poor brute, staggering from the repeated blows he received, was at last brought to the ground by at least half-a-dozen bayonets plunged into him at once. "all this time our retreat was going on very quietly. the corps at quatre bras had retired early in the morning, and been replaced by others from the left, and this continued constantly--every corps halting for a time on the ground near quatre bras until another from the left arrived, these moving off on the great road to brussels, ceding the ground to the new-comers. "at first every one, exulting in the success of yesterday--they having repulsed the enemy with a handful of men, as it were, unsupported by cavalry and with very little artillery--anticipated, now our army was united nothing less than an immediate attack on the french position. we were sadly knocked down, then, when the certainty of our retreat became known. it was in vain we were told the retreat was only a manoeuvre of concentration; the most gloomy anticipations pervaded every breast. about this time sir alexander dickson paid me a visit, having just arrived from new orleans, where he commanded the artillery, to be our deputy-quartermaster-general. he only stayed a few minutes. "as the infantry corps on the plateau became fewer, the fire of the skirmishers amongst the hedges gradually relaxed, and at length ceased--the rifles, &c., being drawn, and following the line of retreat. at last, about noon, i found myself left with my troop, quite alone, on the brow of the position, just by the farm of quatre bras--the only troops in sight being a small picket of hussars, near the village of frasnes, in the plain below; a few more in our rear, but at some little distance, amongst the houses; and a brigade of hussars far away to the left (about two miles), close to the wood in that quarter. thus solitary, as it were, i had ample leisure to contemplate the scene of desolation around me, so strangely at variance with the otherwise smiling landscape. everywhere mementoes of yesterday's bloody struggle met the eye--the corn trampled down, and the ground, particularly in the plain, plentifully besprinkled with bodies of the slain. just in front of the farm of quatre bras there was a fearful scene of slaughter--highlanders and cuirassiers lying thickly strewn about; the latter appeared to have charged up the charleroi road, on which, and immediately bordering it, they lay most numerously. "in communicating to me the orders of our retreat, major m'donald had reiterated that to join lord edward somerset's brigade without delay, but still he could not tell me where this brigade was to be found. meantime sir ormsby vandeleur's brigade of light dragoons having formed up in front of the houses, and supposing from this that all the cavalry must be nigh, as one step towards finding lord edward i crossed the road to the right of these dragoons, and rode towards the part where, as before stated, the light was intercepted by trees and bushes. on passing through these i had an uninterrupted view of the country for miles, but not a soldier or living being was to be seen in that direction. as i pushed on through the thickets my horse, suddenly coming to a stand, began to snort, and showed unequivocal symptoms of fear. i drove him on, however, but started myself when i saw, lying under the bush, the body of a man stripped naked. this victim of war was a youth of fair form, skin delicately white, and face but little darker; an embryo moustache decorated the upper lip, and his countenance, even in death, was beautiful. that he was french i conjectured, but neither on himself nor his horse was there a particle of clothing that could indicate to what nation he belonged. if french, how came he here to die alone so far in the rear of our lines? "i know not why, but the _rencontre_ with this solitary corpse had a wonderful effect on my spirits--far different from what i felt when gazing on the heaps that encumbered the field beyond. seldom have i experienced such despondency--such heart-sinking--as when standing over this handsome form thus despoiled, neglected, and about to become a prey to wolves and carrion crows--the darling of some fond mother, the adored of some fair maid. his horse, stripped like himself, lay by--they had met their fate at once. returning to my troop, i found sir augustus frazer, who had come to order my ammunition waggons to the rear that the retreat might be as little encumbered as possible, and to tell me that what ammunition was used during the day would be supplied by my sending for it to langeveldt, on the road to brussels, where that to wavre branches from it. "thus divested of our ammunition, it was evident that our retreat must be a rapid one, since with only fifty rounds a gun (the number in the limbers), it could not be expected that we could occupy any position longer than a few minutes. in the end, this measure nearly led to very disagreeable results, as will be seen anon." lord uxbridge--afterwards the marquis of anglesey--was a very fine cavalry leader, a sort of english murat, with all the dash, activity, and resource of that famous soldier. but he had too much fire in his temper for cool generalship. the tumult and shock of battle had the effect of champagne upon him. it kindled in his brain a sort of intoxication. so he took risks a cooler-headed soldier would have avoided. uxbridge's fiery and audacious daring is vividly reflected in mercer's account of how he covered the retreat to waterloo:-- "it was now about one o'clock. my battery stood in position on the brow of the declivity, with its right near the wall of the farm, all alone, the only troops in sight being, as before mentioned, the picket and a few scattered hussars in the direction of frasnes, sir o. vandeleur's light dragoons two or three hundred yards in our rear, and sir h. vivian's hussars far away to the left. still the french army made no demonstration of an advance. this inactivity was unaccountable. lord uxbridge and an aide-de-camp came to the front of my battery, and dismounting, seated himself on the ground; so did i and the aide-de-camp. his lordship with his glass was watching the french position; and we were all three wondering at their want of observation and inactivity, which had not only permitted our infantry to retire unmolested, but also still retained them in their bivouac. 'it will not be long now before they are on us,' said the aide-de-camp, 'for they always dine before they move; and those smokes seem to indicate that they are cooking now.' "he was right; for not long afterwards another aide-de-camp, scouring along the valley, came to report that a heavy column of cavalry was advancing through the opening between the woods to the left from the direction of gembloux. at the same moment we saw them distinctly; and lord uxbridge having reconnoitred them a moment through his glass, started up, exclaiming, in a joyful tone, 'by the lord, they are prussians!' jumped on his horse, and, followed by the two aides, dashed off like a whirlwind to meet them. for a moment i stood looking after them as they swept down the slope, and could not help wondering how the prussians came there. i was, however, not left long in my perplexity, for, turning my eyes towards the french position, i saw their whole army descending from it in three or four dark masses, whilst their advanced cavalry picket was already skirmishing with and driving back our hussars. the truth instantly flashed on my mind, and i became exceedingly uneasy for the safety of lord uxbridge and his companions, now far advanced on their way down the valley, and likely to be irretrievably cut off. "my situation now appeared somewhat awkward; left without orders and entirely alone on the brow of our position--the hussar pickets galloping in and hurrying past as fast as they could--the whole french army advancing, and already at no great distance. in this dilemma, i determined to retire across the little dip that separated me from sir o. vandeleur, and take up a position in front of his squadrons, whence, after giving a round to the french advance as soon as they stood on our present ground, i thought i could retire in sufficient time through his intervals to leave the ground clear for him to charge. this movement was immediately executed; but the guns were scarcely unlimbered ere sir ormsby came furiously up, exclaiming, 'what are you doing here, sir? you encumber my front, and we shall not be able to charge. take your guns away, sir; instantly, i say--take them away!' it was in vain that i endeavoured to explain my intentions, and that our fire would allow his charge to be made with more effect. 'no, no; take them out of my way, sir!' was all the answer i could get; and accordingly, i was preparing to obey, when up came lord uxbridge, and the scene changed in a twinkling. 'captain mercer, are you loaded?' 'yes, my lord.' 'then give them a round as they rise the hill, and retire as quickly as possible.' 'light dragoons, threes right; at a trot, march!' and then some orders to sir ormsby, of whom i saw no more that day. 'they are just coming up the hill,' said lord uxbridge. 'let them get well up before you fire. do you think you can retire quick enough afterwards?' 'i am sure of it, my lord.' 'very well, then, keep a good lookout, and point your guns well.' "i had often longed to see napoleon, that mighty man of war--that astonishing genius who had filled the world with his renown. now i saw him, and there was a degree of sublimity in the interview rarely equalled. the sky had become overcast since the morning, and at this moment presented a most extraordinary appearance. large isolated masses of thunder-cloud, of the deepest, almost inky black, their lower edges hard and strongly defined, lagging down, as if momentarily about to burst, hung suspended over us, involving our position and everything on it in deep and gloomy obscurity; whilst the distant hill lately occupied by the french army still lay bathed in brilliant sunshine. lord uxbridge was yet speaking when a single horseman,[ ] immediately followed by several others, mounted the plateau i had left at a gallop, their dark figures thrown forward in strong relief from the illuminated distance, making them appear much nearer to us than they really were. "for an instant they pulled up and regarded us, when several squadrons coming rapidly on the plateau, lord uxbridge cried out, 'fire!--fire!' and, giving them a general discharge, we quickly limbered up to retire, as they dashed forward supported by some horse artillery guns, which opened upon us ere we could complete the manoeuvre, but without much effect, for the only one touched was the servant of major whinyates, who was wounded in the leg by the splinter of a howitzer shell. "it was now for the first time that i discovered the major and his rocket-troop, who, annoyed at my having the rear, had disobeyed the order to retreat, and remained somewhere in the neighbourhood until this moment, hoping to share whatever might be going on. the first gun that was fired seemed to burst the clouds overhead, for its report was instantly followed by an awful clap of thunder, and lightning that almost blinded us, whilst the rain came down as if a waterspout had broken over us. the sublimity of the scene was inconceivable. flash succeeded flash, and the peals of thunder were long and tremendous; whilst, as if in mockery of the elements, the french guns still sent forth their feebler glare and now scarcely audible reports--their cavalry dashing on at a headlong pace, adding their shouts to the uproar. we galloped for our lives through the storm, striving to gain the enclosures about the houses of the hamlets, lord uxbridge urging us on, crying, 'make haste!--make haste! for god's sake, gallop, or you will be taken!' we did make haste, and succeeded in getting amongst the houses and gardens, but with the french advance close on our heels. here, however, observing the _chaussée_ full of hussars, they pulled up. had they continued their charge we were gone, for these hussars were scattered about the road in the utmost confusion, some in little squads, others singly, and, moreover, so crowded together that we had no room whatever to act with any effect--either they or us. "meantime the enemy's detachments began to envelop the gardens, which lord uxbridge observing, called to me, 'here, follow me with two of your guns,' and immediately himself led the way into one of the narrow lanes between the gardens. what he intended doing, god knows, but i obeyed. the lane was very little broader than our carriages--there was not room for a horse to have passed them! the distance from the _chaussée_ to the end of the lane, where it debouched on the open fields, could scarcely have been above one or two hundred yards at most. his lordship and i were in front, the guns and mounted detachments following. what he meant to do i was at a loss to conceive; we could hardly come to action in the lane; to enter on the open was certain destruction. thus we had arrived at about fifty yards from its termination when a body of chasseurs or hussars appeared there as if waiting for us. these we might have seen from the first, for nothing but a few elder bushes intercepted the view from the _chaussée_. "the whole transaction appears to me so wild and confused that at times i can hardly believe it to have been more than a confused dream--yet true it was--the general-in-chief of the cavalry exposing himself amongst the skirmishers of his rearguard, and literally doing the duty of a cornet! 'by god! we are all prisoners' (or some such words), exclaimed lord uxbridge, dashing his horse at one of the garden-banks, which he cleared, and away he went, leaving us to get out of the scrape as best we could. there was no time for hesitation--one manoeuvre alone could extricate us if allowed time, and it i ordered. 'reverse by unlimbering' was the order. to do this the gun was to be unlimbered, then turned round, and one wheel run up the bank, which just left space for the limber to pass it. the gun is then limbered up again and ready to move to the rear. the execution, however, was not easy, for the very reversing of the limber itself in so narrow a lane, with a team of eight horses, was sufficiently difficult, and required first-rate driving. "nothing could exceed the coolness and activity of our men; the thing was done quickly and well, and we returned to the _chaussée_ without let or hindrance. how we were permitted to do so, i am at a loss to imagine; for although i gave the order to reverse, i certainly never expected to have seen it executed. meantime my own situation was anything but a pleasant one, as i sat with my back to the gentlemen at the end of the lane, whose interference i momentarily expected, casting an eye from time to time over my shoulder to ascertain whether they still kept their position. there they sat motionless, and although thankful for their inactivity, i could not but wonder at their stupidity. it seemed, however, all of a piece that day--all blunder and confusion; and this last i found pretty considerable on regaining the _chaussée_. his lordship we found collecting the scattered hussars together into a squadron for our rescue, for which purpose it was he had so unceremoniously left us. heavy as the rain was and thick the weather, yet the french could not but have seen the confusion we were in, as they had closed up to the entrance of the enclosure; and yet they did not at once take advantage of it. "things could not remain long in this state. a heavy column of cavalry approached us by the _chaussée_, whilst another skirting the enclosures, appeared pushing forward to cut us off. retreat now became imperative. the order was given, and away we went, helter-skelter--guns, gun-detachments, and hussars all mixed _pêle-mêle_, going like mad, and covering each other with mud, to be washed off by the rain, which, before sufficiently heavy, now came down again as it had done at first, in splashes instead of drops, soaking us anew to the skin, and, what was worse, extinguishing every slow match in the brigade. the obscurity caused by the splashing of the rain was such, that at one period i could not distinguish objects more than a few yards distant. of course we lost sight of our pursuers altogether, and the shouts and halloos, and even laughter, they had at first sent forth were either silenced or drowned in the uproar of the elements and the noise of our too rapid retreat; for in addition to everything else the crashing and rattling of the thunder were most awful, and the glare of the lightning blinding. in this state we gained the bridge of genappe at the moment when the thunder-cloud, having passed over, left us in comparative fine weather, although still raining heavily. "for the last mile or so we had neither seen nor heard anything of our lively french friends, and now silently wound our way up the deserted street, nothing disturbing its death-like stillness save the iron sound of horses' feet, the rumbling of the carriages, and the splashing of water as it fell from the eaves--all this was stillness compared with the hurly-burly and din from which we had just emerged. "on gaining the high ground beyond the town, we suddenly came in sight of the main body of our cavalry drawn up across the _chaussée_ in two lines, and extending away far to the right and left of it. it would have been an imposing spectacle at any time, but just now appeared to me magnificent, and i hailed it with complacency, for here i thought our fox-chase must end. 'those superb life guards and blues will soon teach our pursuers a little modesty.' such fellows!--surely nothing can withstand them. scarcely had these thoughts passed through my mind ere an order from his lordship recalled us to the rear. the enemy's horse artillery, having taken up a position in the meadows near the bridge, were annoying our dragoons as they debouched from the town. the ground was heavy from the rain, and very steep, so that it was only by great exertion that we succeeded at last in getting our guns into the adjoining field. "the moment we appeared the french battery bestowed on us its undivided attention, which we quickly acknowledged by an uncommonly well-directed fire of spherical case. whilst so employed, major m'donald came up and put me through a regular catechism as to length of fuse, whether out of bag a or b, &c., &c. although much vexed at such a schooling just now, yet the major appeared so seriously in earnest that i could not but be amused; however, to convince him that we knew what we were about, i directed his attention to our excellent practice, so superior to that of our antagonist, who was sending all his shot far over our heads. the french seemed pretty well convinced of this too, for after standing a few rounds they quitted the field, and left us again without occupation. the major vanishing at the same time, i sent my guns, &c., to the rear, and set off to join lord uxbridge, who was still fighting in the street. our ammunition was expended the waggons having been taken away by sir augustus frazer at quatre bras. "on regaining my troop i found major m'donald and the rockets with it. they were in position on a gentle elevation, on which likewise were formed the lines of cavalry stretching across the _chaussée_. immediately on our left, encased in the hollow road, the blues were formed in close column of half-squadrons, and it was not long ere lord uxbridge, with those he had retained at genappe, came sweeping over the hill and joined us. they were closely followed by the french light cavalry, who, descending into the hollow, commenced a sharp skirmish with our advance-posts. soon squadron after squadron appeared on the hill we had passed, and took up their positions, forming a long line parallel to ours, whilst a battery of horse artillery, forming across the _chaussée_, just on the brow of the declivity, opened its fire on us, though without much effect. to this we responded, though very slowly, having no more ammunition than what remained in our limbers. "in order to amuse the enemy and our own cavalry, as well as to prevent the former noticing the slackness of our fire, i proposed to major m'donald making use of the rockets, which had hitherto done nothing. there was a little hesitation about this, and one of the officers (strangways) whispered me, 'no, no--it's too far!' this i immediately told the major, proposing as a remedy that they should go closer. still there was demur; but at last my proposition was agreed to, and down they marched into the thick of the skirmishers in the bottom. of course, having proposed the measure myself, i could do no less than accompany them. "whilst they prepared their machinery, i had time to notice what was going on to the right and left of us. two double lines of skirmishers extended all along the bottom--the foremost of each line were within a few yards of each other--constantly in motion, riding backwards and forwards, firing their carbines or pistols, and then reloading, still on the move. this fire seemed to me more dangerous for those on the hills above than for us below; for all, both french and english, generally stuck out their carbines or pistols as they continued to move backwards and forwards, and discharged them without taking any particular aim, and mostly in the air. i did not see a man fall on either side. the thing appeared quite ridiculous, and but for hearing the bullets whizzing overhead, one might have fancied it no more than a sham-fight. "meanwhile the rocketeers had placed a little iron triangle in the road with a rocket lying on it. the order to fire is given, portfire applied; the fidgety missile begins to sputter out sparks and wriggle its tail for a second or so, and then darts forth straight up the _chaussée_. a gun stands right in its way, between the wheels of which the shell in the head of the rocket bursts; the gunners fall right and left; and those of the other guns, taking to their heels, the battery is deserted in an instant. strange; but so it was. i saw them run, and for some minutes afterwards i saw the guns standing mute and unmanned, whilst our rocketeers kept shooting off rockets, none of which ever followed the course of the first; most of them, on arriving about the middle of the ascent, took a vertical direction, whilst some actually turned back upon ourselves; and one of these, following me like a squib until its shell exploded, actually put me in more danger than all the fire of the enemy throughout the day. meanwhile the french artillerymen, seeing how the land lay, returned to their guns and opened a fire of case-shot on us, but without effect, for we retreated to our ridge without the loss of a man, or even any wounded, though the range could not have been above yards. "as we had overtaken the rear of our infantry, it became necessary to make a stand here to enable them to gain ground. major m'donald therefore sent me in pursuit of my ammunition waggons, since all in our limbers was expended. having before sent for these, we calculated that they could not now be very far off. in going to the rear, i passed along the top of the bank, under which, as i have said, the blues were encased in the hollow road. shot and shells were flying pretty thickly about just then, and sometimes striking the top of the bank would send down a shower of mud and clods upon them. "the ammunition waggons i found coming up, and was returning with them when i met my whole troop again retiring by the road, whilst the cavalry did so by alternate regiments across the fields. the ground offering no feature for another stand, we continued thus along the road. the infantry had made so little progress that we again overtook the rear of their column, composed of brunswickers--some of those same boys i used to see practising at schapdale in my rides to brussels. these poor lads were pushing on at a great rate. as soon as their rear divisions heard the sound of our horses' feet, without once looking behind them, they began to crowd and press on those in front, until at last, hearing us close up to them, and finding it impossible to push forward in the road, many of them broke off into the fields; and such was their panic that, in order to run lighter, away went arms and knapsacks in all directions, and a general race ensued, the whole corps being in the most horrid confusion. it was to no purpose that i exerted my little stock of german to make them understand we were their english friends. a frightened glance and away, was all the effect of my interference, which drove many of them off." the retreat came to an end here. the rearguard, without knowing it, had reached the low ridge running east and west across the brussels road, where wellington had resolved to make his final stand, and where the greatest battle in modern history was on the morrow to be fought:-- "we did not long remain idle, for the guns were scarcely loaded ere the rear of our cavalry came crowding upon the infantry corps we had passed, and which were then only crossing the valley, the french advance skirmishing with these, whilst their squadrons occupied the heights. we waited a little until some of their larger masses were assembled, and then opened our fire with a range across the valley of about yards. the echo of our first gun had not ceased when, to my astonishment, a heavy cannonade, commencing in a most startling manner from behind our hedge, rolled along the rising ground, on part of which we were posted. the truth now flashed on me; we had rejoined the army, and it is impossible to describe the pleasing sense of security i felt at having now the support of something more staunch than cavalry. "the french now brought up battery after battery, and a tremendous cannonading was kept up by both sides for some time. the effect was grand and exciting. our position was a happy one, for all their shot which grazed short came and struck in the perpendicular bank of our gravel-pit, and only one struck amongst us, breaking the traversing handspike at one of the guns, but injuring neither man nor horse. our fire was principally directed against their masses as we could see them, which was not always the case from the smoke that, for want of wind, hung over them; then against their smaller parties that had advanced into the valley to skirmish with the rearguard of our cavalry. "here, for the second and last time, i saw napoleon, though infinitely more distant than in the morning. some of my non-commissioned officers pointed their guns at the numerous cortège accompanying him as they stood near the road by belle alliance; and one, pointed by old quarter-master hall, fell in the midst of them. at the moment we saw some little confusion amongst the group, but it did not hinder them from continuing the reconnaissance. "whilst we were thus engaged, a man of no very prepossessing appearance came rambling amongst our guns, and entered into conversation with me on the occurrences of the day. he was dressed in a shabby old drab greatcoat and a rusty round hat. i took him at the time for some amateur from brussels (of whom we had heard there were several hovering about), and thinking many of his questions rather impertinent, was somewhat short in answering him, and he soon left us. how great was my astonishment on learning soon after that this was sir thomas picton! the enemy, finding us obstinate in maintaining our position, soon slackened, and then ceased firing altogether; and we were immediately ordered to do the same, and establish ourselves in bivouac for the night. "thoroughly wet--cloaks, blankets, and all--comfort was out of the question, so we prepared to make the best of it. our first care was, of course, the horses, and these we had ample means of providing for, since, in addition to what corn we had left, one of our men had picked up and brought forward on an ammunition waggon a large sackful, which he found in the road near genappe. thus they, at least, had plenty to eat, and having been so well drenched all day, were not much in need of water. for ourselves we had nothing!--absolutely nothing!--and looked forward to rest alone to restore our exhausted strength. rather a bore going supperless to bed after such a day, yet was there no help for it. "our gunners, &c., soon stowed themselves away beneath the carriages, using the painted covers as additional shelter against the rain, which now set in again as heavy as ever. we set up a small tent, into which (after vain attempts at procuring food or lodgings in the farm or its out buildings, all of which were crammed to suffocation with officers and soldiers of all arms and nations) we crept, and rolling ourselves in our wet blankets, huddled close together, in hope, wet as we were, and wet as the ground was, of keeping each other warm. i know not how my bedfellows got on, as we all lay for a long while perfectly still and silent--the old peninsular hands disdaining to complain before their johnny newcome comrades, and these fearing to do so lest they should provoke such remarks, as 'lord have mercy on your poor tender carcass! what would such as you have done in the pyrenees?' or 'oho, my boy! this is but child's play to what we saw in spain.' so all who did not sleep (i believe the majority) pretended to do so, and bore their suffering with admirable heroism. "for my part, i once or twice, from sheer fatigue, got into something like a doze; yet it would not do. there was no possibility of sleeping, for, besides being already so wet, the tent proved no shelter, the water pouring through the canvas in streams; so up i got, and to my infinite joy, found that some of the men had managed to make a couple of fires, round which they were sitting smoking their short pipes in something like comfort. the hint was a good one, and at that moment my second captain joining me, we borrowed from them a few sticks, and choosing the best spot under the hedge, proceeded to make a fire for ourselves. in a short time we succeeded in raising a cheerful blaze, which materially bettered our situation. my companion had an umbrella (which, by the way, had afforded some merriment to our people on the march); this we planted against the sloping bank of the hedge, and seating ourselves under it, he on one side of the stick, i on the other, we lighted cigars and became--comfortable. dear weed! what comfort, what consolation dost thou not impart to the wretched!--with thee a hovel becomes a palace. what a stock of patience is there not enveloped in one of thy brown leaves! "and thus we sat enjoying ourselves, puffing forth into the damp night air streams of fragrant smoke, being able now deliberately to converse on what had been and probably would be. all this time a most infernal clatter of musketry was going on, which, but for the many quiet dark figures seated round the innumerable fires all along the position, might have been construed into a night attack. but as these gentlemen were between us and the enemy we felt assured of timely warning, and ere long learned that all this proceeded as before from the infantry discharging and cleaning their pieces. "whilst so employed, a rustling in the hedge behind attracted our attention, and in a few minutes a poor fellow belonging to some hanoverian regiment, wet through like everybody else, and shivering with cold, made his appearance, and modestly begged permission to remain a short time and warm himself by our fire. he had somehow or other wandered from his colours, and had passed the greater part of the night searching for them, but in vain. at first he appeared quite exhausted, but the warmth reinvigorating him, he pulled out his pipe and began to smoke. having finished his modicum and carefully disposed of the ashes, he rose from his wet seat to renew his search, hoping to find his corps before daylight, he said, lest it should be engaged. many thanks he offered for our hospitality; but what was our surprise when, after fumbling in his haversack for some time, he pulled out a poor half-starved chicken, presented it to us, and marched off. this was a godsend, in good truth, to people famished as we were; so calling for a camp-kettle, our prize was on the fire in a twinkling. "our comrades in the tent did not sleep so soundly but that they heard what was going on, and the kettle was hardly on the fire ere my gentlemen were assembled round it, a wet and shivering group, but all eager to partake of our good fortune--and so eager that after various betrayals of impatience, the miserable chicken was at last snatched from the kettle ere it was half-boiled, pulled to pieces and speedily devoured. i got a leg for my share, but it was not one mouthful, and this was the only food i tasted since the night before." footnotes: [footnote : that this was napoleon we have the authority of general gourgaud, who states that, irritated at the delay of marshal ney, he put himself at the head of the chasseurs (i think), and dashed forward in the hope of yet being able to catch our rearguard.] chapter v waterloo mercer's account of waterloo has much less of literary art and skill in it than other parts of his book. he plunges the reader, without warning and without explanation, into the roar of the great fight. his description of the ground and of the position of the army is thrust, as a sort of parenthesis, into the middle of the story of the actual struggle. mercer's troop was stationed till long past noon in reserve on the british right. the battle to mercer was nothing but an incessant and deep-voiced roar of guns, a vision of drifting smoke, in which would appear at times dim figures of charging horsemen, or outlines of infantry squares, edged with steel and flame, and out of which flowed tiny processions of wounded, trickling backwards over the ridge in front. about three o'clock, however, the troop was suddenly brought up to the battle-line, at a point where it was in imminent peril of giving way. from that moment mercer was in the smoky, tormented, thunder-shaken vortex of the great fight, and his description of it is graphic and impressive in the highest degree. this is how the morning of waterloo dawned for mercer and his gunners:-- "_june ._--memorable day! some time before daybreak the bombardier who had been despatched to langeveldt returned with a supply of ammunition. "with the providence of an old soldier, he had picked up and brought on a considerable quantity of beef, biscuit, and oatmeal, of which there was abundance scattered about everywhere. casks of rum, &c., there were, and having broached one of these--he and his drivers--every one filled his canteen--a most considerate act, and one for which the whole troop was sincerely thankful. nor must i omit to remark that, amidst such temptations, his men had behaved with the most perfect regularity, and returned to us quite sober! the rum was divided on the spot; and surely if ardent spirits are ever beneficial, it must be to men situated as ours were; it therefore came most providentially. the oatmeal was converted speedily into stirabout, and afforded our people a hearty meal, after which all hands set to work to prepare the beef, make soup, &c. unfortunately, we preferred waiting for this, and passed the stirabout, by which piece of folly we were doomed to a very protracted fast, as will be seen. "whilst our soup was cooking, it being now broad daylight, i mounted my horse to reconnoitre our situation. during the night another troop (i think major ramsay's) had established itself in our orchard, and just outside the hedge i found major bean's, which had also arrived during the night, direct from england. ascending from the farm towards the ground we had left yesterday evening, the face of the slope, as far as i could see, to the right and left, was covered with troops _en bivouac_--here, i think, principally cavalry. of these some were cleaning their arms, some cooking, some sitting round fires smoking, and a few, generally officers, walking about or standing in groups conversing. many of the latter eagerly inquired where i was going, and appeared very anxious for intelligence, all expecting nothing less than to recommence our retreat. i continued on to the position we had occupied last, and thence clearly saw the french army on the opposite hill, where everything appeared perfectly quiet--people moving about individually, and no formation whatever. their advanced-posts and vedettes in the valley, just beyond la haye sainte, were also quiet. "having satisfied my curiosity i returned the way i came, communicating my observations to the many eager inquirers i met with. various were the speculations in consequence. some thought the french were afraid to attack us, others that they would do so soon, others that the duke would not wait for it, others that he would, as he certainly would not allow them to go to brussels; and so they went on speculating, whilst i returned to my people. here, finding the mess not yet ready, and nothing to be done, i strolled into the garden of the farm, where several life guardsmen were very busy digging potatoes--a fortunate discovery, which i determined to profit by. therefore, calling up some of my men, to work we went without loss of time." it is amusing to notice that mercer was so busy digging potatoes that he quite failed to observe that the battle had actually commenced! his senses were buried in the potato-hillocks! so the regiments fell into line, the batteries moved off to their assigned places, the french guns began to speak, and waterloo had begun; and though mercer stood on the very edge of the field, he took no notice of the rise of the curtain on the great tragedy. he says:-- "whilst thus employed i noticed a very heavy firing going on in front, but this did not make us quit our work. shortly after, to my great astonishment, i observed that all the bivouacs on the hillside were deserted, and that even ramsay's troop had left the orchard without my being aware of it, and my own was left quite alone, not a soul being visible from where i stood in any direction, the ground they had quitted presenting one unbroken muddy solitude. the firing became heavier and heavier. alarmed at being thus left alone, when it was evident something serious was going on, i hastened back and ordered the horses to be put to immediately. "away went our mess untasted. one of the servants was desired to hang the kettle with its contents under an ammunition waggon. the stupid fellow hung the kettle as desired, but first emptied it. without orders, and all alone, the battle (for now there was no mistaking it) going on at the other side of the hill, i remained for a few minutes undecided what to do. it appeared to me we had been forgotten. all, except only ourselves, were evidently engaged, and labouring under this delusion, i thought we had better get into the affair at once. as soon, therefore, as the troop was ready i led them up the hill on the high-road, hoping to meet some one who could give me directions what to do." the tragedy of the battle soon made itself visible, in very dramatic shape, to mercer:-- "we had not proceeded a hundred yards, when an artillery officer came furiously galloping down towards us. it was major m'lloyd, in a dreadful state of agitation--such, indeed, that he could hardly answer my questions. i learned, however, that the battle was very serious and bloody. their first attack had been on that part of our position where his battery stood; but now the principal efforts were making against our right. all this was told in so hurried and anxious a manner, that one could hardly understand him. 'but where are you going?' he added. i told him my plan. 'have you no orders?' 'none whatever; i have not seen a soul.' 'then, for god's sake, come and assist me, or i shall be ruined. my brigade is cut to pieces, ammunition expended, and, unless reinforced, we shall be destroyed.' he was dreadfully agitated, and when i took his hand and promised to be with him directly, seemed transported with joy; so, bidding me make haste, he darted up the hill again, and went to receive that death-stroke which, ere long, was to terminate his earthly career. i trust before that termination he heard the reason why i never fulfilled that promise; for weeks elapsed ere he died, no doubt--otherwise he must have set me down for a base poltroon. my destiny led me elsewhere. my tutelary spirit was at hand: the eternal major m'donald made his appearance, and, giving me a sharp reprimand for having quitted my bivouac, desired me instantly to return to the foot of the hill, and there wait for orders. "sulkily and slowly we descended, and forming in line on the ground opposite the farm of mont st. jean, with our left to the road, i dismounted the men that they might be a little less liable to be hit by shot and shells which, coming over the hill, were continually plunging into the muddy soil all around us. this was a peculiarly dismal situation--without honour or glory, to be knocked on the head in such a solitude, for not a living being was in sight. "it was while thus standing idle that a fine, tall, upright old gentleman, in plain clothes, followed by two young ones, came across our front at a gallop from the brussels road, and continued on towards where we supposed the right of our army to be. i certainly stared at seeing three unarmed civilians pressing forward into so hot a fight. these were the duke of richmond and his two sons. how long we had been in this position, i know not, when at length we were relieved from it by our adjutant (lieutenant bell), who brought orders for our removal to the right of the second line. moving, therefore, to our right, along the hollow, we soon began a very gentle ascent, and at the same time became aware of several corps of infantry, which had not been very far from us, but remained invisible, as they were all lying down. although in this move we may be said to have been always under a heavy fire, from the number of missiles flying over us, yet were we still so fortunate as to arrive in our new position without losing man or horse." now mercer at last got a glimpse of the whole landscape of the great fight. but even when looking at waterloo, and to an accompaniment of flying lead, mercer has an eye for the picturesque, not to say the pastoral:-- "in point of seeing, our situation was much improved; but for danger and inactivity, it was much worse, since we were now fired directly at, and positively ordered not to return the compliment--the object in bringing us here being to watch a most formidable-looking line of lancers drawn up opposite to us, and threatening the right flank of our army. "to the right we looked over a fine open country, covered with crops and interspersed with thickets or small woods. there all was peaceful and smiling, not a living soul being in sight. to our left, the main ridge terminated rather abruptly just over hougoumont, the back of it towards us being broken ground, with a few old trees on it just where the nivelle road descended between high banks into the ravine. thus we were formed _en potence_ with the first line, from which we (my battery) were separated by some hundred yards. in our rear the th regiment of infantry (in square, i think) lay on the ground. in our front were some light dragoons of the german legion, who from time to time detached small parties across the ravine. these pushed cautiously up the slope towards the line of lancers to reconnoitre. "the corn, down to the edge of the ravine nearer the nivelle road and beyond it, was full of french riflemen; and these were warmly attacked by others from our side of the ravine, whom we saw crossing and gradually working their way up through the high corn, the french as gradually retiring. on the right of the lancers, two or three batteries kept up a continued fire at our position; but their shot, which could have been only -pounders, fell short--many not even reaching across the ravine. some, however, did reach their destination; and we were particularly plagued by their howitzer shells with long fuses, which were continually falling about us, and lay spitting and spluttering several seconds before they exploded, to the no small annoyance of man and horse. still, however, nobody was hurt; but a round-shot, striking the ammunition boxes on the body of one of our waggons, penetrated through both and lodged in the back of the rear one, with nearly half its surface to be seen from without--a singular circumstance! in addition to this front fire, we were exposed to another on our left flank--the shot that passed over the main ridge terminating their career with us. "having little to occupy us here, we had ample leisure to observe what was passing there. we could see some corps at the end near us in squares--dark masses, having guns between them, relieved from a background of grey smoke, which seemed to fill the valley beyond, and rose high in the air above the hill. every now and then torrents of french cavalry of all arms came sweeping over the ridge, as if carrying all before them. but, after their passage, the squares were still to be seen in the same places; and these gentry, who we feared would next fall on us, would evaporate, nobody could well say how. the firing still increased in intensity, so that we were at a loss to conjecture what all this could mean. "about this time, being impatient of standing idle, and annoyed by the batteries on the nivelle road, i ventured to commit a folly, for which i should have paid dearly, had our duke chanced to be in our part of the field. i ventured to disobey orders, and open a slow deliberate fire at the battery, thinking with my -pounders soon to silence his -pounders. my astonishment was great, however, when our very first gun was responded to by at least half-a-dozen gentlemen of very superior calibre, whose presence i had not even suspected, and whose superiority we immediately recognised by their rushing noise and long reach, for they flew far beyond us. i instantly saw my folly, and ceased firing, and they did the same--the -pounders alone continuing the cannonade as before. but this was not all. the first man of my troop touched was by one of these confounded long shots. i shall never forget the scream the poor lad gave when struck. it was one of the last they fired, and shattered his left arm to pieces as he stood between the waggons. that scream went to my very soul, for i accused myself as having caused his misfortune. i was, however, obliged to conceal my emotion from the men, who had turned to look at him; so, bidding them 'stand to their front,' i continued my walk up and down, whilst hitchins ran to his assistance. "amidst such stirring scenes, emotions of this kind are but of short duration; what occurred immediately afterwards completely banished gunner hunt from my recollection. as a counterbalance to this tragical event, our firing produced one so comic as to excite all our risibility. two or three officers had lounged up to our guns to see the effect. one of them was a medico, and he (a shower having just come on) carried an umbrella overhead. no sooner did the heavy answers begin to arrive amongst us, than these gentlemen, fancying they should be safer with their own corps, although only a few yards in the rear, scampered off in double-quick, doctor and all, he still carrying his umbrella aloft. scarcely, however, had he made two paces, when a shot, as he thought, passing rather too close, down he dropped on his hands and knees--or, i should rather say, hand and knees, for the one was employed in holding the silken cover most pertinaciously over him--and away he scrambled like a great baboon, his head turned fearfully over his shoulder, as if watching the coming shot, whilst our fellows made the field resound with their shouts and laughter." at this point mercer indulges in some reflections which illustrate, in a striking fashion, the confusion of a great battle, and the difficulty with which even those who are actors in it can describe what took place. it is not merely that a battle-field, by its area, and the fashion in which the all-obscuring smoke drifts over it, evades clear vision and description. the actors in the fight are themselves in such a mood of excitement, and are so passionately preoccupied by their own part in the combat and the scenes immediately about them, that no brain remains sufficiently cool and detached to take in the battle-field as a whole:-- "i think i have already mentioned that it was not until some days afterwards that i was able to resume my regular journal, consequently that everything relative to these three days is written from memory. in trying to recollect scenes of this nature, some little confusion is inevitable; and here i confess myself somewhat puzzled to account for certain facts of which i am positive. for instance, i remember perfectly captain bolton's brigade of -pounders being stationed to the left of us, somewhat in advance, and facing as we did, consequently not far from the nivelle road. bolton came and conversed with me some time, and was called hastily away by his battery commencing a heavy fire. query--who, and what was he firing at? that he was himself under a heavy fire there is equally no doubt, for whilst we were not losing a man, we saw many, both of his men and horses, fall, and but a few minutes after leaving me, he was killed himself--this is a puzzle. i have no recollection of any troops attempting to cross the ravine, and yet his fire was in that direction, and i think must have been toward the nivelle road. "a distressing circumstance connected with this (shall i confess it?) made even more impression on my spirits than the misfortune of gunner hunt. bolton's people had not been long engaged when we saw the men of the gun next to us unharness one of the horses and chase it away, wounded, i supposed; yet the beast stood and moved with firmness, going from one carriage to the other, whence i noticed he was always eagerly driven away. at last two or three gunners drove him before them to a considerable distance, and then returned to their guns. i took little notice of this at the time and was surprised by an exclamation of horror from some of my people in the rear. a sickening sensation came over me, mixed with a deep feeling of pity, when within a few paces of me stood the poor horse in question, side by side with the leaders of one of our ammunition waggons, against which he pressed his panting sides, as though eager to identify himself as of their society--the driver, with horror depicted on every feature, endeavouring by words and gestures (for the kind-hearted lad could not strike) to drive from him so hideous a spectacle. "a cannon-shot had completely carried away the lower part of the animal's head, immediately below the eyes. still he lived, and seemed fully conscious of all around, whilst his full, clear eye seemed to implore us not to chase him from his companions. i ordered the farrier (price) to put him out of misery, which, in a few minutes he reported having accomplished, by running his sabre into the animal's heart. even he evinced feeling on this occasion. "meantime the roar of cannon and musketry in the main position never slackened; it was intense, as was the smoke arising from it. amidst this, from time to time, was to be seen still more dense columns of smoke rising straight into the air like a great pillar, then spreading out a mushroom head. these arose from the explosions of ammunition waggons, which were continually taking place, although the noise which filled the whole atmosphere was too overpowering to allow them to be heard." by this time the great french cavalry charges were in full course. some , of the finest cavalry in the world were being flung on the stubborn british squares, which, as the french horsemen swept round them, seemed swallowed up in a tossing sea of helmets and gleaming swords and heads of galloping horses. the spray, so to speak, of that fierce human sea, was flung on the spot where mercer and his gunners stood:-- "amongst the multitudes of french cavalry continually pouring over the front ridge, one corps came sweeping down the slope entire, and was directing its course straight for us, when suddenly a regiment of light dragoons (i believe of the german legion) came up from the ravine at a brisk trot on their flank. the french had barely time to wheel up to the left and push their horses into a gallop when the two bodies came into collision. they were at a very short distance from us, so that we saw the charge perfectly. there was no check, no hesitation on either side; both parties seemed to dash on in a most reckless manner, and we fully expected to have seen a horrid crash--no such thing! each, as if by mutual consent, opened their files on coming near, and passed rapidly through each other, cutting and pointing, much in the same manner one might pass the fingers of the right hand through those of the left. we saw but few fall. the two corps re-formed afterwards, and in a twinkling both disappeared, i know not how or where. "it might have been about two o'clock when colonel gould, r.a., came to me--perhaps a little later. be that as it may, we were conversing on the subject of our situation, which appeared to him rather desperate. he remarked that in the event of a retreat there was but one road, which no doubt would be instantly choked up, and asked my opinion. my answer was, 'it does indeed look very bad; but i trust in the duke, who, i am sure, will get us out of it somehow or other.' meantime gloomy reflections arose in my mind, for though i did not choose to betray myself (as we spoke before the men), yet i could not help thinking that our affairs were rather desperate, and that some unfortunate catastrophe was at hand. in this case i made up my mind to spike my guns and retreat over the fields, draught-horses and all, in the best manner i could, steering well from the high-road and general line of retreat. "we were still talking on this subject when suddenly a dark mass of cavalry appeared for an instant on the main ridge, and then came sweeping down the slope in swarms, reminding me of an enormous surf bursting over the prostrate hull of a stranded vessel, and then running, hissing and foaming up the beach. the hollow space became in a twinkling covered with horsemen, crossing, turning, and riding about in all directions, apparently without any object. sometimes they came pretty near us, then would retire a little. there were lancers amongst them, hussars, and dragoons--it was a complete _mêlée_. on the main ridge no squares were to be seen; the only objects were a few guns standing in a confused manner, with muzzles in the air, and not one artilleryman. after caracoling about for a few minutes, the crowd began to separate and draw together in small bodies, which continually increased; and now we really apprehended being overwhelmed, as the first line had apparently been. for a moment an awful silence pervaded that part of the position to which we anxiously turned our eyes. 'i fear all is over,' said colonel gould, who still remained with me. the thing seemed but too likely, and this time i could not withhold my assent to his remark, for it did indeed appear so. "meantime the th, springing from the earth, had formed their square, whilst we, throwing back the guns of our right and left divisions, stood waiting in momentary expectation of being enveloped and attacked. still they lingered in the hollow, when suddenly loud and repeated shouts (not english hurrahs) drew our attention to the other side. there we saw two dense columns of infantry pushing forward at a quick pace towards us, crossing the fields, as if they had come from merke braine. every one both of the th and ourselves pronounced them french, yet still we delayed opening fire on them. shouting, yelling, singing, on they came right for us; and being now not above or yards distant, it seemed folly allowing them to come nearer unmolested. the commanding officer of the th to end our doubts rode forwards and endeavoured to ascertain who they were, but soon returned assuring us they were french. the order was already given to fire, when luckily colonel gould recognised them as belgians. meantime, whilst my attention was occupied by these people, the cavalry had all vanished, nobody could say how or where. "we breathed again. such was the agitated state in which we were kept in our second position. a third act was about to commence of a much more stirring and active nature." now came, and in a dramatic fashion, the summons which brought troop g into the very front of the fight; and from this point mercer's story is clear, sustained, and vivid:-- "it might have been, as nearly as i can recollect, about p.m. when sir augustus frazer galloped up, crying out, 'left limber up, and as fast as you can.' the words were scarcely uttered when my gallant troop stood as desired in column of sub-divisions, left in front, pointing towards the main ridge. 'at a gallop, march!' and away we flew, as steadily and compactly as if at a review. "i rode with frazer, whose face was as black as a chimney-sweep's from the smoke, and the jacket-sleeve of his right arm torn open by a musket-ball or case-shot, which had merely grazed his flesh. as we went along he told me that the enemy had assembled an enormous mass of heavy cavalry in front of the point to which he was leading us (about one-third of the distance between hougoumont and the charleroi road), and that in all probability we should immediately be charged on gaining our position. 'the duke's orders, however, are positive,' he added, 'that in the event of their persevering and charging home, you do not expose your men, but retire with them into the adjacent squares of infantry.' as he spoke we were ascending the reverse slope of the main position. we breathed a new atmosphere--the air was suffocatingly hot, resembling that issuing from an oven. we were enveloped in thick smoke, and, _malgré_ the incessant roar of cannon and musketry, could distinctly hear around us a mysterious humming noise, like that which one hears of a summer's evening proceeding from myriads of black beetles; cannon-shot, too, ploughed the ground in all directions, and so thick was the hail of balls and bullets that it seemed dangerous to extend the arm lest it should be torn off. "in spite of the serious situation in which we were, i could not help being somewhat amused at the astonishment expressed by our kind-hearted surgeon (hitchins), who heard for the first time this sort of music. he was close to me as we ascended the slope, and hearing this infernal carillon about his ears, began staring round in the wildest and most comic manner imaginable, twisting himself from side to side, exclaiming, 'my god, mercer, what is that? what is all this noise? how curious!--how very curious!' and then when a cannon-shot rushed hissing past, 'there!--there! what is it all!' it was with great difficulty that i persuaded him to retire; for a time he insisted on remaining near me, and it was only by pointing out how important it was to us, in case of being wounded, that he should keep himself safe to be able to assist us, that i prevailed on him to withdraw. amidst this storm we gained the summit of the ridge, strange to say, without a casualty; and sir augustus, pointing out our position between two squares of brunswick infantry, left us with injunctions to remember the duke's order, and to economise our ammunition. "the brunswickers were falling fast--the shot every moment making great gaps in their squares, which the officers and sergeants were actively employed in filling up by pushing their men together, and sometimes thumping them ere they could make them move. these were the very boys whom i had but yesterday seen throwing away their arms, and fleeing, panic-stricken, from the very sound of our horses' feet. to-day they fled not bodily, to be sure, but spiritually, for their senses seemed to have left them. there they stood, with recovered arms, like so many logs, or rather like the very wooden figures which i had seen them practising at in their cantonments. every moment i feared they would again throw down their arms and flee; but their officers and sergeants behaved nobly, not only keeping them together, but managing to keep their squares close in spite of the carnage made amongst them. to have sought refuge amongst men in such a state were madness--the very moment our men ran from their guns, i was convinced, would be the signal for their disbanding. we had better, then, fall at our posts than in such a situation. "our coming up seemed to re-animate them, and all their eyes were directed to us--indeed, it was providential, for, had we not arrived as we did, i scarcely think there is a doubt of what would have been their fate. that the duke was ignorant of their danger i have from captain baynes, our brigade-major, who told me that after sir augustus frazer had been sent for us, his grace exhibited considerable anxiety for our coming up; and that when he saw us crossing the fields at a gallop, and in so compact a body, he actually cried out, 'ah! that's the way i like to see horse artillery move.'" then follows perhaps the most spirited description of a duel betwixt guns and horsemen--from the gunner's point of view--to be found in english literature:-- "our first gun had scarcely gained the interval between their squares, when i saw through the smoke the leading squadrons of the advancing column coming on at a brisk trot, and already not more than one hundred yards distant, if so much, for i don't think we could have seen so far. i immediately ordered the line to be formed for action--case-shot! and the leading gun was unlimbered and commenced firing almost as soon as the word was given; for activity and intelligence our men were unrivalled. "the very first round, i saw, brought down several men and horses. they continued, however, to advance. i glanced at the brunswickers, and that glance told me it would not do; they had opened a fire from their front faces, but both squares appeared too unsteady, and i resolved to say nothing about the duke's order, and take our chance--a resolve that was strengthened by the effect of the remaining guns as they rapidly succeeded in coming to action, making terrible slaughter, and in an instant covering the ground with men and horses. still they persevered in approaching us (the first round had brought them to a walk), though slowly, and it did seem they would ride over us. we were a little below the level of the ground on which they moved, having in front of us a bank of about a foot and a half or two feet high, along the top of which ran a narrow road--and this gave more effect to our case-shot, all of which almost must have taken effect, for the carnage was frightful. the following extract, from a related account of a conscript, translated from the french and published by murray, is so true and exact as to need no comment: 'through the smoke i saw the english gunners abandon their pieces, all but six guns stationed under the road, and almost immediately our cuirassiers were upon the squares, whose fire was drawn in zigzags. now, i thought, those gunners would be cut to pieces; but no, the devils kept firing with grape, which mowed them down like grass.' "i suppose this state of things occupied but a few seconds, when i observed symptoms of hesitation, and in a twinkling, at the instant i thought it was all over with us, they turned to either flank and filed away rapidly to the rear. retreat of the mass, however, was not so easy. many facing about and trying to force their way through the body of the column, that part next to us became a complete mob, into which we kept a steady fire of case-shot from our six pieces. the effect is hardly conceivable, and to paint this scene of slaughter and confusion impossible. every discharge was followed by the fall of numbers, whilst the survivors struggled with each other, and i actually saw them using the pommels of their swords to fight their way out of the _mêlée_. some, rendered desperate at finding themselves thus pent up at the muzzles of our guns, as it were, and others carried away by their horses, maddened with wounds, dashed through our intervals--few thinking of using their swords, but pushing furiously onward, intent only on saving themselves. at last the rear of the column, wheeling about, opened a passage, and the whole swept away at a much more rapid pace than they had advanced, nor stopped until the swell of the ground covered them from our fire. we then ceased firing; but as they were still not far off, for we saw the tops of their caps, having reloaded, we stood ready to receive them should they renew the attack. "one of, if not the first man who fell on our side was wounded by his own gun. gunner butterworth was one of the greatest pickles in the troop, but at the same time a most daring, active soldier; he was no. (the man who sponged, &c.) at his gun. he had just finished ramming down the shot, and was stepping back outside the wheel when his foot stuck in the miry soil, pulling him forward at the moment the gun was fired. as a man naturally does when falling, he threw out both his arms before him, and they were blown off at the elbows. he raised himself a little on his two stumps, and looked up most piteously in my face. to assist him was impossible--the safety of all, everything, depended upon not slackening our fire, and i was obliged to turn from him. the state of anxious activity in which we were kept all day, and the numbers who fell almost immediately afterwards, caused me to lose sight of poor butterworth; and i afterwards learned that he had succeeded in rising, and was gone to the rear; but on inquiring for him next day, some of my people who had been sent to waterloo told me that they saw his body lying by the roadside near the farm of mont st. jean--bled to death. the retreat of the cavalry was succeeded by a shower of shot and shells, which must have annihilated us had not the little bank covered and threw most of them over us. still some reached us and knocked down men and horses. "at the first charge the french column was composed of grenadiers _à cheval_[ ] and cuirassiers, the former in front. i forget whether they had or had not changed this disposition, but think, from the number of cuirasses we found afterwards, that the cuirassiers led the second attack. be this as it may, their column reassembled. they prepared for a second attempt, sending up a cloud of skirmishers, who galled us terribly by a fire of carbines and pistols at scarcely forty yards from our front." betwixt the cavalry rushes came little intervals of waiting, while the broken squadrons re-formed in the valley below, and the breathless gunners on the ridge renewed their ammunition. these pauses gave the french skirmishers--who had crept close up to the guns--their chance, and which were more trying to the british gunners than even the wild onfall of the horsemen:-- "we were obliged to stand with port-fires lighted, so that it was not without a little difficulty that i succeeded in restraining the people from firing, for they grew impatient under such fatal results. seeing some exertion beyond words necessary for this purpose, i leaped my horse up the little bank, and began a promenade (by no means agreeable) up and down our front, without even drawing my sword, though these fellows were within speaking distance of me. this quieted my men; but the tall blue gentlemen, seeing me thus dare them, immediately made a target of me, and commenced a very deliberate practice, to show us what very bad shots they were, and verify the old artillery proverb, 'the nearer the target, the safer you are.' one fellow certainly made me flinch, but it was a miss; so i shook my finger at him and called him _coquin_, &c. the rogue grinned as he reloaded, and again took aim. i certainly felt rather foolish at that moment, but was ashamed after such bravado to let him see it, and therefore continued my promenade. as if to prolong my torment, he was a terrible time about it. to me it seemed an age. whenever i turned, the muzzle of his infernal carbine still followed me. at length bang it went, and whiz came the ball close to the back of my neck, and at the same instant down dropped the leading driver of one of my guns (miller), into whose forehead the cursed missile had penetrated. "the column now once more mounted the plateau, and these popping gentry wheeled off right and left to clear the ground for their charge. the spectacle was imposing, and if ever the word sublime was appropriately applied, it might surely be to it. on they came in compact squadrons, one behind the other, so numerous that those of the rear were still below the brow when the head of the column was but at some sixty or seventy yards from our guns. their pace was a slow but steady trot. none of your furious galloping charges was this, but a deliberate advance at a deliberate pace, as of men resolved to carry their point. they moved in profound silence, and the only sound that could be heard from them amidst the incessant roar of battle was the low, thunder-like reverberation of the ground beneath the simultaneous tread of so many horses. "on our part was equal deliberation. every man stood steadily at his post, the guns ready, loaded with a round-shot first and a case over it; the tubes were in the vents; the port-fires glared and spluttered behind the wheels; and my word alone was wanting to hurl destruction on that goodly show of gallant men and noble horses. i delayed this, for experience had given me confidence. the brunswickers partook of this feeling, and with their squares--much reduced in point of size--well closed, stood firmly with arms at the recover, and eyes fixed on us, ready to commence their fire with our first discharge. it was indeed a grand and imposing spectacle. the column was led on this time by an officer in a rich uniform, his breast covered with decorations, whose earnest gesticulations were strangely contrasted with the solemn demeanour of those to whom they were addressed. i thus allowed them to advance unmolested until the head of the column might have been about fifty or sixty yards from us, and then gave the word 'fire!' the effect was terrible, nearly the whole leading rank fell at once; and the round-shot, penetrating the column, carried confusion throughout its extent. the ground, already encumbered with victims of the first struggle, became now almost impassable. still, however, these devoted warriors struggled on, intent only on reaching us. the thing was impossible. "our guns were served with astonishing activity, whilst the running fire of the two squares was maintained with spirit. those who pushed forward over the heap of carcasses of men and horses gained but a few paces in advance, there to fall in their turn and add to the difficulties of those succeeding them. the discharge of every gun was followed by a fall of men and horses like that of grass before the mower's scythe. when the horse alone was killed, we could see the cuirassiers divesting themselves of the encumbrance and making their escape on foot. still, for a moment the confused mass (for all order was at an end) stood before us, vainly trying to urge their horses over the obstacles presented by their fallen comrades, in obedience to the now loud and rapid vociferations of him who had led them on and remained unhurt. "as before, many cleared everything and rode through us; many came plunging forward only to fall, man and horse, close to the muzzles of our guns; but the majority again turned at the very moment when, from having less ground to go over, it was safer to advance than retire, and sought a passage to the rear. of course the same confusion, struggle amongst themselves, and slaughter prevailed as before, until gradually they disappeared over the brow of the hill. we ceased firing, glad to take breath. their retreat exposed us, as before, to a shower of shot and shells: these last, falling amongst us, with very long fuses, kept burning and hissing a long time before they burst, and were a considerable annoyance to man and horse. the bank in front, however, again stood our friend, and sent many over us innocuous." here is a picture of what may be called the human atmosphere of the battle in its later stages, the high-strung nerves, the weariness, the exhaustion of passion, the carelessness of close-pressing death, the fast-following alternation of deadly peril and of miraculous escape:-- "lieutenant breton, who had already lost two horses, and had mounted a troop-horse, was conversing with me during this our leisure moment. as his horse stood at right angles to mine, the poor jaded animal dozingly rested his muzzle on my thigh; whilst i, the better to hear amidst the infernal din, leant forward, resting my arm between his ears. in this attitude a cannon-shot smashed the horse's head to atoms. the headless trunk sank to the ground--breton looking pale as death, expecting, as he afterwards told me, that i was cut in two. what was passing to the right and left of us i know no more about than the man in the moon--not even what corps were beyond the brunswickers. the smoke confined our vision to a very small compass, so that my battle was restricted to the two squares and my own battery; and, as long as we maintained our ground, i thought it a matter of course that others did so too. "it was just after this accident that our worthy commanding officer of artillery, sir george adam wood, made his appearance through the smoke a little way from our left flank. as i said, we were doing nothing, for the cavalry were under the brow re-forming for a third attack, and we were being pelted by their artillery. 'd--n it, mercer,' said the old man, blinking as a man does when facing a gale of wind, 'you have hot work of it here,' 'yes, sir, pretty hot;' and i was proceeding with an account of the two charges we had already discomfited, and the prospect of a third, when, glancing that way, i perceived their leading squadron already on the plateau. 'there they are again,' i exclaimed; and, darting from sir george _sans cérémonie_, was just in time to meet them with the same destruction as before. this time, indeed, it was child's play. they could not even approach us in any decent order, and we fired most deliberately; it was folly having attempted the thing. "i was sitting on my horse near the right of my battery as they turned and began to retire once more. intoxicated with success, i was singing out, 'beautiful!--beautiful!' and my right arm was nourishing about, when some one from behind, seizing it, said quietly, 'take care, or you'll strike the duke;' and in effect our noble chief, with a serious air, and apparently much fatigued, passed close by me to the front, without seeming to take the slightest notice of the remnant of the french cavalry still lingering on the ground. this obliged us to cease firing; and at the same moment i--perceiving a line of infantry ascending from the rear, slowly, with ported arms, and uttering a sort of feeble, suppressed hurrah, ankle-deep in a thick, tenacious mud, and threading their way amongst or stepping over the numerous corpses covering the ground, out of breath from their exertions, and hardly preserving a line, broken everywhere into large gaps the breadth of several files--could not but meditate on the probable results of the last charge had i, in obedience to the duke's order, retired my men into the squares and allowed the daring and formidable squadrons a passage to our rear, where they must have gone thundering down on this disjointed line. the summit gained, the line was amended, files closed in, and the whole, including our brunswickers, advanced down the slope towards the plain. "although the infantry lost several men as they passed us, yet on the whole the cannonade began to slacken on both sides (why, i know not), and, the smoke clearing away a little, i had now, for the first time, a good view of the field. on the ridge opposite to us dark masses of troops were stationary, or moving down into the intervening plain. our own advancing infantry were hid from view by the ground. we therefore recommenced firing at the enemy's masses, and the cannonade, spreading, soon became general again along the line." mercer, so far, had been fighting sabres with -pounders, and all the advantage had been on his side. he had inflicted enormous damage on the enemy, and suffered little himself. but now the enemy's guns began to speak, and mercer's battery was smitten by a cruel and continuous flank fire, which practically destroyed it:-- "whilst thus occupied with our front, we suddenly became sensible of a most destructive flanking fire from a battery which had come, the lord knows how, and established itself on a knoll somewhat higher than the ground we stood on, and only about or yards a little in advance of our left flank. the rapidity and precision of this fire were quite appalling. every shot almost took effect, and i certainly expected we should all be annihilated. our horses and limbers being a little retired down the slope, had hitherto been somewhat under cover from the direct fire in front; but this plunged right amongst them, knocking them down by pairs, and creating horrible confusion. the drivers could hardly extricate themselves from one dead horse ere another fell, or perhaps themselves. the saddle-bags, in many instances, were torn from the horses' backs, and their contents scattered over the field. one shell i saw explode under the two finest wheel-horses in the troop--down they dropped. in some instances the horses of a gun or ammunition waggon remained, and all their drivers were killed.[ ] "the whole livelong day had cost us nothing like this. our gunners, too--the few left fit for duty of them--were so exhausted that they were unable to run the guns up after firing, consequently at every round they retreated nearer to the limbers; and as we had pointed our two left guns towards the people who were annoying us so terribly, they soon came altogether in a confused heap, the trails crossing each other, and the whole dangerously near the limbers and ammunition waggons, some of which were totally unhorsed, and others in sad confusion from the loss of their drivers and horses, many of them lying dead in their harness attached to their carriages. i sighed for my poor troop--it was already but a wreck. "i had dismounted, and was assisting at one of the guns to encourage my poor exhausted men, when through the smoke a black speck caught my eye, and i instantly knew what it was. the conviction that one never sees a shot coming towards you unless directly in its line flashed across my mind, together with the certainty that my doom was sealed. i had barely time to exclaim 'here it is, then!'--much in that gasping sort of way one does when going into very cold water, takes away the breath--'whush' it went past my face, striking the point of my pelisse collar, which was lying open, and smash into a horse close behind me. i breathed freely again. "under such a fire, one may be said to have had a thousand narrow escapes; and, in good truth, i frequently experienced that displacement of air against my face, caused by the passing of shot close to me; but the two above recorded, and a third, which i shall mention, were remarkable ones, and made me feel in full force the goodness of him who protected me among so many dangers. whilst in position on the right of the second line, i had reproved some of my men for lying down when shells fell near them until they burst. now my turn came. a shell, with a long fuse, came slop into the mud at my feet, and there lay fizzing and flaring to my infinite discomfiture. after what i had said on the subject, i felt that i must act up to my own words, and, accordingly, there i stood, endeavouring to look quite composed until the cursed thing burst--and, strange to say, without injuring me, though so near. the effect on my men was good." but was it really a french battery which was wrecking mercer's guns? or, in the mad inevitable distraction of a great battle were the allied gunners destroying each other? mercer's story leaves this point in a state of very disquieting doubt:-- "we had scarcely fired many rounds at the enfilading battery, when a tall man in the black brunswick uniform came galloping up to me from the rear, exclaiming, 'ah! mine gott!--mine gott! vat is it you doos, sare? dat is your friends de proosiens; an you kills dem! ah! mine gott!--mine gott; vil you no stop, sare?--vil you no stop? ah! mine gott!--mine gott! vat for is dis? de inglish kills dere friends de proosiens! vere is de dook von vellington? vere is de dook von vellington? ah! mine gott!--mine gott!' &c., &c., and so he went on raving like one demented. i observed that if these were our friends the prussians, they were treating us very uncivilly; and that it was not without sufficient provocation we had turned our guns on them, pointing out to him at the same time the bloody proofs of my assertion. "apparently not noticing what i said, he continued his lamentations, and, 'vil you no stop, sare, i say?' wherefore, thinking he might be right, to pacify him i ordered the whole to cease firing, desiring him to remark the consequences. psieu, psieu, psieu, came our 'friends'' shots, one after another; and our friend himself had a narrow escape from one of them. 'now, sir,' i said, 'you will be convinced; and we will continue our firing, whilst you can ride round the way you came, and tell them they kill their friends the english; the moment their fire ceases, so shall mine,' still he lingered, exclaiming, 'oh, dis is terreeble to see de proosien and de inglish kill von anoder!' "at last, darting off, i saw no more of him. the fire continued on both sides, mine becoming slacker and slacker, for we were reduced to the last extremity, and must have been annihilated but for the opportune arrival of a battery of belgic artillery a little on our left, which, taking the others in flank nearly at point blank, soon silenced and drove them off. we were so reduced that all our strength was barely sufficient to load and fire three guns out of our six. "these belgians were all beastly drunk, and, when they first came up, not at all particular as to which way they fired; and it was only by keeping an eye on them that they were prevented treating us, and even one another. the wretches had probably already done mischief elsewhere--who knows?" footnotes: [footnote : these grenadiers _à cheval_ were very fine troops, clothed in blue uniforms without facings, cuffs, or collars. broad--very broad--buff belts, and huge muff caps, made them appear gigantic fellows.] [footnote : "the field was so much covered with blood, that it appeared as if it had been flooded with it," &c.--simpson's "paris after waterloo," &c., p. .] chapter vi after the fight mercer could hardly tell when and how waterloo began, and he can almost as little tell when and how it ended! so wild is the confusion, so overwhelming the excitement of a great battle for the actors in it:-- "my recollections of the later part of this day are rather confused; i was fatigued and almost deaf. i recollect clearly, however, that we had ceased firing, the plain below being covered with masses of troops, which we could not distinguish from each other. captain walcot of the horse artillery, had come to us, and we were all looking out anxiously at the movements below and on the opposite ridge, when he suddenly shouted out, 'victory!--victory! they fly!--they fly!' and sure enough we saw some of the masses dissolving, as it were, and those composing them streaming away in confused crowds over the field, whilst the already desultory fire of their artillery ceased altogether. "i shall never forget this joyful moment!--this moment of exultation! on looking round, i found we were left almost alone. cavalry and infantry had all moved forward, and only a few guns here and there were to be seen on the position. a little to our right were the remains of major m'donald's troop under lieutenant sandilands, which had suffered much, but nothing like us. we were congratulating ourselves on the happy results of the day when an aide-de-camp rode up, crying, 'forward, sir! forward! it is of the utmost importance that this movement should be supported by artillery!' at the same time waving his hat much in the manner of a huntsman laying on his dogs. i smiled at his energy, and, pointing to the remains of my poor troop, quietly asked, 'how, sir?' a glance was sufficient to show him the impossibility, and away he went. "our situation was indeed terrible. of fine horses with which we had entered the battle, upwards of lay dead, dying, or severely wounded. of the men, scarcely two-thirds of those necessary for four guns remained, and these so completely exhausted as to be totally incapable of further exertion. lieutenant breton had three horses killed under him; lieutenant hincks was wounded in the breast by a spent ball; lieutenant leathes on the hip by a splinter; and although untouched myself, my horse had no less than eight wounds, one of which, a graze on the fetlock joint, lamed him for ever. our guns and carriages were, as before mentioned, altogether in a confused heap, intermingled with dead and wounded horses, which it had not been possible to disengage from them. "my poor men, such at least as were untouched, fairly worn out, their clothes, faces, &c., blackened by the smoke and spattered over with mud and blood, had seated themselves on the trails of the carriages, or had thrown themselves on the wet and polluted soil, too fatigued to think of anything but gaining a little rest. such was our situation when called upon to advance. it was impossible, and we remained where we were. for myself, i was also excessively tired, hoarse to making speech painful, and deaf from the infernal uproar of the last eleven hours. moreover, i was devoured by a burning thirst, not a drop of liquid having passed my lips since the evening of the th; but although, with the exception of the chicken's leg last night, i may be said to have eaten nothing for two whole days, yet did i not feel the least desire for food." when the battle was over, mercer's artistic sensibilities--his eye for landscape, his sense of sky-effects and of natural beauty--awoke. he was perhaps the only man in wellington's army who could study cloud-effects in the night-sky, which looked down on the slain of waterloo, or contemplate, with botanical discrimination and approval, the plants in the garden at hougoumont the next morning:-- "the evening had become fine, and but for an occasional groan or lament from some poor sufferer, and the repeated piteous neighing of wounded horses, tranquility might be said to reign over the field. as it got dusk, a large body of prussian artillery arrived, and formed their bivouac near us. there was not light to see more of them than that their brass guns were kept bright, and that their carriages were encumbered with baggage, and, besides, appeared but clumsy machines when compared with ours. all wore their greatcoats, which apparently they had marched in. as they looked at us rather scowlingly, and did not seem inclined to hold any communication with us, i soon returned to my own people, whom i found preparing to go supperless to bed--the two remaining officers, the non-commissioned officers, and men having all got together in a heap, with some painted covers spread under, and others drawn over them--at a distance from our guns, &c., the neighbourhood of which they said, was too horrible to think of sleeping there. "for my part, after standing all day amongst all these horrors, i felt no squeamishness about sleeping amongst them; so pulling down the painted cover of a limber over the footboard in the manner of a tent roof, i crept under it and endeavoured to sleep. the cramped situation in which i lay, and the feverish excitement of my mind, forbade, however, my obtaining that sound and refreshing sleep so much needed; i only dozed. from one of these dozes i awoke about midnight, chilled and cramped to death from the awkward doubled-up position imposed upon me by my short and narrow bed. so up i got to look around and contemplate a battle-field by the pale moonlight. "the night was serene and pretty clear; a few light clouds occasionally passing across the moon's disc, and throwing objects into transient obscurity, added considerably to the solemnity of the scene. oh, it was a thrilling sensation thus to stand in the silent hour of the night and contemplate that field--all day long the theatre of noise and strife, now so calm and still--the actors prostrate on the bloody soil, their pale wan faces upturned to the moon's cold beams, which caps and breastplates, and a thousand other things, reflected back in brilliant pencils of light from as many different points! here and there some poor wretch, sitting up amidst the countless dead, busied himself in endeavours to stanch the flowing stream with which his life was fast ebbing away. many whom i saw so employed that night were, when morning dawned, lying stiff and tranquil as those who had departed earlier. from time to time a figure would half raise itself from the ground, and then, with a despairing groan, fall back again. others, slowly and painfully rising, stronger, or having less deadly hurt, would stagger away with uncertain steps across the field in search of succour. "many of these i followed with my gaze until lost in the obscurity of distance; but many, alas! after staggering a few paces, would sink again on the ground with their entrails hanging out--and yet i gazed! horses, too, there were to claim our pity--mild, patient, enduring. some lay on the ground with their entrails hanging out, and yet they lived. these would occasionally attempt to rise, but like their human bedfellows, quickly falling back again, would lift their poor heads, and, turning a wistful gaze at their side, lie quietly down again, to repeat the same until strength no longer remained, and then, their eyes gently closing, one short convulsive struggle closed their sufferings. one poor animal excited painful interest--he had lost, i believe, both his hind-legs; and there he sat the long night through on his tail, looking about, as if in expectation of coming aid, sending forth, from time to time, long and protracted melancholy neighing. although i knew that killing him at once would be mercy, i could not muster courage even to give the order. blood enough i had seen shed during the last six-and-thirty hours, and sickened at the thought of shedding more. there, then, he still sat when we left the ground, neighing after us, as if reproaching our desertion of him in the hour of need." after the storm of a great battle has rolled away it leaves behind a wreckage--human and animal--of a very amazing sort; and of the wreckage of waterloo mercer gives a grimly vivid description. the effect is that of one of vereschagin's pictures translated into literary terms:-- "_june ._--the cool air of the morning lasted not long; the rising sun soon burst in all his glory over our bloody bivouac, and all nature arose into renewed life, except the victims of ambition which lay unconscious of his presence. i had not been up many minutes when one of my sergeants came to ask if they might bury driver crammond. 'and why particularly driver crammond?' 'because he looks frightful, sir; many of us have not had a wink of sleep for him.' curious! i walked to the spot where he lay, and certainly a more hideous sight cannot be imagined. a cannon-shot had carried away the whole head except barely the visage, which still remained attached to the torn and bloody neck. the men said they had been prevented sleeping by seeing his eyes fixed on them all night; and thus this one dreadful object had superseded all the other horrors by which they were surrounded. he was of course immediately buried, and as immediately forgotten. "our first care after this was to muster the remaining force, to disentangle our carriages from each other, and from the dead and dying animals with which they were encumbered. many sound or only slightly wounded horses, belonging to different corps of both armies, were wandering about the field. of these we caught several in the course of the morning, and thus collected, with what remained of our own fit for work, sufficient to horse four guns, three ammunition waggons, and the forge. of men we had nearly enough for these at reduced numbers, so we set to work equipping ourselves without delay. although supplies of ammunition had been sent to us during the action, yet little remained. the expenditure had been enormous. a return had been called for yesterday evening just as we were lying down to rest, but, fatigued as we all were it was impossible to give this correctly. as near as i could ascertain, we must have fired nearly rounds per gun. our harness, &c., was so cut to pieces, that but for the vast magazines around us from which we could pick and choose we should never have got off the field. "soon after daybreak an officer came from headquarters to desire me to send all my superfluous carriages to lillois, where a park was forming, and to inform me that a supply of ammunition would be found in the village of waterloo. accordingly the carriages were sent without delay; but this requiring all the horses, they were obliged to make a second trip for the ammunition. whilst this was doing i had leisure to examine the ground in our immediate vicinity. books and papers, &c., covered it in all directions. the books at first surprised me, but upon examination the thing was explained. each french soldier, it appeared, carried a little accompt-book of his pay, clothing, &c., &c. the scene was now far from solitary; for numerous groups of peasants were moving about busily employed stripping the dead, and perhaps finishing those not quite so. some of these men i met fairly staggered under the enormous load of clothes, &c., they had collected. some had firearms, swords, &c., and many had large bunches of crosses and decorations; all seemed in high glee, and professed unbounded hatred of the french. "i had fancied we were almost alone on the field, seeing only the remains of major bull's troop of horse artillery not far from us (the prussians had gone forward about or a little before daybreak); but in wandering towards the charleroi road i stumbled on a whole regiment of british infantry fast asleep, in columns of divisions, wrapped in their blankets, with their knapsacks for pillows. not a man was awake. there they lay in regular ranks, with the officers and sergeants in their places, just as they would stand when awake. not far from these, in a little hollow beneath a white thorn, lay two irish light-infantry men sending forth such howlings and wailings and oaths and execrations as were shocking to hear. one of them had his leg shot off, the other a thigh smashed by a cannon-shot. they were certainly pitiable objects, but their vehement exclamations, &c., were so strongly contrasted with the quiet, resolute bearing of hundreds both french and english around them, that it blunted one's feelings considerably. "i tried in vain to pacify them; so walked away amidst a volley of abuse as a hard-hearted wretch who could thus leave two poor fellows to die like dogs. what could i do? all, however, though in more modest terms, craved assistance; and every poor wretch begged most earnestly for water. some of my men had discovered a good well of uncontaminated water at hougoumont and filled their canteens, so i made several of them accompany me and administer to the most craving in our immediate vicinity. nothing could exceed their gratitude, or the fervent blessings they implored on us for this momentary relief. the french were in general particularly grateful; and those who were strong enough entered into conversation with us on the events of yesterday, and the probable fate awaiting themselves. all the non-commissioned officers and privates agreed in asserting that they had been deceived by their officers and betrayed; and, to my surprise, almost all of them reviled bonaparte as the cause of their misery. "many begged me to kill them at once, since they would a thousand times rather die by the hand of a soldier than be left at the mercy of those villainous belgic peasants. whilst we stood by them several would appear consoled and become tranquil; but the moment we attempted to leave, they invariably renewed the cry, 'ah, monsieur, tuez moi donc! tuez moi, pour l'amour de dieu!' &c., &c. it was in vain i assured them carts would be sent to pick them all up. nothing could reconcile them to the idea of being left. they looked on us as brother soldiers, and knew we were too honourable to harm them: 'but the moment you go, those vile peasants will first insult and then cruelly murder us.' this, alas! i knew, was but too true. "one frenchman i found in a far different humour--an officer of lancers, and desperately wounded; a strong, square-built man, with reddish hair and speckled complexion. when i approached him he appeared suffering horribly--rolling on his back, uttering loud groans. my first impulse was to raise and place him in a sitting posture; but, the moment he was touched, opening his eyes and seeing me, he became perfectly furious. supposing he mistook my intention, i addressed him in a soothing tone, begging he would allow me to render him what little assistance was in my power. this only seemed to irritate him the more; and on my presenting him the canteen with water, he dashed it from him with such a passionate gesture and emphatic 'non!' that i saw there was no use in teasing, and therefore reluctantly left him. "returning towards our position, i was forcibly struck by the immense heap of bodies of men and horses which distinguished it even at a distance; indeed, sir augustus frazer told me the other day, at nivelles, that in riding over the field, 'he could plainly distinguish the position of g troop from the opposite height by the dark mass which, even from that distance, formed a remarkable feature in the field.' these were his very words. one interesting sufferer i had nearly forgotten. he was a fine young man of the grenadiers _à cheval_, who had lain groaning near us all night--indeed, scarcely five paces from my bed; therefore was the first person i visited as soon as daylight came. he was a most interesting person--tall, handsome, and a perfect gentleman in manners and speech; yet his costume was that of a private soldier. we conversed with him some time, and were exceedingly pleased with his mild and amiable address. amongst other things he told us that marshal ney had led the charges against us. "i now began to feel somewhat the effects of my long fast in a most unpleasant sense of weakness and an inordinate craving for food, which there was no means of satisfying. my joy, then, may be imagined when, returning to our bivouac, i found our people returned from lillois, and, better still, that they had brought with them a quarter of veal, which they had found in a muddy ditch, of course in appearance then filthy enough. what was this to a parcel of men who had scarcely eaten a morsel for three days? in a trice it was cut up, the mud having been scraped off with a sabre, a fire kindled and fed with lance-shafts and musket-stocks; and old quarter-master hall, undertaking the cooking, proceeded to fry the dirty lumps in the lid of a camp-kettle. how we enjoyed the savoury smell! and, having made ourselves seats of cuirasses[ ] piled upon each other, we soon had that most agreeable of animal gratifications--the filling our empty stomachs. never was a meal more perfectly military, nor more perfectly enjoyed." by this time the artillery officer in mercer was exhausted, the botanist and artist began to emerge, and he strolls off to visit, as a sort of country gentleman at leisure, the garden at hougoumont! he says:-- "having despatched our meal and then the ammunition waggons to waterloo, and leaving the people employed equipping as best they could, i set off to visit the château likewise; for the struggle that had taken place there yesterday rendered it an object of interest. the same scene of carnage as elsewhere characterised that part of the field over which i now bent my steps. the immediate neighbourhood of hougoumont was more thickly strewn with corpses than most other parts of the field--the very ditches were full of them. the trees all about were most woefully cut and splintered both by cannon shot and musketry. the courts of the château presented a spectacle more terrible even than any i had yet seen. a large barn had been set on fire, and the conflagration had spread to the offices and even to the main building. here numbers, both of french and english, had perished in the flames, and their blackened swollen remains lay scattered about in all directions. amongst this heap of ruins and misery many poor devils yet remained alive, and were sitting up endeavouring to bandage their wounds. such a scene of horror, and one so sickening, was surely never witnessed. "two or three german dragoons were wandering among the ruins, and many peasants. one of the former was speaking to me when two of the latter, after rifling the pockets, &c., of a dead frenchman, seized the body by the shoulders, and raising it from the ground, dashed it down again with all their force, uttering the grossest abuse, and kicking it about the head and face--revolting spectacle!--doing this, no doubt, to court favour with us. it had a contrary effect, which they soon learned. i had scarcely uttered an exclamation of disgust, when the dragoon's sabre was flashing over the miscreants' heads, and in a moment descended on their backs and shoulders with such vigour that they roared again, and were but too happy to make their escape. i turned from such scenes and entered the garden. how shall i describe the delicious sensation i experienced! "the garden was an ordinary one, but pretty--long straight walks of turf overshadowed by fruit-trees, and between these beds of vegetables, the whole enclosed by a tolerably high brick wall. is it necessary to define my sensations? is it possible that i am not understood at once? listen, then. for the last three days i have been in a constant state of excitement--in a perfect fever. my eyes have beheld nought but war in all its horrors--my ears have been assailed by a continued roar of cannon and cracking of musketry, the shouts of multitudes and the lamentations of war's victims. suddenly and unexpectedly i find myself in solitude, pacing a green avenue, my eyes refreshed by the cool verdure of trees and shrubs; my ears soothed by the melody of feathered songsters--yea, of sweet philomel herself--and the pleasing hum of insects sporting in the genial sunshine. is there nothing in this to excite emotion? nature in repose is always lovely: here, and under such circumstances, she was delicious. long i rambled in this garden, up one walk, down another, and thought i could dwell here contented for ever. "nothing recalled the presence of war except the loop-holed wall and two or three dead guardsmen[ ]; but the first caused no interruption, and these last lay so concealed amongst the exuberant vegetation of turnips and cabbages, &c., that, after coming from the field of death without, their pale and silent forms but little deteriorated my enjoyment. the leaves were green, roses and other flowers bloomed forth in all their sweetness, and the very turf when crushed by my feet smelt fresh and pleasant. there was but little of disorder visible to tell of what had been enacted here. i imagine it must have been assailed by infantry alone; and the havoc amongst the trees without made by our artillery posted on the hill above to cover the approach to it--principally, perhaps, by bull's howitzer battery. "i had satisfied my curiosity at hougoumont, and was retracing my steps up the hill when my attention was called to a group of wounded frenchmen by the calm, dignified, and soldier-like oration addressed by one of them to the rest. i cannot, like livy, compose a fine harangue for my hero, and, of course, i could not retain the precise words, but the import of them was to exhort them to bear their sufferings with fortitude; not to repine, like women or children, at what every soldier should have made up his mind to suffer as the fortune of war, but above all, to remember that they were surrounded by englishmen, before whom they ought to be doubly careful not to disgrace themselves by displaying such an unsoldier-like want of fortitude. "the speaker was sitting on the ground, with his lance stuck upright beside him--an old veteran, with a thick, bushy, grizzly beard, countenance like a lion--a lancer of the old guard, and no doubt had fought in many a field. one hand was flourished in the air as he spoke, the other, severed at the wrist, lay on the earth beside him; one ball (case-shot, probably) had entered his body, another had broken his leg. his suffering, after a night of exposure so mangled, must have been great; yet he betrayed it not. his bearing was that of a roman, or perhaps of an indian warrior, and i could fancy him concluding appropriately his speech in the words of the mexican king, 'and i too; am i on a bed of roses?' "in passing bull's bivouac it was my fate to witness another very interesting scene. a wounded hussar had somehow or other found his way there from another part of the field, and exhausted by the exertion, had just fainted. some of those collected round him cried out for water, and a young driver, who, being outside the throng, had not yet seen the sufferer, seized a canteen and ran away to fill it. whilst he was absent the hussar so far recovered as to be able to sit up. the driver returned at this moment, and pushing aside his comrades, knelt down to enable the hussar to drink, holding the canteen to his lips, and in so doing recognised a brother whom he not seen for years. his emotion was extreme, as may be supposed." from the narrative of the march to paris which followed waterloo, we take only one incident. mercer is at nivelles, watching the crowds and the excitement in the streets:-- "suddenly a loud shout announces something extraordinary even on this day of excitement. every one hurries to the spot, pushing each other, jumping, shouting. 'what can it mean?' i inquired. 'monsieur l'officier, c'est un convoi des prisonniers que vient d'arriver,' replied my man, doffing at the same time his _bonnet de nuit_ and making a most respectful salaam. i stopped to see the convoy pass. the prisoners, dressed in grey _capotes_ and _bonnets de fourrage_, marched steadily on. some _vieux moustaches_ look very grave, and cast about furious glances at the noisy crowd which follows them with the perseverance of a swarm of mosquitoes, _sacré_-ing and venting all kind of illiberal abuse on them and the b-- of an emperor. many, however, younger men, laugh, joke, and return their abuse with interest, whilst the soldiers of the escort (english) march doggedly along, pushing aside the more forward of the throng, and apparently as if only marching round a relief. "at noon arrived in the neighbourhood of mons, where we overtook the greys, inniskillings, ross's troop of horse artillery, and several other corps, both of cavalry and infantry. we had, in short, now rejoined the army. the greys and the inniskillings were mere wrecks--the former, i think, did not muster men, and the latter, with no greater strength, presented a sad spectacle of disorganisation and bad discipline; they had lost more than half their appointments. some had helmets, some had none; many had the skull-cap, but with the crest cut or broken off; some were on their own large horses, others on little ones they had picked up; belts there were on some; many were without, not only belts, but also canteens and haversacks. the enemy surely had not effected in a single day so complete a disorganisation, and i shrewdly suspect these rollicking paddies of having mainly spoilt themselves. the other corps all looked remarkably well, although they, too, had partaken in the fight. "we crossed after the greys, and came with them on the main road to maubeuge at the moment a highland regiment (perhaps the nd), which had come through mons, was passing. the moment the highlanders saw the greys an electrifying cheer burst spontaneously from the column, which was answered as heartily; and on reaching the road the two columns became blended for a few minutes--the highlanders running to shake hands with their brave associates in the late battle. this little burst of feeling was delightful--everybody felt it; and although two or three general officers were present, none interfered to prevent or to censure this breach of discipline." footnotes: [footnote : "here were more cuirasses than men, for the wounded (who could move), divesting themselves of its encumbrance, had made their escape, leaving their armour on the ground where they had fallen."] [footnote : in some accounts of the battle and visits to the field, &c., it has been stated that this garden was a scene of slaughter. totally untrue! as i have stated in the text, i did not see above two or three altogether. there certainly might have been more concealed amongst the vegetation, but they could not have been many.] index adams, general, , ---- sergeant-major, adour, river, , ---- valley of the, , _adventure_, transport, agueda, river, ainhoe, the heights of, , alba de tormes, albuera, battle of, ; beresford at, alexander, emperor, allenquer, town, , alost, alton, general count, , , ; at salamanca, ; at quatre bras, , ; at waterloo, andover, , anglesey, marquis of, _see_ under uxbridge, lord arenas, arinez, armstrong, ----, arruda, ascot heath, assche, astorga, atalya, auchmuty, general, austrian emperor, badajos, , , , , ; the great breach at, , , ; the siege of, _sqq._ baker, ----, , barnard, sir andrew, at quatre bras, , , ; at waterloo, , , ; in spain, ---- colonel, ; at vittoria, , ; at ciudad rodrigo, ; at badajos, , , ; in the pyrenees, , barnes, sir edward, barossa, battle of, bath, bathala, convent of, bawdsey, bay of biscay, , baynes, captain, bayonne, , , ; the fighting before, , , bean, major, beckwith, sir sidney at sabugal, , , belgian skirmishers, ; allies, , , , ; horse artillery, bell, ----, ---- lieutenant, benevento, bengal horse artillery, bera, village of, , , beresford, marshal, at salamanca, ; sketch of, - ; at orthez, ; at toulouse, _sqq._ berri, duc de, bidassoa, river, ; passage of the, , , blandford downs, , blucher, prince, interviewed by wellington at ligny, ; his defeat at ligny, , ; retreats to wavre, ; at waterloo, ; at quatre bras, _sqq._ bock, general, boer and highlander in south africa, bolton, captain, , "boney's invincibles," braine le comte, brander, lieutenant, breton, lieutenant, , brooks, james, _sqq._ brotherwood, ----, , brunswick, duke of, , brunswick allies at quatre bras, ; at waterloo, , _sqq._ brussels, , , _sqq._, , , , , , , ; duchess of richmond's ball at, , buenos ayres, the fiasco at, , , bull, major, , bunbury, lieutenant, burgos, the retreat from, , , , burrard, sir harry, supersedes sir arthur wellesley, , , ; at vimiero, busaco, battle of, butterworth, gunner, cadiz, cameron, colonel, at ciudad rodrigo, , , ; at badajos, ; at waterloo, campbell, sir colin, ---- captain, at toulouse, , ; at quatre bras (brevet-major), , cardo, ----, caridad, convent of, cashel, , castanos, general, castre, ceira, passage of the, charleroi road, , , , , chatham, earl of, chelsea, chichester, , ciudad rodrigo, , , , , , ; leader of the forlorn hope at, , ; marmont marches to the relief of, ; the storming of, _sqq._ clichy, clinton, sir henry, clonmel, coa, ; river, coates, ----, , , cochan, mrs., , coimbra, , colborne, colonel, colchester barracks, cole, sir lowry, , combermere, lord, condacia, , cooke, colonel, copenhagen, expedition to, , cork, , , corunna, moore's retreat to, , , _sqq._, , , , ; sufferings of the retreat, _sqq._ cowel, major, cox, lieutenant, , , crammond, driver, craufurd, general, _sqq._; in buenos ayres, ; in the retreat to corunna, _sqq._, ; described by a private who served under him, _sqq._ crosby, sergeant-major, cuesta, general, cunningham, corporal, , czar, wellington's despatch to the, dalheath, near falkirk, dalrymple, sir hew, , dance, captain, davidson, brevet-major, deben, river, demon, ----, _sqq._ denburn, river, dendermonde, d'erlon, general, at waterloo, , , devine, ----, , dick, colonel, dickson, captain, ---- sir alexander, doury, -----, , downs, the, drummond, major, dundas, sir david, dutch troops at waterloo, ebro, valley of the, echelar, mountain, elba, , , eleder, captain, elvas, , enghien, , , , epsom, ers, river, erskine, sir william, , essling, prince of, fane, general, , farquharson, lieut. d., , fermoy, fez d'aronce, figuera, bay of, flinn, rifleman, flushing, , fontainebleau, franklin, ----, , fraser, sergeant, , fraser, ----, frasnes, village of, , frazer, sir augustus, , , , ; at waterloo, , , , freire, general, , fuentes d'onore, battle of, , , , fyfe, smith, garges, gave, river, gembloux, genappe, , , , , german legion, ; at waterloo, , ghent, , , ghystelle, gibraltar, gosport, gould, colonel, , gourgaud, general (quoted), graham, sir thomas, at vittoria, , ; at ciudad rodrigo, ; at san sebastian, , gramont, great rhune, gregory, lieut.-colonel, grouchy, general, guarda, guardiana, river, , guards at quatre bras, _sqq._ hall, quarter-master, , , hart, captain, , hart, the brothers john, mike, and peter, , , harwich, , hautain le val, henderson, ----, , higgins, thomas, , , hill, sir dudley, ---- sir rowland, - , ---- general (afterwards lord hill), at roliça, ; "farmer" hill described, , ; at orthez, ; at toulouse, ---- lieutenant, , , ---- captain, , hilsea barracks, , hincks, lieutenant, hitchins, surgeon, , , , holland, expedition to, hope, sir john, hopewood, ----, hopwood, lieutenant, hougoumont, , _sqq._, , , ; the garden of, , , , ; the attack on, houssaye (quoted), , howans, dan, _sqq._ huerta, hunt, gunner, , _hussar_, frigate, hythe, , , , , ---- barracks, innes, lieutenant, inniskilling dragoons at waterloo, , _sqq._, isle of wight, jackman, ----, jagger, ben, janca, jenkinson, captain, junot, general, , kellerman, general, kempt, sir james, , , ; at waterloo, , knight, ----, la belle alliance, , , , la haye sainte, , , , _sqq._, la rhune, , ladysmith, lake, colonel, lambert, sir john, , landguard fort, langeveldt, , latta, ensign, le secca, leathes, lieutenant, , lebbeke, leech, captain, , , , lefebvre, general, , leith, , leria, life guards at quatre bras, ; at waterloo, , , , , , light division, the (craufurd's), , , , ; the light regiment of the, ; at sabugal, ; at fuentes d'onore, ; at orthez, ligny, ; the battle of, , lillois, , lisbon, , , , , liston, corporal robert, , little rhune, livy, loison, general, louis xviii., flees from paris, ; holds court at ghent, , low, john, macara, sir robert, m'donald, major, at quatre bras, _sqq._; in the retreat to waterloo, _sqq._; at waterloo, _sqq._, m'dougall, lieut. kenneth, m'guire, mrs., m'kenzie, lieutenant, mackenzie, general, mclauchlan, patrick, , m'lloyd, major, m'namara, ----, m'pherson, captain mungo, mahone, patrick, maine, boundary line dispute, manningtree, marmont, general, , , ; at salamanca, , massena, marshal, , , , ; before torres vedras, ; pursued by wellington, ; retreats from torres vedras, maubeuge, maya, pass of, mayberry, sergeant thomas, , , medley, ----, , , mendoza, bridge of, menzies, major, merke braine, , militia, north york, miller, driver, milward, ----, mittelkerke, molly, lieutenant, mondego, mons, mont rave, , , mont st. jean, the heights of, , , , , moore, sir john, , , ; at corunna, _sqq._ morrisson, ----, , mullins, ----, musselburgh, namur, napier, sir william, (quoted), ---- major, , , napoleon, allusions, , , , , , , ; his abdication, ; escapes from elba, , , ; at quatre bras, , , , _sqq._; at waterloo, , , _sqq._; transfers the spanish crown to his brother joseph, ; overtakes the rearguard in the retreat to waterloo, , , nassau troops, new orleans, ney, marshal, defeated by wellington at the passage of the ceira, ; in the retreat from torres vedras, ; at quatre bras, , , _sqq._; leads the cavalry charges at waterloo, nieuport, ninove, , nivelle, river, , ; passage of the, , , ; town, , , , , , ; road, _sqq._ nova scotia, o'hara, major, old guard, the, , orange, prince of, orr, ----, orthez, battle of, _sqq._ ostend, , , , , ; harbour, pack, general sir denis, , , , ; at toulouse, ; his brigade at quatre bras, _sqq._; at waterloo, _sqq._ paget, lieut.-gen. sir edward, pakenham, sir edward, ---- captain, pampeluna, , paris, , , ; grand review after waterloo, passages, pau, river, , , , peninsula, , ; british soldier of the, , ; the rifles in the, , ; campaign of - , ; fights of the, ; sieges of the, ; experiences in the, petite la rhune, , peyrehorade, _philarea_, transport, phillipon, general, picton, sir thomas, , , ; at toulouse, , ; at ciudad rodrigo, ; at badajos, ; at quatre bras, , ; at waterloo, , , , ; at orthez, _sqq._ plymouth, ponton, james, portsdown hill, ; execution at, portsmouth, portugal, , , ---- king john of, price, farrier, prussia, king of, prussian troops, , ; at quatre bras, ; at waterloo, , , pullen, richard, _sqq._ pyrenees, , ; marches and fights in the, _sqq._, , pyrnes, quatre bras, , , ; the battle of, _sqq._, _sqq._, _sqq._; the village of, ; the prussians at, ; the retreat to waterloo from, _sqq._ quentin, colonel, ramsay, major, , , rave, mont, , , redinha, the fight at, , regnier, general, richmond, duchess of, the ball given at brussels by the, , ---- duke of, "rifles," the th, opposed to the th (french regiment), ; at vittoria, , ; at ciudad rodrigo, ; at badajos, , ; at quatre bras, , ; at waterloo, _sqq._; in buenos ayres, ; at copenhagen, ; at vimiero, roberts, field-marshal lord (quoted), roliça, allusions to the battle of, , , , , , , ross, colonel, ross's troop of horse artillery, , rotterdam, royal artillery, at waterloo, ---- g battery, , , , ; at waterloo, ; at quatre bras, royal highlanders ( nd), , , , ; at the modder, ; in the pyrenees, _sqq._, , ; at toulouse, _sqq. _; at quatre bras, _sqq._ sabugal, battle of, , , ; wellington's description of the battle, sahagun, , , st. cyr, marshal, st. francisco, fort, st. jean, the heights of mont, , , , , st. jean de luz, , ; road, st. severe, , ; road, , salamanca, , , , , , ; wellington halts at, , ; battle of, _sqq._ salisbury plain, , _salus_, transport, . samunoz, san milan, san sebastian, , , , ; siege of, _sqq._ sandilands, lieutenant, santarem, , , ; heights of, schapdale, scots greys at waterloo, , _sqq._, scovell, colonel, senne, river, serna, shoreham cliff, sierra de gata, ---- d'estrella, sitdown, joseph, smith, sir harry, and lady, smollett's "count fathom," sobraon, battle of, soho, , , soignes, forest of, , , somerset, lord edward, , ---- lord fitzroy, soult, marshal, , , , , , , ; advances to the relief of san sebastian, ; at orthez, _sqq._; at toulouse, _sqq._ south africa, south beeveland, island of, spencer, general, spithead, , , steenkerke, stewart, ----, ---- captain george, ---- lieutenant james, stour, river, strangways, ----, strytem, , , , surtees, quarter-master, , tagus, river, , , talavera, battle of, toulouse, , , , ; battle of, _sqq._, _sqq._; heights of, touronne, river, tormes, torres vedras, ; the great hill defences of, ; the lines of, ; wellington enters the lines of, ; massena's retreat from, travers, major, , , tres puentes, village of, tweed, river, urdach, , ; heights of, ustritz, uxbridge, lord, , ; in the retreat to waterloo, _sqq._ vadilla, river, valle, vandeleur, sir ormsby, , , , vigo, , , , , vimiero, , , ; wellington at, ; battle of, _sqq._, vinegar hill, vittoria, , ; the "rifles" at, , ; battle of, _sqq._ vivian, sir hussey, , , wade, lieut.-col. hamilton, walcheren expedition, , , walcot, captain, war office administration, waterloo, allusions, , , , , , , , ; g battery at, ; village of, , _sqq._, ; retreat from quatre bras to, , , , ; battle of, _sqq._, _sqq._; highlanders at, _sqq._; charge of the scots greys at, _sqq._; with the guns at, _sqq._; the ridge at, ; after the battle, watson, lieutenant, wavre, , , , wellesley, sir arthur (_see_ wellington) wellington, duke of, allusions, , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ; at vimiero, , ; severity of, , ; irritability of, ; satire of, ; retreat to the lines of torres vedras, , ; pursues massena, , ; reconnaissance by, ; courtesy of, ; defeats ney at the passage of the ceira, ; indiscriminate censure by, ; at sabugal, ; at fuentes d'onore, , ; at salamanca, , , ; at vittoria, ; at toulouse, , _sqq._; at ciudad rodrigo, , ; at badajos, , ; in the pyrenees, ; forethought of, ; in the netherlands, ; at quatre bras, , _sqq._, _sqq._; withdraws to waterloo, ; at waterloo, , , _sqq._, _sqq._; at orthez, _sqq._; at brussels, ; complains of his staff, ; resolves to stand at waterloo, whinyates, major, white, sir george, whitelocke, general, in buenos ayres, , ; court-martialled, wighton, ----, winchester, wood, sir george adam, , , , woodbridge, woolwich military academy, yeomen of the guard, young, lieutenant, , young guard, the, yseringen, , zadora, river, the end printed by ballantyne, hanson & co. edinburgh and london october, . bell's indian & colonial library. _issued for circulation in india and the colonies only._ may be had in cloth, gilt, or in paper wrappers. _additional volumes are issued at regular intervals._ aide (hamilton). elizabeth's pretenders ( ). alexander (mrs.). a choice of evils ( ). a ward in chancery ( ). a fight with fate ( ). mrs. crichton's creditor ( ). barbara ( ). the cost of her pride ( ). the stepmother ( ). allen (grant). a splendid sin ( ). an african millionaire. illustrated ( ). the incidental bishop ( ). anstey (f.). under the rose. illus. 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Écarte and euchre. by 'berkeley.' piquet and rubicon piquet. by 'berkeley.' skat. by louis diehl. round games. by baxter-wray. card tricks and puzzles. by 'berkeley' and t.b. rowland. parlour and playground games. by mrs. laurence gomme. london: george bell & sons, york street, covent garden waterloo days; the narrative of an englishwoman resident at brussels in june, . by charlotte a. eaton, author of "rome in the nineteenth century," "at home and abroad," etc. _new edition._ with an introduction and appendix by edward bell, m.a. london: george bell & sons, york street, covent garden. . london: printed by william clowes and sons, limited, stamford street and charing cross. introduction.[ ] the following little book which was first published within two years of the events which it describes, was republished in , after some revision by the author, under the title of "the days of battle." it has now been out of print for a considerable time, but its merits as a very graphic and interesting description of those few momentous days which have left their mark on english literature no less than on the history of europe, are sufficient, it is believed, to justify its republication in a popular series. though it was first published anonymously as a "narrative of a few days' residence in belgium with some account of a visit to the field of waterloo, by an englishwoman," it has so much personal interest that the reader will, doubtless, be glad to know something of its author, more especially as she is favourably known by other works, and with other members of her family has claims upon the memory of a younger generation. miss charlotte anne waldie, the lady in question, was born september, , and was the second of three daughters of george waldie, esq., of hendersyde park, near kelso, roxburghshire, and forth house, newcastle-on-tyne. there were also two sons, one of whom is mentioned in the following pages, but they both died without issue. the eldest daughter, maria jane, married in mr. richard griffith, the distinguished civil engineer, who was appointed by government sole commissioner for the general valuation of ireland, and was the author of the famous geological map of that country. after more than forty years of arduous public service, during a large part of which he was president of the board of works in ireland, he was created a baronet; and his son, sir george r. waldie-griffith, inherited mr. waldie's estates. the youngest of the three sisters, jane, was an accomplished painter, and her pictures are to be met with in many institutions in the north of england. she also had considerable literary talent, and wrote a work entitled "sketches descriptive of italy," which was published in four volumes in . she married captain, afterwards admiral, watts, of langton grange, near staindrop, darlington, but unfortunately died in early life. charlotte, the sister with whom we are chiefly concerned, accompanied her brother and younger sister, as is hereafter related, on a visit to brussels, in june, , when it had temporarily and hastily become the headquarters of the army under wellington. the allied forces, as every one supposed, were to meet and crush napoleon, who had just returned from elba, before he had time to take the offensive. but his movements were more rapid than had been anticipated, and the belgian capital, crowded with non-combatants of both sexes, instead of being merely a point of departure, suddenly found itself the central point of the seat of war. the pen of thackeray has well adapted this dramatic situation to the purposes of fiction; but in the following pages we have the circumstances brought before us with all the vividness which actual experience only can give. a few weeks later the two sisters visited the field of waterloo, and a short narrative of the battle written by one, and illustrated by the pencil of the other, was published anonymously by murray, and rapidly went through ten editions. in the course of the next year the two sisters rejoined their brother in france, and went on with him to italy, and it was then, as explained in the author's preface, that the following account, which incorporated the previous narrative, made its appearance. in - miss charlotte waldie was again in italy, and in published, still anonymously, her best known work, "rome in the nineteenth century."[ ] this work gives the result of her own experience and observation, and is written in the personal style which, when it is combined, as in her case it is, with cultivated taste and sensible criticism, is not to be equalled in interest by any formal description. notwithstanding the many changes which recent research and excavation have wrought in the descriptive topography of rome the book is still useful to travellers, and is largely quoted by the latest popular writer on the subject.[ ] in the same year her sister published her "sketches in italy," above referred to. two years later charlotte waldie married stephen eaton, esq., banker, of stamford, and of ketton hall, rutland. a few years afterwards she published a story in three volumes, entitled "continental adventures." mrs. eaton's last work, "at home and abroad," was published in . in she prepared a new edition, the fifth, of "rome in the nineteenth century," in two volumes, with illustrations, for bohn's illustrated library, and in she revised the present work for the same publisher. she died on april, , in the seventy-first year of her age. the following reprint differs only from the author's last edition in respect to the title and the appended notes. it must be remembered that the few details of the battle of waterloo are based upon the reports current at the time, and have since been supplemented or corrected in various ways. in all that came under the writer's own observation there is no room for doubt as to her correctness, and her picture of brussels during the days of battle is corroborated by another account, also by a lady and an english writer, namely, the well-known fanny burney, who was then the wife of general d'arblay, a french officer in the service of louis xviii. madame d'arblay, being unsuccessful in an attempt to leave the city by canal-boat, spent some weeks in brussels, but pre-occupied as she was by the absence of her husband she exercised less observation on what was going on around her, and her account is far less graphic than that of her younger fellow-countrywoman. nor did she visit the field of battle, and realize in an equal degree the terrible penalty which war exacts from victors as well as vanquished.[ ] whilst military glories are held to be worthy of commemoration, it is fitting that such details should not be left untold. and in truth the campaign of waterloo has memories which an englishman cannot afford to lose. if a righteous and unselfish cause may hallow the horrors of those days, it is not well to ignore them altogether. if a cool and confident intrepidity on the part of a leader, if daring disregard of life in comparison with duty on the part of his officers, if resolute and patient endurance for hours, of rank and file, under repeated charge, or still more deadly storm of lead--if, in short, courage and fortitude, well employed, are virtues not yet out of date, the tale of waterloo should still be told, and this little book, genuine as it is, has still its testimony to add thereto. e.b. author's preface. this little narrative is the simple and faithful account of one who was a spectator of the scenes she describes, and a witness of the events she relates, during those days of desperate conflict and unparalleled victory which must be for ever memorable in british history, and interesting to every british heart. it was written whilst the impression of those eventful scenes was yet fresh upon the mind: and the thoughts and feelings which such awful and affecting circumstances were irresistibly calculated to inspire, were expressed without restraint, in the full security of the sympathy and approbation of the partial friends for whose perusal alone this narrative was intended. during the absence of the author in italy in , the members of her family in england sent the manuscript to the late mr. murray, and it was already in the press before she received any intimation of its intended publication. the author must be permitted most earnestly to disclaim all idea of entering into competition with the writers whose talents and genius have been so well employed in describing the battle and the field of waterloo. they were not, however, like the author, on the spot at the time; they were pilgrims who afterwards visited the memorable scenes of these glorious events, and wrote from report: they related the past--she described the present. conscious of her inadequacy to a theme on which all that can be said falls so far short of what must be felt; impossible as it is to do justice to the achievements of that gallant army who have been the champions, the conquerors, and the deliverers of the world, and to whom, under heaven, europe owes her security, and england her glory--the writer yet ventures to hope, that the generous indulgence of a british public will be extended to this humble attempt to record the proofs displayed on those glorious "days of battle," of their heroic valour in combat, their noble magnanimity in victory, and their unshaken fortitude in suffering--faintly and feebly as they are described by an englishwoman. footnotes: [footnote : i have to thank mr. c.o. eaton, j.p., of tolethorpe hall, stamford, for his assistance in preparing this account of his mother's various writings; and mr. george hooper, author of "waterloo, the downfall of the first napoleon," for kindly revising the notes at the end of the volume.] [footnote : the first edition was published by constable, edinburgh; a second edition was brought out by murray in .] [footnote : see "walks in rome," by augustus j.c. hare.] [footnote : there is another small book published shortly before this, "a visit to flanders in july, ," by james simpson (edinburgh, ), which also gives an account of the field a few weeks after the battle. müffling's "passages from my life," and kincaird's "adventures in the rifle brigade," also give some interesting details of brussels on the eve of waterloo.] the days of battle. june . on saturday, the th of june, , my brother, my sister, and myself, sailed from the pier of ramsgate at three in the afternoon, in company with sir neil campbell, the celebrated knight of elba, major wylie, of the royal fusiliers, extra aide-de-camp to the duke of wellington, a mr. n., an english merchant; together with an incongruous assemblage of horses, dogs, and barouches; irish servants, french valets, and steerage passengers, too multifarious to mention, all crowded together into a wretched little packet. on sunday evening, the th of june, we found ourselves, after a passage of thirty-six hours, many miles distant from ostend, lying at anchor in a dead calm, and without a hope of reaching it till the following morning. to escape remaining another night amidst the discomforts of this packet, without food, for we had eaten up all our provisions; and without sleep, for we had experimentally proved that none was to be got, our three selves, and our three companions in misfortune, the knight, the major, and the merchant, embarked in a crazy little boat, about nine o'clock in a beautiful summer's evening, as the sun was sinking in golden splendour, and trusted ourselves to the mercy of the waves. the tide was running strong against the rowers, and night closed in long before we approached the shore; but though the light of the heavens had faded, the ocean was illuminated with that beautiful phosphoric fire so well known in warmer latitudes. the most brilliant magic light played upon the surface of the waters, and marked the path of our little vessel through the deep, with the softest, purest radiance; the oars seemed to be moving through liquid fire, and every drop, as it dashed from them, sparkled like the blaze of a diamond: the little rippling waves, as they curled their heads, were covered with the same transparent ethereal fire, which would mock the powers of the poet's fancy, "glancing from heaven to earth, from earth to heaven," to embody or describe. it is more like the pale beam the glow-worm sheds from his evening lamp than anything on earth, but ten thousand times more bright and more beautiful. by such a light oberon and his queen, attended by their band of tiny sprites, might have held their midnight revels, amidst the bowers and halls of fairyland; and by such a light, enchanted spirits in happier worlds might be supposed to slumber. this soft, transparent, _unearthly_ light gleaming around us, and kindling at every touch in living brightness over the waters; the calm and glassy stillness of the wide extended ocean; the softened glow that lingered in the western sky; and the mild breath of evening, made our passage to the shore, slow as it was, most delightful. it was a night calculated to soothe every unquiet passion into rest, and in which the imagination loved to indulge in dreams of delight and beauty. the heart must have been cold that did not feel the harmony of nature, and the spirit turbulent that did not partake of its repose: everything seemed to have been touched by the hand of enchantment. but the magic spell was dissolved, and the visions of fancy faded away in a moment; for we suddenly struck upon the sands, when we seemed still far from the shore; waves of apparent fire dashed into the boat; and the sturdy sailors, abandoning their oars, seized upon us without the smallest ceremony, and carried us literally through fire and water to the beach. thus were we thrown, late at night, and in the dark, upon a foreign coast, uncertain which way to direct our steps through the deep, deserted, trackless sands that surrounded us; forewarned of the rapid approach of the tides upon this coast, and wholly at a loss in what direction lay the town, or how to get admittance through the sentry posts, at such an hour, if we did reach it. yet under these appalling circumstances, i cannot say that we felt the smallest alarm, or even a momentary uncomfortable situation: we had no fear of being drowned, nor the remotest idea that any more serious mischief could befal us than spending the night upon the sands, of which, however, there seemed to be much probability. luckily for us, this mr. n. proved a most able pilot; he had frequently been at ostend before, and led the way with great sagacity, in spite of the darkness in which we were involved. we were all loaded with travelling bags, or parcels of some sort, for it was with difficulty the little nutshell of a boat contained our six selves, and all the servants were left in the vessel. we were each, therefore, obliged to carry all that we wanted of our travelling equipments; and thus burdened, and sinking every step ankle deep in the heavy sands, we reached at last, with considerable toil, the fortifications, and were immediately hailed by the soldier on guard. we declared ourselves to be "friends," but in vain; friends or foes were all the same to the sentry; we might have lain all night in the ditch, for anything he cared; for his orders were positive, to admit no person into the garrison, without the express order of the commandant after dark. but the cocked hat, aide-de-camp's uniform, and authoritative tone of major wylie carried us all through. he declared "that he and his party were going to join the army with speed;" and, although some of us must have struck the sentry as not being likely to prove a very valuable reinforcement to the troops, he did not venture to make any further opposition, and we all entered ostend. although we came "in such a questionable shape," we obtained admittance into "la cour impériale," where we got an excellent supper, which was particularly acceptable to some of us, who had eaten nothing all day, excepting a bit of bread. we then went to bed, where we enjoyed the sweets of undisturbed repose, with a zest which none but those who have spent a suffocating, sick, and sleepless night in a wretched little berth on board a packet, can understand. next day, after viewing the fortifications, which, although they had been recently repaired by the english, could no longer stand the long sieges which have made ostend famous in history, we proceeded to bruges, walked about in the rain till late at night, to visit the beautiful hôtel de ville, and other public buildings of that fine old city; and rose early the next morning to see the churches of san sauveur and notre dame, and the magnificent tombs of charles the bold and his daughter. already the churches were crowded with pious catholics, whose attention was sadly distracted from their devotion by our appearance: sometimes they whispered an ave maria with the utmost fervency of prayer; and sometimes an half-uttered exclamation of wonder burst from their lips; sometimes they resolutely resumed counting their beads, and sometimes their eyes involuntarily rested on our foreign figures with the broad stare of curiosity. we left bruges in the same bark which had once conveyed napoleon buonaparte to that city, and which is now used as a côche d'eau. it contained people of every sort and description, from the courtiers of louis xviii. down to flemish peasants; all of whom, however, were obliging, talkative, attentive, flattering, and amusing. after dining on board, and spending a most entertaining day, we arrived in the evening at ghent. the whole of wednesday we spent in this ancient city, and though its extent is so great as to have been the subject of a well-known imperial quibble,[ ] i believe we left but little of it unexplored. we visited its magnificent cathedral, whose walls, pillars, roofs, columns, and pulpits are formed of the richest polished marble of every varying hue, and carved with exquisite skill; and whose sculptured ornaments, the work of ages when the statuary's art was in high perfection, seemed almost to start to life before our eyes. we explored the deep sepulchral gloom of its subterranean church; visited the costly shrines of all the saints; contemplated the ancient and decaying monasteries, which were formerly its pride; made a most indefatigable research after cabinets of paintings; and wandered with the utmost perseverance through its abominable streets. we saw the balcony in which the monster vandamme, in the bloody times of the revolution, used to stand, day after day, to see victims led out, at his bidding, to the guillotine. in its altered scenes, we now beheld loyal bourbon beaux in gold epaulettes, and smart flemish belles, in french fashions, laughing and flirting. we, like them, paraded in its gay promenade, and rambled through the perfumed walks and exotic bowers of its beautiful botanic garden. the city of ghent seemed to be restored to some traces of its ancient grandeur by the temporary residence of the bourbon princes, and the little expatriated court of louis xviii. i had never been able to feel any extravagant degree of attachment to this unfortunate royal family: their restoration had not given me any enthusiastic joy, nor their fall much sorrow; and even the honour of paying my devoirs to louis le désiré, and exchanging some profound and reverential bows and courtesies with his most catholic majesty, failed to inspire me with much interest or admiration for this persecuted, princely race. these bows, by the way, cost the good old king considerable time and labour, for he is extremely unwieldy and corpulent, and gouty; and he looks very lethargic and snuffy; and it is really a thousand pities that an exiled and dethroned monarch should be so remarkably uninteresting a personage. early in the morning of thursday, the th of june, we left the city of ghent, passed its ancient walls, and crossed the "lazy scheldt," which is here but a small stream, and belies the epithet goldsmith applies to its more advanced course; for it runs with considerable rapidity. we proceeded along the straight, undeviating line of the broad, flat chaussée, or paved road, that leads to brussels. it is bordered on each side with rows of tall trees, which form one long interminable avenue, as far as the eye can reach. we remembered that it was down this very road that napoleon buonaparte had made his triumphant progress through the netherlands, and we most devoutly hoped, that neither by this, nor any other road, he would ever have it in his power to enter them again. the country is thickly covered with neat cottages, scattered hamlets, and small farm-houses: the fields were waving with tall, luxuriant crops of corn, and far from wearing the appearance of the theatre of war, it seemed to be the abode of peace and plenty; and hope, contentment, and hilarity shone in the countenances of the people. the peasants almost all wore sabots; but the cottage children, bare-footed and bare-headed, frequently pursued the carriage for miles, keeping pace with the horses, tumbling as they went along, singing flemish patriotic songs, the burden of which was invariably, "success to the english, and destruction to the french;" and crying with unwearied perseverance, "viv_é_[ ] les anglaises!" "dat for napoleon!" expressing at the same time, by an emphatic gesture, cutting off his head. they threw bouquets of flowers into the carriage, twisted their little sun-burnt faces into the most extraordinary grimaces, and kept whirling round on their hands and feet, in imitation of the rotatory motion of a wheel. dr. clarke, in his travels, mentions that the children of the arabs in egypt performed the same exploit, and for the same purpose, that of extorting from the passengers a few sous; nay, even one they seemed to think a sufficient reward for a laborious chase of more than a league, and the exhibition of all these fatiguing antics. at the little town of alost, half way to brussels, we stopped to dine. it was the head-quarters of the duc de berri, and the streets, the promenades, and the caffés looked gay. there is a pleasant walk, shaded by trees, round the ramparts; for, this little town, like every other in the netherlands, was formerly fortified; although its dismantled walls no longer afford any means of defence. a violent shower of rain obliged us to take refuge, in rather an unceremonious manner, in a small house, the mistress of which, who was preparing to take her afternoon's coffee (though it was only one o'clock), received us with the utmost courtesy and kindness. short as our stay was beneath her roof, it was long enough for her to express with great energy her detestation of napoleon and of the french; which she said was universal throughout belgium. we had a good deal of conversation with her upon this subject, and upon the past and present state of belgium.--"ah, madame! before they came among us," she said, "this was a very different country. then we were rich, and good, and happy." she lamented over the trade, the manufactories, the commerce they had destroyed; the contributions they had exacted; the fine young men they had seized as conscripts; the convents they had ruined; the priests and "les bonnes religieuses" they had turned to the door. wherever we had gone before, and wherever we afterwards went, we heard the same sentiments from every tongue, and we saw the most unequivocal signs of the inveterate hatred of the belgic people towards their former rulers. it bursts out spontaneously, as if they could not suppress it; their whole countenances change; their eyes sparkle with indignation; their very gestures are eloquent, and they seem at a loss for words strong enough to express the bitterness of their detestation. this surprised us not a little, as in england we had been taught to believe that the french were popular in this country; but we were at length convinced of our mistake. it is the _english_, not the french, who are popular in belgium; and it was far more gratifying than any individual distinction could have been, to find that we were everywhere received with marked attention and respect for the sake of our country, and that the name of england is everywhere beloved and honoured. at the village of ashe, half way between alost and brussels, while i was buying in a little shop a basket of "gateaux sucrés," for which the place is famous, two belgic ladies, who happened to be there, entered into conversation with me, with all the ease of foreign manners, and uttered the same energetic invective against their late french government, and animated praise of the english, which we heard from every tongue during our stay in belgium. these people evidently speak from their hearts: and yet in manners, in customs, in ancient ties, in modern predilections, and even in language, they are french. their deep-rooted hatred, therefore, of the people to whom they were so firmly attached, must have sprung from very flagrant wrongs, and very galling oppression. alost is situated on the little river dender, and from the road we caught a glimpse of the spire of dendermond, so famous for its siege by the allies in the last century. we were now in a country which had repeatedly been, in every age, the seat of war, and in which england had already gained immortal glory. in retracing the proud history of her past triumphs, and her recent and not less brilliant conquests, we felt the firm assurance that in those scenes where the british under the duke of marlborough had, in the eighteenth century, won the glorious victories of oudenarde, ramillies, and malplaquet, the british under the duke of wellington, in the nineteenth century, would gain fresh laurels and immortal renown, and raise still higher the glory of their country's arms. after leaving alost, the country became more rich and undulating. instead of a dull, dead flat, which we had before traversed, sloping grounds, and distant hills, and sheltered valleys diversified the prospect. the woods rose in prouder beauty, and the fields were dressed in brighter verdure and richer luxuriance; and as we passed through those smiling scenes, and saw the husbandman pursuing his peaceful labours, the cottage wife busy with her household cares, and the merry groups of haymakers spread over the fragrant meadows, we rejoiced in the hope that the hand of the spoiler would never lay waste these fruitful fields, nor burn these peaceful hamlets, and that these contented peasants would never again be torn from their homes to fight in the cause of unprincipled ambition, and become in turn the instruments of that oppression of which they had been the victims. it was with a feeling of pride for our country we indulged the thought that it was to england they owed their security; that it was her protecting arm which interposed the impenetrable shield of her armies between them and the tyranny and usurpation of france. we could not but rejoice that since the awful struggle must be made, its horrors--if inevitable--would, at least, be distant;--that since the awful thunderbolt of war must fall, it would descend, in all human probability, upon that country which had raised the storm; and that france herself would at length be visited by some part of the dreadful calamities which she had so long and so mercilessly inflicted upon other nations.[ ] short sighted mortals! while we fondly indulged these hopes, and exulted in the blessings of security and peace, how little did we suspect that the most aggravated horrors of war were ready to burst over our heads; how little did we foresee the rapid changes and alarming events which even this very day was destined to produce; and while we watched the sun sinking in glory in the western sky, how little did we dream of the scenes that were to pass before the dawn of morning! in all the bliss of ignorance, however, we journeyed along, admiring from afar the lofty towers and spires of brussels, and its crowded roofs clustering round the steep sides of a hill, in the midst of a rich and cheerful country, and thinking with joyful and impatient anticipation of the well-known faces of the beloved friends whom we were to meet within its walls. near brussels we passed a body of brunswick troops (called black brunswickers). they were dressed in black, and mounted upon black horses, and their helmets were surmounted with tall nodding plumes of black horsehair, which gave them a most sombre and funereal appearance. as they slowly moved along the road before us in a long regular procession, they looked exactly like an immense moving hearse. i laughed, and observed to my sister, "that one might take this for a bad omen, and that it reminded me of the mourning wedding-ring in the simple story." some of these black, ominous looking men kept before us, and entered brussels along with us. at first we passed through some mean, dirty streets, but the appearance of the town soon improved. the houses are large, ancient, and highly ornamented. there is an air of grandeur and of architectural design in the towns of flanders, which is peculiarly striking, on first coming from the plain, diminutive, shopkeeper-looking, red brick rows of houses in england. the streets of brussels are narrow, but they have that air of bustle, opulence, and animation, which characterises a metropolis. to us everything was new and amusing: the people, the dresses, the houses, the shops, the very signs diverted us. every notice was stuck up in the french language, and quite in the french style: the poorest and most paltry shop called itself a magazine. here were magasins de modes, magasins de souliers, magasins de----everything, in short: it was amusing to see the names of people and trades, that we had only been accustomed to meet with in french books and plays, stuck up in gilt letters above every shop-door. everything wore a military aspect; and the number of troops of different nations, descriptions, and dresses, which filled the town, made it look very gay. soldiers' faces, or at least their white belts and red coats, were to be seen at every window; and in our slow progress through the streets we were delighted to see the british soldiers, and particularly the highlanders, laughing and joking, with much apparent glee, with the inhabitants. on our right we caught a glimpse of the magnificent spire of the hôtel de ville, far exceeding, in architectural beauty, anything i remember to have seen. we slowly continued to ascend the windings of the long and steep hill, which leads from the low to the high town of brussels, and the upper part of which is called la montagne du parc. passing on our left the venerable towers of the cathedral, we reached at last the summit of this huge "montagne;" and the parc of brussels, of which we had heard, read, and talked so much, unexpectedly opened upon us. what a transition from the dark, narrow, gloomy streets of the low town to the lightness, gaiety, and beauty of the parc, crowded with officers in every variety of military uniform, with elegant women, and with lively parties and gay groups of british and belgic people, loitering, walking, talking, and sitting under the trees! there could not be a more animated, a more holiday scene; everything looked gay and festive, and everything spoke of hope, confidence, and busy expectation. the parc of brussels does not bear the smallest resemblance to what in england we denominate a park. it is more like a garden enclosed with iron rails, the interior of which is laid out with gravel-walks, grass-plots, and parterres, shaded with trees, and ornamented with fountains[ ] and statues. it is quite a promenade, and is exclusively devoted to pedestrians. the walks are formal, but kept with great exactness, and the tout ensemble looks gay, inviting, and pleasant. it is surrounded by a wide street, enclosed by a square of magnificent houses, in which are the palace of the prince of orange, and many beautiful public buildings. compared to this grand square, the finest squares of london, edinburgh, and dublin, are small and paltry. adjoining the parc is the place royale, and so strikingly grand and imposing is its architecture, that we all uttered an involuntary exclamation of surprise and admiration as we drove into it. the doors and windows of the hôtel bellevue, and of the hôtel de flandre, adjoining to it, were crowded with british officers. we took possession of two pleasant rooms in the latter, which had been secured for us by the kind attention of sir neil campbell. they were in the troisième étage, and we had a hundred steps to ascend; but we were fortunate in procuring such good accommodation, as brussels was extremely crowded. we had not entered the hotel many minutes, and had not once sat down, when we recognised our pleasant compagnon de voyage, major wylie, standing in the place royale below, encompassed with officers. he saw us, took off his hat, and, breaking from the people that surrounded him, darted in at the door of the hotel, and was with us in a minute. breathless with haste, he could scarcely articulate that hostilities had commenced! our amazement may be conceived: at first we could scarcely believe him to be in earnest. "upon my honour," exclaimed major wylie, still panting, and scarcely able to speak, from the haste with which he had flown up the hundred steps, "it is quite true; and the troops are ordered to be in readiness to march at a moment's notice; and we shall probably leave brussels to-morrow morning." in answer to our eager inquiries, he then told us that this unexpected intelligence had only just arrived; that he had that moment left the duke of wellington's table, where he had been dining with a party of officers; and that, just as the dessert had been set upon the table, a courier had arrived, bringing dispatches from marshal blucher, announcing that he had been attacked by the french: but although the fighting was hot, it seemed to be blucher's opinion that it would most probably be nothing more than a mere skirmish. while the duke was reading the dispatches, the prince of orange, general mufflin, and some other foreign officers had come in. after a short debate, the duke, expecting that the blow would be followed up, and believing that it was the enemy's plan to crush the english army, and take brussels, immediately ordered the troops to be in readiness to take the field at a moment's notice. "and when did all this happen?--when was this attack made?" we anxiously inquired. "it took place this afternoon." "this afternoon!" i exclaimed, in astonishment, and, i suppose, with looks of consternation, which drew a good-natured smile from major wylie, for we had not been used to hear of battles so near, or fought the same afternoon. "yes, it happened this very afternoon," said mayor wylie; "and when the express came away, they were fighting as hard as ever: but after all, it may prove a mere trifling affair of outposts--nothing at all." "but are the french in great force? where are they? where are the prussians? how far off do you suppose all this fighting is?" were some of the many questions we asked. the fighting was in the neighbourhood of charleroi, about half a day's march from brussels: nothing certainly was known of the force of the french. in fact, nothing at all was known, except that the french had this very day attacked the prussians, when they were totally unprepared, at a short distance from us. "however, after all, this may end in nothing," said major wylie, after a pause; "we _may_ have to march to-morrow morning, or we may not march these three weeks: but the duke expects another dispatch from blucher, and that will settle the business:" and so saying, major wylie went away to dress for a ball. yes, a ball! for the duke of wellington, and his aides-de-camp, and half of the british officers, though they expected to go to a battle to-morrow, were going to a ball to-night, at the duchess of richmond's; and to the ball they did accordingly go. they seemed to say, or to feel, with the scottish chief in douglas: "this night once more within these walls we rest: our tents we pitch to-morrow in the field. prepare the feast!-- free is his heart who for his country fights: he on the eve of battle may resign himself to social pleasure: sweetest then, when danger to a soldier's soul endears the human joy that never may return." late as it was, my brother and sister went to call upon mrs. h., whom they were impatient to see. they had not been gone many minutes, when sir neil campbell sent up to ask if i would admit him. i made no objection: so in he came, looking magnificent, in a full dress uniform, covered with crosses, clasps, orders, and medals. behold me, then, tête-à-tête with this splendid beau, in my own room, between ten and eleven o'clock at night! in england it would have been extraordinary enough, to be sure; but in brussels it was nothing. it was impossible to receive him, or anybody else, in any other place than a bed-room, for the hôtel de flandre was entirely composed of bed-rooms, all of which were occupied. without discomposing myself about the matter, therefore, i gave sir neil campbell some tea, and we had a long chat together. he, too, had been dining with the duke of wellington, and had been present when these important dispatches arrived, and from him i heard a repetition of all that major wylie had told us, with the alarming addition, that the french were said to be upwards of , strong, and that napoleon himself was at the head of the army. it was generally thought that this attack upon the prussians was a stratagem to conceal more effectually his real designs, of surprising brussels, and destroying, if possible, at one blow, the english army. it was well known that the russians had crossed the rhine; and sir neil campbell said _he_ had no doubt that buonaparte would push forward at all hazards, and give battle before they could arrive. as sir neil campbell had certainly reason to know _something_ of buonaparte, and as these rapid, unexpected movements were in perfect uniformity with his general policy, this conjecture seemed but too probable; but we concluded that the numbers of the french must be prodigiously exaggerated. it seemed quite incredible that so large an army could have formed, advanced, and even attacked marshal blucher, without his having any knowledge of their movements; and even if their force was very superior to ours, i felt confident that they would meet with a very different reception from that which they expected; and that napoleon, with every advantage on his side, would not find the defeat of an english army quite so easy a thing in practice, as he had always seemed to consider it in theory. having settled this point much to our mutual satisfaction, sir neil campbell went away. my brother and sister returned, and we went to bed. but we were not destined long to enjoy the sweets of repose. scarcely had i laid my weary head on the pillow, when the bugle's loud and commanding call sounded from the place royale. "is that the call to arms?" i exclaimed, starting up in the bed. my sister laughed at the idea; but it was repeated, and we listened with eager and anxious suspense. for a few moments a pause of doubt ensued. hark! again! it sounded through the silence of the night, and from every quarter of the town it was now repeated, at short and regular intervals. "it is the call to arms!" i exclaimed. instantly the drums beat; the highland pibroch sounded----it was the call to arms! oh! never shall i forget the feelings of that moment! immediately the utmost tumult and confusion succeeded to the silence in which the city had previously been buried. at half-past two we were roused by a loud knocking at our room door, and my brother's voice calling to us to get up instantly, not to lose a moment--that the troops were under arms--were marching out against the french--and that major llewellyn was waiting to see us before he left brussels. inexpressibly relieved to find that this nocturnal alarm was occasioned by the departure of major llewellyn, not by the arrival of the french, which, in the first startling confusion of my thoughts, and trepidation of my mind, had actually entered my head; and much better pleased to meet an old and kind friend, than to run away from a furious enemy, we got up with the greatest alacrity, and hastily throwing some clothes about us, flew to see llewellyn, who was waiting on the stairs. short and agitated indeed was our meeting under such circumstances. by the light of a candle in my brother's room, we sat down for a few minutes on some boxes, scarcely able to believe our senses, that all this was real, and almost inclined to doubt whether it was not a dream: but the din of war which resounded in our ears too painfully convinced us that it was no illusion of phantasy:--we could scarcely even "snatch a fearful joy," for not for a single moment could we banish from our minds the impression, that in a few moments we must part, perhaps for ever, and that this hurried interview might prove our last. we could only gaze intently upon each other, as if to retain a lasting remembrance of the well-known countenance, should we indeed be destined to meet no more: we could only utter incoherent words or disjointed speeches. while he still lingered, we heard his charger, which his servant held in the court-yard below, neighing and pawing the ground, as if impatient of his master's delay, and eager to bear him to the field. our greetings and adieus were equally hurried. we bade him farewell, and saw him go to battle. it was nearly two years since we had met; and little did we think, when we parted in the peaceful valleys of roxburghshire, that our next, and perhaps our last, meeting would be in brussels, in the dead of the night, and on the very eve of battle. he was the same to us as a brother. he left us then, as now, to fight the battles of his country; and we trusted that victory and glory would still follow the british arms, and that he would once more return in honour and safety. just as he left us, the dawn appeared, and, by the faint twilight of morning, we saw the place royale filled with armed men, and with all the tumult and confusion of martial preparation. all was "hurry skurry for the field." officers were looking in vain for their servants--servants running in pursuit of their masters--baggage waggons were loading--bât horses preparing--trains of artillery harnessing.--and amidst the clanking of horses' hoofs, the rolling of heavy carriages, the clang of arms, the sounding of bugles, and the neighing of chargers, we distinctly heard, from time to time, the loud, deep-toned word of command, while the incessant din of hammers nailing "gave dreadful note of preparation." a second express had arrived from blucher, bringing intelligence that the french were in much more formidable force than he had imagined; that the attack was become serious; they had taken charleroi, and driven back the prussians. it was, therefore, necessary for the british to march immediately to support them. the duke had received the dispatches containing this important news in the ball-room. we were afterwards told, that upon perusing them he seemed for a few minutes to be absolutely absorbed in a profound reverie, and completely abstracted from every surrounding object; and that he was even heard to utter indistinctly a few words to himself. after a pause, he folded up the dispatches, called one of his staff officers to him, gave the necessary orders with the utmost coolness and promptitude; and having directed the army to be put in motion immediately, he himself stayed at the ball till past two in the morning. the cavalry officers, whose regiments, for the most part, were quartered in villages about the frontier, ten, fifteen, and even twenty miles off, flew from the ball-room in dismay, in search of their horses, and galloped off in the dark, without baggage or attendants, in the utmost perplexity which way to go, or where to join their regiments, which might have marched before they could arrive. numbers of the officers had been out when the first order to be in readiness to march was issued, and remained in perfect ignorance of the commencement of hostilities, until the alarm sounded, and called them from scenes of festivity and mirth to scenes of war and bloodshed. as the dawn broke, the soldiers were seen assembling from all parts of the town, in marching order, with their knapsacks on their backs, loaded with three days' provision. unconcerned in the midst of the din of war, many a soldier laid himself down on a truss of straw, and soundly slept, with his hands still grasping his firelock; others were sitting contentedly on the pavement, waiting the arrival of their comrades. numbers were taking leave of their wives and children, perhaps for the last time, and many a veteran's rough cheek was wet with the tears of sorrow. one poor fellow, immediately under our windows, turned back again and again, to bid his wife farewell, and take his baby once more in his arms; and i saw him hastily brush away a tear with the sleeve of his coat, as he gave her back the child for the last time, wrung her hand, and ran off to join his company, which was drawn up on the other side of the place royale. many of the soldiers' wives marched out with their husbands to the field, and i saw one young english lady mounted on horseback, slowly riding out of town along with an officer, who, no doubt, was her husband. but even at this interesting moment, when thousands were parting with those nearest and dearest to their hearts, my gravity was suddenly overset, and my sorrow turned into mirth, by the unexpected appearance of a long train of market carts, loaded with cabbages, green peas, cauliflowers, early potatoes, old women, and strawberries, peaceably jogging along, one after another, to market. these good people, who had never heard of battles, and who were perfectly at a loss to comprehend what could be the meaning of all this uproar, stared with astonishment at the spectacle before them, and actually gaped with wonder, as they slowly made their way in their long carts through the crowds of soldiers which filled the place royale. there was something so inexpressibly ludicrous in the contrast which the grotesque figures and rustic dresses of these old women presented to this martial hurry and confusion, that really "_not_ to laugh surpassed all powers of face," and that i did laugh i must acknowledge, though it was perhaps very ill-timed levity. soon afterwards the nd and nd highland regiments marched through the place royale and the parc, with their bagpipes playing before them, while the bright beams of the rising sun shone full on their polished muskets, and on the dark waving plumes of their tartan bonnets. we admired their fine athletic forms, their firm erect military demeanour and undaunted mien. we felt proud that they were our countrymen: in their gallant bearing we recognised the true hardy sons of caledon, men who would conquer or die; and we could not restrain a tear at the reflection, how few of that warlike band who now marched out so proudly to battle might ever live to return. alas! we little thought that even before the fall of night these brave men, whom we now gazed at with so much interest and admiration, would be laid low! during the whole night, or rather morning, we stood at the open window, unable to leave these sights and sounds of war, or to desist for a moment from contemplating a scene so new, so affecting, and so deeply interesting to us. regiment after regiment formed and marched out of brussels; we heard the last word of command--march! the heavy measured uniform tread of the soldiers' feet upon the pavement, and the last expiring note of the bugles, as they sounded from afar. we saw our gallant army leave brussels with emotions which may be better imagined than described. they went again to meet that enemy whom they had so often encountered, and as invariably vanquished; to follow that general, who, in a long course of years of command devoted to the service and glory of his country, had never experienced a single defeat; who had so lately led them from victory to victory, crossed, in his triumphant march, the plains of spain, fought his way over the frozen heights of the pyrenees, carried conquest and dismay in the very heart of france, and whose rapid and unparalleled career of conquest had only been checked by the angel of peace. as we saw the last of our brave troops march out of brussels, the recollection of their past glory, the proud hopes of their present triumph, the greatness of the contest, upon the issue of which the fate of europe and the security of the world depended; the dread of their encounter with the numerous and formidable hosts of _that man_, whom no treaties could bind, no adversity could amend, no considerations of justice or humanity could soften, no laws, divine or human, could restrain, swelled our hearts with feelings which language is too feeble to express: and our brave countrymen were followed by our tears, our warmest wishes, and our most fervent prayers for their safety and success. before seven in the morning, the streets, which had been so lately thronged with armed men and with busy crowds, were empty and silent. the great square of the place royale no longer resounded with the tumult and preparations for war. the army were gone, and brussels seemed a perfect desert. the mourners they had left behind were shut up in their solitary chambers, and the faces of the few who were slowly wandering about the streets were marked with the deepest anxiety and melancholy. the heavy military waggons, ranged in order, and ready to move as occasion might require, were standing under the silent guard of a few sentinels. the flemish drivers were sleeping in the long tilted carts destined to convey the wounded; and the horses, ready to harness at a moment's notice, were quietly feeding on fresh-cut grass by their side: the whole livelong day and night did these flemish men and horses pass in the place royale. a few officers were still to be seen, slowly riding out of town to join the army. the duke of wellington set off about eight o'clock, in great spirits, declaring he expected to be back by dinner-time; and dinner was accordingly prepared for him. sir thomas picton, who, like ourselves, had only arrived in brussels the day before, rode through the streets in true soldier-like style, with his reconnoitring glass slung across his shoulders, reining in his charger as he passed, to exchange salutations with his friends, and left brussels--never to return. we had a most agreeable surprise at our breakfast-table in the sight of major llewellyn. he had ridden a few miles out of brussels with the regiment, and then galloped back with sir philip belson, who also wished to return. we spent a few hours together, and, embittered as they were with the prospect of so near and dreadful a separation, there was much consolation in thus meeting. no expectation was entertained of any engagement taking place to-day. sir philip belson and major llewellyn, therefore, felt quite at their ease; "being certain," they said, "of overtaking the regiment _at a place called waterloo_, where the men were to stop to cook." little did any of us then suspect how memorable to future ages "that place called waterloo" was destined to become! we denied ourselves to several idlers, but sir neil campbell, and mr. and mrs. h., succeeded in gaining admittance. at last the moment of parting arrived; sir philip belson called for major llewellyn, and, after sitting a few moments, they got up to go away, and we bade farewell to one who from childhood had been our friend and companion, and whom we loved as another brother. we could not but feel how probable it was that we might never see him more; and, under this impression, some minutes after he had left us, which he had spent in bidding farewell to my brother below, we ran to the window, saw sir philip belson and him mount their horses and ride away, and caught the last glimpse of them as they passed under the gateway of the place royale. two hours afterwards they were in the thickest of the battle! although we had not the smallest suspicion that any engagement could take place to-day, our anxiety for news, both of the french and prussians, was extreme; but we could hear nothing but vague, unauthenticated reports, upon which no reliance could be placed. we dined, or rather sat down to dinner, at the table d'hôte, and afterwards wandered restlessly about the streets, our minds too much absorbed in the approaching contest, to see, hear, understand, think, or talk about anything but what related to public events. our consternation may be imagined when we were told that a dreadful cannonade had been heard from the parc, in the very direction which our army had taken, and that it was supposed they must have been attacked by the french within a few miles of brussels. at first i was utterly incredulous; i could not, would not believe it; but, hurrying to the parc, we were too soon, too incontestably convinced of the dreadful truth, by ourselves hearing the awful and almost incessant thunder of the guns apparently very near to us. for many hours this tremendous cannonade continued, while, unable to gain any intelligence of what was passing, ignorant of everything, except of the fact, proclaimed by the loud and repeated voice of war, that there was a battle, we listened in a state of terrible uncertainty and suspense, and thought with horror, in the roar of every cannon, that our brave countrymen were every moment falling in agony and death. unable to rest, we wandered about, and lingered till a late hour in the parc. the parc! what a different scene did its green alleys present this evening from that which they exhibited at the same hour last night! then it was crowded with the young and the gay, and the gallant of the british army, with the very men who were now engaged in deadly strife, and perhaps bleeding on the ground. then it was filled with female faces sparkling with mirth and gaiety; now terror, and anxiety, and grief were marked upon every countenance we met. in addition to the general alarm and anxiety, which surpassed anything it is in my power to describe, we had a particular subject of solicitude. we had but too much reason to fear that it would be impossible for sir philip belson and major llewellyn to join their regiment in time for the action. the idea, the very doubt was dreadful. if _we_ listened to the cannonade with such heart-sinking apprehensions for them, what must have been _their_ feelings, if, at a distance from the army, absent without leave, they heard its sounds! after years of service in various climates and countries, after six long and glorious campaigns in the peninsula, would they forfeit, by one act of imprudence, all the distinction they had obtained by a life devoted to their country, and be found absent from their post in the hour of danger! dear to us as was the life of our friend, his honour was still dearer; and while every one else was anxiously dreading lest the battle should be near, and trembling at the reports that prevailed of its vicinity, i was secretly praying that it might not be distant, and would have felt inexpressibly relieved to have been assured that it was within a few miles of brussels. but it was in vain we attempted to discover where it really was. some people said it was only six, some that it was ten, and some that it was twenty miles off. numbers of people in carriages and on horseback had gone out several miles on the road which the army had taken, and all of them had come back in perfect ignorance of the real circumstances of the case, and with some ridiculous report, which, for a time, was circulated as the truth. no authentic intelligence could be gained; and every minute we were assailed with the most absurd and contradictory stories. one moment we heard that the allied army had obtained a complete victory; that the french had been completely repulsed, and had left _twenty thousand dead_ upon the field of battle. gladly would i have believed the first part of this story, but the _twenty thousand dead_ i could not swallow. then again we were told that the french, , strong, had attacked the british, that the belgians had abandoned their arms and fled, that our troops were literally cut to pieces, and that the french were advancing to brussels. then an english gentleman stopped his carriage to tell us, that _he_ had been out farther than anybody, and that he had actually _seen_ the engagement, which was between the french and the prussians, and that old blucher had given the rascals a complete beating. we had not gone ten paces farther, before another man, in a great hurry, advised us to set off instantly if we wished to make our escape; that he was on the point of going, for that certain intelligence had been received "that the french had won the battle, and that our army was retreating in the utmost confusion." i never remember to have felt so angry in my life; and i indignantly exclaimed, that such a report deserved only to be treated with contempt, and that it must be false, for that the english would never retreat _in confusion_. the man seemed a little ashamed of himself, and mr. h. advised him "by all means to take care of himself, and set off directly." we hastened on. presently we met another of mr. h.'s wise friends, who assured us, with a face of the greatest solemnity, "that the day was going against us; that the battle was as good as lost; that our troops had been driven back from one position after another; and that the artillery and baggage had commenced the retreat; that all the horses would be seized for the service of the army; and that in two hours it would be impossible to get away." all this time we could hear nothing of what was really passing; or these idle tales and unfounded rumours were unworthy of a moment's attention, and did not give us a moment's alarm; but the poor belgians, not knowing what to make of all this, and nearly frightened out of their senses, firmly expected the french in brussels before the morning; for their terror of them was so great and so deeply rooted, that they believed nothing on earth could stop their advance. this dreadful uncertainty and ignorance of the truth made us truly wretched. nobody knew anything of the actual state of affairs. nobody could tell where our army was engaged, nor under what circumstances, nor against what force, nor whether separately or conjointly with the prussians, nor which side was gaining the advantage. we knew nothing, except that there was a battle, and that at no great distance from us; for that the unceasing cannonade too certainly proved. anxiously and vainly we looked for news from the army--none arrived. the consternation of the people was not to be described. "the cannonade is approaching nearer!" they exclaimed. "hark! how loud was that peal! there, again! our army must be retreating. good heavens! what will become of us!" on every side, in the tones of terror and despondency, we heard these exclamations repeated. heard through the density and stillness of the evening air, the cannonade did, in fact, seem to approach nearer, and become more tremendous. during the whole evening we wandered about the parc, or stood in silence on the ramparts, listening to the dreadful thunder of the battle. at length it became less frequent. how often did we hope it had ceased, and vainly flatter ourselves that each peal was the last! when, again, after an awful pause, a louder, a longer roar burst on our ears, and it raged more tremendously than ever. to our great relief, about half-past nine, it became fainter and fainter, and at last entirely died away. after we had returned to the hotel, sir neil campbell, who, in our absence, had been twice at our rooms and in the parc in search of us, good-naturedly came again, to tell us that he had met sir g. scovell, who had left the field with orders from brussels about half-past five, and that so far "all was well." the french army had encountered our troops on their march, upon the high road, about fifteen miles from brussels. the nd and nd highland regiments were the first in order of march. these brave men immediately made a stand, formed into squares, received the furious onset of the french with undaunted intrepidity, and alone sustained the fight, until the royal scots, the th, and some other regiments, came up to support them. every regiment, as it arrived, instantly formed and fought; and though the english had been taken by surprise, unprepared, unconcentrated; without cavalry, and with scarcely any artillery; and, though the enemy outnumbered them far beyond all computation, they had not yielded an inch of ground, and they were still fighting in the fullest confidence of success. "there can be no doubt of their repulsing the french," said colonel scovell, "but nothing of any importance can be done till the cavalry come up, which it is expected they will do this evening. to-morrow the engagement will most probably be renewed, and i hope it will prove decisive." the duke, he said, who was in excellent spirits, was to sleep to-night at genappe. certainly no other troops but the english, without any cavalry, and with very little artillery, would have thought themselves sure of repulsing an enemy with both, and with an almost countless superiority of numbers: and most certainly none but the english could have achieved it. it is a perversion of words to call the troops engaged in the battle of quatre bras the english army. during the greater part of the day a few regiments only, a mere handful of men, were opposed to the immense masses the french continually poured down against them; but they formed impenetrable squares, which were in vain attacked by the french cavalry, "steel-clad cuirassiers," and infantry; and against which tremendous showers of shot and shell descended in vain. the nd, nd, th, the th, the th, and the royal scots, were the first, and most hotly, engaged.[ ] for several hours these brave troops alone maintained the tremendous onset, and the shock of the whole french army, and to their determined valour belgium owes her independence, and england her glory. i do not, however, mean to give them exclusive praise. i do not doubt that had the post of honour fallen upon other british regiments, they would have acquitted themselves equally well: but let honour be paid where it is so justly due. let england be sensible of the vast debt of gratitude she owes them; and let the names of those who perished there be enrolled in the long list of her noblest heroes! the nd, nd, and th highland regiments had suffered most severely. they had received the furious and combined attack of the french cavalry and infantry, from first to last, with undaunted firmness, till, after supporting this unequal contest the whole day, after making immense havoc among their columns, and repeatedly charging and driving them back in confusion, they had themselves fallen, overpowered by numbers, and among heaps of the slaughtered enemy, on the very spot where they first stood to arms; and we were told that they were, almost to a man, cut to pieces. with grief and horror, not to be described, we thought of these gallant soldiers whom, in the morning, we had seen march out so proudly to battle, and who were now lying insensible in death on the plains of quatre bras. they had fought, and they had fallen, as became the same noble spirits who had wrested from the same vaunting foe the standard of the invincibles on the sands of egypt. they were gallantly supported by the th, who, on the same soil, as well as in the long campaigns of spain, had gained immortal honour, and who particularly distinguished themselves in this day's battle by their complete repulse of the french cuirassiers, who, though clad in mail, and "armed at all points precisely cap-à-pie," were driven back with immense loss from every attack, and uniformly gave way before the dreaded british charge with the bayonet. one regiment of raw belgic troops had turned and fled where they had the finest opportunity of charging. i confess i was not sorry to hear that these recreant belgians had, almost to a man, been cut to pieces by the very french troops they had not courage to face. the fate of cowards is unpitied. the consequences of their misconduct had, however, been retrieved by part of sir thomas picton's division,[ ] which regained the post they had lost, though with considerable slaughter. after hearing this account our spirits completely revived, i scarcely knew why; for, except in the new proof we had just had of invincible british valour and firmness, there was nothing to inspire satisfaction or confidence. we had just learned, beyond all doubt, the truth of the alarming report, that the prussians were separately engaged with another division of the enemy, which completely outnumbered them. thus the allied armies seemed to be effectually cut off, and prevented from assisting each other, or acting in concert. the french then, whose combined numbers report magnified to , , were on two sides of us, at the distance of only three hours' march from brussels. their army was collected, combined, concentrated, and well-appointed. the prussians and the english were surprised, separated, dispersed, and unprepared; the latter were destitute of cavalry, ill-supported by artillery, and with an appalling inferiority even of infantry; and these too partly composed of belgians, who seemed to make a practice of running away. yet, in spite of all these disadvantages, they _had_ bravely stood the first brunt of the battle, and we felt the firm assurance that they would eventually triumph. colonel scovell had left the army at half-past five; the battle, or at least the cannonading, had lasted till about ten; and our anxiety to know its results, our impatience for further news from the army, may be imagined; but no later intelligence arrived; we could hear nothing but vague reports of defeat, disaster, and dismay, to which, as they were founded upon no authority, we paid no attention. sir neil campbell was going to join the army, like many others who had no business there:--he was to set off at one in the morning, so that we should see him no more, and what was infinitely worse, receive no more, through him, immediate and authentic intelligence of all that was known. in this respect he was a great loss to us; for he was indefatigable in bringing us news, and took unwearied pains to be of use to us in every possible way. late as it was we went to see mrs. h., whom we knew to be in great alarm. we found her sitting surrounded by plate, which she was vainly trying to acquire sufficient composure to pack up, with a face pale with consternation, and quite overcome with agitation and distress. we did all we could to assist, and said all we could to console and reassure her. mr. h. had gone out towards the army, and, late as it was, had not yet returned. we stayed with her some time, and had the satisfaction of leaving her in much better spirits than we found her. my brother had engaged, and made an agreement to pay for, horses, upon the condition of their being in readiness to convey us to antwerp at a moment's warning, by day or night, if required. we had not, however, the smallest intention of leaving brussels for some days to come, unless some sudden and unexpected change in public events should render it absolutely necessary. thinking it, however, prudent to be prepared, we had sent our valet de place to la blanchisseuse to desire her to send home everything belonging to us early in the morning. la blanchisseuse sent back a message literally to this effect,--"madame," said the valet, addressing himself to me in french, "the blanchisseuse says, that if the english should beat the french, she will iron and plait your clothes, and finish them for you; but if, au contraire, these vile french should get the better, then she will assuredly send them all back quite wet--tout mouillé--early to-morrow morning." at this speech, which the valet delivered with immoveable gravity, we all, with one accord, burst out a laughing, irresistibly amused to find that amongst the important consequences of buonaparte's gaining the victory, would be our clothes remaining unplaited and unironed; and that the british were, in a manner, fighting, in order that the getting up of our fine linen might be properly performed. the valet, as soon as he could obtain a hearing, went on to say, that he sincerely hoped we should get our clothes dried and finished, and that the english would beat "ces diables de français;" but this seemed quite a secondary consideration with the valet, compared with ironing our clothes, and we were again seized with an uncontrollable fit of laughter. even the valet's long face of dismay relaxed into something like a smile, and, as he left the room, he said to himself, "mais ces demoiselles sont bien enjouées." it was half-past twelve; and hopeless now of hearing any further news from the army, we were preparing to retire to rest--but rest was a blessing we were not destined to enjoy in brussels. we were suddenly startled by the sound of the rapid rolling of heavy military carriages passing at full speed through the place royale:--a great tumult instantly took place among the people below; the baggage waggons, which we knew were not to set off, except in a case of emergency, were harnessed in an instant, and the noise and tumult became every instant more alarming. for some minutes we listened in silence: faster and faster, and louder and louder, the long train of artillery continued to roll through the town:--the cries of the affrighted people increased. i hastily flew out to inquire the cause of this violent commotion. the first person i encountered was a poor, scared fille de chambre, nearly frightened out of her wits. "ah, madame!" she exclaimed, "les françois sont tout près; dans une petite demi-heure ils seront ici.--ah, grand dieu! ah, jésus! jésus! que ferons-nous! que ferons-nous!" in vain i eagerly asked how she knew, or why she believed, or from whence this news came, that the french were near? she could only reiterate, again and again, "les françois sont tout près--les françois sont tout près!" my questions were unanswered and unheard; but suddenly recollecting herself, she earnestly besought us to set off instantly, exclaiming, "mais, mesdames, vous êtes anglaises--il faut partir tout de suite--_tout de suite_," she repeated, with great emphasis and gesticulation, and then resumed her exclamations and lamentations. as i flew down stairs the house seemed deserted. the doors of the rooms (which in foreign hotels are not only shut, but locked) were all wide open; the candles were burning upon the tables, and the solitude and silence which reigned in the house formed a fearful contrast to the increasing tumult without. at the bottom of the staircase a group of affrighted belgians were assembled, all crowding and talking together with belgic volubility. they cried out that news had arrived of the battle having terminated in the defeat of the british; that all the artillery and baggage of the army were retreating; and that a party of belgians had just entered the town, bringing intelligence that a large body of french had been seen advancing through the woods to take brussels, and that they were only two leagues off. in answer to my doubts and my questions, they all exclaimed, "ah! c'est trop vrai; c'est trop vrai. ne restez pas ici, mademoiselle, ne restez pas ici; partez, éloignez vous vîte: c'est affreux!" "mais demain matin----" i began. "ah! demain matin," eagerly interrupted a little good-humoured belgic woman belonging to the hotel--"demain matin il n'y aura pas plus le tems--une autre heure peut-être, et il ne sera pas plus possible de partir." "ecoutez, mademoiselle, écoutez!" they cried, turning paler and paler as the thundering noise of the artillery increased. at this moment several people, among whom were some english gentlemen and servants, rushed past us to the stables, calling for their carriages to be got ready instantly. "apprêtes les chevaux, tout de suite--vite! vite! il n'a pas un moment!" was loudly repeated in all the hurry of fear. these people confirmed the alarm. i sent for our côcher, and most reluctantly we began to think that we must set off; when we found, to our inexpressible joy, that the long trains of artillery, which still continued to roll past with the noise of thunder, were not flying from the army, but advancing to join it. it is impossible to conceive the blessed relief this intelligence gave us. from that moment we felt assured that the army was safe, and our fears for ourselves were at an end. my brother, who had been roused from his sleep, and who, like many other people, had been running about half-dressed, and was still standing in his nightcap, in much perplexity what to do, now went to bed again with great joy, declaring he was resolved to disturb himself no more about these foolish alarms. we were now perfectly incredulous as to the whole story of the french having been seen advancing through the woods to take brussels; but the belgians still remained convinced of it; and though they differed about how it would be done, they all agreed that brussels would be taken. some of them said that the british, and some that the prussians, had been defeated, and some that both of them had been defeated, and that the french, having broken through their lines, were advancing to take brussels; others believed that buonaparte, while he kept the allies employed, had sent round a detachment, under cover of night, by a circuitous route, to surprise the town; but it seemed to be the general opinion, that before morning the french would be here. the town was wholly undefended, either by troops or fortifications; it was well known to be napoleon's great object to get possession of it, and that he would leave no means untried to effect it. the battle had been fought against the most fearful disparity of numbers, and under the most disadvantageous circumstances to the british. its event still remained unknown; above all, no intelligence from our army had arrived. under such circumstances it was not surprising that the general despondency should be so great; while continual rumours of defeat, disaster, and dismay, and incessant alarms, only served to confirm their worst fears. as the french, however, had not yet come, this panic in some degree subsided, and comparative quietness seemed to be restored. great alarm, however, continued to prevail through the whole night, and the baggage waggons stood ready harnessed to set off at a moment's notice. several persons took their departure, but we quietly went to bed. my sister, however, only lay down in her clothes, observing, half in jest, and half in earnest, that we might, perhaps, be awakened by the entrance of the french; and overcome with fatigue, we both fell fast asleep. her prediction seemed to be actually verified, for at six o'clock we were roused by a violent knocking at the room-door, accompanied by the cries of "les françois sont ici! les françois sont ici!" starting out of bed, the first sight we beheld from the window was a troop of belgic cavalry galloping from the army at the most furious rate, through the place royale, as if the french were at their heels; and instantly the whole train of baggage waggons and empty carts, which had stood before our eyes so long, set off, full speed, by the montagne de la cour, and through every street by which it was possible to effect their escape. in an instant the whole great square of the place royale, which had been crowded with men, horses, carts, and carriages, was completely cleared, as if by magic, and entirely deserted. the terrified people fled in every direction, as if for their lives. while my sister, who had never undressed, flew to rouse my brother, and i threw on my clothes i scarcely knew how; i heard again the dreadful cries of "les françois sont ici! ils s'emparent de la porte de la ville!" my toilet, i am quite certain, did not occupy one minute; and as i flew down stairs, in the hope that it might yet be possible to effect our escape, i met numbers of bewildered-looking people running about half-dressed in every direction, in all the distraction of fear. the men with their nightcaps on, and half their clothes under their arms; the women with their dishevelled hair hanging about their shoulders, and all of them pale as death, and trembling in every limb. some were flying down stairs loaded with all sorts of packages; others running up to the garrets sinking under the accumulated weight of the most heterogeneous articles. the poor fille de chambre, nearly frightened out of her senses, was standing half-way down the stairs, wringing her hands, and unable to articulate anything but "les françois! les françois!" a little lower, another woman was crying bitterly, and exclaimed, as i passed her, "nous sommes tous perdus!" but no language can do justice to the scene of confusion which the court below exhibited: masters and servants, ladies and stable-boys, valets and soldiers, lords and beggars; dutchmen, belgians, and britons; bewildered garçons and scared filles de chambre; enraged gentlemen and clamorous coachmen; all crowded together, jostling, crying, scolding, squabbling, lamenting, exclaiming, imploring, swearing, and vociferating, in french, english, and flemish, all at the same time. nor was it only a war of words; the disputants had speedily recourse to blows, and those who could not get horses by fair means endeavoured to obtain them by foul. the unresisting animals were dragged away half-harnessed. the carriages were seized by force, and jammed against each other. amidst the crash of wheels, the volleys of oaths, and the confusion of tongues, the mistress of the hotel, with a countenance dressed in woe, was carrying off her most valuable plate in order to secure it, ejaculating, as she went, the name of jesus incessantly, and, i believe, unconsciously; while the master, with a red nightcap on his head, and the eternal pipe sticking mechanically out of one corner of his mouth, was standing with his hands in his pockets, a silent statue of despair. amidst this uproar i soon found out our côcher, but, to my utter consternation, he vehemently swore, "that he would neither go himself, nor let his horses go; no, not to save the king of holland himself; for that the french were just at hand, and that they would take his horses, and murder him:" and neither entreaties, nor bribes, nor arguments, nor persuasions, had the smallest effect upon him; he remained inexorable, and so did numbers of the fraternity. while my brother, who had now come down stairs, was vainly and angrily expostulating with him, i inquired on all sides, and of all people, if there was no possibility of procuring other horses. the good-natured garçon of the house exclaimed, "that if there were horses to be had in brussels, i should have them;" and away he ran in quest of them, while i continued my fruitless inquiries. in a little while he returned disappointed and unsuccessful, exclaiming, with a face of horror that i shall never forget, "il n'y a pas un seul cheval, et les françois sont tout près de la ville." at this moment in rushed mr. h., in an agony of terror, panting, breathless, and exhausted, crying to us "that his carriage was ready, that they could carry one of us, and that we must come away instantly." it was to no purpose both he and i implored my sister to accompany them, but she was inflexible. nothing could induce her to go without us, and, finding she was immoveable, mr. h. ran off with the good-natured intention of taking lady w., since we refused to go singly. with incredible expedition, one english carriage after another drove off at full speed, and we were left to our fate. of the rapid approach of the enemy we could not entertain the smallest doubt. to say i was frightened is nothing: i honestly confess i never knew what terror was before. never shall i forget the horror of those moments. our own immediate danger, and all the dreadful list of uncertain, undefined evils to which we might be exposed, in the power of those merciless savages; the anxiety, the distress, and despair of our friends at home, joined to the dreadful idea that the english army had been overwhelmed by numbers, defeated, perhaps cut to pieces, agonised my mind with feelings which it is impossible to describe. escape seemed, however, impossible: like richard, i would have gladly given my kingdom (if i had had one) for a horse, or at least for a pair; but no horses were to be had, neither for love, money, nor kingdoms. in the midst of this state of terror and suspense, i suddenly beheld major wylie. if an angel had descended from heaven i could not have welcomed him with more transport. hope revived: and, springing forward to meet him, i exclaimed: "oh! major wylie, is it true?" his countenance inspired little comfort; he looked pale, and struck with horror and consternation. "god forbid!" he exclaimed: "i hope not. i do not believe it; but i am going to inquire, and i will come back to you immediately." he wrung my hand, and hurried away. in the mean time i flew up-stairs to collect all our things, and bundle them together, to be ready for instant departure, if we should be able to procure horses. never was packing more expeditiously performed: i am certain it did not occupy anything like three minutes. with the help of the valet de place, i crammed them all together, wet and dry, into the travelling-bags, trunks, and portmanteaus, without the smallest ceremony. every minute seemed to be an age, till at last major wylie returned with the blessed assurance that it was a false alarm; "that for the present, at least, we were in no danger." it is quite impossible to give the smallest idea of the transport we felt when we found that the enemy were not at hand, that our army was not defeated, and that we ourselves were not in the power of the french. i never can forget the ecstasy of that moment--the bliss of that deliverance, and the inexpressible comfort of those feelings of safety which we now enjoyed. no fabled spirit, emerging from the dark and dismal regions of pluto to the brightness and beauty of the elysian fields, could feel more transporting joy than we did when "the spectre forms of terror" fled, and we felt secure from every danger. from two english gentlemen, and lastly from lord c., we received a confirmation of these happy tidings. the alarm had been raised by those dastardly belgians whom we had seen scampering through the town, and who had most probably been terrified by the same foraging party of the enemy which, as we were afterwards told, had come up even to the gates of the city, insolently summoning it to surrender. they were supposed to have come from the side of the prussians; and, knowing the defenceless state of brussels, amused themselves with this bravado. their appearance had confirmed the alarm beyond all doubt, and given rise to the dreadful cry that the french were seizing on the gates of the town. the panic had indeed been dreadful, but it was now happily over. major wylie again attempted to go to the place royale, but he was instantly surrounded by a clamorous multitude, who, knowing him by his dress to be an aide-de-camp of the duke, angrily exclaimed, "what is the reason that nothing is done for our security? are we to be left here abandoned to the enemy? are we to be given up to the french in this way? why is not the city guard ordered out to defend the town?" (the city guard to defend the town from the french!) we could not help laughing at the idea of the excellent defence the city guard of brussels would make against the french army. but the frightened and enraged belgians could not be pacified, and they beset poor major wylie so unmercifully that he was fain to retreat again within the hôtel de flandre. he told us that the battle of yesterday had been severe, and most obstinately contested. the french, whose superiority of force was so great as to surpass all computation, had borne down with dreadful impetuosity upon our little army. "during all his campaigns, and all the bloody battles of the peninsula," major wylie said, "he had never seen so terrible an onset, nor so desperate an engagement. the british, formed into impenetrable squares, received the french cavalry with their bayonets; drove them back again and again; stood firm beneath the fire of their tremendous artillery; and, after many hours' hard fighting, completely repulsed the enemy, and remained masters of the field of battle." our cavalry had come up in the evening, but too late to take any part in the action. a french general and colonel had come over to the british during the battle, crying "vive le roi!" their names i heard, but they have since escaped my memory:[ ] indeed, the names of men who were base enough treacherously to desert the cause even of a rebel and a tyrant in the hour of danger, which they had openly espoused, ought only to be stamped with everlasting infamy. these men must have been doubly traitors, first to louis xviii., and then to napoleon buonaparte. the french were commanded by marshal ney,[ ] who, with three divisions of infantry, a strong corps of cavalry (under the command of general kellerman), and a powerful artillery, could make no impression on one division of british infantry, without any cavalry, and with very little artillery. it was but too true that the greatest part of the brave highlanders, both men and officers, were amongst the killed and wounded. they fought like heroes, and like heroes they fell--an honour to their country: and on many a highland hill, and through many a lowland valley, long will the deeds of these brave men be fondly remembered, and their fate deeply deplored! the th had particularly distinguished themselves, and gallantly repulsed the french in every attack. our friend major llewellyn was safe; and i scarcely knew whether the assurance of his safety, or that he and sir philip belson had been in time for the battle, gave me the most heartfelt pleasure. our loss had been severe, but that of the enemy much greater; but though our loss was less in actual numbers, it was much more important to us than that which the enemy had sustained was to them. from their great superiority of force, the killed and wounded fell proportionably heavier on our small army, while theirs was scarcely felt among their tremendous hosts. when major wylie came away, about half-past four in the morning, the duke had made every disposition for battle, in the full expectation that a general engagement would take place this day.[ ] "the prussians had fought like lions," major wylie said; not, however, like british lions, for it was but too true that they had been defeated and repulsed, though we could scarcely at the time give entire credit to this disagreeable news. waggon-loads of prussians now began to arrive. belgic soldiers, covered with dust and blood, and faint with fatigue and pain, came on foot into the town. the moment in which i first saw some of these unfortunate people was, i think, one of the most painful i ever experienced, and soon, very soon, they arrived in numbers. at every jolt of the slow waggons upon the rough pavement we seemed to feel the excruciating pain which they must suffer. sick to the very heart with horror, i re-entered the hotel, and, in answer to something major wylie said to me, i could only exclaim that the wounded were coming in. "good god! how pale you look! for god's sake do not be alarmed," said the good-natured major wylie, compassionately laying his hand upon my arm; "i do assure you there is nothing to fear. the wounded must come here at any rate--it has nothing to do with a defeat." long familiarised himself to such scenes, they now made no impression upon him, and it never occurred to him to imagine that we could be shocked by seeing anything so common as waggons filled with wounded soldiers. he thought it was the victory or the approach of the french that i feared. again, however, he strongly recommended us to set off immediately. if the army should have to retreat, and fall back upon brussels, which, considering the immense force of the enemy, he said, was not improbable, the confusion in brussels would be dreadful, and escape impossible. the french might even take the town, and then our situation would be horrible indeed. of the prudence and wisdom of this advice there could be no doubt. we had experienced the utter impracticability of getting away in the moment of danger; we knew not how soon that moment might return. had we ourselves possessed the means of escape, like mr. and mrs. h. and others, who had horses of their own, nothing could have induced us to have left brussels to the last; but to remain exposed to incessant alarm and to imminent danger, in an open town, which before night might be in possession of a merciless enemy, whose formidable armies were threatening it in two separate divisions, at the distance of a very few leagues, seemed certainly little less than madness. with extreme reluctance we at last determined to set out for antwerp. the wilsons, though they had carriage-horses, were on the point of setting off; the carriages of lady f.s. and lady c. were also at their doors, the trunks and imperiales were tying on with the utmost dispatch, though they had at all times the means of escape within their power. our faithless côcher now declared he was willing to go with us, as the french, he said, were not _yet_ come--and to antwerp accordingly we consented to repair. we had had no breakfast all this time, nor would it ever have occurred to us to procure any, had not the sight of major wylie's breakfast-tray reminded us of our own famishing state. we swallowed some coffee and bread, sitting on one of the window-seats of the staircase of the hôtel de flandre, and then with great regret set off, casting "many a longing, lingering look behind," with feelings of anxiety so deep and overwhelming for the fate and success of our army, that it engrossed all our faculties. upon the event of the impending battle, which we fully believed this very day was to decide, depended not only the present as well as the future peace and security of belgium and of europe; but, what i confess was to us even yet more dear, the safety and the glory of our gallant army. absorbed in these reflections, as we slowly made our way out of the town, we witnessed many a melancholy sight; crowds of afflicted people were assembled round their poor wounded countrymen who had been brought in from the field. one soldier was dying at the door of his own house: the sobs and lamentations of some of the crowd who were collected round him, and the grief marked on their countenances, proclaimed them to be near relations of the unfortunate sufferer. quite in the suburbs, some poor people were hanging over the insensible corpses of two soldiers who had died of their wounds. the streets were crowded so as to be scarcely passable: carriages were driving past each other as fast as the horses could go. all brussels seemed to be running away; and the only competition appeared to be who should run the fastest. the road was thronged with people on horseback and on foot flying from the battle, while scattered parties of troops, british, belgic, hanoverian, nassau, and prussian, were hurrying to the scene of action. a great number of prussian lancers, with their black mustachios, high caps, long pikes, and little horses, were pushing forwards to the field. long trains of commissariat waggons were rolling along with a deafening clatter; overturned carts, and the remains of broken wheels, were lying in the ditches. by the wayside, and beneath the shade of some tall trees, there was a large rude sort of encampment, consisting of men and women, horses and waggons, amongst which universal uproar seemed to prevail. i could have fancied them a tartar settlement in the act of suddenly decamping at the approach of some horde of savage enemies. farther on, parks of artillery were drawn up in the peaceful verdant meadows. droves of oxen were going up to be slaughtered for the army, and the poor beasts, amazed at the horrid objects and noises which they encountered, took fright, and ran about in every direction except the right one, entirely blocking up the road, where confusion reigned unbounded: while the barking of the dogs, the blows and halloos of the drivers, the curses of the soldiers, and the vexation of the passengers, only served to increase the turbulence of the unruly cattle. the canal, by the side of which the road is carried, was covered with boats, and trackschuyts, and côches d'eau, and vessels of every description, and presented a scene of tumult and confusion scarcely inferior to that upon land. about three miles from brussels, situated upon an eminence above the road, we passed the magnificent palace of lacken. i shuddered as i looked up to its lofty dome, and recollected that napoleon had made the boast that this very night he would sleep beneath its roof. uncertain, as we then were, how the day that had risen might terminate, believing as we did that the eventful battle was even now begun which was to decide the fate of europe, my heart swelled with the proud confidence, that unprepared, unconcentrated, outnumbered as they were; leagued with foreigners who could not be depended upon, and with allies who had been defeated, yet that under every disadvantage british valour would still be triumphant, as it had ever been in every contest, and at every period. great numbers of wounded stragglers from the field were slowly and painfully wandering along the road, pale and faint from loss of blood, and with their heads, arms, and legs bound up with bloody bandages. we spoke to several of them, but they were all either belgic or prussian, and did not understand a word of french. two of the most severely wounded we took upon our carriage and carried into malines, where they told the côcher their friends lived. from him we learnt that they had been wounded in the battle yesterday morning. i saw--i am sorry to say--one young english gentleman, who was travelling quite alone in his own carriage, sternly order down two of these unfortunate wounded men from his carriage. the wounded, however, whom we saw, were able to move. in time they would reach a place of safety and shelter; but, if even their sufferings were so great that the very sight of them was painful, what must be the state of those who were left bleeding on the field of the lost battle, deserted by the retreating prussians, passed by, unpitied and unaided, by the advancing french, and abandoned to perish in sufferings from the bare idea of which humanity recoils![ ] the day was unusually sultry; but if we felt the rays of the sun beneath which we journeyed to be so oppressive, what must be the situation of the poor unsheltered wounded, exposed to its fervid blaze in the open field, without even a drop of water to cool their thirst? what must be the sufferings of our own unfortunate men, above all, of those who were not only wounded but prisoners, and at the mercy of the merciless french? never--never till this moment, had i any conception of the horrors of war! and they have left an impression on my mind which no time can efface. dreadful, indeed, is the sight of pain and misery we have no power to relieve, but far more dreadful are the horrors imagination pictures of the scene of carnage; the agonies of the wounded and the dying on the field of battle, where even the dead who had fallen by the sword, in the prime of youth and health, are to be envied!--the thought was agony, and yet i could not banish it from my mind. at a little inn, half-way to malines, we got out of the carriage while the horses were eating their rye-bread, and the poor people of the village crowded around us with faces of the greatest consternation and distress, to inquire what had happened. they had heard such varying and contradictory reports that they knew not what to believe, but terror was the predominant feeling; and their horror of the approach of the french, which they were convinced would happen sooner or later, surpassed everything i could have imagined. in spite of all we could say to inspire confidence, and to convince them that the english had been, and would still be, victorious, and that the french would never again be masters of belgium, their apprehensions completely overpowered their hopes; and their alarm and consternation were truly pitiable. i asked them why they feared the french so much? with one accord they immediately burst out into exclamations, that they would plunder and destroy everything, and rob and murder them;--that they were monsters, who had no pity, and would show no mercy:--"oh! what will become of us! what will become of us!" was the universal cry of these poor affrighted peasants. they were anxious about the duke of brunswick, and when they heard that he had really fallen (which we had learnt from major wylie), their lamentations were great, and the certainty of his fate seemed to increase their despondency. he must have been a good prince whose fate could at such a moment be deplored. he had a country seat in the neighbourhood of lacken, and he was consequently well known and much beloved in this part of the country. an officer in a dark military great coat, whom i took for a german, hearing me talk to some poor affrighted women with babies in their arms, whom i was endeavouring to reassure, asked me in french if i had come from brussels, and what was the issue of yesterday's battle? i told him all the particulars i knew, and after some minutes' conversation, he said at last, with the air of a person paying a compliment, that he understood _some_ of my countrymen had behaved most gallantly: "comme braves hommes," was his expression. "some of my countrymen!" i indignantly exclaimed, feeling myself turn as red as fire at this foreigner's degrading and partial praise of the british army--"they all behaved most gallantly, they fought like heroes; how else should the french have been repulsed: and when did the english behave otherwise?" "the english! but you are not english surely, madame?" said the officer. "oui, monsieur," said i, proudly, "je suis anglaise." "et moi aussi," said he, half laughing; and during the short time our conversation lasted, we condescended to make use of our mother-tongue. he proved to be an english officer going from antwerp to join the army, and i took him for a german, chiefly i think because he accosted me in french, and because he did not look much like an englishman. why he took me for a belgian, heaven only knows: it was not likely that a belgic lady should be speaking in french to the belgic people, rather than in the common language of the country. a party of nassau troops, on their way to the army, were sitting drinking in some long flemish waggons at the door of the inn. a prussian hussar, whom we had passed on the road, arrived while we were there. the moment he dismounted from his horse he was assailed by the nassau soldiers for news of the battle. while he was telling them his story, anxiety for intelligence made me draw as near as i durst. the loud voices of the soldiers, however, drowned the greater part of his recital, and their language was so barbarous that i could only make out that they were making a joke of louis xviii., and laughing at the idea of the fright he would be in, and saying, that he was so fat and unwieldy he would never be able to run away before napoleon's long legs overtook him. the hussar, seeing me, i suppose, gazing at him very wistfully, respectfully took off his cap, which encouraged me to ask him if i had not misunderstood him, that i thought i had heard him say the french had beaten the prussians. "no, madame," said he, with an air of great concern, "it is really so; the french have beaten the prussians." "the french beat the prussians!" i exclaimed: "did you say, sir, that the french had beaten the prussians? are you sure of it?" "too sure, madame, for i was in the battle." i now perceived for the first time that he was slightly wounded; his long blue cloak, which nearly descended to his feet, had concealed it. he told us that, after a desperate engagement, the prussians had been repulsed and compelled to retreat, and that the french were advancing in great force. we had repeatedly heard this at brussels; but, unwilling to believe bad news, we had hoped it would prove false, and even yet we would gladly have taken refuge in incredulity. the garçon of this inn, a fine youth, with a most engaging countenance, was in great anxiety and alarm at the approach of the french, and he implored us to tell him the whole truth; for if they should come, it would cost him his life, and he would fly to the end of the world to avoid them. we assured him that the french had been repulsed yesterday by the british, when our force was not half collected, and that, now that the cavalry and all the troops had joined the army, there could be no doubt that the english would be victorious. "ah! je l'espère!" said the garçon; "mais ils sont terribles, ces françois." we assured him that terrible as they were, they would never conquer the british and belgic army, nor regain possession of belgium. the garçon fervently prayed they never might:--"mais, je ne sais quoi faire, moi," said this poor youth in his belgic french, with a face of extreme perplexity, as we drove off. of the town of malines i do not retain the smallest remembrance; but the consternation of the people with whom it was crowded, and their faces of terror and distress, i shall never forget. they were struck with universal dismay, and so thoroughly convinced that napoleon would be victorious, that we might as well have talked to the winds as have told them that he would be defeated. they only shook their heads, and despondingly said: "ah! he has so many soldiers, and he is so desperate--and he cares not how many thousands he sacrifices; he cares for nothing but his ambition:--oh! he will be here, that is too certain." the garçon of this inn had been a conscript, and served two years in the french army. at the expiration of that period he had procured a substitute for one thousand florins, which money, i suspect, he had amassed by plunder. he was, however, a most intelligent man, and his hatred of the french, and of napoleon in particular, was so strong, that he could not refrain from pouring out a most eloquent torrent of invective against him: "and throughout the whole of belgium he is equally dreaded and detested in every place--except at antwerp," added he, correcting himself; "there he has some adherents, for many people grew rich by the public works, and by making the docks, and building the ships, and supplying the arsenal; and many grew rich upon the distresses of the people--and therefore they wish for him back again." my brother observed that he had certainly done a great deal for antwerp, and made great improvements, and he particularly mentioned the docks and the quays. "yes! he did a great many fine things, to be sure, at antwerp, and he took care to make us pay for them. au reste," continued he, "the people of antwerp, that is, the merchants and the manufacturers, and all the decent, industrious people, hate him with their whole hearts." "and why do the belgians hate him so much?" i asked. "why! because he stopped our trade; he ruined our manufactures and commerce; he took our men to fight his battles, and our money to fill his pockets; and he took from us the means to get money: here, in this very town, the lace manufacturers were starved; the work-women had no employment; our streets were filled with beggars; our priests were insulted: he destroyed, he consumed everything." "il a mangé tout," was the phrase he frequently repeated, with an expression of hatred in his voice and gesture so strong that i can give no idea of it. "but he cannot live without war, nor can the french; it is their trade; they live by it; they make their fortunes by it; they place all their hopes in it; they are wolves that prey upon other nations; they live by blood and plunder: they are true banditti (vrais brigands), and they are so cruel, so wicked--ils sont si méchans." it is impossible to give the force of this expression in a literal translation. when we asked him if the belgians did not dislike the dutch, and if the government of the house of orange was not unpopular, he said, "je vous dirai, monsieur: les hollandais et les belges never liked each other, and one great reason is the difference of our religion. they think us papists and bigots, and we think them puritans and calvinists; besides, we were always rivals, and always jealous of each other, and we think (c'est à dire les belges) that their king becoming our king, is, as if we had fallen under their dominion. if we may not be an independent nation, we would, perhaps, rather belong to the english, or to the austrians; but we would rather belong to anything--to the devil himself--than to napoleon buonaparte." the poor lace-makers whom we saw were in nervous trepidation at the expected approach of the dreaded french, whom they reviled with all the bitterness and volubility of female eloquence. the same sentiments were written upon every countenance, and uttered by every tongue. in every village and every hamlet through which we passed, the utmost consternation seemed to reign. we met officers on horseback, and detachments of troops marching to join the army. it was with difficulty i refrained from beseeching them to hasten forwards: it seemed to me that every man was of importance. at another time i might have been interested with seeing the country; but now--i could not look at it--i could not think of it; and as my eye rested with a vacant gaze upon the waving fields of luxuriant corn through which we passed, i could only feel the heart-sickening dread, that the harvests of belgium, though they had been sown in peace, would be reaped in blood. we had every reason to think that the mortal struggle had been renewed; lord wellington himself, the whole army expected it. how then was it possible, believing, as we did, that, within a few leagues of us, the battle was at that time raging that was to decide the fate of europe, and give or take from our gallant countrymen the palm of victory and of glory--that we could for a single instant feel the smallest interest about anything else? at a distance, we saw the lofty spire of the cathedral of antwerp, without _then_ admiring its beauty, or even being conscious that it was beautiful. we looked, we felt, indeed, like moving automatons. our persons were there, but our minds were absent. every step we took only seemed to increase our solicitude for all we left behind. our thoughts still to the battle "turned with ceaseless pain, and dragged at each remove a lengthening chain." a tremendous storm of thunder and lightning and rain burst over our heads. it was peculiarly awful. but what are the thunder and lightnings of heaven to the thunder and lightnings of war, which, perhaps, at this very moment, were sweeping away thousands! the thunderbolts of god are merciful and harmless; those of men deadly and destructive. we thought of this storm, as of everything else, only with reference to our army--to those who were fighting, and those who were bleeding on the field of battle, and who were exposed unsheltered to its rage. we gazed with admiration at the threatening walls and ancient battlements of antwerp, which are encircled with a wooden palisade. this seemed a complete work of supererogation, and struck me as being something like putting a strong box of iron into a band-box of pasteboard for further security.[ ] three walls of immense strength and thickness, surrounded by three broad deep ditches or moats, lay one behind another. to an ignorant, unpractised eye like mine, its fortifications seemed to be impregnable; and as we passed under its gloomy gates, and slowly crossed its sounding draw-bridges, i heartily wished that the whole british army were safe within its walls.--this was certainly more "a woman's than a warrior's wish." antwerp was already crowded with fugitives from brussels; and with considerable difficulty we got the accommodation of two very small rooms in the hotel of le grand laboureur, in the place de maire. no later authentic intelligence than that which we had heard previously to leaving brussels had been received here; reports of all kinds assailed us, as quick and varying as the tints of the evening clouds, but we could learn nothing; the commandant knew nothing; we could not even ascertain whether another engagement had taken place to-day, and in miserable suspense we passed the remainder of the evening. one of the apartments in our hotel was occupied by the corpse of the duke of brunswick, which had arrived about two o'clock. it had been already embalmed, and was now placed in its first coffin. my brother went to see it: but the room was so crowded with guards and soldiers, british and foreign military, and with people of every description, that neither my sister nor i chose to go. my brother described the countenance as remarkably placid and noble; serene even in death. it was past midnight: my brother and sister had gone to rest, and i was sitting alone, listening to the incessant torrents of rain which drove furiously against the windows, and thinking of our army, who were lying on the cold, wet ground, overcome with toil, and exposed to all "the pelting of the pitiless storm." everything was silent,--when i heard, all at once, the dismal sounds of nailing down the coffin of the duke of brunswick. it was a solemn and affecting sound; it was the last knell of the departed princely warrior: when at length it ceased, and all again was silent, i went down with the young woman of the house, to look at the last narrow mansion of this brave and unfortunate prince. tapers were burning at the head and foot of the coffin. the room was now cleared of all, excepting two brunswick officers who were watching over it, and whose pale, mournful countenances, sable uniforms, and black nodding plumes, well accorded with this gloomy chamber of death. it was but yesterday that this prince, in the flower of life and fortune, went out to the field full of military ardour, and gloriously fell in battle, leading on his soldiers to the charge. he was the first of the noble warriors who fell on the memorable field of quatre bras. but he has lived long enough who has lived to acquire glory: he dies a noble death who dies for his country. the duke of brunswick lived and died like a hero, and he has left his monument in the hearts of his people, by whom his fate will be long and deeply lamented; and by future times his memory will be honoured. it seemed to be my invariable lot at the dead hour of the night to be disturbed with some new and terrible alarm. i had not returned many minutes to my room, after this visit to the remains of departed greatness, and i was just preparing to go to bed, when i suddenly heard the well-known hateful sounds of the rolling of heavy military carriages, passing rapidly through the streets, which were instantly succeeded by the trampling of horses' feet, the clamour of voices, and all the hurry of alarm. the streets seemed thronged with people. concluding that some news must have arrived, i hastily went out to the little apartment which the young woman of the house occupied, and where she told me at any hour she was to be found--but she was gone, and the noise below was so great, and the men's voices so loud, that i durst not venture down stairs. i wandered along the passages, and hung over the balustrades of the staircase, listening to this increasing noise in a state of the most painful suspense. at last the girl returned with a countenance of consternation, and pale as death. i eagerly inquired if there was any news. she said that there was; the very worst;--that all was lost; that our army had been compelled to retreat, and were falling back upon brussels: the french pursuing them. all the english had left brussels. people in carriages, on horseback, and on foot, were flying into antwerp in the greatest dismay. baggage waggons, ammunition, and artillery, were pouring into the town on all sides: and "enfin, madame," said she, "tout est perdu!" for a few minutes, consternation overpowered all my faculties. the english retreating, pursued by the french, overwhelmed by a tremendous superiority of numbers--our gallant countrymen vainly sacrificed--the flower of our army laid low--buonaparte and the french triumphant!--the thought was not to be borne: till this moment i never knew the bitterness, the intensity of my detestation of them. it never occurred to me to doubt that there had been a battle, and it seemed too probable that its result had been unfavourable to the british. i hoped, however, that they were only retreating in consequence of their extreme inferiority of force to the enemy, to wait until they were joined either by the fresh reinforcements of our own troops which were expected, or by the russians. some experienced officers had thought this might probably happen, even when the troops first marched out of brussels. i recollected lord wellington entrenching himself in the lines of torres vedras. i recalled with proud confidence the multiplied triumphs of my countrymen in arms, and i firmly believed that, whatever might be the temporary reverses, or appearance of reverse, they would eventually prove victorious. but in vain i endeavoured to reassure this poor terrified girl, or inspire her with the conviction i felt myself, that though the english might retreat before an overpowering force, against which it would be madness to keep the field, they only retreated to advance with more strength; and that when joined by fresh reinforcements they would give battle, and beat the french; and that with such a general and such an army, they never had been, and they never could be, defeated. i succeeded much better in inspiring myself with hope and confidence than this poor young woman; but all that i myself endured during this long night of misery is not to be imagined or described. the uncertain fate of our army, their critical situation, and the dread that some serious reverse had befallen them, filled my mind with the most dreadful apprehensions. worn out as i had been with two successive nights of sleepless alarm, this news had effectually murdered sleep; and even when fatigue for a few minutes overpowered my senses, i started up again with a sense of horror to listen to the beating of the heavy torrents of rain, and the dismal sounds of alarm which filled the streets; the rattle of carriages continually driving to the door, crowded with fugitives who vainly solicited to be taken in, and drove away utterly at a loss where to find a place of shelter; and the deafening noise of the rolling of heavy military waggons which, during the whole night, never ceased a single moment. so deep was the impression these sounds made upon my senses, so associated had they now become with feelings of dismay and alarm, that long after every terror was ended in the glorious certainty of victory, i never could hear the rattling of these carriages, and the thundering of their wheels, without a sensation of horror that went to my very heart. the morning--the eventful morning of sunday, the th of june--rose, darkened by clouds and mists, and driving rain. amongst the rest of the fugitives, our friends, the hon. mr. and mrs. h., arrived about seven o'clock, and, after considerable difficulty and delay, succeeded in obtaining a wretched little hole in a private house, with a miserable pallet bed, and destitute of all other furniture; but they were too glad to find shelter, and too thankful to get into a place of safety, to complain of these inconveniences; and overcome with fatigue, they went immediately to bed. it was not without considerable difficulty and danger that their carriage had got out of the choked-up streets of brussels, and made its way to malines, where they had been, for a time, refused shelter. at length, the golden arguments mr. h. used obtained for them admittance into a room filled with people of all sexes, ages, countries, and ranks--french princes and foreign counts, and english barons, and right honourable ladies and gentlemen, together with a considerable mixture of less dignified beings, were all lying together, outstretched upon the tables, the chairs, and the floor; some groaning, and some complaining, and many snoring, and almost all of them completely drenched with rain. the water streamed from mr. h.'s clothes, who had driven his own carriage. in this situation, they, too, lay down and slept, while their horses rested; and then, at break of day, pursued their flight. a hundred napoleons had been vainly offered for a pair of horses but a few hours after we left brussels, and the scene of panic and confusion which it presented on saturday evening surpassed all conception. the certainty of the defeat of the prussians; of their retreat; and of the retreat of the british army, prepared the people to expect the worst. aggravated reports of disaster and dismay continually succeeded to each other: the despair and lamentations of the belgians, the anxiety of the english to learn the fate of their friends who had been in the battle the preceding day; the dreadful spectacle of the waggon loads of wounded coming in, and the terrified fugitives flying out in momentary expectation of the arrival of the french:--the streets, the roads, the canals covered with boats, carriages, waggons, horses, and crowds of unfortunate people, flying from this scene of horror and danger, formed altogether a combination of tumult, terror, and misery which cannot be described. numbers, even of ladies, unable to procure any means of conveyance, set off on foot, and walked in the dark, beneath the pelting storm, to malines; and the distress of the crowds who now filled antwerp, it is utterly impossible to conceive. we were, however, soon inexpressibly relieved, by hearing that there had been no engagement of any consequence the preceding day; that the british army had fallen back seven miles in order to take up a position more favourable for the cavalry, and for communication with the prussians; that they were now about nine miles from brussels; and that a general and, most probably, decisive action would inevitably take place to-day. although it continued to rain, we set out, for to sit still in the house was impossible, and after passing through several streets, we went into the cathedral, where high mass was performing, and "where through the long-drawn aisle and fretted vault the pealing anthem swell'd the note of praise." for a while its solemn harmony seemed to calm the fever of my mind; it elevated my thoughts to that god, in whose unerring wisdom and divine mercy i could alone at this awful moment put my trust, and to him "who is the only giver of victory," and at whose command empires rise and fall, flourish and decay; to him who alone has power to save and to destroy, i breathed a silent prayer to bless the british arms, to shield my brave and heroic countrymen in the hour of danger, and give to them the success and glory of the battle. intelligence arrived that the action had commenced. we were told that the french had attacked the british this morning at daybreak: the contending armies were actually engaged, and the last, the dreadful battle was at this very moment deciding. it is impossible for any but those who have actually experienced it to conceive the dreadful, the overwhelming anxiety of being so near such eventful scenes, without being actually engaged in them; to know that within a few leagues the dreadful storm of war is raging in all its horrors, and the mortal conflict going forward which is to decide the glory of your country, and the security of the world:--to think that while you are sitting in passive inactivity, or engaged in the most trifling occupations, your brave countrymen are fighting and falling in the uncertain battle, and your friends, and those whose fate you may deplore through life, perhaps at that very moment breathing their last; to be surrounded by misery that you cannot console, and sufferings that you cannot relieve; to wait, to look, to long in vain for intelligence; to be distracted with a thousand confused and contradictory accounts without being able to ascertain the truth; to be at one moment elevated with hope, and the next depressed with fear; to endure the long-protracted suspense--the deep-wrought feelings of expectation--the incessant alarms, the ever-varying reports--the dreadful rumours of evil--oh! it was a state of misery almost too great, too agonising for human endurance! never--never shall i forget the torturing suspense, the intense anxiety of mind, and agitation of spirit, in which this day was passed. in the midst of all that could interest the mind and charm the fancy, and surrounded by all that, at any other time, would have afforded me the highest gratification, i could neither see, hear, observe, admire, nor understand anything; i could think of nothing but the battle. in vain i tried to distract my thoughts, or to force my attention even for a moment to other things: the situation of our army, their danger, their success, their sufferings, and their glory, were for ever present to me. unable to rest, we wandered mechanically about the town, regardless of the frequent heavy showers of rain, and of the deep and dirty streets, anxiously awaiting the arrival of news from the army--though well aware that for many hours nothing could be known of the event of the battle. with a view to dissipate our fruitless anxiety, and as a shelter from the rain, we visited several cabinets of paintings: but i beheld the noblest works of art, and the finest monuments of departed genius, with indifference. not even the sublime touches, the affecting images, and the unrivalled productions of guido, and raphael, and rubens; not all the force, the pathos, and the expression of their powerful genius, could at this moment charm or even interest me; for i had no power to feel their beauties. every faculty of our minds was absorbed in one feeling, one thought, one interest;--we seemed like bodies without souls. our persons and our outward senses were indeed present in antwerp, but our whole hearts and souls were with the army. in the course of our wanderings we met many people whom we knew, and had much conversation with many whom we did not know. at this momentous crisis, one feeling actuated every heart--one thought engaged every tongue--one common interest bound together every human being. all ranks were confounded; all distinctions levelled; all common forms neglected. gentlemen and servants; lords and common soldiers; british and foreigners, were all upon an equality--elbowing each other without ceremony, and addressing each other without apology. ladies accosted men they had never before seen with eager questions without hesitation; strangers conversed together like friends, and english reserve seemed no longer to exist. from morning till night the great place de maire was completely filled with people, standing under umbrellas, and eagerly watching for news of the battle; so closely packed was this anxious crowd, that, when viewed from the hotel windows, nothing could be seen but one compact mass of umbrellas. as the day advanced, the consternation became greater. the number of terrified fugitives from brussels, upon whose faces were marked the deepest anxiety and distress, and who thronged into the town on horseback and on foot, increased the general dismay, while long rows of carriages lined the streets, filled with people who could find no place of shelter. troops from the hanseatic towns marched in to strengthen the garrison of the city in case of a siege. long trains of artillery, ammunition, military stores, and supplies of all sorts incessantly poured in, and there seemed to be no end of the heavy waggons that rolled through the streets. reports more and more gloomy reached our ears; every hour only served to add to the general despondency. on every side we heard that the battle was fought under circumstances so disadvantageous to the british, and against a preponderance of force so overpowering, that it was impossible it could be won. long did we resist the depressing impression these alarming accounts were calculated to make upon our minds; long did we believe, in spite of every unfavourable appearance, that the british would be victorious. towards evening a wounded officer arrived, bringing intelligence that the onset had been most terrible, and so immense were the numbers of the enemy, that he "did not believe it was in the power of man to save the battle." to record the innumerable false reports we heard spread by the terrified fugitives, who continually poured into the town from brussels, would be endless. at length, after an interval of the most torturing suspense, a wounded british officer of hussars, scarcely able to sit his horse, and faint from loss of blood, rode up to the door of the hotel, and told us the disastrous tidings, that the battle was lost, and that brussels, by this time, was in the possession of the enemy. he said, that in all the battles he had ever been engaged in, he had never witnessed anything at all equal to the horrors of this. the french had fought with the most desperate valour, but, when he left the field, they had been repulsed by the british at every point with immense slaughter: the news of the defeat had, however, overtaken him on the road; all the baggage belonging to the army was taken or destroyed, and the confusion among the french at vittoria, he said, was nothing to this. he had himself been passed by panic-struck fugitives from the field, flying for their lives, and he had been obliged to hurry forward, notwithstanding his wounds, in order to effect his escape. two gentlemen from brussels corroborated this dreadful account: in an agitation that almost deprived them of the power of utterance, they declared that when they came away, brussels presented the most dreadful scene of tumult, horror, and confusion; that intelligence had been received of the complete defeat of the british, and that the french were every moment expected. the carnage had been most tremendous. the duke of wellington, they said, was severely wounded; sir dennis pack killed; and all our bravest officers killed, wounded, or prisoners. in vain we inquired, where, if the battle was lost, where was now, and what had become of the british army?--"god alone knows," was the answer. the next moment we heard from a gentleman who had just arrived, that before he left brussels, the french had actually entered it; that he had himself seen a party of them; and another gentleman (apparently an officer) declared he had been pursued by them more than half way to malines! dreadful was the panic and dismay that now seized the unfortunate belgians, and in the most piercing tones of horror and despair they cried out, that the french would be at the gates before morning. some english people, thinking antwerp no longer safe, set off for breda, late as it was. later still, accounts were brought (as we were told) by three british officers, confirming the dreadful tidings of defeat; it was even said that the french were already at malines. we believed, we trusted that these reports of evil were greatly exaggerated; we did not credit their dreadful extent, but that some terrible reverse had befallen the british army it was no longer possible to doubt. during the whole of this dreadful night, the consternation, the alarm, the tumult, the combination of horrid noises that filled the streets, i shall never forget. the rapid rolling of the carriages, the rattle of artillery, and the slow, heavy motion of the large waggons filled with wounded soldiers, which incessantly entered the town, were the most dismal of all. of the bitter agony, the deep-seated affliction that now overwhelmed us, it would be in vain to speak. there are feelings in the human heart that can find no utterance in words, and which "lie too deep for tears:" and the conviction that the british army had been defeated--the dreadful uncertainty of its fate--and the heart-piercing sight of my brave, my unfortunate wounded countrymen returning from the lost battle in which their valour had been exerted, and their blood been shed in vain, awakened sensations which no visible emotion, no power of language could express; but which have left an impression on my mind that no lapse of time can efface. no private calamity, however great, that had befallen myself individually, could have afflicted me with such bitter anguish as i now suffered. the image of the british troops retreating before a conquering, an insulting, a merciless enemy--defeated, perhaps cut to pieces: the idea of their misfortunes and their sufferings--of the wounded abandoned to perish on the fatal field; the misery of thousands; the distress in which it would plunge my country; the years of war and bloodshed, and all the dreadful consequences it would bring upon the world, incessantly haunted my mind during this long night of misery. overpowered by three days and nights of extreme fatigue, anxiety, and agitation, i fell at times into a sort of unquiet slumber; but my busy fancy still presented the horrid images of terror and distress, and repeatedly i started up from uneasy sleep to the dreadful consciousness of waking misery. oh! it was a night of unspeakable horror-- "nor when morning came did the realities of light and day bring aught of comfort: wheresoe'er we went the tidings of defeat had gone before; and leaving their defenceless homes, to seek what shelter walls and battlements might yield, old men with feeble feet, and tottering babes, and widows with their infants in their arms hurried along: nor royal festival, nor sacred pageant--with like multitude e'er fill'd the public way:--all whom the sword had spared--fled here!"--_southey's roderick._ with a heavy heart, i rose and dressed myself, and went out before eight o'clock, attended only by our old valet de place, who with a sorrowful countenance awaited me at the foot of the stairs. from him, and from the master of the hotel, who were both on the watch for news, i learned that no official intelligence had been received, no courier had arrived: but no doubt was entertained of the truth of the dreadful reports of the night, and the events of every hour seemed to give full confirmation of the worst. i traversed the gloomy streets, anxiously gazing at every melancholy careworn countenance i met, as if there i could read the truth. i was struck to the heart with horror by the sight of the heavy loaded waggons of wounded soldiers which incessantly passed by me; while litters borne silently along on men's shoulders gave dreadful indications of sufferings more severe, or nearer their final termination; nor were they less painful to the thoughts from being unseen. imagination perhaps conjured up sufferings more dreadful than the reality--sufferings at which my blood ran cold. wholly forgetful of some business i had to transact, which i had undertaken for a friend before leaving england, i hurried through the streets with the vague hope of hearing some decisive intelligence; certain that anything, even the knowledge of the worst, would be preferable to this state of wretchedness and torturing suspense. at last, without intending it, i found myself near the malines gate. conducted by the old valet, i turned into a narrow street on my right, where, to my inexpressible astonishment, i saw five wounded highland soldiers who, in spite of the bandages which enveloped their heads, arms, and legs, were shouting and huzzaing with the vociferous demonstrations of joy. in answer to my eager questions, they told me that a courier had that moment entered the town from the duke of wellington, bringing an account that the english had gained a complete victory, that the remains of the french army were in full retreat, and the english in pursuit of them. to the last hour of my life, never shall i forget the sensations of that moment. scarcely daring to credit the extent of this wonderful, this transporting news, i did, however, believe that the english had gained the victory; believed it with feelings to which no language can do justice, and which found relief in tears of joy that i could not repress. for some minutes i was unable to speak. the overpowering emotions which filled my heart were far too powerful for expression; but the boon of life to the wretch whose head is laid upon the block could scarcely be received with more transport and gratitude. the sudden transition from the depth of despair to joy unutterable, was almost too great to be borne. in the mean time the highlanders, regardless of their wounds, their fatigues, their dangers, and their sufferings, kept throwing up their highland bonnets into the air, and continually vociferating,--"boney's beat! boney's beat! hurrah! hurrah! boney's beat!" their tumultuous joy attracted round them a number of old flemish women, who were extremely curious to know the cause of this uproar, and kept gabbling to the soldiers in their own tongue. one of them, more eager than the rest, seized one of the men by his coat, pulling at it, and making the most ludicrous gestures imaginable to induce him to attend to her; while the highlander, quite forgetting in his transport that the old woman did not understand scotch, kept vociferating that "boney was beat, and rinning away till his ain country as fast as he could gang." at any other time, the old flemish woman, holding the soldier fast, shrugging up her shoulders, and making these absurd grimaces, and the highlander roaring to her in broad scotch would have presented a most laughable scene--"hout, ye auld gowk," cried the good-humoured soldier, "dinna ye ken that boney's beat--what, are ye deef?--dare say the wife--i say boney's beat, woman!" when the news was explained to the old women they were in an ecstasy almost as great as that of the highlanders themselves, and the joy of the old valet was quite unbounded. these poor men were on their way to the hospital, but they did not know which way to go; they were ignorant of the language, and could not inquire. i thought of sending the valet de place with them, who was extremely willing to conduct "ces bons ecossois," as he called them, but then i could not easily have found my own way home; so the valet de place, the soldiers, and i, all went to the hospital together. our progress was slow, for one of them was very lame, another had lost three of the fingers of his right hand, and had a ball lodged in his shoulder. some of them were from the highlands, and some from the lowlands, and when they found that i came from scotland, and lived upon the tweed, they were quite delighted. one of them was from the tweed as well as myself, he said, "he cam' oot o' peeblesshire." after parting with them close to the hospital, i returned homewards, and by the time i reached the place de maire it was thronged with multitudes of people, who seemed at a loss how to give vent to their transport. one loud universal buzz of voices filled the streets; one feeling pervaded every heart; one expression beamed on every face: in short, the people were quite wild with joy, and some of them really seemed by no means in possession of their senses. at the door of our hotel the first sight i beheld among the crowds that encircled it, was an english lady, who had apparently attained the full meridian of life, with a night-cap stuck on the top of her head, discovering her hair in papillotes beneath, attired in a long white flannel dressing-gown, loosely tied about her waist, with the sleeves tucked up above the elbows. she was flying about in a distracted manner, with a paper in her hand, loudly proclaiming the glorious tidings, continually repeating the same thing, and rejoicing, lamenting, wondering, pitying, and exclaiming, all in the same breath. from an english gentleman whom i had met, i had already learned all the particulars that were known; but this lady seized upon me, repeated them all again and again, interrupting herself with mourning over the misfortunes of poor lady de lancey, pitying lady f. somerset, rejoicing in the victory, wondering at the duke's escape, lamenting for sir thomas picton, and declaring, which was incontestably true, that she herself was quite distracted. in vain did her maid pursue her about with a great shawl, which occasionally she succeeded in putting upon her shoulders, but which invariably fell off again the next moment. in vain did another lady, whose dress and mind were rather more composed, endeavour to entice her away--she could not be brought to pay them the smallest attention, and i left her still talking as fast as ever, and standing in this curious déshabille among gentlemen and footmen, and officers and soldiers, and valets de place, and in full view of the multitudes who thronged the great place de maire. an express had arrived, soon after eight o'clock, bringing the duke of wellington's bulletin, dated waterloo, containing a brief account of the glorious battle. but from private letters and accounts we learnt that the triumph of the british arms had indeed been complete. after a most dreadful and sanguinary battle, which lasted from ten in the morning till nine at night, the french at length gave way, and fled in confusion from the field, leaving behind them their artillery, their baggage, their wounded, and their prisoners. the certainty of this great, this glorious victory, won by the heroic valour of our countrymen in circumstances so disadvantageous; the fall of the enemy of britain and of mankind; the deliverance of europe; the peace of the world, and, above all, the glory of england, rushed into my mind; and every individual interest, every personal consideration, every other thought and feeling, were swallowed up and forgotten. the contest had been dreadful--the carnage unexampled in the bloodiest annals of history. the french army had been nearly annihilated, and our loss was tremendous. the greatest part of our gallant army, the best, the bravest of our officers, were among the killed and wounded. sir colin halket, generals cooke and alten, sir dennis pack, the prince of orange, lord uxbridge,[ ] and lord fitzroy somerset, were severely wounded. sir thomas picton, sir william ponsonby, sir alexander gordon were killed. sir william de lancey had also been killed by a cannon-ball while in absolute contact with the duke, whose escapes seemed to have been almost miraculous. unmindful, perhaps even unconscious, of the showers of shot and shell, he had stood undaunted from morning till night in the thickest of the battle, coolly reconnoitring with his glass the motions of the enemy, issuing his orders with the utmost precision, and everywhere present by his promptitude, coolness, and presence of mind. almost all his staff officers were either killed or wounded.[ ] lady m. showed us the official bulletin; it contained a most brief and modest account of the victory, announcing scarcely any particulars, and mentioning the names only of a very few of the principal officers who were among the sufferers. in a few hours the town was crowded with the wounded. the regular hospitals were soon filled, and barracks, churches, and convents were converted into temporary hospitals with all possible expedition. tents were pitched in a large piece of open ground near the citadel, and numbers of these unfortunate sufferers were carried there: but nothing could contain the multitude of wounded who continually entered the town. numbers were lying on the hard pavement of the streets, and on the steps of the houses; and numbers were wandering about in search of a place of shelter. nothing affected me more than the quiet fortitude and uncomplaining patience with which these poor men bore their sufferings. not a word, not a murmur, not a groan escaped their lips. they lay extended on their backs in the long waggons, their clothes stained with blood, blinded by the intolerable rays of the sun, in silent suffering; while every jolt of the waggons seemed to go to one's very heart. numbers on foot, almost sinking with fatigue and loss of blood, were slowly and painfully making their way along the streets. officers supported on their horses, and almost insensible, with faces pale as death, and marked with agony, and those dreadful litters, whose very appearance bespoke torture and death, were passing through every street. never shall i forget the impression that the sight of my poor wounded countrymen made upon my mind. when i saw their sufferings, and thought of their deeds in arms, of their dauntless intrepidity in the field, and of the immortal glory they had won, tears of pity, admiration, and gratitude burst from my heart, and i looked at the meanest soldier returning, covered with wounds, from fighting the battles of his country, with a respect and admiration which not all the kings and princes of the earth could have extorted from me. if such were the horrors of the scene here, what must they be on the field of battle, covered with thousands of the dead, the wounded, and the dying! the idea was almost too dreadful for human endurance; and yet there were those of my own country, and even of my own sex, whom i heard express a longing wish to visit this very morning the fatal field of waterloo! if, by visiting that dreadful scene of glory and of death, i could have saved the life, or assuaged the pangs, of one individual who had fallen for his country, gladly would i have braved its horrors; but for the gratification of an idle, a barbarous curiosity, to gaze upon the mangled corpses of thousands; to hear the deep groans of agony, and witness the last struggles of the departing spirit--no! worlds should not have bribed me to have encountered the sight: the consolation of being useful, alone could have armed one with courage to have witnessed it. nothing could exceed the humanity and kindness of the belgic people to those poor sufferers who now crowded the streets. unsolicited they took them into their own houses; sent bedding to the hospitals; resigned their own rooms to their use; provided them with every comfort, and administered to their wants as if they had been their own sons. one old lady alone, who was the sole inhabitant of a large house, refused to take in two wounded officers; the commandant, on hearing of this, immediately billetted six private soldiers upon her. but, notwithstanding the praiseworthy activity and exertion which were used to accommodate them, it was long, long indeed, before they could all be taken care of. we grieved that we had no house to shelter them, and no power to give them any essential relief. money was to them as useless as the lump of gold to robinson crusoe in his desert island: we could not act by them the part of the good samaritan, nor could we, like the heroines of the days of chivalry, bind up and dress their wounds, for in our ignorance we should only have injured them, and the most stupid hospital mate could perform that office a thousand times better than the finest lady. numbers of poor wounded highlanders were patiently sitting in the streets, shaded from the powerful rays of the sun. we had a good deal of conversation with several of the privates of the nd and nd regiments, and their account of the battle was most simple and interesting. they seemed not to have the smallest pride in what they had done; but to consider it quite as a matter of course; they uttered not the smallest complaint, but rather made light of their sufferings, and there was nothing in their words or manner that looked as if they were sensible of having done anything in the least extraordinary; nothing that laid claim to pity, admiration, or glory. the carnage among the french, both on the th and th, in their encounter with the highland regiments, was described to us as most dreadful. the cuirassiers, men and officers, horses and riders, were rolled in death, one upon another, after the british charge with the bayonet. in vain the french returned to the attack with furious valour and reinforced numbers. their utmost efforts could make no impression on the impenetrable squares of the infantry, and the spiked wall of the british embattled bayonets; and when they retired from the ineffectual attack, the brave highlanders, with loud cries of "scotland for ever!" rushed among them, bore down all resistance, and scattered their legions like withered leaves before the blast of autumn. it is but justice to these gallant men to say, that it was not from themselves we heard this relation of their own deeds. _they_ could not be induced to speak of what they had done, but it was repeated on every side; it was the theme of every tongue. the love and admiration of the whole belgic people for the highlanders are most remarkable. whenever they heard them mentioned, they exclaimed, "ah! ces braves hommes! ces bons ecossais! ils sont si doux--et si aimables--et dans la guerre!--ah! mon dieu! comme ils sont terribles!" they never speak of them without some epithet of affection or admiration. their merits are the darling topic of their private circles, and their figures the favourite signs of their public-houses; in short, they are the best of soldiers and of men, according to the belgians--nothing was ever like them, and the idea they have of their valour is quite prodigious.[ ] the sufferings of the wounded, however, did not form the only affecting sight that antwerp presented. the deep, the distracting grief of the unfortunate people whose friends had perished, and the heart-rending anxiety of those who vainly sought for intelligence of the fate of those most dear to them, were amongst the most distressing parts of the many mournful scenes we witnessed. of those friends for whose safety we were deeply solicitous, we could gain no information, and the suspense, dreadful as it was, we, as well as thousands, were obliged to endure. but our anxiety, our sorrows, seemed light indeed in comparison with those of others: there were few who had not some near friend or relative to deplore, and antwerp was filled with heart-broken mourners, whom the victory of yesterday had bereft of all that made life dear to them. in the same hotel with us was poor lady de lancey, a young and widowed bride, upon whom, in all the hopes of happiness--in the very flower of youth--unacquainted with sorrow, and far from every friend, the heaviest stroke of affliction had fallen unprepared. but three little days ago, she seemed to be at the summit of felicity, and now she was bereaved of every earthly hope. she bore the intelligence of her irreparable loss with astonishing firmness. i did not wonder that she refused to see every human being, for no earthly power could speak consolation to misery such as hers. in vain i tried to forget her--i could not banish her from my remembrance; and often, during our long wanderings in the distant regions of holland, when i was far from her, and far from all that might have recalled her to my remembrance, among other sights and other scenes, her early misfortunes wrung my heart with the deepest sorrow. but whatever might be the grief and anxiety of individuals, the universal joy was unbounded. it is impossible to describe the effects of this victory upon all ranks of people. every human heart seemed to beat in sympathy; every countenance beamed with joy; every tongue spoke the language of exultation. as the terror and despair of the belgians had been excessive, their transport was now vehement and overflowing, and their volubility not to be imagined. we went into several shops, and the people, unable to restrain themselves, poured out upon us the fulness of their joy, their astonishment, their gratitude, their admiration, and their praise. totally forgetful of their interests, they thought not of selling their goods; they thought of nothing--they could do nothing but talk of the battle and the british, and it was with difficulty we could get them to show us what we wanted: nay, more than once we were actually obliged to go away without doing anything, from the impossibility of making them attend to the business of selling and buying. but sometimes the expression of their feelings was so simple, so natural, and so touching, and there was so much of truth and naïveté, both in their manner and their words, that it was impossible to hear them without emotion. the french they loaded with execrations; and their hatred, their indignation, and their bitter feelings of their wrongs, said more than volumes of eloquence, or even facts could have done, in condemnation of the conduct of their late masters. all the english merchandise, and all colonial produce, imported even before it was decreed to be a crime, were seized, carried from their shops and warehouses, and burnt before their eyes in the place verte. no remuneration, no indemnity whatever was given them; and by this single act of wanton tyranny, hundreds of industrious families were reduced to beggary. heavy exactions and continual contributions were levied, and the weight of these fell upon the most industrious and respectable orders of the people. "all that we had they took," was said again and again to us, "and if we had had thousands more, it would have all gone." they ruined the commerce, the manufactures, the trade of the country, and then they drained the poor inhabitants of their property. they shut up the sources of wealth, and then called on them for money. they blocked up the fountain, and then asked for its waters. like egyptian task-masters, they took from them the materials, and then demanded their work. they expected them to make "bricks without straw." the french soldiers lived at free-quarters upon the people, and the belgic youths were marched away to fight in foreign wars. the oppressed people were subject to the unrestrained rapine and brutal insolence of the french soldiery, of which they durst not complain. it was unsafe even to murmur. not only the liberty of the press, but the liberty of speech was denied them. any unfortunate person convicted of holding intercourse with england was imprisoned, and some of them (we were told), by way of example, were shot. we happened to go into a little stationer's shop, kept by a widow and her three daughters, who received us almost with adoration because we were english. they all began to talk at once, and relieved their minds by pouring out a torrent of invectives against those detested tyrants, "ces fléaux du genre humain," as they called them. all their goods had been seized; their shop (which was not then a stationer's) completely stripped of its contents, under the pretence of its being filled with british and colonial produce, which they said was not the case; and a considerable quantity of continental manufactures had also been carried away. "but _that_ was nothing," the poor mother said, as she wiped the tears from her eyes, "_that_ she could have borne, for though it seemed heavy at the time, she thought less of it now;--but her five sons (fine handsome young men, they were, as ever a mother bore), her five sons were all taken for soldiers, and perished in the french wars; some in the retreat from russia, and some in the subsequent campaign in germany." the tears streamed down the cheeks of one of these young women, as she spoke to me of her "poor brothers." i can give no idea of the bitterness, the rancour, the hatred, and above all, the volubility of the abuse which these poor women poured out against the french. we got away from them with difficulty; and though the deep sense of their own wrongs rankled in their minds, and aggravated the resentment and detestation which they must naturally feel towards the authors of so much misery, yet we found the same sentiments, in greater or in less degree, among all the belgians with whom we conversed, or whom we heard conversing. i had always understood that the french (and napoleon in particular) were highly popular in antwerp, but from some most respectable old-established merchants, both british and belgic, we learned that the inhabitants were decidedly hostile to the french, and that they were both feared and hated by all, excepting the very dregs of society, and those individuals who had made fortunes under their administration. in the course of our rambles we had many conversations with various people whom we never saw before, and i suppose shall never see again. we met a wounded officer who had been taken prisoner by the french. he said, that after repeatedly threatening to kill him, and loading him with abuse, they actually knocked him on the head with the butt-end of a musket, and left him for dead upon the field: he came, however, to himself, and effected his escape. his face was most frightfully swelled, and so bruised, that it was every shade of black, and blue, and green; his head was entirely tied up with white handkerchiefs and bloody bandages, and in my life i never saw a more battered object. he had his arm in a sling; but he was by much too rejoiced at his escape to care about his wounds or bruises. he told us, what _then_ i could scarcely believe, that the french had killed many of our officers whom they had taken prisoners, and that they had _piked_ numbers of the wounded. the truth of these brutal murders, disgraceful to humanity, and even more dishonourable and more barbarous than the worst cruelty of savages, were unhappily, afterwards, too indisputably proved. in our progress through the streets we could not resist stopping to speak to such of the poor wounded soldiers as seemed able to talk, and who looked as if they would thank us even for a word of kindness, much to the amazement of mr. d., an antwerp merchant, who was walking about with us, to "show us the lions," as he said. however, he waited most patiently, while mrs. h., my sister, and i talked to ensigns, sergeants, corporals, and common soldiers, who were all, more or less, wounded or disabled. "we have got six of those wounded soldiers billeted upon us," said mr. d., as we walked on, "but i must get them boarded out somewhere, for they would be very troublesome in the house." "troublesome!" i exclaimed. "yes! you know they would be very troublesome in a house, though i suppose the surgeons will look after their _wounds_, and all _that_; they will cost me" (i forget how many guelders he said) "a week, but i would rather _pay_ it" (with a strong and proud emphasis upon the word pay) "than have them in the house, it would be so very disagreeable." i was silent, for i durst not trust myself to speak. yet this was a very well-meaning man. i make no doubt he subscribed _handsomely_ to the waterloo fund, and that he would have given money to those very wounded soldiers to whom he refused shelter--if he had thought they wanted it. but beyond giving money his ideas of charity did not extend. to his mercantile mind, money was the chief and only good; the sole source of pride and of happiness; the only object in life worth seeking after--the one thing needful. he was a very good kind of man in his way, but he was entirely occupied with his "snug box" at clapham, his brother's grand potteries in staffordshire, and his own cargoes of rice, and hogsheads of rum and sugar; he could not feel the vast debt of gratitude their country owed to "the men of waterloo;" to those gallant soldiers who had fought and bled for her safety and glory. he did not mean to be unkind or ungenerous; he would have started at the reproach of wanting humanity, or being deficient in gratitude, but--but--but--in short, he was altogether an antwerp merchant. the day was extremely hot, and on the outside of the cafés, beneath the shade of awnings, and seated beside little tables in the open street, the belgic gentlemen were eating ices and fruit, and drinking coffee, and reading "l'oracle de bruxelles," and playing at domino and backgammon with the utmost composure, utterly regardless of the crowds of passengers, and apparently as much at their ease as if they were in their own houses,--or indeed more so; for the belgians, like the french, are more at home at le café, or in the public streets, or anywhere, than in their own home, which is the last place in which they think of looking for enjoyment. they have no notion of domestic comfort, domestic pleasure, or domestic happiness; and consequently they cannot have much knowledge of domestic virtues. i cannot, therefore, help considering the french as a gay, rather than a happy nation. french habits and manners, and, i am afraid, french morals, are universally prevalent throughout belgium. groups of ladies of the most respectable character may everywhere be seen, sitting on chairs or benches, in the public streets or promenades, working, talking, laughing, and amusing themselves with all the ease and gaiety and sangfroid in the world. sometimes only a knot of ladies, but more frequently ladies coquetting with their obsequious beaux. we visited the unfinished quay, begun by napoleon, which was to have extended above a mile along the broad and deep scheldt, and would have been one of the finest quays in europe. we saw the flying bridge ("le pont volant"), a most ingenious contrivance, on which carriages, horses, and waggons pass with great rapidity and security from one side of the river to the other, without interrupting its navigation, even for vessels of the largest burden. such a plan, i should think, might be adopted with great success upon the thames between london and gravesend, or in any river where the arches of a stone bridge would obstruct the passage of the ships, and where the breadth is too great for the single span of an iron bridge. the mechanism seemed to be very simple. the largest ships of war can come up close to the quay; but the navigation of the scheldt is difficult, and even dangerous, from the number of sand banks which choke it up. antwerp is upwards of fifty miles from the mouth of the river. we saw the docks, the offspring of napoleon's hatred against our country; one of them was made sufficiently large and deep to be capable of containing the greatest part of the british navy, and at one time he exulted in the expectation of seeing the "wooden walls" of old england safely moored in _his_ docks at antwerp. little did he anticipate the day when the little army of england, which he despised and ridiculed, should be the unmolested possessors of _his_ capital of paris! the arsenal (la maison de marine) is now emptied of its stores, and deserted by its workmen. we saw a long building erected by napoleon for the manufacture of ropes for ships--now equally useless. its length is precisely the same as that of the cable of a first-rate british ship of war. the manner in which they repair ships in these docks is unlike anything i ever saw before. instead of lifting the ship entirely out of water, and placing it upon the stocks (in effecting which, or in relaunching it, a vessel is said often to sustain injury), a rope is attached to the masts, and the ship is hauled down until its keel is exposed; after repairing that side they haul it down on the other in the same manner, and the workmen stand upon a raft that is fastened to its side. we went to see the citadel, a noble and complete fortification overlooking the scheldt. the walls are of such an immense height and thickness, that i should imagine them to be quite invulnerable. the fortress is capable of containing , men; by means of the river fresh reinforcements might be constantly thrown in; and with a strong garrison, and an adequate supply of provisions and ammunition, i should suppose, that like another troy, it might stand a ten years' siege; only that modern patience would never hold out such a length of time. the commandant was confined to his bed by indisposition; but every part of the fortification was explained to us by a very good-humoured, intelligent irish officer, whose name i have forgotten, but who seemed to be excessively amused by the (i fear) almost childish delight which my sister and i betrayed in seeing all the wonders of this wonderful place. everything to us was new and interesting. it was the first citadel we had ever seen: and to see with our own eyes a real, actual citadel--nay, more, to be in one, was so very delightful, that we both agreed, if we had seen nothing else, we should have thought ourselves amply repaid for our journey to antwerp. this good-natured officer contentedly toiled along with us, under the burning rays of a most sultry sun, round the whole fortifications, and pointed out to us where and how attacks might be made with success, and in what manner they could be resisted. the sight of the moat, the draw-bridges, the ramparts, the bastions, and the dungeons; the sally-ports and gates, which communicate with the citadel from the moat by long subterranean passages, so forcibly recalled to my recollection all that i had heard and read of battles and sieges in history and in tales of chivalry, that i could have fancied myself transported back into ages long since past--into the iron times of arms; and all that had before existed only in imagination was at once realised. after visiting all the lions of antwerp, docks and fortresses; and ships and statues; and pictures and prisons; and quays and cathedrals; and battle-beaten walls and flying bridges; and decayed monasteries, and modern arsenals; which, as they have all been often so much better described than i can describe them, i shall forbear to describe at all--we returned to the hotel, excessively heated and tired, and very glad to sit down to rest. to-day, for the first time since our arrival, we began to have serious thoughts of getting some dinner. we might have eaten something during those days of alarm and agitation, and i suppose we did; but, excepting the breakfast we had got upon the stairs at brussels on saturday, i have not the most distant recollection of ever having eaten at all. upon the necessity and expediency of now dining, however, we were all unanimously agreed: the difficulty was how to achieve it. mr. and mrs. h. had a pigeon-hole for their only habitation, in which it would have been perfectly impossible to have introduced a table; a single chair was all it was capable of containing. in our rooms we had some difficulty in turning round when more than one person at a time was in them; but by dint of sitting _out_ of the window, and against the door, and upon all the boxes, we had, i was assured--for i actually did not remember it--ingeniously succeeded in getting some breakfast--but to dine was perfectly impracticable. there happened, however, to be in this very hotel, a captain f., an idle, not a fighting, captain; one who made his campaigns, not at waterloo, but in bond-street; and this captain f., who had been in antwerp long before the commencement of hostilities, had, luckily for us, got possession of a room in which it was possible to move. he was a newmarket friend of mr. h.'s, who introduced him to us, with the recommendation that he was a young man of fashion and fortune, well known about town; and in captain f.'s room and company, mr. and mrs. h., my sister, my brother, and i accordingly dined; we were also favoured with the company of a particular friend of his, a mr. c. many foolish young men it has been my lot to see, but never did i meet with any whose folly was at all comparable to that of captain f. captain f. was a young man who prided himself upon his knowledge of horse-flesh, and who had, by his own account, been jockeyed out of "many a cool thousand" by his ignorance of it; he was a young man who delighted in building more _new invented_ carriages in one year than he could pay for in twenty; he was a young man who prided himself upon borrowing money from jews at fifteen per cent. while his guardians were saving it for him at five; and in squandering it at newmarket while they thought him poring over greek and mathematics at cambridge; he was a young man whose highest pride consisted in driving four-in-hand "knowingly;" whose greatest ambition was to resemble a stage-coachman exactly, and whose distinguishing characteristic was that of being a most egregious fool. in consequence, i suppose, of a perseverance in this laudable career, captain f. now found it more convenient to play the fool upon the continent than in england. after recounting to us various and manifold deeds of folly committed in london and newmarket, amongst jews and whip clubs, he at length gravely asserted, "that it was impossible for any man to dress under seven hundred a year." this piece of information was received by some of the party with equal amazement and incredulity: but captain f. assured us, "'pon his soul it was true; that he knew as well as any man what it was to dress, and that it could not be done for less than seven hundred a year--nay, that it often costs nine." "and pray, captain f.," said i, involuntarily glancing at his coat, which happened not to be by any means a new one, "do _you_ spend nine hundred a year upon dress?" "oh! not _now_," he exclaimed; "i don't dress _now_; i never dressed but eighteen months in my life." he then explained at large to me, who, in my ignorance, had not understood what to dress meant, "that 'to dress' signified to be the first in fashion, to make it the study of one's life to appear in a new mode before anybody else; 'to sport' something new every day; and during the time he dressed," he said, "his tailor sent him down three boxes of clothes every week from town, wherever he might happen to be." having thus satisfactorily proved, that, at a considerable expense to his pocket, he had turned himself into a sort of block for the tailors to attire in their new invented coats and waistcoats, like the wooden dolls the milliners dress up to set off their new fashions, he next poured out such a quantity of nonsense about the battle and the wounded, that he reminded me of hotspur's account of his interview with a coxcomb of the same species: "when the fight was done,----" but why do i waste a word upon him. a scotch acquaintance, mr. e., of m., arrived this evening from the field, where he had been ineffectually engaged in the soul-harrowing employment of searching among the dead, the wounded, and the dying, for his youngest brother, who was nowhere to be found. he was a gallant-spirited youth of eighteen, and this was his first campaign. his horse had returned without its rider--among the multitude of wounded he could not be found. some hopes, some faint hopes, yet remained that he might have been taken prisoner, and that he might yet appear; but there was too much reason to fear that he had perished, though where or how was unknown. alas! every passing day made the hopes of his friends more and more improbable. no tidings were ever heard of him, and "on earth he was seen no more." the uncertainty in which the fate of this lamented young man was involved was even more dreadful than the knowledge of the worst could have been. mrs. h.'s anxiety respecting her brother was relieved by mr. e.'s assurance of his being in perfect safety. he could tell us nothing of the fate of those for whom we were so deeply anxious. "do not ask me," he exclaimed, "who _is_ wounded--i cannot tell you. it would be easy to say who are _not_." intelligence from another quarter, however, relieved our fears, and although it subsequently proved false, for the present it led us to believe that our friends were in safety. we now learnt that the battle had been even more desperate, and the victory more glorious and decisive, than lord wellington's concise and modest bulletin had led us to imagine. the french had not "retreated," they had been completely routed, and put to flight; they had not merely "been defeated," they were no longer an army. they had fled in every direction from the field, pursued by the victorious british and by the prussians, who had not come up till just at the close of the battle.[ ] the whole of their artillery, ammunition, and baggage, their caissons, all the matériel of their army had been taken. of , frenchmen who had marched yesterday morning to battle, flushed with all the hopes and confidence of victory, no trace, no vestige now remained; they were all swept away; they were scattered by the whirlwind of war over the face of the earth. yesterday their proud hosts had spread terror and dismay through nations, and struck consternation into every heart, except those of the brave band of warriors who opposed them. to-day the greater part of them slept in death, the rest were fugitives or captives. it was an awful and tremendous lesson. they were gone with all their imperfections on their heads,--their hopes, their purposes, their plans, their passions, and their crimes, were at rest for ever! and their leader, who had sported away the lives of thousands, with feelings untouched by remorse; who had impiously presumed to defy the powers of god and man; and whose insatiate ambition the world itself seemed too small to contain--where was he now?--an outcast and a wanderer, hunted, pursued, beset on all sides, and at a loss where to lay his head! it was with a heart pierced with anguish that i wept for the brave who had fallen; that i felt in the bitterness of sorrow, that not even the proud triumph of my country's glory could console me for the gallant hearts that were lost to her for ever! "how many mothers shall lament their sons; how many widows weep their husbands slain!-- ye dames of albion! ev'n for you i mourn: who sadly sitting on the sea-beat shore, long look for lords who never shall return!" it was twelve o'clock before our friends left us, and then, worn out with fatigue of body and mind, for the first time during four nights, i enjoyed the blessing of some hours of undisturbed repose, in spite of the bonfires, the acclamations, the noisy rejoicings, and the songs, more patriotic than melodious, which resounded in my ears. last night the streets were filled with the cries of horror and alarm, to-night they resounded with the shouts of exultation and joy; and it was with feelings of deep and fervent thanksgiving to heaven that i laid my wearied head upon the pillow, and sank to sleep with the blessed consciousness that we should not this night be disturbed by the dreadful alarms of war. nothing on retrospection seemed to me so extraordinary as the shortness of time in which these wonderful events had happened. i could scarcely convince myself that they had actually been comprised in the short space of three days--so long did it seem to be! yet in that brief space how many gallant spirits had death arrested in their glorious career of honour and immortality--how many hearts had grief rendered desolate! in these eventful days the fates of empires and of kings had been decided, and the trembling nations of europe freed from the vengeance and the yoke of the tyranny which menaced them with subjugation. if the passage of time were to be computed by the succession of events, rather than by moments, we should indeed have lived a lifetime! an age! for it was "eternity of thought." every thing that had happened, even immediately before these events, seemed like the faintly-remembered traces of a dream, or the fading and distant images of long past years. it seemed as if at once "from the tablet of my memory were wiped away all trivial fond records, all saws of books, all forms, all pressures past, that youth and observation copied there; and this remembrance all alone remain'd, within the book and volume of my brain, unmixed with baser matter." yes! the days, the months, the years of my future life may pass away and be forgotten, and all the changes that mark them fade like a morning dream; but the minutest circumstance of these eventful days must be remembered "while memory holds her seat;" for such moments and such feelings in life can never return more. a fortnight elapsed, which we passed in making the tour of holland; in gliding along its slow canals, visiting its populous cities, gazing at its splendid palaces, yawning over its green ditches, wondering at its great dykes, its prodigious sluices, and its innumerable windmills; admiring its clean houses, laughing at the humours of its fairs, and falling fast asleep in its churches. we found the dutch a plain, plodding, pains-taking, well-meaning, money-getting, matter-of-fact people; very dull and drowsy, and slow and stupid; little addicted to talking, but very much given to smoking; but withal pious and charitable, and just and equitable; with no wit, but some humour; with little fancy, genius, or invention--but much patience, perseverance, and punctuality. they make excellent merchants, but very bad companions. what buonaparte once in his ignorance said of the english, is truly applicable to the dutch,--"they are a nation of shopkeepers;" and they used to remind me very much of a whole people of quakers. in dress, in manners, in appearance, and in habits of life, they precisely resemble that worthy sect; and like them, in all these points they are perfectly stationary. it is singular enough that in all matters of taste and fashion, in which other nations are continually varying, the dutch have stood stock still for at least two centuries; and in political opinions and institutions, which it requires years, and even ages, to alter in other countries, the dutch have veered about without ceasing. they have literally changed their form of government much oftener than the cut of their coats. they have had stadtholders, and revolutions, and republics, and despotisms, and tyrants, and limited monarchies; and new dynasties and old; and the "new code napoleon,"--and the newer code of king william: and they have changed from the side of england to that of france, and from france to that of england,--and from the house of orange to buonaparte, and from buonaparte to the house of orange, with a rapidity and versatility which even their volatile neighbours, the french, could not equal. but while their government, their laws, their sovereigns, and their institutions, have undergone every possible transformation--the fashion of their caps and bonnets, their hats and shoebuckles, remains unchanged; and they have adhered, with the most scrupulous exactitude, to the same forms of politeness, the same hours, dresses, manners, and habits of life that were the fashion among the venerable burgomasters in the days of good king william. certainly if solomon had ever lived in holland he never would have said that "the fashion of this world passeth away," for there it lasts from generation to generation. i should think that the dutch are now very like what the english were in the times of the puritans. they have a great deal of rigidity and vulgarity in their appearance, and of coarseness and _grossièreté_ in their manners; and they are wholly destitute of vivacity, refinement, and "the grace that charms." i speak of the people at large; not of the court nor of the courtly, who in every country are much the same, or at least fashioned upon one model; but, excepting the court, there is no polite circle, no general good society. it is the rarest thing in the world to meet with a gentleman in holland. the dutch are equally devoid of that acquired good breeding which distinguishes the well educated english, and that native politeness and winning courtesy which is so irresistibly engaging among the french, and even the belgic people. i did not think anything could have roused the phlegmatic dutch to such energy and vehement animation as they showed in their ardent attachment to the present government, and their detestation of their former tyrants. they are absolutely enthusiastic in their loyalty to the house of orange; and their implacable and virulent hatred to the french surpasses all conception. they cannot be silent upon this subject; they cannot forget their past sufferings, and the tyranny and cruelty which they endured so long. they never utter their names without bitter execrations, and the very language is become unpopular. but the british they look upon with the highest respect and admiration, and treat them with a blunt, coarse, complimentary sort of kindness, which is flattering to our national pride. the dutch, however, allowed that louis buonaparte was a very well-intentioned, good-hearted man; but he was only a tool in the hands of the "great napoleon;" and, though he did not like to crush them, he had no power to mitigate the tyranny which bowed them to the earth. for napoleon himself--his ministers, his soldiers, his edicts, and the system of plunder, oppression, and slavery which constituted his government--no words are strong enough to speak their abhorrence. they are now most completely an unanimous people. from the lowest beggar in the street to the king upon his throne, one common political feeling animates and inspires them. the only people who grew rich during the reign of the french were the smugglers, and some of these men made astonishing fortunes by the sale of colonial produce,--chiefly coffee and tobacco; and english manufactures, which they introduced into the kingdom in great quantities, notwithstanding all the spies, soldiers, plans, penalties, and prohibitions of buonaparte. in the failure of taxes and contributions to satisfy his rapacity, he sequestrated a large portion of the funds destined for the annual repair of the dykes and sluices, which in consequence were fast falling to decay; so that had the french government lasted much longer, holland might have been no longer a country; it might _physically_, as well as _politically_, have ceased to exist, and a tide, even more destructive than the armies of france, have rolled over it and restored it again to the ocean. sometimes the faint reports of distant war roused us during our slumbering progress through this soporific country; and dutch men and dutch bonnets, and towns and palaces, and universities and museums, and tulips and hyacinths, and even "orange boven" itself, were entirely forgotten in the animating and overpowering interest of the triumphant progress of the british arms,--the final fall of the usurper of france,--and the entrance of the allied army, led by the duke of wellington, into the gates of paris. a sight more affecting than any other that holland contained we frequently witnessed:--long _treckschuyts_ filled with the wounded dutch soldiers of waterloo, mutilated, disabled, sick and suffering, passed us upon the canals, slowly returning to their homes. in many of the towns and villages of holland, the hospitals were filled with these poor soldiers, to whom the inhabitants showed the most humane and praiseworthy kindness and attention. it is but justice to the dutch to state, that though their charity began at home it did not end there. every town and village made contributions for the wounded belgic and british, as well as for the dutch, both of money and provisions, including plenty of butter and cheese, together with an enormous supply of ankers of real hollands, which amused me extremely. i am sure they sent it out of pure love and kindness, anxious, i suppose, that the poor wounded should have plenty of what they liked best themselves; or perhaps they thought that gin, like spermaceti, was "sovereign for an inward bruise." if ireland be "the country that owes the most to nature and the least to man," holland is unquestionably the country which owes the most to man and the least to nature. i bade it farewell without one feeling of regret: with as little emotion as voltaire, i could have said--"adieu! canaux, canards, canaille!"--and after crossing many a tedious and toilsome ferry, and slowly traversing the trackless and sandy desert which separates bergen-op-zoom from antwerp, we left holland,--i hope, for ever! nothing can be imagined more dreary than this journey. one wide extended desert of barren sand surrounded us as far as the eye could reach, in which no trace of man, nor beast, nor human habitation, could be seen. some bents, thinly scattered upon the hillocks of sand, and occasional groups of stunted fir, through which the wind sighed mournfully, were the only signs of vegetation. slowly and heavily the horses dragged our cabriolet through these deep sands, choosing their own path as their own sagacity, or that of their driver, directed. quitting at last this solitary waste, we entered the sheltering copse woods of oak which surround the city of antwerp, drove swiftly by neat cottages and smiling gardens, descried with delight its lofty walls, its frowning fortifications, and the spire of the cathedral, whose beauty we could _now_ admire; and with feelings which may be better conceived than described, we once more entered its gates.--but what a change had one fortnight produced! it did not seem to be the same place or the same people; and when i thought of all the quick varying scenes of horror, consternation, and triumph which we had witnessed here, and remembered that within these walls we had trembled for the safety, and mourned the imaginary defeat of that army who were now victorious in the capital of france; when i recalled all that the heroes of my country had done and dared and suffered for her honour and security and peace--and that to them, under heaven, europe owed its salvation--it was difficult, it was nearly impossible to restrain the strong tide of mingled emotions which at this moment swelled my heart. not for worlds, not to have been the first and greatest in another land, would i have resigned the distinction of calling england my country; and i blessed heaven that i was born an englishwoman, and born in this, the proudest era of british glory. as these reflections rapidly passed through my mind, a highland soldier obstructed our passage with his musket, signifying to the driver that he was to go at a foot-pace past a large building, which we now discovered to be an hospital, and before which the street was thickly laid with straw. we were affected with this proof of the attention and care paid to the wounded, still more so when we learnt that this hospital was full of wounded french. the highland soldier who now stood on guard to prevent the smallest noise from disturbing the repose of his enemies, had himself been wounded--wounded in the action with them. it was a noble, a divine instance of generosity: it was returning good for evil. it was worthy of england. the french soldiers had inhumanly murdered their wounded prisoners. the british not only dressed the wounds and attended to all the wants of theirs, but they protected and watched over them, that even their very slumbers might not be disturbed. at the hotel of le grand laboureur they knew and welcomed us again, and testified great joy at the success of the allies since we had seen them, and a great dread lest napoleon should make his escape. in the streets we met numbers of poor wounded british officers, weak, pale, faint, and emaciated, slowly and painfully moving a few yards to taste the freshness of the summer and the blessed beams of heaven. many fine young men had lost their limbs, many were on crutches, many were supported by their wives or by their servants. at the open windows of the houses, propped up by pillows, some poor unfortunate sufferers were lying, whose looks would have moved a heart of stone to pity. we passed several hospitals, and looked into some of them. the cleanliness and neatness of appearance which they exhibited were truly gratifying. antwerp was filled with wounded. in every corner we met numbers of convalescent soldiers and officers, some of whom looked well; but the sufferings we saw, and heard of, were far too dreadful to relate, and in many cases death would have been a blessed relief from a state of hopeless torture. several vessels had already sailed, filled with convalescent wounded, for england. most of the wounded french, the wretched survivors of buonaparte's imperial army, were here. but what consolation had they to support them on the bed of pain and sickness? what glory awaited them when they returned to their native country? what was their recompense for their valour, their sufferings, their services, and their dangers?--broken health, and blighted hopes, and ruined fortunes, and blasted fame, were all they had to look to. they had not fought and bled for their country, but for a leader who had basely deserted them. surrounded by these bleeding victims of a tyrant's ungovernable ambition, i felt the truth that inspired the poet's lines-- "unblest is the blood that for tyrants is squandered, and fame has no wreath for the brow of the slave." and what british heart would not exclaim with him-- "but hail to thee, albion, who meet'st the commotion of europe, as firm as thy cliffs meet the foam, with no bond but the law, and no slave but the ocean-- hail, temple of liberty! thou art my home!" the night soon closed in upon us, and we could see the wounded no more. we went to rest, and enjoyed a night of more calm repose than it had ever yet been our lot to experience in antwerp. with what different feelings, and under what different circumstances, did i open my eyes on this sunday morning, to those which we suffered on the dreadful morning of sunday, the th of june, which we had spent here before! then horror and despair filled the minds of the people--then they were lamenting the imaginary destruction of that army for whose success they were now offering up thanks--for this was the _kennesgevin_, or day of thanksgiving, for the glorious victory of waterloo. we attended high mass at the cathedral, as we had done before--but with sensations how different! and if at that awful moment my prayers had ascended to heaven, to crown with victory and glory the arms of my country, the deep and fervent emotions of gratitude which filled my heart were now offered up in thanksgiving to the throne of divine mercy. the anxiety, the misery that i had endured when i was before within these aisles, was too poignant to be easily forgotten; but that remembrance made me feel more deeply the blessings which heaven had bestowed upon us. mass being over, we ascended by steps to the top of the tower, or rather of the staircase, of the cathedral, for its utmost pinnacle is accessible only to the winged inhabitants of air: but as we were not furnished with wings, we were obliged to content ourselves, instead of soaring higher, with gazing upon the magnificent prospect that lay below us. the men and women flocking out of the churches through the streets, looked exactly like a colony of ants swarming on the gravel walks of a garden in a sunny day: the streets and houses looked like the miniature model of a town in pasteboard; and the majestic scheldt like a long ribbon streaming through a measureless tract of country. however, the view was both various and beautiful. far as the eye could reach, the rich fields and woods of flanders, with its populous villages, its lofty spires, and noble canals lay extended around us, presenting a striking contrast to the cold, bare, triste, watery flats of holland, which were fresh in our remembrance; and flanders, no doubt, looked doubly beautiful from the recent comparison. we distinctly saw the fortifications of bergen-op-zoom on one side, and the steeple of vilvorde on the other. we traced the scheldt winding its course through a rich country down towards the ocean. upon its broad bosom lay the vessels waving with the flag of britain, and destined to carry home the troops who had so bravely fought and bled in her service, and for her glory. when i thought of the dreadful waste of human life and sufferings which the battle of waterloo had cost the world, it almost seemed as if it had been dearly purchased: yet in frequent indecisive battles, and in long-protracted campaigns, more blood might--must have been shed, without the same glorious or important results. in one great day, years of bloodshed and of toil had been saved. in one tremendous burst of thunder the war had ended, and the lightnings of heaven in that vengeful hour had descended upon the head of the guilty. the dark cloud which menaced europe had passed away, and the prospect was now calm, bright, and unclouded. the blood of britons had indeed flowed, but it had flowed in a noble cause, and it had not flowed in vain. it had secured present peace and security to the world, and it had left to future ages the proudest monument of british fame. but i forget that i am all this time upon the top of antwerp cathedral; and it is high time to descend from my altitude. when we once more reached the earth, we went to see a sort of religious puppet-show, called mount calvary. it had been "got up" with great care and cost, and must have required a world of labour; for there were artificial rocks and caverns, and heaven and hell into the bargain; and it was altogether a most edifying spectacle. there were the crucifixion, and the virgin mary, and st. paul, and st. peter,--and i dare say all the rest of the apostles, and at least fifty more holy persons, who were most likely saints, all as large as life, and made of white stone. there were also red-hot flaming furnaces of purgatory, filled with figures of the same materials; with this difference, that they were making horrible grimaces. there were also the sepulchre and the angel; and our friend mr. d. (the antwerp merchant), who took us to see this show, was in an ecstasy with it, and declared that all the paintings in the world were not to be compared to it--nay, that he did actually think that it was almost as well worth seeing as st. paul's or the monument;--but this he asserted more cautiously. we visited the house and the tomb of rubens with more veneration than we had paid to the shrines of all the saints. the people of antwerp almost adore the memory of this great artist. he was descended from one of the most ancient families in flanders; of noble birth and of splendid fortune. antwerp was the place of his birth and of his death, and his spirit still seems to hover over it; for never did i witness a passion for paintings, and a knowledge of the art, so universally diffused among all classes as in this town. all the merchants, and even the petty shopkeepers and tradespeople, have good paintings, both of the flemish and italian school. in every house they may be seen; and in every street even the lowest of the people may be heard to canvass their merits. they still lament over the loss of the fine paintings which were carried from the churches by the french; and they seemed particularly to grieve for their celebrated altar-piece, the pride of their city, which was taken from them. they petitioned and implored buonaparte with so much importunity and perseverance to restore to them this idol of their affections, that he at last promised it should be sent back. in process of time, and in conformity with his imperial word, there arrived the celebrated altar-piece of "the descent from the cross,"--correctly copied from the original by a modern french artist! the immortal touches of rubens were not there. the fraud was instantly discovered, and the people were indignant at this mockery of restitution. they told us they intended immediately to send deputies to paris to claim this and the other treasures of which they had been despoiled, and which now adorn the louvre. there are some very fine private cabinets of pictures in antwerp, which are opened to strangers with all that alacrity and politeness which in england, in such cases, we are so lamentably and notoriously deficient in. in one of these we saw the celebrated "chapeau pâle" of rubens. i was disappointed in it; probably from having had my expectations too highly raised by hearing its beauties extravagantly extolled. in fact, the subject does not call forth any great powers either of genius or execution. it is simply the portrait of a handsome woman with a very attractive countenance, and dressed in a very becoming grey beaver hat and feather; and both the lady and her hat are most beautifully painted. we saw some landscapes by rubens, some of which were very fine. there is no branch of painting which the versatile genius of this wonderful man did not lead him to attempt, and none in which he did not succeed. his scriptural and historical paintings, upon which rests his fame; his allegories, portraits, and landscapes, are well known: but i have seen a miniature picture of his performance, beautifully finished--a piece of fruit and flowers, very well executed, though in an uncommon style--and lastly, _an interior_, not a servile copy of teniers, ostade, or gerard douw, but marked with his own characteristic originality of manner and expression. this last piece is in the possession of a flemish gentleman at ghent. at antwerp we saw some beautiful landscapes by asselins and dietrichsen; a very fine holy family by murillo; and the death of abel by guido. the whole figure of abel prostrate on the earth, but especially the touching, the more than human expression of his face as he looks up at his brother and his murderer, is one of the finest things i ever beheld in painting. it is in that upward look of pathetic supplication and unutterable feeling that guido is unrivalled--it is his characteristic excellence. we saw some very fine paintings both by italian and flemish artists, but the fascination of the former, in spite of myself, riveted my eyes upon their never-satiating beauties. it is impossible not to feel the decided superiority of the italian over the flemish school of painting, in force, delicacy, and dignity of expression; in the power of transposing _soul_ into painting, if i may so express myself, and in all that constitutes the greatness and the sublimity of the art. but the flemish artists laboured under great natural disadvantages. they did not live beneath the brilliant sky that sheds its tints of beauty over the happier climates of italy and provence; they did not dwell in the enchanting vales and sunny mountains, or gaze upon the caverned rocks and romantic solitudes which formed and perfected the genius of a claude lorraine, vernet, salvator rosa, and poussin. fate threw berghem and both, and cuyp, under unkinder skies, and amidst less picturesque scenes; but in genius they are perhaps equal, if not superior, to the french and italian masters. nor were rubens, rembrandt, teniers, and many of the flemish artists, inferior to any in conception and execution, in originality, in invention, in truth of expression, and all the natural and acquired powers which constitute the perfection of the painter's art. and if the italian artists--if guido, raphael, buonarotti, carlo dolce, and correggio, possess a pathos and sublimity, a force, a grace, and an undefinable charm of expression, which makes their works unequalled on earth--let it be remembered that the flemish artists did not, like them, wake to life amidst the beauty and the harmony of nature; they were not surrounded by faces and forms of speaking, moving expression--of heavenly sublimity and soul-subduing tenderness. the "human face divine" was not moulded of the finer elements of beauty and of grace.--painting is an imitative art. the world which nature had spread before them they copied, but they could not create a new one. they were driven to seek in the habitations of men for the sources of that interest which the scenes of nature denied them; and their powerful and original genius, seizing upon the materials which surrounded them, formed for itself a new and distinct school. they were most faithful copies of nature. it is impossible to travel through belgium and holland and not notice at every step the landscapes of hobbima, the _interiors_ of ostade and gerard douw; the faces, figures, and humorous scenes which teniers has exhibited so often to our view; and to recognise at every turn the fat and fair, and well-fed and well-clad beauties of f. mieres. but the paintings and the painters of italy and flanders have led me far from my travels. to return to antwerp. after the bright-painted, well-scoured, baby-house looking towns of holland, the streets of antwerp appeared very grand and magnificent, but extremely dirty. remarking this to an english, or rather an irish officer, he laughed, and said they were beautifully clean in comparison of the state in which the british troops found them when they first came to the garrison. their complaints of the filthiness and unwholesomeness of the town produced no effect; and to their representations of the necessity of cleaning it, the magistrates answered, with offended dignity, that "the city of antwerp _was_ clean." the british commandant then ordered our soldiers to sweep the streets, and to pile up all the dirt against the houses of those magistrates who with so much pertinacity maintained that the city of antwerp was clean! the mountains of dirt collected by the soldiers in one morning blocked up the windows, and it was with difficulty that the magistrates could get out of their doors. when they did, however, they immediately bestirred themselves, convinced by more senses than one that the city of antwerp was _not_ clean; and they have taken due care ever since that the streets shall be regularly swept. the churches in antwerp were once extremely rich in silver shrines, images, ornaments, gold plate, and precious stones; but these treasures, the belgians said, had been carried off by buonaparte: upon more strict inquiry, we found that these alleged robberies of napoléon le grand had been committed eighteen years ago, most probably by the sacrilegious hands of the jacobin revolutionists, who would leave little or nothing for imperial plunder. on my remarking this to one of the belgians, he said, with a shrug of the shoulder, "ah! c'est égal--ces gens-là étoient tous les mêmes--les coquins!"--but whatever mischief has been done, they always lay it upon buonaparte, whom they hate with a bitterness surpassing all conception. the journey betwixt antwerp and brussels was quite new to us. the anxiety and agitation of mind which we had suffered on the day we left brussels for antwerp, had so completely engrossed every faculty, that the scenery on the way had not made the smallest impression on us. the objects of living interest, with which the road was then crowded, had alone fixed our attention. i could scarcely believe that i had ever travelled this road before, or ever seen the towns and villages through which we had so lately passed. i beheld the same harvest, which i then feared would be reaped in blood, ripening, to crown the hopes of the husbandman, beneath the blessing of heaven. my eye now rested with delight upon the corn fields, waving in rich luxuriance, the deep verdure of the meadows, and the lofty woods which diversified the prospect:--the peaceful and prosperous appearance of the country, and the contented, gladsome faces of the people, as they stood at their cottage-doors, "gay in their sunday 'tire," presented a happy contrast to the terrors and sufferings we had witnessed, and the still more dreadful and multiplied horrors which then seemed ready to burst upon this devoted country. we entered malines; but i did not retain the smallest recollection of it until we again reached the inn. from the inn-window i well remembered sorrowfully gazing into the market-place below, and contemplating the train of baggage-waggons, the confusion of english carriages, the parties of troops advancing, the wounded soldiers returning, and the affrighted countenances of the poor belgic peasantry, crowding together in dismay, with which it was then filled. now i beheld a very different scene:--a crowd of belgians, indeed, filled the market-place, but it was a joyous, not a trembling crowd. the people were all amusing themselves after their own fashion. some flocking to the church; others gazing at a wonderful puppet-show, which was stationed at the very door; others listening to a belgic ballad-singer, who was roaring out, in no very harmonious strains, the downfal of napoleon, and the warlike prowess of the belgians; and others were talking and laughing with most noisy glee. the sounds of innocent mirth and pious gratitude were indeed a blessed contrast to the terrors and anxiety we had before witnessed here. the _kennesgevin_, or thanksgiving, for the victory, and for the deliverance of the country, had been celebrated, and one priest mounting the pulpit after another, continued to preach a succession of homilies to the people, who might listen to as many or as few of them, as their piety or their taste dictated. we saw a young priest mount the pulpit, and some of the congregation, who had been assembled during the sermon of his predecessor, remained to hear him. he preached in the belgic language, therefore we could not understand him; his discourse was apparently extempore, and accompanied with much ungraceful gesticulation. in distant parts of the church, before the shrine of many a saint, numbers of pious votaries of both sexes were kneeling in silence; engaged in their private earnest devotions, without attending at all to the lectures of the priest, or being disturbed by those who, like us, were wandering up and down the long-drawn aisles and decorated chapels of this ancient cathedral. there is a perpetual going in and out, and moving backwards and forwards, during the whole service of the roman catholic church abroad. the people, as soon as they have finished their own prayers, walk off without ceremony, and are succeeded by others; which in a protestant church we should think a most scandalous proceeding; and indeed the service of the roman catholic church itself, both in england and in ireland, is conducted in a very different manner. it is a common practice here, as well as in france and italy, for strangers to walk about and examine the churches, paintings, &c., when the mass is performing; nor does it seem to annoy the congregation in the least. the roman catholic is the exclusive religion of belgium no other form of worship or religious persuasion seems to have any proselytes; indeed, it is only in consequence of a law enacted since the present king ascended the throne, that other religions have been tolerated. the belgians are very pious, and even bigoted; but they are not gloomy, they are lively bigots; apparently without a doubt to disturb the fulness of their faith; strict in their observances, gay in their lives, happy in the consolation their religion gives them here, and in its promises hereafter. comparing their character with that of their unbelieving neighbours, the french, i have no hesitation in preferring bigotry to infidelity. even the extreme of superstition is better than the horrors of irreligion and atheism. the church of malines is a fine old structure: the towers (for there are two) seem to have been built at an earlier period than the body. we were astonished at the magnificence of the interior. its magnitude, its antiquity, its lofty arches, its massive pillars, its rich altars, its sculptured figures, and its carved confessionals, have a very imposing effect; and the large, though not fine paintings which adorn its walls, and the decorations which piety has profusely spread over every part of this vast edifice, gave it an air of great splendour. foreign churches possess a decided advantage, to the eye of the mere spectator, over those of england, from being wholly unincumbered with pews, which certainly take from the grandeur and unity of the whole. the pulpit of carved wood in this church is most beautifully executed. it was done only a few years ago by a flemish artist. there are a few pieces of sculpture of ancient date carved in wood in basso relievo, and painted white, which i admired extremely. the expression given to some of the figures and faces is quite astonishing. we passed through vilvorde, half-way to brussels, where there is a strong _maison de force_ for the imprisonment and employment of criminals. at the little inn where we had before baited our horses, we stopped once more for the same purpose. the garçon remembered us immediately, and with a countenance of great glee expressed his delight to see us again, and described most vividly the distress they had experienced, and all the rapid and dreadful alarms that had succeeded to each other. he then reminded us of our parting prophecy, that the allies would be victorious, and that the french would never more penetrate into flanders, and he said, he had often thought of it since; and that it had proved true, for they had indeed seen no french, except "les françois blessés." we proceeded on our journey through a country still improving in beauty. sloping grounds, and woods and lawns, and country seats and pleasure-grounds, and meadows covered with the richest verdure, greeted our eyes as we advanced to brussels. we met and passed several of the diligences; tremendous machines in size, and in slowness, not unlike the vehicles which in england are used for the conveyance of wild beasts from one town to another. they were filled with an innumerable motley multitude, some of which were playing upon the fiddle, others singing, and all merry-making, as they jogged along. the road was much cut up with the passage of commissariat-waggons, long trains of which we frequently met upon the way. we drew near to brussels, and traversed the margin of that calm and quiet canal, which, when we left it, had presented a scene of such horrid confusion; and as we approached lacken we looked up at it once more, but with very different feelings to those with which we had gazed at it when we had passed it before, and recollected the boast napoleon had made the preceding day--"to-morrow i shall sleep at lacken." it was from hence that his premature pompous declarations to the belgic people were dated, announcing victory; which were even found ready printed in his carriage at charleroi, after his defeat and flight on the th of june. we entered a sort of wood. on each side of us, upon the grass and beneath the shade of the trees, there was a large encampment of tents, men, horses, waggons, huts, and arms; with all the accompaniments and confusion attendant upon such an establishment. it formed, however, a picturesque and animated scene; fires were burning, suppers cooking, men sleeping, children playing, women scolding, horses grazing, and waggons loading; while long carts and tumbrils were drawn up beneath the trees; parties of flemish drivers sitting on the ground round the fires, drinking and smoking; and people moving to and fro in every direction. this encampment belonged to the commissariat department. we passed the allée verte, usually the fashionable promenade for carriages on sunday evening; but though this was sunday evening, it was entirely deserted. the inhabitants of brussels had not yet, perhaps, resumed their habits of gaiety, and in fact the allée verte was nearly impassable, owing to the heavy rains and the immense passage of military carriages upon it. we entered brussels about the same hour that we had entered it for the first time. then, the british military were crowding every street; standing at every corner; leaning out of every window, in the full vigour of youth and hope and expectation: then, they were gaily talking and laughing, unconscious that to many it was the last night of their lives. now, brussels was filled with the wounded. it is impossible to describe with what emotions we read the words "militaires blessés" marked upon every door; "un, deux, trois, quatre," even "huit officiers blessés," were written upon the houses in white chalk. as we slowly passed along, at every open window we saw the wounded, "languid and pale, the ghosts of what they were." in the parc, which had presented so gay a scene on the night of our arrival, crowded with military men, and with fashionable women, a few officers, lame, disabled, or supported on crutches, with their arms in slings, or their heads bound up, were now only to be seen, slowly loitering in its deserted walks, or languidly reclining on its benches. the place royale, which we had left a dreadful scene of tumult and confusion, was now quite quiet, and nearly empty. it was in all respects a melancholy contrast, and it was with saddened hearts that we alighted at the hôtel de flandre, where they gladly received us again, and talked much of the eventful scenes that had followed our departure. colonel m., of the inniskillen dragoons, was in this hotel. he had been severely wounded in five different places; he passed the night after the battle on the road between waterloo and brussels, which was completely blocked up from the excessive confusion occasioned by the abandoned baggage and waggons. although his life had been despaired of, he was now recovering, and supposed to be out of danger. some english newspapers, which we borrowed, were indescribably interesting to us; every particular relative to the battle we read, or rather devoured, with insatiable avidity; but the list of the killed and wounded we could not get a sight of till the next morning. secure that none of our own friends were contained in it, we restrained our impatience and went to rest. little did we know the shock that awaited us! the misery of the following morning, when we saw the name of major l. among the list of severely wounded; and found him at last in a state of extreme suffering and danger! the days of deep anxiety and individual grief that followed i pass over in silence. nor can i bear to dwell upon the miseries it was our lot to witness; the still more excruciating and hopeless sufferings which we daily heard related, and the scenes of death and distracting affliction which surrounded us. how often was the anxious inquiry made with trembling eagerness for a wounded friend or relation--"where is he to be found?" how often, after a few minutes of torturing suspense, was the dreadful answer returned--"dead of his wounds!" numbers of the young and the brave, after languishing for weeks in hopeless agony, expired during our stay in brussels; and it happened more than once within our own knowledge, that the parents, whose earthly hopes and happiness were centred in an only son, arrived from england to see their wounded boy the very day of his decease--in time to gaze upon his insensible and altered corpse, and to follow the mortal remains of all they loved to the grave. the heart-broken countenance, and the silent, motionless grief of one old man, whom i saw under this dreadful affliction, made an impression on my mind too strong to be easily forgotten. despair seemed to have settled upon his soul, but he neither shed a tear, nor uttered a complaint. i could not even go from the hotel where we stayed to the house where major l. lodged, without passing crowded hospitals, filled with many hundreds of poor wounded soldiers; and although every attention that skill and humanity could suggest to contribute to their recovery was paid to them, both by the british government and the belgic people, their sufferings were dreadful. many of the british officers died in the common hospitals: they had been originally conveyed to them, and it was afterwards found impossible to remove them. at every corner the most pitiable objects struck one's eye. i could not pass through a single street without meeting some unfortunate being, the very sight of whose sufferings wrung my heart with anguish. numbers of young officers, in the very flower of life and vigour, pale, feeble, and emaciated, were slowly dragging along their mutilated forms. upon couches, supported by pillows, near the open windows, numbers lay to enjoy the fresh summer air, and divert the sense of pain by looking at what passed in the streets. but we knew too well, that the sufferings we saw were nothing to those we did not see. every house was filled with wounded british officers; and how many, like our old friend major l., were silently enduring lingering and excruciating torture, unable to raise themselves from the couch of pain! often, as i gazed at the soldier's frequent funeral as it passed along, i could not help thinking that, though no eye here was moistened with a tear, yet in some remote cottage or humble dwelling of my native country, the heart of the wife or the mother would be wrung with despair for the loss of him who was now borne unnoticed to a foreign grave. but let me not dwell upon these scenes of misery; their remembrance is still too painful--though it can never be erased from my mind. when at last we had the consolation of seeing our good old friend out of immediate danger, we dedicated one day to a visit to waterloo.[ ] on the morning of saturday the th of july, we set off to visit the field of the ever-memorable and glorious battle of waterloo. after passing the ramparts, we descended to the pretty little village of ixelles, embosomed in woods and situated close to the margin of a still, glassy piece of water. from thence we ascended a steep hill, and immediately entered the deep shades of the forest of soignies, which extends about nine miles from brussels. the morning was bright and beautiful; the summer sun sported through the branches which met above our heads, and gleamed upon the silver trunks of the lofty beech trees. on either side woodland roads continually struck in various directions through the forest; so seldom trodden, that they were covered with the brightest verdure. at intervals, neat white-washed cottages, and little villages by the road-side, enlivened the forest scenery. we passed through "vividolles," "la petite espinette," "la grande espinette," "longueville," and several other hamlets whose names i have forgotten.[ ] upon the doors of many of the cottages we passed, were written, in white chalk, the names of the officers who had used them for temporary quarters on their way to the battle; or who had been carried there for shelter in returning, when wounded and unable to proceed further. many we knew had died in these miserable abodes; but all the survivors, excepting one or two of the most severely wounded, had now been removed to brussels. it was impossible to retrace, without emotion, the very road by which our brave troops had marched out to battle, three weeks before, and by which thousands had been brought back, covered with wounds, in pain and torture. they alone of all that gallant army had returned; thousands had met a glorious death upon the field of battle, and the victorious survivors had pursued their onward march to the capital of france. i could not help asking myself, as we proceeded along, what would have been the consequences if the french and british armies had happened to encounter each other in the midst of this forest, instead of meeting, as they did, a few miles beyond it? had our troops been a little later in leaving brussels on the morning of the th of june, this must inevitably have been the case; for it was impossible that the advanced guard of belgic troops, which was stationed at the outpost of quatre bras, could have sustained the attack of the french, or have delayed their progress for any length of time. but if the hostile armies had encountered each other here, it would have been impossible that a general action could have taken place; the thick entangled underwood makes all entrance into the forest impracticable; and if they had attempted to fight, the road would soon have been choked up with dead. yet the english, i imagine, would not have retreated, since, if they had, they must either have abandoned brussels to the enemy, or fought under its very walls; and whether the french would have retreated till they came to open ground, or how they would have manoeuvred in such a situation, it was impossible for an unmilitary head like mine even to form a conjecture. during the battle, all the cottages and villages by the wayside had been deserted by their inhabitants, who fled in consternation into the woods, in expectation of the victory and immediate advance of the french, from whom they looked for no mercy. the road had been so dreadfully cut up with the heavy rains and the incessant travelling upon it, that notwithstanding three weeks of summer weather had now elapsed since the battle, the chaussée in the centre was worn into ruts upon the hard pavement, and in many places it was still so deep, that the horses could scarcely drag us through; the unpaved way on each side of the chaussée was perfectly impassable. along the whole way, shattered wheels and broken remains of waggons still lay, buried among the mud. their demolition was one of the many consequences that resulted from the violent panic with which the men who were left in charge of the baggage were seized towards the close of the battle. it was originally caused, i understood, by the belgic cavalry, great numbers of whom fled in the heat of the desperate attack made by the french upon our army in front of mont st. jean before the prussians came up. they were rallied and brought back by some british officers; but, unable to stand the dreadful onset of the french, they turned about again and fled in irretrievable confusion, trampling upon the wounded and the dying in their speed, and spreading the alarm that the battle was lost. with troops less steady, with any other troops, in short, than the british, the example of flight, joined to such an alarm, at this critical moment, might have occasioned the loss of the battle in reality. the men stationed in the rear in charge of the baggage, who knew nothing of what was going forward, believed at once the report, and, without stopping a moment to ascertain its truth, they set off at full speed. if the battle was lost, it was clearly their business to run away, and they could not be accused of neglecting this part of their duty. following the example of the belgians, they all set off full gallop in the utmost confusion, pell-mell, along the road to brussels. nothing is so infectious, nothing so rapid in its progress as fear: the panic increased every moment; the terrified fugitives overtook the carts filled with wounded, and encountered waggons and troops, and military supplies coming up to the field. it was impossible to pass: the road, confined on each side by the thickly woven and impenetrable underwood, was speedily choked up; those who were proceeding to the army insisted upon going one way, and those who were running away from it, persisted in going the other. the confusion surpassed all description; till at last, amidst the crash of waggons, the imprecations of the drivers, and the cries of the soldiers, a battle took place, and many were the broken heads and bruises, and various were the wounds and contusions received in this inglorious fray. it is even said, and i fear with truth, that some lives were lost. the baggage was abandoned, and scattered along the road; the waggons were thrown one upon another into the woods, and over the banks by the road-side; the horses, half-killed, were left to perish; and the wounded were deserted. over every obstacle these panic-struck people, frantic with fear, forced their way, and, pursued by nothing but their own terrified imaginations, they arrived at brussels, proclaiming the dreadful news that the battle was lost, and the french advancing! the fearful tidings extended from thence even into holland; and thus, in consequence of the cowardice of some belgians and baggage-men, the last and most dreadful alarm of sunday night was spread over the whole country. the road, the whole way through the forest of soignies, was marked with vestiges of the dreadful scenes which had recently taken place upon it. bones of unburied horses, and pieces of broken carts and harness were scattered about. at every step we met with the remains of some tattered clothes, which had once been a soldier's. shoes, belts, and scabbards, infantry caps battered to pieces, broken feathers and highland bonnets covered with mud, were strewn along the road-side, or thrown among the trees. these mournful relics had belonged to the wounded who had attempted to crawl from the fatal field, and who, unable to proceed farther, had laid down and died upon the ground now marked by their graves--if holes dug by the way-side and hardly covered with earth deserved that name. the bodies of the wounded who died in the waggons on the way to brussels had also been thrown out, and hastily interred. thus the road between waterloo and brussels was one long uninterrupted charnel-house: the smell, the whole way through the forest, was extremely offensive, and in some places scarcely bearable. deep stagnant pools of red putrid water, mingled with mortal remains, betrayed the spot where the bodies of men and horses had mingled together in death. we passed a large cross on the left side of the road, which had been erected in ancient times to mark the place where _one_ human being had been murdered. how many had now sunk around it in agony, and breathed, unnoticed and unpitied, their dying groans! it was surrounded by many a fresh-made, melancholy mound, which had served for the soldier's humble grave; but no monument points out to future times the bloody spot where they expired; no cross stands to implore from the passenger the tribute of a tear, or call forth a pious prayer for the repose of the departed spirits who here perished for their country! the melancholy vestiges of death and destruction became more frequent, the pools of putrid water more deep, and the smell more offensive, as we approached waterloo, which is situated at the distance of about three leagues, or scarcely nine miles, from brussels. before we left the forest, the church of waterloo appeared in view, at the end of the avenue of trees. it is a singular building, much in the form of a chinese temple, and built of red brick. on leaving the wood, we passed the trampled and deep-marked bivouac, where the heavy baggage-waggons, tilted carts, and tumbrils had been stationed during the battle, and from which they had taken flight with such precipitation. even here cannon-balls had lodged in the trees, but had passed over the roofs of the cottages. we entered the village which has given its name to the most glorious battle ever recorded in the annals of history. it was the headquarters of the british army on the nights preceding and following the battle. it was here the dispositions for the action were made on saturday afternoon. it was here on monday morning the dispatches were written, which perhaps contain the most brief and unassuming account a conqueror ever penned, of the most glorious victory that a conqueror ever won.[ ] waterloo consists of a sort of long, irregular street of whitewashed cottages, through which the road runs. some of them are detached, and some built in rows. a small house, with a neat, little, square flower-garden before it, on the right hand, was pointed out to us as the quarters of lord uxbridge, and the place where he remained after the amputation of his leg, until well enough to bear removal. his name, and those of "his grace the duke of wellington," "his royal highness the prince of orange," and other pompous titles, were written on the doors of these little thatched cottages. we also read the lamented names of sir thomas picton, sir alexander gordon, sir william de lancey, and sir william ponsonby, who had slept there the night before the battle, and many others who now sleep in the bed of honour. volumes of sermons and homilies upon the instability of human life could not have spoken such affecting and convincing eloquence to our hearts as the sight of these names, thus traced in chalk, which had been more durable than the lives of these gallant men. after leaving waterloo, the ground rises: the wood, which had opened, again surrounded us, though in a more straggling and irregular manner--and it was not till we arrived at the little village of mont st. jean, more than a mile beyond waterloo, that we finally quitted the shade of the forest, and entered upon the open field where the battle had been fought. during the whole of the action the rear of the left wing of our army rested upon this little village, from which the french named the battle. we gazed with particular interest at a farm-house, at the farthest extremity of the village nearest the field, on the left side of the road,--with its walls and gates and roofs still bearing the vestiges of the cannon-balls that had pierced them. every part of this house and offices was filled with wounded british officers; and here our friend major l. was conveyed in excruciating agony, upon an old blanket, supported by the bayonets of four of his soldiers. on the right we saw at some distance the church of braine la leude, which was in the rear of the extremity of the right wing of our army. from the top of the steeple of this church the battle might have been seen more distinctly than from any other place, if any one had possessed coolness and hardihood sufficient to have stood the calm spectator of such a scene; and if some cannon-ball had not stopped his observations by carrying off his head. alighting from the carriage, which we sent back to the barrière of mont st. jean, we walked past the place where the beaten down corn, and the whole appearance of the ground, would alone have been sufficient to have indicated that it had been the bivouac of the british army on the tempestuous night before the battle, when, after marching and fighting all day beneath a burning sun, they lay all night in this swampy piece of ground, under torrents of rain. we rapidly hurried on, until our progress was arrested by a long line of immense fresh-made graves. we suddenly stopped--we stood rooted to the spot--we gazed around us in silence; for the emotions that at this moment swelled our hearts were too deep for utterance--we felt that we stood on the field of battle! "and these, then, are the graves of the brave!" at length mournfully exclaimed one of the party, after a silence of some minutes, hastily wiping away some "natural tears." "look how they extend all along in front of this broken, beaten-down hedge--what tremendous slaughter!" "this is, or rather was," said an officer who was our conductor, "the hedge of la haye sainte;[ ] the ground in front of it, and the narrow lane that runs behind it, were occupied by sir thomas picton's division, which formed the left wing of the army; and it was in leading forward his men to a glorious and successful charge against a furious attack made by an immense force of the enemy, that this gallant and lamented officer fell. he was shot through the head, and died instantly, without uttering a word or a groan!" we gazed at the opposite height, or rather bank, upon which the french army was posted. we thought of the feelings with which our gallant soldiers must have viewed it, before the action commenced, when it was covered with the innumerable legions of france, ranged in arms against them. the solemn and portentous stillness which precedes the bursting of the tempest, is nothing to the awful sublimity of a moment such as this. the threatening columns of that immense army, which their valour had destroyed and scattered, were then ready to pour down upon them. the cannon taken in the action, which now stood in the field before us under the guard of a single british soldier, were then turned against them. the field-pieces taken by the prussians in the pursuit were not here. but pieces of cannon belonging to the british, and taken by them on the field of battle, still remained here. we went to examine them; they were beautiful pieces of ordnance, inscribed with very whimsical names, and some of them with the revolutionary words of liberté, egalité, fraternité! our own artillery, which was admirably served, had been principally placed in two lines upon the ridge of the gentle slope on which our army was stationed. about four o'clock in the afternoon the first line of guns advanced, and the second took the place which the first had before occupied; it was also placed upon every little eminence over the field, and it did great execution amongst the enemy's ranks.[ ] the ground occupied by sir thomas picton's division, on the left of the road from brussels, is lower than any other part of the british position. it is divided from the more elevated ridge where the french were posted by a very gentle declivity. to the right the ground rises, and the hollow irregularly increases, until at château hougoumont it becomes a sort of small dell or ravine, and the banks are both high and steep. but the ground occupied by the french is uniformly higher, and decidedly a stronger position than ours. nothing struck me with more surprise than the confined space in which this tremendous battle had been fought; and this, perhaps, in some measure contributed to its sanguinary result. the space which divided the two armies from the farm-house of la haye sainte, which was occupied by our troops, to la belle alliance, which was occupied by theirs, would, i think, scarcely measure three furlongs. not more than half a mile could have intervened between the main body of the french and english armies; and from the extremity of the right to that of the left wing of our army, i should suppose to be little more than a mile. the hedge along which sir thomas picton's division was stationed, and through which the scots greys, with the royals and the inniskillens, headed by lord uxbridge, made their glorious and decisive charge at the close of the action, is almost the only one in the field of battle. the ground is occasionally divided by some shallow ditches, and in one place there is a sort of low mud dyke, which was very much broken and beaten down. this was not on the ground our troops occupied, but rather below the french position; and excepting this, the whole field of battle is unenclosed. the ground is, however, very uneven and broken, and the soil a strong clay. it belongs to different farmers, and bore crops of different kinds of corn; but it is entirely arable land, and, excepting a very small piece on the french side, none of it was in grass. against the left wing of our army the attacks of the french were furious and incessant. buonaparte had stationed opposite to it the chief body of his corps de réserve, and fresh columns of troops continually poured down, without being able to make the smallest impression upon the firm and impenetrable squares which the british regiments formed to receive them. it was buonaparte's object to turn the left wing of our army, and cut it off from the prussians, with whom a communication was maintained through ohain, and who were known (at least by the commanders of the british army) to be advancing.[ ] the duke expected them to have joined before one o'clock, but it was seven before they made their appearance. on the top of the ridge in front of the british position, on the left of the road, we traced a long line of tremendous graves, or rather pits, into which hundreds of dead had been thrown as they had fallen in their ranks, without yielding an inch of ground. the effluvia which arose from them, even beneath the open canopy of heaven, was horrible; and the pure west wind of summer, as it passed us, seemed pestiferous, so deadly was the smell that in many places pervaded the field. the fresh-turned clay which covered those pits betrayed how recent had been their formation. from one of them the scanty clods of earth which had covered it had in one place fallen, and the skeleton of a human face was visible. i turned from the spot in indescribable horror, and with a sensation of deadly faintness which i could scarcely overcome. on the opposite side of the road we scrambled up a perpendicular bank, through which the road had evidently been cut. it was upon this eminence that the duke of wellington stood, beneath the memorable tree, from the commencement of the action, surrounded by his staff. it was here, we were told, that in the most critical part of it he rallied the different regiments, and led them on again in person to renew the shock of battle. here we stood some time to survey the field. immediately before us, nearly in the hollow, was the farm-house of la haye sainte, surrounded by a quadrangular wall, full of holes for musketry. at the commencement of the action it was occupied by the british, and it formed the most advanced post of the left centre of our army. it was gallantly and successfully defended by a detachment of the light battalion of the german legion, until nearly the close of the day, when their ammunition was exhausted; it was impossible to send them a supply, as all communication with them was cut off by the enemy, who at length succeeded in carrying it, after a most obstinate resistance; but its brave defenders only resigned its possession with their lives. on the opposite side of the road, a little behind la haye sainte, and immediately below the ground occupied by sir thomas picton's division, is a quarry which was surrounded by british artillery at the commencement of the battle. towards the close of the action it was filled with the wounded, who had taken refuge in it as a shelter from the shot and shells, and from the charge of the cavalry--when, horrible to relate! a body of french cuirassiers were completely overthrown into this quarry by a furious charge of the british, and horses and riders were rolled in death upon these unfortunate sufferers. the ghastly spectacle which it exhibited next morning was described to me by an eye-witness of this scene of horror. on the left, in the hollow between the two armies, we saw the hamlet of ter la haye, which was occupied by british troops;--its possession was never disputed by the enemy, although it was close advanced upon their position. beyond it, still farther to the left, were the woods of frischermont, and the road to wavre, from which the prussians issued through a narrow defile, and advanced to attack the right flank of the french. these woods bounded the prospect on that side. on the right stood the ruins of château hougoumont (or château goumont, as the country-people called it), concealed from view by a small wood which crowns the hill. it formed the most advanced post of the right centre of our army, and it was defended to the last with efforts of successful valour, almost more than human, against the overpowering numbers and furious attacks of the enemy. the battle commenced here about eleven o'clock. the french, suddenly uncovering a masked battery, opened a tremendous fire upon this part of our position, and advanced to the attack with astonishing impetuosity, led on, it is said, by jerome buonaparte in person, while napoleon viewed it from his station near the observatory on the opposite height. they were completely repulsed by the bravery of general byng's brigade of guards, but they succeeded in carrying the wood, which was occupied by the belgic troops. the french, however, after a dreadful struggle, were driven out of the wood again by the coldstreams and the third regiment of guards, and never afterwards were able to regain possession of it. the black brunswickers behaved most gallantly. in retrieving the consequences of the misconduct of the belgic troops, and in defending the château and the garden, the british guards performed prodigies of valour, though they suffered most severely. lieutenant general cooke, major-general byng, lord saltoun, the lamented colonel miller, who died as he had lived--a brave and honourable soldier; captain adair, captains evelyn and ellis; colonels askew, dashwood, and d'oyley, with many others, particularly distinguished themselves by their steady gallantry and personal valour. the house was consumed by fire, and numbers of the wounded perished in the flames; yet the british maintained possession of it to the last, in spite of the incessant and desperate attacks of the enemy, who directed against it a furious fire of shot and shells, under cover of which large bodies of troops advanced continually to the assault, and were driven back again and again with tremendous slaughter. without the possession of this important post the right flank of our army could not be attacked; it formed what is called the key of the position; from its elevation it commanded the whole of the ground occupied by our army, and had it been lost, the victory to the french would scarcely have been doubtful. opposite, but divided from it by a deep hollow, were the heights occupied by the french, upon which, at some distance, and secure from the storm of war, stands the observatory, where buonaparte stationed himself at the beginning of the action, and whence he issued his orders, and commanded column after column to advance to the charge, and rush upon destruction. his "invincible" legions, his invulnerable cuirassiers, in vain assaulted the position of the british with the most furious and undaunted resolution. in vain the vast tide of battle rolled on--like the rocks of their native land, they repelled its rage.--squares of infantry received the onset of the french columns; directed against them a steady and uninterrupted fire of musketry, and stood firm and unshaken beneath the most tremendous showers of shot and shell. every vacancy caused by death was instantly filled up: the enemy vainly sought for an opening through which they might penetrate the impenetrable phalanx; and when at last they receded from the ineffectual attack, the british cavalry rushed forward to the charge, and, notwithstanding their superiority of numbers, drove them back with immense slaughter. but i am relating the history of the battle, forgetful that i am only describing the field. from the spot where we now stood i cast my eyes on every side, and saw nothing but the dreadful and recent traces of death and devastation. the rich harvests of standing corn,[ ] which had covered the scene of action we were contemplating, had been beaten into the earth, and the withered and broken stalks dried in the sun, now presented the appearance of stubble, though blacker and far more bare than any stubble land. in many places the excavations made by the shells had thrown up the earth all around them; the marks of horses' hoofs, that had plunged ankle deep in clay, were hardened in the sun; and the feet of men, deeply stamped into the ground, left traces where many a deadly struggle had been. the ground was ploughed up in several places with the charge of the cavalry, and the whole field was literally covered with soldiers' caps, shoes, gloves, belts, and scabbards; broken feathers battered into the mud, remnants of tattered scarlet or blue cloth, bits of fur and leather, black stocks and havresacs, belonging to the french soldiers, buckles, packs of cards, books, and innumerable papers of every description. i picked up a volume of candide; a few sheets of sentimental love-letters, evidently belonging to some french novel; and many other pages of the same publication were flying over the field in much too muddy a state to be touched. one german testament, not quite so dirty as many that were lying about, i carried with me nearly the whole day; printed french military returns, muster rolls, love-letters, and washing bills; illegible songs, scattered sheets of military music, epistles without number in praise of "l'empereur, le grand napoléon," and filled with the most confident anticipations of victory under his command, were strewed over the field which had been the scene of his defeat. the quantities of letters and of blank sheets of dirty writing paper were so great that they literally whitened the surface of the earth. the road to genappe, descending from the front of the british position, where we were now standing, passes the farm-house of la haye sainte, and ascends the opposite height, on the summit of which stands la belle alliance, which was occupied by the french. we walked down the hill to la haye sainte--its walls and slated roofs were shattered and pierced through in every direction with cannon shot. we could not get admittance into it, for it was completely deserted by its inhabitants. three wounded officers of the nd and nd regiments were standing here to survey the scene: they had all of them been wounded in the battle of the th. one of them had lost an arm, another was on crutches, and the third seemed to be very ill. their carriage waited for them, as they were unable to walk. after some conversation with them, we proceeded up the hill to the hamlet of la belle alliance. the principal house on the left side of the road was pierced through and through with cannon balls, and the offices behind it were a heap of dust from the fire of the british artillery. notwithstanding the ruinous state of the house, it was filled with inhabitants. its broken walls, "its looped and windowed wretchedness," might indeed defend them sufficiently "well from seasons such as these," when the soft breezes and the bright beams of summer played around it--but against "the pelting of the storm," it would afford them but a sorry shelter. it was immediately to be repaired; but i rejoiced that it yet remained in its dilapidated state. the house was filled with vestiges of the battle. cuirasses, helmets, swords, bayonets, feathers, brass eagles, and crosses of the legion of honour, were to be purchased here. the house consisted of three rooms, two in front, and a very small one behind. on the opposite side of the road is a little cottage, forming part of the hamlet of la belle alliance; and at a short distance, by the way side, is another low-roofed cottage, which was pointed out to us as the place where buonaparte breakfasted on the morning of the battle. farther along this road, but not in sight, was the village of planchenoit, which was the head-quarters of the french on the night of the th.[ ] we crossed the field from this place to château hougoumont, descending to the bottom of the hill, and again ascending the opposite side. part of our way lay through clover; but i observed that the corn on the french position was not nearly so much beaten down as on the english, which might naturally be expected, as they attacked us incessantly, and we acted on the defensive, until that last, general, and decisive charge of our whole army was made, before which theirs fled in confusion. in some places patches of corn nearly as high as myself was standing. among them i discovered many a forgotten grave, strewed round with melancholy remnants of military attire. while i loitered behind the rest of the party, searching among the corn for some relics worthy of preservation, i beheld a human hand, almost reduced to a skeleton, outstretched above the ground, as if it had raised itself from the grave. my blood ran cold with horror, and for some moments i stood rooted to the spot, unable to take my eyes from this dreadful object, or to move away: as soon as i recovered myself, i hastened after my companions, who were far before me, and overtook them just as they entered the wood of hougoumont. never shall i forget the dreadful scene of death and destruction which it presented. the broken branches were strewed around, the green beech leaves fallen before their time, and stripped by the storm of war, not by the storm of nature, were scattered over the surface of the ground, emblematical of the fate of the thousands who had fallen on the same spot in the summer of their days. the return of spring will dress the wood of hougoumont once more in vernal beauty, and succeeding years will see it flourish: "but when shall spring visit the mouldering urn, oh! when shall it dawn on the night of the grave!" the trunks of the trees had been pierced in every direction with cannon-balls. in some of them i counted the holes, where upwards of thirty had lodged:[ ] yet they still lived, they still bore their verdant foliage, and the birds still sang amidst their boughs. beneath their shade the hare-bell and violet were waving their slender heads; and the wild raspberry at their roots was ripening its fruit. i gathered some of it with the bitter reflection, that amidst the destruction of human life these worthless weeds and flowers had escaped uninjured. melancholy were the vestiges of death that continually met our eyes. the carnage here had indeed been dreadful. amongst the long grass lay remains of broken arms, shreds of gold lace, torn epaulets, and pieces of cartridge boxes; and upon the tangled branches of the brambles fluttered many a tattered remnant of a soldier's coat. at the outskirts of the wood, and around the ruined walls of the château, huge piles of human ashes were heaped up, some of which were still smoking. the countrymen told us, that so great were the numbers of the slain, that it was impossible entirely to consume them. pits had been dug, into which they had been thrown, but they were obliged to be raised far above the surface of the ground. these dreadful heaps were covered with piles of wood, which were set on fire, so that underneath the ashes lay numbers of human bodies unconsumed. the château itself, the beautiful seat of a belgic gentleman, had been set on fire by the explosion of shells during the action, which had completed the destruction occasioned by a most furious cannonade. its broken walls and falling roof presented a most melancholy spectacle: not melancholy merely from its being a pile of ruins, but from the vestiges it presented of that tremendous and recent warfare by which those ruins had been caused. its huge blackened beams had fallen in every direction upon the crumbling heaps of stone and plaster, which were intermixed with broken pieces of the marble flags, the carved cornices, and the gilded mirrors, that once ornamented it. we went into the garden, which had sustained comparatively little injury, while every thing around it was laid waste. its gay parterres and summer flowers made it look like an island in the desert. a berçeau, or covered walk, ran round it, shaded with creeping plants, amongst which honey-suckles and jessamines were intermixed, en treillage. the trees were loaded with fruit; the myrtles and fig-trees were flourishing in luxuriance, and the scarlet geraniums, july flowers, and orange-trees, were in full blow. my native country can boast of no such beauty as bloomed at château hougoumont: its rugged clime produces no fruitful fig-trees, no flowers rich in the fragrance of orange blossom:--but it is the land of heroes! "man is the nobler growth our realms supply, and souls are ripened in our northern sky." i saw the pure and polished leaves of the laurel shining in the sun, and i could not restrain my tears at the thought that the laurels, the everlasting laurels which england had won upon this spot, were steeped in the heart-blood of thousands of her brave, her lamented sons. but if not immortal in their lives, they will be so in their fame: their laurels will never wither; and no british heart, henceforward, will ever visit this hallowed spot without paying a tribute of veneration and regret to those gallant spirits who here fought and fell for their country. at the garden gate i found the holster of a british officer, entire, but deluged with blood. in the inside was the maker's name--beazley and hetse, no. , parliament-street. all around were strewed torn epaulets, broken scabbards, and sabretashes stained and stiffened with blood--proofs how dreadfully the battle had raged. the garden and courts were lined during the engagement with nassau troops, as sharpshooters, who did great execution. a poor countryman, with his wife and children, inhabited a miserable shed amongst these deserted ruins. this unfortunate family had only fled from the spot on the morning of the battle. their little dwelling had been burnt, and all their property had perished in the flames. they had scarcely clothes to cover them, and were destitute of everything. yet the poor woman, as she told me the story of their distresses, and wept over the baby that she clasped to her breast, blessed heaven that she had preserved her children. she seemed most grateful for a little assistance, took me into her miserable habitation, and gave me the broken sword of a british officer of infantry (most probably of the guards), which was the only thing she had left; and which, with some other relics before collected, i preserved as carefully as if they had been the most valuable treasures. it is a remarkable circumstance that amidst this scene of destruction, and surrounded on all sides by the shattered walls and smoking piles of "this ruined and roofless abode," the little chapel belonging to the château stood uninjured. its preservation appeared to these simple peasants an unquestionable miracle; and we felt more inclined to respect than to wonder at the superstitious veneration with which they regarded it. no shot nor shell had penetrated its consecrated walls; no sacrilegious hand had dared to violate its humble altar, which was still adorned with its ancient ornaments and its customary care. a type of that blessed religion to which it was consecrated, it stood alone, unchanged, amidst the wreck of earthly greatness--as if to speak to our hearts, amidst the horrors of the tomb, the promises of immortality; and to recal our thoughts from the crimes and sorrows of earth to the hopes and happiness of heaven. the voice of the divinity himself within his holy temple seemed to tell us, that those whom we lamented here, and who, in the discharge of their last and noblest duty to their country, had met on the field of honour "the death that best becomes the brave,"--should receive in another and a better world their great reward! blackened piles of human ashes surrounded us; but i felt that though "the dust returns to the earth, the spirit returns unto him that gave it." the countryman led me to one of these piles within the gates of the court belonging to the château, where, he said, the bodies of three hundred of the british guardsmen who had so gallantly defended it, had been burnt as they had been found, heaped in death.[ ] i took some of the ashes and wrapped them up in one of the many sheets of paper that were strewed around me; perhaps those heaps that then blackened the surface of this scene of desolation are already scattered by the winds of winter, and mingled unnoticed with the dust of the field; perhaps the few sacred ashes which i then gathered at château hougoumont are all that is now to be found upon earth of the thousands who fell upon this fatal field! it was not without regret that we left this ever-memorable spot, surrounded as it was by horrors that shocked the mind, and vestiges that were revolting to the senses. still we lingered around it, till at length, after gazing for the last time at its ruined archways and desolated courts, we struck into the wood, and lost sight for ever of the château hougoumont. the road to nivelles, which strikes off to the right from the highroad to genappe at the village of mont st. jean, passes the château on the other side. the right wing of the british army crossed this road, and in the deep ditches on each side of it we were told that human remains still lay uninterred. some of the party returned to mont st. jean by this road, which is considerably nearer; but my brother, my sister, and myself, once more crossed the field in order to pay another visit to la belle alliance. i could not be persuaded to go to see the skeleton of a calf which had been burnt in one of the outhouses of hougoumont, and over which one of the ladies of our party uttered the most pathetic lamentations. it seemed to fill her mind with more concern than anything else. at another time i might have been sorry for the calf; but when i remembered how many poor wounded men had been burnt alive in these ruins, it was impossible to bestow a single thought upon its fate. finding that her sensibility obtained no sympathy from me, the lady turned to my sister, and began to bewail the calf anew, till at last, wearied out with such folly, "out of her grief and her impatience," she exclaimed, "that she did not care if all the calves in the world had been burnt, compared to one of the brave men who had perished here." as we passed again through the wood of hougoumont, i gathered some seeds of the wild broom, with the intention of planting them at h. park, and with the hope that i should one day see the broom of hougoumont blooming on the banks of the tweed. in leaving the wood i was struck with the sight of the scarlet poppy flaunting in full bloom upon some new-made graves, as if in mockery of the dead. in many parts of the field these flowers were growing in profusion: they had probably been protected from injury by the tall and thick corn amongst which they grew, and their slender roots had adhered to the clods of clay which had been carelessly thrown upon the graves. from one of these graves i gathered the little wild blue flower known by the sentimental name of "forget me not!" which to a romantic imagination might have furnished a fruitful subject for poetic reverie or pensive reflection. while my sister was taking a view of the field of battle, and my brother was overlooking and guarding her, i entered the cottage of "la belle alliance," and began to talk to baptiste la coste, buonaparte's guide, whom i found there. he is a sturdy, honest-looking countryman, and gave an interesting account of buonaparte's behaviour during the battle. he said that he issued his orders with great vehemence, and even impatience: he took snuff incessantly, but in a hurried manner, and apparently from habit, and without being conscious that he was doing so: he talked a great deal, and very rapidly--his manner of speaking was abrupt, quick, and hurried: he was extremely nervous and agitated at times, though his anticipations of victory were most confident. he frequently expressed his astonishment, rather angrily, that the british held out so long--at the same time he could not repress his admiration of their gallantry, and often broke out into exclamations of amazement and approbation of their courage and conduct. he particularly admired the scotch greys--"voilà ces chevaux gris--ah! ce sont beaux cavaliers--très beaux;" and then he said they would all be cut to pieces. he said--"these english certainly fight well, but they must soon give way;" and he asked soult, who was near him, "if he did not think so?" soult replied, "he was afraid not." "and why?" said napoleon, turning round to him quickly. "because," said soult, "i believe they will first be cut to pieces." soult's opinion of the british army, which was founded on experience, coincided with that of the duke of wellington. "it will take a great many hours to cut them in pieces," said the duke, in answer to something that was said to him during the action; "and i know they will never give way." buonaparte, however, who knew less of them, and whose head always ran upon the idea of the english flying to their ships, had never dreamt that with a force so inferior they would think of giving him battle, but imagined that they would continue their retreat during the night, and that he should have to pursue them. it is said that he expressed great satisfaction when the morning broke and he saw them still there; and that he exclaimed, "ah! pour le coup--je les tiens donc--ces anglais!" before the engagement began he harangued the army, promising them the plunder of brussels and ghent. once, towards the close of the battle, he addressed himself to the imperial guard, leading them on to the brink of the hill, and telling them "that was the road to brussels." regardless of the waste of human life, he incessantly ordered his battalions to advance--to bear down upon the enemy--to carry every thing before them. he inflamed their ardour by the remembrance of past, as well as the prospect of present victory, and the promise of future reward: but he never led them on to battle himself--he never once braved the shock of british arms. it is not true as has been reported, that he was ever near lord uxbridge, or in any danger of being taken prisoner by the english. indeed, he exposed himself to very little personal risk--a proof of which is, that not one of those who attended him the whole day was wounded. la coste said, that at first, when he was told that the prussians were advancing, he obstinately and angrily refused to believe it, declaring it was the french corps under marshal grouchy.[ ] he then commanded this news to be spread amongst the army, and ordered marshal ney, at the head of two columns, each composed of four battalions of the old imperial guard, and seconded by all the available force of the french army, both cavalry and infantry, to charge, and to penetrate to the centre of the british position. he stood to witness the desperate struggle which ensued, and the final and complete overthrow of the _élite_ of his gallant army, of immensely preponderating force, by a handful of determined british troops; but when he perceived his "invincible legions" give way, and retreat in confusion before the grand simultaneous charge of the british army, which immediately ensued, led by the duke of wellington in person, who was amongst the foremost in the onset, he turned pale, his perturbation became extreme, and exclaiming, "all is lost--let us save ourselves" (tout est perdu; or, sauve qui peut!), or words to that effect; he put spurs to his horse, and galloped from the field. la coste expressly said, that he was among the first of the officers to set the example of flight.[ ] his own old imperial guard still remained--disputed every foot of ground--fought desperately to the last, and at length, overpowered by numbers, fell gloriously--as their leader should have fallen. but he!--not even despair could prompt him to one noble thought, or rouse him to one deed of desperate valour. he fled--as at egypt, at moscow, and at leipsic he had fled--while his faithful veterans were still fighting with enthusiastic gallantry, and shedding the last drop of their blood in his cause! was this the conduct of a hero? was this the conduct of a general? was this the conduct of a great mind? no! he had set his "life upon a cast, and he should have stood the hazard of the die." and for what did he abandon his army, and basely fly in the hour of danger? that he might be humiliated, pursued, and taken--that he might become a suppliant to that hated enemy whose ruin he had pursued with implacable hostility, and be indebted to their faith and generosity for life and safety--that he might live to hear his name execrated, and linger out a few years of miserable existence in exile, obscurity, and degradation. it has been said by his advocates and admirers, that he was not only a great man, but the greatest man who ever lived--and that his only fault was ambition. yes! napoleon buonaparte had, indeed, ambition; but it was selfish ambition; it was for power, not for glory; for unbounded empire and unlimited dominion, not for the welfare of his subjects and the prosperity of his country. he used the talents, the opportunities, and the power, with which he was gifted, and such as perhaps no mortal ever before enjoyed, not to save, but to destroy, not to bless, but to desolate, the world. the conduct of the leaders of the contending armies was as opposite as the cause for which they fought. while napoleon kept aloof from the action, lord wellington exposed himself to the hottest fire, threw himself into the thickest of the fight, and braved every danger of the battle. he issued every order, he directed every movement, he seemed to be everywhere present, he encouraged his troops, he rallied his regiments, he led them on against the tremendous forces of the enemy, charged at their head, and defeated their most formidable attacks. no private soldier in his army was exposed to half the personal danger that he encountered.[ ] all who surrounded him fell by his side, wounded and dying. all his personal staff, with scarcely an exception, were either killed or wounded. in the battle's most terrible moment, and most hopeless crisis, when our gallant army, weakened by immense losses, and by more than seven hours of unequal combat, were scarcely able to stand against the overwhelming number of fresh troops which the enemy poured down against them; when the recreant belgians fled, when every british soldier was in action, when reinforcements were asked for in vain; when no reserve remained, and no prospect of succour from our allies appeared, lord wellington, exposed to the hottest fire, calmly rode along the lines of his diminished army, animating and encouraging the men; directed fresh arrangements of his remaining forces; rallied in the fight, the wavering brunswickers, cheered on, and headed the brave british brigades,[ ] and finally, having repulsed the last tremendous attack of the enemy,--with the memorable words, "up guards! and at them!" led on the remnant of his gallant army to the most glorious victory a general ever won.[ ] nor was the conduct of the two generals on this day more opposite than that of the armies which they commanded, and the motives by which they were actuated. the french fought to obtain plunder and aggrandisement--the british to fulfil their duty to their country. well did their generals know this essential difference! buonaparte held out to his troops the spoils of belgium and holland. when he wished to animate them to the greatest exertions, he led them forward and told them, "that was the road to brussels!" lord wellington, in the most critical moment of the battle, held another language. "we must not be beaten," he said to his soldiers; "what will they say of us in england!" after the battle their conduct was equally different. the french had murdered numbers of their prisoners, and those whose lives they spared, they robbed, insulted, and treated with the utmost cruelty, shutting them up without food, without dressing their wounds, and subjecting them to every hardship and privation. the british, on the contrary, though irritated by the knowledge of these barbarities, protected the wounded french from the rage of the prussians, who would have gladly revenged the cruelties with which they had been treated by them. our wounded soldiers, who were able to move, employed themselves in assisting their suffering enemies, binding up their wounds, and giving them food and water--but the brave are always merciful. a countryman, who belonged either to la belle alliance, or to some of the neighbouring cottages, told me, that when he came here early on the morning after the battle, the house was surrounded with the wounded and dying of the french army, many of whom implored him, for god's sake, to put an end to their sufferings. but the agonising scenes which had so recently taken place here, and the images of horror which every object in and around la belle alliance was irresistibly calculated to suggest to the mind, were almost too dreadful for reflection. more pleasing was the remembrance, that it was here napoleon buonaparte stood when he prematurely dispatched a courier to paris with the false news that he had won the day; and that it was here the duke of wellington and marshal blucher accidently met, a few hours after, in the very moment of victory, when buonaparte was flying before their triumphant armies, himself the bearer of the news of his own defeat. [_see_ appendix, e.] the interview between the duke of wellington and marshal blucher was short, but it will be for ever memorable in the annals of history. they did not enter the house, but remained together a few minutes in earnest conversation. it is well known that blucher and the prussians continued the pursuit during the night. the remains of the british army rested from their toils on the ground, surrounded by the bleeding and dying french, on the very spot which they had occupied the preceding night--and lord wellington returned to waterloo. "as he crossed again the fatal field, on which the silence of death had now succeeded to the storm of battle, the moon, breaking from dark clouds, shed an uncertain light upon this wide scene of carnage, covered with mangled thousands of that gallant army whose heroic valour had won for him the brightest wreath of victory, and left to future times an imperishable monument of their country's fame. he saw himself surrounded by the bloody corpses of his veteran soldiers, who had followed him through distant lands, of his friends, his associates in arms, his companions through many an eventful year of danger and of glory: in that awful pause, which follows the mortal conflict of man with man, emotions, unknown or stifled in the heat of battle, forced their way--the feelings of the man triumphed over those of the general, and in the very hour of victory lord wellington burst into tears."[ ] the state of the wounded during this dreadful night may be conceived. not even a drop of water was to be had on the field to relieve their thirst, and none was to be procured nearer than waterloo. late as it was, and exhausted as our officers must have been with the fatigue of such unremitting exertions, many of them mounted their horses, slung over their shoulders as many canteens as they could carry, galloped to waterloo, a distance of more than two miles from almost every part of the field, filled them with water, and returned with it for the relief of the wounded men. i did not leave a corner of la belle alliance unrummaged, but i cannot say that i saw anything particularly worthy of notice: i ate a bit of intolerably bad rye-cake, as sour as vinegar, and as black as the bread of sparta, which nothing but the consideration of its having been in la belle alliance during the battle (which the woman assured me was the case) could have induced me to swallow:--but i need not stop to relate my own follies. i bought from the people of the house the feather of a french officer, and a cuirass which had belonged to a french cuirassier, who, they said, had died here the day after the battle. loaded with my spoils, i traversed the whole extent of the field, thinking, as i toiled along beneath the burning sun, under the weight of the heavy cuirass, that the poor man to whom it had belonged, when he brought it into the field, in all the pride of martial ardour, and all the confidence of victory, little dreamed who would carry it off. if he had known that it was to be an english lady, he would have been more surprised than pleased. i did not stop till i got to the old tree now known by the name of lord wellington's tree,[ ] near which he stood for a length of time during the battle, and beneath which i now sat myself down to rest. its massy trunk and broken branches were pierced with a number of cannon-balls, but its foliage still afforded me a grateful shade from the rays of the sun. it was between this part of the field and hougoumont that the lamented sir william ponsonby gloriously fell in the prime of life and honour, after repeatedly leading the most gallant and successful charges against the enemy, in which he took upwards of prisoners and two french eagles. the particulars of his death are well known. in the heat of the action he was unfortunately separated from his brigade, his horse stuck fast in the deep wet clay of some newly-ploughed land, and he saw a large body of polish lancers bearing down against him. in this dreadful situation he awaited the inevitable fate that approached him with the composure of a hero: he calmly turned to his aide-de-camp, who was still by his side, and it is said that he was in the act of giving him a picture and a last message to his wife, when he was pierced at once with the pikes of seven of the polish lancers, and fell covered with wounds. england never lost a better soldier, nor society a brighter ornament. he was deservedly beloved by his friends and companions, adored by his family, and lamented and honoured by his country. numbers of country-people were employed in what might be called the gleanings of the harvest of spoil. the muskets, the swords, the helmets, the cuirasses--all the large and unbroken arms had been immediately carried off; and now the eagles that had emblazoned the caps of the french infantry, the fragments of broken swords, &c., were rarely to be found, though there was great abundance upon sale. but there was still plenty of rubbish to be picked up upon the field, for those who had a taste for it like me--though the greatest part of it was in a most horrible state. it was astonishing with what dreadful haste the bodies of the dead had been pillaged. the work of plunder was carried on even during the battle; and those hardened and abandoned wretches who follow the camp, like vultures, to prey upon the corpses of the dead, had the temerity to press forward beneath a heavy fire to rifle the pockets of the officers who fell of their watches and money. the most daring and atrocious of these marauders were women.[ ] the description i heard of the field the morning after the battle from those who had visited it, i cannot yet recal without horror. horses were galloping about in every direction without their riders: some of them, bleeding with their wounds and frantic with pain, were tearing up the ground, and plunging over the bodies of the dead and the dying--and many of them were lying on the ground in the agonies of death. over the whole field the bodies of the innumerable dead, already stripped of every covering, were lying in heaps upon each other; the wounded in many instances beneath them. some, faint and bleeding, were slowly attempting to make their way towards brussels; others were crawling upon their hands and knees from this scene of misery; and many, unable to move, lay on the ground in agony. for four days and nights some of these unfortunate men were exposed to the beams of the sun by day, and to the dews by night; for notwithstanding the most praiseworthy and indefatigable exertions, the last of the wounded were not removed from the field until the thursday after the battle; and if we consider that there were at least british, besides the belgic, brunswick, and prussian wounded soldiers, and an incalculable number of wounded french--we shall find cause for surprise and admiration, that they could be removed in so short a time. their conveyance, too, was rendered extremely difficult, as well as inconceivably painful to the poor sufferers, by the dreadful and almost impassable state of the roads. the belgic peasantry showed the most active and attentive humanity to these poor wounded men. they brought them the best food they could procure; they gave them water to drink--they ministered to all their wants--complied with all their wishes--and treated them as if they had been their own children. an officer, with whom we are well acquainted, went over the field on the morning of the battle, and examined the ghastly heaps of dead in search of the body of a near relation; and after all the corpses were buried or burnt--in the same melancholy and fruitless search, many an englishwoman, whom this day of glory had bereft of husband or son, wandered over this fatal field, wildly calling upon the names of those who were now no more. the very day before we visited it, the widow and the sister of a brave and lamented british officer had been here, harrowing up the souls of the beholders with their wild lamentations, vainly demanding where the remains of him they loved reposed, and accusing heaven for denying them the consolation of weeping over his grave. i was myself, afterwards, a sorrowful witness of the dreadful effects of the unrestrained indulgence of this passionate and heart-breaking grief. in the instance to which i allude, sorrow had nearly driven reason from her seat, and melancholy verged upon madness. i have forced myself to dwell upon these scenes of horror, with whatever pain to my own feelings, because in this favoured country, which the mercy of heaven has hitherto preserved from being the theatre of war, and from experiencing the calamities which have visited other nations, i have sometimes thought that the blessings of that exemption are but imperfectly felt, and that the sufferings and the dangers of those whose valour and whose blood have been its security and glory, are but faintly understood, and coldly commiserated. i wished that those who had suffered in the cause of their country should be repaid by her gratitude, and that she should learn more justly to estimate "the price of victory." but it is impossible for me to describe, or for imagination to conceive, the horrors of waterloo! how gladly would i dwell upon the individual merits of those who fell upon this glorious field, had i but the power to snatch from oblivion one of the many names which ought to be enrolled in the proud list of their country's heroes! in the heat of such a battle, probably thousands have fallen, whose untold deeds surpass all that from childhood our hearts have worshipped. but that heroic valour and devoted patriotism, which in other days were confined to individuals and signalised their conduct--at waterloo pervaded every breast. every private soldier acted like a hero, and thus individual merit was lost in the general excellence, as the beams of the stars are undistinguished in the universal blaze of day. but it is not only the unrivalled glory of my countrymen in arms, of which i am proud, it is the noble use which they have made of their triumph. it is not only their irresistible valour in battle, but their unexampled mercy and moderation in victory which exalts them above all other nations. it has been justly said by those whom they conquered, that no other army than the british could have won the battles of quatre bras and waterloo: and no other army but the british, after such a battle and such a victory, after a long course of incessant warfare, after recent insults and wanton cruelties, and after ages of inveterate hostility and national animosity,--no other army but the british, in such circumstances, would have marched through the heart of that enemy's country, and entered that enemy's capital, as the british army marched through france and entered paris. we have only to remember what has invariably been the conduct of the french armies in their march through the countries they have conquered. we have only to picture to ourselves what _would_ have been their conduct, if they had triumphantly marched through england, and we shall then be able to appreciate the meritorious moderation of the british army. no plundered towns, no burning villages, no ruined houses marked their course; no outrage, no cruelty nor violence disgraced their triumphant progress. the french people received from their enemies that mercy which was denied them by their own soldiers. there is not a spot on the earth, from the burning sands of egypt to the frozen deserts of russia--from the black sea to the pillars of hercules--from the coasts of the baltic to the shores of the mediterranean, where the name of frenchman and of napoleon buonaparte is not dreaded and detested. whereever the power of buonaparte has been known, or his dominion felt, his name is uttered with execrations. wherever he has gone, his path, like that of the pestiferous serpent, has been traced by misery and desolation. but it is a proud reflection to every british heart, that there is not a country of the civilised world where england is not mentioned with respect and gratitude, and the very name of englishman coupled with blessings. i am too sensible of my own incompetency, and too conscious of my want of knowledge, to attempt to give any account of the battle itself. the deeds of my countrymen i can only admire--i am not qualified to record them. abler pens than mine must do justice to the events of this day of glory, which i cannot recal to memory without tears: but it was impossible to stand on the field where thousands of my gallant countrymen had fought and conquered, and bled and died--and where their heroic valour had won for england her latest, proudest wreath of glory--without mingled feelings of triumph, pity, enthusiasm, and admiration, which language is utterly unable to express. i stood alone upon the spot so lately bathed in human blood--where more than two hundred thousand human beings had mingled together in mortal strife: i cast my eyes upon the ruined hovels immortalised by the glorious achievements of my gallant countrymen. i recalled to mind their invincible constancy--their undaunted intrepidity--their heroic self-devotion in the hour of trial--their magnanimity and mercy in the moment of victory: i cast my eyes upon the tremendous graves at my feet, filled with the mortal remains of heroes.--silence and desolation now reigned on this wide field of carnage: the scattered relics of recent slaughter and devastation covered the sun-burnt ground; the gales of heaven, as they passed me, were tainted with the effluvia of death. i shuddered at the thought that, beneath the clay on which i stood, the best and bravest of human hearts reposed in death. oh! surely in such a moment and on such a spot, "some human tears might fall and be forgiven!" alas! those for whom i mourned sleep in death--and in vain for them are the tears, the praise, or the gratitude of their country: but though their bodies may moulder in the tomb, and their ashes, mingled with the dust, be scattered unnoticed by the winds of winter, their names and their deeds shall never perish--they shall live for ever in the remembrance of their country, and the tears which pity--gratitude--admiration--wring from every british heart, shall hallow their bloody and honourable grave. on earth they shall receive the noblest meed of praise; and oh! may we not, without impiety or presumption, indulge the hope, that in heaven the crown of glory and immortality awaits those who fell in the field of honour, and who in the discharge of their last and noblest duty to their country, "resigned their spirit unto him that gave it?" it was with difficulty i could tear myself from the spot--but after casting one long and lingering look upon the wood-crowned hill of hougoumont, the shattered walls of la haye sainte, the hamlet of la belle alliance, the woods of frischermont, the broken hedge in front of which sir thomas picton's division had been stationed, and which was doubly interesting from the remembrance that it was there that gallant and lamented general had fought and fallen; and after giving one last glance at the ever memorable tree beneath which i stood, i joined my brother and sister, who had been taking sketches at a little distance, and set off with them to mont st. jean--lightened of the load of my cuirass, which a little girl, who before the battle had been one of the inhabitants of la haye sainte, joyfully carried to the village for half a franc. on our return we entered the farm-house where major l. had been conveyed when wounded. the farm-house and offices enclose a court into which the windows of the house look. it is only one story high, and consists of three rooms, one through another. not only these rooms, but the barns, out-houses, and byres were filled with wounded british officers, many of whom died here before morning. in that last tremendous attack which took place towards the close of the day, before the arrival of the prussians (but which, thanks to british valour, was wholly unsuccessful), the battle extended even here. the french suddenly turned the fire of nearly the whole of their artillery against this part of our position, in front of mont st. jean, and a general charge of their infantry and cavalry advanced, under cover of this tremendous cannonade, to the attack. weakened as our army had been in this quarter with the immense loss it had sustained, they expected it to give way instantly, and that they should be able to force their way to brussels. the belgians fled at this tremendous onset. the british stood firm and undaunted, contesting every inch of ground. every little rise was taken and retaken. the french and english, intermingled with each other, fought man to man, and sword to sword, around these walls, and in this court, while cannon-shot thundered against the walls of the house, and shells broke in at the windows of the rooms crowded with wounded. such of the officers as it was possible to remove were carried out beneath a shower of musketry. but our troops maintained their ground in spite of the immense numbers of the enemy, and of a most tremendous and incessant fire; and after a long and desperate contest, the french were completely repulsed and driven back. they never for a moment gained possession even of this farm-house, much less of the village of mont st. jean, to which indeed the battle never extended. some cannon-balls indeed were lodged in the walls of the cottages, but the action took place entirely in front of the village, and its possession was never therefore disputed. the farmer's wife had actually remained in this farm-house during the whole of this tremendous battle, quite alone, shut up in her own room, or rather garret. there she sat the whole day, listening to the roar of the cannon, in solitude and silence, unable to see anything, or to hear any account of what was passing. it seemed to me that the utmost ingenuity of man could not have devised a more terrible punishment than this woman voluntarily inflicted upon herself. when i asked her what could have been her motives for remaining in such a dreadful situation, she said that she stayed to take care of her property--that all she had in the world consisted in cows and calves, in poultry and pigs--and she thought if she went away and left them, she should lose them all--and perhaps have her house and furniture burnt. she seemed to applaud herself not a little for her foresight. if the french, however, had been victorious instead of the english, the woman, as well as her hens and chickens, would have been in rather an awkward predicament. her husband first told me this story, which i could scarcely credit till she herself confirmed it. but he, honest man! had wisely run away before the battle had begun, leaving his wife, his pigs, and poultry to take care of themselves. she said she stayed in her room all that night, and never came down till the following morning, when all the surviving wounded officers had been removed, but the bodies of those who had expired during the night still remained, and the floors of all the rooms were stained with blood. she seemed very callous to their fate, and to the sufferings of the wounded; and very indifferent about everything except her hens and chickens. she led me to a little miserable dark cow-house, where general cooke (or cock, as she called him) had remained a considerable time when wounded, and it seemed to be a sort of gratification to her, that a british general had been in her cow-house. leaving this farm-house, we walked through the village of mont st. jean, and stopped at the little inn, where we found the rest of the party busily employed upon every kind of eatable the house afforded, which consisted of brown bread, and butter and cheese--small beer, and still smaller wine. although i had rejected with abhorrence at château hougoumont a proposal of eating, which some one had ventured unadvisedly to make; and though it did seem to me upon the field of battle that i should never think of eating again, yet no sooner did i cast my eyes upon these viands than i pounced upon them, as a falcon does upon its prey, and devoured them with nearly as much voracity. they seemed to me to be delicious; and the brown bread and butter, especially, were incomparable. the woman of the house and her two daughters, who were industriously employed in plain needlework, related to us with great naïveté all the terrors they had suffered, and all the horrors they had seen. like all the other inhabitants of the village, they had fled the day before the battle--not into the woods, but to a place, the name of which i do not remember, but which they said was very far off ("bien loin"). several cannon-balls had lodged in the walls about this house, although it was at the extremity of the village, farthest from the field. having finished our frugal repast, for which these kind and simple people asked a most trifling recompense, we left mont st. jean, passed through the village of waterloo for the last time, and returned to brussels with an impression on our minds, from our visit to the field of waterloo, which no time can efface. it was on wednesday, the th of july, that we learnt the astonishing news that napoleon buonaparte had surrendered himself to the british, and was actually a prisoner on board the bellerophon. an aide-de-camp of the king of france, going express to the king of holland at the hague, was the bearer of this important intelligence. it was communicated to us by general murray, who came in with a countenance radiant with joy, and scarcely could my sister and i, in our transports, refrain from embracing the good old general. he had himself seen the aide-de-camp of louis xviii.; yet this news was so unexpected, so wonderful--and above all so good; that scarcely could it be credited. could it indeed be possible that napoleon--the dreaded napoleon--was really a prisoner to the english! all ranks of people were breathless with expectation, and with trembling eagerness and anxious inquiries awaited further intelligence. in a few hours it was confirmed beyond a possibility of doubt.--"buonaparte est pris!--il est pris!--c'est vrai--c'est bien vrai!" cried m. weerid, the belgic gentleman in whose house major l. was an inmate, bursting into his room with a turbulence of joy ill-suited to the suffering state of our poor wounded friend. the loud acclamations of the populace--the ejaculations of thanksgiving and tears of joy which burst from the women--and the curses which were freely bestowed on him by the men--proved the strength of their terror, and the bitterness of their detestation. it was our fate to be the bearers of this intelligence almost the whole way through belgium. so slowly does news travel in this country, that although it had arrived in brussels at five o'clock in the afternoon, and we did not set off till eight the following morning, no rumours of it had been received in any of the towns or villages through which we passed; and we even found the good people of ghent in profound ignorance of it. but the belgians were slow of belief, and the transport and the vociferous joy with which it was uniformly received at first, were generally followed by doubts and fears, and fervent wishes for its truth. at the inn at alost we found a party comfortably sitting down to dinner at twelve o'clock, at the well-spread table d'hôte. no sooner had i mentioned this news than knives and forks were thrown down, plates and dishes abandoned. an old fat belgic gentleman, overturning his soup plate, literally jumped for joy; another, more nimble, began to caper up and down the room. a corpulent lady, in attempting to articulate her transport, was nearly choked, like little hunchback, with a fish-bone; and the demonstrations of joy shown by the rest of the party were not less extravagant. one old man, however, shook his head in sign of incredulity, and said with fervour, when i assured him that buonaparte was really a prisoner to the english, "that he should have lived long enough if he ever lived to see that day." nothing amused me more, however, than the squall set up by an old country-woman, who shook my hand till she nearly wrung it off, and then, shocked at what she had done, burst forth into apologies to me, exclamations of joy, and abuse of buonaparte, all in a breath. to my cost, however, the official account of this important news did arrive at ghent, just after i had gone to bed. it had been more than twenty-four hours on its way, travelling at the rate of about a mile an hour; and much did i wish that it had been longer, for neither peace nor repose was now to be had. bonfires were lighted, guns fired, squibs and crackers let off in the streets, rockets sent up to the clouds, and both heaven and earth disturbed by the uproar. not satisfied with this, they took it into their heads to keep up a firing with muskets under my windows; and the inhabitants and the english soldiers, royally drunk and loyally noisy, vied with each other in singing or rather roaring out the most discordant strains; and "god save the king," in english, and a variety of belgic songs in low dutch, were sung all at once, with the most patriotic perseverance, in the streets. by the time these outrageously loyal people found their way to bed, it was nearly time for me to get up, which i did at five o'clock, in order to see a very fine cabinet of paintings. the old flemish gentleman to whom they belonged, not satisfied with giving me permission to see them, had the politeness to rise at that unseasonable hour, in order that he might be ready to receive me, and to show them to me himself. what english gentleman would have got out of his bed before six o'clock in order to show his collection of paintings to a foreigner, a person of no distinction, of whom he knew nothing, who had no introduction to him, whom he had never seen before, and would most probably never see again? next day at nine o'clock we embarked from ostend for england in a large packet crowded with passengers. we set sail with a favouring gale, but the winds and the waves maintained their usual capricious and inconstant character, and after a succession of calms, contrary winds, and opposing tides, we found ourselves, late on the evening of the second day, at anchor within sight of the harbour of margate, but without a hope of reaching it till the following morning. in order to escape spending another night on board, we embraced the expedient of committing ourselves to a little boat, in which it seemed invariably to be our fate to end all our voyages. we were rowed ashore, and landed in the dark, at past eleven o'clock at night, upon the slippery and weed-covered rocks of margate, exactly six weeks after we had landed in the same manner, at the same hour, and the same day of the week, on the deep and deserted sands of ostend. in that six weeks what a change had taken place! when i left england, buonaparte was the terror of the world--europe was arming against him, and his threatening hosts were ready to overwhelm it again with ruin. when i returned, these tremendous armies were defeated and scattered--the victorious troops of england were in the capital of france; and buonaparte himself, fallen from the highest imperial throne of the universe to the lowest abyss of fortune, was a prisoner on board a british ship of war, and a suppliant to the mercy of my country! events so extraordinary and improbable, and changes so sudden and so wonderful, seemed to outrun the rapidity of imagination itself, and to exceed the limits of possibility. the past seemed like a dream. scarcely, on retrospection, could we believe it to be real, or be convinced that the scenes we had witnessed, since our departure from england, had not been the illusions of fancy, or the "baseless fabric of a vision." they bore more resemblance to the shifting and imaginary scenes represented on the stage, than to events which had actually happened on the great theatre of the world. it had indeed been a great and a bloody tragedy, and it had been our lot to witness it from the first to the last scene. it began at our entrance, it finished at our departure from brussels. the news of buonaparte having attacked the prussians reached brussels at the very moment of our arrival--the news of his surrender to the british was received the night before we left it. in that six weeks the work of an age had been accomplished; an usurper had been dethroned; a monarch had been restored; a kingdom had been lost and won; a war had begun and ended; peace had revisited the world; and justice--strict, impartial justice--had descended upon the head of the guilty. and all this was the work of england! yet it has been asked--and i have often heard the question slightingly repeated by my own countrymen--"and what, after all, has england gained for years of war and bloodshed but glory?" i might answer that she has gained security, peace, and prosperity for the world, and for herself, besides, the highest place among nations: but granting that she had only gained glory--what, i ask in return, could she gain that is equivalent to it? what is there on earth to be compared to it? "is aught on earth so precious and so dear as fame or honour? or is aught so bright and beautiful as glory's beams appear, whose goodly light than phoebus' lamp doth shine more clear?" _faerie queen._ glory is the highest, the most lasting good. without it, extent of empire, political greatness, and national prosperity, are but a name; without it, they can have no security, and can command no respect; without it all other possessions are worthless and despicable--unstable and transitory. fortune may change; arts may perish; commerce may decay; and wealth and power, and dominion and greatness may pass away--but glory is immortal and indestructible, and will last when empires and dynasties are no more. what gives nations honour and renown in future times but the glory they have acquired? what exalted greece and rome to their proud pre-eminence among the nations, and transmitted the lustre of their name to the remotest time? why does the traveller still traverse distant countries, to explore with hallowed respect their mouldering temples, and linger with silent awe amidst the ruins of the parthenon, or on the site of the capitol? why does generation after generation contemplate with veneration the plains of marathon, and the heights of leuctra? why do they still retrace with enthusiasm the deeds of their departed heroes, and the long catalogue of their ancient glories?--it is to these ancient glories that they owe their present interest and importance. the nations of the east were possessed of unbounded wealth, magnificence, and power--and were long the seats of commerce, of the arts of life, and of learning, when the western world was immersed in ignorance and barbarism.--yet their antiquities are unexplored--their history neglected--their very existence almost forgotten; for they have left no proud remembrance, no ray of glory, to immortalise their name. if it had been extent of empire, or superiority of wealth, that gave nations lasting greatness, persia would have enjoyed that veneration which is now paid to athens. if it had been conferred by antiquity, or by being the birth-place of the arts and sciences, egypt would have stood upon that pedestal of fame which rome now fills. yes! england has nobly fought, triumphantly conquered and well has she been rewarded! she has gained that unalienable, imperishable prize, which neither time nor fortune, nor fate--nor any earthly power can ever wrest from her. she has won the immortal meed! generations yet unborn shall pride themselves on being the descendants of those who fought and conquered in the righteous cause of justice, honour, and independence, on the plains of spain, and on the glorious field of waterloo; and feel the throb of generous enthusiasm and of virtuous patriotism, when they retrace the bright history of their country's achievements. with these sentiments deeply impressed upon my mind; with the proud consciousness, that highly as the fame of england had stood in all ages, she had now attained an unparalleled height of greatness and glory; that the ancient triumphs of cressy, poictiers, and agincourt, in one age, of ramillies, malplaquet, and blenheim, in another, had been surpassed in those of salamanca, vittoria, and waterloo, in our own; that her name would descend to the latest times as unrivalled in arms, invincible by land and by sea, and pre-eminent, not only in valour, but in faith and honour--in justice, mercy, and magnanimity, and in public virtue--i returned to my country after all the varying and eventful scenes through which it had been my lot to pass, more proud than when i left it of the name of an englishwoman. footnotes: [footnote : the emperor charles v., in disparagement of the capital city of his rival, used to delight in saying, "je peux mettre tout paris dans _mon gand_." ghent, on the continent, is always spelt and pronounced gand, the same as _gant_, glove.] [footnote : i write it not grammatically, but as they pronounced it, with a strong emphasis on the last letter.] [footnote : it was not expected at that time that belgium would be the theatre of war, but that the allies would advance into france.] [footnote : afterwards, on our return to brussels, i observed an inscription on one of these fountains, purporting, that the czar, peter the great, having drunk too freely of wine, fell into its waters. the day and year are mentioned. it was, i think, about a century ago.] [footnote : [the nd and th should be added.--ed.]] [footnote : consisting of the th, nd, th, th, a battalion of the st, or royal scots, the nd, nd, and the nd battalion of the th, and a battalion of hanoverians. it was the first division which arrived, and, during the principal part of the day, it was the only part of the british army engaged.] [footnote : since writing the above, i have found that the names of these officers were lieutenant-general bourmont and colonel clouet. [_see_ appendix, a.]] [footnote : ney, in his own account of this battle, says, "in spite of my exertions, in spite of the intrepidity and devotion of my troops, my utmost exertions could only maintain me in my position till the close of the day." he then complains grievously of having had _only_ three divisions to fight against the british, and boasts of what he _would have done_ if he had had five.--_vide marshal ney's letter._] [footnote : subsequently, the news of the defeat and retreat of the prussians obliged the duke of wellington also to retreat, to keep open the communications with blucher.] [footnote : not even imagination could form an idea of the dreadful sufferings that the unfortunate soldiers of the french and prussian armies, who were wounded in the battles of the th and th of june, were condemned to endure. it was not until nearly a week afterwards that surgical aid, or assistance of any kind, was given to them. during all this time they remained exposed to the burning heat of the noonday sun, the heavy rains, and the chilling dews of midnight, without any sustenance except what their importunity extorted from the country people, and without any protection even from the flies that tormented them. numbers had expired; the most trifling wounds had festered, and amputation in almost every instance had become necessary. this, and every other necessary operation, was hastily and negligently performed by the prussian surgeons. the description i heard of this scene of horror, from some respectable belgic gentlemen who were spectators of it on the wednesday following, is too dreadful to repeat.] [footnote : this was, i find, only a proof of my ignorance; i afterwards learnt that wooden palisades add greatly to the strength of fortifications.] [footnote : afterwards marquis of anglesey] [footnote : at one time, as we afterwards learned, the duke had scarcely a single aide-de-camp left to dispatch with orders. all around him fell dead, or wounded. his preservation was miraculous. as he himself reverentially declared after the battle, "the finger of god was upon me."] [footnote : no doubt the gallantry of every british regiment was equally praiseworthy, but few had such opportunities of displaying it. and we naturally enough heard of the exploits of the brave highland regiments which had nearly been cut to pieces, and the remains of which, all wounded, had reached antwerp.] [footnote : [_see_ appendix, b.]] [footnote : the road from brussels to the field of battle was not for some time considered safe, on account of the number of deserters who had taken shelter in the woods, and issued forth, sometimes alone, and sometimes in a gang, to rob passengers and plunder the defenceless cottages and farm-houses of the surrounding country. neither property nor life certainly could be considered safe at the mercy of these armed desperadoes; but i never heard of any well-authenticated murder that they committed: and from all the inquiries i made, i believe that most of the horrible stories we heard of their enormities were entirely devoid of truth; and that the mischief, even in the way of plunder, they did, was very much exaggerated. even at the time we went to the field, great apprehensions were entertained by many people of these lawless deserters. large parties of these were brought in two or three times a week, during our stay in brussels. they consisted of belgic, nassau, and brunswick soldiers. there was some difficulty in procuring proper places of confinement for them. they were generally sent to the neighbouring maisons de force; what eventually was to be their punishment, or what has been their fate, i have never been able to learn.] [footnote : it is remarkable that every village in this part of the country has a french name, except waterloo, which is pronounced by the natives--according to the fashion of the london cockneys--_vaterloo_; the letter w being the exclusive property of the british people--with the exception of the aforesaid cockneys, who resign all claim to it.] [footnote : cæsar's celebrated _bulletin_, "veni, vidi, vici," was more concise, but not quite so unassuming.] [footnote : la haye sainte (the holy hedge). it gives its name to the farm-house of la haye sainte. i could not hear from any of the country people why it was distinguished by the epithet "sainte." they did not seem to have any tradition respecting it.] [footnote : an order had been issued not to fire at the enemy's field-pieces, but at the troops. however, during the latter part of the action, a young officer of artillery, out of patience with the destruction caused among his men, and particularly with the loss of captain bolton, his friend and brother officer, from the fire of some guns opposite, levelled his cannon at them, and had the satisfaction to see the french artillerymen, and officers who commanded them, fall in their turn. at that moment he was accosted suddenly by the duke of wellington, whom he had no idea was near--"what are you firing at there?" the artillery officer confessed what he was about. "keep a good look out to your left," said the duke, "you will see a large body of the enemy advancing just now--fire at them." they soon perceived a tremendous number of the imperial guards, the _élite_ of the army, advancing with great order and steadiness to attack the british. the moment they appeared in view, the officer to whom the duke had spoken, directed against them such a tremendous and effective fire, that they were mowed down by ranks. this gallant young officer had volunteered his services, and was one of the brigade attached to the second division of our army.] [footnote : it is, however, a remarkable fact, and does additional honour to the resolute, invincible constancy of british soldiers, that nearly all the officers, and the whole of the privates of the british army, were ignorant that there was any expectation of the arrival of the prussians. indeed, many of them never knew till after the battle was over that they had joined.] [footnote : in this part of belgium, the wheat had this year grown to full five feet in height, and rye upwards of six feet: great quantities of the latter are grown, for it answers to the liberal definition of oats by dr. johnson, and is the food of men in england, and of horses in flanders; nay, it is actually baked into bread for their use, and regularly given them at the inns where they stop to bait. several soldiers of the highland regiments who had got into a field of this gigantic rye on the th, were shot without even being able to see their enemy.] [footnote : buonaparte slept at the farm of caillon, near planchenoit.] [footnote : these memorable beech-trees, pierced through and through with balls, have been since all cut down by the owner of château hougoumont!!!] [footnote : in other pits the corpses of the french had also been burned. about eight thousand of the french army fell in the attack of hougoumont.] [footnote : that buonaparte pretended to believe those troops to be french, although he must have known the contrary, is unquestionably true. marshal ney, in his account of the battle, states that he received a message from the emperor, brought by general labedoyère, to inform him "that the french corps under marshal grouchy had arrived in the field, and attacked the left wing of the british and prussians united. general labedoyère rode along the lines, spreading this intelligence through the whole army."--vide _marshal ney's letter_. [_see_ appendix, c.]] [footnote : this statement too is confirmed by marshal ney, who said, "that buonaparte had entirely disappeared before the end of the battle." let it be remembered that ney's letter was written exactly a week after the battle, while napoleon was still emperor, and still in paris, and, if his statement was not true, a thousand witnesses could have contradicted it.] [footnote : the duke himself reverentially said afterwards, "the finger of god was upon me."] [footnote : it was near seven o'clock when this circumstance happened. the prussians had not appeared. the regiments which he led to the charge were the st, the nd, and the th. he also repeatedly rallied the belgic regiments, and sometimes vainly exerted himself to make them face the enemy.] [footnote : [_see_ appendix, d.]] [footnote : it was with a heart saddened by feelings which did him honour, that the duke of wellington returned from the battle. the letters which he wrote to the relations of the distinguished officers who had fallen, prove how truly he felt what he sorrowfully said, that "there is nothing more melancholy than a victory--except a defeat." i cannot resist inserting the following simple and affecting extract from one of his letters, written on the morning after the battle. "i cannot express to you," he writes, "the regret and sorrow with which i look around me, and contemplate the losses which i have sustained. they have quite broken me down. the glory resulting from such actions, so dearly bought, is no consolation to me." the extract in the text is taken "from circumstantial details relative to the battle of waterloo," which was written by the author to explain "a panoramic sketch of the field of battle," by her sister, both of which were published by j. booth, london, in august, , for the benefit of the waterloo fund.] [footnote : it is on the left of the road in going towards waterloo, behind the farm-house of la haye sainte. but this tree, which ought to have been for ever sacred, has been cut down!!!] [footnote : some soldiers' wives were, however, actuated by better motives, and, like the matrons of hensberg, in times of old, seemed to think their best treasures were their husbands. many of them rushed forward and carried their wounded husbands off the field at the hazard of their own lives. the wife of a sergeant in the th was severely wounded in two places by a shell, which struck her as she was carrying off her wounded husband. this anecdote was related to me by an eye-witness of the circumstance. the woman (respecting whom i inquired since my return to england) has, i understand, been allowed a pension from chelsea hospital. i heard of several similar instances of heroic conjugal affection; and i myself saw one poor woman, the wife of a private in the th, whose leg was dreadfully fractured by a musket-ball in rescuing her husband. when struck by the ball she fell to the ground with her husband, who was supposed to be mortally wounded, but she still refused to leave him, and they were removed together to the rear, and afterwards sent to antwerp. the poor man survived the amputation of both his arms, and is still alive. the woman, who was then in a state of pregnancy, has, since her return to this country, given birth to a child, to which the duke of york stood godfather.] a tribute to the memory of the duke of wellington. written the day after his funeral. th november, . the great arthur, duke of wellington, whose latest achievements in war form the subject of the preceding pages, is no more. long, long will the nation mourn the greatest, the most irreparable loss it ever sustained. the last sad and solemn scene has passed away. that great and wondrous man, who was its stay, its pride and glory, has been borne to his honoured tomb, amidst those splendid obsequies and funeral pomps with which his grateful country vainly sought to evince her unbounded admiration, her devoted love, and her profound veneration, for him who was her deliverer and preserver; to whom she owed her unprecedented triumphs in war--her prolonged blessings in peace. "his funeral pall has been borne by nations--not by the nations he enslaved, but the nations he liberated;--the truncheons of eight armies have dropped from his grasp, and they were borne in the funeral procession by the companions and allies of his arms and victories."[ ] but, nobler far, he was followed to the grave by the blessings and the tears of millions; and he, alone, amidst all the great generals and conquerors of the earth, merits the proud eulogium, that he was at once a true patriot and a benefactor to his species. eloquence has vainly exhausted itself in enumerating his merits and services; but words are powerless to speak his praises. they are felt in the hearts of the people of england. never did a chieftain, a conqueror, a hero, descend to the tomb so universally honoured and lamented. all ranks, all ages, all parties, unite in one unanimous sense of sorrow and bereavement. every man seems to feel that he, personally, has lost a benefactor, a protector--almost a parent. and as the light of the sun is not missed until it is withdrawn, so even his value was not perhaps fully felt until he was lost. but he is gone! "quenched is that light which was the leading star to guide every briton on the path of duty and honour."[ ] his name is surrounded by a pure halo of glory--not that ordinary vulgar glory which is the meed of the mere conqueror. no! the "hero of a hundred fights," who never knew defeat, sought not, valued not such glory; nay, more, he despised it; he never even named "its very name."[ ] his watchword was duty, and the path of duty, honour, and patriotism, he trod. what a striking contrast did his career present to that of napoleon, who sought that vain, false glory, through fields of fire and carnage, crushing the nations beneath his iron yoke, to aggrandise his selfish ambition, and reign the despot of a devastated world! how striking is the fact, that at the very time when, by the mysterious decree of providence, a buonaparte was sent to desolate and enslave the world, a wellesley was given to save and deliver it!--the one, the destroyer; the other, the preserver. they seemed like the incarnate principles of evil and of good; but the good triumphed: the conqueror and deliverer of distracted and bleeding europe became its pacificator; and through long years of peace and prosperity the nations which he saved from tyranny and ruin, have had reason to bless the name of wellington. will it yet be permitted to one british heart--simply "an englishwoman," who witnessed the most eventful scenes of his glorious campaigns, and proudly watched from first to last his high unblemished career--to offer, with the deepest veneration, a humble tribute of high and holy admiration upon the tomb of that hero whom, through life, her heart has worshipped. the one true hero! unequalled in the annals of history--unsurpassed even in the creations of romance; he, who never headed the battalions of his countrymen except in a just and righteous cause, and never once failed to lead them on to victory and honour; he, who was not only the "victor of victors," the greatest of conquerors, but also the greatest pacificator the world ever saw--for he used the triumphs of war only to obtain the blessings of peace;--he, whose first thought in victory was mercy, whose first care was to ensure, not the spoils, but the protection of the vanquished;--he, who, when he sheathed his conquering sword, consecrated the powers of his mighty genius, his mind, and life, to the welfare of his country; who worked her weal through evil report and good report, unmoved by the cabals of faction, the intrigues of power, and the slanders of malignity;--he, whose spirit, whilst he lived, was our shield and buckler, our stay and support; his counsels our best resource; his name our tower of strength; and his very existence our surest defence. alas, for england! woe! woe to our country! the grave has closed over him; but his sacred ashes shall still guard our land. around his honoured tomb every british heart will rally to rout and vanquish the hostile foe who dares to set foot on british ground. every heart will be roused, every arm raised to repel the insult. his name shall be our everlasting panoply of defence; his life, his example, his memory, shall live in our hearts, and to the latest posterity england's proudest boast shall be the name of wellington. footnotes: [footnote : _times_, november th, .] [footnote : lord lovaine's speech, november th.] [footnote : it is well known that the word "glory" does not once occur in the multifarious dispatches of the duke of wellington.] appendix. a. (p. ). the desertion of general bourmont did not take place during the battle of quatre bras, but on the day before. he and his staff joined the prussian general ziethen as the french were advancing on charleroi, on june . the mistake, however, is hardly the writer's fault, as sir f. head, the english authority for the statement, misprints the date. (see hooper's _waterloo_, p. .) b. (p. ). the decisive part which the prussian army played in the battle of waterloo is often overlooked, as it is here. readers must bear in mind that the junction of the two armies of the allies was preconcerted by wellington and blücher, and that the battle would not have been fought under other circumstances. it is true that the prussian advance from wavre, whence it had retreated after the battle of ligny on the th, was delayed, whereby an undue strain was placed upon and nobly borne by the english infantry, but the first prussian corps under bülow was known to be approaching by three o'clock. their advance on the village of planchenoit, on the right of the french position, caused napoleon to detach to his right , french troops, out of the , with which he began the battle, and at last engaged his attention so far as that he left ney to conduct the attack upon wellington's army. though it may be true, as mrs. eaton states, that the prussians did not "make their appearance" (_i.e._ to the british troops) till seven o'clock (p. ), they were nevertheless in conflict with the french for some hours before, and considerably modified their attack on wellington's position. c. (p. ). the allegations of cowardice brought against napoleon at the time, and frequently repeated, do not meet with the slightest support from accurate historians. it is almost certain that when wellington, on the th, withdrew his army from quatre bras to the position in which he accepted battle on the following day, napoleon was with the head of the french column which followed up the retreat, and was within cannon shot of the british artillery and of lord uxbridge, who commanded the cavalry. at the close of the battle of waterloo he showed no lack of courage. "during the attack of the imperial guard he had ridden as far as the orchard of la haye sainte; when the guard recoiled he had rallied them; when the nd and other regiments of the brigade pursued so promptly he had gradually fallen back with the steadier masses of the fugitives, surrounded by the truly _dévourés_ of those days, the veterans of the guard."--_hooper_, p. . it was only when the prussians, almost fresh upon the field, undertook the pursuit, that he diverged from the press and rapidly made his way to charleroi, where he obtained a carriage. d. (p. ). the celebrated order of wellington to the guards is perhaps, in its popular form, not quite authentic. when towards the close of the battle ney, unhorsed, was leading the column of the old guard up the slope of the british position, behind the crest of which the british infantry was lying, wellington said, "up, guards, and make ready!" they "sprang to their feet within fifty yards of the astonished french, and poured in a volley which struck the column like a bolt of iron ... and when the duke cried, 'charge!' and the british guards dashed forward with a cheer, ney's veterans broke and fled."--_hooper_, p. . the approach of cavalry caused the british to retreat to their position on the hill, but in the meantime the second column of the french guard had been routed by a bold and skilful charge of the nd regiment, followed up by cavalry, whilst the prussians were successfully pushing back the right wing of the french. then the english leader saw that his time, at last, was come. to quote again mr. hooper's stirring description: "on the ridge near the guards, his figure standing out amidst the smoke against the bright north-western sky, wellington was seen to raise his hat with a noble gesture, the signal for the wasted line of heroes to sweep like a dark wave from their coveted position, and roll out their lines and columns over the plain. with a pealing cheer, the whole line advanced just as the sun was sinking, and the duke, sternly glad, but self-possessed, rode off into the thick of the fight, attended by only one officer, almost the last of the splendid squadron which careered around him in the morning."--p. . e. (p. ). though the meeting of wellington and blücher at la belle alliance has been made the subject of a well-known picture, it is not founded on fact. the actual meeting took place nearer rossomme, some distance further south on the charleroi road, along which the routed army was struggling. from this point the pursuit was left to blücher's troops. london: printed by william clowes and sons, limited, stamford street and charing cross. [transcriber's note: a table of contents has been added for the reader's convenience. minor, obvious printer errors have been corrected without note. numbers in brackets are footnotes, which are set forth below the paragraphs in which they appear. numbers in parentheses appearing in the narrative are endnotes, which can be found in the notes to lady de lancey's narrative.] a week at waterloo in lady de lancey's narrative being an account of how she nursed her husband, colonel sir william howe de lancey, quartermaster-general of the army, mortally wounded in the great battle edited by major b.r. ward royal engineers london john murray, albemarle street, w. [illustration: major william howe de lancey th regiment c. .] "dim is the rumour of a common fight, when host meets host, and many names are sunk; but of a single combat fame speaks clear." --_sohrab and rustum._ contents list of illustrations introduction a week at waterloo in notes to lady de lancey's narrative appendix a--letters to captain basil hall, r.n., from sir walter scott and charles dickens appendix b--bibliography of lady de lancey's narrative index list of illustrations major william howe de lancey, th regt. of foot, c. . _from a miniature in the possession of wm. heathcote de lancey of new york_ _frontispiece_ the gold cross of sir wm. de lancey, received after serving in the peninsular war, with clasps for talavera, nive, salamanca, san sebastian, and vittoria. _in the possession of major j.a. hay_ _face p._ lady de lancey. _from a miniature after j.d. engleheart_ " part of an autograph letter of sir walter scott " part of an autograph letter of charles dickens " colonel sir william howe de lancey, _c._ " map of part of the battlefield of waterloo " the village of mont st jean, " the waterloo memorial in evere cemetery " a week at waterloo in introduction the following narrative, written over eighty years ago, and now at last given to the world in , is remarkable in many respects. it is remarkable for its subject, for its style, and for its literary history. the subject--a deathbed scene--might seem at first sight to be a trite and common one. the _mise-en-scène_--the field of waterloo--alone however redeems it from such a charge; and the principal actors play their part in no common-place or unrelieved tragedy. "certainly," as bacon says, "vertue is like pretious odours, most fragrant when they are incensed or crushed: for _prosperity_ doth best discover vice; but _adversity_ doth best discover vertue." as to the style, it will be sufficient to quote the authority of dickens for the statement that no one but defoe could have told the story in fiction. its literary history is even more remarkable than either its style or its subject. it is no exaggeration to say of the narrative--as bacon said of the latin volume of his essays--that it "may last as long as bookes last." and yet it has remained in manuscript for more than eighty years. this is probably unique in the history of literature since the invention of printing. as regards the hero of the narrative, the duke of wellington once said that he "was an excellent officer, and would have risen to great distinction had he lived."[ ] [footnote : _notes of conversations with the duke of wellington_, by earl stanhope, p. .] captain arthur gore, who afterwards became lieutenant-general gore, alludes to him in the following terms: "this incomparable officer was deservedly esteemed by the duke of wellington, who honoured him with his particular confidence and regard."[ ] [footnote : _explanatory notes on the battle of waterloo_, by captain arthur gore, , p. .] his ancestors, for several generations, had been men of great distinction, and he undoubtedly inherited their great qualities in a very high degree. the de lancey family is one of huguenot origin, the founder of the family,[ ] etienne de lancey, having fled from france at the time of the revocation of the edict of nantes in . [footnote : in french annals the family can be traced back to the time of the hundred years' war. the first of the name, of whom there is any authentic record, was guy de lancy, vicomte de laval et de nouvion, who in held of the prince bishop of laon and nouvion, villages and territories a few miles south of that city. see _history of new york during the revolutionary war_, by thomas jones, edited by edward floyd de lancey, vol i., p. , and _dictionnaire de la noblesse de france_, vol. viii., title "lancy."] the following extracts treating of the family history are taken from appleton's _cyclopædia of american biography_. the author of the articles, edward floyd de lancey,[ ] was born in , and died at ossining, n.y., on the th april . at one time he held the position of president of the new york genealogical society, and has done a great deal of work in the field of historical research. [footnote : for biographical sketch, _see_ appleton's _cyclopædia_, vol. ii., p. .] "etienne de lancey (great-grandfather of sir william de lancey), was born in caen, france, th october ; and died in the city of new york, th november . having been compelled, as a protestant, to leave france on the revocation of the edict of nantes ( th october ), he escaped into holland. deciding to become a british subject and to emigrate to america, he crossed to england and took the oath of allegiance to james ii. he landed in new york, th june . his mother had given him, on his departure from caen, a portion of the family jewels. he sold them for £ , became a merchant, and amassed a fortune of £ , . he married anne, second daughter of stephanus van cortlandt, rd january . he took a prominent part in public affairs, representing the fourth ward of new york as alderman in - , and was a member of assembly for twenty-four years. while sitting in the latter body he gave his salary, during one session, to purchase the first town-clock erected in new york; and with the aid of his partner imported and presented to the city the first fire-engine that had been brought into the province. the de lancey house, built by etienne in upon a piece of land given to him by his father-in-law, is now the oldest building in the city of new york."[ ] mr de lancey was buried in the family vault in trinity church, new york. [footnote : appleton's _cyclopædia_, vol. ii., p. .] three of his sons, james, peter, and oliver, left descendants. descendants of the eldest son, james, amongst whom were included edward floyd de lancey, the historian of the family, are resident in the city of new york, and also at ossining, n.y. descendants of the second son, peter, are now living in the county of annapolis, nova scotia.[ ] [footnote : for further details of this branch of the family, _see_ the _history of the county of annapolis_, by calnek and savary, pp. - and .] the third son, oliver, grandfather of the hero of the present narrative, went to england after the revolutionary war. no direct descendants of his in the male line would appear to be now living. the following is the account of his life as given in appleton's _cyclopædia_:-- "oliver, the youngest son of etienne, was born in new york city, th september ; and died in beverley, yorkshire, england, th november . he was originally a merchant, being a member of the firm founded by his father. he early took an active part in public affairs, and was noted for his decision of character and personal popularity. he represented the city of new york in the assembly in - , and served as alderman of the out-ward from till . he was active in military affairs during the entire french war, and, in , obtained leave from connecticut to raise men there for service in new york, for which he received the thanks of the assembly of his own province. in march he was appointed to the command of the forces then being collected for the expedition against crown point, and succeeded in raising the entire new york city regiment within ten days. he was placed at the head of the new york contingent, under general abercrombie (about strong), as colonel-in-chief. in the attack on fort ticonderoga, th july , he supported lord howe, and was near that officer when he fell mortally wounded. in november of the same year the assembly of new york again voted him its thanks 'for his great service, and singular care of the troops of the colony while under his command.' in he was appointed a member of the provincial council, retaining his seat until . in he was made receiver-general, and in colonel-in-chief of the southern military district of the province. 'in june ,' says the historian jones, 'he joined general howe on staten island; and, had that officer profited by his honest advice, the american war, i will be bold to say, would have ended in a very different manner to what it did.' in september of that year he raised three regiments of loyalists, largely at his own expense, of men each, known as 'de lancey's battalions.' of these regiments a brigade was formed, and colonel de lancey was commissioned brigadier-general in the loyalist service. he was assigned to the command of long island, where he remained during the war. one of his battalions served in the south with great credit, under his son-in-law, colonel john harris cruger, doing effective service in the defence of fort ninety-six against general greene. in november , his country-seat at bloomingdale, on the hudson, was robbed and burned at night by a party of americans from the water-guard at tarrytown, his wife and daughters being driven from the house in their night-dresses and compelled to spend the night in the fields, now the central park. having been attainted, and his immense estates in new york and new jersey confiscated, general de lancey retired to england, where he resided in beverley until his death. of his four daughters, susanna married sir william draper, while charlotte became the wife of sir david dundas, k.c.b., who succeeded the duke of york as commander-in-chief of the british army."[ ] [footnote : appleton's _cyclopædia_, vol. ii., p. .] in the life of van schaak, his decease is mentioned thus by a fellow-loyalist: "our old friend has at last taken his departure from beverley, which he said should hold his bones; he went off without pain or struggle, his body wasted to a skeleton, his mind the same. the family, most of them, collected in town (london). there will scarcely be a village in england without some american dust in it, i believe, by the time we are all at rest."[ ] [footnote : _loyalists of the american revolution_ (sabine), vol. i., .] stephen, the eldest son of brigadier-general oliver de lancey, and father of sir william de lancey, was born in new york city about ; and died in portsmouth, new hampshire, december . he was educated in england, and practised law in new york before the revolutionary war, during which he served as lieutenant-colonel of the "de lancey's" second battalion. after the war he was appointed chief justice of the bahama islands, and subsequently was made governor of tobago and its dependencies. his health becoming impaired while he held the latter office, he sailed for england to rejoin his family. but he grew rapidly worse on the voyage, and, at his own request, was transferred to an american vessel bound for portsmouth, n.h., where he died, and was buried a few days after his arrival.[ ] [footnote : the following is an extract from the parish register of st john's church, portsmouth, n.h. --------------------------------------------------------------------- " . | record of deaths. --------------------------------------------------------------------- decbr. th | his excellency, _stephen de lancy_, governour of | tobago, who died, the night after his arrival | in the harbour of this town, of a decline which | had been upon him for six months, aged | years." --------------------------------------------------------------------- mr de lancey was buried in the wentworth tomb, in st john's churchyard, where many of the wentworth governors of new hampshire and their families are buried.--ed.] sir william de lancey, soldier, only son of the preceding, was born in new york about ,[ ] and died in june , in consequence of wounds received at the battle of waterloo. he was educated in england, and early entered the british army. he served with great distinction under wellington in spain, and was several times honourably mentioned in his despatches.[ ] [footnote : this date agrees with the tradition handed down in the family with lady de lancey's narrative, to the effect that he was only thirty-four at the time of his death at waterloo.--ed.] [footnote : _vide_ gurwood's _despatches of the duke of wellington_, nd edition, vol. iii., pp. and ; vol. v., p. ; vol. vi., p. . sir harry smith, a soldier of soldiers--"inter milites miles"--speaks of him in his autobiography as "that gallant fellow de lancey." (_autobiography of sir harry smith_, vol. i., p. .)] [illustration: the gold cross of sir william de lancey. received after serving in the peninsular war. _in the possession of major j.a. hay._] at the close of the war he was made a knight of the bath. when napoleon landed from elba, wellington, in forming his staff, insisted on having de lancey appointed as his quartermaster-general. the officer really entitled to the promotion was sir william's brother-in-law, sir hudson lowe;[ ] but as wellington had conceived a dislike for him, he refused to accept that officer in that capacity. the military authorities, however, insisted on his appointment, and it was only when wellington made the promotion of de lancey a _sine quâ non_ of his acceptance of the supreme command that the former yielded.[ ] six weeks before the battle of waterloo, sir william married the daughter of sir james hall[ ] of dunglass, the scottish scientist. his bride accompanied him on the continent. on the second day of the battle[ ] sir william was knocked from his horse by a spent cannon-ball, and it was at first supposed that he had been instantly killed. thirty-six hours afterwards he was discovered, still alive and in his senses, but incapable of motion, although without any visible wound. notwithstanding the skill of the surgeons, and the tender care of his wife, he succumbed to his injuries nine days after the battle.[ ] [footnote : it was not till the th december --six months after waterloo--that sir hudson lowe married mrs susan johnson, sister of sir william de lancey. (_dictionary of national biography_, vol. xxxiv., p. .) see also _the creevey papers_, third edition ( ), p. .] [footnote : "wellington assumed command in the netherlands early in april , and lowe, who had been acting as quartermaster-general in the low countries under the command of the prince of orange, remained for a few weeks under him as his quartermaster-general; but having been nominated to command the troops in genoa designed to co-operate with the austro-sardinian armies, he was replaced in may by sir william howe de lancey." (_dictionary of national biography_, art. "lowe, sir hudson," vol. xxxiv., p. .) see also _the creevey papers_, third edition ( ), p. . the following extract of a letter from major-general sir h. torrens to earl bathurst, secretary for war, dated ghent, th april , alludes to the hitch about sir hudson lowe: "i shall communicate fully with the commander-in-chief upon the duke of wellington's wishes respecting his staff.... as you were somewhat anxious about sir hudson lowe, i must apprise you that he will not do for the duke." (_supplementary despatches of the duke of wellington_, vol. x., pp. and .) (_cf._ _the creevey papers_, third edition ( ), p. .) evidently sir hudson lowe was no more of a _persona grata_ to wellington than he afterwards became to napoleon! a letter from major-general sir h. torrens, who appears to have been acting at the time as military secretary to the duke of york, commander-in-chief at the horse guards, written to the duke of wellington from london on the th april , shows the high estimation in which the duke held de lancey's services:-- "de lancey is in town on his way to go out.... i told him the very handsome and complimentary manner in which you asked for his services, and assured him that nothing could be so gratifying, in my view of the case, to his military and professional feelings as the desire you expressed to me of having him again with you." (_supplementary despatches of the duke of wellington_, vol. x., p. .) that the duke felt deeply the interference of headquarters with his selection of staff officers is clearly shown by the following letter, written by him to earl bathurst, secretary for war, dated bruxelles, th may :-- "to tell you the truth, i am not very well pleased with the manner in which the horse guards have conducted themselves towards me. it will be admitted that the army is not a very good one, and, being composed as it is, i might have expected that the generals and staff formed by me in the last war would have been allowed to come to me again; but instead of that, i am overloaded with people i have never seen before; and it appears to be purposely intended to keep those out of my way whom i wished to have. however i'll do the best i can with the instruments which have been sent to assist me." (_supplementary despatches of the duke of wellington_, vol. x., p. .)] [footnote : see _dictionary of national biography_, vol. xxiv., p. .] [footnote : on the th june, at waterloo; the battle of quatre bras having been fought on the th.--ed.] [footnote : appleton's _cyclopædia_, vol. ii., pp. , .] there are several references to de lancey's death in the "_letters of colonel sir augustus s. frazer, k.c.b._, commanding the r.h.a. in the army under the duke of wellington, written during the peninsular and waterloo campaigns," edited by major-general sir edward sabine, r.a. on the th june sir augustus writes to lady frazer from mons: "i regret to state that poor de lancey is dead; so hume, the duke's surgeon, told me. he had opened the body; eight ribs were forced from the spine, one totally broke to pieces, and part of it in the lungs. poor de lancey! he is our greatest loss; a noble fellow and an admirable officer," p. . in connection with the foregoing, it will be interesting to compare the account of de lancey's wound given in the _dictionary of national biography_:-- "the duke of wellington gave the following version of the occurrence to samuel rogers: 'de lancey was with me, and speaking to me when he was struck. we were on a point of land that overlooked the plain. i had just been warned off by some soldiers (but as i saw well from it, and two divisions were engaging below, i said "never mind"), when a ball came bounding along _en ricochet_, as it is called, and, striking him on the back, sent him many yards over the head of his horse. he fell on his face, and bounded upwards and fell again. all the staff dismounted and ran to him, and when i came up he said, 'pray tell them to leave me and let me die in peace.' i had him conveyed to the rear, and two days after, on my return from brussels, i saw him in a barn, and he spoke with such strength that i said (for i had reported him killed), 'why! de lancey, you will have the advantage of sir condy in "castle rackrent"--you will know what your friends said of you after you were dead.' 'i hope i shall,' he replied. poor fellow! we knew each other ever since we were boys. but i had no time to be sorry. i went on with the army, and never saw him again."[ ] [footnote : "recollections of samuel rogers," under "waterloo." from the article on "sir william de lancey," by h. manners chichester, in the _dictionary of national biography_, vol. xiv., pp. , .] the following is the extract from wellington's official despatch of the th june, referring to de lancey:-- "i had every reason to be satisfied with the conduct of the adjutant-general, major-general barnes, who was wounded, and of the quartermaster-general, colonel de lancey, who was killed by a cannon-shot in the middle of the action. this officer is a serious loss to his majesty's service, and to me at this moment."[ ] [footnote : gurwood, vol. viii., p. . _cf._ _letters of colonel sir augustus s. frazer, k.c.b._, dated nivelles, june : "de lancey is said to be dead: this is our greatest loss, none can be greater, public or private," p. .] at the end of the despatch there is a _p.s._ announcing the death of major-general sir william ponsonby, followed by a second _p.s._ couched in the following terms: "i have not yet got the returns of killed and wounded, but i enclose a list of officers killed and wounded on the two days, as far as the same can be made out without the returns; and i am very happy to add that colonel de lancey is not dead, and that strong hopes of his recovery are entertained." that the duke felt keenly his severe losses in killed and wounded, especially amongst the members of his staff, is shown by the following reminiscence of general alava,[ ] as told by him, two years after the battle, to sir harry smith and his wife--the lady now immortalised by the name ladysmith, emblazoned on the colours or accoutrements of thirty-five british regiments. [footnote : a spanish naval officer who served on the staff of the duke of wellington during the peninsular war and at waterloo. alava enjoyed the unique distinction of having been present both at trafalgar and waterloo. at the former battle he commanded a spanish line-of-battle ship.--ed.] on the evening of the battle, "the duke got back to his quarters at waterloo about nine or ten at night. the table was laid for the usual number, while none appeared of the many of his staff but alava and fremantle. the duke said very little, ate hastily and heartily, but every time the door opened he gave a searching look, evidently in the hope of some of his valuable staff approaching. when he had finished eating, he held up both hands in an imploring attitude and said, 'the hand of almighty god has been upon me this day,' jumped up, went to his couch, and was asleep in a moment."[ ] [footnote : _autobiography of sir harry smith_, vol. i., p. .] the following is from general alava's official report of the action: "of those who were by the side of the duke of wellington, only he and myself remained untouched in our persons and horses. the rest were all either killed, wounded, or lost one or more horses. the duke was unable to refrain from tears on witnessing the death of so many brave and honourable men, and the loss of so many friends and faithful companions."[ ] [footnote : from the _supplement to the madrid gazette_ of the th july , quoted in the london _evening mail_ of august to august , .] the next morning, the duke wrote the following note to lady frances w. webster, dated "bruxelles, _th_ _june_ . "half-past in the morning. "my dear lady frances, "lord mount-norris may remain in bruxelles in perfect security. i yesterday, after a most severe and bloody contest, gained a complete victory, and pursued the french till after dark. they are in complete confusion; and i have, i believe, pieces of cannon; and blücher, who continued the pursuit all night, my soldiers being tired to death, sent me word this morning that he had got more. my loss is immense. lord uxbridge, lord fitzroy somerset, general cooke, general barnes, and colonel berkeley are wounded: colonel de lancey, canning, gordon, general picton killed.[ ] the finger of providence was upon me, and i escaped unhurt.--believe me, etc.,[ ] "wellington." [footnote : all the foregoing were on the general staff of the army or on the duke's personal staff.--ed.] [footnote : _supplementary despatches of the duke of wellington_, vol. x., p. .] captain gronow--a subaltern of the st guards at waterloo--gives us the following glimpse of the duke and his staff, on the morning of the th, before the opening of the battle:-- "the road was ankle-deep in mud and slough; and we had not proceeded a quarter of a mile when we heard the trampling of horses' feet, and on looking round perceived a large cavalcade of officers coming at full speed. in a moment we recognised the duke himself at their head. he was accompanied by the duke of richmond, and his son, lord william lennox. the entire staff of the army was close at hand: the prince of orange, count pozzo di borgo, baron vincent, the spanish general alava, prince castel cicala, with their several aides-de-camp; felton hervey, fitzroy somerset, and de lancey were the last that appeared. they all seemed as gay and unconcerned as if they were riding to meet the hounds in some quiet english county."[ ] [footnote : _recollections and anecdotes_, by captain gronow, p. .] colonel basil jackson, who in was a lieutenant in the royal staff corps, attached to the quartermaster-general's department (see dalton's _waterloo roll call_, p. ), gives the following interesting reminiscences of de lancey on the th, at quatre bras, and during the retreat to waterloo on the same day: "some few changes were made in the disposition of the troops after the duke of wellington arrived on the ground, soon after daylight; arms were then piled, and the men, still wearied with their exertions of marching and fighting on the preceding day, lay down to snatch a little more rest. the duke, too, after riding about and satisfying himself that all was as it should be, dismounted and stretched himself on the ground, very near the point where the road from brussels to charleroi crossed that leading from nivelles to namur, forming thereby the _quatre bras_.... "i remained for some time at a short distance from the great man, who occasionally addressed a few words to lord fitzroy somerset, sir e. barnes, de lancey, and others of his principal officers. he was then awaiting the return of sir alexander gordon, who had gone off by the namur road, some time between and o'clock, escorted by a squadron of the th hussars. i had seen this detachment start at a round trot, but of course knew not the object of despatching it; which, as we learned afterwards, was to gain intelligence of blücher's operations, whose defeat at ligny we, that is, the army generally, were ignorant of, though the duke was aware of it. "i availed myself of this period of quietness to go and examine particularly the ground which had been so hardly contested the day before.... "returning to the place where i had left the duke when i set out on my ramble round the outposts, i found him still on the same spot; where he remained till gordon and his escort came in with jaded horses, soon after o'clock. on hearing his report, the duke said a few words to de lancey, who, observing me near him, directed me to go to sir thomas picton, and tell him the orders were to make immediate preparation for falling back upon waterloo.... "just as the retreat commenced (about noon), i was ordered off to mont st jean, where i was told i should meet the quartermaster-general; accordingly i made for genappe, and as the high road was by that time filled with troops, being, moreover, careless of the farmer's interest, i took a short cut through the corn-fields, in such a direction as enabled me to strike into that village about its centre. there i found sad confusion prevailing; country waggons with stores, ammunition tumbrils, provision waggons, and wounded men, choked up the street, so that it was impossible for any one to pass. aware of the great importance of freeing the passage at a time when the retiring troops might be pressed by the enemy, i at once set to work to remedy the disorder that prevailed. let the reader picture to himself police constable c posted at the pastry-cook's corner where gracechurch street enters cheapside, at a moment when those passages, together with bishopsgate and leadenhall streets are blocked up by 'buses, drays, waggons, carts, advertising locomotives, private carriages, and dodging cabs, when that unhappy functionary is vainly striving to restore order and clear the ways, and he will have some idea of the difficulty i experienced in executing my self-imposed task. happily, i was acquainted with some pithy expressions in two or three languages, which were familiar to the ears of those i had to deal with; and these, together with the flat of my sword, proved very efficacious in the end. while in the thick of this scene of tumult and confusion, i felt some one clap me on the shoulder, and on looking round saw sir w. de lancey. 'you are very well employed here,' said he; 'remain, and keep the way clear for the troops; i shall not want you at waterloo.' encouraged by my chief's commendation i redoubled my efforts, and had soon the satisfaction of seeing the defile free."[ ] [footnote : "recollections of waterloo," by a staff officer, in _united service journal_ for , part iii., p. .] "a week after the battle"--to quote again from the article by h. manners chichester in the _dictionary of national biography_--"de lancey succumbed to his injuries, in a peasant's cottage in the village of waterloo, where he was tenderly nursed by his young wife, who had joined him in brussels a few days before the battle. according to another account, de lancey was laid down at his own request when being conveyed to the rear, and so was left out untended all night and part of the next day. rogers, in a note, states that he was killed by 'the wind of the shot,' his skin not being broken; and also that lady de lancey left a manuscript account of his last days." [illustration: lady de lancey from a miniature after j.d. engleheart] this manuscript account was written in the first instance by lady de lancey for the information of her brother, captain basil hall, r.n. the original manuscript has been lost sight of. an early copy, which was made by mrs basil hall, is now in the possession of their grand-daughter, lady parsons. copies would appear to have been made by members of the family at various times; but the existence of the narrative was apparently not known to edward floyd de lancey, the historian of the family in appleton's _cyclopædia_. besides the copy of the narrative made by mrs basil hall, another copy came into the possession of the poet rogers. this copy is now owned by w. arthur sharpe, esq., highgate, n. both the above versions--which contain only slight variations--have been consulted in the present edition of the narrative. captain basil hall, r.n. (vide _dictionary of national biography_, vol. xxiv., p. ), was a well-known author in his day, his best known work being _fragments of voyages and travels_, published in three series between and , and frequently reprinted since. in volume ii. of the first series, captain hall alludes to his first meeting with de lancey. it occurred on board h.m.s. _endymion_ on the morning of the th january , when the british troops had all been safely embarked on the transports, the second day after the battle of corunna. basil hall--then a lieutenant in the navy--and de lancey[ ] struck up a great friendship on the _endymion_, and the former introduced his soldier friend after the voyage home to his family in scotland. the marriage of de lancey six years afterwards to basil hall's sister magdalene was a result of this introduction. [footnote : de lancey was at this time a lieutenant-colonel and permanent assistant in the quartermaster-general's department (army list, , p. ). his first commission as a cornet in the th light dragoons bore the date th july (army list, , p. ), when he was only eleven years old. he was gazetted lieutenant in the same regiment on the th february , and was subsequently transferred to the th foot. on the th october he was gazetted captain in the th light dragoons, of which regiment his uncle, general oliver de lancey, was then colonel. he obtained a majority in the th (or nottinghamshire) regiment of foot on the th october . he was by this time eighteen years of age, and up to this date had probably no connection with the army at all beyond drawing his pay and figuring in the army list. even now he does not appear to have joined his regiment until its return from the west indies, a year or two afterwards (_dict. nat. biog._, vol. xiv., p. ). his first uniform was probably that of the th foot, and the portrait, forming the frontispiece of this volume, was in all likelihood painted on his first joining the regiment as a major in or . in the army list of he is shown on page as an assistant quartermaster-general. his actual regimental service can therefore hardly have exceeded two or three years. until his death in , he was continuously on the staff of the army in the quartermaster-general's department.] the following extract from captain basil hall's _fragments of voyages and travels_, gives an account of the first meeting of the two friends on board the _endymion_, and of the dramatic circumstances under which captain hall heard the news of his sister's marriage, and of de lancey's death at waterloo:-- "as we in the _endymion_ had the exclusive charge of the convoy of transports, we remained to the very last, to assist the ships with provisions, and otherwise to regulate the movements of the stragglers. whilst we were thus engaged, and lying to, with our main-topsail to the mast, a small spanish boat came alongside, with two or three british officers in her. on these gentlemen being invited to step up, and say what they wanted, one of them begged we would inform him where the transport no. was to be found. "'how can we possibly tell you that?' said the officer of the watch. 'don't you see the ships are scattered as far as the horizon in every direction? you had much better come on board this ship in the meantime.' "'no, sir, no,' cried the officers; 'we have received directions to go on board the transport , and her we must find.' "'what is all this about?' inquired the captain of the _endymion_; and being told of the scruples of the strangers, insisted upon their coming up. he very soon explained to them the utter impossibility, at such a moment, of finding out any particular transport amongst between three and four hundred ships, every one of which was following her own way. we found out afterwards that they only were apprehensive of having it imagined they had designedly come to the frigate for better quarters. nothing, of course, was farther from our thoughts; indeed, it was evidently the result of accident. so we sent away their little boat, and just at that moment the gun-room steward announced breakfast. we invited our new friends down, and gave them a hearty meal in peace and comfort--a luxury they had not enjoyed for many a long and rugged day. "our next care was to afford our tired warriors the much-required comforts of a razor and clean linen. we divided the party amongst us; and i was so much taken with one of these officers, that i urged him to accept such accommodation as my cabin and wardrobe afforded. he had come to us without one stitch of clothes beyond what he then wore, and these, to say the truth, were not in the best condition, at the elbows and other angular points of his frame. let that pass--he was as fine a fellow as ever stepped; and i had much pride and pleasure in taking care of him during the passage. "we soon became great friends; but on reaching england we parted, and i never saw him more. of course he soon lost sight of me, but his fame rose high, and, as i often read his name in the gazettes during the subsequent campaigns in the peninsula, i looked forward with a gradually increasing anxiety to the renewal of an acquaintance begun so auspiciously. at last i was gratified by a bright flash of hope in this matter, which went out, alas, as speedily as it came. not quite six years after these events, i came home from india, in command of a sloop of war. before entering the channel, we fell in with a ship which gave us the first news of the battle of waterloo, and spared us a precious copy of the duke of wellington's despatch; and within five minutes after landing at portsmouth, i met a near relation of my own. this seemed a fortunate rencontre, for i had not received a letter from home for nearly a year--and i eagerly asked him-- "'what news of all friends?' "'i suppose,' he said, 'you know of your sister's marriage?' "'no, indeed! i do not!--which sister?' "he told me. "'but to whom is she married?' i cried out with intense impatience, and wondering greatly that he had not told me this at once. "'sir william de lancey was the person,' he answered. but he spoke not in the joyous tone that befits such communications. "'god bless me!' i exclaimed. 'i am delighted to hear that. i know him well--we picked him up in a boat, at sea, after the battle of corunna, and i brought him home in my cabin in the _endymion_. i see by the despatch, giving an account of the late victory, that he was badly wounded--how is he now? i observe by the postscript to the duke's letter that strong hopes are entertained of his recovery.' "'yes,' said my friend, 'that was reported, but could hardly have been believed. sir william was mortally wounded, and lived not quite a week after the action. the only comfort about this sad matter is, that his poor wife, being near the field at the time, joined him immediately after the battle, and had the melancholy satisfaction of attending her husband to the last!'"[ ] [footnote : _fragments of voyages and travels_, by captain basil hall, r.n., , vol. ii., pp. - .] it was, as before stated, at captain hall's request that lady de lancey wrote the memorable waterloo narrative. in order to satisfy the natural curiosity of friends--who had probably heard of the narrative in captain hall's possession--lady de lancey prepared an abridged version, in more general terms, and of a much more reserved character than the original account, written for her brother only. this condensed account was found amongst the papers of her nephew, general de lancey lowe, after his death in . his widow published it in the _illustrated naval and military magazine_ for , p. . in some few instances this abridged account contains descriptive touches not given in the original narrative. these variations are given in the form of notes to the present edition of the narrative. thomas moore in his diary for the th august describes the circumstances under which captain hall lent him his copy of the narrative as follows:-- "a note early from lord lansdowne, to say that capt. basil hall, who is at bowood, wishes much to see me; and that if i cannot come over to-day to either luncheon or dinner, he will call upon me to-morrow. answered that i would come to dinner to-day. walked over at five.... company, only capt. basil hall, luttrel, and nugent, and an _ad interim_ tutor of kerry's.... hall gave me, before i came away, a journal written by his sister, lady de lancey, containing an account of the death of her husband at waterloo, and her attendance upon him there, they having been but three months married. walked home; took the narrative to bed with me to read a page or two, but found it so deeply interesting, that i read till near two o'clock, and finished it; made myself quite miserable, and went to sleep, i believe, crying. hall said he would call upon me to-morrow."[ ] [footnote : _memoirs, journal, and correspondence of thomas moore_, edited by lord john russell, vol. iv., p. .] earl stanhope, in his _notes of conversations with the duke of wellington_, p. , writes as follows: "i mentioned with much praise lady de lancey's narrative of her husband's lingering death and of her own trials and sufferings after waterloo. the duke told me that he had seen it--lord bathurst having lent it him many years ago." this conversation took place on the th october . the two most famous literary men to whom captain basil hall lent the narrative, were, however, sir walter scott and charles dickens. sir walter scott writes under date abbotsford, th october , that his publisher, constable, thinks that the narrative "would add very great interest as an addition to the letters which i wrote from paris soon after waterloo, and certainly i would consider it as one of the most valuable and important documents which could be published as illustrative of the woes of war."[ ] [illustration: part of an autograph letter of sir walter scott.] "i never read anything which affected my own feelings more strongly, or which, i am sure, would have a deeper interest on [_sic_] those of the public.... "perhaps it may be my own high admiration of the contents of this heartrending diary, which makes me suppose a possibility that after such a lapse of years, the publication may possibly (as that which cannot but do the highest honour to the memory of the amiable authoress) may [_sic_] not be judged altogether inadmissible....--most truly yours, "walter scott."[ ] [footnote : perhaps the _mémoires de madame la marquise de larochejaquelein_ of which four editions were published between and --one of the noblest and most touching of autobiographies--is the nearest parallel in literature to lady de lancey's narrative. the french marchioness describes her experiences in paris in , and during the insurrection of la vendée in .--ed.] [footnote : the complete letter will be found in appendix a of this volume.] [illustration: part of an autograph letter of charles dickens.] the following is a transcript of the most remarkable passages in dickens' letter:-- "devonshire terrace, _"tuesday evening_, _th_ _march_ . "my dear hall, ... "i have not had courage until last night to read lady de lancey's narrative, and, but for your letter, i should not have mastered it even then. one glance at it, when, through your kindness, it first arrived, had impressed me with a foreboding of its terrible truth, and i really have shrunk from it in pure lack of heart. "after working at barnaby all day, and wandering about the most wretched and distressful streets for a couple of hours in the evening--searching for some pictures i wanted to build upon--i went at it, at about ten o'clock. to say that the reading that most astonishing and tremendous account has constituted an epoch in my life--that i shall never forget the lightest word of it--that i cannot throw the impression aside, and never saw anything so real, so touching, and so actually present before my eyes, is nothing. i am husband and wife, dead man and living woman, emma and general dundas, doctor and bedstead--everything and everybody (but the prussian officer--damn him) all in one. what i have always looked upon as masterpieces of powerful and affecting description, seem as nothing in my eyes. if i live for fifty years, i shall dream of it every now and then, from this hour to the day of my death, with the most frightful reality. the slightest mention of a battle will bring the whole thing before me. i shall never think of the duke any more but as he stood in his shirt with the officer in full-dress uniform, or as he dismounted from his horse when the gallant man was struck down. it is a striking proof of the power of that most extraordinary man, defoe, that i seem to recognise in every line of the narrative something of him. has this occurred to you? the going to waterloo with that unconsciousness of everything in the road, but the obstacles to getting on--the shutting herself up in her room and determining not to hear--the not going to the door when the knocking came--the finding out by her wild spirits when she heard he was safe, how much she had feared when in doubt and anxiety--the desperate desire to move towards him--the whole description of the cottage, and its condition; and their daily shifts and contrivances, and the lying down beside him in the bed and both _falling asleep_; and his resolving not to serve any more, but to live quietly thenceforth; and her sorrow when she saw him eating with an appetite, so soon before his death; and his death itself--all these are matters of truth, which only that astonishing creature, i think, could have told in fiction. "of all the beautiful and tender passages--the thinking every day how happy and blest she was--the decorating him for the dinner--the standing in the balcony at night and seeing the troops melt away through the gate--and the rejoining him on his sick-bed--i say not a word. they are god's own, and should be sacred. but let me say again, with an earnestness which pen and ink can no more convey than toast and water, in thanking you heartily for the perusal of this paper, that its impression on me can never be told; that the ground she travelled (which i know well) is holy ground to me from this day; and that, please heaven, i will tread its every foot this very next summer, to have the softened recollection of this sad story on the very earth where it was acted. "you won't smile at this, i know. when my enthusiasms are awakened by such things, they don't wear out....--faithfully yours, "charles dickens."[ ] [footnote : the complete letter will be found in appendix a of this volume.] many literary and artistic masterpieces have grouped themselves round waterloo. one of the most striking passages in _vanity fair_ refers to an imaginary incident in connection with the battle. sir walter scott once said that in the whole range of english poetry there was nothing finer than the stanzas in _childe harold_, commencing with the line-- "there was a sound of revelry by night," and ending with the words-- "rider and horse, friend, foe, in one red burial blent." tennyson's _ode on the death of the duke of wellington_ ranks as a funeral dirge with _lycidas_ and _adonais_. napoleon's tomb in the invalides may hold its own almost with the tàj. yet, when all is said and done, the fact remains that no hero of the battle, and indeed few victims of war, have ever received a more touching memorial than the one here set forth in the sight of all future generations of men by the love and the literary genius of lady de lancey. b.r. ward. halifax, n.s., _april_ . [illustration: colonel sir william howe de lancey (_c._ ).] a week at waterloo in i arrived at brussels on thursday, th june , and was much surprised at the peaceful appearance of that town, and the whole country from ostend. we were billeted in the house of the count de lannoy, in the park, which is a square of very beautiful houses with fine large trees in the centre. the count de lannoy was very attentive, and we had a suite of very excellent rooms, up four stories, which is the fashion in that country, i believe. it was amusing enough, sometimes, to see from our windows the people parading in the park. i saw very little of the town, and still less of the inhabitants; for notwithstanding sir william's belief that we should remain quietly there for a month at least, i have the comfort of remembering that, as there was a chance we might separate in a few days, i wasted no time in visiting or going to balls, which i did not care for, and therefore i never went out, except for an hour or two every afternoon, to walk with sir william. the people in general dined between three and four, we dined at six; we walked while others were at dinner, so that literally i never saw anybody, except some gentlemen, two or three of whom dined with us every day--sir william's friends, whom he brought to introduce to me. i never passed such a delightful time, for there was always enough of very pleasant society to keep us gay and merry, and the rest of the day was spent in peaceful happiness. fortunately my husband had scarcely any business to do, and he only went to the office for about an hour every day. i then used to sit and think with astonishment of my being transported into such a scene of happiness, so perfect, so unalloyed!--feeling that i was entirely enjoying life--not a moment wasted. how active and how well i was! i scarcely knew what to do with all my health and spirits. now and then a pang would cross my mind at the prospect of the approaching campaign, but i chased away the thought, resolved not to lose the present bliss by dwelling on the chance of future pain. sir william promised to let me know as soon as he knew himself, everything concerning the movement of the army; and accordingly he gave me every paper to read, to keep my mind easy. after some consideration, he decided that upon the commencement of hostilities i should go to antwerp, and there remain till the end of the campaign, which might last months. he wished me not to think of going along with him, because the rear of a great army was always dangerous, and an unfit situation for a woman; and he wished not to draw me into any scenes, or near any danger, more than if i had remained in england. he little thought i should be in the midst of horrors i would not pass again for any being _now_ living; and alas, the cautious anxiety he expressed that i should avoid being shocked, only made me feel more desolate and miserable when i found myself in the midst of most terrible scenes. several other officers, on hearing that he designed to send me to antwerp, fixed that their wives should go there too. it is a very strongly fortified town, and likewise having the sea to escape by, if necessary, it was by far the safest place; and being only twenty-five miles from brussels, it added so little to the time of hearing from him, if separated, that i acquiesced cheerfully. after this was arranged, we never thought more about it, and enjoyed each hour as it passed with no more anxiety than was sufficient to render time precious. on wednesday the th, i had a little alarm in the evening with some public papers, and sir william went out with them, but returned in a short time; and it passed by so completely, that thursday( ) forenoon was the happiest day of my life; but i cannot recollect a day of my short married life that was not perfect. i shall never get on if i begin to talk of what my happiness was; but i dread to enter on the gloomy past, which i shudder to look back upon, and i often wonder i survived it. we little dreamt that thursday was the last we were to pass together, and that the storm would burst so soon. sir william had to dine at the spanish ambassador's,( ) the first invitation he had accepted from the time i went; he was unwilling to go, and delayed and still delayed, till at last when near six, i fastened all his medals and crosses on his coat, helped him to put it on, and he went.( ) i watched at the window till he was out of sight, and then i continued musing on my happy fate; i thought over all that had passed, and how grateful i felt! i had no wish but that this might continue; i saw my husband loved and respected by everyone, my life gliding on, like a gay dream, in his care. when i had remained at the window nearly an hour, i saw an aide-de-camp ride under the gateway of our house. he sent to enquire where sir william was dining. i wrote down the name; and soon after i saw him gallop off in that direction. i did not like this appearance, but i tried not to be afraid. a few minutes after, i saw sir william on the same horse gallop past to the duke's,( ) which was a few doors beyond ours. he dismounted and ran into the house--left the horse in the middle of the street. i must confess my courage failed me now, and the succeeding two hours formed a contrast to the happy forenoon. about nine,( ) sir william came in; seeing my wretched face, he bade me not be foolish, for it would soon be all over now; they expected a great battle on the morrow; he would send me to antwerp in the morning, and desired me to be ready at six. he said that though he expected it would be a decisive battle, and a conclusion of the whole business, he thought it best i should keep the plan of going to antwerp, to avoid the alarms that he knew would seize everyone the moment the troops were gone; and he said he would probably join me there, or send for me to return the same evening. he said he should be writing all night, perhaps: he desired me to prepare some strong green tea in case he came in, as the violent exertion requisite to setting the whole army in motion quite stupefied him sometimes. he used sometimes to tell me that whenever the operations began, if he thought for five minutes on any other subject, he was neglecting his duty. i therefore scrupulously avoided asking him any questions, or indeed speaking at all.( ) i moved up and down like one stupefied myself. he went to the office, and returned near twelve,( ) much fatigued, but he did not attempt to sleep; he went twice to the duke's; the first time he found him standing looking over a map with a prussian general,( ) who was in full-dress uniform--with orders and crosses, etc.--the duke was in his chemise and slippers, preparing to dress for the duchess of richmond's ball; the two figures were quite admirable. the ball took place notwithstanding the reveille played through the streets the whole night. many of the officers danced, and then marched( ) in the morning. about two, sir william went again to the duke, and he was sleeping sound! at three the troops were all assembled in the park, and sir william and i leant over the window, seeing them march off--so few to return. it was a clear refreshing morning, and the scene was very solemn and melancholy.( ) the fifes played alone, and the regiments one after another marched past, and i saw( ) them melt away through the great gate at the end of the square. shall i ever forget the tunes played by the shrill fifes and the buglehorns which disturbed that night! at six in the morning, friday the th, i went to antwerp: sir william gave me a letter to captain mitchell, in the q.m.-general's department, requesting him to take charge of me. accordingly, soon after we arrived i was settled in very comfortable apartments. i was at first for an hour in the inn,( ) and i lay down in a small back room. in the evening i sent my maid from the lodgings to get some wine at the inn; when wandering in the passage to find some english person, she opened the door of the room i had been in, and saw the body( ) of the duke of brunswick on the very bed. i was fortunate enough to have a room at the back, so shut in with buildings that i could not hear any noise in the streets. sir william had made me promise to believe no reports, and not upon any account to move without his written order for it. i thought it was best not to listen to any stories, so i told my maid emma not to tell me any, and to do her best to get no alarms herself. captain mitchell i found of great service; he is a very sensible and seemingly good-hearted man. there was a calmness in his manner which was of infinite use to me when i could not entirely get the better of fears but too well founded. though he was afterwards oppressed with business, night and day, he never failed to come to me when he had heard any accounts he could depend upon. but i may say i never saw so much kindness, and softness indeed, as during that miserable time. the general and individual distress that rapidly followed the battles then fought, seemed quite to unman them; and one grew accustomed to see men weep, without their attempting to conceal it. the same evening the town major, machel, called. he knew sir william, and he brought a mrs ---- to call. she very kindly asked me to go and visit her in the country about a mile. i was much obliged to her, but said i hoped to return to brussels so soon that i should not have time. she apologised for mr ----; he would have called on me, but the report i had brought of the marching of the troops had given him a great deal of business. the town was now very bustling, though when i arrived there was nothing but quiet. captain mitchell told me in the evening that the battle had taken place; that the english had gained a victory, but he believed there was to be more fighting. he promised to send me any letter, or if he heard of sir william. i sat up late, but none came. on saturday the th, antwerp was truly a scene of confusion--by the servant's account, for i would not stir out of my room. not one of the ladies who had intended to come to antwerp at first, kept their resolution; and in consequence they got a great alarm, which was what my husband wished me to escape. there was a battle fought on friday the th, near brussels, and i was told the noise of the cannon was tremendous--the houses shook with it. it was distinctly heard at antwerp; but i kept the windows shut, and tried not to hear. i only heard a rolling like the sea at a distance.( ) poor emma, urged by curiosity, stood in the street listening to terrible stories, seeing wounded men brought in, carriages full of women and children flying from brussels, till she was completely frightened. she came and told me that all the ladies were hastening to england by sea, for the french had taken brussels. i saw i must take my time to alarm her, and i said, "well, emma, you know that if the french were firing at this house, i would not move till i was ordered; but you have no such duty, therefore go if you like. i dare say any of the families will let you join them." emma was shocked at my supposing she would be so base as to desert me, and declared that if she was sure she had to remain in a french prison for five years, she would not leave me. my reproof had all the effect i intended; for she brought me no more stories, and i am certain she never was frightened after, even when we were in far greater danger. though i had little reason to expect a letter from my husband, i sat up late in hopes. at midnight, what was my joy to get a little note from him, written at genappe,( ) after the battle of the th. he said he was safe, and in great spirits; they had given the french a tremendous beating. i wrote to him every day, and captain mitchell sent my letters, but they never reached him. on sunday, captain mitchell told me he had heard the last effort was to be made. i cannot attempt to describe the restless unhappy state i was in; for it had continued so much longer than i had expected already, that i began to find it difficult to keep up my spirits, though i was infatuated enough to think it quite impossible that he could be hurt. i believe mine was not an uncommon case, but so it was. i might be uneasy at the length of the separation, or anxious to hear from him; but the possibility of his being wounded never glanced into my mind, till i was told he was killed. on sunday the th june, there was to be a great battle. it began about eleven;( ) near three,( ) when sir william was riding beside the duke, a cannon ball struck him on the back, at the right shoulder, and knocked him off his horse to several yards distance. the duke at first imagined he was killed; for he said afterwards, he had never in all the fighting he had ever been in seen a man rise again after such a wound. seeing he was alive (for he bounded up again and then sank down), he ran to him, and stooping down, took him by the hand.( ) sir william begged the duke, as the last favour he could have it in his power to do him, to exert his authority to take away the crowd that gathered round him, and to let him have his last moments in peace to himself. the duke bade him farewell, and endeavoured to draw away the staff, who oppressed him; they wanted to take leave of him, and wondered at his calmness. he was left, as they imagined, to die; but his cousin, delancey barclay,( ) who had seen him fall, went to him instantly, and tried to prevail upon him to be removed to the rear, as he was in imminent danger of being crushed by the artillery, which was fast approaching the spot; and also there was danger of his falling into the hands of the enemy. he entreated to be left on the ground, and said it was impossible he could live; that they might be of more use to others, and he only begged to remain on the field. but as he spoke with ease, and colonel barclay saw that the ball had not entered, he insisted on moving him, and he took the opinion of a surgeon, who thought he might live, and got some soldiers to carry him in a blanket to a barn( ) at the side of the road, a little to the rear. the wound was dressed, and then colonel barclay had to return to the division; but first he gave orders to have sir william moved to the village;( ) for that barn was in danger of being taken possession of by the enemy. before colonel barclay went, sir william begged him to come quite close to him, and continued to give him messages for me. nothing else seemed to occupy his mind. he desired him to write to me at antwerp; to say everything kind, and to endeavour to soften this business, and to break it to me as gently as he could. he then said he might move him, as if he fancied it was to be his last effort. he was carried to the village of waterloo, and left in a cottage, where he lay unheeded all night, and part of next day. many of his friends were in the village, and no one knew where he was, or that he was alive even. it was by chance that an officer of the staff corps found him next morning, and sent to inform sir george scovell.( ) the evening before,( ) the duke had written the despatches, and had inserted de lancey as killed. interest was made that he should alter them, when he was told that he had been carried off the field alive. some kindly thought this might benefit me; but i was not so fortunate. sad scenes were passing at antwerp in the meantime. on monday morning, captain mitchell, at nine o'clock, came to tell me that the last battle was over, and the french entirely defeated, and that sir william was safe. i asked him repeatedly if he was sure, and if he had seen any of his writing, or if he had heard from him. he had not; but had read a list of the killed and wounded, and could assure me his name was not in it. captain mitchell was quite sincere; and was afterwards much grieved that he had added to the accumulation of misery, for this only made the dash down more severe. i now found how much i had really feared by the wild spirits i got into. i walked up and down, for i could not rest, and was almost in a fever with happiness, and for two hours this went on. at eleven a message came that lady hamilton wished to see me. i went down to the parlour, and found her and mr james. i did not remark anything in her countenance, but i think i never saw feeling and compassion more strongly marked than in his expression. i then said i hoped lady emily was well. he answered that she was so, with a tone of such misery that i was afraid something had happened, i knew not what, to somebody. i looked at lady hamilton for an explanation. she seemed a little agitated too, and i said, "one is so selfish: i can attend to nothing, i am so rejoiced sir william is safe." mr james walked to the other end of the room. i did not know what to do. i feared that my gay voice grieved them, for i saw something had made them unhappy. little did i think the blow was falling on my own unfortunate head. lady hamilton said, "poor mr james! he has lost a brother and i a nephew. it was a dreadful battle!--so many killed." i thought it cruel of them to come to me to tell all this to, when i was so merry; but i tried to be polite, and again apologised for appearing glad, on account of my own good fortune. lady hamilton said, "did you hear from him?" "no, but captain mitchell saw the list, and his name was not in it." mr james went out of the room. lady hamilton said, "he is gone to see it, i suppose," and then began to talk about the list, and what were the first names, and a great deal about whether i had any friends in that country, etc. she then asked what i intended to do if the fighting continued, and if i should go to england? i was a little surprised at these enquiries, but assured her i would not move until sir william came or sent for me. she found me so obstinately confident that she began[ ]...--and after a short time a suspicion darted into my mind. what a death-like feeling was that! [footnote : here there is a hiatus in the ms.] lady hamilton confessed she had written the list, and with a most mistaken kindness had omitted several of the names, sir william's among the rest. a general had come from the field and named them; and she, knowing i was in the country, had left his out, fearing that i should be suddenly informed. but such information would not be otherwise than a shock whatever way it was told, and the previous account of his safety only tortured me the more. but it is needless to dwell upon it now; and though i believe she thinks i never forgave her, i now recollect only the motive, which was kind. my difficulty then was to find out, or rather to believe the truth. she assured me he was only wounded. i looked at her keenly, and said, "lady hamilton, i can bear anything but suspense. let me know the very worst. tell me, is he killed?" she then solemnly assured me he was only desperately wounded. i shook my head and said, "ah, it is very well to say so. yes, he must be wounded first, you know." and i walked round the room fast. "yes, yes, you say so, but i cannot believe what you say now." she was terrified, for i could not shed a tear. she declared upon her word of honour that when general alava left the field he was alive, but was not expected to live. this i felt sounded like truth, and i stood before her and said, "well, lady hamilton, if it is so, and you really wish to serve me, help me to go to him instantly. i am sure mr james will be so good as to hurry the servant. oh, how much time has been lost already! if captain mitchell had but known, i should have gone at nine. every moment may make me too late to see him alive." she was glad to try to do anything for me, and was going. i stopped her at the door, and said, "now, if you are deceiving me, you may perhaps have my senses to answer for." she repeated her assurances, and i said i would send my servant for the carriage, which was at the town major's, if she would see anybody to get horses, and i was ready. she said she would offer to go with me, but she knew it would oppress me. i said, "oh no, let me be alone," and i ran upstairs. no power can describe my sufferings for two hours before i could set out. captain mitchell requested a friend of his to ride forward to brussels, and to gallop back with information of where sir william was, and whether it was still of any avail for me to proceed: he was expected to meet us at malines, half-way. we at last left antwerp; but bribing the driver was in vain. it was not in his power to proceed; for the moment we passed the gates, we were entangled in a crowd of waggons, carts, horses, wounded men, deserters or runaways, and all the rabble and confusion, the consequence of several battles.( ) every now and then we went several miles at a walk; and the temper of the people was so irritable that we feared to speak to them; and i had to caution my servant to be very guarded, because they were ready to draw their swords in a moment. two men got on the back of the carriage, and we dared not desire them to get off; and this was no imaginary terror, as i afterwards experienced. when we were within a mile or two of malines, the carriage stopped, and the servant said, "it is the captain." i had drawn the blinds to avoid seeing the wretched objects we were passing. i hastily looked out, and saw mr hay.( ) when he saw me he turned his head away. i called out, "mr hay, do you know anything?" he hesitated, and then said, "i fear i have very bad news for you." i said, "tell me at once. is he dead?" "it is all over." i sank into the carriage again, and they took me back to antwerp. when i had been a short time there, mr hay sent to know if i had any commands to brussels, as he was going to return, and would do anything for me there. at first i said i had none, and then i sent for him, and asked repeatedly if he were sure of what he said; if he had seen him fall. he had not been in the action,( ) and of course was not near sir william, "who was surrounded by lord wellington's staff; but in the middle of the action he was struck in the breast by a cannon ball, and instantly fell. the duke went and leant over him, and he died like a soldier." i then begged mr hay to make a point of seeing someone who had been near him; and if possible to learn if he had spoken, and if he had named me. mr hay promised this, and then asked if i would choose to go to england. i said: "instantly." he then said if he had twelve hours to search the field once more--for his brother was missing--he would be ready to take a passage for me, and to accompany me if i chose. he said lady hamilton and mrs b. were below, anxious to be of use. i said i greatly preferred being alone, and was always much better alone. about half an hour after, mrs b. contrived to get into the room. i was terrified, and called out, "go away, go away, leave me to myself." she prayed and entreated me to hear her, and then said if i was ill would i send for her. i said, "oh, yes, yes; but the only thing anybody can do for me is to leave me alone." she was alarmed at my violent agitation and went away. i locked the outer door, and shut the inner one, so that no one could again intrude. they sent emma to entreat i would be bled; but i was not reasonable enough for that, and would not comply. i wandered about the room incessantly, beseeching for mercy, though i felt that now, even heaven could not be merciful. one is apt to fix on a situation just a little less wretched than one's own, and to dwell upon the idea that one could bear that better. i repeated over and over that if i had seen him alive for five minutes, i would not repine. at night emma brought her bed into my room, as she feared i should be ill. towards morning i fancied i heard a sound of someone trying to get into the room. i heard it a long while, but thinking it was somebody coming to visit me, i made no answer. about two hours after, the attempt was repeated. i said to emma, "there is a noise at the door. don't let mrs b. in, or lady hamilton." she went, and returning in a few minutes said, "i am desired to tell you cautiously"-- i said, "o emma! go away. don't tell me anything, any more." "nay, but i must tell you. i have good news for you." "how can you be so inhuman! what is good news for me now?" "but--sir william is not dead." i started up, and asked what she was saying, for she would make me mad. she told me that general m'kenzie( ) was below, and had a message from brussels, requesting him to inform me that sir william was alive, and that there were even hopes of his recovery. i ran down to general m'kenzie, and began earnestly to persuade him it must be impossible. i had suffered so much the day before, i durst not hope for anything now. his voice faltered, and his eyes filled with tears. he said, "can you believe any man would bring such intelligence unless it were well-founded?" he then gave me a letter from sir g. scovell, who had seen an officer of the staff corps who had seen sir william alive that morning, who was anxious to see me. he was attended by a skilful surgeon, and had been twice bled. this was dated monday, seven o'clock, evening. i regretted the deal of time that had been lost, and said that yesterday morning was a long time ago; and was no argument for his being alive now; for it was often repeated in the letter not to raise my hopes. i then asked general m'kenzie to assist me to get away. unfortunately i did not say i had a carriage. he said he was going to brussels, and would take me. i consented, and he went to get ready. i would not if i could, describe the state i was in for two hours more; then i lost all self-command. i would not allow emma to put up my clothes, for fear of being detained. my agitation and anxiety increased. i had the dreadful idea haunting me that i should arrive perhaps half an hour too late. this got the better of me, and i paced backward and forward in the parlour very fast, and my breathing was like screaming. i went into the passage, and sent emma to see if the carriage were coming; and then sat down on the stair, which was steep and dark. there general m'kenzie found me. whenever he learnt i had a carriage, he sent the horses he had; for his carriage was not ready, and would not be for some time. when he saw what a state i was in, he roused me in a most sensible manner. he said, "lady de lancey, consider what you are doing. you are exhausting your strength and spirits to no purpose, for your friends are endeavouring to forward your departure as soon as possible." i exclaimed, "oh, i shall never be there. he may be dying at this moment." he took my hand, and said calmly and firmly, "my dear madam, why fancy evil? you know what dreadful scenes you may have to go through when you reach waterloo. you will probably require all your courage, and must command yourself for his sake." i said no more, but quietly went to the parlour and remained waiting--such an immediate effect had his steady good sense on my fevered mind. i overheard him say, "no, do not at present; she is not fit for it." i was alarmed, and ran out; but i saw a lady retreating, and i was grateful to him. we left antwerp between eight and nine, and had the same difficulties to encounter; but the road was not quite so much blocked up. general m'kenzie said he would ride after us in an hour, in case we should be detained; he also sent a dragoon before, to order horses. when we were near vilvorde, the driver attempted to pass a waggon, but the soldier who rode beside it would not move one inch to let us pass. the waggons kept possession of the _chaussée_ the whole way, and we had to drive on the heavy road at the side. my servant got off the seat to endeavour to lead the horses past. this provoked the soldier, and a dispute began. i was alarmed, and desired the servant to get upon the carriage again, which he did. a prussian officer, enraged at our attempting to pass the waggon he was guarding, drew his sword, and made several cuts at the servant's legs, but did not reach him. he was preparing to get down again, but i looked from the opposite window and commanded him to sit still, and not to answer a word; or else to quit the carriage altogether. the driver now made a dash past the waggon, and the officer galloped after us and attempted to wound the horses. this made me desperate, and i ventured on a most imprudent action. i drew up the blind, and holding up my hands, i petitioned him to let us pass. i exclaimed that my husband, a british officer, was dying, and if he detained me i might not see him. it had the desired effect, for without seeming to have heard me, he slackened his pace and was soon far behind. when within ten miles of brussels, the smell of gunpowder was very perceptible. the heat was oppressive. as we came within a mile of brussels, the multitude of wretched-looking people was great, as emma told me, for i was both unwilling and unable to look out. i was so much worn with anxiety that i could scarcely sit up. as we entered brussels the carriage stopped, and i saw mr hay. i durst not speak, but he instantly said, "he is alive. i sent my servant to waterloo this morning; he is just returned, and sir william is better than they expected. i have horses standing harnessed, and you will soon be there if the road is passable, though it was not yesterday, for a horse." we were soon out of brussels again, and on the road to waterloo. it is nine miles, and we took three hours and a half. mr hay rode before us with his sword drawn, and obliged them to let us pass. we often stood still for ten minutes. the horses screamed at the smell of corruption, which in many places was offensive. at last, when near the village, mr hay said he would ride forward and find the house, and learn whether i should still proceed or not. i hope no one will ever be able to say they can understand what my feelings must have been during the half-hour that passed till he returned. how fervently and sincerely i resolved that if i saw him alive for one hour i never would repine! i had almost lost my recollection, with the excess of anxiety and suspense, when mr hay called out, "all's well; i have seen him. he expects you." when we got to the village, sir g. scovell met the carriage, and opening the door, said, "stop one moment." i said, "is he alive?" "yes, alive; and the surgeons are of opinion that he may recover. we are so grieved for what you have suffered." "oh! never mind what i have suffered. let me go to him now." he said i must wait one moment. i assured him i was composed indeed. he said, "i see you are," with a smile, "but i wish to warn you of one thing. you must be aware that his life hangs on a very slender hold; and therefore any agitation would be injurious. now, we have not told him you had heard of his death; we thought it would afflict him; therefore do not appear to have heard it." i promised, and he said, "now come along." i sat down for an instant in the outer room, and he went in; and when i heard my husband say, "let her come in, then," i was overpaid for all the misery. i was surprised at the strength of his voice, for i had expected to find him weak and dying. when i went into the room where he lay, he held out his hand and said, "come, magdalene, this is a sad business, is it not?" i could not speak, but sat down by him and took his hand. this was my occupation for six days. though i found him far better than i expected, i can scarcely say whether i hoped or feared most at first; because i was so much occupied with gathering comforts about him, and helping him, that i had not time to think about the future. it was a dreadful but sufficient preparation, being told of his death; and then finding him alive, i was ready to bear whatever might ensue without a murmur. i was so grateful for seeing him once more, that i valued each hour as it passed, and as i had too much reason to fear that i should very soon have nothing left of happiness but what my reflections would afford me, i endeavoured, by suppressing feelings that would have made him miserable, and myself unfit to serve him, to lay up no store of regret. he asked me if i was a good nurse. i told him that i had not been much tried. he said he was sure he would be a good patient, for he would do whatever i bade him till he was convalescent; and then he knew he would grow very cross. i watched in vain for a cross word. all his endeavour seemed to be to leave none but pleasing impressions on my mind; and as he grew worse and suffered more, his smile was more sweet, and his thanks more fervent, for everything that was done for him. i endeavoured to find out from the surgeons the extent of the danger. they said that at present there were no bad symptoms, and after seeing him alive at all after such a wound they would not despair: and if the fever could be kept off, there was a great chance of his recovering. with this view they wished to bleed him constantly; wishing also thereby to make the recovery more complete. i knew they had no interest in me, and therefore would probably tell me the same as other people, so i continued to ask them after every visit what they thought; but when by watching the symptoms myself and also observing the surgeon's expression, i saw what i must soon prepare for, i did not tease them any more with questions, but tried not to give way, and endeavoured to keep up as long as it would be of consequence to him; for even after all hope was gone and the disorder increased rapidly, i felt that if by agitating him i should afterwards imagine i had shortened his life by one hour, that reflection would embitter my whole life. i have the satisfaction of knowing that i succeeded even better than i could have hoped; for toward the end of the week, when every symptom was bad, the surgeon (probably because i desisted from enquiring and did not appear agitated) doubtful what i thought, yet, judging it right to tell me, asked emma if she knew whether i was aware of the danger or not. she assured him i had entirely given up hope for some time. i found emma of great service. her good will carried her through excessive fatigue while at waterloo; and afterwards her excellent heart and superior judgment were quite a blessing to me. she told me she was thankful she had been at waterloo, for it would do her good to see a little of what other people endured. she never before knew half the value of her peaceful, comfortable home in london, where the absence of miserable objects might alone be considered as a benefit. i can hardly express what i felt on returning to england, to see people surrounded with every luxury unhappy at the want of the smallest comfort. i can fancy no better cure for all imaginary evils than a week's residence at waterloo. noise did not disturb sir william, fortunately, for the cottage was surrounded with roads.( ) one in front led to nivelles, and every waggon going to and from the army, and all the wounded and prisoners, passed along that road. it was paved, and there was an unceasing noise for four days and nights. we were obliged to keep the windows open, and people used to pass close to that in his room, talking loud, and sometimes looking in and speaking; but he never took any notice. i never saw anybody so patient. the people to whom the cottage belonged were, luckily, favourable to our cause, or they would have tormented us a good deal; instead of which, i never met with such good nature; and though they never rested one moment helping the soldiers to water, and were constantly worn out with giving them assistance, we had only to tell them what to do, and they ran about to work for us. their _ménage_, i must allow, was in a sad state.( ) there was a want of everything. i could not help thinking with envy of the troublesome abundance i had often seen in sick-rooms, when there was far less need for it. however, in a short time we got everything he required; and i have the greatest comfort in recollecting that there was not one thing which he expressed a wish for that we did not procure. i sent a servant instantly to brussels with a list of things we wanted; and once i recollect something was brought which he had been very anxious for. naturally enough, he was disappointed when he found it not so good as he expected; but i was quite struck with his endeavour to praise it, for fear i should be sorry. there was a languid melancholy about him at the same time that he was calm and resigned, which would have made the most uninterested person grieved to see him suffering, and with such sweetness. emma once gave him some drink, and she told me that the tone of voice and his smile when he thanked her, was like to break her heart, for he was in severe pain at the time. he said the wound gave him no pain at all, but a little irritating cough caused excessive pain in his chest and side. as far as i could learn, the blow had affected the lungs, which produced inflammation and afterwards water in the chest, which was eventually the cause of his death. i suspect the surgeons had never much hope, but they said there was a chance if the inflammation could have been stopped. by constantly watching him, and gradually day after day observing the progress and increase of suffering and the elevated tone of his mind, along with fatigue and weakness, i was prepared for his final release in a manner that nothing but his firmness and composure could have effected. he had at first been laid in the outer room, which had two large windows to the road, and everyone saw in. this he did not like, and he made the people move him to a small room, about seven feet wide, with a bed across the end of it. they placed him so low and awkwardly in the bed, that when i first went in i thought his legs were hurt, for he could not straighten his knees. after a day or two, he got shoved up by degrees, and then could stretch his limbs. the bed was wretched, merely a wooden frame fastened to the wall, so that it could not be moved, which rendered it extremely difficult to bleed him, or to assist him in any way, as he could neither turn nor raise his head an inch from the pillow, or rather sack of chaff, upon which he was laid. this was so full of dust that it made him cough. i soon removed it, and got a cushion out of the carriage instead. we had a clean blanket from brussels, and at first we put clean sheets on every day. but latterly he grew so restless that he preferred having only the blanket. i had purposely sent for a french cotton one, as i thought the flannel would tease him. the bed was made tolerable at least, and though i could not be pleased with it, _he_ was. he repeated more than once, "what a thing it was for you being in this country!" and i had the delight of hearing him say that he did not know what he would have done without me. he said he was sure he would not have lived so long, for he would not have been so obedient to anyone else. i found he had been the worse of seeing some friends who had called the first day i was at waterloo, so i told the servant afterwards never to let anybody come into his room. i remember one day an officer called, and before he was out of sight i had his card converted into a teaspoon. sir william never ate anything, except once or twice a morsel of toast out of the water. he drank a great deal of tea and lemonade. at first he had no milk to his tea, and he complained that it was very bad; but there was none to be got. i sent my servant to search for some, and he met some prussian cows, and milked one, and brought a fine jug of milk. the different contrivances sometimes amused him. one day he wished to have the room fumigated. how was this to be done, without fire-irons, or indeed without fire? we put some vinegar into a tumbler, and emma went with a large pair of scissors, and brought a piece of burning charcoal, and put it into the vinegar, and that made a great smoke. every time we wanted anything warmed, or water boiled, emma had to cross a court and make a fire, and then watch it, or someone would have run away with what she was cooking. meantime i would call her ten different times, and this in wet or dry, night or day. i now regretted having brought so few clothes. the day i went to waterloo, sir william told me the duke( ) had visited him in the morning. he said he never had seen him so warm in his feelings: he had taken leave of him with little hope of seeing him again, i fancy. the duke told him he never wished to see another battle; this had been so shocking. it had been too much to see such brave men, so equally matched, cutting( ) each other to pieces as they did. sir william said there never had been such fighting; that the duke far surpassed anything he had ever done before.( ) the general opinion seemed to be that it had been a peculiarly shocking battle. sir william said he never would try it again; he was quite tired of the business. in speaking of his wound he said this might be the most fortunate event that could have happened for us both. i looked at him for an explanation. he said, "certainly, even if i recover completely, i should never think of serving again. nobody could ask such a thing, and we should settle down quietly at home for the rest of our lives." the evening after i went to waterloo, sir g. scovell said he would take something to eat, and after seeing me fairly established he would go to headquarters. he wrote a copy of a return of rations, for which we were to send to brussels; and also any other provisions must be got from thence, for the village produced nothing. he left two sentinels, for fear there should be any disturbances, and we might feel unprotected. one night there was a great noise of people quarrelling in front of the house; the windows had no fastening whatever, but they passed away without molesting us. i was a little more seriously alarmed another day. some reports had reached us that the french were coming back, and were within nine miles. i thought it unlikely, but about eight in the morning all the waggons that had passed for two hours came back as fast as possible, horses trotting and men running. i was uneasy on sir william's account: his situation was so helpless. i leant forward, to prevent people looking in and seeing him. i waited without saying anything, to learn the cause of this bustle. i found afterwards that it was merely the waggons had gone several miles on the wrong road, and were hurrying back to make it up.( ) from the time sir g. scovell left us, we scarcely saw anybody but the surgeons. it must add very much to the fatigue of their business, having to do everything for the wounded whom they attend. mr powell,( ) who attended most constantly to sir william, and with evidently great anxiety for his recovery, was sometimes quite knocked up with walking many miles on the heavy road to the field and the cottages. he had some difficulty to consider me as a useful person. at first he used to ask me to tell the servant to come; but he learnt to employ me very soon. the night i went, sir william desired me to take some rest, for i looked ill. a portmanteau bed had been brought for me from brussels. i left him reluctantly, for i grudged wasting any of such precious time, but he would not hear of my sitting up. i had just lain down with my clothes on--for there was no blanket, and the floor was damp tiles. i heard him call to his servant, who slept at the end of his room on a mattress. i jumped up and went to him, and did not leave him again. he wanted some drink, which i gave him, and then sat down beside him. he slept and woke every half-hour. he was not restless, nor had he any pain, but he was constantly thirsty. on wednesday he wished to have leeches applied to his side, where the bruise appeared. mr powell had no objection, and desired me to send for him when the leeches were brought from brussels. i did so; but in the meantime, not knowing why he was sent for, i began as a matter of course to apply them. when he came, he apologised, and thanked me. i was not at first aware of how i was obliging him. he said he was very tired, and when he attempted to fix the leeches, he did not do it so well as i did. next time they were to be applied, i asked if i should send for him. he said i was as good at it as any hospital nurse could be, and as he had scarcely had an hour's rest any night since the battle, he would be greatly obliged to me if i would take the trouble. sir william alleged that i grew quite vain of my skill in tormenting my poor husband with these animals. the same day dr hume( ) called in passing to brussels, for ten minutes. i was a little provoked at the gaiety of his manner; the gravity he assumed at brussels would have been suitable to the present scene. though sir william never complained, he was serious, and seemed inclined to be quiet, and neither to speak much nor to listen. he generally lay thinking, often conversed with me, but seemed oppressed with general conversation, and would not listen when anyone told him of the progress of the army. his thoughts were in a very different train. dr hume's rapid, lively visit annoyed me much. i did not feel the effects of having sat up on tuesday night till next night, but was resolved to fight against it. sir william desired me to go to rest, as he had done the night before; but i only remained away till i had an excuse to return, and he always forgot a second time to bid me go. this was the only night i had real difficulty to keep awake; the noise of the carts assisted me a little. i counted the rushes of the chair, for want of occupation. some people said, why did i not let my maid sit up; but that showed they did not understand; for if twenty people had sat up, it would have made no difference to me. i frequently rejoiced that i had no friend there who could exert authority to make me take care of myself, when my only wish was to keep up as long as he needed me. on thursday he was not quite so well. before this he had been making a gradual progress, and he could move about with more ease. he spoke much better than he did at first. his countenance was animated; but i fear this was the beginning of the most dangerous symptoms, and i saw that the surgeon now became uneasy at the appearance of the blood; and mr woolriche,( ) a very eminent surgeon, now constantly attended. he had come over once or twice before. general dundas( ) called this forenoon. he stayed only a minute, as sir william was not so well, and i was busy. after he was away, i recollected having neglected to ask him to send a blanket and some wine. i never had time to eat, and i always forgot to get wine--as i could take a glass of that and a bit of bread in a moment--and my strength was failing. i looked out and saw him still at the door. i went out, and there were a number of people, sir h.d. hamilton,( ) etc. i told general dundas i had no blanket. "bless me!" everyone exclaimed, "no blanket!" i said it was not of much consequence, as i never lay down, but the floor was so damp i was afraid my maid would be ill, and her help was very essential. i then asked for wine, both of which general dundas sent down next day. that night i had no difficulty in keeping awake. sir william was restless and uncomfortable; his breathing was oppressed, and i had constantly to raise him on the pillow. the pain in his chest increased, and he was twice bled before morning. he was very much better on friday forenoon. mr woolriche told us that every day since the battle the people of brussels sent down carriages to take the wounded to the hospital; from twenty to thirty private carriages came every day. on friday evening sir william was very feverish, and the appearance of the blood was very inflammatory. i had learnt now to judge for myself, as mr powell, seeing how anxious i was, sometimes had the kindness to give me a little instruction. about ten at night mr powell and mr woolriche came. while i told them how sir william had been since their last visit, and mentioned several circumstances that had occurred, i watched them and saw they looked at each other. i guessed their thoughts. i turned away to the window and wept. they remained a little time, and i recovered myself enough to speak to them cheerfully as they went out. they lingered, and seemed to wish to speak to me, but i was well aware of what they had to say. i felt unable to hear it then, and i shut the door instead of going out. it was that night mr powell asked emma if she knew what i thought. he desired to be sent for on the first appearance of change. at one in the morning he was in great pain, and as i raised him that he might breathe more freely, he looked so fixed that i was afraid he was just expiring. his arms were round my neck to raise himself by, and i thought we should both have been killed by the exertion. he asked if mr powell had not talked of bleeding him again. i said i had sent for him. he bled him then for the last time. from that moment all the fever was gone. mr powell said it was of consequence to keep him quiet, and if he would sleep calmly it would do him good. at four in the morning i was called out to see a surgeon sent from mr powell, who was ill in bed. he came to know how sir william was. he had slept a little till three; but the oppression was returning. this surgeon told me he had been anxious to speak to me several times, to tell me that it was he who had first seen him on the field, and who had given it as his opinion that he might live. he was grieved indeed to think that it should fall to his lot to tell me that it was the opinion of the surgeons that if i had anything particular to say to sir william, i should not delay long. i asked, "how long?" he said they could not exactly tell. i said, "days or hours?" he answered that the present symptoms would certainly not prove fatal within twelve hours. i left him, and went softly into my husband's room, for he was sleeping. i sat down at the other end of the room, and continued looking at him, quite stupefied; i could scarcely see. my mouth was so parched that when i touched it, it felt as dry as the back of my hand. i thought i was to die first. i then thought, what would he do for want of me during the remaining few hours he had to live. this idea roused me, and i began to recollect our helpless situation whatever happened, and tried to think who i could inform of the circumstances. i was not long in deciding on general dundas, if he could be found, and have time to come and take care of us both. i immediately wrote a long letter to him, telling him how i was situated, and begging that he would come after twelve hours. i said i hoped i should be calm and fit to act for myself; but as i had never been near such a scene before, i knew not what effect it might have upon me. i therefore explained what i wished might be done after all was over, with respect to everything. i then sent the servant with the letter and orders to find general dundas, if he were within ten miles of brussels. a few hours after, i had one line from him to say he would be at waterloo in the evening. after i had sent the letter, i sat down to consider what i was to do next. though sir william was aware of his danger, i thought it my duty to tell him how immediate the surgeons seemed to think it. i knew he was far above being the worse of such a communication, and i wished to know if he had anything to say. i sat thinking about it, when he awoke and held out his hand for me to take my usual station by his bedside. i went and told him. we talked some time on the subject. he was not agitated, but his voice faltered a little, and he said it was sudden. this was the first day he felt well enough to begin to hope he should recover! he breathed freely, and was entirely free from pain; and he said he had been thinking if he could be removed to brussels, he should get well soon. i then asked if he had anything to desire me to do, or anything to say to anyone. he reminded me of what he had told me had engrossed his thoughts when he imagined himself dying on the field. he said he felt exactly the same now. he felt at peace with all the world; he knew he was going to a better one, etc., etc. he repeated most of what he had told me were his feelings before--that he had no sorrow but to part from his wife, no regret but leaving her in misery. he seemed fatigued; and shutting his eyes, he desired me not to speak for a little. i then determined not to introduce the subject again, nor to speak about it unless he seemed to wish it, as i had done all that was necessary. in an hour or two he ate some breakfast, tea and toasted bread, with so much relish that it almost overcame me. he observed that i must have caught cold by sitting in a draught of air. i said i had. he felt so much better that i was anxious the surgeon should see him. he came in the evening. he was pleased to see sir william free from pain, but said there was scarcely a possibility of its continuing so. he said he might linger a day or two, but that every symptom was bad. he advised me to keep him as quiet and composed as possible. i assured him no person had been in the room but the surgeons whom he had brought to consult; and i had sat beside him the whole day, scarcely speaking. i said i had told sir william his opinion of his case. he said it had evidently not agitated him, for his pulse was quite calm. mr woolriche called in the afternoon; he was going to brussels, and would do anything there we wished. we had nothing for him to do, and he was going when he repeated the question. sir william looked at me earnestly, and said, "magdalene, love, general dundas." i answered, "i wrote to him this morning," and nothing more passed. late in the evening, when we were as calm and composed as could be, and i was sitting and looking at him, and holding his hand as usual, mr powell and dr hume came. he was even more cheerful than before, paid a rapid, noisy visit, and away again. it disturbed our tranquillity not a little, but he is reckoned so skilful that we ought to have been glad to see him. he bade sir william rouse up, felt his pulse, and said it would bear another bleeding yet, if necessary. the poor dying man raised his languid eyes, and said, "oh no, i do not need it now; i am quite cool." dr hume said he had no wish to bleed him, but would like to have his limbs fomented. he shook his head. i asked him if he knew what it was. he said no, and would like to try. i asked dr hume if it would be advisable. he said he thought it might refresh him. he went out, and i followed to hear what he would say. he said to mr powell, "why do you give up a man with such a pulse? with such a good constitution, too! you make them all sad and useless. it does no harm to be trying something." he named several things. "put a blister on his breast, and leeches after, if the pain is great down the side." i looked at mr powell, doubting, as i depended most on his opinion, as his constant attention to the progress of the illness gave it most weight. i thought he looked sorry that my hopes should be renewed, but of course he said nothing. dr hume said, "oh, don't fear, he won't desert the cause." i was angry at such nonsense, and said, "be assured i do not fear that mr powell will desert us, but he said this morning there was no hope." "nay," said he, "not quite so much as that: i said there was little hope." i went away, and left them to discuss it themselves. sir william said he wished to try what dr hume was speaking of, and i went to order some boiling water to be prepared. i made the people understand that he wanted a great quantity in a tub. while i was speaking, mr powell returned. he had taken a turn with dr hume, and i fancy he had explained his opinion. he said he would go home and prepare a blister, and he believed we had leeches. i said, was it not a great pity to torment him. he said he would not pretend to say that he thought it could be of much consequence, but for this reason he advised me to do it: i was not aware, he said, how i should feel afterwards; and i might perhaps regret when it was too late, not having done everything which a physician of dr hume's eminence deemed advisable. he said that sir william would not be at ease at any rate, and it would scarcely plague him; the fomentation would be pleasant to him, and i might take the blister off in six hours if he wished it. when i went to foment his limbs, i could not find a morsel of flannel. at last i thought of the servant's blanket, and tore it in two. sir william said this was a most delightful thing, and refreshed him very much. he expressed a great wish to have a bit on his chest. i did not know what to do for flannel. i regretted now excessively not having brought a change of clothes; for i could have taken a flannel petticoat. this put me in mind of the one i had on, and i instantly tore a great piece out of it and put it into the tub. the cottagers held up their hands, exclaiming, "ah, madame!" he said it did him good, and was delicious, unconscious where we had found the flannel; indeed he never was aware of the difficulty, for the tub was placed in the outer room. general dundas came. sir william heard me speaking to him, and asked who it was. i told him, and he asked if he was going to remain. i said he was. sir william seemed gratified, but did not say anything. surely no earthly feeling can be superior to such perfect sympathy. sir william fell asleep, and i went out to see if there was anything for general dundas to eat. he told me he had got a very good room upstairs, and was willing to remain as long as i wished. his only request was that i would not mind him any more than if he was not there, but send for him when i wanted him. i opened the door of sir william's room and sat close to it, so as to hear if he moved or spoke. i sat down to coffee for the first meal i had, and talked over several things necessary to be settled with general dundas. i could not speak above a whisper, my voice was so faint. he entreated me, if possible, to try and take some rest that night, for fear i should be ill before my husband could spare me. i promised. he then told me that lady hamilton had asked him to take me to her house when i returned to brussels; and also the count de lannoy had prepared rooms, which he begged i would occupy as long as i pleased. i preferred going to the house we had been in before, and i thought i could be more entirely alone there than at any other person's house, which was what i wished, and knew would be best for me. i was struck when i did return to brussels, with two marks of attention. i had a message from the commissary to say that orders had been given that i was to draw rations and forage for as long as i stayed; and the other circumstance was this. on the letters i had sent from antwerp i had neglected to write "private," which is necessary when writing to a person in office. i gave them up for lost, and was uncomfortable. after i had been three days at brussels, they were all returned unopened from headquarters. sir william called me. i sat a short time beside him, and after i had prepared drink for the night i told him i was so very tired i would go and lie down for a short time, if he would allow my maid to bring the medicine which he took every four hours. he agreed, and asked if i did not always take plenty of sleep. i said, "oh yes," and was going, when he said the pain in his chest was returning, and perhaps leeches would do some good. this was the only time i hesitated to oblige him, for i really could scarcely stand; but of course i proceeded to apply the leeches, and in a few minutes the excessive drowsiness went off; so much so, that when after an hour i went to lie down, i could not sleep. i started every moment, thinking he called me. i desired emma to waken me if he spoke or seemed uneasy. she gave him the medicine. he looked at her, and asked where i was; she told him i was sleeping. he said, "that's right, quite right." the pain in his chest grew intolerable, and depending upon my being asleep he yielded to complaint, and groaned very much. emma roused me and told me she feared he was suffering very much. i had slept half an hour. i went and stood near him, and he then ceased to complain, and said, "oh, it was only a little twitch." i felt at that time as if i was an oppression to him, and i was going away, but he desired me to stay. i sat down and rubbed it, which healed the pain, and towards morning i put on the blister. between five and six he ate some toasted bread and tea, about two inches of bread. before he began he entreated me to take off the blister only for ten minutes, that he might eat in tolerable comfort. i said i would take it away entirely, and he was pleased. the doctor came about nine. he was breathing then with great difficulty, and there was a rough sound in his throat. mr powell said the only thing to be done was to keep him quiet as usual, and to prevent him speaking. he asked mr powell if he might rise, for he might breathe easier at the window, and he was so tired of lying in that bed. mr powell urged him not to think of it; he was not able; it would hurt him very much, etc. about eleven o'clock he sent me away for ten minutes, and with the help of his servant he rose and got to the other end of the room. i was terrified when i heard he was up, and called general dundas, who went in and found him almost fainting. they placed him in bed again, and when i returned he was much exhausted. i opened the windows wide and shut the door, and sat by him alone, in hopes that he might go to sleep and recover a little. he slept every now and then for a little. he seemed oppressed with the length of the day for the first time. he asked repeatedly what o'clock it was; he often asked if it was three yet. when i told him it was near five, he seemed surprised. at night he said he wished he could fall upon some device to shorten the weary long night; he could not bear it so long. i could not think of any plan. he said if i could lie down beside him it would cut off five or six hours. i said it was impossible, for i was afraid to hurt him, there was so little room. his mind seemed quite bent upon it. therefore i stood upon a chair and stepped over him, for he could not move an inch, and he lay at the outer edge. he was delighted; and it shortened the night indeed, for we both fell asleep. at five in the morning i rose. he was very anxious to have his wound dressed; it had never been looked at. he said there was a little pain, merely a trifle, but it teased him. mr powell objected; he said it would fatigue him too much that day. he consented to delay. i then washed his face and hands, and brushed his hair, after which i gave him his breakfast. he again wished to rise, but i persuaded him not to do it; he said he would not do anything i was averse to, and he said, "see what control your poor husband is under." he smiled, and drew me so close to him that he could touch my face, and he continued stroking it with his hand for some time. towards eleven o'clock he grew more uneasy; he was restless and uncomfortable; his breathing was like choking, and as i sat gazing at him i could distinctly hear the water rattling in his throat. i opened the door and windows to make a draught. i desired the people to leave the outer room, that his might be as quiet as usual; and then i sat down to watch the melancholy progress of the water in his chest, which i saw would soon be fatal. about three o'clock dr hume and mr powell came. i must do the former the justice to say he was grave enough now. sir william repeated his request to have the wound dressed. dr hume consented, and they went away to prepare something to wash it with; they remained away half an hour. i sat down by my husband and took his hand; he said he wished i would not look so unhappy. i wept; and he spoke to me with so much affection. he repeated every endearing expression. he bade me kiss him. he called me his dear wife. the surgeons returned. my husband turned on one side with great difficulty; it seemed to give much pain. after i had brought everything the surgeons wanted, i went into another room. i could not bear to see him suffering. mr powell saw a change in his countenance; he looked out, and desired emma to call me, to tell me instantly sir william wanted me. i hastened to him, reproaching myself for having been absent a moment. i stood near my husband, and he looked up at me and said, "magdalene, my love, the spirits." i stooped down close to him and held the bottle of lavender to him: i also sprinkled some near him. he looked pleased. he gave a little gulp, as if something was in his throat. the doctor said, "ah, poor de lancey! he is gone." i pressed my lips to his, and left the room. i went upstairs, where i remained, unconscious of what was passing, till emma came to me and said the carriage was ready, and general dundas advised me to go that evening to brussels, but i need not hurry myself. i asked her if the room below was empty. she assured me it was; and i went down and remained some time beside the body. there was such perfect peace and placid calm sweetness in his countenance, that i envied him not a little. he was released: i was left to suffer. i then thought i should not suffer long. as i bent over him i felt as if violent grief would disturb his tranquil rest. these moments that i passed by his lifeless body were awful, and instructive. their impression will influence my whole life. i left waterloo with feelings so different from those i had on going to it. then all was anxious terror that i would not be there in time to see one look, or to hear one word. now there was nothing imaginary--all was real misery. there now remained not even a chance of happiness, but what depended on the retrospect of better days and duties fulfilled. as i drove rapidly along the same road, i could not but recall the irritated state i had been in when i had been there before; and the fervent and sincere resolutions i then made, that if i saw him alive, i never would repine. since that time i have suffered every shade of sorrow; but i can safely affirm that except the first few days, when the violence of grief is more like delirium than the sorrow of a christian, i have never felt that my lot was unbearable. i do not forget the perfection of my happiness while it lasted; and i believe there are many who after a long life cannot say they have felt so much of it. as i expressed some uneasiness to general dundas at having left the body with none but servants, colonel grant at his request went to waterloo the same evening, and remained till it was brought up next day to brussels. general dundas then kindly executed all my orders with respect to the funeral, etc., which took place on wednesday the th, in the cemetery of the reformed( ) church. it is about a mile from brussels, on the road to louvain. i had a stone placed, with simply his name and the circumstances of his death. i visited his grave( ) on tuesday, the th of july. the burying-ground is in a sweet, quiet, retired spot. a narrow path leads to it from the road. it is quite out of sight among the fields, and no house but the grave-digger's cottage is near. seeing my interest in that grave, he begged me to let him plant roses round it, and promised i should see it nicely kept when i returned. i am pleased that i saw the grave and the stone; for there were nearly forty other new graves, and not another stone. at eleven o'clock that same day, i set out for england. that day, three( ) months before, i was married. m. de l. notes to lady de lancey's narrative most of the following notes have been compiled by mr t.w. brogden, of the middle temple, to whom i take this opportunity of expressing my indebtedness for his assistance in the preparation of this volume, and for his kindness in seeing the book through the press, during my absence in canada. editor. ( ) "on thursday the th june we had spent a particularly happy morning. my dear husband gave me many interesting anecdotes of his former life, and i traced in every one some trait of his amiable and generous mind; never had i felt so perfectly content, so grateful for the blessing of his love."--_abridged narrative._ ( ) general alava, who was minister plenipotentiary from spain to the king of the netherlands. sir william and lady de lancey were amongst the guests invited to the duchess of richmond's famous ball that night. see _reminiscences of lady de ros_, p. . ( ) "he turned back at the door, and looked at me with a smile of happiness and peace. it was the last!"--_abridged narrative._ ( ) the duke's house was at the corner of the rue de la montagne du parc and the rue royale, and was next to the hotel de france. the count de lannoy's house was at the south-east corner of the impasse du parc. ( ) by p.m. the _first orders_ had been despatched. colonel basil jackson has the following recollections of his experiences on the evening of the th june: "i was sauntering about the park towards seven o'clock on the evening of the th june, when a soldier of the guards, attached to the quartermaster-general's office, summoned me to attend sir william de lancey. he had received orders to concentrate the army towards the frontier, which until then had remained quiet in cantonments. i was employed, along with others, for about two hours in writing out 'routes' for the several divisions, foreign as well as british, which were despatched by orderly hussars of the rd regiment of the german legion, steady fellows, who could be depended on for so important a service. to each was explained the rate at which he was to proceed, and the time when he was to arrive at his destination; he was directed also to bring back the cover of the letter which he carried, having the time of its arrival noted upon it by the officer to whom it was addressed. "this business over, which occupied us till after nine, de lancey put a packet into my hand directed to colonel cathcart--the present earl--a thorough soldier, and highly esteemed by the duke, who then filled, as he had previously done in spain, the arduous post of assistant quartermaster-general to the whole of the cavalry. "'i believe you can find your way in the dark by the cross roads to ninove,' said sir william, 'let this be delivered as soon as possible.' "proud of my commission, i was speedily in the saddle and threading my way, which i did without difficulty. my good nag rapidly cleared the fifteen miles, but ere reaching the above place, then the headquarters of the cavalry, i fell in with one or two orderly dragoons speeding to out-quarters. i could also perceive lights flickering about in the villages adjacent to my route: indications which satisfied me that the german hussar previously despatched from brussels had accomplished his mission. "here let me stop for a moment to commend the practice in our service of having plenty of well-mounted staff officers ready to convey orders of moment at the utmost speed. on the portentous night in question, several, chiefly belonging to the royal staff corps, a body attached to the quartermaster-general's department, were employed in conveying duplicates of the instructions previously forwarded by hussars, in order to guard against the possibility of mistake. the omission of such a precautionary measure at the prussian headquarters, on the same evening, was attended with disastrous consequences, for blücher's order for bulow's corps to unite with the rest of his army, being entrusted to a corporal, probably wanting in intelligence, he did not deliver it in time, whereby that corps, , strong, failed to reach ligny and share in the battle."[ ] [footnote : "recollections of waterloo," by a staff officer, in _united service journal_ for , part iii., p. .] ( ) "i entreated to remain in the room with him, promising not to speak. he wrote for several hours without any interruption but the entrance and departure of the various messengers who were to take the orders. every now and then i gave him a cup of green tea, which was the only refreshment he would take, and he rewarded me by a silent look. my feelings during these hours i cannot attempt to describe, but i preserved perfect outward tranquillity."--_abridged narrative._ ( ) by midnight, the _after orders_ had been despatched. with regard to the orders of the th and th june, including the "disposition of the british army at o'clock a.m., th june," attributed to sir william de lancey, see gurwood, vol. xii., pp. - ; _supplementary despatches_, vol. x., p. ; ropes' _waterloo_, pp. - ; and colonel maurice in _u.s. magazine_, , pp. and - . ( ) doubtless, general müffling, prussian attaché at the headquarters of the duke of wellington. he accompanied the duke to the ball, and next morning rode with him to quatre bras. ( ) _i.e._, without changing their ball dress. some of the officers were killed at quatre bras in their shoes and silk stockings. "there was a ball at brussels, at the duchess of richmond's, that night (which i only mention because it was so much talked of), at which numbers of the officers were present, who quitted the ball to join their divisions, which had commenced their march before they arrived at their quarters, and some of them were killed the next day in the same dress they had worn at the ball." (extract from a letter written by colonel felton hervey shortly after the battle, and published in the _xixth century_ for march , page .) see also colonel maurice in _u.s. magazine_, , p. . ( ) "as the dawn broke, the soldiers were seen assembling from all parts of the town, in marching order, with their knapsacks on their backs, loaded with three days' provisions. unconcerned in the midst of the din of war, many a soldier laid himself down on a truss of straw and soundly slept, with his hands still grasping his firelock; others were sitting contentedly on the pavement, waiting the arrival of their comrades. numbers were taking leave of their wives and children, perhaps for the last time, and many a veteran's rough cheek was wet with the tears of sorrow. one poor fellow, immediately under our windows, turned back again and again to bid his wife farewell, and take his baby once more in his arms; and i saw him hastily brush away a tear with the sleeve of his coat, as he gave her back the child for the last time, wrung her hand, and ran off to join his company, which was drawn up on the other side of the place royale. many of the soldiers' wives marched out with their husbands to the field, and i saw one young english lady mounted on horseback slowly riding out of town along with an officer, who, no doubt, was her husband. soon afterwards the nd and nd highland regiments marched through the place royale and the parc, with their bagpipes playing before them, while the bright beams of the rising sun shone full on their polished muskets and on the dark waving plumes of their tartan bonnets. alas! we little thought that even before the fall of night these brave men whom we now gazed at with so much interest and admiration would be laid low." (mrs eaton's _waterloo days_, p. .) ( ) "i stood with my husband at a window of the house, which overlooked a gate of the city, and saw the whole army go out. regiment after regiment passed through and melted away in the mist of the morning."--_abridged narrative._ ( ) "le grand laboureur." ( ) the duke's corpse did not arrive at antwerp till saturday afternoon. see mrs eaton's _waterloo days_, p. . ( ) "i went to antwerp, and found the hotel there so crowded, that i could only obtain one small room for my maid and myself, and it was at the top of the house. i remained entirely within, and desired my maid not to tell me what she might hear in the hotel respecting the army. on the th, however, i could not avoid the conviction that the battle was going on; the anxious faces in the street, the frequent messengers i saw passing by, were sufficient proof that important intelligence was expected, and as i sat at the open window i heard the firing of artillery, like the distant roaring of the sea, as i had so often heard it at dunglass. how the contrast of my former tranquil life there was pressed upon me at that moment!"--_abridged narrative._ southey, the poet, says that the firing of the th was heard at antwerp, but not that of the th. it is an extraordinary but indisputable fact that the firing at waterloo was heard in england. the _kentish gazette_ of tuesday, th june (published therefore before any one in england, not even nathan rothschild himself, was aware that there had been a battle fought at waterloo), contained the following piece of news from ramsgate: "a heavy and incessant firing was heard from this coast on sunday evening in the direction of dunkirk." dunkirk lies in nearly a straight line between waterloo and the coast of kent. what makes the matter still more extraordinary is the fact that colville's division, which, on the th, was posted in front of hal, about ten miles to the west of the battlefield, never heard a sound of the firing, and did not know till midnight that any battle had taken place. ( ) wellington's headquarters on the night of the th june were at genappe, two or three miles to the rear of the battlefield of quatre bras. he slept at the roi d'espagne. blücher occupied the same inn on the night of the th. ( ) the battle began about . , though wellington in his despatch states that it began about . napoleon's bulletin fixes noon as the time. marshal ney said that it began at o'clock. it is clear they did not all look at their watches. ( ) de lancey is supposed to have been struck about the time when the french batteries opened a fierce cannonade on the english centre, preparatory to the first of their tremendous cavalry attacks. this would make the hour nearer o'clock than . he fell not far from the wellington tree, and close to the famous _chemin creux_ of victor hugo, in the immediate rear of which ompteda's brigade of the king's german legion was posted. the appearance of the spot is now entirely altered. the tree was cut down in , and all the soil of the elevated ground on the south side of the _chemin creux_ was carted away to make the belgian lion mound about . a steam tramway now runs by the place. for a sketch of the celebrated tree, with napoleon's guide, de coster, in the foreground, see captain arthur gore's _explanatory notes on the battle of waterloo_, ; and for another view of the ragged old tree as it appeared the day before it was cut down, see _illustrated london news_, th november . the map which faces page is adapted from the plan of the battlefield of waterloo, drawn in , by w.b. craan, surveying engineer of brabant. the troops are shown in the positions occupied by them at o'clock, a.m., just before the opening of the battle. on the map will be seen the position of the wellington tree, also the farm and village of mont st jean, to which village it is supposed sir william de lancey was carried, after he had received the fatal blow. the village of waterloo is outside the map, some two miles to the north. [illustration: map of part of the battlefield of waterloo] "the duke had no fixed station throughout the day, and did not remain at this tree for more than three or four minutes at any one time. he frequently rode to it to observe the advance of the columns of attack. a deep dip in the main road prevented his going beyond it without a detour to the rear. it was here also that, the duke having galloped up with the staff and using his glass to observe the enemy's movements, poor colonel de lancey by his side was struck by a heavy shot which slanted off without breaking either his skin or even his coat, but all the ribs of the left side were separated from the back."--siborne's _waterloo correspondence_, vol. i., p. . sir walter scott has the following interesting passage in the seventh of his _paul's letters to his kinsfolk_. after a reference to the british army taking up its position on the field of waterloo the night before the battle, he thus continues: "the duke had caused a plan of this and other military positions in the neighbourhood of brussels, to be made some time before by colonel carmichael smyth, the chief engineer. he now called for that sketch, and with the assistance of the regretted sir william de lancey and colonel smyth, made his dispositions for the momentous events of next day. the plan itself, a _relique_ so precious, was rendered yet more so by being found in the breast of sir william de lancey's coat when he fell, and stained with the blood of that gallant officer. it is now in the careful preservation of colonel carmichael smyth, by whom it was originally sketched." for an account of colonel sir james carmichael smyth, commanding royal engineer on the staff of the duke of wellington, see _dictionary of national biography_, vol. liii., p. . major john oldfield, brigade-major, r.e., gives the following particulars about this map, which is reproduced opposite page of vol. i. of c.d. yonge's _life of field-marshal the duke of wellington_. "shortly after my chief--colonel smyth--had joined headquarters (this was on the th), he sent in to me, at brussels, for the plan of the position of waterloo, which had been previously reconnoitred. the several sketches of the officers had been put together, and one fair copy made for the prince of orange. a second had been commenced in the drawing-room for the duke, but was not in a state to send; i therefore forwarded the original sketches of the officers. "_morning of the th._--upon my joining colonel smyth, he desired me to receive from lieutenant waters the plan of the position, which, according to his desire, i had sent to him from brussels the preceding day, and of which i was told to take the greatest care. it had been lost in one of the charges of the french cavalry, and recovered. lieutenant waters, who had it in his cloak before his saddle (or in his sabretasche attached to his saddle, i forget which), was unhorsed in the _mêlée_ and ridden over. upon recovering himself, he found the cavalry had passed him, and his horse was nowhere to be seen. he felt alarmed for the loss of his plan. to look for his horse, he imagined, was in vain, and his only care was to avoid being taken prisoner, which he hoped to do by keeping well towards our right. the enemy being repulsed in his charge was returning by the left to the ground by which he had advanced. after proceeding about fifty yards, he was delighted to find his horse quietly destroying the vegetables in a garden near the farmhouse at quatre bras. he thus fortunately recovered his plan, and with it rejoined the colonel. the retreat of the prussians upon wavre rendered it necessary for the duke to make a corresponding movement, and upon the receipt of a communication from blücher, he called colonel smyth and asked him for his plan of the position of waterloo, which i immediately handed to him. the duke then gave directions to sir william de lancey to put the army in position at waterloo, forming them across the nivelles and charleroi chaussées."--porter's _history of the corps of royal engineers_, vol. i., p. . see also ropes' _waterloo_, p. . ( ) "he was able to speak in a short time after the fall, and when the duke of wellington took his hand and asked how he felt, he begged to be taken from the crowd that he might die in peace, and gave a message to me."--_abridged narrative._ ( ) captain and lieutenant-colonel delancey barclay, st foot guards. see _army list_ for , pp. and , also _waterloo roll call_, p. . ( ) probably a barn at the farm of mont st jean, about yards north of the wellington tree. ( ) doubtless the village of mont st jean, the village of waterloo being two miles further north. when miss waldie (afterwards mrs eaton--see _dictionary of national biography_, vol. lix., p. ) went to waterloo on the th july, she noticed the name of sir william de lancey written in chalk on the door of a cottage, where he had slept the night before the battle. (_waterloo days_, p. .) the sketch on the opposite page is reproduced from _sketches in flanders and holland_, by robert hills, , and shows the village of mont st jean, as it appeared a month after the battle. the figures in the foreground represent villagers returning from the battlefield with cuirasses, brass eagles, bullets, etc., which they had picked up. [illustration: the village of mont st jean, .] ( ) see _waterloo roll call_, p. , and _army list_ for , p. . ( ) the duke began the waterloo despatch very early on the th at waterloo, but he finished it at brussels, that same morning. ( ) _i.e._, not only waterloo, but ligny, quatre bras, and the fighting that took place on the th and th june. ( ) mr william hay of duns castle. he had been in the th light dragoons in the peninsular war (see _army list_ for , p. ), and had come over from england a few days before to see his old friends, and introduce his young brother, cornet alexander hay, to his old regiment. ( ) mr hay was on the battlefield during the early part of the fight. early next morning he revisited the field, to try to find some trace of his brother. the body was never found. he had been killed late at night on the french position, while the th light dragoons were in pursuit of the enemy. (tomkinson's _diary of a cavalry officer_, - , p. ; also _reminiscences_, - , _under wellington_, by captain william hay, c.b.) there is a memorial tablet to him in the church at waterloo, with the following inscription: "sacred to the memory of alexander hay, esq., of nunraw, cornet in the th light dragoons, aged years, who fell gloriously in the memorable battle of waterloo, june , . "_o dolor atque decus magnum ... hæc te prima dies bello dedit, hæc eadem aufert._ "this tablet was placed here by his brothers and sisters." ( ) no doubt lieutenant-general john mackenzie who was in command at antwerp. he succeeded sir colin halkett in that post. see _army list_ for , p. . ( ) another indication that it was in the village of mont st jean and not waterloo. ( ) "one of the most painful visits i ever paid was to a little wretched cottage at the end of the village which was pointed out to me as the place where de lancey was lying mortally wounded. how wholly shocked i was on entering, to find lady de lancey seated on the only broken chair the hovel contained, by the side of her dying husband. i made myself known. she grasped me by the hand, and pointed to poor de lancey covered with his coat, and with just a spark of life left."--_reminiscences, etc._, by captain william hay, c.b., p. . ( ) creevey states that as he was on his way from brussels to waterloo on tuesday the th june, the duke overtook him and said he was going to see sir frederick ponsonby and de lancey. the duke was in plain clothes and riding in a curricle with colonel felton hervey.--_the creevey papers_, p. . ( ) probably the duke had in his mind the charge of lord edward somerset's household brigade against the french cuirassiers, which took place about o'clock. alava, in his report to the spanish government, calls it "the most sanguinary cavalry fight perhaps ever witnessed." ( ) this was the general opinion at the time. four days after the battle an officer in the rd battalion of the st foot guards wrote as follows: "i constantly saw the noble duke of wellington riding backwards and forwards like the genius of the storm, who, borne upon its wings, directed its thunder where to break. he was everywhere to be found, encouraging, directing, animating. he was in a blue short cloak, and a plain cocked hat, his telescope in his hand; there was nothing that escaped him, nothing that he did not take advantage of, and his lynx eyes seemed to penetrate the smoke and forestall the movements of the foe" (p. , _battle of waterloo_, th edition, , l. booth). a highly interesting remark from the duke's lips just before the attack made by the imperial guard has been preserved in a letter written at nivelles on the th june, by colonel sir a.s. frazer. "'twice have i saved this day by perseverance,' said his grace before the last great struggle, and said so most justly." this seems to coincide with the observation which the duke made to creevey at brussels the morning after the battle. "by god! i don't think it would have been done, if i had not been there." ( ) another proof that it was mont st jean and not waterloo. ( ) probably james powell, an apothecary in the medical department. date of rank, th september . see _army list_ for , p. . in the army list of , and in subsequent army lists he is shown with a [symbol: blackletter w] before his name, as being in possession of the waterloo medal. his last appearance in the army list is in , in which issue he is shown on page as a surgeon on half-pay. ( ) john robert hume was a deputy-inspector of the medical department. see _army list_ for , p. . he also held the appointment of surgeon to the duke of wellington. he was in attendance on the memorable occasion when a duel took place in battersea fields between the duke of wellington and earl winchilsea, st march . he died in . see _dictionary of national biography_, vol. xxviii., p. . the following is dr hume's account of his visit to the duke the morning after the battle. "i came back from the field of waterloo with sir alexander gordon, whose leg i was obliged to amputate on the field late in the evening. he died rather unexpectedly in my arms about half-past three in the morning of the th. i was hesitating about disturbing the duke, when sir charles broke-vere came. he wished to take his orders about the movement of the troops. i went upstairs and tapped gently at the door, when he told me to come in. he had as usual taken off his clothes, but had not washed himself. as i entered, he sat up in bed, his face covered with the dust and sweat of the previous day, and extended his hand to me, which i took and held in mine, whilst i told him of gordon's death, and of such of the casualties as had come to my knowledge. he was much affected. i felt the tears dropping fast upon my hand, and looking towards him, saw them chasing one another in furrows over his dusty cheeks. he brushed them suddenly away with his left hand, and said to me in a voice tremulous with emotion, 'well, thank god, i don't know what it is to lose a battle; but certainly nothing can be more painful than to gain one with the loss of so many of one's friends.'"--(extract from a lecture by montague gore, .) ( ) stephen woolriche was a deputy-inspector of the medical department. see _army list_ for , p. . his name appears for the last time in the army list of - . by that time he had gained a c.b., and held the rank of inspector-general of the medical department on half-pay. ( ) general francis dundas (_army list_ for , p. ) was colonel of the st highland light infantry. he had served in the american war, and afterwards at the cape. at the time of the alarm of a french invasion, of england in - , he commanded a portion of the english forces assembled on the south coast under sir david dundas, the commander-in-chief, who married an aunt of sir william de lancey. sir david dundas was at this time governor of chelsea hospital, where he died at the age of eighty-five, on the th february .--(see _dictionary of national biography_, vol. xvi., p. .) ( ) sir hew dalrymple hamilton, fourth baronet, was born on the rd january , and married, on the th may , jane, eldest daughter of the first lord duncan of camperdown. ( ) there were at that time three protestant cemeteries at brussels. this was the st josse ten noode cemetery, on the south side of the chaussée de louvain. many were here buried who had died of wounds received at waterloo, including major archibald john maclean, rd highlanders; major william j. lloyd, r.a.; captain william stothert, adjutant, rd foot guards; lieut. michael cromie, r.a.; lieut. charles spearman, r.a.; lieut. john clyde, rd royal welsh fusiliers. see _times_ of th february . ( ) in , sir william de lancey's remains were exhumed from the old, disused cemetery of st josse ten noode, and, along with those of a number of other british officers who fell in the waterloo campaign, were removed to the beautiful cemetery of evere, three miles to the north-east of brussels. on the th august , h.r.h. the duke of cambridge unveiled the celebrated waterloo memorial which contains their bones. the following was the inscription on the gravestone which lady de lancey erected:-- "this stone is placed to mark where the body of col. sir w. howe de lancey, quartermaster-general, is interred. "he was wounded at the battle of belle alliance (waterloo) on the th june ." [illustration: the waterloo memorial in evere cemetery.] ( ) _tuesday, th april_ .--this date is confirmed by the _gentleman's magazine_, , which states: "april , col. sir w. de lancey, k.c.b., to magdalene, daughter of sir james hall, bart." on the other hand, the _abridged narrative_ states as follows:--"i was married in march . at that time sir william de lancey held an appointment on the staff in scotland. peace appeared established, and i had no apprehension of the trials that awaited me. while we were spending the first week of our marriage at dunglass, the accounts of the return of bonaparte from elba arrived, and sir william was summoned to london, and soon after ordered to join the army at brussels as adjutant-quartermaster-general." napoleon landed in france on the st march, and in the london _evening mail_ of the issue headed:-- "from wednesday, march , to friday, march , ," the following appears as a postscript:-- "london, "_friday afternoon, march_ . "letters have been received at dover of the most interesting import; they announce the flight of buonaparte from the island of elba, and his arrival at frejus, the place at which he landed on his return from egypt. we have seen the king of france's proclamation against him, dated the th instant, declaring him and his adherents traitors and rebels: of these he is said to have had at first only , but to have directed his march immediately on lyons. it was considered that he would make a dash at paris. now, however, the villain's fate is at issue." this news probably reached edinburgh by coach a week later, and may have been known at dunglass on the following day, the th march. it seems doubtful, therefore, whether lady de lancey did not make a mistake of a month in dating her marriage exactly three months before the th of july. she may possibly have been married in march. the "hundred days" cover the period between napoleon's first proclamation at lyons on the th march and his abdication on the nd june. it will therefore be seen that the married life of the de lanceys, if it extended from the th march to the th june , covered this period, with just thirteen days to spare. appendix a letters to captain basil hall, r.n., from sir walter scott and charles dickens.[ ] [footnote : from the autograph collection in the possession of lady parsons.] * * * * * "my dear captain hall, "i received with great pleasure your kind proposal to visit tweedside. it arrived later than it should have done. i lose no time in saying that you and mrs hall cannot come but as welcome guests any day next week, which may best suit you. if you have time to drop a line we will make our dinner hour suit your arrival, but you cannot come amiss to us. "i am infinitely obliged to you for captain maitland's plain, manly, and interesting narrative. it is very interesting, and clears bonaparte of much egotism imputed to him. i am making a copy which, however, i will make no use of except as extracts, and am very much indebted to captain maitland for the privilege. "constable proposed a thing to me which was of so much delicacy that i scarce know how [_sic_] about it, and thought of leaving it till you and i met. "it relates to that most interesting and affecting journal kept by my regretted and amiable friend, mrs hervey,[ ] during poor de lancey's illness. he thought with great truth that it would add very great interest as an addition to the letters which i wrote from paris soon after waterloo, and certainly i would consider it as one of the most valuable and important documents which could be published as illustrative of the woes of war. but whether this could be done without injury to the feelings of survivors is a question not for me to decide, and indeed i feel unaffected pain in even submitting it to your friendly ear who i know will put no harsh construction upon my motive which can be no other than such as would do honour to the amiable and lamented authoress. i never read anything which affected my own feelings more strongly or which i am sure would have a deeper interest on those of the public. still the work is of a domestic nature, and its publication, however honourable to all concerned, might perhaps give pain when god knows i should be sorry any proposal of mine should awaken the distresses which time may have in some degree abated. you are the only person who can judge of this with any certainty or at least who can easily gain the means of ascertaining it, and as constable seemed to think there was a possibility that after the lapse of so much time it might be regarded as matter of history and as a record of the amiable character of your accomplished sister, and seemed to suppose there was some probability of such a favour being granted, you will consider me as putting the question on his suggestion. it could be printed as the journal of a lady during the last illness of a general officer of distinction during her attendance upon his last illness, or something to that purpose. perhaps it may be my own high admiration of the contents of this heartrending diary which makes me suppose a possibility that after such a lapse of years, the publication may possibly (as that which cannot but do the highest honour to the memory of the amiable authoress) may not be judged altogether inadmissible. you may and will, of course, act in this matter with your natural feeling of consideration, and ascertain whether that which cannot but do honour to the memory of those who are gone can be made public with the sacred regard due to the feelings of survivors. [footnote : lady de lancey married again in captain henry hervey, madras infantry, and died in . _gentleman's magazine_, vol. lxxxix, part i., p. , and vol. cii., part ii., p. .] "lady scott begs to add the pleasure she must have in seeing mrs hall and you at abbotsford, and in speedy expectation of that honour i am always, "dear sir, "most truly yours, "walter scott. "abbotsford, _th_ _october_ ." * * * * * "devonshire terrace, "_tuesday evening_, _th_ _march_ . "my dear hall, "for i see it must be 'juniores priores,' and that i must demolish the ice at a blow. "i have not had courage until last night to read lady de lancey's narrative, and, but for your letter, i should not have mastered it even then. one glance at it, when through your kindness it first arrived, had impressed me with a foreboding of its terrible truth, and i really have shrunk from it in pure lack of heart. "after working at barnaby all day, and wandering about the most wretched and distressful streets for a couple of hours in the evening--searching for some pictures i wanted to build upon--i went at it, at about ten o'clock. to say that the reading that most astonishing and tremendous account has constituted an epoch in my life--that i shall never forget the lightest word of it--that i cannot throw the impression aside, and never saw anything so real, so touching, and so actually present before my eyes, is nothing. i am husband and wife, dead man and living woman, emma and general dundas, doctor and bedstead--everything and everybody (but the prussian officer--damn him) all in one. what i have always looked upon as masterpieces of powerful and affecting description, seem as nothing in my eyes. if i live for fifty years, i shall dream of it every now and then, from this hour to the day of my death, with the most frightful reality. the slightest mention of a battle will bring the whole thing before me. i shall never think of the duke any more, but as he stood in his shirt with the officer in full-dress uniform, or as he dismounted from his horse when the gallant man was struck down. "it is a striking proof of the power of that most extraordinary man defoe that i seem to recognise in every line of the narrative something of him. has this occurred to you? the going to waterloo with that unconsciousness of everything in the road, but the obstacles to getting on--the shutting herself up in her room and determining not to hear--the not going to the door when the knocking came--the finding out by her wild spirits when she heard he was safe, how much she had feared when in doubt and anxiety--the desperate desire to move towards him--the whole description of the cottage, and its condition; and their daily shifts and contrivances; and the lying down beside him in the bed and both _falling asleep_; and his resolving not to serve any more, but to live quietly thenceforth; and her sorrow when she saw him eating with an appetite so soon before his death; and his death itself--all these are matters of truth, which only that astonishing creature, as i think, could have told in fiction. "of all the beautiful and tender passages--the thinking every day how happy and blest she was--the decorating him for the dinner--the standing in the balcony at night and seeing the troops melt away through the gate--and the rejoining him on his sick bed--i say not a word. they are god's own, and should be sacred. but let me say again, with an earnestness which pen and ink can no more convey than toast and water, in thanking you heartily for the perusal of this paper, that its impression on me can never be told; that the ground she travelled (which i know well) is holy ground to me from this day; and that please heaven i will tread its every foot this very next summer, to have the softened recollection of this sad story on the very earth where it was acted. "you won't smile at this, i know. when my enthusiasms are awakened by such things they don't wear out. "have you ever thought within yourself of that part where, having suffered so much by the news of his death, she _will not_ believe he is alive? i should have supposed that unnatural if i had seen it in fiction. "i shall never dismiss the subject from my mind, but with these hasty and very imperfect words i shall dismiss it from my paper, with two additional remarks--firstly, that kate has been grievously putting me out by sobbing over it, while i have been writing this, and has just retired in an agony of grief; and, secondly, that _if_ a time _should_ ever come when you would not object to letting a friend copy it for himself, i hope you will bear me in your thoughts. "it seems the poorest nonsense in the world to turn to anything else, that is, seems to me being fresher in respect of lady de lancey than you--but my raven's dead. he had been ailing for a few days but not seriously, as we thought, and was apparently recovering, when symptoms of relapse occasioned me to send for an eminent medical gentleman one herring (a bird fancier in the new road), who promptly attended and administered a powerful dose of castor oil. this was on tuesday last. on wednesday morning he had another dose of castor oil and a tea cup full of warm gruel, which he took with great relish and under the influence of which he so far recovered his spirits as to be enabled to bite the groom severely. at o'clock at noon he took several turns up and down the stable with a grave, sedate air, and suddenly reeled. this made him thoughtful. he stopped directly, shook his head, moved on again, stopped once more, cried in a tone of remonstrance and considerable surprise, 'halloa old girl!' and immediately died. "he has left a rather large property (in cheese and halfpence) buried, for security's sake, in various parts of the garden. i am not without suspicions of poison. a butcher was heard to threaten him some weeks since, and he stole a clasp knife belonging to a vindictive carpenter, which was never found. for these reasons, i directed a post-mortem examination, preparatory to the body being stuffed; the result of it has not yet reached me. the medical gentleman broke out the fact of his decease to me with great delicacy, observing that 'the jolliest queer start had taken place with that 'ere knowing card of a bird, as ever he see'd'--but the shock was naturally very great. with reference to the jollity of the start, it appears that a raven dying at two hundred and fifty or thereabouts, is looked upon as an infant. this one would hardly, as i may say, have been born for a century or so to come, being only two or three years old. "i want to know more about the promised 'tickler'--when it's to come, what it's to be, and in short all about it--that i may give it the better welcome. i don't know how it is, but i am celebrated either for writing no letters at all or for the briefest specimens of epistolary correspondence in existence, and here i am--in writing to you--on the sixth side! i won't make it a seventh anyway; so with love to all your home circle, and from all mine, i am now and always, "faithfully yours, "charles dickens. "i am glad you like barnaby. i have great designs in store, but am sadly cramped at first for room." appendix b bibliography of lady de lancey's narrative _reminiscences_, by samuel rogers, under the heading: "duke of wellington," p. . _memoirs, journal, and correspondence of thomas moore_, edited by lord john russell, journal of th august , vol. iv., p. . _notes of conversations with the duke of wellington_, by earl stanhope, p. . letter from sir walter scott to captain basil hall, r.n., dated th october , published in the _century magazine_ (new york), april , and in appendix a, _ante_. letter from charles dickens to captain basil hall, r.n., dated th march , published in the _century magazine_ (new york), april , and in appendix a, _ante_. _illustrated naval and military magazine_, , vol. viii., p. . a condensed account of her experiences at waterloo, written by lady de lancey for the information of her friends in general. see page , _ante_. _century magazine_, new york, april . publication in full of the original narrative as written by lady de lancey for the information of her brother, captain basil hall, r.n. index abbotsford, . abercrombie, general, . _abridged narrative_, , , , , , , . _adonais_, . alava, general, , , , , , . ambassador, spanish, , . annapolis, . antwerp, , , , , , , , , , , . appleton's _cyclopædia_, quoted, , , , . _autobiography of sir harry smith_, quoted, , . b., mrs, , . bacon, quoted, , . bahama islands, . ball at duchess of richmond's, , , . barclay, colonel delancey, , . _barnaby rudge_, , , . barnes, major-general sir e., , , . bathurst, earl, , . berkeley, colonel, . beverley, , . bibliography of lady de lancey's narrative, . bloomingdale, . blücher, , , , . bonaparte, napoleon, . bowood, . brogden, t.w., . broke-vere, sir charles, . brunswick, duke of, . brussels, , , , _et passim_. bulow, . caen, , . calnek and savary, . cambridge, duke of, . canning, colonel, . castel cicala, prince, . _castle rackrent_, . cathcart, colonel, . _century magazine_, , . charleroi, , . chichester, henry manners, , . _childe harold_, . clyde, lieutenant, . colville's division, . connecticut, . constable, , , . cooke, general, . corunna, , . _county of annapolis, history of_, . craan, w.b., . _creevey papers_, , , , . creevey, mr, , . cromie, lieutenant, . crown point, . cruger, colonel john harris, . dalton's _waterloo roll call_, , , . defoe, , , . de coster, . de lancey, charlotte, . de lancey, edward floyd, , , . de lancey, etienne, , . de lancey, james, . de lancey, lady, ; narrative of, , - . de lancey, oliver, , , . de lancey, peter, . de lancey, sir william howe, biography of, ; military services of, , , ; on board h.m.s. _endymion_, ; marriage, , ; summoned to belgium, ; at brussels, , - ; at the battle of waterloo, , , ; wounding and death of, - , , , . de lancey, stephen, , . de lancey, susanna, . de lancey, guy, . de ros, lady, . _despatches of the duke of wellington_, quoted, , . dickens, charles, , , , , , , . dickens, kate, . _dictionnaire de la noblesse de france_, . _dictionary of national biography_, , , , , , , , , , , . draper, sir william, . dundas, general sir david, , . dundas, general francis, , , , , , , , , , , , . dunglass, , , . dunkirk, . eaton, mrs, , , . edinburgh, . elba, , , . emma, , , , _et sæpe_. _endymion_, h.m.s., , , , . _evening mail_, quoted, , . evere cemetery, . _fragments of voyages and travels_, , , . _frazer, colonel sir a.s., letters of_, , , . frejus, . fremantle, colonel, . genappe, , , . genoa, . _gentleman's magazine_, , . ghent, . gordon, colonel sir alexander, , , , . gore, captain arthur, , . gore, montague, . grant, colonel, . greene, general, . gronow, captain, . gurwood's _despatches of the duke of wellington_, , , . hal, . halkett, sir colin, . hall, captain basil, , , , , , , , , , . hall, magdalene (lady de lancey), , , , , , . hall, mrs basil, , , . hall, sir james, , . hamilton, sir h.d., , . hamilton, lady, , , , , , , , . hay, captain william, , . hay, cornet alexander, . hay, lieut., , , , , . hervey, mrs (lady de lancey), . hervey, colonel felton, , , . hills, robert, . _history of the corps of royal engineers_, quoted, . howe, general sir william, . howe, lord, . hudson river, . hume, dr, , , , , , , , , . "hundred days," . _illustrated london news_, . _illustrated naval and military magazine_, , . india, . invalides, les, . jackson, colonel basil, , . james ii., . james, mr, , , , . johnson, mrs s., . jones' history, quoted, , . _kentish gazette_, . ladysmith, . lannoy, count de, , , . lansdowne, lord, . _larochejaquelein, mémoires de madame la marquise de_, . lennox, lord william, . ligny, , , . lloyd, major w.j., . london, , . long island, . louvain, , . lowe, general e.w.h. de lancey, . lowe, sir hudson, , . _loyalists of the american revolution,_ quoted, . _lycidas_, . lyons, . machel, town major, . maclean, major, . _madrid gazette_, . maitland, captain, , . malines, . maurice, colonel, . m'kenzie, general, , , , . _mémoires de madame la marquise de larochejaquelein_, . mitchell, captain, , , , , . mons, . mont st jean, , , , , , . moore, thomas, , , . mount-norris, lord, . müffling, general, . namur, , . nantes, revocation of the edict of, , . napoleon, , , , , , . _national biography, dictionary of_, , , , , , , , , , , . _naval and military magazine, illustrated,_ , . new jersey, . new york, , , , , , , . ney, marshal, . _nineteenth century magazine_, . "ninety-six," fort, . ninove, . nivelles, , , , , . _notes of conversations with the duke of wellington_, quoted, , . nova scotia, . nunraw, . oldfield, major, r.e., . ompteda, . orange, prince of, , . ossining, , . ostend, . paris, , . parsons, lady, , . _paul's letters to his kinsfolk_, . picton, general sir thomas, , . ponsonby, sir frederick, . ponsonby, sir william, . porter's _history of the corps of royal engineers_, . portsmouth, . portsmouth, n.h., , . powell, mr, , , , , , , , , , , , . pozzo di borgo, count, . quatre bras, , , , , . ramsgate, . _recollections and anecdotes_, by captain gronow, quoted, . richmond, duke of, . richmond, duchess of, , , . rogers, samuel, , , , . ropes' _waterloo_, , . rothschild, nathan, . _royal engineers, history of the corps of_, . russell, lord john, , . sabine, general sir e., . sabine's _loyalists of the american revolution_, quoted, . scott, lady, . scott, sir walter, , , , , , . scovell, sir george, , , , , . sharpe, w. arthur, . siborne's _waterloo correspondence_, . _sketches in flanders and holland_, . smith, sir harry, , . smyth, col. sir carmichael, r.e., , , . somerset, lord edward, . somerset, lord fitzroy, , , . southey, robert, . spearman, lieutenant, . stanhope, earl, quoted, , . staten island, . st josse ten noode, . stothert, captain w., . tàj, the, . tarrytown, . tennyson, . ticonderoga, fort, . tobago, . tomkinson's _diary of a cavalry officer_, . torrens, general sir h., . trafalgar, . _united service journal_, , . _united service magazine_, . uxbridge, lord, . van cortlandt, stephanus, . _vanity fair_, . van schaak, . vendée, la, . victor hugo, . vilvorde, . vincent, baron, . waldie, miss, . waterloo, , , , _et passim_. _waterloo, battle of_, by l. booth, . _waterloo days_, , , . _waterloo, explanatory notes on the battle of_, , . _waterloo, recollections of_, , . _waterloo roll call_, , , . _waterloo_, ropes', , . waters, lieut., r.e., . wavre, . webster, lady frances, . wellington, duke of, , , , _et sæpe_. _wellington, duke of, despatches of the_, quoted, , . _wellington, duke of, supplementary despatches of the_, quoted, , , . wellington tree, , , . winchilsea, earl, . woolriche, mr, , , , . yonge's _life of wellington_, . york, duke of, , . * * * * * printed by oliver and boyd, edinburgh. the waterloo campaign the waterloo campaign william siborne captain, half pay, unattached, constructor of the waterloo model fifth edition westminster archibald constable and co., ltd. preface. by common consent, this work is regarded as the best comprehensive account in the english language of the waterloo campaign. even those who differ from the author upon particular points, most cordially admit the general accuracy and fulness of his history. it is charmingly written, is graphic yet precise, and abundantly witnesses to the author's most strenuous endeavour to do justice to every one who took part in that great conflict. this work will henceforth be a household book amongst the teutonic race; and all who read it will gain a very clear insight into the methods of military strategy as they were practised by the great captains of that age. it is impossible to repress one's admiration of the heroic bravery displayed in this brief campaign: whether amongst the allies at quatre bras and waterloo, or by the imperial guard at planchenoit, or by the prussians at ligny, wavre, and le chesnay. the reader must be good enough to observe that a prussian brigade then equalled in numbers a french or an english division. this work has extended to such great length that one half of the _appendix_ (see pages to ) and nearly all the notes have been, most unwillingly, omitted. only those foot notes have been inserted which are absolutely essential to the text. room has however been found, at pages to , for the nominal lists of officers at waterloo, &c. one would most earnestly wish that wars may cease until the end of time; but if that may not be, then may they be as bravely fought as was this war of twenty days: from the th june, when napoleon crossed the sambre; to the th july , the day on which the allies took possession of paris. edward arber. _edgbaston, birmingham._ the title page of the third edition. _history of the war in france and belgium in : containing minute details of the battles of quatre bras, ligne, wavre, and waterloo._ _by captain w. siborne_, h.p. unattached; constructor of the waterloo model. _third and revised edition with remarks[ ] upon the rev. g.r. gleig's_ story of waterloo. _london. t. and w. boone, new bond street. ._ to the queen's most excellent majesty. madam, in graciously deigning to accept the dedication of these pages, your majesty has afforded the greatest possible encouragement to my humble endeavours to record, with simplicity, impartiality, and truth, the incidents of an eventful war, resulting in a long enduring peace; a war which shed a new and brighter lustre on the valour and discipline of the british army, and once more called forth the consummate sagacity and far-extending prescience of that illustrious chief, whom your majesty, with wise appreciation and a just pride, retains at its head. earnestly hoping that the result of those endeavours may prove not altogether undeserving of your majesty's approbation, i have the honour to be, with profound respect, madam, your majesty's most humble and most devoted servant, william siborne, captain unattached. preface to the third edition. in offering to the public this third edition, i feel called upon to state, by way of explanation, in what respect it differs from the two former editions. during the interval which has elapsed, i have not failed to avail myself of every opportunity to correct and improve any points which further investigation rendered desirable; and i have been much gratified in finding that the general plan and arrangement of the work, together with the elucidation of the military operations, and the views of their tendency and effect, have been generally borne out and approved; and that, consequently, in these respects little alteration has been required. the exceptions, which consist principally in details, and amount in number to only four or five, have been rectified in this edition. they are chiefly the result of discussions which have appeared in the pages of the _united service magazine_; and relate to a portion of the proceedings of sir colin halkett's and sir denis pack's brigades at quatre bras and waterloo. through the kindness of his excellency the prussian ambassador, chevalier bunsen, and of the prussian generals von canitz and von krauseneck, and of major gerwien of the prussian head quarters staff; i have obtained additional interesting details connected with the prussian operations; more especially as regards the opening of the campaign. a dutch work published, apparently under authority, by major van lÖben sels, aide de camp to his royal highness prince frederick of the netherlands, and entitled _b dragen tot de kr gsgeschiedenis van napoleon bonaparte_, of which i was not previously in possession, has enabled me to give additional particulars respecting the movements and dispositions of the most advanced portion of the dutch-belgian troops, on the first advance of the enemy; and also to explain particular circumstances and qualify some observations respecting those troops which appeared in former editions. the editor of an article in _the quarterly review_, no. cli., entitled _marmont_, _siborne_, and _alison_, having, in his comments upon this work, denied the accuracy of one or two important facts therein stated; i have, in notes at pages and ,[ ] entered into more minute details, which explain the grounds that warrant me in adhering to the original statements. the observations made in the preface of a volume of "murray's home and colonial library," entitled _the story of waterloo_, and the palpable embodiment of the present work into the pages of the latter, have been such as could scarcely fail to attract attention; and i have accordingly appended to this edition, in a separate form, some remarks upon that publication.[ ] public opinion (if i may judge by the unanimous consent of the press) having so distinctly pronounced its acknowledgment of the value of my work, as one of history; i could not disregard the conduct of a writer, who, in the first place endeavours to depreciate that value, and then unblushingly makes the most ample and unlicensed use of it for his own purposes. w. siborne. _ th june ._ [illustration: the duke of wellington.] footnotes: [footnote : _omitted in this fourth edition.--e.a._] [footnote : omitted in this fourth edition.--e.a.] [footnote : omitted in this fourth edition.--e.a.] preface to the second edition. the circumstance of the first edition having been sold off within a very few days, combined with the highly favourable notices taken of the work by professional as well as other critics, and, i may be permitted to add, the very flattering encomiums which have been pronounced upon it by so many who, from their position, are the most competent to form an opinion on its merits, cannot fail to afford proofs, the most satisfactory to the public, and, at the same time, the most gratifying to the author, that, in the production of these volumes,[ ] upon a subject of such stirring national interest, neither the expectations of the former have been altogether disappointed, nor the labours of the latter bestowed in vain. the present edition contains corrections on one or two points of trivial importance, to which my attention has been directed; and i shall be happy to receive further information from surviving eye witnesses who may discover any instances in which the facts related appear either inaccurately or insufficiently explained. w. siborne. _august rd, ._ footnotes: [footnote : the first and second editions of this work were each published in two volumes.--e.a.] preface. some years ago, when constructing a model of the field of waterloo, at a particular period of the battle; i found it necessary to make great exertions to procure that detailed information for which i had sought in vain in the already numerous _published_ accounts of the military transactions of . anxious to ensure the rigorous accuracy of my work, i ventured to apply for information to nearly all the surviving eye witnesses of the incidents which my model was intended to represent. in every quarter, and among officers of all ranks, from the general to the subaltern, my applications were responded to in a most liberal and generous spirit; and the result did indeed surprise me, so greatly at variance was this historical evidence with the general notions which had previously prevailed on the subject. thus was suggested the _present_ work. i was induced by the success of this experiment to embrace a wider field, and to extend my enquiries over the entire battle; and, ultimately, throughout the campaign itself, from its commencement to its close. having become the depository of such valuable materials, i felt it a duty to the honourable profession of which i am a humble member, to submit to it, and to the world, a true and faithful account of this memorable epoch in the history of britain's military greatness. though not so presumptuous as to imagine that i have fully supplied so absolute a desideratum; yet i consider myself fortunate in being the instrument of withdrawing so far the veil from truth. one of my waterloo correspondents has humorously remarked, that "if ever truth lies at the bottom of a well, she does so immediately after a great battle; and it takes an amazingly long time before she can be lugged out." the time of her emerging appears to have at length arrived; but, while i feel that i have brought to light much that was involved in obscurity, i cannot but be sensible that i may have fallen into errors. should such be the case, i shall be most ready, hereafter, to make any corrections that may appear requisite, on my being favoured, by _eye witnesses_, with further well authenticated information. i take this opportunity of returning my sincere thanks to the numerous officers of the british army, who have so kindly committed to my keeping their recollections of the events which i have attempted to describe. similar thanks are likewise due to the officers of the king's german legion and hanoverian subsidiary corps; as also to the general officers who respectively furnished me with such information as related to the troops of brunswick and nassau. i beg also to express my obligations to the prussian minister of war, and the officers of the prussian general staff in berlin, for the readiness and liberality with which they have supplied me with such details concerning the dispositions and movements of the troops of their sovereign, as were essential to me in prosecuting the task i had undertaken. having briefly explained the circumstances that led to the construction of the work which i thus venture to place before the public, i have now only to express a hope that my labours may be crowned with usefulness. should such a result occur, i shall then have obtained the only fame i seek. w. siborne. _march ._ table of contents. chapter i. page landing of napoleon buonaparte in france after his escape from elba flight of louis xviii. decision of the congress of vienna preparations on the part of the allied powers for opening a campaign against napoleon great britain and prussia occupy belgium advance of the russians towards the french frontier advance of the austrians the troops of bavaria, baden, würtemburg, and of hesse, assemble upon the upper rhine preparations on the part of napoleon general aspect of france spirit of the french army public opinion and state of parties in france chapter ii. belgium again destined to become the theatre of war the british army the duke of wellington the prussian army prince blÜcher von wahlstadt the king's german legion; the hanoverian, brunswick, dutch, belgian, and nassau troops napoleon and the french army prospect of a severe struggle chapter iii. strength, composition, and distribution of the anglo-allied army under wellington its projected concentration in the event of napoleon's advance strength, composition, and distribution of the prussian army under blÜcher its projected concentration in the event of napoleon's advance the line on which wellington's left and blÜcher's right rested, selected by napoleon for the direction of his attack strength, composition, and distribution of the french army under napoleon necessity under which the french emperor is placed of opening the campaign without awaiting the further development of his resources slight retrospect of the campaign of napoleon's prospect of success his preparations for the commencement of hostilities wellington receives information from his outposts in front of tournai, of the assembling of french troops on the frontier; but delays the concentration of the anglo-allied troops until certain of the object and direction of napoleon's main operation concentration of the french army napoleon joins the latter in person _ordre du jour_ of the th of june chapter iv. zieten ascertains and communicates to the allied commanders the assembling of french troops in his front, and that there is every probability of an attack by the enemy on the th or th of june blÜcher's dispositions extent of information gained by wellington and blÜcher immediately previous to the commencement of hostilities position of the first prussian _corps d'armée_ under zieten advance of the french army into belgium on the th of june the french force the prussian outposts; cross the sambre, and gain possession of charleroi retreat of the different brigades of zieten's corps upon fleurus affair at gilly zieten's corps concentrates in position between ligny and st arnaud losses experienced by this corps on the th the second and third prussian _corps d'armée_, under pirch and thielemann, concentrate and bivouac on the night of the th; the former between onoz and mazy not far from sombref, the latter in and around namur bÜlow is desired to concentrate the fourth prussian _corps d'armée_ at hannut cause of this operation being deferred until the th ney joins the french army, and receives from napoleon the command of a detached corps destined to operate by the brussels road from charleroi the advanced post at frasne, upon the extreme left of the duke of wellington's army, receives intelligence of the french attack consequent movements of de perponcher's dutch-belgian division the anglo-allied post at frasne is driven in by the advanced guard of ney's corps; the progress of which is checked by prince bernhard of saxe weimar's dutch-belgian brigade in front of quatre bras disposition of ney's forces in the night of the th of june wellington is informed of napoleon's advance, and makes his dispositions accordingly order of the movements of the anglo-allied army disposition of the centre and right columns of the french army during the night of the th remarks on the result of napoleon's operations on the th of june chapter v. on the morning of the th, wellington's troops are in movement upon nivelles and quatre bras the dutch-belgian detachment at the latter point is reinforced, and becomes engaged with the french advanced guard the prince of orange arrives, and succeeds in forcing back the french upon frasne ney's views and dispositions wellington arrives in person at quatre bras he proceeds to the prussian head quarters for the purpose of holding a conference with blÜcher adopted plan of operations instructions received by ney from napoleon ney's advance the prince of orange's dispositions to meet it relative strength the prince of orange retires towards quatre bras, occupies the wood of bossu, and endeavours to maintain the post of gemioncourt arrival of picton's division conspicuous gallantry of the prince of orange arrival of van merlen's light cavalry brigade van merlen advances in support of perponcher's infantry both are driven back: the former to quatre bras; the latter into the wood of bossu, which is now attacked by the french the latter occupy gemioncourt and piermont ney's position arrival of the principal portion of the brunswick troops relative strength part of the brunswick corps posted between the charleroi road and the wood of bossu french attack wellington decides on meeting it advance of picton with the fifth british division the french infantry gallantly repulsed by the british attack upon the brunswickers the duke of brunswick makes an ineffectual charge at the head of his lancers retreat of the brunswickers fall of the duke of brunswick conspicuous gallantry of the nd and th british regiments the french cavalry advances as far as quatre bras is checked by the nd highlanders kellermann joins ney with l'heritier's cavalry division the french cavalry attacks the british squares picton advances his infantry into the midst of the french cavalry remarkable steadiness of the british squares manner in which the charges of the french cavalry were executed the french are rapidly gaining possession of the entire wood of bossu, are reinforcing their light troops in piermont, and are preparing to renew their attack upon quatre bras alten joins wellington with two infantry brigades of the third division ney is joined by the remaining division of kellermann's corps of heavy cavalry relative strength ney, after despatching an order to d'erlon to join him without delay, commences another general attack two french foot batteries suddenly open a fire from the edge of the wood of bossu upon the brunswick infantry gallant conduct of lloyd's british foot battery advance of halkett's british infantry brigade posted between the wood of bossu and the charleroi road kielmansegge's hanoverian infantry brigade advances along the namur road to reinforce and support picton's division advance of french infantry against quatre bras the latter gallantly charged and pursued by the nd highlanders halkett's brigade posted between the wood of bossu and the charleroi road the th british regiment is attacked and dispersed by french _cuirassiers_ vigorous assault along the whole of the anglo-allied line arrival of british and german artillery french _cuirassiers_ driven back in confusion from quatre bras ney receives intelligence that d'erlon's corps has been ordered by napoleon to march towards the prussian extreme right on the field of ligny; and shortly afterwards a despatch reaches him, requiring him to attack and repulse whatever enemy may be in his front, and then to fall upon the prussian right vigorous attack upon the left of wellington's line successfully repelled the french cavalry continues its attacks upon the central portion of the anglo-allied army ney receives a further despatch from the emperor, urging him to comply immediately with the instructions previously given arrival of brunswick reinforcement also of the first british division under cooke relative strength halkett is again attacked by french cavalry, after which he makes a further advance of his brigade the british guards succeed in forcing the french out of the wood of bossu signal defeat of french cavalry by the british guards and the brunswick guard battalion wellington's victorious advance ney withdraws the whole of his forces to the heights of frasne, on which they bivouac for the night d'erlon joins ney after the termination of the action losses in killed and wounded remarks upon the battle chapter vi. blÜcher decides upon accepting battle in the position in rear of fleurus the position of ligny strategically considered the position itself described distribution of zieten's corps on the morning of the th of june at eleven o'clock pirch's corps is posted as a reserve to zieten's thielemann's corps reaches sombref about noon its distribution on the field general view of blÜcher's dispositions about ten o'clock the foremost of the french troops debouch in two columns from the wood of fleurus, and draw up in front of this town napoleon's views and dispositions at two o'clock he communicates to ney his intention to commence his attack upon the prussians, and desires that marshal also to attack the enemy in his front the french light troops gain possession of fleurus the cavalry of zieten's corps falls back upon the position of ligny the french army advances and takes up a position preparatory to its attack strength of the french forces under napoleon strength of the prussian forces under blÜcher blÜcher's arrangements he moves thielemann's corps into his front line, of which it then forms the left wing blÜcher's views and dispositions tactical defects of the position of ligny napoleon commences the battle with an attack by vandamme's corps upon st amand gÉrard's corps attacks ligny contest in these villages the french carry st amand renewed attack upon ligny nature of the contest between thielemann's and grouchy's corps girard's division gains possession of st amand la haye blÜcher's dispositions for retaking this village, securing wagnelé, and impeding any further advance from the french left failure of the prussian attack upon st amand la haye blÜcher decides on a renewed attack upon this village, as a diversion in favour of his projected movement against the french left napoleon reinforces this flank the prussians retake st amand la haye blÜcher reinforces his extreme right with cavalry prussian attack upon wagnelé unsuccessful the french regain st amand la haye continued contest at ligny blÜcher reinforces his troops employed in the defence of this village long and desperate struggle in the villages of st amand la haye, wagnelé, and the hameau de st amand napoleon, perceiving that blÜcher has scarcely any reserve remaining at his disposal, resolves upon attacking the prussian centre he suspends his meditated attack in consequence of a large column advancing apparently from frasne towards his left rear this column is discovered to be d'erlon's _corps d'armée_ this circumstance explained thielemann detaches a portion of his cavalry with some guns across the ligny, along the fleurus road they are attacked and driven back by part of grouchy's cavalry disposition and state of the prussian troops at the moment napoleon advances with a formidable reserve across the ligny the prussian infantry forced to evacuate ligny failure of prussian cavalry attacks upon the advancing column of french infantry blÜcher's horse is killed, and the prince thrown under him critical situation of the prussian commander he is removed from the field retreat of prussian infantry upon bry contest at sombref retreat of the prussians from st amand and st amand la haye zieten's and pirch's corps retire by marbais and tilly thielemann's corps retains its position close of the battle distribution of the french troops disposition of the prussian troops bÜlow's corps reaches gembloux during the night losses sustained by both armies consequences of the prussian defeat remarks upon the battle chapter vii. an engagement of short duration, and originating accidentally, takes place between the french and anglo-allied picquets on the field of quatre bras, about an hour before daylight of the th june wellington detaches a patrol to his left for the purpose of gaining intelligence concerning blÜcher's movements the patrol finds the prussians at tilly upon its return wellington decides on retrograding his forces to the position in front of waterloo order of movement communications between blÜcher and wellington retreat of the anglo-allied infantry; masked from the enemy ney's views and dispositions napoleon communicates to ney the result of the battle of ligny; and proposes, should the enemy's force at quatre bras advance against him, to co-operate with the marshal in a combined attack upon the anglo-allied army tardiness of napoleon's movements simultaneous advance of napoleon and ney against wellington uxbridge's dispositions for the retreat of the british cavalry brilliant cavalry affair at genappe retreat continued to the waterloo position napoleon's advance checked on his reaching la belle alliance remarks on the retreat blÜcher's promised support wellington's disposition of his detached troops under sir charles colville and prince frederick of orange the french and anglo-allied armies establish their respective bivouacs for the night chapter viii. at daybreak of the th, the prussian army commences its retreat upon wavre zieten's corps retires by mont st guibert, and reaches wavre about mid day pirch's corps follows the same route, and takes post upon the right bank of the dyle thielemann, having collected together the brigades of his corps, begins to retire from the field of ligny at two o'clock in the morning he halts in rear of gembloux bÜlow retires by walhain and corbaix to dion le mont, near which he takes up a position thielemann resumes his march at two o'clock in the afternoon, and arrives at the position of wavre late in the evening prussian head quarters established at wavre blÜcher receives a message from wellington while the prussians are effecting their retreat during the early part of the morning, the french continue quietly in their bivouac pajol, with the light cavalry division, seeks the prussians along the namur road; followed by lieutenant general teste's infantry division, in support other troops detached towards gembloux, near which traces of the prussian retreat are discovered remarks upon the extraordinary degree of inactivity on the part of napoleon about noon, napoleon proceeds to collect, in advance of marbais, on the high road to quatre bras, a portion of the troops that had fought at ligny; and detaches the remainder, under grouchy, in pursuit of the prussians napoleon's instructions to grouchy the troops assembled near marbais advance upon quatre bras, which they reach about two o'clock the corps of vandamme and gÉrard do not reach gembloux until late in the evening grouchy's dispositions disposition of the prussian troops during the th influence of the defeat at ligny upon the _morale_ of the prussian army blÜcher is informed of the position of the anglo-allied army his instructions to bÜlow on the th, vandamme's and gÉrard's corps commence the march from gembloux, at nine o'clock, upon wavre, preceded by the heavy cavalry under excelmans, and supported on their left by maurin's light cavalry at half past ten o'clock, excelmans' advanced guard comes in contact with the prussian rear guard at sart à wallain grouchy's attention is called to the sound of a heavy cannonade in the direction of mont st jean gÉrard suggests to grouchy the expediency of marching towards the cannonade grouchy's reasons for rejecting this proposal the march upon wavre continued at daybreak on the th, bÜlow quits his position near dion le mont to march through wavre upon st lambert, and thus commences the flank movement of the prussians in support of the anglo-allied army at waterloo blÜcher communicates to wellington his intention of immediately attacking the enemy's right flank dispositions made for giving security to this movement blÜcher directs that as soon as bÜlow's corps has proceeded beyond wavre, zieten's corps is to commence its march by fromont and ohain to join the left wing of wellington's army pirch's corps to follow bÜlow's in the direction of st lambert; and thielemann's to follow zieten's as soon as its presence at wavre is no longer essential the march of bÜlow's corps through wavre delayed by an accident bÜlow's advanced guard crosses the defile of st lambert, and halts in the wood of paris pirch, having strengthened his rear guard in consequence of the approach of the french, effects the passage of his corps across the dyle at wavre blÜcher's instructions to thielemann remarks upon grouchy's movements during the th, and the early part of the th their influence upon the battle of waterloo chapter ix. the french and anglo-allied armies break up their bivouacs early on the morning of the th of june, in front of waterloo preparations for battle the field wellington's position distribution of the anglo-allied army front line: with the advanced posts of smohain, la haye, la haye sainte, and hougomont second line reserves detached forces in observation near hal, and at tubize; the former under prince frederick of orange, the latter under sir charles colville braine l'alleud and vieux foriez occupied distribution of the anglo-allied artillery general view of the disposition of wellington's forces napoleon's position distribution of the french army front line second line reserves general view of the disposition of napoleon's forces remarks on the emperor's delay in commencing the battle strength of the anglo-allied army in the field strength of the french army the french columns moving into position intense interest excited in both armies when drawn up in presence of each other, and on the point of commencing the battle chapter x. napoleon's instructions to grouchy previously to the battle of waterloo a prussian officer joins the extreme left of the anglo-allied army, and reports that bÜlow's corps has reached st lambert napoleon passes along the french lines the battle commences about half past eleven o'clock, with an attack upon the wood of hougomont, by part of prince jerome's division the cannonade is opened by the guns of sandham's foot battery in front of cooke's division the french gain possession of a portion of the wood and other inclosures of hougomont they are driven out the french reconnoitre the anglo-allied left jerome renews his attack, supported by part of foy's division fire opened upon the attacking troops by the batteries posted with clinton's division the french gain the wood signal service rendered by bull's howitzer battery the french skirmishers succeed in turning the right of hougomont, and in forcing the great gate; which, however, is soon closed against the assailants they then press forward against the right of the allied front line, and force webber smith's horse battery to retire into a hollow way to refit they are charged and driven back by four companies of the coldstream guards, under lieutenant colonel woodford, which force then joins the defenders of hougomont the french, on debouching from the wood into the great orchard, are gallantly charged and driven back by lieutenant colonel lord saltoun with the light companies of the first brigade of guards the latter, being attacked in both front and flank, are compelled to fall back upon the hollow way in rear of the great orchard on being reinforced by two companies of the rd regiment of guards; they resume the offensive, and clear the orchard of the enemy ney's dispositions for a grand attack upon the left wing and centre of the anglo-allied army napoleon perceives troops in motion at some distance on his right he detaches domon's and subervie's light cavalry brigades in that direction he ascertains that the troops he has seen belong to the prussian _corp's d'armée_ of count bÜlow his orders to grouchy napoleon neglects to adopt effectual measures for securing his right flank chapter xi. commencement of the grand attack upon the left wing and centre of the anglo-allied army on the right of the attack the french gain possession of the farm of papelotte; which, however, is soon retaken by the rd battalion of the nd regiment of nassau retreat of bylandt's dutch-belgian infantry brigade picton's dispositions attack by the french left central column gallant charge by kempt's brigade death of picton contest between _cuirassiers_ and the nd life guards in front of the right of kempt's brigade attack upon la haye sainte by the left brigade of donzelot's division advance of roussel's cavalry brigade by the french left of la haye sainte uxbridge decides upon charging the enemy's attacking force with somerset's and ponsonby's cavalry brigades charge by the french _cuirassiers_ and carabiniers it is met by that of somerset's cavalry brigade advance of ponsonby's cavalry brigade advance of alix's and marcognet's french infantry divisions they reach the crest of the anglo-allied position advance of the nd highlanders their attack upon the head of marcognet's column charge by ponsonby's cavalry brigade complete overthrow of the french columns the greys capture the eagle of the th french regiment they also charge and defeat a supporting column of marcognet's attacking force the royals capture the eagle of the th french regiment the inniskillings defeat and disperse the columns to which they are opposed continuation of the charge by somerset's brigade disordered state of the two british cavalry brigades they crown the enemy's position, and cut down the gunners and horses of the french batteries at length they retire the left of their line suffers severely from a charge by jaquinot's light cavalry brigade vandeleur's light cavalry advances in support upon the left charge by the th and th british light dragoons the french cavalry is driven back advance of ghigny's light cavalry brigade vivian moves his brigade to the right, and opens a fire from two guns of his horse artillery the british cavalry engaged in this affair sustains a heavy loss disposition of the troops on the anglo-allied left and centre tableau of the battle at this period chapter xii. continuation of the contest at hougomont attempted flank attack upon this post completely defeated by captain cleeves's foot battery of the king's german legion the principal buildings of hougomont, including the château, set on fire by the french napoleon prepares a grand cavalry attack upon wellington's right wing renewed attack upon la haye sainte tremendous cannonade along the french heights french grand cavalry attack its failure its renewal second failure ney, on being reinforced by kellermann's corps of heavy cavalry, and guyot's heavy cavalry division of the guard, renews his attack this is most successfully resisted ney directs another attack upon la haye sainte, and advances a heavy column of bachelu's infantry against the centre of the anglo-allied right wing wellington draws chassÉ's dutch-belgian division from braine l'alleud towards the principal scene of action, and moves clinton's division into the front line contest at la haye sainte the th and th line battalions of the king's german legion, on advancing to charge french infantry in rear of la haye sainte, are suddenly assailed in flank by french cavalry, and the th battalion is almost entirely destroyed artillery in the anglo-allied front line reinforced attack by a column of french heavy cavalry upon the anglo-allied right completely defeated by major mercer's battery of british horse artillery a strong column of french infantry, supported by cavalry, advances against the centre of the anglo-allied right wing it is charged by somerset's heavy cavalry brigade conduct of trip's dutch-belgian carabinier brigade gallant charge by the rd hussars of the king's german legion renewed attack by the column of french heavy cavalry in front of major mercer's horse battery it is repulsed as before wellington reinforces the right of his front line by du plat's infantry brigade of the king's german legion, accompanied by captain sympher's horse battery of the same service it is attacked by french _cuirassiers_ these are driven off by the battalions of du plat's brigade renewed charge by the _cuirassiers_ equally unsuccessful failure of the french cavalry attack upon the right centre of the anglo-allied line adam's british light infantry brigade advances into the front line, on the right of maitland's brigade; crosses the ridge, and takes up a position on the exterior slope here it is repeatedly attacked by french cavalry advance of halkett's hanoverian brigade the french assail the post of la haye sainte with the utmost vigour it falls into their possession napoleon directs ney to follow up this advantage with a vigorous attack upon the centre of the anglo-allied line, and at the same time to renew the assault upon hougomont ney's views and dispositions attack upon alten's division the th line battalion of the king's german legion, led by ompteda, gallantly charges french infantry; but is furiously assailed in flank by a regiment of _cuirassiers_, and nearly destroyed. ompteda is killed gallant repulse of an attack made upon portions of maitland's and adam's brigades british squares in advance of the duke's line renewed but unsuccessful attack upon hougomont adam's brigade withdrawn to the reverse slope of the main position general view of the anglo-allied line chapter xiii. advance of the prussians towards the field of waterloo difficulties and impediments attending their march the fifteenth and sixteenth prussian brigades reach the wood of paris at half past four o'clock, blÜcher decides upon attacking the right flank of the french army with these brigades, without waiting for the arrival of more of his troops prussian cavalry driven back by domon three prussian battalions attack the extreme right of the french general front line, near smohain; but are compelled to retire into the village napoleon detaches lobau's corps in support of domon the french regiments of the old and middle guard take up the position, in reserve, on the heights of la belle alliance, vacated by lobau's corps blÜcher's dispositions lobau becomes engaged with bÜlow the remainder of bÜlow's corps reaches the field blÜcher's dispositions relative strength of bÜlow's and lobau's forces napoleon detaches the young guard to planchenoit, in support of lobau's right at about six o'clock, blÜcher is informed that thielemann is attacked by a superior force at wavre he does not allow this circumstance to deter him from his present purpose bÜlow attacks planchenoit contest in the village the prussian troops driven out having rallied, they renew their attack napoleon detaches two battalions of the old guard to planchenoit the prussians are again driven out of the village, and pursued as far as their main position french and prussian cavalry become engaged napoleon, perceiving preparations on the part of the prussians for renewing the attack upon planchenoit, detaches general pelet with another battalion of the old guard to that village critical situation of napoleon he resolves on making a renewed and formidable attack upon wellington's line wellington despatches lieutenant colonel fremantle to the left, to seek for the prussian forces expected on that flank situation of the duke, and state of the anglo-allied troops napoleon's dispositions for the attack the advanced guard of zieten's corps approaches the extreme left of the anglo-allied line vivian's and vandeleur's light cavalry brigades are removed from that flank to the centre wellington's dispositions centre of the duke's line vigorously assailed by the french troops collected in and about la haye sainte sudden and destructive fire opened upon kielmansegge's brigade from french guns brought up to the very crest of the allied position the prince of orange is wounded whilst leading forward the nassau troops to repel the french attack upon that part of the line wellington reinforces the latter with five battalions of brunswick infantry these, together with kielmansegge's, ompteda's, and kruse's brigades, are compelled to fall back a short distance the duke rallies the brunswickers, who maintain their ground; as do also the before mentioned brigades vivian's hussar brigade draws up in rear of these troops kielmansegge, on whom the command of the third division has devolved, succeeds in establishing the latter upon its former position chapter xiv. commencement of napoleon's last grand attack upon wellington's line napoleon stations himself so that the guard may pass by him as it advances to the attack disposition of d'erlon's and reille's corps the leading column of the imperial guard suffers severely from the fire of the allied artillery, as it approaches the duke's line contest between the leading column of the french imperial guards and maitland's brigade of british guards the former completely defeated and dispersed contest between halkett and the imperial guards conduct of d'aubremÉ's dutch-belgian brigade advance of the second attacking column of the imperial guard charge upon french _cuirassiers_ by a squadron of the rd light dragoons the second column of the imperial guard charged in flank by the nd regiment and nd battalion th regiment its defeat and dispersion by this charge adam's brigade continues its forward movement, supported on its right by a battalion of lieutenant colonel halkett's hanoverian brigade state of d'aubremÉ's dutch-belgian brigade upon the extreme left of the anglo-allied line, the skirmishers of durutte's division endeavour to establish themselves in the houses and inclosures in the valley on that flank, and become engaged with the prussians in and about smohain blÜcher's dispositions formation and advance of bÜlow's left wing for the third attack upon planchenoit, and of his right wing for a simultaneous attack upon lobau junction of the advanced guard of zieten's corps with the troops constituting the extreme left of the anglo-allied army general view of the disposition of the prussian forces relatively with that of the anglo-allied troops general view of the state of the anglo-allied army at the period of the attack and defeat of the french imperial guard prompt decision and admirable skill evinced by wellington in seizing upon the advantage presented by the discomfiture of the french guards advance of vivian's hussar brigade to the attack of napoleon's reserves near la belle alliance disposition of these reserves brilliant charge by the th british hussars charge by the nd light dragoons of the king's german legion adam's brigade, continuing its advance, reaches the nearest french height, intersected by the charleroi road, and on which three squares of the imperial guard are posted general advance of the anglo-allied line the duke orders adam to attack the squares of the imperial guard the earl of uxbridge falls, severely wounded the imperial guard retires from the charge by adam's brigade gallant charge by the th british hussars near la belle alliance charge by a squadron of the th british hussars upon a square of the grenadiers of the old guard; which retires, and eventually disperses the left and centre squadrons of the th hussars, continuing their pursuit, after the first charge, make another charge upon both infantry and cavalry, on the right, and beyond la belle alliance a party of the th hussars makes a dashing but ineffectual charge upon a square, still further in advance lieutenant colonel halkett, with the osnabrück landwehr battalion, pursues a column of the old guard; and captures general cambronne singular situation of the duke of wellington chapter xv. advance of vandeleur's light cavalry brigade it charges and disperses a large column of french infantry, and captures a battery adam's brigade continues driving the enemy before it along the left side of the charleroi road effect produced upon the right wing of the french army by the advance of adam's, vivian's, and vandeleur's brigades its effects also upon the french left wing napoleon takes shelter within a square of the imperial guard continuation of the advance of the anglo-allied army in the centre, la haye sainte is retaken: on the right, hougomont is cleared of the enemy: on the left, durutte's division, forming the right of the french front line, takes to flight the left wing captures the opposite line of batteries disorder and flight of the whole of d'erlon's corps along the rear of lobau's corps; which, being at the same time assailed by part of bÜlow's corps, partakes of the panic, and mingles with the fugitives the british troops near la belle alliance fall into the line of fire from a prussian battery, to which wellington sends directions to cease firing french infantry dispersed, and a battery captured, by the nd british regiment capture of a battery by the st british regiment last french gun fired by adam's aide de camp a battery captured by the osnabrück hanoverian battery, under halkett the british advanced cavalry is in the midst of crowds of defeated french soldiers remarkable steadiness of the french _grenadiers à cheval_ contest in planchenoit gallant conduct of pelet and a portion of the _chasseurs_ of the guard the french troops that have been engaged at planchenoit, retire in disorder and confusion towards the high road between rossomme and maison du roi; the former of which points the british advanced brigades have already reached partial collision between the th british hussars and a prussian regiment of cavalry the st hussars of the king's german legion narrowly escape coming into serious collision with the th and th british light dragoons wellington halts the main body of his army upon the original french position blÜcher undertakes the pursuit wellington having satisfied himself, by his observations from the high ground beyond rossomme, that the victory is secured beyond a doubt, returns towards waterloo on reaching la belle alliance, he meets blÜcher dispositions made by the latter for effecting a vigorous pursuit the prussian troops headed in advance by gneisenau, reach genappe; where they capture a quantity of baggage, including napoleon's travelling carriage napoleon at quatre bras direction of the retreat of the french troops napoleon proceeds to charleroi; whence he despatches jerome with orders to rally the troops between avesnes and maubeuge gneisenau continues the pursuit, passing through quatre bras, and not resting until he arrives beyond the heights of frasne losses sustained by the respective armies remarks upon the battle relative numerical strength of the combatants relative proportions in which the troops of the anglo-allied army were actively engaged conduct of these troops extent of the actual share taken in the battle by the prussians chapter xvi. upon the appearance of vandamme's corps in front of wavre; thielemann decides on maintaining the position at that point instead of following the remainder of the prussian army towards the field of waterloo the field of wavre disposition of the different brigades of thielemann's corps disposition of grouchy's forces the light troops of vandamme's corps gain possession of that part of the town of wavre which lies on the right bank of the dyle gÉrard makes an unsuccessful attack upon the mill of bierge vandamme fails in his efforts to carry the bridge of wavre grouchy, in person, leads another attack upon the bridge of bierge; which proves as fruitless as the former attempt, and on which occasion gÉrard falls severely wounded pajol gains possession of the bridge of limale by a cavalry attack grouchy, having pushed a portion of gÉrard's corps across the dyle by limale, disposes these troops so as to turn the right of thielemann's corps they are attacked by the prussians, who are defeated; and forced to fall back upon the wood near point du jour the contest for the possession of the bridges and town of wavre is continued until late in the night; the prussians sustaining and repelling thirteen assaults disposition of the contending forces on the morning of the th of june contest between thielemann's right, and grouchy's left, wing; during which the french gain possession of part of the wood of rixansart teste's division makes another attack upon bierge thielemann takes up a second position about eight o'clock he hears of the overthrow of napoleon's army at waterloo he renews the attack, which is attended with complete success; and retakes the wood of rixansart the wood again falls into the possession of the french the latter capture the village of bierge thielemann decides upon effecting a retreat the prussians abandon the town of wavre the french cross the dyle, both at wavre and at bierge the retreat is covered by cavalry under colonel von der marwitz proceedings of general von borcke, who had marched his brigade on the previous evening to st lambert thielemann retires along the road to louvain, and takes up a position at st achtenrode losses sustained by the prussians and french remarks upon the battle and its results grouchy decides on retiring upon namur chapter xvii. retreat of the french army from the field of waterloo on the th of june, the prussian army pursues in the direction of charleroi, avesnes, and laon; the anglo-allied army, in that of nivelles, binche, and peronne bÜlow's corps reaches fontaine l'evêque; and zieten's corps halts for the night at charleroi thielemann continues during the night of the th at st achtenrode pirch's corps proceeds, on the evening of the th, in the direction of namur; for the purpose of intercepting grouchy's retreat on the th, it halts at mellery the anglo-allied army occupies nivelles and its vicinity during the night of the th napoleon's flight through charleroi he desires soult to collect the troops and march them to laon grouchy retires upon namur disposition of the respective armies on the evening of the th the duke of wellington's views on entering the french territory; and his general order to the troops on the th of june the saxon _corps d'armée_ is placed under his grace's command the anglo-allied army reaches binche and mons grouchy's retreat to namur he is pursued by thielemann and pirch contest at namur the prussians gain possession of this place remarks upon thielemann's and pirch's proceedings in connection with grouchy's retreat to namur and dinant disposition of the respective armies on the evening of the th wellington crosses the french frontier on the st blÜcher places pirch's corps under prince augustus of prussia, to be employed in besieging the fortresses left in rear of the main army avesnes captured by zieten's corps blÜcher's farewell address to the belgians disposition of the respective armies on the evening of the st wellington's proclamation to the french people contrast between the conduct of the prussian troops and that of the anglo-allied army towards the inhabitants of the country through which they pass, attributable to the dissimilarity of views entertained by their chiefs influence of wellington's measures upon the cause of louis xviii. chapter xviii. on the nd of june, the anglo-allied army reaches le cateau the corps under prince frederick of the netherlands is destined to be employed in besieging the fortresses blÜcher, in order to bring his first, fourth, and third corps into closer communication, moves the two former only half a march on the nd: the latter reaches beaumont disposition of the second corps decline of the political influence of napoleon his arrival in paris on the st his consultation with his ministers policy of fouchÉ debates in the chamber of deputies speech of la fayette resolutions adopted by the chambers their effect upon napoleon his message to the chambers renewed debates a commission appointed its report sensation produced by the speeches of monsieur duchesne and general solignac napoleon abdicates the throne in favour of his son independent character of the french parliament on the rd, wellington and blÜcher give their troops a halt force detached under colville to attack cambray the allied commanders have an interview at catillon, and arrange their plan of advance upon paris on the th, wellington reinforces the troops under colville capture of cambray proposals are made at the outposts of the allied armies for a suspension of hostilities these are rejected louis xviii. arrives at le cateau guise surrenders to zieten's corps the prussians are one day's march in advance of the anglo-allied army disposition of the respective armies on the evening of the th proclamation issued by the provisional government in paris surrender of the citadel of cambray on the th, the anglo-allied army reaches joncour the fortress of la fère on the oise invested by part of zieten's corps the advanced guard and cavalry of the right prussian column reach montescourt the main body of bÜlow's corps arrives at essigny le grand blÜcher's reply to an application by the commissioners from the french chambers for a suspension of hostilities the french troops collected at laon march to soissons, towards which point grouchy's force is also approaching soult, finding himself superseded in the command, quits the army disposition of the respective armies on the evening of the th napoleon quits paris his address to the army chapter xix. on the th, the main body of the anglo-allied army moves to vermand capture of peronne colville's division rejoins the main army wellington's reply to the french commissioners la fère holds out against the prussians the first and fourth prussian corps advance by forced marches towards compiegne and pont st maxence disposition of the respective armies on the evening of the th early on the morning of the th, the advanced guard of zieten's corps secures the bridge and town of compiegne; when the french, under d'erlon, are within half an hour's march of that point the latter, after an unsuccessful attempt to take the place, retire upon soissons movements of zieten's and thielemann's corps upon soissons, villers cotterets, and crespy bÜlow secures the bridge over the oise at creil affair at senlis blÜcher succeeds in securing the line of the oise grouchy endeavours to effect his retreat to paris by forced marches the main body of wellington's army crosses the somme and marches to roye the duke's anger and indignation excited by the conduct of the dutch-belgian troops on the march disposition of the respective armies on the evening of the th affair at villers cotterets between the advanced guard of zieten's corps and the french troops under grouchy and vandamme affair at nanteuil between part of zieten's corps and reille's corps reille succeeds in effecting a junction with d'erlon direction of the retreat of the imperial guard and sixth corps; also of the third and fourth french corps the advanced guard and the reserve cavalry of zieten's corps, under prince william of prussia, fall upon reille's troops in full retreat, attack them, and make , prisoners the main body of thielemann's corps moves on to crespy in support of zieten the prussian operations have the effect of cutting off the retreat of the french troops to paris by the great soissons and senlis roads the french provisional government sends another deputation to request the allied commanders to agree to a suspension of hostilities disposition of the respective armies on the evening of the th on the th, bÜlow's and zieten's corps take up a position in front of paris the remains of the french grand army of the north retire within the lines of the capital the anglo-allied army reaches different points between gournay and pont st maxence positions of the respective armies on the evening of the th composition of the garrison of paris its means of defence policy of the provisional government napoleon quits paris for rochefort his narrow escape from falling into the hands of the prussians new commissioners appointed by the government to wait upon the duke of wellington for the purpose of negotiating a suspension of hostilities sound judgment and extraordinary foresight evinced in his grace's reply to their proposals chapter xx. blÜcher directs bÜlow to make an attack upon aubervilliers in the night of the th he is joined by wellington in person, when the two commanders agree not to suspend their operations so long as napoleon remains in paris the prussians carry the village of aubervilliers, and drive the french back upon the canal of st denis the allied commanders decide upon masking the fortified lines of st denis and montmartre with one army; whilst the other should move to the right, and cross to the opposite bank of the seine projected plan of operations on the th, zieten's and thielemann's corps move off to the right, while bÜlow's continues in its position disposition of the respective armies on the evening of the th policy of fouchÉ letter from davoust (prince of eckmÜhl) to wellington and blÜcher, demanding a suspension of hostilities wellington's reply blÜcher's reply address to the chamber of deputies from davoust and other generals of the army proclamation issued by the chambers on the morning of the st of july, bÜlow's corps moves off to the right, towards argenteuil the anglo-allied army reaches le bourget, and takes up the position vacated by the prussians the french attack aubervilliers, and gain possession of half the village the british light troops of colville's division retake the greater part of aubervilliers lieutenant colonel von sohr's prussian light cavalry brigade reaches versailles he is attacked by the french cavalry under excelmans affairs at rocquencourt, versailles, and le chesnay remarks upon the detaching of sohr's brigade positions of the respective armies on the evening of the st of july on the nd of july, the prussian army moves towards the heights of meudon and chatillon, on the south side of paris affairs at sèvres, moulineaux, and issy the anglo-allied army continues in position in front of st denis wellington establishes a bridge at argenteuil, and keeps open the communication with the prussian army critical situation of the french army the provisional government directs the commissioners to wait again upon the duke of wellington his grace's reply to their request position of the respective armies during the night of the nd of july affair at issy on the morning of the rd of july cessation of hostilities convention of paris conclusion supplement appendix. i. declaration, on the th of march , of the allied powers, upon the return of napoleon buonaparte to france [ ] ii. treaty of alliance of the th of march , concluded between austria, russia, prussia, and great britain [ ] iii. proclamation of the king of prussia to his army [ ] iv. address of the emperor alexander to a numerous body of russian troops which he reviewed on the th of april [ ] v. the convocation of the _champ de mai_ [ ] vi. effective strength and composition of the anglo-allied army, under the command of field marshal the duke of wellington vii. orders for the defence of the towns of antwerp, ostend, nieuport, ypres, tournai, ath, mons, and ghent [ ] viii. effective strength and composition of the prussian army, under the command of field marshal prince blÜcher von wahlstadt ix. effective strength and composition of the french army, under the command of napoleon buonaparte x. strength of the french army, according to information received at the prussian head quarters, shortly before the commencement of hostilities [ ] xi. _ordre du jour: le juin _ [ ] xii. orders given by lieutenant general von zieten, commanding the first prussian _corps d'armée_, on the nd may , to be acted upon by his brigadiers, in case of the enemy's attack [ ] xiii. _ordre du mouvement: juin _ [ ] xiv. memorandum for the deputy quartermaster general of the anglo-allied army, on the th june [ ] xv. movement of the anglo-allied army: th of june [ ] xvi. despatch from napoleon to marshal ney: th of june [ ] xvii. order of movement for marshal ney: th of june [ ] xviii. order of movement for count reille: th of june [ ] xix. despatch from count reille to marshal ney: th of june [ ] xx. orders from napoleon to marshal ney: th of june [ ] xxi. orders from napoleon to marshal ney: th of june [ ] xii. orders from napoleon to marshal ney: th of june [ ] xxiii. return of killed, wounded, and missing, of the british troops, at the battle of quatre bras [ ] xxiv. return of killed, wounded, and missing, of the brunswick troops, at the battle of quatre bras [ ] xxv. effective strength of the french army at the battle of ligny [ ] xxvi. effective strength of the prussian army at the battle of ligny [ ] xxvii. orders from napoleon to marshal ney: th of june [ ] xxviii. orders from napoleon to marshal ney: th of june [ ] xxix. return of killed, wounded, and missing, of the british troops, and king's german legion, on the retreat from quatre bras to waterloo [ ] xxx. effective strength of the anglo-allied army at the battle of waterloo [ ] xxxi. effective strength of the french army at the battle of waterloo [ ] xxxii. list of officers of the king's german legion, who were present at the defence of la haye sainte xxxiii. effective strength of the prussian troops on the field of waterloo [ ] xxxiv. lines descriptive of the part taken in the battle of waterloo by the sixth brigade of british cavalry, upon the repulse of the last attack by the french; with the death of major the hon. frederick howard [ ] xxxv. list of british officers who were present at the defence of hougomont xxxvi. return of killed, wounded, and missing, of the british troops, at the battle of waterloo [ ] xxxvii. return of killed, wounded, and missing, of the king's german legion, at the battle of waterloo [ ] xxxviii. return of killed, wounded, and missing, of the hanoverian troops, on the th, th, and th of june [ ] xxxix. return of killed, wounded, and missing, of the brunswick troops, at the battle of waterloo [ ] xl. return of killed, wounded, and missing, of the troops of the nassau contingent ( st regiment), at the battle of waterloo [ ] xli. list of officers of the british army who were present in the actions on the th, th, and th of june , including those posted near hal on the th; and distinguishing such as were killed, wounded, or missing xlii. list of the officers of the king's german legion, killed, wounded, or missing, in the actions of the th, th, and th of june xliii. list of the officers of the hanoverian troops, killed, wounded, and missing, in the actions of the th, th, and th of june xliv. list of the officers of the brunswick troops killed in the actions of the th and th of june xlv. return of killed, wounded, and missing, of the dutch-belgian troops, on the th, th, and th of june [ ] lvi. return of killed, wounded, and missing, of the prussian troops, at the battle of waterloo [ ] xlvii. list of the officers of the prussian army, killed, wounded, and missing, at the battle of waterloo xlviii. letter from the duke of wellington to earl bathurst, being his despatch after the battle of waterloo xlix. proclamation of louis xviii. to the french people [ ] footnotes: [footnote : omitted in this fourth edition.--e.a.] maps and plans. page belgium and part of france the field of quatre bras at o'clock p.m., june the field of quatre bras at o'clock p.m., june the field of ligny at a quarter past o'clock p.m., june the field of ligny at half past o'clock p.m., june the field of waterloo at a quarter past o'clock p.m., june [plan of la haye sainte ] [plan of hougomont ] [the field of waterloo at a quarter to o'clock p.m., june ] the field of waterloo at a quarter to o'clock p.m., june the field of waterloo at five minutes past o'clock p.m., june the field of wavre at o'clock p.m., june the field of wavre at o'clock a.m., june part of france, section i. part of france, section ii. [the three plans within brackets have been specially prepared for this fourth edition.--e.a.] portraits. page the duke of wellington engraved from a medallion by e.w. wyon the reverse from a medal by j. henning, esq. prince blÜcher von wahlstadt from a medal struck in honour of the prince by the citizens of berlin the reverse from a medallion by w. foster, esq. napoleon buonaparte the prince of orange the duke of brunswick sir thomas picton count sir charles alten lord hill marshal soult, duke of dalmatia the marquess of anglesey marshal ney, prince of the moskwa history of the war in france and belgium in . chapter i. the history of europe records but few events so universally and so intimately involving the policy and interests of her component states, as the escape of napoleon buonaparte from the island of elba, on the th of february --his landing in france, and his again ascending, unopposed, that throne from which louis xviii. had fled with precipitation, upon learning the triumphal approach towards the capital of his successful and formidable rival. with the rapidity of lightning the intelligence spread itself over the whole continent, and with all the suddenness and violence of an electric shock did it burst amidst the delegates from the different states, who were then assembled in congress at vienna. this important assembly, so unexpectedly interrupted, had been called together to deliberate upon measures of international security and prosperity; and to solve those intricate questions of policy necessarily arising out of the various combinations, which, in the course of a general war, carried on with unmitigated violence, and but little intermission, for nearly a quarter of a century, had so fatally unhinged and dismembered the previously existing social order and polity of europe. with one accord, a fresh appeal to the sword was decided upon; the military resources of every nation were again called into requisition. from state to state the cry "to arms!" was responded to with cheerfulness and alacrity, and immense armies were put in motion towards the french frontier: all animated with the sole object and fixed determination of annihilating, for ever, the common foe whom they had already conquered; but whom, as it would then appear, they had but ineffectually humbled. the openly declared project of the allied sovereigns to employ all their means, and combine all their efforts, towards the accomplishment of the complete overthrow of the resuscitated power of napoleon, with whom they had determined, thenceforth, to enter into neither truce nor treaty, was singularly favoured by the circumstance of their armies being still retained upon a war establishment. the forces of the several powers were continued on that scale, in consequence of the difficulties experienced in the congress in dealing with and settling many perplexing questions of international policy, and moderating the warmth of the discussions that took place upon them. it was considered expedient to keep up powerful reserves, available both for home service, and for any contingencies that might arise out of combinations and revolts among those minor states, whose aversion to the new political arrangements was more than suspected. thus it had been found necessary to detach bodies of troops from the main bulk of the forces, in consequence of the state of the poles placed under the protection of russia, and of the saxons inhabiting that portion of their country which had been ceded to prussia; as also, in consequence of the powerful diversion, as regarded austria, caused by the sudden irruption of murat, king of naples, into the north of italy. notwithstanding these necessary deductions, however, it was found practicable to assemble, by the end of may, an efficient force of not less than , men, upon different points contiguous to the french frontier, with all the supplies necessary for the prosecution of a vigorous campaign. * * * * * the most important portion of this extensive line of frontier was undoubtedly that which fronted the netherlands; for although it had been planned by the allies that no advance was to be made by the troops in belgium until the remainder of their forces had reached a line of connecting points along the french frontier, when all their armies were to march, in combined movement, upon the capital: still it was reasonably to be expected that napoleon would not wait for the completion of this plan, but rather that he would endeavour, by a decisive effort, if not to frustrate its accomplishment, at least to diminish its efficacy. it required no great exercise of military sagacity or political foresight to predict, that after having adopted a maturely considered disposition of force on the most important points along his general line of defence, and placed his frontier fortresses upon a respectable footing, napoleon would open the tremendous game, upon which his crown, his political existence, and the fate of france, were now fairly staked, by a bold, sudden, and resolute advance into belgium--straining every nerve to vanquish, in detail, the allied forces in that densely populated country; of which a vast portion was already prepared to declare in his favour. his authority once established in brussels, through the means of some great and signal triumph, the accession to his moral influence over the entire mass of the french nation would be immense; and then, flying to the succour of his nearest corps menaced from the banks of the rhine by the approach of hostile forces (upon which his possession of belgium would operate as a powerful check by the facilities thus afforded for a combined attack in front and flank), a series of brilliant successes, supported by fresh levies from the interior, might enable him even to dictate terms to the allies, who had indignantly rejected all his overtures. hence the importance of narrowly watching the belgian frontier, and of making due preparations for meeting any attack in that quarter, was too obvious not to form a principal feature in the general plan of the allies. its defence was assigned to an army under the duke of wellington, comprising contingent forces from great britain, from hanover, the netherlands, brunswick, and nassau; and to a prussian army, under field marshal prince blÜcher von wahlstadt. at the moment of the landing of napoleon on the french shore, the only force in the netherlands consisted, in addition to the native troops, of a weak anglo-hanoverian corps, under the command of his royal highness the prince of orange; but the zeal, energy, and activity displayed by the government of great britain, in engrafting upon this nucleus a powerful army, amounting at the commencement of hostilities, to about , combatants, notwithstanding the impediments and delays occasioned by the absence of a considerable portion of its troops in america, were truly surprising. at the same time, the extraordinary supply of subsidies furnished by the british parliament, without which not one of the armies of the allied sovereigns could have commenced operations, and by means of which england thus become the great lever whereby the whole of europe was set in motion towards the attainment of the one common object, was admirably illustrative of the bold, decided, and straightforward policy of the most determined, the most indefatigable, and the most consistent, enemy of napoleon. within the same period, the prussian forces, originally limited to a corps of , men, under general count kleist von nollendorf, occupying the prussian territories bounded by the rhine, the meuse, and the moselle, were augmented to an effective army of , combatants, with all the rapidity and energy which a keen sense of the wrongs and miseries their country had endured under the ruthless sway of their inveterate foe, and a salutary dread of a repetition of such infliction, could not fail to inspire. great britain and prussia thus occupied the post of honour, and formed the vanguard of the mighty masses which europe was pouring forth to seal the doom of the napoleon dynasty. * * * * * a russian army, under field marshal count barclay de tolly, amounting to , men, was rapidly traversing the whole of germany, in three main columns: of which the right, commanded by general dochterow, advanced by kalisch, torgau, leipzig, erfurt, hanau, frankfort, and hochheim, towards mayence; the centre, commanded by general baron sacken, advanced by breslau, dresden, zwickau, baireuth, nuremberg, aschaffenburg, dieburg, and gross gerau, towards oppenheim; while the left column, commanded by general count langeron, took its direction along the line of prague, aube, adelsheim, neckar, and heidelberg, towards mannheim. the heads of the columns reached the middle rhine, when hostilities were on the point of breaking out upon the belgian frontier. the intimation to these troops of another campaign in france, and of a probable reoccupation of paris, had imparted new life and vigour to the spirit of inveterate hatred and insatiable revenge which they had so thoroughly imbibed against the french; and which had so invariably marked their career since the memorable burning of moscow. an austrian army of about , men, commanded by field marshal prince schwartzenburg, and the army of reserve under the archduke ferdinand, amounting to , men, were gradually occupying the most important points along the right bank of the rhine, between basle and mannheim. in addition to this force, about , men were then assembling on the plains of lombardy, upon the termination of the decisive campaign against murat; which secured the deposition of the latter, and the restoration of king ferdinand to the throne of naples. vigorous and energetic measures such as these on the part of austria, clearly indicated that her government, discarding alike the circumstance of a family alliance with napoleon, and the views which had once induced it to enter into a league with him and with the southern german states, as a security against its formidable northern neighbours, still adhered with inflexible resolution to its subsequently adopted policy of entering into, and fostering, a general european compact, having for its object the complete annihilation of the despotic sway of the ambitious soldier sovereign of the french. the assembling also, on the upper rhine, of a bavarian army, commanded by prince wrÈde, of the contingents of baden and würtemberg, under the hereditary prince of wÜrtemberg, and of the troops of hesse, amounting altogether to about , men, offered a sufficient guarantee for the line of policy espoused by the confederated states of the rhine. * * * * * formidable as was the attitude assumed by the allies towards france, and imposing as was their array of armies assembling upon her frontier; they nevertheless found their great antagonist prepared, on learning that they had determined on an irrevocable appeal to the sword, to throw away the scabbard. he assumed a bold and resolute posture of defence--armed at all points, and prepared at all hazards, either to ward off the blows of his adversaries, or to become himself the assailant. the indefatigable exertions of napoleon in restoring the empire to its former strength and grandeur were really astonishing; and never, perhaps, in the whole course of the extraordinary career of that extraordinary man, did the powerful energies of his comprehensive mind shine forth with greater brilliancy and effect, than in his truly wonderful and incredibly rapid development of the national resources of france on this momentous occasion. the truth of this assertion will be best confirmed by briefly enumerating some of the most important objects accomplished within the limited interval of three months--from his landing at cannes, to his taking the field against the allies. among them were--the complete overthrow of all obstacles in the way of his reascending the throne; the reconciliation, to a very considerable extent, of the several factions whose discordant views and interests had distracted the whole nation; the suppression of the insurrectionary movements in la vendée, and the establishment of his authority over every part of the empire; the projection of various public measures, laws, and ordinances; the remodelling of the civil and military administrations; the restoration of the army to its previous organisation under the imperial regime; the placing of the numerous fortresses of the kingdom in an efficient state; the erection of fortified works around paris, lyons, and other important points; the reorganisation of the national _guard d'élite_, to the extent of , men, divided into battalions, and destined principally for garrisoning the fortresses; the adoption of the most active operations in all the arsenals, and the employment of vast numbers of additional workmen in the manufacture of arms and ammunition. before all these we ought to place the raising, clothing, arming, drilling, and organising of , men (including the national _guard d'élite_), which, in addition to the , men of which the royal army consisted on the st of march, formed, on the st of june, an effective force of , men, available for the national defence. of this number, the effective force of the troops of the line amounted to , men, and the regimental depôts to , men: the remainder, consisting of battalions of the national _guard d'élite_, of regiments of marines, of battalions of marine artillery, of coast guards, veterans, and organised pensioners, and amounting to , men, constituted the _armée extraordinaire_, to be employed in the defence of the fortresses and of the coast. napoleon having calculated that an effective force of , men would be requisite to enable him to oppose the allies with full confidence of success, had given orders for the formation, at the regimental depôts, of the rd, th, and th battalions of every regiment of infantry, and of the th and th squadrons of every regiment of cavalry; also for the additional formation of battalions of artillery train, of regiments of the young guard, of battalions of waggon train, and of regiments of marines. these and other measures he anticipated would furnish the force desired, but not until the st of october. the movements of the allies, however, and his projected plan of active operations, precluded the possibility of his waiting for their full accomplishment. to augment the means of local defence, instructions were also issued for the reorganisation of the national guard throughout the empire, by which it was divided into battalions, and was to form, _when complete_, no less a force than , , men! * * * * * out of the disposable force of the troops of the line, and partly also out of the national _guard d'élite_, were formed seven _corps d'armée_, four corps of reserve cavalry, four corps of observation, and an army of the west or of la vendée. the army of the north, generally designated the grand army, was to be considered as acting under the immediate orders of the emperor. it consisted of five _corps d'armée_ (the first, second, third, fourth, and sixth), all the reserve cavalry, and the imperial guard. its total force amounted to nearly , men; and its distribution, in the early part of june, was as follows:-- the first _corps d'armée_ commanded by count d'erlon, had its head quarters at lille; the second, under the orders of count reille, was cantoned in the environs of valenciennes; the third, under count vandamme, was assembled in the environs of mézières; the fourth, under count gÉrard, in the environs of the metz; and the sixth corps, commanded by count lobau, was stationed at laon. the four corps of reserve cavalry under the chief command of marshal grouchy, were in cantonments between the aisne and the sambre. the imperial guard was in paris. the fifth _corps d'armée_, commanded by count rapp, formed the basis of an army of the rhine, and consisted of about , men. its head quarters were at strasburg, and it occupied the principal points along that part of the frontier between landau and hagenau; communicating with the fourth _corps d'armée_ on its left, as also with the first corps of observation on its right. the seventh _corps d'armée_, commanded by the duke of albufera, formed the basis of the army of the alps. it did not at that time amount to more than , men; but arrangements were made for its augmentation, by the end of june, to , men. it held the passes along the italian frontier--was strongly posted at grenoble, and at chambery--communicating on its left with the first corps of observation; and covering the approach to lyons, where very extensive works were carried on with the utmost vigour and activity. the first corps of observation, called the army of the jura, commanded by lieutenant general lecourbe, guarded the passes along the swiss frontier; had its head quarters at altkirch, and occupied the line between huningen and belfort--communicating on its right with the army of the alps, and on its left with the army of the rhine. it did not, at that time, consist of a larger force than , men; which, however, was to be augmented to , on the arrival of additional battalions from the national _guard d'élite_ then in course of active organisation. the second corps of observation, called the army of the var, commanded by marshal brune, had its head quarters at marseilles; occupied toulon and antibes, and watched the frontier of the maritime alps. its force, which then amounted to , men, was to be joined by sixteen battalions of the national _guard d'élite_; and, in this way, increased to , men. the third corps of observation, called the army of the eastern pyrenees, commanded by lieutenant general count decaen, had its head quarters at perpignan. it did not then consist of more than , men; but was to be augmented by thirty-two battalions of the national _guard d'élite_ to , men. the fourth corps of observation, called the army of the western pyrenees, or of the gironde, was commanded by lieutenant general clausel; had its head quarters in bordeaux; consisted of the same force as that of the third corps; and was to be augmented in a similar manner. the army of la vendée, commanded by general lamarque, was occupied in restoring tranquillity to that part of the empire. it consisted of about , men, including detachments supplied temporarily from the third and fourth corps of observation. arrangements had also been made for reinforcing, at the end of june, the two armies of the rhine and the alps, with , men from the troops of the line organised in the regimental depôts, and with , men from the national _guard d'élite_; and with a view to afford a second line and support to the grand army, commanded by napoleon in person, the latter was to be augmented by , men of the national guard, and by , men of regular troops taken from the depôts, where the additional battalions and squadrons of regiments were in course of daily organisation. * * * * * the general aspect of france at that moment was singularly warlike. it was that of a whole nation buckling on its armour; over the entire country armed bodies were to be seen in motion towards their several points of destination: every where the new levies for the line, and the newly enrolled national guards were in an unremitting course of drill and organisation: the greatest activity was maintained, day and night, in all the arsenals, and in all the manufactories of clothing and articles of equipment: crowds of workmen were constantly employed in the repair of the numerous fortresses, and in the erection of entrenched works. every where appeared a continued transport of artillery, waggons, arms, ammunition, and all the material of war; whilst upon every road forming an approach to any of the main points of assembly in the vicinity of the frontiers, might be seen those well-formed veteran bands, napoleon's followers through many a bloody field, moving forth with all the order, and with all the elasticity of spirit, inspired by the full confidence of a renewed career of victory--rejoicing in the display of those standards which so proudly recalled the most glorious fields that france had ever won, and testifying by their acclamations, their enthusiastic devotion to the cause of the emperor, which was ever cherished by them as identified with that of their country. the sentiments which so generally animated the troops of the line, must not, however, be understood as having been equally imbibed by the remaining portion of the army, or indeed by the major part of the nation. there was one predominant cause, which, though its influence acted as an additional stimulus to the army, was, to a very considerable extent, the sole incentive to exertion with the civil portion of the community. it was the general prevalence of that unconquerable aversion and undisguised contempt entertained by the french for the mass of their foreign invaders, whose former humiliation and subjection, the result of an almost uninterrupted course of victory and triumph to which the history of france presented no parallel, had served to flatter and to gratify the national vanity. it was this feeling, combined with a dread of that retributive justice which would inevitably follow in the train of a successful invasion, that operated so powerfully upon the mass of the nation, with whom the cry of "_vive l'empereur!_" merged into that of "_vive la france!_" to the above cause may also be traced the temporary reconciliation of the different factions which it was one of the main objects of napoleon's celebrated _champ de mai_ to establish. this convocation of the popular representatives, which had in a measure been forced upon the emperor by the political vantage ground the people had gained during even the short constitutional reign of louis xviii., and of which they had begun to feel the benefit, did not in any degree fulfil the expectations of its projector. the stern republicans were dissatisfied with the retention of a chamber of peers, which, in the late reign, they had regarded as an english importation; and the royalists were no less disgusted with the materials out of which such a chamber had been constructed; while both parties felt it to be a mere semblance of a constitutional body, destined to be composed of the willing slaves of the despot, his ready instruments for counteracting and paralysing the effects of any violent ebullition of the popular will. when it is considered that an overwhelming majority of the members of the new chamber of deputies were men of avowed republican principles, and that in their very first sittings, they evinced by the tone of their debates, and by the tenor of their measures, a determination to uphold the authority vested in them by the people, and to make even the military power of the emperor subservient to their views of popular government; when, also, it is considered that the two predominant parties in the state, the republicans and the royalists, relied upon, and awaited but, the issue of events, for the ultimate success and realisation of their respective principles: it need not excite surprise that napoleon, on quitting the capital to take the field, should have appeared to feel that he left behind him a power even more dangerous to the stability of his authority, and more destructive of his ambitious projects, than that which he was going personally to confront. he naturally calculated largely upon the enthusiasm of his troops and their devotion to his cause: but he must have entertained serious doubts as to whether this spirit was shared by the great majority of the nation; and must have foreseen that it would only be by means of a successful result of the approaching contest, that he could possibly avert the dangers to which his sovereignty was exposed, as much by the machinations of political opponents at home, as by the combinations of hostile forces abroad. he was now made painfully sensible of the vast change which the result of all his former wars, the restoration of the legitimate monarch, and the newly chartered liberty of the subject, had gradually wrought in the political feelings and sentiments of the nation. in short, he found that he had to contend with a mighty, and an uncontrollable, power--the great moral power of public opinion--compared with which, the military power, centred in a single individual, however brilliant the latter in genius and in conception, however fertile in expedients, and however daring and successful in enterprise and in execution, can acquire no permanent stability, when not based upon, and emanating from, the broad and comprehensive moral energies of the nation; and even a succession of dazzling triumphs, when gained through the instrumentality of an arbitrary drain upon the national resources, and in opposition to the real interests and welfare of the state, tends but to hasten the downfall of the military dictator: whose career may be aptly likened to a grecian column erected upon a loose foundation, displaying around its lofty capital an exuberance of meretricious ornament, which, by its disproportionate weight, destroys the equilibrium of the ill-supported shaft, and involves the entire structure in one confused and irretrievable ruin. its fall may startle the world with its shock; the fragments may strew the earth in a wreck as gigantic as were its proportions when it drew the gaze of admiring or trembling nations: but they are but the more striking proofs of the destruction that has overtaken it;--it is a ruin still. chapter ii. belgium, the frequent battle-ground of europe, whose every stream and every town is associated with the memory of bygone deeds of arms, was destined, in , to witness another and a mighty struggle--a struggle in which were arrayed, on the one side, the two foremost of the confederated armies advancing towards the french frontiers; and, on the other, the renowned _grande armée_ of imperial france, resuscitated at the magic call of its original founder--the great napoleon himself. during the months of april and may, troops of all arms continued to enter upon, and spread themselves over, the belgian soil. here might be seen the british soldier, flushed with recent triumphs in the peninsula over the same foe with whom he was now prepared once more to renew the combat; and here the prussian, eager for the deadly strife, and impatiently rushing onward to encounter that enemy whose ravages and excesses in his fatherland still rankled in his memory. the englishman was not fired by the desire of retribution; for it had pleased divine providence to spare great britain from the scourge of domestic war, and to preserve her soil unstained by the footprint of a foreign enemy. the prussian soldier looked forward with a sullen pleasure to the prospect of revenge: vengeance seemed to him a sacred duty, imposed upon him by all the ties of kindred, and by all those patriotic feelings, which, in the hour of prussia's need, had roused her entire people from the abject state to which they had been so fatally subdued; which, when the whole country lay prostrate at the conqueror's feet, so wonderfully, so powerfully, and so successfully prompted her sons to throw off the yoke. history will mark this deliverance as the brilliant point in prussia's brightest era, affording as it does, a clear and beautiful parallel to that in which an equally forcible appeal to the energies of the nation was made with similar success by that illustrious statesman and general, frederick the great, when opposed single-handed to the immense armies and powerful resources of surrounding states. france was about to expiate by her own sufferings the wrongs she had wrought upon his country and his kind, and the prussian panted for an opportunity of satiating his revenge. the briton, if he had no such spur as that which urged the prussian soldier forward, did not want a sufficiently exciting stimulus; he cherished, in an eminent degree, that high feeling and proud bearing which a due sense of the obligations imposed on him by his country, and of her anxious expectations of his prowess, could not fail to inspire; determined resolutely and cheerfully to discharge the former, and, if possible, to more than realise the latter. [illustration: wellington] [illustration] these feelings and dispositions of the soldiery in the two most advanced of the allied armies were concentrated with remarkable intensity in the characters of their respective chiefs. * * * * * with peculiar propriety may it be said of the illustrious wellington, that he personified, as he ever has done, the pure ideal of the british soldier--the true character of his own followers. resolute, yet cool, cautious and calculating in his proceedings; possessing a natural courage unshaken even under the most appalling dangers and difficulties; placing great yet not vain reliance upon physical and moral strength, as opposed to the force of numbers;--it was not surprising that he should have inspired with unbounded confidence, soldiers who could not but see in his character and conduct the reflection and stamp of their own qualities, the worth of which he so well knew, and which he had so often proved during the arduous struggle that had been brought to so brilliant and so glorious a conclusion. but besides these traits in his character, which so completely identified him with a british army, there were others which peculiarly distinguished him as one of the greatest captains that his own or any other nation ever produced, and which might well inspire confidence as to the result of the approaching contest, even opposed as he was to the hero of a hundred fights, with whom he was now, for the first time, to measure swords. the eagle glance with which he detected the object of every hostile movement and the promptitude with which he decided upon, and carried into effect, the measures necessary to counteract the enemy's efforts; the lightning-like rapidity with which he conducted his attacks, founded as they frequently were upon the instantaneously discovered errors of his opponents; the noble and unexampled presence of mind with which he surveyed the battlefield, and with which he gave his orders and instructions; unaffected by merely temporary success, unembarrassed by sudden difficulties, and undismayed by unexpected danger; the many proofs which his operations in the peninsula had afforded of his accurate knowledge, just conception, and skilful discrimination, of the true principles of the science of strategy--all tended to point him out as the individual best fitted by his abilities, his experience, and his character, to head the military array assembled to decide the all-important question whether the star of napoleon was to regain the ascendant, or to set in darkness; whether his iron despotism was again to erect its mighty head, or to be now struck down and crushed--finally and effectually crushed. * * * * * the character of the commander of the prussian army in this memorable campaign, the veteran marshal prince blÜcher von wahlstadt, was, in like manner, peculiarly adapted for concentrating within itself all those feelings and emotions already adverted to as animating this portion of the enemies of france--possessing, to a degree bordering on rashness, a high spirited daring in enterprise; distinguished, on critical occasions in the field, when the unrestrained feelings and nature of the _ci-devant_ bold hussar started forth in aid of the veteran commander, by a personal display of chivalrous and impetuous bravery; ever vigilant for an opportunity of harassing his enemy; and fixedly relentless in the pursuit, so long as he retained the mastery; qualities, which, in his own country, had acquired for him the sobriquet of _marschall vorwÄrts_--he was eminently fitted to be both the representative and the leader of the prussians. * * * * * here, too, in close alliance and amity with the british soldier, were seen the german legionary, the hanoverian, and the brunswicker, who had so nobly shared with him, under the same chief, all the toils and all the glories of the war in the peninsula; and who were now prepared to defend the threatened liberties of their respective countries, the very existence of which, as independent states, hung upon the issue of the impending struggle. although the british were but little acquainted with their other allies, the dutch, the belgians, and the nassau troops in the service of the king of the netherlands, still the fact that it was upon their own soil the brunt of the coming contest was to fall, and in all probability to decide the question whether it should become a portion of imperial france, or continue an independent state, coupled with the knowledge which the british troops possessed of the character of the prince at their head, who had gained his laurels under their own eyes, and who had thus ingratiated himself in their favour, encouraged great hopes of their hearty exertions in the common cause. * * * * * it was naturally to be expected that napoleon, from the moment he reascended the throne of his former glory, would devote the utmost energies of his all-directing mind to the full development of whatever military means france, notwithstanding her recent reverses, yet retained; but the rapidity and the order with which so regular and so well organised a force as that which was now concentrating on the french side of the sambre, had been collected and put in motion, were truly wonderful. the speedy and almost sudden reappearance of the old army in all its grandeur, with its corps and divisions headed by men, who, by a series of daring and successful exploits, had proved their just titles to command, and endeared themselves to the old campaigners, was such that it seemed as if the french had realised the fable of the dragon's teeth, which it might be said they had sown as they crossed their frontiers in the previous year, when retreating upon the capital before the victorious allies. never did any army contain within itself so much of that necessary essence in the composition of a military force,--unbounded enthusiasm, combined with the purest devotion to its leader. the oft-told tale of the veteran of so many a hard-fought field, indulging in the hope of aiding by his exertions, at any sacrifice, in again carrying the eagles to the scenes of their former triumphs, excited the ardour of many a youthful aspirant to share with him the glory of wiping out the stain which had dimmed the lustre of his country's fame, and darkened a most eventful page in her annals. * * * * * such being the nature of the elements ready to rush into collision, it was easy to foresee that the shock which that collision would produce, would be both violent and terrible; but no one could have anticipated that within the short space of four days from the commencement of hostilities, the die would be irrevocably cast, annihilating for ever the imperial sway of napoleon, and securing to europe one of the longest periods of peace recorded in her history. [illustration] chapter iii. by the middle of june, the anglo-allied army which had been gradually assembling in belgium, under the command of the duke of wellington, amounted to about , men, and was composed in the following manner:-- infantry. british , king's german legion , hanoverian , brunswick , nassau ( st regiment) , dutch and belgian , ------ , cavalry. british , king's german legion , hanoverian , brunswick dutch and belgian , ------ , artillery. british , guns. king's german legion " hanoverian " brunswick " dutch and belgian , " ------ ---- , guns. engineers, sappers and miners, waggon-train, and staff corps. british , total. infantry , cavalry , artillery , engineers, waggon-train, &c. , -------- , men and guns. the infantry was divided into two corps and a reserve. the first corps, commanded by general his royal highness the prince of orange, was composed of the first division, under major general cooke; of the third division, under lieutenant general sir charles alten; of the second dutch-belgian division, under lieutenant general de perponcher; and of the third dutch-belgian division, under lieutenant general baron chassÉ. the left of this corps rested upon genappe, quatre bras, and frasne, on the high road leading from brussels to charleroi on the sambre, and communicated with the right of the first _corps d'armée_ of the prussian army, the head quarters of which corps were at charleroi. de perponcher's dutch-belgian division formed the extreme left, having its head quarters at nivelles, on the high road from brussels to binche. on its right was chassÉ's dutch-belgian division, more in advance, in the direction of mons and binche, and quartered principally in roeulx, and in the villages between the latter place and binche. the next division on the right was alten's, having its head quarters at soignies, on the high road from brussels to mons, and occupying villages between this town, roeulx, braine le comte, and enghien. the right division, cooke's, had its head quarters at enghien. the second corps, commanded by lieutenant general lord hill, consisted of the second division, under lieutenant general sir henry clinton; of the fourth division, under lieutenant general the hon. sir charles colville; of the first dutch-belgian division, under lieutenant general stedmann; and of a brigade raised for service in the dutch colonies, called the indian brigade, under lieutenant general baron anthing. the second division, which formed the left of this corps, communicated with alten's right; its head quarters were at ath, on the dender, and upon the high road leading from brussels to tournai, and one brigade (the third), occupied lens, situated about midway between ath and mons. the fourth division was the next on the right, having its head quarters at audenarde on the scheldt, and occupying also renaix. one brigade of this division (the sixth hanoverian) garrisoned the fortress of nieuport on the coast. the first dutch-belgian division was cantoned in villages bordering upon the high road connecting grammont with ghent; and the so-called indian brigade occupied villages between this line and alost. the reserve consisted of the fifth division, under lieutenant general sir thomas picton; of the sixth division, under lieutenant general the hon. sir lowry cole; of the brunswick division, under the duke of brunswick; of the hanoverian corps, under lieutenant general von der decken; and of the contingent of the duke of nassau, which comprised the st regiment of nassau infantry, containing three battalions, and forming a brigade under the command of general von kruse. the fifth and sixth divisions, and the brunswick division, were quartered principally in and around brussels, excepting the seventh brigade, which together with von der decken's corps, the th veteran battalion, the st foreign battalion, and the nd garrison battalion, garrisoned antwerp, ostend, nieuport, ypres, tournai, and mons; and von kruse's nassau brigade was cantoned between brussels and louvain. of the fortresses already mentioned, those which had not been destroyed by the french when they gained possession of the country in , namely, antwerp, ostend, and nieuport, were strengthened, and each rendered capable of holding out a siege. by taking every possible advantage offered by the remains of the old fortifications, and by the continued employment of , labourers, through requisitions on the country, in addition to the military working parties, and by the accession of artillery and stores from england and holland, the towns of ypres, tournai, mons, ath, and the citadel of ghent, were placed in a state of defence, and a redoubt was constructed at audenarde to protect the sluice gates, which afforded the means of inundating that part of the country. * * * * * the cavalry of the anglo-allied army, commanded by lieutenant general the earl of uxbridge, consisted of seven brigades, comprising the british and the king's german legion; of a hanoverian brigade; of five squadrons of brunswick cavalry; and of three brigades of dutch-belgian cavalry. the british and king's german legion cavalry, with the hanoverian brigade, were stationed at grammont and ninove, and in villages bordering upon the dender. the brunswick cavalry was dispersed in the vicinity of brussels. the first brigade of dutch-belgian cavalry was cantoned in the neighbourhood of roeulx; the second brigade, in villages between roeulx and mons; and the third brigade, partly on the south side of mons, in the direction of maubeuge and beaumont, and partly between binche and mons. * * * * * the wide dissemination of the duke of wellington's forces which the advanced line of cantonments presented--a line forming a considerable portion of a circle, of which brussels was the centre, and the tournai, mons, and charleroi roads were the marked radii--tended greatly to facilitate the means of subsisting the troops, and to render that subsistence less burthensome to the country; while, at the same time, it offered to the duke, in conjunction with the interior points of concentration, and with the efficient reserve stationed around the capital, full security for his being prepared to meet any emergency that might arise. the main points of interior concentration were (commencing from the right) audenarde, grammont, ath, enghien, soignies, nivelles, and quatre bras. from whatever point, therefore, offensive operations might be directed against that portion of the belgian frontier occupied by the army under wellington--whether from lille, by courtrai, or by tournai, between the lys and the scheldt; from condé, valenciennes, or maubeuge, by mons, between the sambre and the scheldt; or from maubeuge, beaumont, or philippeville, by charleroi, between the sambre and the meuse--the duke, by advancing to the threatened point with his reserve, and placing the remainder of his troops in movement, had it in his power to concentrate at least two-thirds of his intended disposable force for the field, upon the line of the enemy's operations, within twenty-two hours after the receipt of intelligence of the actual direction and apparent object of those operations. * * * * * the prussian army, under the command of prince blÜcher von wahlstadt, amounted to nearly , men, and was thus composed:-- infantry , cavalry , artillery, waggon-train, and engineers , ------- , men & guns. it was divided into four _corps d'armée_. the first corps, commanded by lieutenant general zieten,[ ] consisted of the first brigade, under general steinmetz; of the second brigade, under general pirch ii.;[ ] of the third brigade, under general jagow; of the fourth brigade, under general count henkel; of a cavalry reserve, under lieutenant general rÖder; and of an artillery reserve, under colonel lehmann. the right of this _corps d'armée_, the head quarters of which were at charleroi, communicated with the left of the first corps of the duke of wellington's army. its right brigade, the first, was cantoned in and around fontaine l'evêque, which lies midway between charleroi and binche; the second brigade, in marchienne au pont, on the sambre; the third brigade, in fleurus; the fourth brigade, in moustier sur sambre; the reserve cavalry in sombref, and the reserve artillery in gembloux. the line of advanced posts of this corps extended from bonne esperance (two miles south-west of binche) along the frontier of lobbes, thuin, and gerpinnes, as far as sossoye. the second _corps d'armée_, commanded by general pirch i., consisted of the fifth brigade, under general tippelskirchen; of the sixth brigade, under general krafft; of the seventh brigade, under general brause; of the eighth brigade, under colonel langen; of a cavalry reserve, under general jÜrgass; and of an artillery reserve, under colonel rhÖl. the head quarters of this corps were at namur, situated at the confluence of the sambre and the meuse, where also its first brigade (the fifth) was stationed; the sixth brigade was cantoned in and around thorembey les beguignes; the seventh brigade in heron; the eighth brigade in huy; the reserve cavalry in hannut; and the reserve artillery along the high road to louvain. the line of advanced posts of this corps extended from sossoye as far as dinant on the meuse, about midway between namur and givet. the third _corps d'armée_, commanded by lieutenant general thielemann, consisted of the ninth brigade, under general borke; of the tenth brigade, under colonel kÄmpfen; of the eleventh brigade, under colonel luck; of the twelfth brigade, under colonel stÜlpnagel; of a cavalry reserve, under general hobe; and of an artillery reserve, under colonel mohnhaupt. the head quarters of this corps were at ciney: the ninth brigade was stationed at asserre; the tenth brigade at ciney; the eleventh brigade at dinant; the twelfth brigade at huy, on the meuse; the reserve cavalry between ciney and dinant; and the reserve artillery at ciney. the line of advanced posts of this corps extended from dinant as far as fabeline and rochefort. the fourth _corps d'armée_, commanded by general count bÜlow von dennewitz, consisted of the thirteenth brigade, under lieutenant general hacke; of the fourteenth brigade, under general ryssel; of the fifteenth brigade, under general losthin; of the sixteenth brigade, under colonel hiller; of a cavalry reserve, under general his royal highness prince william of prussia; and of an artillery reserve, under lieutenant colonel bardeleben. the head quarters of this corps were at liege, where was also stationed the thirteenth infantry brigade; the fourteenth brigade was cantoned in and around waremme; the fifteenth brigade at hologne; the sixteenth brigade at liers; the first brigade of reserve cavalry at tongern; the second brigade at dalhem, and the third brigade at lootz; the reserve artillery was cantoned in and about gloms and dalhem. prince blÜcher's head quarters were at namur. the points of concentration for the respective corps were therefore fleurus, namur, ciney, and liege. the four corps were so disposed that each could be collected at its own head quarters within twelve hours; and it was fully practicable to form a junction of the whole army at any one of these points within twenty-four hours from the time of such collection. at namur, the most central point, it would of course be accomplished in much less time. blÜcher had decided, in the event of an advance by the french across the line of the sambre, by charleroi, upon concentrating his army in a position in front of sombref, a point upon the high road between namur and nivelles, above fourteen miles from the former place, and only seven miles and a half from quatre bras, the point of intersection of this road with the one leading directly from charleroi to brussels, and at which wellington had agreed, in that case, to concentrate as large a force as time would admit, in order to check any advance in this direction, or to join blÜcher's right flank, according to circumstances. [illustration] [illustration] should the enemy advance along the left bank of the meuse towards namur, this place would become the point of junction of the first, second, and fourth corps of the prussian army, whilst the third, collecting at ciney, would, after presenting a stout resistance at dinant, operate as effectively as circumstances would admit, against the right of the line of attack; and should he advance by the right bank of the meuse towards ciney, the army would concentrate at this point, with the exception of the fourth corps, which would assemble at liege as a reserve, for the better security of the left flank and of the communications with the rhine. * * * * * such were the dispositions of the allied commanders, who contemplated no change in their arrangements until the moment should arrive of the commencement of hostile demonstrations of a decided character, for which they were perfectly prepared, and for which a vigilant look-out was maintained along the general line of the advanced posts. from the foregoing, however, it would appear that the concentration of wellington's army on its own left, and that of blÜcher's army on its own right, required longer time than that in which they could have been respectively accomplished on other points; and further that the distribution of the former was better calculated to meet the enemy's advance by mons, and that of the latter to meet it by namur, than to oppose a line of attack by charleroi. this peculiar feature in the dispositions of the two commanders did not escape the vigilance of napoleon, who, as will be seen in the sequel, made it subservient to his hopes of beating their armies in detail. * * * * * the french troops destined to constitute the grand army with which napoleon had decided upon taking the field against the allied forces in belgium, comprised the first, second, third, fourth, and sixth _corps d'armée_; four corps of cavalry; and the imperial guard: amounting altogether to , men:-- infantry , cavalry , artillery, waggon-train, and engineers , ------- , men and guns. the first _corps d'armée_, commanded by lieutenant general count d'erlon, consisted of the first infantry division, under lieutenant general alix; of the second infantry division, under lieutenant general baron donzelot; of the third infantry division, under lieutenant general baron marcognet; of the fourth infantry division, under lieutenant general count durette; and of the first light cavalry division, under lieutenant general jaquinot; with batteries of foot, and of horse, artillery. in the beginning of june, this corps was stationed in and around lille. the second _corps d'armée_, commanded by lieutenant general count reille, consisted of the fifth infantry division, under lieutenant general baron bachelu; of the sixth infantry division, under lieutenant general prince jerome napoleon; of the seventh infantry division, under lieutenant general count girard; of the ninth infantry division, under lieutenant general count foy; and of the second light cavalry division, under lieutenant general baron pirÉ; with batteries of foot, and of horse, artillery. this corps was stationed in and around valenciennes. the third _corps d'armée_, commanded by lieutenant general count vandamme, consisted of the eighth infantry division, under lieutenant general baron le fol; of the tenth infantry division, under lieutenant general baron habert; of the eleventh infantry division, under lieutenant general berthezene; and of the third light cavalry division, under lieutenant general baron domon; with batteries of foot, and of horse, artillery. this corps was assembled in and around mézières. the fourth _corps d'armée_, commanded by lieutenant general count gÉrard, consisted of the twelfth infantry division, under lieutenant general baron pecheux; of the thirteenth infantry division, under lieutenant general baron vichery; of the fourteenth infantry division, under lieutenant general de bourmont; and of the sixth light cavalry division, under lieutenant general maurin; with batteries of foot, and of horse, artillery. this corps occupied metz, longwy, and thionville, and formed the basis of the army of the moselle; but it was now decided that it should approach the sambre, and unite itself with the grand army. the sixth _corps d'armée_, commanded by lieutenant general count lobau, consisted of the nineteenth infantry division, under lieutenant general baron simmer; of the twentieth infantry division, under lieutenant general baron jeannin; of the twenty-first infantry division, under lieutenant general baron teste; with batteries of foot, and of horse, artillery. this corps was assembled in and around laon. the four corps forming the reserve cavalry were placed under the command of marshal count grouchy. the first, commanded by lieutenant general count pajol, consisted of the fourth cavalry division (hussars), under lieutenant general baron soult; and of the fifth division (lancers and _chasseurs_), under lieutenant general baron subervie; with batteries of horse artillery. the second corps, commanded by lieutenant general count excelmans, consisted of the ninth division (dragoons), under lieutenant general strolz; and of the tenth division (dragoons), under lieutenant general baron chastel; with batteries of horse artillery. the third corps, commanded by lieutenant general count de valmy (kellermann), consisted of the eleventh division (dragoons and _cuirassiers_), under lieutenant general baron l'heritier; and of the twelfth division (carabiniers and _cuirassiers_), under lieutenant general roussel d'hurbal; with batteries of horse artillery. the fourth corps, commanded by lieutenant general count milhaud, consisted of the thirteenth division (_cuirassiers_), under lieutenant general wathier; and of the fourteenth division (_cuirassiers_), under lieutenant general baron delort; with batteries of horse artillery. the principal portion of the reserve cavalry lay in cantonments between the aisne and the frontier. * * * * * the infantry of the imperial guard consisted of the st and nd regiments of grenadiers, under lieutenant general count friant; of the rd and th regiments of grenadiers, under lieutenant general count roguet; of the st and nd regiments of _chasseurs_, under lieutenant general count morand; of the rd and th regiments of _chasseurs_, under lieutenant general count michel; of the st and rd regiments of _tirailleurs_, under lieutenant general count duhesme; and of the st and rd _voltigeurs_, under lieutenant general count barrois. the cavalry of the guard consisted of two regiments of heavy cavalry (_grenadiers à cheval_ and dragoons), under lieutenant general count guyot; and of three regiments of light cavalry (_chasseurs à cheval_ and lancers), under lieutenant general lefÈbvre-desnouettes. attached to the guard were batteries of foot, and batteries of horse, artillery, with batteries of reserve artillery; comprising altogether pieces of cannon, under the command of lieutenant general desvaux de st. maurice. these troops were principally in paris. * * * * * the french emperor having, upon the grounds explained in a former chapter, determined to take the field against the allied armies in belgium, the commencement of active operations could no longer be deferred. when we reflect upon the disparity of force with which he was going to contend against two such generals as wellington and blÜcher, we are bound to acknowledge that it was an undertaking daring and perilous in the extreme, even for an individual of the dauntless and adventurous character of napoleon. a delay of only a few weeks would have secured for him, by means of the vast organisation which was in constant and rapid progress, a sufficient accession of disposable troops to have enabled him to effect a powerful diversion upon either wellington's right, or blÜcher's left, flank, and thus to impart an infinitely greater degree of weight and stability to his main operations; but then, on the other hand, this delay would also have brought the powerful armies of the confederated sovereigns across the whole line of his eastern frontier, and have led to the consummation of that combined movement upon the capital, the execution of which it was his great aim to frustrate. but it was not the first time that napoleon had advanced against such fearful superiority of numerical strength. in the previous year, when nearly surrounded by the victorious forces of prussia, austria, and russia, when apparently overwhelmed by a succession of disasters, and when his army was daily diminishing by the desertion of newly raised conscripts, and presenting the mere wreck of its former self, he was at the very _acme_ of his mental energy, and in the full possession of his determinate and all subduing will. his great genius seemed to acquire additional vigour and elasticity, with the increasing desperation of his position; and darting with electric suddenness and rapidity, now upon one adversary and then upon another, maintaining with the renowned leaders of his detached forces, a combination of movements developing the highest order of strategy, he succeeded by his brilliant triumphs at champaubert, montmirail, and monterau, not only in stemming the torrent of invasion, but in causing the resumption of the diplomatic preliminaries of a peace. this peace, however, these very triumphs induced him, as if by a fatality, to reject with scorn and indignation, although the terms were honourable in the highest degree under his then existing circumstances. hence, with such a retrospect, napoleon might well indulge in hope and confidence as to the result of the approaching campaign, notwithstanding the want of sufficient time for a greater development of his resources. a finer or a more gallant army, or one more complete and efficient in every respect, than that which he was going to lead in person, never took the field. [illustration] he had selected for the line of his main operations the direct road to brussels, by charleroi, that being the road, as before remarked, on which wellington's left, and blÜcher's right respectively rested, and which he designed to maintain by first overcoming the prussian army, which was the most advanced on that line, and then attacking the anglo-allied troops before they could be collected in sufficient strength to prevent his further progress; his grand object being to impede the junction of the two armies; to vanquish them in detail; to establish himself in brussels; to arouse the dense population in belgium, of which a vast proportion secretly adhered to his cause; to reannex the country to the french empire; to excite the desertion of the belgian soldiery from the service of holland; to prevent a check by these means to the operations of the invading armies crossing the rhine; perhaps also to enter into negotiations; and, at all events, to gain, what was to him of vital importance, _time_ for the advance and co-operation of further reinforcements from france. * * * * * the necessary orders were now despatched for the concentration of the grand army; and in order to mask its movements as much as possible, the whole line of the belgian frontier was studded with numerous detachments of the national guards furnished by the garrisons of the fortresses, more especially along that part of the frontier which passes in advance of valenciennes, condé, lille, and even as far as dunkirk; all the _debouchés_ of which line were strongly occupied, the outposts tripled, and there was every apparent indication that either the principal attack, or at least a formidable diversion, was in course of preparation in that quarter. these measures had the effect of strengthening the anticipations which wellington had previously formed of offensive movements from the side of lille and valenciennes, and consequently of placing him still more upon his guard against any hasty and incautious junction of his forces with those of blÜcher, until fully satisfied as to the true direction and object of napoleon's main operations. * * * * * on the th of june, lieutenant colonel wissell, whose regiment, the st hussars of the king's german legion, formed an extensive line of outposts in front of tournai, reported to major general sir hussey vivian, to whose brigade the regiment belonged, that he had ascertained, from information on which he could rely, that the french army had assembled on the frontier, and was prepared to attack. vivian desired him to report upon the subject to lord hill, to whose corps his regiment was attached while employed on this particular service. the next morning, vivian repaired in person to the outposts, and found that a french cavalry picquet which had previously been posted opposite to tournai, had a short time before marched to join the main army, and had been relieved by _douaniers_. these, upon being spoken to by vivian, did not hesitate to say that their army was concentrating, and that if the allies did not advance, their troops would attack. on returning to his quarters, vivian communicated what he had seen and heard both to lord hill and the earl of uxbridge, by whom the circumstances were made known to the duke of wellington. his grace, however, for reasons before stated, did not think the proper moment had arrived for making any alteration in the disposition of his forces. * * * * * gÉrard's corps quitted metz on the th of june, with orders to reach philippeville by the th. the imperial guard began its march from paris on the th, and reached avesnes on the th, as did also lobau's corps from laon. d'erlon's corps from lille, reille's corps from valenciennes, and vandamme's corps from mézières, likewise arrived at maubeuge and avesnes on the th. the four corps of reserve cavalry concentrated upon the upper sambre. the junction of the several corps on the same day, and almost at the same hour (with the exception of the fourth, which joined the next day), displayed the usual skill of napoleon in the combination of movements. their leaders congratulated themselves upon these auspicious preparations, and upon finding the "grand army" once more assembled in "all the pomp and circumstance of glorious war:" the appearance of the troops, though fatigued, was all that could be desired; and their enthusiasm was at the highest on hearing that the emperor himself, who had quitted paris at three o'clock on the morning of the th, and passed the night at laon, had actually arrived amongst them. upon the following day, the french army bivouacked on three different points. the left, consisting of d'erlon's and reille's corps, and amounting to about , men, was posted on the right bank of the sambre at solre sur sambre. the centre, consisting of vandamme's and lobau's corps, of the imperial guard, and of the cavalry reserves, amounting altogether to about , men, was at beaumont, which was made the head quarters. the right, composed of gÉrard's corps and of a division of heavy cavalry, amounting altogether to about , men, was in front of philippeville. the bivouacs were established in rear of some slight eminences, with a view to conceal their fires from the observation of the enemy. the army, while thus assembled, on the eve of opening the campaign, received through the medium of an _ordre du jour_ the following spirit-stirring appeal from its chief:-- "napoleon, by the grace of god, and the constitutions of the empire, emperor of the french, etc., to the grand army, "at the imperial head quarters, avesnes, june th, . "soldiers! this day is the anniversary of marengo and of friedland, which twice decided the destiny of europe. then, as after austerlitz, as after wagram, we were too generous! we believed in the protestations and in the oaths of princes, whom we left on their thrones. now, however, leagued together, they aim at the independence, and the most sacred rights of france. they have commenced the most unjust of aggressions. let us, then, march to meet them. are they and we no longer the same men? "soldiers! at jena, against these same prussians, now so arrogant, you were one to three, and at montmirail one to six! "let those among you who have been captives to the english, describe the nature of their prison ships, and the frightful miseries they endured. "the saxons, the belgians, the hanoverians, the soldiers of the confederation of the rhine, lament that they are compelled to use their arms in the cause of the princes, the enemies of justice and of the rights of all nations. they know that this coalition is insatiable! after having devoured twelve millions of poles, twelve millions of italians, one million of saxons, and six millions of belgians, it now wishes to devour the states of the second rank in germany. "madmen! one moment of prosperity has bewildered them. the oppression and the humiliation of the french people are beyond their power. if they enter france they will there find their grave. "soldiers! we have forced marches to make, battles to fight, dangers to encounter; but, with firmness, victory will be ours. the rights, the honour, and the happiness of the country will be recovered! "to every frenchman who has a heart, the moment is now arrived to conquer or to die! "napoleon." "the marshal duke of dalmatia, major general." footnotes: [footnote : in order to avoid the constant repetition of the prefix "von" to the names of the german officers, i have omitted it altogether in the present edition; an omission, however, which i feel persuaded those officers will not consider as involving any breach of courtesy or respect.] [footnote : prussian general officers bearing the same family name, are usually distinguished by the addition of the roman numerals. general von pirch i. is named on the next page.] chapter iv. napoleon, by his precautionary measures of strengthening his advanced posts, and of displaying along the whole line of the belgian frontier an equal degree of vigilance and activity, had effectually concealed from his adversaries the combined movements of his several _corps d'armée_, and their concentration on the right bank of the sambre. during the night of the th, however, the light reflected upon the sky by the fires of the french bivouacs, did not escape the vigilant observation of zieten's outposts, whence it was communicated to the rear that these fires appeared to be in the direction of walcourt and of beaumont, and also in the vicinity of solre sur sambre; further, that all reports received through spies and deserters concurred in representing that napoleon was expected to join the french army on that evening; that the imperial guard and the second corps had arrived at avesnes and maubeuge; also that, at one o'clock in the afternoon of that day, four french battalions had crossed the river at solre sur sambre, and occupied merbes le château; that late in the night the enemy had pushed forward a strong detachment as far as sart la bussière; and lastly, that an attack by the french would certainly take place on the th or th. on the th of june, the dutch-belgian general van merlen, who was stationed at st symphorien, near mons, and who commanded the outposts between the latter place and binche which formed the extreme right of the prussians, ascertained that the french troops had moved from maubeuge and its vicinity by beaumont towards philippeville, that there was no longer any hostile force in his front, except a picquet at bettignies, and some national guards in other villages. he forwarded this important information to the prussian general steinmetz, on his left, with whom he was in constant communication, and by whom it was despatched to general zieten at charleroi. the prussian general pirch ii., who was posted on the left of steinmetz, also sent word to zieten that he had received information through his outposts that the french army had concentrated in the vicinity of beaumont and merbes le château; that their army consisted of , men, and was commanded by general vandamme, jerome buonaparte, and some other distinguished officers; that since the previous day all crossing of the frontier had been forbidden by the french under pain of death; and that a patrol of the enemy had been observed that day near biercée, not far from thuin. during the day, frequent accounts were brought to the troops of zieten's corps, generally corroborative of the above, by the country people who were bringing away, and seeking some place of safety for, their cattle. intelligence was also obtained of the arrival of napoleon, and of his brother, prince jerome. zieten immediately transmitted the substance of this information to prince blÜcher and to the duke of wellington; and it was perfectly consistent with that which the latter had received from major general dÖrnberg, who had been posted in observation at mons, and from general van merlen (through the prince of orange) who, as already mentioned, commanded the outposts between that place and binche. nothing, however, was as yet positively known concerning the real point of concentration, the probable strength of the enemy, or his intended offensive movements, and the allied commanders therefore refrained from making any alteration in their dispositions, and calmly awaited the arrival of reports of a more definite character concerning the enemy's designs. * * * * * zieten's troops were kept under arms during the night, and were collected by battalions at their respective points of assembly. later in the day zieten ascertained, through his outposts, that strong french columns, composed of all arms, were assembling in his front, and that every thing portended an attack on the following morning. zieten's communication of this intelligence reached blÜcher between nine and ten o'clock on the night of the th. simultaneous orders were consequently despatched by eleven o'clock for the march of pirch's corps from namur upon sombref, and of thielemann's corps from ciney to namur. an order had already, in the course of the day, been forwarded to bÜlow at liege, desiring him to make such a disposition of his _corps d'armée_ as should admit of its concentration at hannut in one march; and at midnight a further order was despatched, requiring him to concentrate his troops in cantonment about hannut. zieten was directed to await the advance of the enemy in his position upon the sambre; and, in the event of his being attacked by superior numbers, and compelled to retire, to effect his retreat as slowly as circumstances would permit, in the direction of fleurus, so as to afford sufficient time for the concentration of the other three corps in rear of the latter point. the vigilance which was thus exercised along both the anglo-allied and prussian line of outposts, obtained for wellington and blÜcher the fullest extent of information which they could reasonably have calculated on receiving respecting the dispositions of the enemy immediately previous to an attack. they had been put in possession of the fact that considerable masses of french troops had moved by their right, and assembled in front of charleroi. still, this baring of the frontier beyond tournai, mons, and binche, of the troops which had previously occupied that line, and their concentration in front of charleroi, might be designed to mask the real line of operation, to draw the anglo-allied troops towards charleroi, upon which a feigned attack would be made, while the real attack was intended to be by mons. hence no alteration was made by the duke in the disposition of his forces; but the prussian field marshal immediately ordered the concentration of his own troops at a point where they would be at hand in case charleroi should be the real line of attack, and whence they could far more readily move to the support of wellington, should that attack be made by the mons road. * * * * * zieten's position, and his line of advanced posts, have already been described. his right brigade (the first), having its head quarters at fontaine l'evêque, held the ground between binche and the sambre; his centre brigade (the second) lay along the sambre, occupying marchienne au pont, dampremy, la roux, charleroi, châtelet, and gilly; a portion of his third brigade occupied farciennes and tamines on the sambre, while the remainder was posted in reserve between fleurus and the sambre; and his left brigade (the fourth) was extended along this river nearly as far as namur. the reserve cavalry of the first corps had been brought more in advance, and was now cantoned in the vicinity of the piéton, having gosselies for its point of concentration. in this position, zieten, without making the slightest alteration, remained fully prepared for the expected attack on the morrow. * * * * * while napoleon was occupied in prescribing his intended order of attack, he received a despatch from count gÉrard announcing that lieutenant general de bourmont, and colonels clouet and villoutreys, attached to the fourth corps, had deserted to the enemy--a circumstance which induced the emperor to make some alteration in his dispositions. the morning of the th had scarcely broken, when the french army commenced its march towards the sambre, in three columns, from the three bivouacs already mentioned as having been taken up during the previous night. the left column advanced from solre sur sambre, by thuin, upon marchienne au pont; the centre from beaumont, by ham sur heure, upon charleroi; and the right column from philippeville, by gerpinnes, upon châtelet. as early as half past three o'clock in the morning, the head of the left column came in contact with the prussian troops in front of lobbes, firing upon, and driving in, the picquets of the nd battalion of the st regiment of westphalian landwehr, commanded by captain gillhausen. this officer who was well aware that the french troops that had assembled, the night before, in great force in his front, intended to attack him in the morning, had posted his battalion so as to afford it every advantage to be derived from the hilly and intersected ground it occupied. the french, however, inclined more to their right, and joined other troops advancing along the road to thuin, which lay on his left. shortly after, they drove back an advanced cavalry picquet; and, at half past four, commenced a fire from four guns upon the outpost of maladrie, about a mile in front of thuin. this cannonade, which announced the opening of the campaign by the french, was heard by the prussian troops forming the left wing of steinmetz's brigade; but the atmosphere, which was extremely thick and heavy, was most unfavourable for the conveyance of sound; so much so, that the greater portion of the right wing of the brigade remained for a considerable time in ignorance of the enemy's advance. the firing, however, was distinctly heard at charleroi; and zieten, who, by the reports which he forwarded on the th to wellington and blÜcher, had fully prepared these commanders to expect an attack, lost no time in communicating to them the important fact, that hostilities had actually commenced. shortly before five o'clock, he despatched _courier jägers_ to their respective head quarters, brussels and namur, with letters containing the information that since half past four o'clock, he had heard several cannon shots fired in his front, and at the time he was writing, the fire of musketry also, but that he had not yet received any report from his outposts. to blÜcher he at the same time intimated that he should direct the whole corps to fall back into position; and, should it become absolutely necessary, to concentrate at fleurus. his report to the duke of wellington arrived in brussels at nine o'clock in the morning; that to prince blÜcher reached namur between eight and nine o'clock. the former, while it placed the british commander on the _qui vive_, did not induce him to adopt any particular measure--he awaited further and more definite information; but the latter satisfied the prussian field marshal that he had taken a wise precaution in having already ordered the concentration of his several corps in the position of sombref. the prussian troops at maladrie checked, for a time, the advance of the french upon thuin, and maintained their ground for more than an hour, with the greatest bravery. they were overpowered, and driven back upon thuin. this place was occupied by the rd battalion of the nd westphalian landwehr, under major monsterberg, who, after an obstinate and gallant resistance, during which the battalion suffered an immense loss, was forced to retire, about seven o'clock, upon montigny, where he found lieutenant colonel woisky, with two squadrons of the st west prussian dragoons. the french succeeded in taking this village, and the retreat was then continued in good order, under the protection of woisky's dragoons, towards marchienne au pont; but before reaching this place, the latter were attacked, and completely overthrown by the french cavalry; and the infantry getting into disorder at the same moment were partly cut down, and many were taken prisoners. indeed so severe was the loss which the rd battalion of the nd westphalian landwehr suffered in this retreat, that the mere handful of men which remained could not possibly be looked upon as constituting a battalion in the proper meaning of the term. it was reduced to a mere skeleton. lieutenant colonel woisky was wounded on this occasion; but continued, nevertheless, at the head of his dragoons. captain gillhausen, who, as before stated, commanded the prussian battalion posted at lobbes, as soon as he had satisfied himself that thuin was taken, saw the necessity of effecting his own retreat, which he did, after the lapse of half an hour, drawing in his picquets, and occupying the bridge over the sambre with one company. he then fell back, and occupied the wood of sar de lobbes, where he received an order, as soon as the post of hoarbes was also taken by the enemy, to continue his retreat, taking a direction between fontaine l'evêque and anderlues. the post at abbaye d'alnes, occupied by the rd battalion of the st westphalian landwehr, under the temporary command of captain grollmann, also fell into the hands of the french, between eight and nine o'clock. as soon as the commander of the first prussian brigade--general steinmetz--was made acquainted with the attack upon his most advanced posts along the sambre, he despatched an officer of his staff--major arnauld--to the dutch-belgian general van merlen at st symphorien, situated on the road between binche and mons, to make him fully acquainted with what had taken place, and with the fact that his brigade was falling back into position. on his way, major arnauld directed major engelhardt, who commanded the outposts on the right, to lose not a moment in withdrawing the chain of picquets; and on arriving at binche, he spread the alarm that the french had attacked, and that the left of the brigade was warmly engaged, which rendered it necessary that the right should retire with the utmost expedition. until this officer's arrival, the prussian troops in this quarter were wholly ignorant of the attack; the state of the atmosphere, to which allusion has already been made, having prevented their hearing the slightest sound of any firing. they had a much greater extent of ground to pass over in retreat than the rest of the brigade, and yet, by the above unfortunate circumstance, they were the last to retire. zieten, having ascertained, about eight o'clock, that the whole french army appeared to be in motion, and that the direction of the advance of its columns seemed to indicate the probability of charleroi and its vicinity being the main object of the attack, sent out the necessary orders to his brigades. the first was to retire by courcelles to the position in rear of gosselies; the second was to defend the three bridges over the sambre, at marchienne au pont, charleroi, and châtelet, for a time sufficient to enable the first brigade to effect its retreat towards gosselies, and thus to prevent its being cut off by the enemy, after which it was to retire behind gilly; the third and fourth brigades, as also the reserve cavalry and artillery, were to concentrate as rapidly as possible, and to take up a position in rear of fleurus. the three points by which the first brigade was to fall back, were mont st aldegonde, for the troops on the right, anderlues for those in the centre, and fontaine l'evêque for the left. in order that they might reach these three points about the same time, zieten ordered that those in front of fontaine l'evêque should yield their ground as slowly as the enemy's attack would admit. having reached the line of these three points, about ten o'clock, the brigade commenced its further retreat towards courcelles, having its proper left protected by a separate column consisting of the st regiment of westphalian landwehr and two companies of silesian rifles, led by colonel hoffmann, in the direction of roux and jumet, towards gosselies. at marchienne au pont stood the nd battalion of the th prussian regiment, belonging to the second brigade of zieten's corps. the bridge was barricaded, and with the aid of two guns, resolutely maintained against several attacks; after which these troops commenced their retreat upon gilly, by dampremy. in the latter place were three companies of the st battalion of the nd regiment of westphalian landwehr, with four guns. these also retired about the same time towards gilly, the guns protecting the retreat by their fire from the churchyard; after which they moved off as rapidly as possible towards gilly, while the battalion marched upon fleurus; but the th company, which defended the bridge of la roux until charleroi was taken, was too late to rejoin the latter, and therefore attached itself to the first brigade, which was retreating by its right flank. * * * * * lieutenant general count pajol's corps of light cavalry formed the advanced guard of the centre column of the french army: it was to have been supported by vandamme's corps of infantry, but by some mistake, this general had not received his orders, and at six o'clock in the morning had not quitted his bivouac. napoleon, perceiving the error, led forward the imperial guards in immediate support of pajol. as the latter advanced, the prussian outposts, though hard pressed, retired, skirmishing in good order. at couillet, on the sambre, about a mile and a half below charleroi, the french cavalry fell upon a company of the rd battalion of the th prussian regiment, surrounded it, and forced it to surrender. immediately afterwards, the french gained possession of marcinelles, a village quite close to charleroi, and connected with this town by a dike paces in length, terminating at a bridge, the head of which was palisaded. along this dike the french cavalry ventured to advance, but was suddenly driven back by the prussian skirmishers, who lined the hedges and ditches intersecting the opposite slope of the embankment; a part of the village was retaken, and an attempt made to destroy the bridge. the french, however, having renewed the attack with increased force, succeeded in finally carrying both the dike and the bridge, and by this means effected their entrance into charleroi. major rohr, who commanded this post, now felt himself under the necessity of effecting his retreat with the st battalion of the th prussian regiment, towards the preconcerted position in rear of gilly, which he did in good order, though hotly pursued by detachments of pajol's dragoons. by eleven o'clock, the french were in full possession of charleroi, as also of both banks of the sambre above the town, and reille's corps was effecting its passage over the river at marchienne au pont. the right column of the french army, commanded by count gÉrard, having a longer distance to traverse, had not yet reached its destined point, châtelet on the sambre. * * * * * the fourth brigade of zieten's corps, as also the advanced portion of the third, continued their retreat towards fleurus; general jagow, who commanded the latter, having left the two silesian rifle companies and the fusilier battalion[ ] of the th prussian regiment at farciennes and tamines, for the purpose of watching the points of passage across the sambre, and of protecting the left flank of the position at gilly. but, from the moment the french made themselves masters of charleroi, and of the left bank of the sambre above that town, the situation of the first brigade under general steinmetz became extremely critical. zieten immediately ordered general jagow, whose brigade was in reserve, to detach colonel rÜchel with the th regiment of infantry to gosselies, for the purpose of facilitating general steinmetz's retreat. the colonel found that general rÖder (commanding the reserve cavalry of the corps) had posted there the th regiment of prussian uhlans (lancers) under lieutenant colonel lÜtzow, to whom he confided the defence of gosselies, which he occupied with the nd battalion of the th regiment, while he placed himself in reserve with the other two battalions. as soon as the french had assembled in sufficient force at charleroi, napoleon ordered count pajol to detach general clary's brigade towards gosselies, and to advance with the remainder of the first corps of reserve cavalry towards gilly. general clary, with the st french hussars, reached jumet, on the left of the brussels road, and only but little more than a mile from gosselies, before the first prussian brigade had crossed the piéton. he now advanced to attack gosselies, but was met by lieutenant colonel lÜtzow and his dragoons, who defeated and repulsed him, and thus secured for general steinmetz time to pass the piéton; and as soon as the latter had turned the defile of gosselies, colonel rÜchel with the th regiment moved off to rejoin the third brigade. the check thus experienced by general clary led to his being supported by lieutenant general lefÈbvre-desnouettes, with the light cavalry of the guard and the two batteries attached to this force; and a regiment from lieutenant general duhesme's division of the young guard was advanced midway between charleroi and gosselies as a reserve to lefÈbvre-desnouettes. the advanced guard of reille's corps, which had crossed the sambre at marchienne au pont, was also moving directly upon gosselies, with the design both of cutting off the retreat of zieten's troops along the brussels road, and of separating the prussians from the anglo-allied army. d'erlon's corps, which was considerably in the rear, received orders to follow and support reille. general steinmetz, upon approaching gosselies, and perceiving the strength of the enemy and the consequent danger of being completely cut off, with the utmost promptitude and decision directed the nd battalion of the st westphalian landwehr to march against the enemy's left flank, with a view to divert his attention and to check his advance, while, protected by the th lancers and the st silesian hussars, he continued his retreat towards heppignies. this plan was attended with complete success; and steinmetz reached heppignies with scarcely any loss, followed by general girard at the head of the seventh division of the second french _corps d'armée_, with the remainder of which reille continued his advance along the brussels road. heppignies was already occupied by the nd and rd battalions of the th prussian regiment, and with this increase of strength steinmetz drew up in order of battle, and upon girard's attempting to force the place, after having previously occupied ransart, he advanced against him, and drove him back in the direction of gosselies. a brisk cannonade ensued, which was maintained on the part of the prussians, only so long as it was deemed necessary for covering their retreat upon fleurus. * * * * * in conformity with zieten's orders, general pirch ii., when forced to abandon charleroi, retired to gilly, where, having concentrated the second brigade, about two o'clock, he took up a favourable position along a ridge in rear of a rivulet; his right resting upon the abbey of soleilmont, his left extending towards châtelineau, which flank was also protected by a detachment occupying the bridge of châtelet, gÉrard's corps not having as yet arrived at that point. he posted the fusilier battalion of the th regiment in a small wood which lay in advance on the exterior slope of the ridge; four guns on the right, upon an eminence commanding the valley in front; two guns between this point and the fleurus road, as also two guns on the right of the road, to impede as much as possible the advance of any columns towards gilly. the sharp shooters of the fusilier battalion of the th regiment, by lining some adjacent hedges, afforded protection to the artillery. the nd battalion of the th regiment was stationed beyond the fleurus road, near the abbey of soleilmont, in such a manner as to be concealed from the enemy. the st battalion of this regiment stood across the road leading to lambusart; and its fusilier battalion was posted more to the left, towards châtelet. the nd battalion of the nd westphalian landwehr was posted in support of the battery in rear of gilly. the st battalion of this regiment, previously mentioned as on the march from dampremy to fleurus, passed through lodelinsart and soleilmont, and rejoined the brigade in rear of gilly, before the affair had terminated. the st and nd battalions of the th regiment formed the reserve. the st west prussian dragoons were posted on the declivity of the ridge towards châtelet: they furnished the advanced posts, and patrolled the valley of the sambre, maintaining the communication with the detachment at farciennes, belonging to the third brigade. general pirch, foreseeing that in the event of the enemy succeeding in turning his right, a rapid advance along the fleurus road would be the means of greatly molesting, if not of seriously endangering, his retreat upon lambusart, took the precaution of having this road blocked up by an _abatis_ in the wood through which it led. vandammme did not reach charleroi until three o'clock in the afternoon, when he received orders to pursue the prussians, in conjunction with grouchy, along the fleurus road. it was, however, a considerable time before any advance was made. in the first place, the whole of vandamme's corps had to cross the sambre by a single bridge; secondly, both generals were deceived by exaggerated reports concerning the strength of the prussians in rear of the fleurus woods; and grouchy who had gone forward to reconnoitre, returned to the emperor with a request for further instructions. upon this, napoleon undertook a reconnaissance in person, accompanied by the four squadrons _de service_; and having formed an opinion that the amount of force in question did not exceed , or , men, he gave his orders for the attack of general pirch's brigade. the french generals having directed their preparatory dispositions from the windmill near the farm of grand drieu, opened the engagement about six o'clock in the evening, with a fire from two batteries. three columns of infantry advanced in echelon from the right, the first directing its course towards the little wood occupied by the fusilier battalion of the th prussian regiment; the second passing to the right of gilly; and the third winding round the left of this village. the attack was supported by two brigades of general excelmans' cavalry corps, namely, those of generals bourthe and bonnemain; of which one was directed towards châtelet, thus menacing the prussian left flank, and the other advanced along the fleurus road. the battery attached to the second prussian brigade was in the act of replying with great spirit to the superior fire from the french artillery, and the light troops were already engaged, when general pirch received zieten's orders to avoid an action against superior numbers, and to retire by lambusart upon fleurus. perceiving the formidable advance and overwhelming force of the enemy, he did not hesitate a moment in carrying those orders into effect, and made his dispositions accordingly; but the retreat had scarcely commenced when his battalions were vigorously assailed by the french cavalry. napoleon, in the hope of profiting by this retrograde movement, sent against the retreating columns the four squadrons _de service_ of the guard, under general letort, a distinguished cavalry officer attached to his staff. the prussian infantry withstood the repeated attacks of the french cavalry with undaunted bravery, and aided by the gallant exertions of lieutenant colonel woisky, who boldly met the enemy with the st west prussian dragoons, and checked his progress, the greater part of it succeeded in gaining the wood of fleurus. the fusilier battalion of the th regiment (of which it will be recollected, one company had previously been captured on the right bank of the sambre) was the only column broken on this occasion. it had been ordered to retire into the wood by rondchamp, but before it could complete the movement, it was overtaken by the enemy's cavalry, by which it was furiously assailed, and suffered a loss of two thirds of its number. the fusilier battalion of the th regiment was more fortunate. when about five hundred paces from the wood, it was attacked by the enemy's cavalry on the plain, but forming square, and reserving its fire until the french horsemen had approached within twenty or thirty paces, it gallantly repelled several charges. as the vigour with which these attacks were made began to slacken, the battalion cleared its way with the bayonet through the cavalry that continued hovering round it. one of its companies immediately extended itself along the edge of the wood, and kept the french cavalry at bay. the latter suffered severely on this occasion, and general letort who led the attacks was mortally wounded. the brandenburg dragoons had been detached by zieten in support of pirch's brigade, and opportunely reaching the field of action, made several charges against the french cavalry, which they repulsed and compelled to relinquish its pursuit. pirch's brigade now took up a position in front of lambusart, which was occupied by some battalions of the third brigade, and general rÖder joined it with his remaining three regiments of cavalry and a battery of horse artillery. at this moment, the french cavalry, which was formed up in position, opened a fire from three batteries of horse artillery, and thus brought on a cannonade, with which, however, the affair terminated. the first prussian brigade having safely executed its retreat from heppignies, towards fleurus, reached st amand about eleven o'clock at night. the detachments left by the third brigade at farciennes and tamines, had been previously called in, and effected their retreat without any molestation, as did also, subsequently, the second brigade from lambusart, by boulet, towards fleurus, protected by the reserve cavalry. zieten's corps, at three o'clock in the morning had possessed a line of advanced posts, from dinant on the meuse, crossing the sambre at thuin, and extending as far as bonne esperance, in advance of binche; thus stretching along a space of from forty to fifty miles in length: its main force occupied the sambre from thuin as far as its confluence with the meuse, an extent of, at least, thirty six miles, exclusive of the numerous windings throughout the whole course of the river between those two points. the men had, since daybreak, been constantly under arms, in motion, and almost as constantly engaged, pursued, and assailed upon all points by an overwhelming superiority of force, headed by the _élite_ of the french cavalry; and it was not until about eleven o'clock at night that the corps effected its concentration in position between ligny and st amand, at a distance varying from fourteen to twenty miles in rear of its original extended line of outposts; after having successfully and gloriously fulfilled the arduous task imposed upon it of gaining sufficient time for the concentration, on the following day, of all the prussian corps, by stemming, as well as its scattered force would admit, the imposing advance of the whole french army. the loss of the first prussian _corps d'armée_ on the th of june, amounted to men. the fusilier battalions of the th regiment and of the nd westphalian landwehr, reduced to mere skeletons, were united, and formed into one battalion. before ten o'clock on the morning of the th, a further order was despatched from the prussian head quarters to the third _corps d'armée_, to the effect that after resting during the night at namur, it was to continue its march upon the morning of the th, towards sombref. at half past eleven o'clock in the forenoon a despatch was forwarded to bÜlow, announcing the advance of the french, and requesting that the corps after having rested at hannut, should commence its march upon gembloux by daybreak of the th, at the latest. by three o'clock in the afternoon of the th, the second _corps d'armée_ had taken up the position assigned to it between onoz and mazy in the immediate vicinity of sombref, with the exception, however, of the seventh brigade, which, having been stationed in the most remote of the quarters occupied by the corps, did not reach namur until midnight. here the latter found an order for its continuance in namur until the arrival of the third _corps d'armée_; but as this had already taken place, the brigade, after a few hours' rest, resumed its march, and joined its corps at sombref about ten o'clock in the morning of the th june. thielemann passed the night at namur, which he occupied with the tenth brigade; the ninth brigade bivouacked on the right, and the eleventh on the left, of belgrade, a village at a short distance from the town, on the road to sombref; the twelfth brigade in rear of the ninth; the reserve cavalry at flavinne, between that road and the sambre; and the reserve artillery on the left of the road. * * * * * it has already been explained that on the th, blÜcher sent off a despatch to bÜlow desiring him to make such a disposition of his corps as should enable his troops to reach hannut in one march; and that at midnight of the th, a second despatch was forwarded, requiring him to concentrate the fourth corps at hannut. the first of these despatches reached bÜlow, at liege, at five o'clock on the morning of the th; when he issued the necessary orders with an instruction that they should be acted upon as soon as the troops had dined, and forwarded a report of this arrangement to head quarters. these orders to his troops had been despatched some hours, and the consequent movements were for the most part in operation, when, towards noon, the second despatch arrived. bÜlow, considering the effect which the change required by this new order would have upon the troops, inasmuch as their reception was prepared in quarters to which, in this case, they would no longer proceed, and they would have nothing provided for them in the destined bivouac near hannut, also as a great proportion of them could not receive the orders for the change in the direction of their march until evening, decided upon deferring the new movement until daybreak of the th. the despatch, moreover, did not require him to establish his head quarters at hannut, but merely suggested that the latter appeared the most suitable for the purpose. the general was, besides, perfectly unconscious of the commencement of hostilities, which, indeed, he had expected would be preceded by a declaration of war; and he had also good grounds for an opinion which he had formed that it was in contemplation to assemble the whole army at hannut. he made a report to head quarters of his reasons for deferring the execution of the order, with the intimation that he would be at hannut by midday of the th. captain below, on bÜlow's staff, who carried this despatch, arrived at nine o'clock in the evening of the th at namur, where he discovered that the head quarters of the army had been transferred to sombref. at half past eleven o'clock in the forenoon of the th, another despatch was forwarded to bÜlow from namur, announcing the advance of the french, and requesting that the fourth corps, after having rested at hannut, should commence its march upon gembloux, by daybreak of the th at latest. the orderly who carried it was directed to proceed to hannut, the presumed head quarters of bÜlow's corps on that day. on reaching that place, the orderly found the previous despatch lying in readiness for the general, and, mounting a fresh horse, he then went on with both despatches to liege, where he arrived at sunrise. the orders which they contained had now, however, become impracticable, in consequence of bÜlow's not having immediately carried into effect the _first_ order to collect at hannut; and thus by one of those mischances, which, in war, occasionally mar the best planned operations, the opportune arrival of the fourth prussian corps at the battle of ligny, which would, in all probability, have changed the aspect of affairs, was rendered a matter of impossibility. late in the evening, and after prince blÜcher had established his head quarters at sombref, captain below arrived with the before mentioned report from count bÜlow; on receiving which his highness was made sensible that he could no longer calculate with certainty upon being joined by the fourth corps on the following day. * * * * * it was seven o'clock in the evening of the th, when marshal ney, who had just arrived, joined the emperor near charleroi, at the point where the road to fleurus branches off from the one to brussels. having expressed the pleasure he felt at seeing him, napoleon gave him the command of the first and second _corps d'armée_; explaining at the same time that reille was advancing with three divisions upon gosselies; that d'erlon would pass the night at marchienne au pont; that he would find under his orders pirÉ's light cavalry division; as also the two regiments of _chasseurs_ and lancers of the guard, of which, however, he was not to make use except as a reserve. "tomorrow," added the emperor, "you will be joined by the reserve corps of heavy cavalry under kellermann. go and drive back the enemy." * * * * * it has already been shown in the preceding chapter, that the extreme left of the duke of wellington's army, composed of de perponcher's second dutch-belgian division, rested upon the charleroi road to brussels. the second brigade of this division, under colonel gÖdecke, was thus located:-- st battalion of the nd regiment of nassau, at hautain le val; the nd battalion, at frasne and villers peruin; the rd battalion, at bezy, sart à mavelines, and quatre bras; both battalions of the regiment of orange-nassau, at genappe. there was also at frasne a dutch battery of horse artillery, under captain byleveld. early on the morning of the th, these troops were lying quietly in their cantonments, perfectly unconscious of the advance of the french army, when they heard a brisk cannonade at a distance in the direction of charleroi; but not having received the slightest intimation of the enemy's approach, they concluded that the firing proceeded from the prussian artillery practice, which they had frequently heard before, and to which they had therefore become accustomed. gradually towards noon, however, the cannonade became more distinctly audible; and, in the afternoon, the arrival of a wounded prussian soldier completely set at rest all doubt as to the advance of the french. an orderly was immediately despatched with the intelligence to the regimental head quarters, whence it was also communicated to general de perponcher's head quarters at nivelles. in the meantime, major normann, who commanded the nd battalion of the nd regiment of nassau, drew up the latter with the battery in position in rear of frasne, and upon the road to quatre bras, after having posted a picquet of observation in advance of the village. perponcher lost not a moment in ordering both brigades of his division to hasten towards their respective points of assembly; the st brigade, under general bylandt, to nivelles, and the nd, under colonel gÖdecke, to quatre bras. before this order, however, could possibly reach these troops, prince bernhard of saxe weimar, who commanded the regiment of orange-nassau, at genappe, having been informed by the officer of the dutch-belgian _maréchaussées_, who had been compelled to quit his post at charleroi, that the french were advancing from that place, took upon himself to move forward with the above regiment from genappe to quatre bras, and despatched a report of such movement to the head quarters of the brigade at hautain le val, as also, subsequently, to general de perponcher at nivelles, by captain gagern, of the dutch-belgian staff, who happened to be just then at genappe, for the purpose of collecting information. about six o'clock in the evening, parties of lancers belonging to pirÉ's light cavalry division of reille's corps appeared in front of frasne, and soon drove in major normann's picquet. this officer placed a company on the south or french side of frasne, for the purpose of preventing as long as possible the entrance of the french into the village. byleveld's battery took post on the north side of the village, and the remaining companies of the nd battalion of the nd regiment of nassau drew up in its support. two guns were upon the road, and three on each side of it. after some time, the lancers, having been reinforced, compelled the company before mentioned to retire through the village and fall back upon the main body, which then opened a vigorous fire, by which this front attack by the french cavalry was defeated. the latter then made a disposition to turn the left flank of these troops; on perceiving which major normann and captain byleveld resolved upon falling back to within a short distance in front of quatre bras. the retreat was conducted in excellent order, the battery continuing to fire along the high road. quatre bras was the _rendezvous_ of the second brigade; and the rd battalion of the nd regiment of nassau, which was cantoned in its immediate vicinity, had already, without waiting for the receipt of superior orders, assembled at that point. prince bernhard, on arriving there with the regiment of orange-nassau, and learning the particulars of the engagement at frasne, assumed the command as senior officer, and being fully impressed with the importance of securing the point of junction of the high road from charleroi to brussels, with that from namur to nivelles, came to the resolution of making a firm stand at quatre bras. this decision accorded entirely with the spirit of the orders which had in the meantime been despatched from braine le comte, the dutch-belgian head quarters, on the receipt of intelligence of the french having crossed the sambre. general de perponcher, who commanded the division, had also approved of the prince's determination, and colonel gÖdecke who was at hautain le val, and who had hitherto commanded the second brigade, now tendered his command to his serene highness, who immediately accepted it. the prince pushed forward the rd battalion of the nd regiment of nassau, in column, upon the high road towards frasne, detached two companies of the st battalion, and the volunteer _jägers_, to the defence of the wood of bossu, and the remaining companies on the high road towards hautain le val; and posted the remainder of the brigade at quatre bras, along the namur road. of byleveld's horse battery, four guns were posted in advance in the direction of frasne, two on the road to namur, and two in rear of the main body. by the determined show of resistance which his serene highness displayed, as well as by the vigorous cannonade which he maintained, pirÉ's advanced guard, the left flank of which became endangered by the dutch occupying the wood of bossu, was forced to retire in its turn, which it did unmolested, and brought back intelligence that quatre bras was occupied by ten battalions with artillery, and that wellington's troops were moving to concentrate at this important point. at ten o'clock at night, ney's forces were thus disposed:--pirÉ's light cavalry division and bachelu's infantry division occupied frasne, a village situated upon the brussels road, about two miles and a half on the french side of quatre bras; the two regiments of _chasseurs_ and lancers of the guard were in reserve in rear of frasne; reille was with two divisions, and the artillery attached to them, at gosselies: these divisions ensured the communication until the arrival of d'erlon's corps, which was to remain that night at marchienne au pont. the remaining division of reille's corps (girard's) was at heppignies, and thus served to maintain the communication with the main column under napoleon. the troops were greatly fatigued by having been kept constantly on the march since three o'clock in the morning; the strength of the different regiments, the names of their colonels, and even of the generals, were unknown to the marshal, as also the number of men that had been able to keep up with the heads of the columns at the end of this long march. these circumstances, combined with the information brought in from quatre bras, induced ney to decline risking a night attack upon that point; and he contented himself with taking up a position in advance of frasne. having issued such orders as he deemed essential, and enjoined the most vigilant look out, he returned to charleroi, where he arrived about midnight; partook of supper with napoleon (who had just arrived from the right wing of the army), and conferred with the emperor upon the state of affairs until two o'clock in the morning. * * * * * the first intimation which the duke of wellington received on the th, of hostilities having commenced, was conveyed in the report already alluded to, as having been forwarded by general zieten, shortly before five o'clock in the morning, and as having reached brussels at nine o'clock. it was not, however, of a nature to enable the duke to form an opinion as to any real attack being contemplated by the enemy in that quarter. it simply announced that the prussian outposts in front of charleroi were engaged. it might be the commencement of a real attack in this direction, but it might also be a diversion in favour of an attack in some other direction, such as mons. in fact, until further information was received, it could only be considered in the light of an affair of outposts. not long after three o'clock in the afternoon, the prince of orange arrived in brussels, and informed the duke that the prussian outposts had been attacked and forced to fall back. his royal highness had ridden to the front at five o'clock in the morning, from braine le comte, and had a personal interview at st symphorien, with general van merlen, whose troops were on the immediate right of the prussians, who had retired. after having given to this general verbal orders respecting his brigade, the prince left the outposts between nine and ten o'clock, and repaired to brussels to communicate to the duke all the information he had obtained respecting the enemy's attack upon the prussian advanced posts. this, however, was not sufficiently conclusive to induce his grace to resolve upon any immediate step; but, in about an hour afterwards, that is, about half past four, general von mÜffling, the prussian officer attached to the british head quarters, waited upon the duke with a communication which had been despatched from namur by prince blÜcher at noon, conveying the intelligence that the french had attacked the prussian posts at thuin and lobbes on the sambre, and that they appeared to be advancing in the direction of charleroi. the duke was fully prepared for this intelligence, though uncertain how soon it might arrive. the reports which had been made to him from the outposts, especially from those of the st hussars of the king's german legion, stationed in the vicinity of mons and tournai, gave sufficient indication that the enemy was concentrating his forces. but, as observed in the preceding chapter, his grace was determined to make no movement until the real line of attack should become manifest; and hence it was, that if the attack had been made even at a later period, his dispositions would have remained precisely the same. the duke at once gave orders for the whole of his troops to assemble at the head quarters of their respective divisions and to hold themselves in immediate readiness to march. at the same time an express was despatched to major general dÖrnberg, requiring information concerning any movement that might have been made on the part of the enemy in the direction of mons. the following were the movements ordered by the duke. upon the left of the army, which was nearest to the presumed point of attack--perponcher's and chassÉ's dutch-belgian divisions were to be assembled that night at nivelles, on which point alten's british division (the third) was to march as soon as collected at braine le comte; but this movement was not to be made until the enemy's attack upon the right of the prussian army and the left of the allied army had become a matter of certainty. cooke's british division (the first) was to be collected that night at enghien, and to be in readiness to move at a moment's notice. along the central portion of the army--clinton's british division (the second) was to be assembled that night at ath, and to be in readiness also to move at a moment's notice. colville's british division (the fourth) was to be collected that night at grammont, with the exception of the troops beyond the scheldt, which were to be moved to audenarde. upon the right of the army--stedmann's dutch-belgian division, and anthing's dutch-belgian (indian) brigade were, after occupying audenarde with men, to be assembled at sotteghem, so as to be ready to march in the morning. the cavalry were to be collected that night at ninhove, with the exception of the nd hussars of the king's german legion, who were to remain on the look out between the scheldt and the lys; and of dÖrnberg's brigade, with the cumberland hussars, which were to march that night upon vilvorde, and to bivouac on the high road near to that town. the reserve was thus disposed--picton's british division (the fifth), the st british regiment, and best's hanoverian brigade (of cole's division), were to be in readiness to march from brussels at a moment's notice. vincke's hanoverian brigade (of picton's division) was to be collected that night at hal, and to be in readiness at daylight on the following morning to move towards brussels, and to halt on the road between alost and assche for further orders. the duke of brunswick's corps was to be collected that night on the high road between brussels and vilvorde. kruse's nassau brigade was to be collected at daylight on the following morning upon the louvain road, and to be in readiness to move at a moment's notice. the reserve artillery was to be in readiness to move at daylight. * * * * * it was ten o'clock at night when the first intelligence of the attack made by the french in the direction of frasne, was received at the prince of orange's head quarters, at braine le comte. it was carried by captain gagern, who, as previously mentioned (see page ), had been despatched by prince bernhard of saxe weimar, with his serene highness's report of the affair, to general perponcher at nivelles, and who was subsequently sent on by the general, with this information to the above head quarters. lieutenant webster, aide de camp to the prince of orange, started soon afterwards for brussels, with a report from the dutch-belgian quartermaster general, de constant rebecque, stating what had taken place, and detailing the measures which he had thought proper to adopt. these measures did not entirely coincide with the instructions above given, as issued by the duke, because they were consequent upon the affair at frasne, with which his grace at that time was unacquainted; but they were perfectly consistent with the spirit of those instructions, inasmuch as they were not adopted "until the enemy's attack upon the right of the prussian army, and the left of the allied army had become a matter of certainty." the enemy's advance along the charleroi road had already been successfully checked at quatre bras, and the necessity of immediately collecting at this important point, the troops ordered by the duke "to be assembled that night at nivelles" was too obvious to be mistaken. * * * * * a little before ten o'clock on the same evening, a further communication reached the duke from prince blÜcher, announcing the crossing of the sambre by the french army, headed by napoleon in person; and the required intelligence from other quarters having arrived almost at the same moment, and confirmed him in the opinion "that the enemy's movement upon charleroi was the real attack," he issued, at ten o'clock p.m., the following orders for the march of his troops to their left:--alten's division to continue its movement from braine le comte upon nivelles. cooke's division to move from enghien upon braine le comte. clinton's and colville's divisions to move from ath, grammont, and audenarde, upon enghien. the cavalry to continue its movement from ninhove upon enghien. * * * * * the disposition of the french left column, under ney, during the night of the th, has already been shown. the centre column of the french army was thus located--vandamme's corps bivouacked in the wood of fleurus; pajol's corps of light cavalry at lambusart; the third light cavalry division, under domon, on the left, at the outlet of the wood, and the heavy cavalry corps of excelmans between the light cavalry and vandamme; the guards bivouacked between charleroi and gilly; and lobau's corps, together with milhaud's heavy cavalry corps, lay in rear of charleroi. the right column, consisting of gÉrard's corps, bivouacked in front of the bridge of châtelet, which point it had reached during the evening. * * * * * the result of the proceedings on the th was highly favourable to napoleon. he had completely effected the passage of the sambre; he was operating with the main portion of his forces directly upon the preconcerted point of concentration of blÜcher's army, and was already in the immediate front of the chosen position, before that concentration could be accomplished; he was also operating with another portion upon the high road to brussels, and had come in contact with the left of wellington's troops; he had also placed himself so far in advance upon this line, that even a partial junction of the forces of the allied commanders was already rendered a hazardous operation, without a previous retrograde movement; and he thus had it in his power to bring the principal weight of his arms against the one, whilst, with the remainder of his force, he held the other at bay. this formed the grand object of his operations on the morrow. but however excellent, or even perfect, this plan of operation may appear in theory, still there were other circumstances, which, if taken into consideration, would scarcely seem to warrant a well grounded anticipation of a successful issue. napoleon's troops had been constantly under arms, marching, and fighting, since two o'clock in the morning, the hour at which they broke up from their position at solre sur sambre, beaumont, and philippeville, within the french frontier: they required time for rest and refreshment; they lay widely scattered between their advanced posts and the sambre; ney's forces were in detached bodies from frasne as far as marchienne au pont, the halting place of d'erlon's corps; and although vandamme's corps was in the wood of fleurus, lobau's corps and the guards were halted at charleroi, and gÉrard's corps at châtelet. hence, instead of an imposing advance, with the first glimmering of the dawn of the th, the whole morning would necessarily be employed by the french in effecting a closer junction of their forces, and in making their preparatory dispositions for attack; an interval of time invaluable to the allies, by the greater facility which it afforded them for the concentration of a sufficient force to hold their enemy in check, and to frustrate his design of defeating them in detail. * * * * * in taking a calm retrospect of the dispositions made by napoleon on the night of the th of june, we become strongly impressed with a conviction, that to the laxity of those dispositions, to the absence which they indicated of that energetic perseverance and restless activity which characterised the most critical of his operations in former wars, may, in a very great degree, be attributed the failure of the campaign on the part of the french. the great advantages derived by napoleon from the result of his operations during the th, have been already set forth; but of what avail were those advantages to him, if he neglected the requisite measures for effectually retaining them within his grasp; or if, having secured them, he hesitated in following them up with the promptitude and energy which their complete development demanded of him? his position, if judged by that of his most advanced forces, was all that could be desired; but, by fatally neglecting to concentrate the remainder of his troops in the immediate support of that advance, the important advantages which such a position held forth were completely neutralized. doubtless the troops required rest; but, if one portion required it more than another, it was that which now lay most in advance: they had performed the longest march, and had withstood, in addition, the whole brunt of the action; so there was no reason whatever why the remainder of the french army should not have been so far advanced as to afford direct support to the important position taken up by the leading divisions: that which had been so successfully effected by the heads of the columns, might have been attained with infinitely greater ease and security by the masses which followed. and even supposing that serious impediments stood in the way of the full accomplishment of this concentration, such as the usual delays occasioned by the lengthening out of the columns of march, to what did they amount in comparison with so many brilliant instances of what had been overcome by the noble and heroic efforts of a french army headed by napoleon? had it even required some sacrifice, which at the most could only have consisted in the temporary diminution of strength, by the loss of stragglers on the march, what was this when placed in the balance with the fulfilment of the grand design of napoleon's invasion of belgium--preventing the junction of the allied armies, and overthrowing them in detail? the commencement of this design, in which the essential requisite was rapidity of movement, had been eminently successful: a vantage ground had been gained which offered the most encouraging prospect of success: of blÜcher's four corps, only one, zieten's, had assembled in the chosen position of ligny, on the night of the th; pirch's, which had arrived from namur, was in bivouac between onoz and mazy, about six miles from ligny; thielemann's corps, which had quitted its cantonments around ciney at half past seven o'clock in the morning, passed the night at namur, about fifteen miles from ligny; bÜlow's corps, supposed by blÜcher to be then at hannut, was still at liege, about sixty miles distant from ligny. between this position of ligny and that occupied by the leading divisions of napoleon's main army, namely the villages of lambusart, wagnée, and the wood of fleurus, there was an interval of not more than from two to three miles! hence every thing was favourable to the french emperor's plan, which only required to be carried on with the same vigour and activity that had marked its commencement; the fate of napoleon, of france, and of europe, hung upon its issue; not an hour, not a moment should have been suffered to pass unheeded; and had the french right been concentrated during the night in this position, as also the left under ney, between gosselies and frasne, and had an impetuous attack, with overwhelming force, been made not later than five o'clock on the following morning, upon both zieten's and pirch's corps, not at that time united, it is very possible that these troops would have been beaten in detail, that thielemann's corps, advancing from namur, would either have shared the same fate, or have moved off in the direction of hannut or liege to effect a junction with bÜlow, whilst ney would either have been enabled to secure the important point of quatre bras before the arrival of any considerable portion of the anglo-allied troops, or would have held his own force advantageously disposed for a junction with that of napoleon, on the latter moving to the left, by the namur road, for the purpose of bringing the great mass of his army against wellington. instead of this, what happened? of the french right, its main force remained the whole night at charleroi and châtelet, on the sambre, whilst between the advance of ney's forces at frasne and his rear at marchienne au pont, there was an interval of about twelve miles. napoleon did not advance towards fleurus until between eleven and twelve o'clock on the th, by which time zieten's, pirch's, and thielemann's corps were all concentrated and in position, and he did not commence the battle of ligny until nearly three o'clock in the afternoon; while ney, on his side, in consequence of his operations having been rendered subordinate to those of the emperor, delayed to advance with any degree of vigour until between two and three o'clock, about which time wellington's reserve reached quatre bras, from brussels, and joined the forces then engaged in front of that point! footnotes: [footnote : the prussian regiments of infantry generally consisted of three battalions, of which the third was the fusilier battalion.] chapter v. with the early dawn of the th of june, the whole of the duke of wellington's forces were in movement towards nivelles and quatre bras. previously to starting from brussels for the latter point, his grace despatched an order for the movement of the cavalry and of clinton's british division upon braine le comte, as also of the troops under prince frederick of the netherlands, consisting of stedmann's dutch-belgian division, and of anthing's dutch-belgian (indian) brigade, from sotteghem to enghien, after leaving men, as before directed, in audenarde. picton's division quitted brussels by the charleroi road about two o'clock in the morning; and the duke of brunswick's corps somewhat later. kruse's nassau brigade received orders to follow along the same road, but having been dispersed in extended cantonments between brussels and louvain, it required some considerable time to collect together, and did not therefore reach quatre bras sufficiently early to take part in the action. the disposition made by colonel the prince bernhard of saxe weimar at this point, on the night of the th, with the second brigade of perponcher's dutch-belgian division, has already been described. soon after ten o'clock on that evening, major count limburg stirum, dutch aide de camp to the prince of orange, left braine le comte for nivelles, with a verbal order from the dutch-belgian quartermaster general, enjoining general perponcher to hold his ground to the last extremity, to support his second brigade by the first, and even to ask for aid from the third anglo-allied division, and from the dutch-belgian cavalry division; and, at all events, to send an officer to acquaint the commanders of these divisions with the state of affairs. this message appears to have reached nivelles about midnight. previously to this, that is, between nine and ten o'clock in the evening, captain crassier's company of the th battalion of _chasseurs_ moved out from nivelles towards quatre bras _en reconnaissance_. about two o'clock in the morning, perponcher himself followed with the remainder of the _chasseurs_, which body reached quatre bras at four o'clock. general bylandt, who commanded the first brigade, ordered the remaining battalions of the latter, and his artillery, to commence their march from nivelles at five o'clock. the th dutch line battalion was directed to remain at nivelles until relieved by alten's division. at three o'clock in the morning, perponcher arrived at quatre bras, and after having reconnoitred the position, immediately commenced operations for recovering the ground lost on the previous evening. just at this time a detachment of about fifty prussian hussars of the nd silesian regiment, under lieutenant zehelin, who, on the previous day, had been driven back from near gosselies, and had retreated towards hautain le val, gallantly advanced to the front, attacked the enemy's outposts, forced them to retire, and then formed a chain of vedettes. as soon as the dutch-belgian troops had advanced to within a short distance of these prussian hussars, the latter moved off by their left towards sombref. prince bernhard of saxe weimar's brigade penetrated deeper into the wood of bossu, and secured the entrances into it from the french side. perponcher directed the nd battalion of the nd regiment of nassau to take post on an eminence in advance towards frasne, and stationed the rd battalion of this regiment more to the left. the latter, however, was soon relieved by the th chasseurs, which battalion, on reaching quatre bras, at four o'clock in the morning, had detached two companies to the left. these moved steadily forward in extended order towards the wood of delhutte, outside of which the enemy showed his light troops. they succeeded in forcing back the french into a hollow way bordering the wood, where the latter maintained themselves for some little time, and then retired into the wood itself. taking advantage of the cover afforded by the edge of the wood, the french now poured a deadly fire upon their assailants, who retreated to some favourable ground a little in advance of their battalion. the prince of orange arrived at quatre bras about six o'clock, and immediately reconnoitred the position of the enemy, and that occupied by his own troops. having expressed his perfect satisfaction with all the arrangements and dispositions which had been made, both on the previous evening and on that morning, he ordered the troops then present to take up a position more in advance, for the purpose of imposing upon the enemy; enjoining at the same time, all unnecessary firing, it being desirable under then existing circumstances, to avoid bringing on prematurely an attack by the enemy. * * * * * ney, having quitted charleroi at a very early hour in the morning, returned to gosselies, where he communicated with reille, whom he ordered to assemble the force then with him, consisting of two infantry divisions and their artillery, and to advance upon frasne: to which point the marshal repaired in person. here he collected all the information which the generals and other officers had been able to obtain respecting the enemy; and being naturally anxious to make himself acquainted with the details of the force placed so suddenly under his orders, he desired colonel heymÈs, his first aide de camp, to repair to every regiment, and note down their strength and the names of the commanding officers; after the performance of which duty, colonel heymÈs laid before the marshal a return of the troops in the field. the uncertainty in which ney was placed as to the amount of force concentrated by the allies during the night in rear of quatre bras, and the conviction which he had reason to entertain that the prussians were in strong force at no very great distance on his right, and that therefore any check experienced by the main column under napoleon, would endanger his right flank and even his line of communication, rendered him cautious in attacking a point so considerably in advance of the emperor's left, without ample means at hand to enable him, in case of disaster, to maintain that line, or, in the event of success, to effectually establish himself at quatre bras, and derive every possible advantage from its possession, by checking, if not defeating in detail, any body of troops that might be approaching it as a point of concentration from either nivelles or brussels. hence he became extremely anxious for the arrival of d'erlon's corps and the promised third corps of heavy cavalry under kellermann; the more so, as although lefÈbvre-desnouette's light cavalry of the guard was nearer at hand, he had been desired by napoleon not to make use of it. officers of the _chasseurs_ and lancers of the guard (in consequence of the deficiency of staff officers) were sent to the rear in the direction of marchienne au pont, with orders to hasten the march of the first corps upon frasne; while ney himself was busily occupied in reconnoitring the enemy's position and movements. whilst so employed, a despatch reached him from the emperor, acquainting him that he had just ordered kellermann's dragoons to march to gosselies, where they would be at his disposal; stating, at the same time, his intention to withdraw lefÈbvre-desnouette's light cavalry of the guard from the force under his command; and expressing a wish to be informed of the exact disposition of the first and second corps, and of the cavalry divisions attached to them, as also of the probable strength of the enemy, and of the particulars which had been obtained concerning him. * * * * * the th battalion of dutch militia, which arrived at quatre bras about seven o'clock, was ordered, some time afterwards, to occupy the farm of gemioncourt. the other battalions of bylandt's brigade, as they arrived in succession, formed a reserve, extending itself from the point of intersection of the two high roads along the nivelles road, and in rear of the wood of bossu. about nine o'clock, captain stievenaar's foot battery attached to bylandt's brigade also arrived at quatre bras. aided by these reinforcements, the prince of orange made his dispositions for impeding as much as possible the expected french attack, and maintaining his ground in front of quatre bras until the arrival of the allied troops, which he knew were rapidly approaching from brussels and nivelles. the arrival of the first brigade induced him to make a further advance, and extension to the right, of the second brigade; retaining a firm hold of the wood of bossu. he disposed of his artillery in the following manner: upon the high road, in advance of his centre and in front of frasne, he placed two guns of perponcher's divisional horse artillery; three guns a little in left rear of these, and three guns towards the left, so as to keep the road to namur in view. he also placed six guns of the divisional foot artillery a little to the right of, and in line with, the advanced guns of the horse battery, and the remaining two guns on the right wing of his first line. his royal highness had unfortunately no cavalry in the field; yet such was the firm countenance which he displayed in the arrangement of his nine battalions and sixteen guns that the enemy, unaware of this circumstance, and probably misled by the appearance, at an early hour, of the chain of vedettes formed by the prussian detachment of hussars, to which allusion has previously been made, and also conceiving that a considerable force had already assembled at quatre bras, made no vigorous attempt, until the afternoon, to dislodge him from his position. between ten and eleven o'clock, the duke of wellington arrived in person at quatre bras, where he joined the prince of orange, of whose dispositions he fully approved. he reconnoitred the ground; observed only a few of the enemy in front, who occasionally fired a shot; saw that there was a little popping musketry, but that nothing more serious was at that time threatened in this quarter. conceiving that the enemy was not in any great force at frasne, while at the same time, accounts reached him that prince blÜcher, in his position at ligny, was menaced by the advance of considerable masses; the duke, accompanied by his staff and a small escort of cavalry, shortly afterwards rode off to hold a conference with the prussian commander, whom he found at the windmill of bussy, between ligny and bry; whence he had an opportunity of observing the french preparatory dispositions for attack. these having led the duke to conclude that napoleon was bringing the main force of his army to bear against blÜcher, he at once proposed to assist the prince by first advancing straight upon frasne and gosselies, as soon as he should have concentrated sufficient force, and then operating upon the enemy's left and rear, which would afford a powerful diversion in favour of the prussians, from the circumstance that their right wing was the weakest and most exposed, and considering the object of napoleon's movement, the one most likely to be attacked. upon a calculation being made, however, of the time which would elapse ere the duke would be able to collect the requisite force for undertaking this operation, and of the possibility of blÜcher being defeated before it could be carried into effect, it was considered preferable that wellington should, if practicable, move to the support of the prussian right by the namur road. but a direct support of this kind was necessarily contingent on circumstances, and subject to the duke's discretion. the latter having expressed his confident expectation of being enabled to afford the desired support, as also of his succeeding in concentrating, very shortly, a sufficient force to assume the offensive, rode back to quatre bras. * * * * * it was nearly eleven o'clock when general flahaut, an aide de camp of the emperor, after passing through gosselies, arrived at frasne, with the following letter from the latter to the marshal: "au maréchal ney. "to marshal ney. "mon cousin--je vous envoie my cousin--i send you my mon aide de camp, le général aide de camp, general flahaut; flahaut, qui vous porte la présente who brings you the present letter. lettre. le major général a dû vous the major general [soult] will donner des ordres; mais vous give you the orders; but you will recevrez les miens plus tôt, parceque receive mine sooner, because my mes officiers vont plus vite officers go quicker than his. you que les siens. vous recevrez will receive the order of movement l'ordre du mouvement du jour; of the day: but i wish to write to mais je veux vous en écrire en you respecting it in detail, détail, parceque c'est de la plus because it is of the highest haute importance. importance. "je porte le maréchal grouchy "i direct marshal grouchy with avec les e et e corps d'infanterie the third and fourth corps of sur sombref. je porte ma garde infantry on sombref. i direct à fleurus, et j'y serai de ma personne my guard to fleurus, and i shall avant midi. j'y attaquerai be there personally before noon. l'ennemi si je le rencontre, et i shall attack the enemy there j'éclairerai la route jusqu'à gembloux. if i meet with him, and i shall la d'après ce qui ce clear the road as far as gembloux. passera, je prendrai mon parti there, according to what will peutêtre à trois heures après midi, happen, i shall make my decision; peutêtre ce soir. mon intention perhaps at three o'clock in the est que, immédiatement après que afternoon, perhaps this evening. j'aurai pris mon parti, vous soyez my intention is that, immediately prêt à marcher sur bruxelles, je after i shall have made my vous appuierai avec la garde qui decision, you may be ready to sera à fleurus ou à sombref, et march on brussels. i will support je désirerais arriver à bruxelles you with the guard which will be demain matin. vous vous mettriez at fleurus or at sombref; and i en marche ce soir même si je would desire to arrive at brussels prends mon parti d'assez bonne to-morrow morning. you would march heure pour que vous puissiez en this evening even if i make my être informé de jour et faire ce decision at a sufficiently early soir trois ou quatre lieues et être hour that you may be informed of demain à sept heures du matin à it in daylight, and traverse this bruxelles. evening three or four leagues, and be at brussels to morrow at seven o'clock in the morning. "vous pouvez donc disposer vos "you may then dispose your troupes de la manière suivante:- troops in the following manner:- première division à deux lieues first division at two leagues in en avant des quatre chemins s'il front of quatre bras, if in doing n'y a pas d'inconvénient. six so there is no inconvenience. six divisions d'infanterie autour des divisions of infantry about quatre quatre chemins, et une division bras; and one division at marbais, à marbais, afin que je puisse so that i may draw it to myself at l'attirer à moi à sombref, si j'en sombref, if i should have need of avais besoin. elle ne retarderait it. it would not otherwise retard d'ailleurs pas votre marche. le your march. the corps of the corps du comte de valmy, qui a count de valmy, which has , , cuirassiers d'Élite, _cuirassiers d'Élite_, at the à l'intersection du chemin des intersection of the roman road with romains et de celui de bruxelles, that of brussels, in order that i afin que je puisse l'attirer à moi, may draw it to myself if i should si j'en avais besoin; aussitot que have need of it: as soon as my mon parti sera pris, vous lui decision is made, you will send enverrez l'ordre de venir vous him the order to rejoin you. i rejoindre. je désirerais avoir avec would desire to have with me the moi la division de la garde que division of the guard commanded by commande le general lefÈbvre desnouettes, général lefÈbvre-desnouettes, and i send you the two divisions et je vous envoie les deux divisions of the corps of the count de du corps du comte de valmy valmy to replace it. but in my pour la remplacer. mais dans mon present design, i prefer to place projet actuel, je prÉfÈre placer le the count de valmy in such a comte de valmy de manière à le manner as to be able to recall him rappeler si j'en avais besoin, et ne if i should have need of him; and point faire de fausses marches au not to make false marches for général lefÈbvre-desnouettes; general lefÈbvre desnouettes: puisqu'il est probable que je me since it is probable that i shall déciderai ce soir à marcher sur decide this evening to march on bruxelles avec la garde. cependant, brussels with the guard. however, couvrez la division lefÈbvre cover lefÈbvre's division par les deux divisions de cavalrie with the two cavalry divisions of d'erlon et de reille, afin de d'erlon and reille, in order to ménager la garde; et que, s'il y spare the guard; and that, if there avait quelque échauffourée avec shall be any affray there with the les anglais, il est préférable que english, it may be with the line ce soit sur la ligne que sur la rather than with the guard. garde. "j'ai adopté comme principe i have adopted as a general général pendant cette campagne, principle during this campaign de diviser mon armée en deux to divide my army into two ailes et une réserve. votre aile wings and a reserve. your wing sera composée des quatre divisions will be composed of the four du e corps, de deux divisions divisions of the second corps, de cavalerie légère, et de deux the two light cavalry divisions, divisions du corps de valmy. and the two divisions of the corps cela ne doit pas être loin de à de valmy. that ought not to be mille hommes. far from , to , men. "le maréchal grouchy aura à "marshal grouchy will have peu près la même force, et nearly the same force, and will commandera l'aile droite. la garde command the right wing. the formera la réserve, et je me porterai guard will form the reserve, and sur l'une ou l'autre aile, i shall repair to one or other selon les circonstances. le major wing according to circumstances. général donné les ordres les plus the major general is giving the précis pour qu'il n'y ait aucune most precise orders that there difficulté sur l'obéissance à vos may be no difficulty as regards ordres lorsque vous serez détaché; obedience to your orders when les commandants de corps devant you will be detached; the prendre mes ordres directement commanders of corps must take quand je me trouve présent. selon my orders directly from me, when les circonstances, j'affaiblirai l'une i am present. according to ou l'autre aile en augmentant ma circumstances, i shall weaken the réserve. one, or the other, wing in augmenting my reserve. "vous sentez assez l'importance "you will sufficiently perceive attachée à la prise de bruxelles. the importance attached to the cela pourra d'ailleurs donner lieu capture of brussels. that will à des accidents, car un mouvement otherwise give occasion to aussi prompt et aussi brusque incidents: for a movement equally isolera l'armée anglaise de mons, prompt and abrupt will isolate the ostende, etc. je désire que vos english army from mons, ostend, dispositions soient bien faites pour &c. i would desire that your qu'au premier ordre, vos huit dispositions may be well made divisions puissent marcher rapidement, that, at the first order, your et sans obstacle sur bruxelles. eight divisions may march rapidly and without obstacle upon brussels. "n." "n." "charleroi, le juin, ." "charleroi, th june ." this letter, which was intended to convey to ney a general notion of napoleon's intentions, prescribed to him, at the same time, as a principle, that he was to consider his movements subordinate to those of the emperor. the latter intimated his purpose of attacking the enemy at fleurus, should he find him there, and of pushing on as far as gembloux, where he would decide upon his plan of further operation, "perhaps at three o'clock in the afternoon, perhaps in the evening;" immediately _after_ which ney was to be ready to march upon brussels, supported by napoleon with the guards, it being the emperor's desire to reach that capital in the morning. the idea of advancing upon gembloux, and of capturing brussels by a _coup de main_, which could only be effected by a vigorous repulse and signal defeat of the corps of zieten, and by a successful turning and partial dispersion of those of pirch and thielemann, as also by the rapid march of a closely collected force under ney, proves that napoleon had either been insufficiently informed as to the general dispositions of his opponents, or had greatly miscalculated the degree of energy and promptitude required in his movements for the execution of such a design. very shortly afterwards, ney received the official order of movement to which napoleon adverted in his letter as having been sent by soult. it instructed him to put the second and first _corps d'armée_, as also the third corps of cavalry which had been placed at his disposal, in movement upon quatre bras; to take up a position at that point; thence to push forward reconnaissances as far as possible on the roads to brussels and nivelles, _d'où probablement l'ennemi s'est retiré_; to establish, should he meet with no impediment, a division with some cavalry at genappe; and to detach another division towards marbais, in order to cover the interval between sombref and quatre bras. he was also to desire the general officers commanding the two _corps d'armée_ to assemble their troops, collect the stragglers, and order up all the waggons belonging to the artillery and to the hospitals that might still be in the rear. in pursuance of these instructions, ney despatched orders of movement to counts reille and d'erlon. the former was desired to put the second corps immediately on the march, for the purpose of taking up the following position:--the fifth division in rear of genappe, upon the heights which command that town, the left _appuied_ upon the high road; one or two battalions covering all the _débouchés_ in advance on the brussels road; the ninth division, following the movement of the fifth, to take up a position in second line on the heights to the right and left of the village of bauterlet; the sixth and seventh divisions at quatre bras. it was at the same time intimated to reille that the three first divisions of d'erlon's corps were to take post at frasne; the right division to establish itself at marbais along with pirÉ's division of light cavalry; that the former was to cover his (reille's) march towards brussels, and both his flanks; that two divisions of kellermann's corps were to take post at frasne and liberchies; and that the regiments of the guard under generals lefÈbvre-desnouettes and colbert were to remain in their actual position at frasne. this order had scarcely been sent off to reille when ney received from the latter a despatch, dated gosselies, th june, a quarter past ten a.m., announcing his having just received from girard (whose division was still at heppignies) a verbal report by one of his officers, to the effect that the enemy continued to occupy fleurus with light cavalry; that hostile masses were observed advancing along the namur road, the heads of their columns reaching as far as st amand; that these troops were gradually forming, and gaining ground; that as far as could be judged at that distance, the columns appeared to consist of six battalions each; and that movements of additional troops were perceived in their rear. reille added that general flahaut, in passing through gosselies, had made him acquainted with the purport of the orders he was conveying to the marshal, whereupon he had communicated with count d'erlon, in order that the latter might follow the movement which he (reille) had intended to commence as soon as the divisions were under arms, but that in consequence of this report from girard he would wait for the marshal's further instructions, holding the troops ready to march. about the same time, orders reached ney from napoleon, desiring him to unite the corps under reille and d'erlon, and the cavalry corps under kellermann, which latter, it was stated, was on the point of commencing its march towards him; remarking also, that with these troops he ought to be able to destroy whatever forces the enemy might bring forward; that grouchy was going to advance upon sombref; and that the emperor was setting off for fleurus, to which place the marshal was to address his reports. [illustration] in consequence of these instructions, ney became anxious for the speedy concentration of his troops, and again sent orders to reille and d'erlon to move up their divisions. the information which he had obtained concerning the enemy in his front, and girard's report of the assembling of troops in front of fleurus, induced him to be cautious in his proceedings, and not to attempt any impetuous onset until he could have all his force more in hand, instead of the greater portion of it being, as it then was, lengthened out in columns of route along the charleroi high road; and, in this respect, his views were in perfect accordance with the last despatch which he had received from the emperor, enjoining him in the first instance, to unite the two corps of reille and d'erlon. hence, in debouching from his position at frasne, about one o'clock, his advance was by no means vigorous: it was limited to a gradual pressing forward of the light troops, and amounted to little more than a reconnaissance. about two o'clock, ney, calculating that d'erlon's corps could not be far in his rear, and hoping that the sound of his cannonade would hasten its march, resolved to attack the enemy's forces which intercepted his advance upon quatre bras. pirÉ's light cavalry, constituting a strong line of skirmishers with well disposed supports, covered the advance of the infantry divisions of bachelu and foy, whilst that of jerome followed as a reserve. the force with which ney thus entered the field, consisted of three divisions of reille's corps, of pirÉ's light cavalry, of batteries of foot, and of horse, artillery: altogether-- , infantry , cavalry guns. the prince of orange's force consisted of de perponcher's division (with the exception of the th dutch line battalion); of battery of foot, and of horse, artillery: altogether-- , infantry guns. it was not long after two o'clock when the duke of wellington returned to quatre bras from the prussian army. he observed attentively, with his glass, the movements of the french, and told the prince of orange he would be attacked directly. in a few minutes, the french advanced, and the dutch-belgian troops gradually retired; but the prince, aware of the great advantages which the position of quatre bras would derive from the possession of the farm of gemioncourt, adjoining the charleroi road, as also of the wood of bossu on the right, and of the inclosures of piermont on the left flank, endeavoured, with that view, to make a stand, as soon as his centre reached the first named point. the th battalion of dutch militia which occupied this post, successfully withstood several attacks, during which ney drew up his forces along the ridge which, intersecting the high road in the immediate (french) rear of gemioncourt, extends on one side towards the wood of bossu, and on the other in the direction of piermont. the vast preponderance of force on the part of the french, was now quite manifest to the prince of orange, who found himself compelled to withdraw the main body of his troops into the wood of bossu, still retaining, however, the post of gemioncourt. he gave an order to captain stievenaar's foot battery to fall back and take up a flanking position near the wood. here this officer, who possessed the highest merit, lost not a moment in reopening his fire, but scarcely had he done so when he was mortally wounded. at the same moment one gun was damaged so as to become useless. the enemy rapidly advanced in such superior force as to compel the battery to resume its retreat. captain byleveld's horse battery retired by the opposite side of gemioncourt. one of its limbers blew up, severely wounding an officer, and occasioning the gun attached to it to be relinquished. the french pressed forward with their light troops; and part of pirÉ's light cavalry, seizing a favourable opportunity, gallantly charged the th dutch light infantry, threw it into confusion, and made many prisoners. at this time a portion of bachelu's infantry division on the right advanced towards the village of piermont. * * * * * it was about half past two, or perhaps a quarter before three o'clock, when the prince of orange, whose situation had become extremely critical, as he directed his anxious looks towards that point of the horizon which was bounded by the elevated ground about quatre bras, had the inexpressible satisfaction of recognising, by their deep red masses, the arrival of british troops upon the field. these comprised the fifth infantry division, commanded by lieutenant general sir thomas picton, and consisting of the eighth british brigade, under major general sir james kempt, the ninth british brigade, under major general sir denis pack, and of the fourth hanoverian brigade, under colonel best. the head of the column, leaving quatre bras on its right, turned down the namur road, along which the division was speedily drawn up; the british brigades in front, and the hanoverian brigade in second line. captain rettberg's battery of hanoverian foot artillery took post on the right, and major rogers's battery of british foot artillery on the left, of the division. the st battalion of the th british regiment, commanded by colonel sir andrew barnard, was despatched in haste towards the village of piermont, of which it was to endeavour to gain possession. [illustration] the french, on perceiving the arrival of the british infantry, opened a furious cannonade from their batteries, with a view to disturb its formation, while ney, anxious to secure the vantage ground of a field which he plainly foresaw, was likely to become the scene of a severe contest, renewed his attack upon gemioncourt, still bravely defended by the th dutch militia. hereupon, perponcher, having received an order to advance this battalion along the high road, immediately placed himself at its head, as did also the prince of orange himself, who rode up to it at the same moment. the manner in which his royal highness personally led on his national militia on this occasion, was distinguished by the most resolute and conspicuous gallantry. the battalion was exposed to a most destructive fire from some guns which the prince seemed determined to capture. placing himself frequently at its head, and waving his hat, he presented in his own person so brilliant and heroic an example, that for a considerable time the battalion maintained its ground most bravely against the far superior number of the enemy. it was composed, however, of young and inexperienced soldiers, who had not attained sufficient confidence to fight in anything like deployed order; and, therefore, when, a few minutes afterwards, a swarm of cavalry rushed upon it, it soon lost its compactness, and broke into a confused and hasty retreat; whilst the french infantry succeeded in obtaining possession of the farm, in which they firmly established themselves. the duke of wellington, who now assumed the command, was so much alive to the importance of maintaining gemioncourt and its inclosures, that he gave directions for its immediate occupation by a british regiment, but the one destined for this service having by some accident been otherwise disposed of, some delay occurred, and the th british regiment, commanded by colonel sir charles philip belson, was then marched down towards that point, under the guidance of lieutenant colonel gomm, on the staff of the fifth division. as the battalion approached the farm, the latter was discovered to be already occupied by the french, whereupon it was withdrawn to its division. the third dutch-belgian light cavalry brigade, under general van merlen, had shortly before this reached the field, and now advanced to the support of the dutch infantry retiring from gemioncourt; but they were met and defeated by pirÉ's cavalry, and pursued along the high road nearly to quatre bras, where they arrived in great disorder; a portion of them coming in contact with the duke of wellington himself, and carrying his grace along with them to the rear of quatre bras. the latter, however, succeeded in arresting their further flight, and in bringing them again to the front. the french cavalry did not, on this occasion, follow up the pursuit, evidently hesitating to approach very near to the allied infantry, the latter appearing well formed, and fully prepared to receive them. the dutch-belgian infantry retreated to the wood of bossu, abandoning four guns to the enemy, who closely pursued them, and now began to penetrate into the wood. meanwhile, bachelu, on the french right, threw a considerable force into piermont in sufficient time to secure its possession before the st battalion th british regiment had approached the village, and was pushing forward another strong body towards a small wood that lay still more in advance, on the opposite side of the namur high road, the possession of which along with that of piermont would have effectually cut off the direct communication between quatre bras and ligny. here, for the first time in this campaign, the troops of the two nations became engaged. the skirmishers who successfully checked the further advance of the french, and secured the wood, were the st battalion of the british th rifles, whom the old campaigners of the french army, at least those who had served in the peninsula, had so frequently found the foremost in the fight, and of whose peculiarly effective discipline and admirable training they had had ample experience. the possession of gemioncourt proved of the utmost importance to ney's position, which now assumed a definite character, and, in a purely tactical point of view, offered great advantages. the southern portion of the wood of bossu was occupied by his extreme left, while his extreme right was in full possession of piermont; and these points were connected by a narrow valley extending along his whole front, bounded on either side by a hedgerow, and intersecting the charleroi road close to gemioncourt. the outer fence was strongly occupied by his light troops, ready to cover the formation and advance of his columns of attack, for the support of which by artillery, the heights constituting his main position in rear of gemioncourt, offered every facility. scarcely had picton's division taken up its ground, when the duke of brunswick's corps arrived upon the field. it was not complete; its artillery (under major mahn) and the st and rd light battalions (commanded by major holstein and major ebeling), having been stationed in distant cantonments, had not yet joined. the nd light battalion (under major brandenstein) was immediately detached to the wood near piermont on the left of the position, and of which the possession had already been secured by the st battalion of the british th regiment: the two rifle companies of the advanced guard battalion (under major rauschenplatt) were moved into the wood of bossu; on the right of which some detachments of cavalry were posted for the purpose of observing the enemy's dispositions in that quarter. the remainder of these troops, by a movement to their left, when close upon quatre bras, deployed in rear of, and in a direction parallel to, the namur road, thus forming a reserve to picton's division. the absent portion of the corps reached the field in the course of the action, as will hereafter be explained. the duke of wellington's force in the field at this moment was as follows:-- +------------------------------------------------+--------+-------+----+ | |infantry|cavalry|guns| + +--------+-------+----+ |british {|eighth infantry brigade | , | | | | {|ninth do. do. | , | | | | | | | | | |k.g. legion |battery of foot artillery | | | | | | | | | | |hanoverians {|fourth infantry brigade | , | | | | {|battery of foot artillery | | | | | | | | | | |brunswickers {|advanced guard battalion | | | | | {| battalions of the light | | | | | {| infantry brigade | , | | | | {|line infantry brigade | , | | | | {|regiment of hussars | | | | | {|squadron of lancers | | | | | | | | | | |dutch-belgians {|second infantry brigade | , | | | | {|third cavalry brigade | | , | | | {|half battery of horse artillery| | | | | {|battery of foot artillery | | | | | {| do. horse do. | | | | | | +--------+-------+----+ | | | , | , | | +----------------+-------------------------------+--------+--------+----+ the following is the amount of force which marshal ney had actually in the field:-- +-----------------------------+---------+--------+-----+ | |infantry.|cavalry.| guns| | +---------+--------+-----+ |fifth infantry division | , | | | |sixth do. do. | , | | | |ninth do. do. | , | | | | divisional foot batteries | | | | | reserve foot battery | | | | |second cavalry division | | , | | | battery of horse artillery | | | | | +---------+--------+-----+ | | , | , | | +-----------------------------+---------+--------+-----+ the cannonade which had opened against the fifth british division as it took up its ground, continued with unabated vigour. the french light troops were now observed advancing from the inclosures that skirted the foot of their position, and to meet them the light companies of the different regiments of picton's division were immediately thrown forward. on the french extreme right all further progress was checked by the gallant manner in which the st battalion th british regiment, though opposed by a much superior force, retained possession of the namur road, which they lined with their skirmishers, while the wood in rear was occupied by the battalion reserve and the nd brunswick light battalion. on the french left, however, the incessant rattle of musketry in the wood of bossu plainly indicated by its gradual approach in the direction of quatre bras, that the dutch-belgian infantry were yielding to the fierce onset of the enemy in that quarter. the protection which the french would derive from the possession of the eastern portion of this wood for the advance of their masses over the space between it and the charleroi road, instantly became apparent to the british commander; in fact, the previous pursuit of the dutch-belgian cavalry along this road proved the expediency of establishing some restraint to such facility for a hostile advance in that direction; and he therefore requested the duke of brunswick to take up a position with a part of his corps between quatre bras and gemioncourt, so as to have his left resting upon the road, and his right communicating with perponcher's division, part of which was deployed along the skirt of the wood. the duke of brunswick immediately ordered forward the guard battalion (under major prÖstler), the st line battalion (under major metzner), and the two light companies of the advanced guard battalion, which he posted in close columns upon, and contiguous to, the road, on the ground indicated, and threw out a line of skirmishers connecting these columns with the two _jäger_ companies in the wood. as an immediate support to the infantry, he stationed the brunswick hussars (under major cramm) and lancers (under major pott) in a hollow in their rear; while as a reserve to the whole, the nd and rd line battalions (under major strombeck and major norrmann) were posted _en crémaillère_ contiguously to the houses of quatre bras, which important point they were to defend to the last extremity. whilst this disposition on the anglo-allied right was in progress, two heavy french columns were observed descending into a valley below gemioncourt, where, under cover of the strong line of skirmishers, which had been for some time engaged with those of picton's division, they were divided into separate smaller columns of attack. the cannonade from the french heights, which now sensibly quickened, was telling fearfully amidst the fifth british division; and a fresh impulse having been given to the enemy's light troops by the near approach of their own attacking columns, the british skirmishers, overpowered by numbers only, were seen darting, alternately and at short distances, to the rear, through the line of smoke that had been raised midway between the contending armies. at this critical moment, when the rapid progress of the french in the wood of bossu, and their imposing advance against his left wing, threatened to compromise his disposal of the brunswick troops on the right of the charleroi road, wellington, by one of those electric inspirations of his master mind with which he had been wont in former campaigns to frustrate the best devised plans of his opponents, resolved not to await the attack, but to meet it. he instantly ordered the advance of kempt's and pack's brigades, with the exception of the nd regiment, which (under the command of lieutenant colonel cameron) was to continue at its post on the namur road, close to quatre bras. during the advance of these two brigades, which was made with admirable steadiness and in the best order, the skirmishers fell back upon their respective battalions, all of which now presented a clear front to the enemy. from the heads of ney's columns, as well as from the thick lines of skirmishers by which they were connected, a severe and destructive fire was opened and maintained against the british line, along which the gallant picton, the far famed leader of the no less renowned "fighting division" of the british army in the peninsular campaigns, was seen galloping from one regiment to another, encouraging his men, and inciting them by his presence and example. the troops significantly responded to his call by those loud and animating shouts with which british soldiers are wont to denote their eagerness to close with their enemies. the interval between the adverse lines was rapidly diminishing: the fire from the french suddenly began to slacken; hesitation, quickly succeeded by disorder, became apparent in their ranks; and then it was, that, animating each other with redoubled cheers, the british regiments were seen to lower their bristling bayonets, and driving everything before them, to pursue their opponents down to the outer fence of the valley, whence the french line had advanced in the full confidence of triumph. kempt's brigade, in consequence of the greater proximity of its original position to that of the enemy, was the first to overthrow the french infantry. the th highlanders, on the left of the line (commanded by lieutenant colonel douglas), made a gallant charge down the hill, dashed through the first fence, and pursued their opponents, who had advanced in two battalion columns, not only across the valley, but through the second fence; and, carried on by their ardour, even ventured to ascend the enemy's position. by this time, however, their ranks were much broken: they were speedily recalled, and as they retraced their steps across the valley, they derived considerable support from the adjoining battalion in the line, the nd regiment (commanded by lieutenant colonel maitland), which was keeping up from the first hedge a vigorous fire against the french, who now lined the second fence. the remaining regiments of both brigades had all in like manner charged down as far as the nearest hedge, whence they inflicted a severe loss upon their enemies as these precipitately retired, with their ranks completely broken and disordered on passing through the inclosure. on the right of the line, the nd highlanders (commanded by lieutenant colonel sir robert macara), and th regiment (commanded by lieutenant colonel hamerton), had advanced to within a very short distance of gemioncourt, in which, and behind the hedges lining the valley, the french were seeking shelter. during the progress of this contest on the anglo-allied left of the charleroi road, the brunswick troops were not permitted to remain in quiet possession of their advanced position on the right, which indeed was well calculated to attract ney's attention. a battery was immediately drawn up on the opposite height westward of gemioncourt, from which, as also from the incessant fire maintained by the enemy's skirmishers posted at no great distance from the front of the line, a very destructive fire was maintained against the brunswick troops. the regiment of hussars particularly suffered, standing in line, and frequently receiving an entire discharge from the battery. the brunswickers were, for the most part, young and inexperienced soldiers--in every sense of the word, _raw_ troops: and the numerous casualties which befel their ranks in this exposed situation might have produced a fatal influence upon their discipline, but for the noble example of their prince, whose admirable tact and calm demeanour were most conspicuous on this trying occasion. quietly smoking his pipe in front of his line, he gave out his orders as if at a mere field day; and was only restrained from taking offence at the representations made to him by some of his staff of the imminent danger to which he was exposing himself, from a consciousness of the kindly motives by which they were dictated. at length, the continued havoc created amongst his devoted followers by the fire from the french heights, excited the impatience of the duke himself for at least the means of retaliation; and as his own artillery was still upon the march from its cantonments, he sent to the duke of wellington a request to be furnished with some pieces of cannon. [illustration] this was immediately acceded to, and four guns were moved forward and posted on the right of the brunswick infantry; but they had scarcely fired a few rounds when the enemy's cannonade was redoubled; two of the guns were quickly disabled, and several of the horses attached to the limbers were killed. at the same time, two columns of french infantry were seen advancing in succession along the edge of the wood of bossu, preceded by a battalion in line, and supported by some cavalry, of which description of force there also appeared to be a considerable mass advancing along the charleroi road. as the french infantry rapidly approached the right of the line of the brunswick skirmishers, the latter were forced to retire, as were also the dutch-belgian infantry that lined the wood at this part of the field. the duke of brunswick, perceiving that the bend of the wood in rear of his regiment of hussars was likely to impede the freedom of its movements, immediately ordered the latter to proceed to the opposite side of the charleroi road, and retire towards quatre bras, there to remain in readiness to act according to circumstances. then, placing himself at the head of his lancers, he gallantly charged the advancing infantry, which, however, received them with so much steadiness and good order, and opened upon them so destructive a fire, that the attack completely failed, and the regiment withdrew to quatre bras. finding the strength of the enemy's forces to be so overpowering, the duke now ordered the infantry posted contiguously to the charleroi road, also to retire upon the main position. the st line battalion moved hastily along the road, while the guard battalion, with which the duke himself was at this time present, retired across the fields eastward of the isolated house upon the charleroi road, towards the allied line, posted upon the road to namur. major prÖstler, who commanded the guard battalion, rendered himself conspicuous by his exertions to execute this movement in as orderly a manner as possible, but the eager and close pursuit by the french light troops, now emboldened by success, a shower of round shot upon the column, and the approach of the enemy's cavalry, spread such a panic among these young troops that they fled in confusion, some through quatre bras, and others through the anglo-allied line on the left of that point; and it was in the moment of attempting to rally his soldiers, not far from the little garden of the house before mentioned, that the duke of brunswick was struck from his horse by a shot which terminated the career of this gallant prince. in the mean time the brunswick hussars were ordered forward to cover the retreat of the infantry, and repel the advance of the french cavalry, which was now seen in rapid motion along the charleroi road, as if incited and emboldened by the loud shouts of triumph sent forth by their light troops in front. the hussars, whose order while advancing, was quickly disturbed by a straggling fire from the french infantry, to which their right flank became exposed, failed in producing the slightest check upon the cavalry, and were soon seen wheeling about and in full flight, closely pursued by their opponents. to the nd highlanders and th british regiment, which were posted on a reverse slope, and in line, close upon the left of the above road, the advance of french cavalry was so sudden and unexpected, the more so as the brunswickers had just moved on to the front, that as both these bodies whirled past them to the rear, in such close proximity to each other, they were, for the moment, considered to consist of one mass of allied cavalry. some of the old soldiers of both regiments were not so easily satisfied on this point, and immediately opened a partial fire obliquely upon the french lancers, which, however, sir denis pack and their own officers endeavoured as much as possible to restrain; but no sooner had the latter succeeded in causing a cessation of the fire, than the lancers, which were the rearmost of the cavalry, wheeled sharply round, and advanced in admirable order directly upon the rear of the two british regiments. the nd highlanders having, from their position, been the first to recognise them as a part of the enemy's forces, rapidly formed square; but just as the two flank companies were running in to form the rear face, the lancers had reached the regiment, when a considerable portion of their leading division penetrated the square, carrying along with them, by the impetus of their charge, several men of those two companies, and creating a momentary confusion. the long tried discipline and steadiness of the highlanders, however, did not forsake them at this most critical juncture: these lancers, instead of effecting the destruction of the square, were themselves fairly hemmed into it, and either bayoneted or taken prisoners, while the endangered face, restored as if by magic, successfully repelled all further attempts on the part of the french to complete their expected triumph. their commanding officer, lieutenant colonel sir robert macara, was killed on this occasion, a lance having pierced through his chin until it reached the brain; and within the brief space of a few minutes, the command of the regiment devolved upon three other officers in succession: lieutenant colonel dick, who was severely wounded, brevet major davidson, who was mortally wounded, and brevet major campbell, who commanded it during the remainder of the campaign. if this cavalry attack had fallen so unexpectedly upon the nd highlanders, still less had it been anticipated by the th regiment. lieutenant colonel hamerton, perceiving that the lancers were rapidly advancing against his rear, and that any attempt to form square would be attended with imminent danger, instantly decided upon receiving them in line. the low thundering sound of their approach was heard by his men before a conviction they were french flashed across the minds of any but the _old_ soldiers who had previously fired at them as they passed their flank. hamerton's words of command were, "rear rank, right about face!"--"make ready!"--(a short pause to admit of the still nearer approach of the cavalry)--"present!"--"fire!" the effect produced by this volley was astonishing. the men, aware of their perilous position, doubtless took a most deliberate aim at their opponents, who were thrown into great confusion. some few daring fellows made a dash at the centre of the battalion, hoping to capture the colours, in their apparently exposed situation; but the attempt, though gallantly made, was as gallantly defeated. the lancers now commenced a flight towards the french position by the flanks of the th. as they rushed past the left flank, the officer commanding the light company, who had very judiciously restrained his men from joining in the volley given to the rear, opened upon them a scattering fire; and no sooner did the lancers appear in the proper front of the regiment, when the front rank began in its turn to contribute to their overthrow and destruction. never, perhaps, did british infantry display its characteristic coolness and steadiness more eminently than on this trying occasion. to have stood in a thin two deep line, awaiting, and prepared to receive, the onset of hostile cavalry, would have been looked upon at least as a most hazardous experiment; but, with its rear so suddenly menaced, and its flanks unsupported, to have instantly faced only one rank about, to have stood as if rooted to the ground, to have repulsed its assailants with so steady and well directed a fire that numbers of them were destroyed--this was a feat of arms which the oldest or best disciplined corps in the world might have in vain hoped to accomplish; yet most successfully and completely was this achieved by the gallant nd battalion of the th british regiment, under its brave commander, lieutenant colonel hamerton. in this attack occurred one of these incidents which, in daring, equal any of the feats of ancient chivalry, which makes the wildest fables of the deeds of the knights of old appear almost impossible; which cause the bearing of an individual to stand out, as it were, in relief amidst the operations of the masses; and which, by their characteristic recklessness, almost invariably insure at least a partial success. a french lancer gallantly charged at the colours, and severely wounded ensign christie, who carried one of them, by a thrust of his lance, which, entering the left eye, penetrated to the lower jaw. the frenchman then endeavoured to seize the standard, but the brave christie, notwithstanding the agony of his wound, with a presence of mind almost unequalled, flung himself upon it--not to save himself, but to preserve the honour of his regiment. as the colour fluttered in its fall, the frenchman tore off a portion of the silk with the point of his lance; but he was not permitted to bear the fragment beyond the ranks. both shot and bayoneted by the nearest of the soldiers of the th, he was borne to the earth, paying with the sacrifice of his life for his display of unavailing bravery. in the mean time, the leading portion of pirÉ's light cavalry, from which the lancers that attacked the nd and th british regiments had been detached, as already described, continued its advance along the high road towards quatre bras, driving in the brunswick hussars, who were now galloping confusedly upon the nd highlanders then lining the ditch of the namur high road contiguous to quatre bras. pursued by the _chasseurs à cheval_, and finding no opening for their passage, they made for the right flank of the regiment: and, as they were flying past, the grenadier company was wheeled back upon the road so as to oppose a front at that point to the flank of the pursuing cavalry, upon which the highlanders now poured a most destructive volley. the shock thus occasioned to the french cavalry was immediately perceptible; but though thrown into confusion, the main body soon reformed, and retired with much steadiness and regularity. the front of the column, however, impelled by the furious ardour with which it had advanced, or, perhaps, imagining itself still followed and supported by the main body, dashed in amongst the houses of quatre bras, and even advanced to some distance beyond them, cutting down several stragglers whom they found there, principally belonging to the routed brunswick infantry, as also groups of wounded. many of them rushed through the large opening into the farm yard of quatre bras, which was situated immediately in rear of the right of the nd. a few daring fellows finding they had proceeded too far to be able to retire by the same direction in which they had advanced, wheeled round suddenly at the point where the high roads intersect each other, and galloped right through the grenadier company of the highlanders, shouting, and brandishing their swords, and receiving a fire from some of the rear rank of the regiment as they dashed along the road. none of them escaped: one, an officer of the _chasseurs à cheval_, had already reached the spot where the duke of wellington was at that moment stationed in rear of the highlanders. some of the men immediately turned round and fired: his horse was killed, and at the same moment a musket ball passed through each foot of the gallant young officer. those of the french _chasseurs_ who had entered the farm yard, finding no other outlet, now began to gallop back, in small parties of two or three at a time, but few escaped the deadly fire of the highlanders. about this time, kellermann reached the field, with the eleventh heavy cavalry division under lieutenant general l'heritier. this augmented ney's forces to the following amount: +-----------------------------+----------+-----------+-----+ | |infantry. | cavalry. |guns.| | +----------+-----------+-----+ |force already in the field | , | , | | |eleventh cavalry division | | , | | | battery of horse artillery | | | | | +----------+-----------+-----+ | | , | , | | +-----------------------------+----------+-----------+-----+ the french infantry upon the extreme left had by this time possessed themselves of the greater portion of the wood of bossu, from the allied rear of which numerous groups of wounded and runaways were now seen to emerge; indeed, it soon became evident that no dependance could be placed on the continued occupation of the wood by the dutch-belgian forces, and that the whole brunt of the battle would have to be borne by the british, hanoverian, and brunswick forces. upon the extreme french right, all attempts to turn the opposite flank of the allies were successfully checked by the steadiness and gallantry of the th british regiment, supported by the nd brunswick light battalion. ney, although he had failed in his first general attack upon the anglo-allied line, had fully ascertained that the raw troops of which the dutch-belgian and brunswick cavalry in the field were composed, were totally incapable of competing with his own veteran warriors of that arm, and he therefore determined to take advantage of kellermann's arrival for the execution of a vigorous cavalry attack. retaining general piquet's brigade in reserve, he combined, for this purpose, general guyton's brigade, consisting of the th and th _cuirassiers_, with pirÉ's light cavalry division; and also taking advantage of his greatly superior artillery force, he caused the attack to be preceded and covered by a tremendous cannonade, occasioning great havoc in the ranks of the anglo-allied infantry, the range for which the french gunners had by this time ascertained with fearful precision. it was not long before the british battalions most in advance were warned of the approach of hostile cavalry by the running in of their skirmishers; and scarcely had they formed their squares when the batteries respectively opposed to them having ceased their fire, a rushing sound was heard through the tall corn, which, gradually bending, disclosed to their view the heads of the attacking columns; and now began a conflict wherein the cool and daring intrepidity with which british infantry are accustomed to defy the assaults of cavalry was exemplified in a manner that will ever reflect honour and glory upon the regiments to whose lot it fell, on this memorable field, to assert and maintain their country's prowess. a rolling fire from the muskets of the nd highlanders and th british regiment, given at a moment when the enemy's horsemen were almost close upon their bayonets, though most destructive in its effects upon their own immediate opponents, checked not the ardour and impetuosity of the general attack. these two diminutive squares, now completely surrounded by the french cavalry, seemed destined to become a sacrifice to the fury with which a rapid succession of attacks was made upon them; no sooner was one squadron hurled back in confusion, than another rushed impetuously forward upon the same face of a square, to experience a similar fate; and sometimes different faces were charged simultaneously. [illustration] a strong body of _cuirassiers_ now passed the right flank of the two regiments, along the high road, with an evident intention of making another attempt upon quatre bras. picton, who had been watching with intense anxiety the contest maintained by the nd and th british regiments in their exposed situation, and who had become convinced of the utter hopelessness of obtaining any efficient support from the allied cavalry then in the field, could no longer restrain his impatience to fly to the rescue of the devoted squares; and, as a substitute for cavalry, he decided upon immediately assailing that of the enemy with his own oft tried infantry. with this view, he united the royals (under lieutenant colonel colin campbell) and the th regiment, both of which corps were at that moment standing in column at quarter distance. led on by both picton and kempt, the united column, with loud shouts, boldly advanced into the midst of the enemy's cavalry; the whole extent of ground along its front appeared to swarm with lancers, _chasseurs à cheval_, and _cuirassiers_, a considerable portion of whom were now seen rapidly forming for an attack upon the column; but picton constantly on the alert, and at the same time desirous of arriving at such a distance as would enable him to present an efficient flank fire in support of the th regiment, continued advancing until the last moment, when he suddenly formed it into square. the repeated and furious charges which ensued, were invariably repulsed by the royals and the th, with the utmost steadiness and consummate bravery; and although the lancers individually dashed forward and frequently wounded the men in the ranks, yet all endeavours to effect an opening, of which the succeeding squadron of attack might take advantage, completely failed. the ground on which the square stood was such that the surrounding remarkably tall rye concealed it in a great measure, in the first attacks, from the view of the french cavalry until the latter came quite close upon it; but to remedy this inconvenience, and to preserve the impetus of their charge, the lancers had frequently recourse to sending forward a daring individual to plant a lance in the earth at a very short distance from the bayonets, and they then charged upon the lance flag as a mark of direction. the advance of the royals and the th had been almost immediately followed, under the same form, by that of the nd regiment, which, having reached a convenient distance, halted, and formed square so as to support, at the same time, by a flank fire, the royals and th, and the square of the th highlanders, which latter regiment constituted a connecting link with the th british regiment upon the extreme left. upon the advance of the regiments belonging to kempt's and pack's british brigades, best's hanoverian brigade occupied the namur road in their rear, along which the landwehr battalions lüneburg, osterode, and münden (respectively commanded by lieutenant colonel ramdohr, major reden, and major schmid) were deployed, while the landwehr battalion verden (under major decken), also in line, was posted somewhat in advance. in this position, picton's division sustained repeated assaults of the french cavalry, which attacked the squares simultaneously, and in every direction: as a portion rushed upon one square, other squadrons passed on to assail the next; some parties, taking advantage of sinuosities of the ground, awaited, like birds of prey, the favourable moment for pouncing upon their victims; no sooner was one attacking squadron driven back and dispersed by a stream of musketry from the face of a square, than a fresh party would rush from its cover upon the same ranks, in the vain hope that the means of breaking its onset had been expended; but a reserved fire never failed to bring down upon it a similar fate. viewed from a little distance, the british squares could at times be scarcely discerned amidst the surrounding cavalry; and as the latter was frequently observed flying back from sudden discharges of musketry, a spectator might easily have imagined the squares to be so many immense bombs, with every explosion scattering death and confusion among the masses that rushed so daringly into their fatal vicinity. the french cavalry, by its repeated failures to make any impression on the british infantry by the manner in which it had passed through and through the intervals between the squares, and in which the charging squadrons when dispersed had got intermingled, was now in great disorder--lancers, _chasseurs_, and _cuirassiers_, were mixed together and crossing one another in every direction, seeking out their respective corps. to retire and reform had therefore become with them an absolutely necessary measure; but this afforded no respite to the devoted squares, against which the batteries upon the french heights now played with terrific effect. * * * * * during the french attack of the british squares on the eastern side of the charleroi road, a considerable body of _cuirassiers_ advanced along the latter, with the evident design of making another attack upon the anglo-allied centre at quatre bras. the belgian cavalry, which was again ordered forward, endeavoured to check this movement, but with no better effect than that which attended its former attempt; in fact, it retired sooner, charged and pursued by the _cuirassiers_, against whom a rapid fire was now opened from the nd highlanders, who still lined the ditch of the namur road, close to quatre bras, a fire so destructive in its effects that the steel clad warriors were completely staggered, and the order of their advance so thoroughly shaken that they were compelled to retire in confusion. * * * * * in addition to the furious cannonade to which they were subjected, the foremost of picton's british battalions, more especially the nd and th regiments, were exposed to a rapid and destructive fire, which, as soon as the enemy's cavalry had been withdrawn, was opened upon them by the french troops advancing from the inclosures of gemioncourt. to check this, skirmishers were thrown forward, but from the want of sufficient ammunition, they could reply but very feebly to the fire of their opponents, who, not suffering the same disadvantage, were picking them off as fast as they could load. their line soon became fearfully thinned, and finally their ammunition was totally exhausted, to which circumstance the officer on whom the command of them had devolved (lieutenant riddock, th regiment) called the attention of sir denis pack, who ordered him to close his men to their centre and to join his own regiment. he had just executed the first part of the order, when the french cavalry having rallied and reformed, renewed their attacks upon the british squares. squadrons of _cuirassiers_ and lancers, in their onward course, swept past lieutenant riddock and his party, while others intercepted his direct line of retreat. he instantly formed four deep, and with his front rank at the charge, he made good his way through the enemy's cavalry, as far as the south face of the square formed by the th regiment; which, however, was so hotly pressed at the moment as to be unable to receive him, whereupon he ordered his men to lie down close to their bayonets, until a favourable opportunity should offer for their admission within the square. a repetition of the former scene on this part of the field now took place, and the attacks, which were conducted with similar impetuosity, were met by a resistance equally undaunted. as if to overawe the square formed by the royals and th british regiments, the french cavalry now made a simultaneous attack upon three of its faces, and these consisted mainly of the latter corps. picton, who was again in the square, upon perceiving the approach of this apparently overwhelming force, suddenly and emphatically exclaimed, " th! remember egypt!" they answered him with a loud cheer, and reserving their fire until the cavalry had approached within a few yards of the square, their muskets were coolly and deliberately levelled at their assailants, who in the next moment were hurled back in wild disorder, horses and riders tumbling over one another, and creating indescribable confusion. similar in their results were all the attacks made upon the other british squares, which maintained their ground with the same unshaken steadiness and gallantry. these repeated charges by the french cavalry, though conducted by veteran soldiers, with admirable order and compactness, and though affording innumerable instances of individual gallantry and daring, were certainly not carried on in a manner calculated to ensure success over infantry distinguished by such high training and such undaunted bravery as the british proved themselves to possess on this memorable occasion. there was no indication of a systematic attack upon any particular point by a rapid succession of charging squadrons--no _forlorn hope like_ rush upon the opposing bayonets by the survivors of a discharge of musketry levelled at a leading squadron, and that rush followed up with lightning-like rapidity by the next squadron, which, in spite of the intervening space encumbered with the bodies of men and horses overthrown in the first charge, would thus obtain the greatest chance of effecting by its own weight and compact order, a breach in the square at the point originally selected for the assault. no such system of attack was attempted; but, on the contrary, it almost invariably happened that the leading squadron no sooner received the fire from the point attacked, than it either opened out from the centre to the right and left, and retired, or, it diverged altogether to one flank, leaving the succeeding divisions, in both cases, to observe the same movement; and, in this manner, the whole of the attacking force exposed itself to a far more extended range of fire and consequent loss, than if it had pursued the more daring, and at the same time, more decisive, mode of attack just described. * * * * * whilst a considerable portion of the french cavalry was thus fruitlessly assailing the british squares, a body of lancers, which had advanced considerably in the rear of those squares, made a sudden and unexpected charge upon the hanoverian landwehr battalion verden, which was then, as previously explained, deployed a short distance in front of the namur road: it was completely successful, and the greater part of the battalion was cut down by the lancers, who, emboldened by this triumph, were preparing to cross the namur road, where a well directed fire opened upon them by the landwehr battalions lüneburg and osterode, lying concealed in the ditch by which it was lined, threw them into disorder, and forced them to a precipitate retreat. the whole of the french cavalry was now withdrawn for the purpose of reforming its broken and disordered ranks, leaving the anglo-allied infantry to be again assailed by a vigorous cannonade from the heights above gemioncourt. the only movement on the part of the anglo-allied forces was the advance of the brunswick guard battalion and nd line battalion in front of quatre bras, by the right of the charleroi road, as a precautionary measure against any flank attack that might be attempted from the wood of bossu upon the advanced battalions of picton's right. * * * * * it was long past five o'clock. the french infantry in the wood of bossu was continually making progress towards the namur road, across which increased numbers of the dutch-belgian troops, to whom the defence of the wood had been entrusted, were seen hastily retiring. in piermont, the french light troops had been reinforced, and they were now evidently preparing for a more vigorous attack upon the extreme left of wellington's forces; whilst certain movements in the vicinity of gemioncourt gave intimation of an intended renewal of the attack upon quatre bras. all prospect of the anglo-allied cavalry encountering ney's veteran dragoons with any chance of success had entirely vanished; whilst, on the other hand, the latter were on the point of being reinforced by the arrival of another cavalry division. pack's brigade had expended nearly the whole of its ammunition; its exposed position, and the continued cavalry charges in its rear having precluded the transmission of the necessary supply. the brunswickers had been greatly discouraged by the death of their gallant prince; and the losses sustained by all the troops engaged had already been truly frightful. it was at this very moment, when wellington's situation had become so extremely critical, that two infantry brigades of the third division, under lieutenant general sir charles alten, most opportunely reached the field of action by the nivelles road. they were the fifth british brigade, commanded by major general sir colin halkett, and the first hanoverian brigade, under major general count kielmansegge; and were accompanied by major lloyd's battery of british foot artillery, and by captain cleeves's battery of hanoverian foot artillery. by the arrival of these troops wellington's force was augmented as follows:-- +------------------+---------------------------+--------+-------+----+ | | |infantry|cavalry|guns| | | +--------+-------+----+ | |force already in the field | , | , | | | | | | | | |british { |fifth infantry brigade | , | | | | { |battery of foot artillery | | | | | | | | | | |k.g. legion | do. do do. | | | | | | | | | | |hanoverians |first infantry brigade | , | | | | | | | | | |dutch-belgians | th dutch line battalion | | | | | | +--------+-------+----+ | | | , | , | | +------------------+---------------------------+--------+-------+----+ about the same time, ney's troops were reinforced by the remaining division of kellermann's corps of heavy cavalry, so that his whole force was constituted as follows:-- +-----------------------------+----------+-----------+-----+ | |infantry. | cavalry. |guns.| | +----------+-----------+-----+ |force already in the field | , | , | | |eleventh cavalry division | | , | | | battery of horse artillery | | | | | +----------+-----------+-----+ | | , | , | | +-----------------------------+----------+-----------+-----+ ney, on perceiving the arrival of this reinforcement to the anglo-allied troops, despatched a peremptory order to d'erlon to hasten to his support and join him without a moment's delay; and having well calculated the advantages he still retained, he resolved upon a bold and vigorous effort to secure the victory. the greater portion of the wood of bossu was now in his possession; and this circumstance appeared to him to present the means of establishing himself at quatre bras, and of thus enabling him effectually to turn wellington's right flank, and cut off his line of retreat upon brussels. with this view he had already greatly reinforced his infantry in the wood through which he had even ordered the advance of two batteries, in a direction parallel to, and within a very short distance of, its eastern boundary, so that they might be prepared to act upon the plain, as soon as circumstances rendered such a proceeding advisable or expedient. he now also threw forward additional light troops to strengthen his extreme right in the vicinity of piermont; whilst his cavalry, so vastly superior, both in numbers and in efficiency, to that which the british commander had brought into the field, constituted his main central force, and compensated in a great measure for the deficiency created in this point of his line by the drawing off of the infantry to the flanks. the two french batteries above alluded to as having advanced along the interior of the wood of bossu, suddenly opened a destructive fire from the edge of the latter upon the brunswick troops posted on the right of the charleroi road, just as lloyd's battery arrived at quatre bras. the duke instantly ordered the advance of this battery into the open space between the charleroi road and the wood, for the purpose of silencing the french guns; but before the british artillerymen could unlimber, several horses of the battery were killed, wheels were disabled, and, from the proximity of the enemy's guns, some of the gunners were literally cut in two by the round shot with which they were so closely assailed. nevertheless, the battery succeeded, not only in silencing its opponents, but also in forcing back into the wood a french column of infantry, which, advancing directly towards the brussels road, had endeavoured to turn its right flank: after which brilliant services, lloyd, perceiving no adequate support, judged it prudent, in the then crippled state of his battery, to retire to his former post, abandoning two guns for which he had not a sufficient number of horses remaining, and which consequently could not be recovered until the termination of the action. halkett's brigade, shortly after passing quatre bras, was ordered to bring up its left shoulders; and, entering the rye fields in front of the namur road, it proceeded some little distance in advance, and halted. kielmansegge's brigade continued its march along the namur road, and received orders to strengthen the extreme left, as also to support, and, where necessary, to relieve the exhausted british battalions, which had so bravely withstood the fiercest onsets of a most daring and well organised cavalry, and had so unflinchingly endured the incessant cannonade maintained against them by the well served batteries on the french heights. it was during the advance of the third british division to take up its ground--halkett proceeding directly to the front, and kielmansegge moving along the namur road to the left--and under cover of the heavy cannonade which was maintained against the allied line at this time, that again a column of french infantry advanced from out of the wood, towards the brussels road, and entering the latter by the isolated house southward of quatre bras, established itself in and about that building and its inclosures. shortly afterwards, another column advanced in support of the former one, which then emerged from its cover, and began to ascend that part of the anglo-allied position occupied by the nd highlanders. on perceiving this, major general barnes, adjutant general to the british forces, who had just ridden up to the right of the regiment, placed himself very conspicuously at the head of the highlanders, waving his hat, and exclaiming, " nd, follow me!" in an instant the latter sprang out of the ditch in which they had hitherto been posted, and with great gallantry and steadiness charged down the slope. the french infantry hastily fell back, until having gained the partial shelter afforded them by the isolated house and its inclosures, they opened a most destructive fire upon the highlanders, who nevertheless slackened not their pace, but drove the french out of their cover. their commanding officer, colonel cameron, here received his death wound, and having lost the power of managing his horse, the latter carried him at its utmost speed along the road until he reached quatre bras, where his servant was standing with his led horse, when the animal, suddenly stopping, pitched the unfortunate officer on his head. the supporting column, however, securing the garden opposite to the house and on the right of the road, seemed resolved to make a stand against the further advance of the highlanders; but the latter, by a judicious disposition of their force in three divisions--one towards each flank of the garden, and the other directly to the gate in front--and again uniting as soon as these points were secured, once more rushed upon their foes with the bayonet, displaying, under a terrific fire, the most undaunted bravery. as soon as the french turned their backs, the nd poured upon them a volley which proved most destructive, and continued their advance, pursuing the enemy along the edge of the wood, into which they finally retired upon perceiving a disposition on the part of the french cavalry to charge, and finding themselves exposed to a heavy cannonade which was rapidly thinning their ranks to a fearful extent. subsequently, in consequence of their very severe loss, they were withdrawn through the wood to quatre bras. again the french skirmishers were creeping up the slope from the gemioncourt inclosures, and pack, who had united the remains of the nd and th regiments into one battalion, made the best show of resistance in his power to their teazing _tiraillade_; but being aware how very small a quantity of ammunition remained in his men's pouches, his anxiety on this point became extreme, the more so as he had good reasons for apprehending fresh attacks of cavalry. his advanced position in the immediate proximity of the formation of the enemy's columns of attack, naturally kept him on the look out for effective british support; and on observing the head of halkett's brigade, as the latter was advancing from quatre bras, he instantly despatched an aide de camp to that general, with a message, that his own brigade had expended nearly the whole of its ammunition, and that if he did not offer him a support, he would be under the necessity of almost immediately abandoning his position. halkett at once acceded to the proposal by sending forward the th british regiment, and desiring its commanding officer, colonel morice, to obey any orders he might receive from general pack. in pursuance of orders received from the duke, halkett moved the remainder of his brigade into the space between the wood of bossu and the charleroi road, fronting the french left wing. here he found the brunswick infantry retiring with precipitation: he immediately put himself in communication with their commanding officer, colonel olfermann, and by aid of the support which his brigade presented to their view, he succeeded in bringing them up under cover, in the ditch which, traversing the space between the wood and the high road, ran nearly parallel with the enemy's line. leaving his brigade in the position he had taken up, in support of the brunswickers and of pack's brigade, and pending the arrival of further instructions from the duke, halkett galloped to the front, nearly beyond the farm of gemioncourt, for the purpose of ascertaining, if possible, the disposition and intentions of the enemy. he was not kept long in suspense, ney's arrangements for another general attack having been concluded; and, observing the cavalry destined to advance against the allies on both sides of the charleroi road in motion, he turned round his horse and hastened to dispose his brigade in such a manner as to render it fully prepared to brave the coming storm. on his way, he sent an intimation to pack of his discovery, and orders to the th regiment to prepare forthwith to receive cavalry. a sudden and heavy cannonade had already opened from the french heights--a sure prelude to the attack which was about to take place--and the th regiment was in the act of forming square, when the prince of orange rode up to it and asked what it was doing. colonel morice explained that he was forming square in pursuance of the instructions he had received; upon which his royal highness, remarking that he did not think there was any chance of the cavalry coming on, ordered him to reform column, and to deploy into line. during this last movement a strong body of french _cuirassiers_, taking advantage of the surrounding high corn, and of the circumstance of the regiment lying in a hollow, approached unperceived quite close to the spot, and rushing suddenly and impetuously upon a flank, succeeded in completely rolling up the regiment, riding along and over the unfortunate men, of whom great numbers were cut down, and in the midst of the confusion thus created, captured and carried off one of the colours; in defence of which major lindsay, lieutenant pigot, and volunteer clarke, highly distinguished themselves, and were desperately wounded. some officers and men took shelter in the square formed by the nd and th regiments; the mounted officers gained the other side of the road, pursued by about twenty of the enemy, and escaped by riding through one of the hanoverian battalions lining the namur road. the th regiment, which had also been deployed into line by the orders of the prince of orange, most fortunately discovered, in sufficient time, the approach of cavalry (notwithstanding the extraordinary height of the rye, which greatly impeded all observation), formed square with remarkable rapidity, and, reserving their fire until the very last moment, they completely dispersed and drove off a body of pirÉ's lancers, and a portion of kellermann's _cuirassiers_, which troops had made a charge upon them, enveloping two faces of their square. picton, who, from the opposite side of the high road, was an eye witness of this scene, was so much pleased with the perfect steadiness of the regiment, that, seizing a favourable opportunity of galloping up to it, he called for the commanding officer, and told lieutenant colonel hamilton that he should report to the duke the gallant conduct of his corps. indeed the steadiness and gallantry of the th in this battle were so conspicuous as also to draw upon them the well merited commendations of the prince of orange, and generals alten, halkett, and kielmansegge. the rd regiment (under colonel harris), and the brunswickers, were equally on the alert; but the french cavalry, on finding them prepared, diverged towards the high road. the rd regiment (under lieutenant colonel elphinstone), had formed square upon its leading company (the grenadiers) at the moment the latter had reached some rising ground; in which position it became a conspicuous mark for the fire, at point blank distance, of a french battery which opened upon it with great spirit. it was deemed advisable to deploy it into line, in which formation the regiment advanced towards the two brunswick battalions then fiercely engaged with the enemy's light troops near the skirt of the wood; but upon approaching the latter, a report was spread along the line that french cavalry was in its rear, whereupon the regiment rushed precipitately into the wood, within which it was speedily reformed. * * * * * whilst that portion of kellermann's dragoons which had dispersed the th regiment, were sweeping gallantly onwards in their bold career along the high road towards quatre bras, the greater body of this corps advanced into the open space on the right of that road. here picton's gallant little bands found themselves again involved in one general onset of cavalry, made with a violence and fury which seemed to betoken a desperate resolve to harass the devoted squares to the last extremity, and to carry every thing by main force. at the same time a dense cloud of skirmishers, bursting forth from the inclosures of piermont, threatened to turn the extreme left of the anglo-allied army; whilst the french infantry in the wood of bossu, close upon the northern boundary of the latter, equally endangered its extreme right. at this moment, ney's prospects were bright enough to justify his hopes of success, and he hailed the captured colour, presented to him by the _cuirassier_ lami of the th regiment, as the harbinger of victory. in fact, on whatever point of his line ney now directed his view, his operations were full of promise as to the result. it was certainly a most anxious moment to the british chief: but frightfully crippled as were his resources by the failure and hasty retreat of the great bulk of the dutch-belgian infantry, by the evident inferiority and utter helplessness of his cavalry, and by the dreadfully severe losses already inflicted upon his british regiments, he calmly surveyed the field of slaughter, and deliberately calculated upon the extent to which the heroic valour and admirable spirit so unequivocally displayed by the british and german infantry would enable him to bear up against the storm that now spread its fury along his whole line, until his eagle glance might detect some favourable opening, seize some critical moment, to deal the stroke that, by a combination as sudden as the launching of the thunderbolt of the storm itself, should avert its fury, or oppose to it a barrier that might exhaust its strength. the arrival of lloyd's british, and cleeves's german, batteries, attached to alten's division, had already made a most important addition to the duke's artillery force; the former took post in front of quatre bras on the right, the latter on the left, of the charleroi road. almost immediately afterwards, major kuhlmann's battery of horse artillery of the king's german legion, belonging to the first division, which it had preceded on the nivelles road, reached the field, and moved rapidly to the point of intersection of the brussels and nivelles road, where it came into action, at the very moment the _cuirassiers_ who had fallen upon halkett's brigade were advancing in mass along the former road towards quatre bras. two guns under lieutenant speckmann were posted so as to bear directly upon the french column, and completely to enfilade the road; and as the cuirassiers approached with the undaunted bearing that betokened the steadiness of veterans, and with the imposing display that usually distinguishes mailed cavalry, a remarkably well directed fire was opened upon them: in an instant the whole mass appeared in irretrievable confusion; the road was literally strewed with corses of these steel clad warriors and their gallant steeds; kellermann himself was dismounted, and compelled like many of his followers to retire on foot. * * * * * it was at this moment that colonel laurent, who had been despatched from the imperial head quarters, reached ney, with a pencilled note requiring the marshal to detach the first corps towards st amand. having fallen in with the head of the column of that corps, he had taken upon himself to alter the direction of its march; and, on coming up with count d'erlon, who had preceded his corps, and was then in front of frasne, he showed him the note, and explained to him where he would find the head of his column. shortly afterwards, general d'elcambre, chief of the staff to the first corps, arrived to report the movement which was in course of execution. ney now saw clearly that at the very moment he required the aid of d'erlon's corps, not only to counterbalance the arrival of reinforcements which had joined wellington, but to give an efficient support to the renewed general attack he had projected, that corps had been placed beyond his reach, and that he must, in all probability, continue to fight the battle without any addition to the force he had already in the field. nevertheless, he did not allow the circumstance to suspend the execution of his operations; and, with the hope of yet securing the assistance of the first corps, he sent back general d'elcambre, with a peremptory order for its return towards quatre bras. it was soon after this that ney received another despatch from napoleon, dated at two o'clock. from its general tenor it was evidently written previously to the departure of colonel laurent with the order for the flank movement of d'erlon's corps, and therefore the bearer of it must have taken longer time than was necessary in conveying it to the marshal. it announced that the prussians were posted between sombref and bry, and that at half past two grouchy was to attack them with the third and fourth _corps d'armée_, and expressed the emperor's wish that ney should also attack whatever enemy might be in his front, and, after having repulsed the latter, fall back in the direction of ligny, to assist in enveloping the prussians. at the same time it stated, that should napoleon succeed in defeating the latter beforehand, he would then manoeuvre in ney's direction, to support in like manner the marshal's operations. it concluded by requesting information both as to ney's own dispositions and those of the enemy in his front. this despatch reached ney at a moment when he was most seriously engaged, when the issue of the battle was extremely doubtful, and the probability of his being enabled to afford the support required by napoleon most questionable. upon the extreme left of the anglo-allied forces, the advance of the french light troops from piermont and its vicinity was met in a most determined and gallant manner by the head of kielmansegge's hanoverian brigade (which after having moved along the nivelles road, exposed to the continued fire from the batteries on the french heights, had just reached that part of the field), in conjunction with the st battalion th british rifles, and the nd brunswick light battalion. the most determined efforts were made by the enemy to turn the anglo-allied flank. the french infantry had already gained the high road, and were boldly pressing forward, when the british rifles, the brunswick light infantry, and the hanoverian field battalion lüneburg (under lieutenant colonel klencke) dashed in amongst them. the contest was obstinate and severe; but the allied light troops having been reinforced by the hanoverian field battalion grubenhagen (under lieutenant colonel wurmb), gradually obtained the ascendancy, and, dislodging their opponents from one inclosure after another, continued steadily advancing, and gaining ground. along the whole front of the central portion of the anglo-allied army, the french cavalry was expending its force in repeated but unavailing charges against the indomitable squares. the gallant, the brilliant, the heroic, manner in which the remnants of kempt's and pack's brigades held their ground, of which they surrendered not a single inch throughout the terrific struggle of that day, must ever stand pre-eminent in the records of the triumphs and prowess of british infantry. to relieve them as much as possible from the severe pressure they experienced, now that their ammunition was almost entirely exhausted, some of the hanoverian battalions were judiciously thrown forward so as to afford them a close, immediate, and efficient, support, while others continued to line the namur road; a disposition for which the arrival of kielmansegge's brigade had presented the ready means, and which imposed an impregnable barrier to any further advance of the french cavalry, whose ranks were now thoroughly disordered, and their numbers greatly diminished, by their perseverance in a contest the hopelessness of which began to appear but too evident. * * * * * during that part of the battle just described, ney received a further despatch from the emperor by colonel forbin janson. it was dated a quarter past three, and announced to the marshal that napoleon was at that moment seriously engaged. it desired ney to manoeuvre immediately so as to turn the right of the prussians and fall upon their rear, and contained the remark that the latter would thus be taken _en flagrant délit_ at the moment they might be endeavouring to join the english. the impossibility of ney's complying with these directions was already sufficiently apparent. * * * * * at this time, wellington received an addition to his forces by the arrival of the st and rd brunswick light battalions, and the brunswick brigade of artillery under major mahn, consisting of a battery of horse, and another of foot, artillery. the guns were immediately posted close upon the namur road, at a short distance to the left of quatre bras; and their fire, combined with that of the british and german batteries, soon produced a very perceptible effect upon the french artillery. the infantry reinforced the st and rd brunswick line battalions occupying the houses of quatre bras. the most important reinforcement, however, was the arrival, at nearly the same moment--about half past six o'clock--of the first british division, under major general cooke, consisting of the first brigade of guards, commanded by major general maitland, and the second brigade of guards, commanded by major general sir john byng. their line of march having been by the nivelles road, they came very opportunely upon the most critical point of the anglo-allied position, namely, its extreme right, just at the moment when the french light troops, having driven out the dutch-belgian infantry, showed themselves in force along the northern boundary of the wood of bossu, and some of their skirmishers had almost gained the high road. wellington's force was still further augmented by the recently arrived troops as follows:-- +-------------+-----------------------------+---------+--------+-----+ | | |infantry.|cavalry.|guns.| | | +---------+--------+-----+ | |force already in the field | , | , | | | | | | | | |british {|first infantry division | , | | | | {|battery of foot artillery | | | | |k.g. legion | do. horse do. | | | | | | | | | | |brunswick {| st and rd light battalions | , | | | | {|battery of foot artillery | | | | | {| do. horse do. | | | | | | +---------+--------+-----+ | | | , | , | | +-------------+-----------------------------+---------+--------+-----+ ney's force actually present continued as before:-- +---------+--------+-----+ |infantry.|cavalry.|guns.| +---------+--------+-----+ | , | , | | +---------+--------+-----+ the prince of orange, who had galloped along this road to meet the guards, immediately ordered the light companies under lieutenant colonel lord saltoun, to enter the wood. they rushed forward with a loud cheer, and commenced a brisk fire on their opponents, who were soon made sensible of the superior description of force now brought against them. the remainder of the brigade speedily followed, and the loud, sharp, animated rattle of musketry, which was progressing rapidly into the very heart of the wood, plainly indicated that even in this quarter, where the french had hitherto been the most successful, and whence they might not only have molested the anglo-allied troops on the eastern boundary of the wood, but have most seriously endangered the right of the british position, they were now encountering a most vigorous and determined resistance. * * * * * halkett's brigade, with the brunswickers, resolutely maintained the ground on which they had been charged by the french cavalry. as the latter retired, the light companies of the brigade, with a portion of the brunswickers on the right, and some hanoverian riflemen on the left, advanced in pursuit. the french threw forward a line of _tirailleurs_ to check them, and a brisk fire was maintained on both sides. the cannonade on this side of the field was also kept up with great spirit. at length the french cavalry advanced, forcing back halkett's skirmishers upon their respective columns, on which they then charged. their attack, however, was not made with much energy, and, upon their being uniformly repulsed, the light troops resumed their former ground. halkett pushed forward his battalions to the line of his skirmishers, and then moving towards his right, in the direction of the ravine, which descends from the wood, drove across the rivulet a body of french infantry, from which a portion of his brigade had suffered a severe fire. in this part of the affair one of picton's battalions--the royals--co-operated. the two brunswick battalions continued boldly to advance even beyond this line, resting their right close upon the wood. * * * * * in the meantime, byng's brigade had closely followed up maitland's in support, having previously sent forward its light companies under lieutenant colonel macdonell round by quatre bras, skirting the eastern border of the wood. the spirited and determined nature of the advance of the british guards not admitting of that restraint which, considering the many intricate parts of the wood, was essential for the preservation of order, led to great confusion in their ranks by the time they reached the southern extremity, after having fairly driven out the french; and in this state they ventured to pursue the enemy on the open ground, but were quickly repulsed by his reserves; and the french artillery poured so destructive a fire into this portion of the wood, that maitland deemed it advisable to withdraw the nd battalion (under colonel askew) to the rivulet, where it was immediately joined from the rear by the other battalion of his brigade (the rd, under colonel the hon. william stuart). the time which would have been occupied in restoring the order and regularity that had been so completely lost during the progress of these battalions through the wood, was considered too precious for that purpose at such a moment, and the brigade was ordered to form line to its left, outside the wood, the men falling in promiscuously as fast as they emerged from their cover, and extending the line into the plain between the wood and the brussels road. thus formed, the line advanced, though but for a short distance, when it opened and continued a brisk fire, under which the french infantry, in its immediate front, deployed with the utmost steadiness and gallantry. this advance had been followed by the brunswick guard battalion, which was now manoeuvring to form on the left of maitland's brigade. the french cavalry, which had been watching for an opportunity to charge the brigade, now made a dash at its left flank. when the irregular formation of the latter, which has been already explained, is considered, it is evident that any attempt to form square at that moment would have involved the british guards in inextricable confusion, and have rendered them an easy prey to the french horsemen. rapid as was the advance of the latter, its object was frustrated in a manner which testifies the extraordinary discipline of the men of that brigade. mere discipline it was not; it was an instinctive momentary impulse, which seemed to animate the whole corps with the sole conviction, that the only step to be taken, the only chance left for safety, consisted in a general and instantaneous movement to the ditch which bounded the wood on their right. this was accomplished with complete success, and the french cavalry, which had advanced in full confidence of an easy triumph, were hurled back in confusion by a volley from the ditch, which the brigade had lined with a rapidity, a dexterity, and a precision, quite wonderful; while at the same moment, the brunswick battalion threw itself into square, and received the cavalry with a degree of coolness, steadiness, and gallantry, which won for it the warmest admiration and encomiums of the british who witnessed the manoeuvre. the flanking fire which was thus brought to bear so suddenly on the french cavalry by the brunswickers, and the destructive front fire so deliberately poured in amongst them by the british guards from the ditch, fairly drove them out of this part of the field. * * * * * more to the left, the french were retiring before halkett in perfect order, covered by their skirmishers. as that general's brigade neared the farm house of gemioncourt, major chambers of the th regiment, an experienced officer, incited by the desire of capturing a post which had been throughout the day a _point d'appui_ to the french centre, led on two companies of his corps towards it. they made a gallant rush into the courtyard, but were met by a smart fire which forced them back. major chambers, however, rallied his men in the orchard; and having instructed them how to proceed in their attack, the place was instantly carried. the further advance upon the anglo-allied left had, in the meantime, kept equal pace with that on the right. ney had been compelled to yield the strongholds by aid of which he had hoped to force the duke's position: his infantry had been driven out of piermont and the inclosures in front of his right, as also out of the wood of bossu on his left: gemioncourt, also, in front of his centre, had been captured; while the plain between the two positions, over which his cavalry had executed innumerable charges--charges that were occasionally suspended merely that the scattered bands might rally afresh to renew the onslaught with redoubled vigour, and that his artillery might pour upon the devoted squares its destructive missiles, by which each was shattered to its very centre,--was now completely cleared from the presence of a single horseman. it was long after sunset, and darkness was sensibly approaching, when wellington, now that his flanks and centre were relieved, in the manner already described, from the severity of a pressure of such long duration, led forward his victorious troops to the foot of the french position. the loud shouts which proclaimed the triumphant advance of his forces on either flank were enthusiastically caught up and responded to by those who constituted the main central line, and who had so nobly and so resolutely withstood and defied the impetuous battle shock by which they had been so repeatedly and so pertinaciously assailed. ney, convinced of the utter futility, if not imminent hazard, of protracting the contest, withdrew the whole of his forces, and concentrated them on the heights of frasne, throwing out a strong line of picquets, to which wellington opposed a corresponding line, having the southern extremity of the wood of bossu on the right, the inclosures south of piermont on the left, and gemioncourt in the centre, for its main supports. the french picquets manifested an extraordinary degree of vigilance; the slightest movement on the side of the anglo-allied picquets instantly attracted attention, and was noticed by a concentrated fire from the watchful sentries of the enemy. no movement, however, of any consequence was made on either side during the night. the wearied combatants sought that rest of which they stood so much in need, and the silence in which the anglo-allied bivouac soon became hushed, was only disturbed by the arrival of additional reinforcements, consisting principally of british cavalry. * * * * * ney was joined by the first corps, after the termination of the action. at nine o'clock, d'erlon presented himself to the marshal for the purpose of reporting to him his proceedings, and of receiving his orders, after which the corps was bivouacked in the rear of frasne; with the exception, however, of durutte's division (the fourth), and jaquinot's light cavalry brigade, which d'erlon had left on the field of ligny; in front of the extreme right of the prussian army; a measure which he had deemed advisable in order to prevent the enemy from debouching into the plain between bry and the wood of delhutte. [illustration: battle of quatre bras at o'clock, p.m.] it is singular that napoleon, who at fleurus held so powerful a reserve as that consisting of the imperial guard and the sixth corps, and who was in perfect ignorance of the true state of affairs at quatre bras, should have ventured to withdraw from ney a force amounting to more than one half of that which he had originally placed at his disposal. it was decidedly a false step, from which no advantage resulted on his own field of battle, whilst there can be very little doubt that it lost him that of quatre bras. * * * * * the losses sustained in this battle by the anglo-allied army in killed, wounded, and missing, were as follows:-- british , hanoverians brunswickers ------ , men. to these must be added the loss of the dutch-belgian troops, amounting probably to about , killed and wounded, which makes the entire loss of the anglo-allied army equal to about , men. the french loss amounted to about , killed, wounded, and missing. * * * * * such was the battle of quatre bras: a battle in which the british, the hanoverian, and the brunswick, infantry, covered itself with imperishable glory; to estimate the full extent of which we must constantly bear in mind, that the whole brunt of the action fell upon that infantry; that throughout the greater part of the day it was totally unaided by any cavalry, that arm of the allies in the field having, at the outset, proved itself incompetent to engage with the french; and, lastly, that it was completely abandoned in the latter part of the action by the second dutch-belgian infantry division, amounting to no less than , men. when the imagination dwells upon that which constitutes one of the most prominent features of the battle--the manner in which the gallant picton, on finding there was no cavalry at hand wherewith to charge effectively that of the enemy, led on the british infantry, and dashed into the midst of the french masses, stoutly maintaining his ground in defiance of their oft repeated assaults, invariably scattering back their charging squadrons in confusion, and this, too, in the face of a splendid cavalry, animated by the best spirit, and headed by a kellermann, whose fame and merit were so universally acknowledged--with what exulting pride and heartfelt gratitude must not the british nation reflect on the heroic valour displayed by her sons in their noble fulfilment of the desires and expectations of her cambrian chief! the zealous and cordial support which the hanoverians and the brunswickers afforded to their british brethren in arms, the devotion with which they commingled with them in the thickest of the fight, are indelibly engraven in the grateful memory of every true german, and remain recorded as a lasting theme of admiration in the history of their fatherland. the defeat sustained by the french was certainly not attributable, in the slightest degree, to any deficiency on their part, of either bravery or discipline. their deportment was that of truly gallant soldiers, and their attacks were all conducted with a chivalric impetuosity, and an admirably sustained vigour, which could leave no doubt on the minds of their opponents as to the sincerity of their devotion to the cause of the emperor. * * * * * in a strategical point of view, both parties gained certain important advantages, and lost others which had been comprised within their respective plans of operation. ney had succeeded in preventing the junction of the anglo-allied army with the prussians, and might have obtained still more important results, had he not been deprived of the services of d'erlon's corps, the arrival of which he had been so fully led to expect. wellington, though he had been compelled to relinquish all hope of being enabled to afford that aid to blÜcher which, in the morning, he had proffered to him, yet, by maintaining his ground at quatre bras sufficiently long to admit of the arrival of reinforcements which enabled him to obtain a brilliant victory, he completely succeeded in frustrating the grand object of ney's movements, which had been to defeat the anglo-allied troops thus advancing, in detail, and also to operate upon blÜcher's right flank. the duke's success gave ample and convincing evidence of the sagacity and foresight with which his plans had been devised and matured, as also of the soundness of those calculations by which he had for some time previously placed himself, with the confident security of a master of his art, in a posture of defence, fully prepared to meet every emergency, from whatever point, or however suddenly, the coming storm might arise. and now that he had gained the battle, and secured the important point of quatre bras, upon which the remainder of his troops were advancing, and where the greater portion of them would arrive in the evening and during the night, he was perfectly ready and willing, should the prussians prove victorious at ligny, to renew the contest on the following morning, by attacking ney with his collected force; and then, if successful (of which little doubt could be entertained), by a junction with blÜcher's right, to operate upon napoleon's left, so as to bring the great mass of the combined armies to bear directly upon the main body of the french; or, in case of a defeat of the prussians, to make good his retreat along his principal line of operation, in such a manner, as to secure a position between quatre bras and brussels, favourable for a co-operation of blÜcher's forces with his own, and for presenting a bold and determined stand against the further advance of the french emperor. orders were now forwarded for the movement of clinton's division on the following morning, at daybreak, from nivelles to quatre bras: and of colville's division, at the same hour, from enghien to nivelles. the reserve artillery was directed to move at daybreak, on the following morning, to quatre bras, there to receive further orders; and the tenth infantry brigade, under major general sir john lambert, was directed to march, at the same hour, from assche to genappe, there to remain until further orders. * * * * * the tremendous roar of artillery in the direction of ligny gave a sufficient intimation to the duke that a great battle had taken place in that quarter, but as it seemed to continue stationary, and only ceased as night set in, he was doubtful of the result, and remained in this state of suspense and uncertainty until the following morning; the officer who had been despatched in the night to quatre bras from the prussian head quarters with the expected communication, having been surprised in the dark, and made a prisoner by the french. [illustration:] chapter vi. prince blücher having ascertained, on the morning of the th, that his communication with the left division of the duke of wellington's forces by quatre bras continued uninterrupted, resolved upon accepting battle in the position in rear of fleurus, which had been previously fixed upon as the one most eligible, in the event of the enemy's adoption of that line of operations respecting which all doubt and uncertainty had now ceased. its importance in a strategical point of view, apart from tactical considerations, was manifest. wellington having, on his part, selected quatre bras as the point whereon to concentrate his forces, the position in question, connected as it was with the latter by a paved road over an extent of not more than six or seven miles, offered great facility for co-operation and mutual support upon whichever point the great mass of the french army might be directed. should it prove tenable, then, considered in conjunction with the advance of the russians from the rhine, the whole line of the meuse below namur, and the communications with aix la chapelle and the prussian states, were effectually secured. if, on the other hand, either position should be forced by the enemy, then mont st jean and wavre, upon parallel lines of retreat towards brussels and louvain, would likewise offer the means of co-operation on the south side of the forest of soignies; and supposing blÜcher willing to risk for a time his communication with the right bank of the meuse, concentric lines of retreat upon brussels would bring the two armies in combined position in the immediate front of that capital. supposing also that napoleon's plan had been to advance by mons, the concentration of the prussian forces could not have been effected upon a more favourable point than that of sombref, whence they could have advanced in support of their allies, leaving a sufficient portion of zieten's corps to watch the approaches by charleroi: and, finally, had the french emperor directed his main attack by namur, the retreat of thielemann's corps would have secured time for effecting the concentration of the first, second, and third prussian _corps d'armée_, if not also of the fourth, while the duke of wellington's forces might have assembled at quatre bras, for the purpose of meeting any secondary attack from the charleroi side, and of forming a junction with the prussian army. the position itself comprises the heights of bry, sombref, and tongrines, contiguous to the high road connecting namur with nivelles, by quatre bras, and to the point of junction of that road with the one from charleroi, by fleurus. these heights are bounded upon the south-west and western sides, or right of the position, by a ravine, through which winds a small rivulet along the villages of wagnelé, st amand la haye, and st amand, near the lower end of which last, it unites with the greater rivulet of the ligny; and, along the whole of the south side, or front of the position, by a valley, through which flows the ligny, and in which lie, partly bordering the stream itself, and partly covering the declivities, the villages of ligny, mont potriaux, tongrenelles, boignée, balatre, and vilrets. at the last named point, another small rivulet falls into the ligny on quitting a deep ravine, which commences northward of the village of botey, and thus tends to the security of the extreme left of the position. the extreme right, however, resting upon the namur road, in the direction of quatre bras, was completely _en l'air_. the heights in rear of st amand, ligny, and sombref, are somewhat lower than those on the opposite or fleurus side of the valley; and, from the nature of the ground, troops, particularly artillery, are more exposed on the former than on the latter, where the undulations afford better cover. the descent from either side into the villages of wagnelé, st amand la haye, and st amand, is gentle: between the latter point and mont potriaux the sides of the valley descend more rapidly: and below that village they become steep, particularly about tongrines, boignée, and balatre: while the ground above commands alternately from side to side. above mont potriaux, the bed of the valley is soft, and occasionally swampy: below that point it partakes still more of this character. the buildings in the villages are generally of stone, with thatched roofs, and comprise several farm houses with courtyards, presenting great capabilities for defence. st amand and boignée are the most salient points of the position, the central portion of which retires considerably, particularly near mont potriaux. in the morning of the th, the first corps (zieten's) occupied that portion of the position which is circumscribed by the villages of bry, st amand la haye, st amand, and ligny. the four brigades of this corps had been very much mixed up together when occupying these villages during the night, which will account in some measure for the promiscuous manner in which their several battalions appear to have been distributed during the battle. the main body of the corps was drawn up on the height between bry and ligny, and upon which stands the farm and windmill of bussy, the highest point of the whole position. seven battalions of the second brigade (general pirch ii.) were formed immediately in rear of this farm; the th regiment and nd westphalian landwehr in the first, and the nd and rd battalions of the th regiment in the second, line; while the rd battalion of the latter regiment occupied the farm itself, which was put into a state of defence. two battalions of the fourth brigade (general count henkel), namely, the nd battalions of the th regiment and of the th westphalian landwehr, stood on the slope between the second brigade and ligny; while the remaining four battalions of the brigade--the st and rd of the th regiment, and the st and rd of the th westphalian landwehr--were charged with the defence of ligny. the village of bry was occupied by the rd battalions of the th and th regiments, belonging to the first brigade (general steinmetz); and the nd battalion of the st westphalian landwehr was posted in rear of the village in support. the st and rd companies of the silesian rifles, attached to this brigade, were distributed about the intersected ground between bry and st amand la haye. the remainder of the first brigade was posted on the height in the rear of st amand, its right resting on st amand la haye; the st and nd battalions of the th regiment on the right, and the st and nd battalions of the th regiment on the left, forming a first, and the st and rd battalions of the st westphalian landwehr forming a second, line. the defence of st amand was confided to three battalions of the third brigade (general jagow)--the st and nd of the th regiment, and the nd battalion of the rd westphalian landwehr. the remaining six battalions of this brigade were posted in reserve northward of ligny, and near the bois du loup. the nd and th companies of the silesian rifles were thrown into ligny. the reserve cavalry of zieten's corps continued in advance, upon the fleurus high road, watching the movements of the enemy. * * * * * it was eight o'clock when these dispositions were completed; and about eleven o'clock, pirch's corps, which more than an hour before had quitted its bivouac near mazy, was formed up in reserve to zieten. the fifth brigade (general tippelskirchen) stood across the high road, near its intersection with the old roman road, in the customary prussian brigade order of three lines of columns of battalions at deploying intervals, and had in its front the two batteries, nos. and . the sixth brigade (general krafft) was posted in similar order in the rear of the farm of bussy, and in left rear of bry. the seventh brigade (general brause) stood more to the left: it had only the th regiment then present, for the nd regiment and the elbe landwehr did not rejoin it until one o'clock in the afternoon. the eighth brigade (colonel langen) was ordered to remain upon the high road leading from sombref to fleurus, until the arrival of the third corps (thielemann's). one of its battalions--the rd of the st regiment--as also two squadrons of the neumark dragoons attached to this corps, had been left in the line of outposts beyond the meuse, towards philippeville; and did not rejoin it until the th of june. the reserve cavalry of pirch's corps, under general jÜrgass, was stationed in rear of the high road, and on the west side of sombref. the twelve pounder batteries, nos. and , and the horse batteries, nos. and , remained in reserve, near sombref. thielemann's corps, which had quitted namur about seven o'clock in the morning, had reached sombref before twelve. it was immediately assigned its position in that part of the field which lies between sombref and balatre, and was posted in columns upon both high roads, here to remain available for either a movement to the right, or for the occupation of the position in left front of sombref, along the heights in rear of the ligny rivulet. such were the dispositions made by blÜcher previously to napoleon's advancing from fleurus. the occupation of ligny and st amand--the most salient part of the position--by zieten's corps, and the posting of the reserve cavalry of the latter in the intervening space between those villages and fleurus, were justly calculated to secure for the prussian commander ample time for further developing his line of battle in such a manner as the direction and mode of his opponent's attack might render most expedient. * * * * * in the morning of the th, the french troops which lay along the sambre, and which belonged to that main portion of the army which was more immediately under the orders and guidance of napoleon, quitted their bivouacs, and marched to join their leading columns, the position of which in front of fleurus was described in the fourth chapter. it was past ten o'clock when these troops debouched in two columns from the fleurus wood--the one along the high road, the other more to the right--and drew up in two lines within a short distance of fleurus. in the first line pajol's light, and excelmans' heavy, cavalry, formed the right, and vandamme's corps, the left, wing; while gÉrard's corps which had not received the order to march until half past nine o'clock, arrived much later, and occupied the centre. girard's division was detached some little distance on the extreme left. the imperial guard and milhaud's corps of _cuirassiers_ constituted the second line. more than an hour was passed in this position before the arrival of the emperor, who then rode along the line of vedettes, and reconnoitred the enemy's dispositions. it appeared to napoleon that blÜcher had taken up a position perpendicular to the namur road, and had, in this way, completely exposed his right flank; whence he inferred that the prince placed great reliance upon the arrival of auxiliary forces from the duke of wellington's army. a single glance at the prussian position, as it has been described, will suffice to prove that the french emperor was in error as regarded blÜcher's assumed line of battle, and that so far from its having been perpendicular to, it was, in the general military acceptation of the term, parallel with, the namur road. at the same time it is proper to remark, that he may have been misled by the massing of the prussian troops between the salient point of the position, st amand, and the road in question, as well as by the direction of the line of the occupied villages of st amand, ligny, and sombref. it must also be acknowledged that although the inference was incorrectly drawn, it accorded in substance with the real fact, that blÜcher did rely upon the arrival of a portion of wellington's forces by the namur road from quatre bras. napoleon having returned from his reconnaissance, immediately gave his orders for the advance of the army, and for the disposition of each individual corps in his intended line of battle. impressed with the important advantage which, according to his assumed view of blÜcher's position, might accrue from a vigorous and well timed attack upon the right and rear of the prussians, while vigorously assailing them himself in their front, he directed soult to address to ney the despatch, dated two o'clock, to which reference was made in the preceding chapter, acquainting the marshal that in half an hour thence he proposed attacking blÜcher, posted between sombref and bry, and desiring that he would, on his part, also attack whatever might be in his front, and that after having vigorously repulsed the enemy, he should move towards the emperor's field of battle, and fall upon the right and rear of the prussians; adding, at the same time, that should the emperor be first successful, he would then move to the support of the army at quatre bras. the french light troops moved forward against fleurus, of which place they gained possession between eleven and twelve o'clock, and then opened from their light artillery a cannonade upon the prussian cavalry posts taken up by the th uhlans. the latter immediately retired, and formed upon the left of the brandenburg dragoons, which regiment had been placed in front of the tombe de ligny, along with the horse battery no. , in support. the brandenburg uhlans were also in support, but more to the rear, and on the left of the high road. at this time, napoleon was on the height of fleurus, again reconnoitring the prussian position; and it was also about the same period that wellington joined blÜcher in person near the mill of bussy. as soon as rÖder perceived the imposing array of the french columns in full advance, he ordered the immediate retreat of his cavalry, which he covered with the th uhlans and the brandenburg dragoons, together with two pieces of horse artillery. he sent the main body, which he had stationed in a hollow, in rear of the tombe de ligny, as also the remainder of the artillery, across the ligny, with directions to take post between the village of that name and sombref. he himself continued with the above two regiments, and the two guns, near the tombe de ligny, until he received orders also to retire. * * * * * in the mean time, the main body of the french army advanced in great regularity in columns of corps. the left column, consisting of the third _corps d'armée_ under vandamme, to which was attached the infantry division under lieutenant general girard belonging to reille's corps (then with ney), being destined to advance against st amand, the most salient point of the prussian position, and therefore having the shortest distance to pass over, was the first to take up its ground, preparatory to attack. whilst thus engaged in making its preliminary dispositions for this purpose, it was cannonaded by the prussian batteries posted on the heights in rear of the village. girard's division took post on the left of vandamme's corps, and domon's light cavalry division on the left of girard. the centre column, consisting of the fourth _corps d'armée_, under gÉrard, advanced along the fleurus high road, and took up, somewhat later, a position upon the heights fronting ligny, and parallel to the general direction of that village; its left being near the tombe de ligny, and its right resting on an eminence southward of mont potriaux. the right column, under grouchy, comprising the cavalry corps of pajol and excelmans, moved by its right, and took post, as did also the light cavalry division under lieutenant general maurin, belonging to the fourth _corps d'armée_, on the right of gÉrard, and showing front towards the villages of tongrines, tongrenelle, boignée, and balatre. grouchy disposed this cavalry so as to protect gÉrard from any attempt which the prussians might make to debouch in his rear from mont potriaux or tongrenelle; as also to watch any hostile movements on their left, and to divert their attention from the centre. pajol's corps, which was formed on the right, detached along the cross road which leads to namur. the villages of boignée and balatre being situated on the french side of the valley, and occupied by prussian infantry, grouchy was supplied with two battalions from gÉrard's corps. the st and nd squadrons of the rd kurmark landwehr cavalry belonging to thielemann's corps, which had been posted in advance, upon the fleurus road, retired skirmishing until they reached the barrier at the bridge, whither they were pursued by the french cavalry. here, however, the latter were checked and driven off by the rd battalion of the th kurmark landwehr, belonging to colonel luck's brigade. the imperial guard and milhaud's _cuirassiers_ were halted in reserve, the former on the left, and the latter on the right, of fleurus. the numerical strength of the french emperor's forces prepared to engage with the prussian army amounted to:-- infantry, , cavalry, , artillery, , ------ total, , men, with guns. if to this we add lobau's corps, which was on the march from charleroi, the total amount of available force was:-- infantry, , cavalry, , artillery, , ------ total, , men, with guns. the prussian army in the field amounted to:-- infantry, , cavalry, , artillery, , ------ , deduct loss of first corps on th june, , ------ total, , , with guns. as soon as the direction of the enemy's movements for attack became sufficiently manifest, blÜcher made such further disposition of his force as appeared to him requisite to meet that attack. he ordered the batteries of the first _corps d'armée_ (zieten's) to be suitably posted for impeding the enemy's advance. the three heavy batteries of the corps were immediately drawn up on the height between ligny and st amand. they were supported by the battery of the first brigade, posted in rear of st amand. somewhat later, when the direction of attack by gÉrard's corps became more developed, the battery of the third brigade was placed on the right of ligny, near a quarry, and the battery of the fourth brigade on the left of the village, upon the declivity descending to the rivulet. the battery of the second brigade, the foot battery no. , and the horse battery no. , remained in reserve. of the remaining horse batteries of the corps, one continued with the cavalry under general rÖder (which was posted in a hollow, as before stated, between ligny and sombref), and the other was with the st silesian hussars, which regiment had been detached in observation on the right flank of the army, and posted between the northern extremity of the village of wagnelé and a large pond contiguous to the old roman road. by the time the action commenced in front of st amand and ligny--half past two o'clock--blÜcher was satisfied that no necessity existed for any movement of his third _corps d'armée_ to the right; and he therefore ordered it to proceed from the position it had hitherto held in columns upon the two high roads near sombref, and form the left wing of his line of battle; resting its right upon sombref, and occupying the heights, at the foot and on the declivities of which are situated the villages of mont potriaux, tongrines, tongrenelle, boignée, balatre, vilrets, and botey. the ninth brigade (general borke) was formed in brigade order in rear of sombref and northward of the namur high road, having detached one of its battalions (the rd of the th regiment) with the foot battery no. , to mont potriaux, where the former posted itself on the north, and the latter took up a favourable position on the south, side of the church. the eleventh brigade (colonel luck) with the twelve pounder battery no. , stood across the fleurus high road, in front of the junction of the latter with the namur road upon the height of le point du jour, having detached the rd battalion of the th kurmark landwehr into the valley, where it occupied the houses in its immediate vicinity. four battalions of the tenth brigade (colonel kÄmpfen) were drawn up on the height of tongrines, resting their right on this village, and having in their front the foot battery no. , and at a short distance from their left, the horse battery no. . the remaining two battalions of the brigade were detached, the rd battalion of the th regiment, to occupy tongrines and the castle of tongrenelle, and the rd battalion of the nd kurmark landwehr, to hold the villages of boignée and balatre. the nd battalion of the rd kurmark landwehr, belonging to the brigade, as also two squadrons of the th kurmark landwehr cavalry, and two squadrons of the th hussars, attached to this corps, still continued in the line of outposts in the vicinity of dinant, to observe givet; and rejoined on the morning of the th of june. the twelfth brigade (colonel stÜlpnagel) with the horse battery no. , was formed in brigade order, in reserve, near the windmill, on the height of le point du jour. the reserve cavalry of this corps, with the horse battery no. , was posted on the extreme left of the position between botey and vilrets, whence it detached the rd squadron of the th uhlans to onoz, in observation. this position and the order of battle which was thus developed, were well calculated to answer the object which blÜcher had in view, namely, to hold his ground long enough to gain sufficient time for the arrival of at least a portion of wellington's forces, expected to join the prussian extreme right by the namur road; as also, perhaps, for the arrival and co-operation of bÜlow's corps, in rear of thielemann, by the gembloux road. in either of these cases, if not previously favoured by the circumstances of the general battle about to take place, such a marked accession to his strength would enable him to assume the offensive; whilst, in the first mentioned, wellington would effectually prevent a junction between napoleon's and ney's forces. the position had been long before selected, and the whole of the ground had even been surveyed, with a view to meet the contingency which had now actually occurred; but then it must be remembered, that in this design the co-operation of the fourth _corps d'armée_ was fully contemplated, whereas the latter had now become a doubtful question: and hence it was that blÜcher was led to place more reliance upon a direct support from wellington, than would otherwise have been the case. to accept a battle, notwithstanding the absence of bÜlow's corps, was undoubtedly the wisest course. the enemy's force in the field did not appear to exceed that of the prussians; and therefore, considering the nature of the position, the contest would, in all probability, become protracted, perhaps until the arrival of bÜlow; perhaps, also, until the close of day, without any distinct advantage being gained by either party. in the former case, the required preponderance might instantly give a decidedly favourable turn to the scale; in the latter, the junction of the fourth corps during the night would enable blÜcher on the following morning to attack his opponent with every prospect of success, and either to relieve wellington, if necessary, from any pressure in his front, or so to combine his further operations with those of the british commander, should the latter have held his ground and concentrated his army, as to lead to the complete overthrow of both napoleon's and ney's forces. to have declined the contest, and retired so as to effect a junction with his fourth corps, he must still, if he wished to act in close concert with wellington, have abandoned his direct communication with the meuse and the rhine, whence he drew all his supplies; a result which might as well be trusted to the chances of a battle. these considerations were also, in all probability, strongly seconded by a desire on the part of the prussian commander, and one perfectly in keeping with his ardent character, to take every possible measure which was at all warranted by the actual posture of affairs, for vigorously opposing napoleon's advance. in a tactical point of view, the position was undoubtedly defective. nearly the entire of the ground situated between the line of villages of ligny, st amand, and wagnelé, and the great namur road, was exposed to the view of the enemy; and as there was every probability of a protracted village fight along the front of the position, the supports and reserves required to maintain a contest of that nature, would necessarily be subjected to the full play of the batteries on the opposite heights. upon the space above mentioned every movement could be detected from the french side; where, on the contrary, the undulations were such as to admit of the concealment of the disposition of considerable masses of troops. the defect in this respect was subsequently made strikingly manifest by the fact that the gradual weakening of the prussian centre for the purpose of reinforcing the right, was closely observed by napoleon, who took advantage of the insight thus obtained into his opponent's designs, by collecting in rear of the heights of ligny that force with which, when he saw that the prussians had no reserve remaining, he so suddenly assailed and broke the centre of their line. * * * * * napoleon's dispositions having been completed, the battle commenced, about half past two o'clock, with an attack upon the village of st amand, by lieutenant general lefol's division of vandamme's corps. the attack, which was made in three columns, proved successful; the three battalions of the th prussian regiment which defended it, were compelled, after a stout resistance, to yield to greatly superior numbers, and were driven out of the village. general steinmetz, whose brigade was posted in rear of st amand, pushed forward all the sharpshooters of the th and th regiments to their support. these, however, being unable to make head against the enemy, who already made a disposition to debouch from the village, the th and th regiments were led forward to renew the contest. in the mean time, just as the french appeared at the outlet of the village, a shower of grape and canister was poured right down amongst them from the foot battery no. . immediately upon this, both battalions of the th regiment descended into the ravine, rushed upon the inclosures, and, driving the enemy's shattered infantry before them, regained possession of the village. the th regiment advancing by wings of battalions--the one in line and the other in column of reserve respectively--supported this attack upon the left, and established itself in the lower part of st amand. in the course of this short prelude, the batteries ranged along the little eminences which rose on either side of the valley of the ligny, opened a furious cannonade along the whole extent of the front lines of the contending armies. ligny, as also st amand (when repossessed by the prussians), both of which lay so directly under the french guns, seemed devoted to destruction. their defenders, sheltered in a great degree by stone walls, hollow ways, and banked up hedges, appeared perfectly motionless while the deluge of shot and shell poured fast and thick around them; but no sooner did those in ligny discover a dusky mass emerging from the clouds of smoke which enveloped the heights above them, and wending its course downwards upon the lower portion of the village, than they rushed out of their concealment, and lining with their advanced skirmishers the outermost inclosures, prepared to meet the onset which would probably bring them into closer contact with their enemies, and lead to a struggle in which physical strength and innate courage, combined with individual skill and dexterity, might effect a result unattainable by a recourse to projectiles alone. it was the nd battalion of the th prussian regiment, which, issuing from its cover, where it had stood in column, rapidly deployed, and, by a well directed volley, shook the advancing mass, which it then threw into disorder by following up this advantage with a well sustained fire. twice was this attack repeated on the part of gÉrard's troops, but with a similar result. a second column now advanced against the centre of the village, and shortly afterwards a third was launched against the upper part of it, near the old castle; but their attempts to penetrate within its precincts proved equally futile, and the four prussian battalions of henkel's brigade gallantly maintained the post of ligny. as the french column withdrew, their batteries played with redoubled energy upon the village, and fresh columns prepared for another assault. the troops of vandamme's corps renewed the attack upon st amand with the utmost vigour; and forcing back the th and th prussian regiments, which suffered most severely, penetrated into the village, where the fight became obstinate, and the fire most destructive. steinmetz had only two more battalions of his brigade remaining at his disposal--the st and rd battalions of the st westphalian landwehr--and these he pushed forward into the village, to restore confidence to the defenders, whose numbers were so fearfully reduced, and, if possible, to stem the progress of the assailants. they had scarcely got fairly into action, however, when their commanding officers were wounded, and both battalions gave way before the furious onset of the french, the rd battalion leaving numbers of its men killed, along the outlets of the village. the whole brigade, which, within a short period, had suffered a loss of officers and , men, having rallied in rear of st amand, retired into position between bry and sombref, and the three battalions which had first occupied the village, marched to rejoin the third brigade; whilst the loud shouts of "_vive l'empereur!_" which immediately followed the cessation of the sharp rattle of the musketry, heard even amidst the incessant thunder of the artillery, proclaimed the triumph of the french infantry. in the meantime, another assault was made upon ligny, whose defenders had been reinforced by the two remaining battalions of henkel's brigade. the french now changed their mode of attack. they advanced simultaneously against the centre with the view of gaining the churchyard, and against the lower end of the village in order to turn the left flank of the defenders; and taking advantage of the unusually great height of the corn, their line of skirmishers, strengthened by whole battalions so as to give it a decided superiority over that of the prussians, approached so cautiously and silently as to continue unperceived until they suddenly possessed themselves of the outermost hedges and gardens. a hand to hand contest ensued, and the prussians, pressed in front by superior numbers, and taken in flank at the same time, were forced to yield. presently, however, stimulated by the combined exertions of the commanding officers, majors count grÖben, kuylenstierna, and rex, they recovered themselves, rallied, and again faced their enemies. the battle, on this part of the field, now presented an awfully grand and animating spectacle, and the hopes of both parties were raised to the highest state of excitement. intermingled with the quick but irregular discharge of small arms throughout the whole extent of the village, came forth alternately the cheering "_en avant!_" and exulting "_vive l'empereur!_" as also the emphatic "_vorwärts!_" and the wild "_hourrah!_" whilst the batteries along the heights, continuing their terrific roar, plunged destruction into the masses seen descending on either side to join in the desperate struggle in the valley, out of which there now arose, from the old castle of ligny, volumes of dark thick smoke, succeeded by brilliant flames, imparting additional sublimity to the scene. the prussians gradually gained ground, and then pressing forward upon all points of the village, succeeded in clearing it of the french; who, in retreating, abandoned two guns which had been moved close down to the principal outlet on that side. general jagow's brigade (the third) had made a change of front to its left, and approached the village; the rd battalions of both the th and th regiments had been detached to the right, to protect the foot batteries nos. and , and to remain in reserve; the four remaining battalions descended into the village as a reinforcement. * * * * * beyond an occasional cannonading, the action on the eastern side of the field, between the corps of grouchy and of thielemann, was comparatively languid: being limited to a contest, varied in its results, for the possession of the village of bognée, and subsequently, of those houses of tongrines which were situated along the bottom of the valley; as also to some skilful manoeuvring on the part of grouchy with his cavalry, with a view of menacing the prussian left. in the mean time, the french maintained possession of st amand, but zieten's twelve pounder batteries, which were now moved forward, presented a formidable obstruction to their debouching from that village. napoleon directed general girard, on the extreme left, to take possession, with his division, of st amand la haye; and this operation having been successfully accomplished, gave the french the advantage of outflanking from thence any attack upon st amand itself. blÜcher ordered general pirch ii. to retake this village; whereupon the latter advanced with his brigade from the height of bry, and withdrew the st battalion of the th regiment from the windmill of bussy, which was then occupied by the nd battalion of the rd regiment (eighth brigade), and near to which the st westphalian landwehr cavalry remained during the whole of the action. at the same time, the prussian chief, fully sensible of the very critical position in which he would be placed, were the french, following up the advantages they had already gained upon his right, to debouch from st amand and st amand la haye in sufficient force to overpower zieten's corps, and thus cut off his communication with wellington; he decided upon occupying the village of wagnelé, whence repeated attacks might be directed against the enemy's left flank; and, with this view, he desired general pirch i., who commanded the second corps, to detach the fifth brigade (general tippelskirchen's) to the latter village, and to place it under the orders of general jÜrgass, who was also sent to that part of the field, with lieutenant colonel sohr's brigade of cavalry (consisting of the rd brandenburg, and th pomeranian, hussars), together with two squadrons of the th neumark dragoons, and the horse battery no. . colonel marwitz, of thielemann's corps, was also ordered to join these troops with two regiments of his brigade, the th and th uhlans. the brigade of general brause (the seventh), which had been rejoined by detached battalions, was pushed forward as far as the roman road, to occupy the position vacated by the advance of general tippelskirchen's brigade, to which it was to act as a support in case of necessity. it was four o'clock when general pirch ii. who had formed his brigade for the attack of st amand la haye, having his left flank protected by the th regiment, which had reassembled in rear of st amand, moved his front line against the former village. as it advanced, however, its ranks were dreadfully shattered by the fire from the french artillery, nor were they less thinned by that of the musketry as they entered the village; and such was the determined resistance on the part of the french, that they were unable to penetrate beyond the centre of the village; and though reinforced by the st battalion of the th regiment, from the second line, they found it quite impracticable to drive the enemy out of a large building which was surrounded by a stone wall, and which formed the point of connection between the two villages. the prussians having got into great disorder, and being closely pressed by the french, were compelled to abandon the village, in order to collect their scattered remnants, and to reform. general girard, whose division had, under his own immediate guidance, so gallantly maintained the village, fell mortally wounded on this occasion. blÜcher now decided on a renewed attack upon st amand la haye, in order to occupy the front of girard's division, while he should carry into effect his previously projected movement against the enemy's left flank; and, anxious to ensure the due execution of his instructions and to direct the attacks himself, he repaired in person to this part of the field. general tippelskirchen's brigade, having advanced along the roman road, was already formed in brigade order, in rear of wagnelé, while jÜrgass had posted his cavalry more to the left, and opposite to the interval between that village and st amand la haye, whence he could with considerable advantage fall upon the enemy, should the latter venture to debouch in that direction. these movements did not escape the watchful eye of napoleon, who detached a division of the young guard and a battery of the same corps in support of his left wing, as also general colbert's brigade of lancers from count pajol's corps, to reinforce the cavalry on the left, and to preserve the communication with ney. when all was ready for the attack, blÜcher, who felt how much depended on its result, galloped up to the leading battalions, and thus earnestly and impassionately ordered the advance:--"now, lads, behave well! don't suffer the _grande nation_ again to rule over you! forward! in god's name--forward!" instantly his devoted followers rent the air with their re-echoing shouts of "_vorwärts!_" nothing could surpass the undaunted resolution and intrepid mien which pirch's battalions displayed as they advanced against, and entered, st amand la haye, at a charging pace; they completely swept the enemy before them; while major quadt, who commanded the th regiment, supported by some detachments of the nd regiment (from tippelskirchen's brigade) gained possession of the great building. the st battalion of the th regiment, after having forced its way right across the village, sallied forth from the opposite side, in pursuit of the enemy, with a degree of impetuosity which its officers had the utmost difficulty in restraining, while numbers of the men were on the point of plunging into the very midst of the french reserves. the cavalry on the right of the village seemed to have caught up the intrepid spirit and enthusiastic devotion of the infantry; and, as if impatient to join in the struggle, a squadron of the brandenburg uhlans supported the attack of the village by a charge upon the enemy's cavalry: after which, the remainder of this regiment, with the st kurmark landwehr cavalry, advanced under general treskow, into the plain on the left of the village, of which the whole contour now bristled with the bayonets of the th regiment, while the th regiment held the post of the great building, which it had so gallantly carried, and the nd westphalian landwehr stood in second line, as a reserve. so completely absorbed was the attention of the twelve pounder battery no. , which stood in a somewhat isolated position, by the contest in st amand la haye, which it covered by its fire, that it had not noticed the stealthy advance of a troop of the enemy's horsemen, wearing the uniform of the light artillery of the guard, and most unexpectedly found itself attacked in flank by these bold adventurers. this give rise to a curious scene, for the prussian gunners, in the first moment of surprise, could only defend themselves with their rammers and handspikes; but with these they plied the intruders with so much adroitness and resolution as to hurl their leaders to the ground, and force the remainder to betake themselves to a hasty flight. prince blÜcher had, in the meantime, on perceiving colbert's french lancers hovering upon, and stretching out beyond, his extreme right, ordered general pirch to detach two more cavalry regiments--the queen's dragoons and the th kurmark landwehr cavalry--as a reinforcement to the cavalry of zieten's corps. the nearly simultaneous attack upon wagnelé by tippelskirchen's brigade, previously mentioned as having taken post in rear of that village, was not attended with an equal degree of success. the st and nd battalions of the th regiment advanced in column through the centre of wagnelé; but on debouching, the nd battalion, which led the advance, was suddenly assailed by a fire from the french skirmishers who lay concealed in the high corn. although its order was thus considerably disturbed; it succeeded, nevertheless, in effecting its deployment. the st battalion also deployed, but, in doing so, its left wing covered the right of the nd battalion; and while executing a second movement, intended to clear the front of the latter, the french battalions pressing forward, drove in the prussian skirmishers upon the regiment, which consisted mostly of young soldiers; when, notwithstanding the conspicuously meritorious exertions of all their officers, they were overthrown and dispersed in such a manner that it became impracticable to lead them back into action in any other way than by separate detachments. the rd battalion of this regiment shared nearly the same fate; for, having plunged into the high corn, it received a volley which disordered its ranks, and killed its three senior officers; and although it maintained for some time a fire in return, it was eventually compelled to retire, as were also the st and nd battalions of the th westphalian landwehr, under precisely similar circumstances. the brigade was reformed, under the protection of the nd prussian regiment, which now advanced from the reserve, boldly encountered the enemy, and aided by the efficacious fire of the foot battery no. , stemmed the further progress of the french, and thus gained time for the remaining battalions to reform in rear of wagnelé. upon the advance, however, of a french column towards its left flank, it fell back as far as the entrance into the village. the french now renewed their attacks upon st amand la haye, and made their appearance simultaneously in front and in both flanks of that village. the fight again became desperate. pirch's brigade had, however, exhausted both its ammunition and its strength, when blÜcher pushed forward the rd battalion of the rd regiment (from the eighth brigade--colonel langen's), and soon afterwards the rd battalion of the th regiment, together with the whole of the th regiment (from the sixth brigade--general krafft's); whereupon general pirch withdrew his battalions, which had suffered so severely, to the rear of bry. the foot battery no. , belonging to pirch's brigade, had at an earlier period moved to its left, and had taken up a position near the quarries on the right of ligny, by the side of the foot battery no. , of jagow's brigade. * * * * * while the struggle in the villages in front of the right of the prussian position continue to wear an indecisive and unsettled aspect; let us return for a moment to ligny, which we left in possession of count henkel's fourth prussian brigade, supported by the third brigade under general jagow. the st and nd battalions of the th regiment (of jagow's brigade) were ordered to traverse the village, and to advance in column against the enemy. just as they debouched, they found in their immediate front, several french battalions, in close column, moving directly against the village. both parties at once came to a halt; the prussians without being able to deploy in the defile, and the french without attempting to do so, probably unwilling to lose the time which such a movement would require. a fire of musketry commenced which lasted half an hour, and caused much loss. other battalions now hastened across the village, but all at once, a rumour flew rapidly among them, that the french were in possession of the churchyard, and in a moment several muskets were aimed in that direction, and either thoughtlessly or nervously discharged. those battalions that were in front, at the outlet of the village, became alarmed by this unexpected firing in their rear. at the same time, a discharge of grape, from some guns suddenly brought forward by the french, in their immediate front, augmented their confusion, and forced them to a retreat. they were closely pursued by the enemy, whose skirmishers made a dash at the colour of the nd battalion of the th regiment, which they would have captured but for the noble and determined gallantry with which it was defended. general krafft, from whose brigade (the sixth) five battalions had already been detached, namely, four for the defence of st amand la haye, and one in aid of that of ligny, now received blÜcher's order with his remaining four battalions (the st and nd of the th, and the st and rd of the st elbe landwehr), to drive the enemy out of the latter village. the foot battery no. , was posted between the left of ligny and the bois du loup, and the foot battery no. , was directed towards st amand. the other batteries posted between ligny and st amand received orders to retire accordingly as they expended their ammunition, for the purpose of refitting; and they were successively relieved by the foot battery no. , the horse battery no. , and the twelve pounder batteries nos. and . the horse battery no. was advanced across the stream between ligny and sombref, and took post on the other side of the valley, where it was much exposed to the enemy's fire, and lost gunners and horses. general krafft moved forward, in the first instance, only two battalions, and kept the others in reserve; but all of them soon became engaged; for the french, though driven back at first, received considerable reinforcements. the fight throughout the whole village of ligny was now at the hottest: the place was literally crammed with the combatants, and its streets and inclosures were choked up with the wounded, the dying, and the dead: every house that had escaped being set on fire, was the scene of a desperate struggle: the troops fought no longer in combined order, but in numerous and irregular groups, separated by houses either in flames, or held as little forts, sometimes by the one, and sometimes by the other party; and in various instances, when their ammunition failed, or when they found themselves suddenly assailed from different sides, the bayonet, and even the butt, supplied them with the ready means for prosecuting the dreadful carnage with unmitigated fury. the entire village was concealed in smoke; but the incessant rattle of the musketry, the crashing of burning timbers, the smashing of doors and gateways, the yells and imprecations of the combatants, which were heard through that misty veil, gave ample indication to the troops posted in reserve upon the heights, of the fierce and savage nature of the struggle beneath. in the meantime, the relieving batteries on the prussian side, which had arrived quite fresh from the rear, came into full play, as did also a reinforcement, on the french side, from the artillery of the imperial guard. the earth now trembled under the tremendous cannonade; and as the flames, issuing from the numerous burning houses, intermingled with dense volumes of smoke, shot directly upwards through the light grey mass which rendered the village indistinguishable, and seemed continually to thicken, the scene resembled for a time some violent convulsion of nature, rather than a human conflict--as if the valley had been rent asunder, and ligny had become the focus of a burning crater. long did this fierce and deadly strife continue without any material advance being made on either side. at length the french gained possession of a large house, as also of the churchyard, into which they brought forward two pieces of cannon. general jagow vainly endeavoured with the th regiment to retake this house. the st battalion of the rd westphalian landwehr displayed the most inflexible perseverance in its endeavours to drive the french out again from the churchyard: it made three unsuccessful attempts to cross an intervening ditch, and subsequently tried to gain a hollow way, which lay in the flank of that post, but falling upon the french reinforcements that were advancing towards it, they were compelled to abandon the enterprise. fresh victims were still required to satiate the "king of terrors," who might be said to hold a gala day in this "valley of death." blÜcher had ordered colonel langen's brigade (the eighth) to follow in succession that of general krafft. the position vacated by the former, in front of sombref, was taken up by colonel stÜlpnagel's brigade (the twelfth) of thielemann's corps, and the chain of skirmishers of the latter brigade extended along the rivulet as far as ligny. as soon as colonel langen had reached the immediate vicinity of ligny, he posted the st and nd battalions of the st regiment upon an eminence near the village, and the foot battery no. , covered by two squadrons of the th kurmark landwehr cavalry, upon the left of the road leading to ligny. the st regiment made no less than six different attacks, partly in conjunction with the other troops that fought in ligny, and partly isolated, without succeeding in disturbing the position of the enemy in that portion of the village which lies on the right bank of the ligny. colonel langen, observing the increased fury and obstinacy of the fight in ligny, detached thither also the st battalion of the rd regiment, and the nd of the rd elbe landwehr: he then took up a position, with the remainder of his brigade, near the mill of bussy, into which he threw the nd battalion of the rd regiment. the st battalion of this corps, having formed two columns, rushed into the village, and, after crossing the stream, received a sharp fire from the windows of the houses on the opposite side. the left column of the battalion stormed a farm house, of which, after it had burst in the gates with hatchets, it gained possession, and thus protected the advance of the right column. * * * * * at this moment, napoleon's final and decisive attack commenced on this point; but previously to entering upon an account of it, it will be necessary to resume the narrative of the contest along the remainder of the line of battle. on the right, tippelskirchen's brigade (the fifth) was ordered to renew the attack upon st amand la haye; and, as an auxiliary movement, a bold push was to be made upon the group of houses in rear of that village, and of wagnelé, called the hameau de st amand. both of the rd battalions of the nd and th regiments, under major witzleben, advanced against the latter point, while the st and nd battalions of the nd regiment, the rd battalion of the th westphalian landwehr, and a battalion of the th regiment made a direct attack upon st amand la haye. both movements were supported by the foot batteries nos. and , and colonel thÜmen was detached, with the silesian uhlans, and the th hussars, to cover the right of the brigade: the st and nd squadrons of the th kurmark landwehr cavalry were posted in reserve. the rd battalion of the nd regiment opened the attack upon the hameau de st amand, and being well protected on their right by the th hussars, carried it by storm. the french appeared determined to regain this point, which from its position, was, in fact, the key to the defence of the three villages of st amand, st amand la haye, and wagnelé; and the struggle for its possession was most obstinate and sanguinary. all the battalions of tippelskirchen's brigade became successively engaged. four times was st amand la haye lost and retaken by the nd regiment, which suffered severely. general jÜrgass ordered forward the horse battery no. , on the right of which the foot battery no. then took post. the silesian uhlans and the th hussars suffered considerably from their exposure to the enemy's artillery. colonel thÜmen was killed at their head, by a cannon shot, and was succeeded by lieutenant colonel schmiedeberg, who ordered both these regiments to make a change of front to the right; when the prussian lancers dashed forward to meet the advance of a french regiment, which they completely defeated, and having followed up the attack with a vigorous pursuit, fell all at once among the enemy's reserves; but they immediately recovered themselves, and rallied with great celerity, order, and precision. about this time, the light cavalry brigade of colonel marwitz, already mentioned as having been ordered from the left, reached the right flank, and was formed up in two lines: also the four battalions that had been detached from general krafft's brigade, arrived upon the right of st amand la haye, and came into action. the battle on both sides on this part of the field continued to rage with unabated violence, and with such indefatigable ardour did the prussians continue the struggle, that when the fire of their infantry skirmishers was observed to slacken, from the men having expended their ammunition, the soldiers of the th hussars rushed into the midst of them, and supplied them with such cartridges as they had of their own; an act of devotion to which many of them fell a sacrifice. general jÜrgass ordered forward the brigade (seventh) of general brause in support of that of general tippelskirchen, which had suffered a very severe loss. when general brause had, at an earlier period, taken post at the trois burettes, upon tippelskirchen advancing from that point to wagnelé (as previously explained), he stationed both the rd battalions of the th and nd regiments upon an eminence on the left of the high road, for the purpose of keeping up the communication with tippelskirchen; and he pushed on the other two battalions of the th regiment towards bry, that they might be nearer at hand, if required, for the contest in the villages of wagnelé and st amand la haye, while the two squadrons of the elbe landwehr cavalry, attached to his brigade, kept a look out upon both sides of the road. these two battalions, thus posted, caught the eye of blÜcher as he looked round for the nearest available force, and he immediately ordered them to advance, and join in the contest; and general brause, on being made acquainted with this disposition, led forward the rd battalions of the th and nd regiments, and the st battalion of the nd elbe landwehr, while the four remaining battalions of his brigade, making a change of front to their left, formed up, in reserve, in rear of the namur road. on approaching the more immediate scene of the action, general brause came upon the rd battalion of the th regiment, which had expended all its ammunition: he procured for it a fresh supply, and ordered it to return into the village, along with the nd battalion of the th regiment; while the st battalion of this regiment threw itself into st amand la haye, and relieved the nd regiment, which now retired, as did also the remainder of tippelskirchen's brigade to the rear of wagnelé, where it reformed. here, in these villages on the right, as well as at ligny, the fight never slackened for a moment: fresh masses, from both sides, poured in among the burning houses as often as the fearfully diminished numbers and dreadfully exhausted state of the combatants rendered relief imperatively necessary; partial successes on different points were constantly met by corresponding reverses on others; and so equally were the courage, the energies, and the devotion of both parties balanced, that the struggle between them appeared, from its unabated vigour, likely to continue until the utter exhaustion of the one should yield the triumph to the greater command of reserves possessed by the other. the anxiety at that time on the part of blÜcher for the arrival of either a portion of wellington's forces, or bÜlow's corps, was extreme; and frequently, as he cheered forward his men in their advance to take part in the contest, did he address them with the exhortation, "forward, lads! we must do something before the english join us!" in fact, his only reserve remaining was the ninth brigade (general borcke's), the withdrawal of which would greatly expose his centre; and napoleon, who had already entertained a suspicion that such was the case, resolved upon terminating the sanguinary combat in the valley, by boldly advancing a portion of his own intact reserves, consisting of the guard and lobau's corps (which had just arrived and was posted on the right of fleuras) against the prussian centre. * * * * * for the execution of his project the french emperor destined the imperial guard, with milhaud's corps of _cuirassiers_ in support. he wished to conceal this movement as much as possible from the enemy, and caused it to be made to the right, along the rear of the corps of gÉrard, a portion of whose batteries were ordered to be withdrawn, for the purpose of affording greater protection to the guard, by diverting the enemy's fire to other points, and of deceiving him as to the real object of the movement, if observed previously to the actual execution of the emperor's design. this far-famed band of veteran warriors, and milhaud's splendid corps of mailed _cuirassiers_, were in full march towards the lower extremity of ligny, where they were to cross the stream, when, all at once, they were halted by an order direct from the emperor, who had decided upon suspending the movement, until he should ascertain the result of an incident that had occurred upon his extreme left, and which had placed him for the time in considerable doubt and anxiety respecting its real nature. he had received a message from vandamme, informing him that a strong column, composed of infantry, cavalry, and artillery, was advancing towards fleuras; that it had at first been looked upon as the corps detached from ney's forces, until it was discovered that it moved by a different road from that along which those troops had been expected, and in a direction towards the french left rear, instead of the prussian extreme right; that girard's division had been consequently induced to fall back, and take up a position to cover fleurus; and that the effect produced upon his own corps by the sudden appearance of this column was such, that if his majesty did not immediately move his reserve to arrest its progress, his troops would be compelled to evacuate st amand and commence a retreat. this intelligence could not fail to create alarm in the mind of the french emperor, who concluded that the corps in question had been detached against his rear, as a diversion in favour of blÜcher, from the army of wellington, who had probably obtained some signal triumph over ney. another officer arrived from vandamme, reiterating the account previously given. napoleon instantly gave the order for the halt of the imperial guard; and despatched one of his aides de camp to reconnoitre the strength and disposition of the column, and to discover the object of its movement. * * * * * the commencement of the march of the imperial guard and milhaud's _cuirassier_ corps towards ligny, had been conducted with so much skill, and the manoeuvring of these troops at one point in their line of march to shelter themselves from the fire of the prussian batteries, to which they had become suddenly exposed, bore so much the appearance of a retrograde movement, accompanied as it was by the withdrawal of a portion of the guns of gÉrard's corps, that the prussians were completely deceived by it. intelligence was hastily conveyed to blÜcher that the enemy was retreating; whereupon he ordered the march of all the remaining disposable battalions of colonel langen's brigade (the eighth) upon st amand, to enable him to take advantage of the circumstance by pressing upon the enemy's left. in the mean time, colonel marwitz had been menaced by the advance of a considerable line of cavalry and a battery, which latter annoyed him but little. this cavalry did not, however, seem much disposed to risk a close encounter: once it put forward a detachment, which was overthrown by two squadrons of the th and th uhlans, and then a regiment of french _chasseurs à cheval_ fell upon the skirmishers of the nd regiment of infantry, but was driven back by two squadrons of the th kurmark landwehr cavalry. colonel marwitz had been ordered by general jÜrgass to send out patrols in different directions from the right flank, for the purpose of seeking out the communication with the duke of wellington's forces. these brought in prisoners, from whom it was ascertained that a whole french corps, the first, under count d'erlon, was in that vicinity. subsequently, french cavalry were perceived between mellet and villers perruin; whereupon colonel marwitz, who had been reinforced by two squadrons of the pomeranian hussars, ordered a change of front of his brigade in this direction, then deployed his eight squadrons in two lines, with considerable intervals, and withdrew them, alternately, towards the high road; followed, though not vigorously, by three french regiments of cavalry and a battery, comprising jaquinot's light cavalry brigade, attached to d'erlon's corps. as he approached the _chaussée_, the nd and rd battalions of the nd elbe landwehr, as also the rd battalion of the nd regiment, advanced to his support. until about six o'clock the action along that part of the line which extended from sombref to balatre, had not been carried on with any degree of energy, and the occupation of the opposing forces was generally limited to mutual observation. now, however, the french infantry (of which only a small portion was attached to grouchy's cavalry), penetrated as far as the precincts of the village of tongrines; but colonel kÄmpfen's brigade (the tenth), having been successively reinforced by all the battalions of colonel luck's brigade (the eleventh) excepting one which was left in reserve, the french were easily repulsed, and the prussians maintained full possession of all this portion of their original position. * * * * * it was about seven o'clock when the aide de camp returned from his reconnaissance, and reported to napoleon that the column in the distance which had caused so much uneasiness proved to be d'erlon's corps; that girard's division, upon being undeceived, had resumed its position in the line of battle; and that vandamme's corps had maintained its ground. this movement of d'erlon's corps admits of being satisfactorily explained. napoleon, having received information that d'erlon had been left in reserve in front of gosselies, and inferring, perhaps, from this circumstance that ney was sufficiently strong to be able to hold his ground at quatre bras, without further aid than what he had at hand, resolved upon employing this corps upon the prussian right flank; but in the meantime, d'erlon had, in pursuance of instructions from ney, continued his march towards quatre bras; and having himself proceeded in advance, had reached frasne, at which place colonel laurent found him, and communicated to him the emperor's order for the march of his corps upon st amand; adding that on coming up with the head of his column, he had taken upon himself to change its direction of march into that of st amand. d'erlon hastened to comply with napoleon's wishes, and despatched general d'elcambre, his chief of the staff, to make known the movement to marshal ney. his route from frasne towards st amand, the point prescribed by the order, lay through villers perruin, and the movement was altogether one of a retrograde nature. hence the direction of the column, as seen in the distance, was well calculated to alarm the troops of the french extreme left; as also to excite surprise in the mind of napoleon, who having formed no expectation of the arrival of any french troops in the field by any other direction than that from gosselies upon st amand, or perhaps from quatre bras upon bry, also participated in the opinion that the column in question, under its attendant circumstances and general disposition, could be no other than that of an enemy. as d'erlon debouched from villers perruin, and advanced upon the prescribed point, st amand, he threw out his cavalry (jaquinot's) to his left, for the protection of this flank; and it was before this cavalry that the prussian brigade, under colonel marwitz, retired in the manner already explained, a movement which fully restored confidence to girard's division. all at once this column was observed to halt, to indicate an indecision in its intentions, and finally to withdraw from the field. d'erlon had in fact just received from ney a peremptory order to join him without delay, with which he resolved to comply, probably concluding that he was bound to do so from the circumstance of his having been in the first instance placed under the marshal's immediate command; having ascertained also from the emperor's aide de camp that he was not the bearer of any instructions whatever from napoleon as to his future movements, and that the appearance of his corps upon that part of the field of battle had been quite unexpected. this pressing order had been despatched by ney immediately previous to the arrival of colonel laurent on the heights of gemioncourt. if the first appearance of this column had caused alarm and perplexity among the troops of the french left wing, the apprehensions it excited on the prussian right, when its cavalry was observed to advance and to drive back colonel marwitz' brigade, which had been sent towards it _en reconnaissance_ (as already explained), were still greater; and its equally unexpected disappearance (with the exception of its cavalry, and a portion of its infantry), at a moment when it was felt that its vigorous co-operation must have rendered the issue of the battle no longer doubtful, was looked upon as a particularly fortunate turn of affairs; and blÜcher's hopes revived as he prepared to carry into effect his meditated attack upon the french left flank. there did not appear on the part of napoleon any eagerness to resume the movement of the imperial guard towards the lower extremity of ligny, but rather an anxiety to await calmly the most favourable moment for his projected attack. doubtless he had discovered the march of the remaining battalions of colonel langen's brigade, from sombref towards st amand, as a further reinforcement to the prussian right, and calculated upon paralysing the attack which blÜcher was evidently preparing against his left flank, by executing a sudden and vigorous assault on the prussian centre, with a preponderating mass of fresh troops. * * * * * at length, towards eight o'clock, the emperor gave the order for the guard and milhaud's corps of _cuirassiers_ to resume their march. the same precautions were observed as before for masking the movement as much as possible, and so successfully, that thielemann, on observing a french battery opposite tongrines entirely withdrawn, and grouchy's lines of cavalry presenting a diminished extent of front, and conceiving, at the same time, that the contest in ligny was assuming a change favourable to the prussians, concluded that the moment had then arrived in which an attack might be made with every probability of success, upon the right flank of the enemy. he had only one brigade remaining of the cavalry of his corps, namely that of colonel count lottum; the other brigade, under colonel marwitz, having been, as already explained, for some time detached to the extreme right of the prussian army. general hobe, who commanded this cavalry division, had previously moved forward count lottum's brigade and posted it in rear of colonel kÄmpfen's infantry brigade. thielemann now desired him to advance with lottum's brigade and the horse battery no. , along the fleurus high road. in carrying this order into effect, general hobe posted the battery, in the first instance, close to the twelve pounder battery no. , which stood across the fleurus high road, about midway between the junction of the latter with the namur road and the bridge over the ligny. a cannonade was opened from this point upon the french guns on the opposite height, to which the latter replied with great spirit, and one of the guns of the battery was dismounted. the remaining guns were now advanced rapidly along the high road, preceded by two squadrons of the th dragoons: on getting into position, two of the guns continued upon the road itself, on which the french had also posted two pieces, but scarcely had the squadrons formed up, and the battery fired a few rounds, when they were furiously attacked by the th and th french dragoons of excelmans' cavalry corps: in an instant they were thrown into confusion; the two guns upon the road escaped, while the remainder fell into the hands of the french dragoons, who closely pursued the prussians. general borcke (commanding the ninth brigade) observing this _mêlée_ upon the fleurus road, immediately pushed forward the st and rd battalions of the st kurmark landwehr, and posted them in rear of the hedges and walls running parallel with the high road, so as to flank the enemy's cavalry; the nd battalion of the same regiment followed the movement, and was finally stationed upon the road. in order to support these battalions, and to preserve the communication with colonel stÜlpnagel's brigade (the twelfth) on his right, he occupied mont potriaux and its outlets with the remainder of his brigade, excepting the st and nd battalions of the th regiment, which he held in reserve. the th and th french dragoons finding themselves likely to be thus seriously impeded both in front and on their left, and finally experiencing on their right a cannonade from the two batteries attached to colonel kÄmpfen's brigade, which had moved forward from the height above tongrines to the rise of ground south of tongrenelle, retired from this part of the field. it will be recollected that colonel stÜlpnagel's brigade, on relieving that of colonel langen in front of sombref, had extended a chain of skirmishers along the stream as far as ligny: these were now reinforced by both the rd battalions of the st regiment and the th kurmark landwehr, with the rd battalion of the th kurmark landwehr in reserve. the st and nd battalions of the kurmark landwehr were posted on the height between sombref and bois du loup, having on their right and somewhat in advance, two squadrons from each of the th and th regiments of kurmark landwehr cavalry, together with two guns from the foot battery no. . the remaining four battalions of the brigade were in reserve immediately in front of the inclosures of sombref. it was nearly eight o'clock, when general krafft despatched an aide de camp to the rear with a message stating, that it was only by dint of extraordinary efforts that the troops in ligny could hold out against the enemy, who was continually advancing with fresh reinforcements. general count gneisenau (the chief of staff of the prussian army), in the absence of the prince, sent word that the village must be maintained, at whatever sacrifice, half an hour longer. about the same time, general pirch ii. sent word to blÜcher that his brigade, in defending st amand la haye, had expended the whole of its ammunition, and that even the pouches of the killed had been completely emptied. to this the prince replied, that the second brigade must, nevertheless, not only maintain its post, but also attack the enemy with the bayonet. in fact, the exhaustion of the prussian troops was becoming more manifest every moment. several officers and men, overcome by long continued exertion, were seen to fall solely from excessive fatigue. no kind of warfare can be conceived more harassing to the combatants than was the protracted contest in the villages which skirted the front of the prussian position. it partook also of a savage and relentless character. the animosity and exasperation of both parties were uncontrollable. innumerable individual combats took place. every house, every court, every wall, was the scene of a desperate conflict. streets were alternately won and lost. an ungovernable fury seized upon the combatants on both sides, as they rushed wildly forward to relieve their comrades exhausted by their exertions in the deadly strife--a strife in which every individual appeared eager to seek out an opponent, from whose death he might derive some alleviation to the thirst of hatred and revenge by which he was so powerfully excited. hence no quarter was asked or granted by either party. [illustration: battle of ligny at / past o'clock p.m.] when it is considered that a very great portion of the prussian army consisted of young soldiers, who were under fire for the first time, their bravery and exertions in maintaining so lengthened a contest of this nature, with the veteran warriors of the french army, cannot fail to be regarded with the highest admiration. * * * * * such were the distribution and the state of the prussian troops throughout their line, when napoleon arrived near the lower extremity of ligny, with a formidable reserve. this consisted of eight battalions of the guard, of milhaud's corps of heavy cavalry, comprising eight regiments of _cuirassiers_, and of the _grenadiers à cheval_ of the guard. it was not, however, his sole reserve; for most opportunely lobau's corps had just arrived and taken post on the right of fleurus. the troops which the french emperor held thus in hand ready to launch as a thunderbolt against the weakened centre of the prussian line of battle, were perfectly fresh, not having hitherto taken any part whatever in the contest, and they might justly be styled the flower of his army. it was this consciousness of the vantage ground he then possessed which, upon his perceiving the comparatively unoccupied space in rear of ligny, called forth from him the remark to count gÉrard, "they are lost: they have no reserve remaining!" he saw that not another moment was to be delayed in securing the victory which was now within his grasp, and gave his last orders for the attack at the very time when blÜcher, whose right had just been strengthened by the arrival of the remaining three battalions of colonel langen's (the eighth) infantry brigade, was making his dispositions for vigorously assailing the french army in its left flank. the projected movement that was to decide the battle was preceded, at about half past eight o'clock, by the rapid advance of several batteries of the guard, which opened a most destructive fire upon the prussians posted within, and formed in the immediate rear of, ligny. under cover of this cannonade, gÉrard, with pecheux's infantry division, reinforced the troops that still maintained that half of the village which lay on the right bank of the rivulet, and pushed forward with a determination to dislodge the enemy from the remaining portion on the left bank. while the prussian infantry in rear of ligny were in movement for the purpose of relieving their comrades who were already giving way before this renewed attack, they suddenly perceived, on the french right of the village, a column issuing from under the heavy smoke that rolled away from the well served batteries which had so unexpectedly opened upon them, and, which continued so fearfully to thin their ranks; and, as the mass rapidly advanced down the slope with the evident design of forcing a passage across the valley, they could not fail to distinguish both by its well sustained order and compactness, and by its dark waving surface of bearskins, that they had now to contend against the redoubted imperial guard. ligny being thus turned, the prussian infantry, instead of continuing its advance into the village, was necessitated, by its inferiority of numbers, to confine its operations to the securing, as far as possible, an orderly retreat for the defenders of the place. notwithstanding their dreadfully exhausted and enfeebled state, and their knowledge that a body of fresh troops was advancing against them, a body, too, which they knew was almost invariably employed whenever some great and decisive blow was to be struck, they evinced not the slightest symptom of irresolution, but, on the contrary, were animated by the most inflexible courage. the sun had gone down, shrouded in heavy clouds, and rain having set in, the battlefield would speedily be enveloped in darkness; hence the prussians felt that it required but a little more perseverance in their exertions to enable them to counterbalance their deficiency of numbers upon any point of their line by a stern and resolute resistance, sufficient to secure for the entire of their army the means of effecting a retreat, unattended by those disastrous consequences which a signal defeat in the light of day might have entailed upon them. the st regiment of infantry boldly advanced against the french column, with a determination to check its further progress; but soon found itself charged in flank by cavalry that had darted forward from the head of a column which, by the glimmering of its armour, even amidst the twilight, proclaimed itself a formidable body of _cuirassiers_. it was, in fact, milhaud's whole corps of that description of force, which had effected its passage on the other side of the village. the th regiment of infantry fought its way through a mass of cavalry, whilst major wulffen, with two weak squadrons of the st westphalian landwehr cavalry, made a gallant charge against the french infantry, which received it with a volley at a distance of twenty paces. the prussian infantry compelled to evacuate ligny, effected its retreat in squares, in perfect order, though surrounded by the enemy, bravely repelling all further attacks, made in the repeated but vain attempts to scatter it in confusion. blÜcher, who had arrived upon the spot from his right, having, in consequence of this sudden turn of affairs, been under the necessity of relinquishing his meditated attack upon the french left, now made a last effort to stem the further advance of the enemy, and, if possible, to force him back upon ligny. the rain having ceased, it became lighter, and the enemy's columns being more clearly discernible, the prince immediately ordered the advance of three regiments of the cavalry attached to the first _corps d'armée_, namely, the th uhlans, the st west prussian dragoons, and the nd kurmark landwehr cavalry. these regiments, which constituted the only cavalry force immediately at hand, had for some time been posted in reserve, and had suffered severely from their exposure to the fire from the french artillery. lieutenant general rÖder directed the th uhlans to make the first charge. the regiment was led on by lieutenant colonel lÜtzow, to whose brigade it belonged. in the charge which was directed upon the enemy's infantry, lÜtzow and several of his officers fell under a volley of musketry. the regiment, which was about strong, lost on this occasion officers and men. a second attack, made by the st west prussian dragoons, and supported by the nd kurmark landwehr cavalry, seemed to offer a fair prospect of penetrating the french infantry, when the former regiment was unexpectedly charged in flank by the enemy's _cuirassiers_, and completely dispersed. the westphalian, and st kurmark landwehr cavalry, with several other squadrons of the landwehr, were collected together, and formed a mass of twenty four squadrons, with which a further attack was made upon the enemy, but without success. the cause of this failure is to be attributed not to the want of sufficient cavalry, for indeed there was an ample number for the purpose, but to the confusion and disorder consequent upon the surprise which the enemy's attack had occasioned, and which was augmented by the darkness that had set in upon the field. nor was the failure caused by the absence of that most essential requisite in a charge of cavalry, good example on the part of the officers who lead the well set squadrons into the midst of an enemy's ranks. * * * * * blÜcher himself, seeing that the fate of the day depended solely on the chance of the cavalry at hand succeeding, while there was yet light, in hurling back the french columns into the valley which they had so suddenly and so resolutely crossed, rallied his routed horsemen; and placing himself at their head, charged, in his old hussar style, with the full determination of restoring, if possible, that equal footing with the enemy which had hitherto been so gallantly maintained. the french firmly stood their ground, and the charge proved ineffectual. as blÜcher and his followers retired to rally, they were rapidly pursued by the french _cuirassiers_. at this moment, the prince's fine grey charger--a present from the prince regent of england--was mortally wounded by a shot, in its left side, near the saddle girth. on experiencing a check to his speed, blÜcher spurred, when the animal, still obedient to the impulse of its gallant master, made a few convulsive plunges forward; but on feeling that his steed was rapidly losing strength, and perceiving at the same time the near approach of the _cuirassiers_, he cried out to his aide de camp:--"nostitz, now i am lost!" at that moment the horse fell from exhaustion, rolling upon its right side, and half burying its rider under its weight. count nostitz immediately sprang from his saddle, and holding with his left hand the bridle of his own horse, which had been slightly wounded, he drew his sword, firmly resolved to shed, if necessary, the last drop of his blood in defending the precious life of his revered general. scarcely had he done so, when he saw the _cuirassiers_ rushing forward at the charge. to attract as little as possible their attention, he remained motionless. most fortunately, the rapidity with which the _cuirassiers_ advanced amidst the twilight, already sensibly obscured by the falling rain, precluded them from recognising, or even particularly remarking, the group, although they swept so closely by that one of them rather roughly brushed against the aide de camp's horse. shortly afterwards, the prussian cavalry having rallied, and reformed, in their turn began to drive back the french. again the thunder of their hoofs approached, and again the flying host whirled past the marshal and his anxious friend; whereupon the latter, eagerly watching his opportunity as the pursuers came on, darted forward, and seizing the bridle of a noncommissioned officer of the th uhlans, named schneider, ordered him and some files immediately following, to dismount and assist in saving the prince. five or six powerful men now raised the heavy dead charger, while others extricated the fallen hero, senseless and almost immoveable. in this state they placed him on the noncommissioned officer's horse. just as they moved off, the enemy was again pressing forward with renewed speed, and nostitz had barely time to lead the marshal, whose senses were gradually returning, to the nearest infantry, which gladly received the party, and, retiring in perfect order, bade defiance to the attacks of its pursuers. the horse battery no. , which had supported these cavalry attacks by directing its fire against the left flank of the enemy, became, all at once, surrounded by french dragoons. these vainly endeavoured to cut the traces, and the prussian artillerymen defended themselves so well that they succeeded in effecting the escape of the battery through an opening in the inclosures of bry. the foot battery no. , however, was overtaken in its retreat by the enemy's cavalry, between the windmill and bry, and lost one of its guns. during these cavalry attacks, the prussian infantry, already exhausted, and broken up into separate divisions by the desperate contest in the valley, had collected together at the outlets of the villages. some of the regiments presented a remarkable degree of steadiness and good order. at length the cavalry brigade of general treskow, then comprising the queen's and the brandenburg dragoons, and the brandenburg uhlans, were brought forward, and made several attacks upon the french infantry and _cuirassiers_. colonel langen advanced, at the same time, from near the windmill, with the only battalion of his brigade remaining at his disposal, the nd of the rd regiment, under the guidance of general pirch i., and covered by the cavalry of general treskow; but all his efforts proved unavailing. he himself was wounded, and then driven over by a gun. the battalion, however, by continuing in admirable order, enabled general pirch i., on whom, at this time, the defence of ligny had devolved, to effect the retreat of the troops from the village. general jagow retired, with a part of his brigade to bry, and immediately occupied this point. some battalions of general krafft's brigade (the sixth) fell back from ligny, towards the high road, leaving bry on their left; others still more to the left towards bry. general pirch ii., whose brigade (the second) had been posted by the prince in rear of st amand la haye, preparatory to a renewed attack, was upon the point of proceeding to support the seventh and eighth brigades, then seriously engaged, when he observed the retreat towards bry. he immediately withdrew his brigade to this point, where he supported and facilitated the retreat of the troops from the village, with the assistance of the twelve pounder battery no. , and the foot battery no. , as also of the westphalian landwehr cavalry, under major wulffen, to which latter corps several dragoons that had become separated from their own regiments, attached themselves. general grolman, the quartermaster general of the prussian army, foreseeing the consequences of the line having been thus broken by the enemy, hastened to bry, and desired general pirch ii. to cover the retreat by means of the troops here collected together. he then proceeded in the direction of sombref, and finding near this place two battalions of the th regiment (sixth brigade) he posted them in rear of a hollow road, leading from bry towards sombref. these battalions had, in their retreat from ligny, defeated several attempts on the part of the enemy's cavalry to break them. grolman, on perceiving a twelve pounder had stuck fast in this hollow road, ordered the battalions to advance again in front of the latter, to assist in extricating the battery, and to protect its retreat; which was immediately accomplished within view of the french cavalry. it was at this critical period of the battle, that the nd battalion of the st westphalian landwehr, which still continued in reserve, in rear of bry, under the command of captain gillnhaussen, appeared upon the height in front, where it particularly distinguished itself. in the first place it succeeded in effectually checking, by its vigorous fire, the french _cuirassiers_, who were in pursuit of the prussian infantry. then it drove back french cavalry which was on the point of making a fresh attack upon the prussian dragoons. afterwards it successfully withstood three charges by the french cavalry of the guard. general grolman now ordered this battalion to join the th regiment near sombref; and, with the latter, to take up a position at the junction of the cross road from ligny with that from bry to sombref. this position, which was in rear of the before mentioned hollow road, was maintained until past midnight. * * * * * such were the circumstances resulting from the french having forced the prussian line at ligny, and pursued in the direction of bry: it is now necessary to explain what occurred at that time, at, and in the vicinity of, sombref. the first brigade, which had been placed in reserve, was ordered to take post, in squares, upon the high road to sombref, to check the pressure of the enemy's cavalry. subsequently, when the direction of the retreat was decided upon, it fell back upon tilly. the fourth brigade, with the exception of one or two battalions, advanced again through sombref towards ligny, just as the french cavalry pushed towards the high road. the battalions of the brigade formed squares, and fell back upon the high road, whence they continued their further retreat. at the time the french troops were debouching from ligny, colonel stÜlpnagel's (the twelfth) brigade was posted in front of sombref; and colonel rohr had just pushed forward towards ligny with the nd battalion of the th kurmark landwehr, when he perceived three french cavalry regiments advancing against the right wing of the brigade; whereupon he gradually retired, and the whole brigade threw itself into sombref, just as the french cavalry made an attack at the entrance of the village, and captured the two guns of the battery no. , which had been posted there. major dorville faced about the rear division of the th kurmark landwehr cavalry, and gallantly attacked the french cavalry, in the hope of checking their progress; but the lances of his brave followers were shivered against the cuirasses of their opponents, and for a moment the former could only defend themselves with their broken poles. the prussian infantry, however, hastened forward in support; the french were driven out of the village; and one of the lost guns was retaken. every exertion was now made to secure the possession of sombref. general borcke (ninth brigade) sent thither two battalions of the st kurmark landwehr; which, during this movement, fired upon the flank of the enemy's cavalry as the latter fell back. the defence of the entrance into the village from the side of ligny was confided to the nd battalion of the th kurmark landwehr, under colonel rohr. about this time, general jÜrgass received orders to cover with his cavalry (of the second corps) the retreat of the prussian infantry from st amand la haye and wagnelé. general brause, perceiving that the enemy had attacked colonel marwitz' cavalry brigade, on his right, and endangered his communication with the rear, hastened with the fusilier battalions of the nd regiment (which had continued in reserve in rear of st amand la haye) towards the high road, upon which the greater part of the seventh brigade had by this time been collected. the prussians, on retiring from st amand la haye, were closely followed by the french. the st battalion of the th regiment was still in the hamlet of st amand when it received the order to retire. during its retreat it was attacked whilst in a hollow way. it immediately showed a front on each flank, and succeeded in driving back the enemy. general jÜrgass now sent forward the th squadron of the brandenburg hussars to attack the enemy's _tirailleurs_, who were beginning to advance from out of st amand la haye. the latter were immediately forced back upon the village. somewhat later, however, the french _tirailleurs_ poured forth in greater numbers from out of wagnelé, and threw themselves upon the right flank of the retreating troops. a _mêlée_ ensued, in which general jÜrgass was shot in the shoulder. * * * * * when the centre of the prussian army had been broken by the french cavalry, and the prussian commander had been placed so completely _hors de combat_, lieutenant general count von gneisenau, the chief of the staff, having undertaken the direction of affairs, ordered the retreat of the first and second corps upon tilly; and despatched colonel thile with directions to thielemann, that if he could not effect a direct retreat upon tilly, he was to retire upon gembloux, there to unite with bÜlow, and then effect a junction with the rest of the army. the occupation of bry by general pirch ii. offered a safe point of retreat to the disordered prussian battalions; and, now that it had become quite dark, pirch led all the troops from this post towards marbais, where they reformed, and whence, soon afterwards, under the command of lieutenant general rÖder, they continued the retreat upon tilly. marwitz' cavalry brigade, which was not pursued with much vigour by the enemy, fell back to the rear of the battalions formed up to cover its movement, and now joined the rest of the cavalry of the right wing, in the general retreat. the fifth infantry brigade was in full retreat upon marbais when the st and nd battalions of the nd regiment still continued posted on the high road, not far from the trois burettes. the good order and perfect steadiness of these battalions, which were commanded by major sack, completely checked the further advance of the french cavalry, and greatly facilitated the retreat of the prussian troops. after general jÜrgass was wounded, the command of the rear guard devolved upon lieutenant colonel sohr, of whose brigade (the brandenburg and pomeranian hussars) it consisted. he executed this duty with great success, falling gradually back upon the cavalry posted in advance of tilly by lieutenant general zieten; who then took command of the whole of the cavalry employed in protecting the retreat. * * * * * during the retreat of the centre of the prussian army, which had been effectually broken, and of its right from st amand and wagnelé, which, in consequence of blÜcher's previous dispositions for his contemplated attack upon the french left, was better prepared to sustain a reverse of this kind; the left wing, under thielemann, maintained its position, and contributed not a little, by its firm countenance, in diffusing a considerable degree of caution into the french movements in advance. this was strikingly exemplified by the conduct of the st and nd battalions of the th prussian regiment. they were posted at mont potriaux, and although their knowledge of what was passing on other points of the line was very imperfect, still it sufficed to prompt their commander to cross the rivulet, and undertake, if not a vigorous attack, at least a demonstration, which, now that darkness had almost covered the field, would tend to impede, perhaps to paralyze, the french movements against the prussian centre. having effected their passage, they met at first but a feeble opposition from a line of skirmishers: a french regiment of dragoons then advanced very close upon the nd battalion, but was driven off; whereupon both these battalions pushed forward, and gained a height which was occupied in force by the enemy. here they sustained two more cavalry attacks, which proved equally unsuccessful. a mass of infantry belonging to lobau's corps, having its flanks covered by parties of cavalry, now advanced against the st battalion; but having, in the dark, exposed a flank to the battalion, it was also repulsed. major dittfurth, however, finding himself in too isolated a position, did not deem it prudent to advance further upon ground which he knew to be in full possession of the enemy, and therefore retraced his steps. a renewed attempt was made, at the same time, by the french light cavalry brigade under general vallin, to push forward along the high road towards sombref, and gain possession of the barrier; but the attack was as abortive as had been the former one upon this point. * * * * * with the darkness of night, now rapidly deepening, the din of battle, which had been terrific and incessant until the last faint glimmering of twilight, became gradually hushed: its expiring sounds still issuing from the heights in front of bry, whence the flashes from the fire of artillery, and from that of skirmishers along the outskirts of this village (held by general jagow with the st and nd battalions of the th regiment, and the nd battalion of the st westphalian landwehr), indicated to the french army the extreme verge of its advance; while the still more vivid flashes emitted from the rattling musketry fire of the two battalions of the th regiment, which had so gallantly sallied forth out of mont potriaux, under major dittfurth, as previously described, as also from the prussian guns which defended the approach to sombref, and frustrated the renewed attack along the high road towards that point, plainly intimated that the prussian left wing (thielemann's corps) still firmly maintained itself in a position whence it might seriously endanger the flank of any further movement in advance against the centre. vandamme's corps (the third) bivouacked in advance of st amand, gÉrard's corps (the fourth) in front of ligny, the imperial guard upon the heights of bry, grouchy's cavalry in rear of sombref, and lobau's corps (the sixth) in rear of ligny. this possession of the field of battle, and the capture of pieces of cannon, were the only advantages of which the french could boast as the immediate result of so severe a struggle. with these, however, it would seem that their emperor was fully satisfied: if he had entertained any idea of pursuit, it was now abandoned; he took no measures for watching the movements and prying into the designs of his adversary: but left his troops resting in their bivouacs, offering no molestation whatever to the prussians, whilst he in person returned to fleurus, where he passed the night. * * * * * the contrast between the circumstances of the two armies during the night was very striking; for whilst the victors were indulging in perfect repose, the vanquished were completely on the alert, seizing every possible advantage which the extraordinary quietude of their enemies afforded during the precious hours of darkness; and never, perhaps, did a defeated army extricate itself from its difficulties with so much adroitness and order, or retire from a hard fought field with so little diminution of its moral force. the prussian commander was carried to mélioreux, about six miles in rear of ligny, and the head quarters were established there for the night. thielemann still retained possession of his original position in the line of battle; and general jagow, with several detached battalions belonging to zieten's corps, occupied bry and its immediate vicinity. from this position the latter general quietly effected his retreat about an hour after midnight, taking the direction of sombref, and thence proceeding to gembloux, presuming, in all probability, that the general retreat would be towards the meuse. it was not until three o'clock in the morning, when the field of battle had been completely evacuated by the remainder of the prussian army, that thielemann commenced his retreat, which he conducted slowly, and in perfect order, to gembloux; near which bÜlow's _corps d'armée_ (the fourth) had arrived during the night. the loss of the prussian army on the th and th of june, amounted in killed and wounded to about , men: that of the french to between , and , . but few prisoners were taken on either side. * * * * * in consequence of this defeat, blÜcher was compelled, in order to maintain and secure his close communication with wellington, to abandon the line of the meuse between namur and liege; but his orderly and unmolested retreat afforded him sufficient time to remove all his stores and material from these points to maestricht and louvain, which now constituted his new base of operations. it was not, however, a defeat which involved the loss of every advantage previously gained. blÜcher was not _driven_ from the field: but, on the contrary, he maintained it during the night, with the exception of the villages of ligny and st amand in his front; thus facilitating the orderly retreat of his own army, and, at the same time, affording a considerable degree of security to the direct line of retreat of the duke of wellington. the defeat certainly compelled the latter to retire on the following morning, whatever might have been his success at quatre bras; but so long as blÜcher had it in his power to fall back in such a manner as to effect his junction the next day with wellington, the advantage which accrued to the common object of the two commanders was of the highest importance. they would then unite after the concentration of each army had been accomplished; hitherto, they had been compelled to meet their opponents before they had succeeded in collecting their respective forces. if, however, wellington had been unable to maintain his ground against ney, and napoleon had in this manner succeeded in beating both armies in detail; or, if the prussian defeat had been followed up by a vigorous pursuit, the loss of the battle of ligny might have placed both armies in a critical position. the struggle at ligny was undoubtedly of a most desperate and sanguinary character. it was, almost throughout, one continued village fight; a species of contest which, though extremely harassing and destructive to both parties engaged, was that most likely to prove of a long duration, and consequently to afford a better prospect of relief by the promised support from wellington, or by the hoped-for junction of bÜlow. * * * * * it remains a question whether blÜcher, had he confined himself during the latter part of the action to the same defensive system he had so successfully carried on up to that time, instead of detaching his reserves to the right, and preparing for an attack upon the enemy's left, might not have fully maintained his original position until dark, and thus have saved his army from defeat. by the arrival of bÜlow's corps during the night, he would then have been prepared to meet his opponent on the following morning with a greatly preponderating force; whilst, on the other hand, wellington, having concentrated a considerable portion of his army, would have been placed in an equally advantageous position as regards the already vanquished enemy in his own front. when it is considered that along the whole extent of blÜcher's line, the french had not gained any material advantage upon one single point, and that the prussians continued to hold their ground with most exemplary firmness; the circumstance of his not having delayed the collecting of his reserves, for a grand attack upon the enemy's left, until actually joined by either the british or bÜlow's troops, can scarcely be explained except by a reference to the peculiar character of the prussian chief, whose natural fiery temperament led him, in all probability to seize with avidity the first prospect which opened itself of a favourable opportunity of aiming a deadly thrust at his hated foe, rather than to adhere to that comparatively passive kind of warfare which so ill suited his own individual inclination and disposition. * * * * * napoleon had undoubtedly gained the victory from the moment he succeeded in penetrating the prussian centre; but it was not distinguished by that brilliant success, or by those immediate and decisive advantages, which might have been anticipated from the admirable manner in which the attack had been prepared, and the care with which it was concealed from the prussians, at a moment when they had no reserve remaining, and when the co-operation of the british on their right, or the arrival of bÜlow's corps from hannut, had become quite impracticable. this appears the more surprising when we reflect that he had a considerable corps of cavalry under grouchy at hand to support this attack, and that the whole of lobau's corps was in the field, fully prepared for active operations. the consequences resulting from the absence of energetic measures on the part of the french emperor, in following up the defeat of the prussians, on the evening of the th and morning of the th, will be fully developed in subsequent chapters. chapter vii. the bivouac on the field of quatre bras, during the night of the th, continued undisturbed until about an hour before daylight, when a cavalry patrol having accidentally got between the adverse picquets near piermont, caused an alarm in that quarter that was quickly communicated to both armies by a rattling fire of musketry, which, rapidly augmenting, extended itself along the line of the advanced posts. among the first who hastened to ascertain the origin and nature of the engagement was picton, who, together with other staff officers, as they arrived in succession, on discovering that no advance had been attempted or intended on either side, soon succeeded in restoring confidence. similar exertions were successfully made on the part of the french officers, and as day began to break upon the scene, both parties resumed their previous tranquillity. in this untoward affair, the picquets furnished by kielmansegge's hanoverian brigade, and by the rd brunswick light battalion were sharply engaged, and a picquet of the field battalion bremen suffered considerably. it was not long before wellington, who had slept at genappe, arrived at quatre bras, where he found major general sir hussey vivian, whose brigade of light cavalry, consisting of the th british hussars (under colonel quentin), of the th british hussars (under lieutenant colonel the hon. henry murray), and of the st hussars of the king's german legion (under lieutenant colonel von wissell), was posted on the left of that point with two strong picquets thrown out; one, of the th hussars, under captain croker, on the namur road, and the other, of the th hussars, under major the hon. frederick howard, in front--with a picquet from the latter, under lieutenant arnold, on the right of the namur road. vivian, on being asked what account he could give of the enemy, communicated to the duke the result of his observations, which were necessarily very limited, as, with the exception of the firing that had taken place, as before mentioned, along the line of picquets, the french had continued perfectly quiet, and had as yet given no indication of any offensive movement. the duke then took a general survey of the field, and while sweeping the horizon with his telescope, he discovered a french vedette on some rising ground, in the direction of fleurus, and a little to the right of the high road leading to namur, apparently belonging to some picquet thrown out from ney's extreme right on the previous night, after the battle had ceased; or to some detached corps placed in that quarter for the purpose of observation, and for the maintenance of the communication between napoleon and ney. the duke had received no intelligence of blÜcher; and, probably, judging from the advanced position of the vedette in question that whatever might have been the result of the battle of ligny, the prussians could not have made any forward movement likely to endanger ney's right, he came to the conclusion that it was quite possible that, on the other hand, napoleon might have crossed the namur road, and cut off his communication with blÜcher, with the design of manoeuvring upon his left and rear, and causing him to be simultaneously attacked by ney. his grace therefore desired vivian to send a strong patrol along the namur road to gain intelligence respecting the prussian army. a troop of the th hussars, under captain grey, was accordingly despatched on this duty, accompanied by lieutenant colonel the hon. sir alexander gordon, one of the duke's aides de camp. as the patrol advanced along the road, the vedette before mentioned began to circle, evidently to give notice of the approach of an enemy, and then retired. this induced the patrol to move forward with great caution, so as to guard against the possibility of being cut off. nevertheless it continued, but with all due precaution, advancing along the road, until after passing a few scattered cottages, comprising a hamlet called petit marbais, it reached, about a mile and a half further on, some rising ground, about five miles from quatre bras, and beyond which was another height. a vedette was observed posted upon the latter, but who had evidently not yet discovered the approach of captain grey's troop. down in the intervening hollow was an isolated house, at the door of which stood a dismounted sentry, and some horses were standing in an adjoining yard. captain grey directed lieutenant bacon to patrol towards the house, while he remained with the remainder of the troop, concealed from the enemy's view, a disposition favoured by the nature of the ground, and the trees in the hedges, on both sides of the road. when lieutenant bacon's party moved forward, it was discovered by the vedette, who began circling, and fired his carabine. the french picquet posted in the house instantly rushed out; several of the men had their jackets and accoutrements off; and the post could easily have been captured, had the special duty on which the british patrol was engaged admitted of an attack. the french turned out very quickly and galloped to the rear along the high road, while bacon's party was recalled. a few french cavalry galloped up to the vedette on the heights, but evinced no disposition to advance. it had now become sufficiently evident that, commencing from this point, the french were in possession of the namur road; but the principal object which sir alexander gordon had in view was yet to be attained. the patrol now retired a little until it reached a cross road, which a peasant pointed out as the prussian line of retreat. pursuing this track, the patrol, within an hour, reached tilly; where general zieten, who had been placed in temporary command of the cavalry, was covering the retreat of the prussian army. after remaining here about a quarter of an hour, during which sir alexander gordon obtained from general zieten the most ample information respecting the movements of the prussians, the patrol commenced its return, at a quick pace, striking into a cross road, which joined the high road at a point nearer to quatre bras than the one whence it had quitted it. the patrol reached quatre bras at about half past seven o'clock; and sir alexander gordon immediately reported to the duke that the prussians had retreated towards wavre, that the french occupied the ground on which the battle had been fought; but that they had not crossed the high road, along which the patrol had proceeded almost into the immediate vicinity of their advanced posts. this latter circumstance was very remarkable, and served to satisfy wellington that, either napoleon's victory had not been followed up with a vigour and an effect, by which the safety of his own army would have been perilled, or, that it had not been of a character sufficiently decisive to have enabled the french emperor to avail himself of such a vantage ground. having ascertained that the contingency for which, as has already been explained, he was fully prepared, had actually taken place; he instantly decided upon retrograding his troops to a position in front of the point of junction of the roads leading from charleroi and nivelles upon brussels, in which he might rely upon the co-operation of a sufficient portion of blÜcher's forces from wavre with his own, by which he would be enabled to confront napoleon and his main army with ample means, and thus attain that great aim and end of all strategy, of "operating with the greatest mass in a combined effort upon a decisive point." hence, a change in the direction of the previously ordered movements became necessary, and the following instructions were issued:-- "to general lord hill. " th june . "the second division of british infantry to march from nivelles on waterloo, at o'clock. "the brigades of the fourth division, now at nivelles, to march from that place on waterloo, at o'clock. those brigades of the fourth division at braine le comte, and on the road from braine le comte to nivelles, to collect and halt at braine le comte this day. "all the baggage on the road from braine le comte to nivelles to return immediately to braine le comte, and to proceed immediately from thence to hal and bruxelles. "the spare musket ammunition to be immediately parked behind genappe. "the corps under the command of prince frederick of orange will move from enghien this evening, and take up a position in front of hal, occupying braine le château with two battalions. "colonel estorff will fall back with his brigade on hal, and place himself under the orders of prince frederick." shortly after the departure of the before mentioned patrol of the th hussars, along the namur road, the duke received some despatches from england, to which he gave his attention; and now that he had satisfied himself as to the real state of things, and issued his orders for the movements of his distant troops, as also for the retreat of those present in the field, he laid himself down on the ground near quatre bras, covered his head with one of the newspapers he had been reading, which had accompanied those despatches, and appeared to fall asleep. after remaining some time in this state, he again rose, mounted his horse, and rode a little distance down the field in front of quatre bras. he then looked about through his telescope, and expressed to those about him his astonishment at the perfect stillness of the enemy, remarking at the same time, "what if they should be also retiring? it is not at all impossible." a second officer, lieutenant massow, had been despatched from the prussian to the anglo-allied head quarters; and it was about this time that he reached the duke, with a verbal communication respecting the retreat upon wavre, and the position intended to be assumed in that quarter. it was of a nature which, taken altogether, was so far satisfactory, that wellington immediately sent a verbal message by this officer to blÜcher, acquainting him with his intended retrograde movements, and proposing to accept a battle, on the following day, in the position in front of waterloo, provided the prince would detach two corps to his assistance. * * * * * the following is the manner in which the retreat of the anglo-allied infantry, then in full operation, was executed. it was an important matter to mask the retreat as much as possible, so as to gain time for the free and unimpeded movement of the army along the high road leading to the position in front of waterloo. for this purpose, the light troops continued to maintain the line of outposts, until their respective supports, which had remained stationary sufficiently long to conceal the retreat of the troops in their rear, began also to retire. the first and fifth british divisions, and the second dutch-belgian division, as also the brunswick corps, effected their retreat in excellent order, notwithstanding the delay that was created by the narrowness of the bridge and street of genappe. their retreat was covered by alten's division, to which were added for this purpose, the st battalion of the th british rifles, the nd and rd brunswick light battalions, the brunswick advanced guard battalion, and the light companies of byng's brigade of guards. the main body of alten's division commenced its retreat about eleven o'clock. ompteda's brigade of the king's german legion was withdrawn to sart à mavelines, which it immediately occupied, as also the wood of les censes in its front. halkett's british brigade then retired secretly until it reached some favourable ground, a little distance in rear of ompteda's brigade, upon which it was immediately drawn up. kielmansegge's hanoverian brigade was withdrawn still further to the rear, and occupied a third position. thus posted, the division was ordered, in the event of being attacked, to retire by brigades alternately. it was a little before midday when the light troops of alten's division began to retire. they occupied the advanced line, commencing from the southern extremity of the wood of bossu on the right, extending along gemioncourt and the inclosures of piermont, and crossing the namur road on the left: from which line they gradually and slowly fell back upon ompteda's brigade, in a manner evincing admirable skill, steadiness, and regularity. in order more effectually to mask the movements on the allied side of the namur road, the whole of the cavalry was drawn up in two lines immediately contiguous to, and in rear of, that road; the heavy cavalry forming the second line, and picquets being thrown out from the first line, to relieve those of the retiring infantry. the main body of alten's division now commenced its further retreat; but not by alternate brigades, this mode having been directed only in the event of an attack; the latter retired successively in the order in which they stood, preserving their relative distances, so that they might commence the alternate system of retreat, if attacked. to facilitate the passage of other portions of the army through the narrow defile of the bridge and town of genappe, this division retired by bezy, and crossed the genappe, lower down the stream, by the bridge of wais le hutte. * * * * * in the early part of the morning, ney had, like his opponent, been ignorant of the result of the battle of ligny; but he was aware that the anglo-allied army had been considerably reinforced during the night, principally by the arrival of its cavalry. the marshal calculated that if napoleon had gained a victory, and crossed the namur road, the longer wellington remained in the position of quatre bras, the greater the danger he incurred of having not only his communication with blÜcher effectually cut off, but also his main line of retreat upon brussels intercepted; and that in such a case it was wiser not to advance against the british general, as the latter might then retire, and thus elude the effect of a combined operation between napoleon's and his own forces. he also judged that if, on the other hand, the french emperor had been defeated, an attack made on his own part, upon the anglo-allied army, might subject himself to the risk of having to contend against a combined operation between wellington and blÜcher; and thus expose both his own and napoleon's forces to the probability of being defeated in detail. in this uncertainty, ney sent a message by general count flahaut, who happened to be still with him, and who was returning to rejoin the emperor wherever he might be found, expressive of his anxiety to learn the result of the action of the preceding day. in the mean time, he kept his troops in a state of perfect quietude; his main body was posted in reserve on the heights of frasne, between which and the outposts there were intermediate columns of support; but no movement whatever was attempted. ney at length received the information he had solicited, in a despatch from soult, wherein the result of the battle of ligny was briefly described. it also stated that napoleon was proceeding, with the principal portion of his forces, to the mill of bry, close to which the high road leads from namur to quatre bras, and that therefore it would not be practicable for the anglo-allied army to act against him (ney); but that, should such a case happen, the emperor would march directly upon it by that road, while ney should attack it in front, and in this manner that army would at once be destroyed. the despatch required from ney a report of the exact position of his forces, and an account of all that was going on in his front. hence it is evident that ney's opinion, that a victory at ligny ought to be followed up by a combined attack upon wellington, perfectly coincided with napoleon's views; but while ney was thus justified in remaining inactive during the early part of the day, the fact of the emperor's not moving directly upon genappe with the morning's dawn, and his excessive delay in breaking up his bivouac at ligny, are inexplicable. a glorious opportunity had presented itself for the attainment of his original design of defeating both armies in detail, but which was completely lost by a most extraordinary and fatal want of energy and vigour in seizing upon the advantages which the victory of ligny had placed within his reach. ney, having ascertained that napoleon's forces were in motion, had commenced the advance of his own troops, when a second despatch reached him, dated, "in front of ligny, at noon," intimating that the emperor had just posted a corps of infantry and the imperial guard in advance of marbais, that he wished him to attack the enemy at quatre bras, and force him from his position; and that his operations would be seconded by the corps at marbais, to which point his majesty was proceeding in person. upon discovering that the anglo-allied infantry had retired, and that the troops around, and in rear of, quatre bras, consisted of cavalry covering the retreat, ney brought forward his own cavalry in advance, and appeared to regulate its movements so that its attack might be directed against the front of the british simultaneously with that of the cavalry which he now perceived advancing along the namur road against its flank. about this time, the th hussars were moved across the namur road, and down the slope in front where they were halted, in _echelon_ of squadrons; and while they were thus posted, wellington and his staff came to the front of the regiment. from this spot the duke was attentively watching, through his telescope, the dispositions and movements of the french, whom he could discover as soon as they reached the quatre bras side of little marbais; when all at once at a distance of about two miles, masses were seen forming on the side of the namur road, conspicuously glittering in the sun's rays; by which the duke was at first induced to believe that they were infantry, whose bayonets were so brilliantly reflected; but it was soon discovered that they were _cuirassiers_. after a short time, these were observed to advance, preceded by lancers, and it was not long before the picquet of the th british hussars, posted on that road, began skirmishing, as did also the picquet of the th british hussars, more in the front of the position, and likewise, still further to the right, in front of quatre bras, a picquet consisting of a squadron of the th british light dragoons, detached from major general vandeleur's brigade, which comprised the th light dragoons (under lieutenant colonel sleigh), the th light dragoons (under colonel the hon. frederick ponsonby), and the th light dragoons (under lieutenant colonel hay). the th hussars then fell back again into their proper place in the line. vivian now took up a new alignment, throwing back his left so as to present a front to the enemy's advance, and to protect the left of the position. vandeleur's brigade was then in right rear of vivian's and close to quatre bras. the anglo-allied infantry having, some time previously, entirely crossed the genappe, with the exception of the light companies of the second brigade of guards on the right, and of the st battalion th british regiment (rifles), on the left, which troops had been directed to remain until the last moment, and were now retiring to genappe (where they were subsequently drawn up at the entrance of the town), and the duke having satisfied himself that a formidable body of the french cavalry was endeavouring to fall upon him and to molest his retreat, it became a question with his grace, at that moment, how far it might be advisable to offer any serious resistance to the advance of the enemy; but lieutenant general the earl of uxbridge, the commander of the anglo-allied cavalry, having remarked that, considering the defiles in the rear, and the distance to which the great mass of the infantry had already retired and from which it could offer no immediate support, he did not think the cavalry was favourably situated for making such an attempt, the duke assented to the correctness of this view, and requested his lordship at once to carry into effect the retreat of the cavalry. uxbridge immediately made the following dispositions for this purpose. the first or household brigade of heavy cavalry commanded by major general lord edward somerset, and consisting of the st life guards (under lieutenant colonel ferrior), of the nd life guards (under lieutenant colonel the hon. edward p. lygon), of the royal horse guards, or blues (under lieutenant colonel sir robert chambre hill), and of the st (or king's) dragoon guards (under colonel fuller), together with the second brigade of heavy cavalry, commanded by major general the honourable sir william ponsonby, consisting of the st, or royal dragoons (under lieutenant colonel clifton), of the nd royal north british dragoons, or scots greys (under colonel hamilton), and of the th, or inniskilling dragoons (under colonel muter), formed the centre column, which was to retire by the brussels high road. vandeleur's and vivian's brigades constituted the left column, which was to effect its retreat by a bridge over the genappe at thuy, still lower down the stream than that by which alten's infantry division had crossed. the right column was formed of part of the third light cavalry brigade, commanded by major general sir william dÖrnberg, the st and nd light dragoons of the king's german legion (under lieutenant colonels bÜlow and de jonquiÈres), while the remaining regiment, which was the rd british light dragoons (under colonel the earl of portarlington), was employed as a portion of the rear guard of the centre column. the th british hussars (under lieutenant colonel dalrymple), belonging to the fifth cavalry brigade, under major general sir colquhoun grant, was also attached to the right column; while of the two remaining regiments of the brigade, the nd hussars of the king's german legion (under lieutenant colonel linsingen), and the th british hussars (under colonel sir edward kerrison), the former had been left in occupation of a line of posts on the french frontier, extending from courtrai, through menin, ypres, loo, and fürnes, to the north sea, and the latter formed a part of the rear guard of the centre column. this right column was to pass the genappe by a ford higher up the stream than the town of genappe. these skilful dispositions had scarcely been arranged, when the picquet of the th hussars, on the left, came in at a good round trot, followed by two or three squadrons of french cavalry, upon which vivian's battery of horse artillery, opened a fire whereby their advance was checked. the enemy, however, was observed to be very active in bringing up his artillery, which soon opened upon the hussar brigade. vivian, having received the earl of uxbridge's instructions to retire, accompanied with an intimation that he would be supported by vandeleur's brigade, then in his rear, and observing that the french cavalry was pressing forward in great numbers, not only in his front, but also on his flank, he put his brigade about, and retired in line, covered by the skirmishers. the french followed, with loud cries of "_vive l'empereur!_" and just as the brigade reached a sort of hollow, their guns again opened, throwing shells, which mostly flew over the heads of the th hussars, against which regiment they appeared to be principally directed. in the mean time, vandeleur's brigade had been drawn up in support, on rather a commanding position, and vivian approached it in the full expectation that it would open out for the passing through of his own men, and take the rear guard in its turn; but on the hussars arriving within fifty or sixty yards of the fourth brigade, vandeleur put it about, and retired--vivian not being aware that vandeleur had previously received orders to retire and leave the road clear for the retreat of the cavalry in his front. vivian immediately occupied the ground thus vacated, and, with a view to check the enemy's advance more effectually, ordered the th hussars to charge, as soon as the french approached within favourable reach. the weather, during the morning, had become oppressively hot; it was now a dead calm; not a leaf was stirring; and the atmosphere was close to an intolerable degree; while a dark, heavy, dense cloud impended over the combatants. the th hussars were fully prepared, and awaited but the command to charge, when the brigade guns on the right commenced firing, for the purpose of previously disturbing and breaking the order of the enemy's advance. the concussion seemed instantly to rebound through the still atmosphere, and communicate, as an electric spark, with the heavily charged mass above. a most awfully loud thunder clap burst forth, immediately succeeded by a rain which has never, probably, been exceeded in violence even within the tropics. in a very few minutes the ground became perfectly saturated; so much so that it was quite impracticable for any rapid movement of the cavalry. the enemy's lancers, opposed to the sixth british brigade, began to relax in their advance, and to limit it to skirmishing; but they seemed more intent upon endeavouring to envelope, and intercept the retreat of, the hussars. vivian now replaced the th hussars by the st hussars of the king's german legion, as rear guard, with orders to cover well the left flank and left front of the brigade. he had already sent off his battery of horse artillery, to cross the genappe by the bridge of thuy, and despatched an aide de camp to vandeleur, to request he would move his brigade as quickly as possible across that bridge, so that he might meet with no interruption in his retreat, in the event of his being hard pressed. of the centre column, the heavy brigades of lord edward somerset and sir william ponsonby had retired along the charleroi road, and were taking up a position on some high ground, a little in rear of genappe, on either side of that road. the detached squadron of the th light dragoons (under captain schreiber), was withdrawn and directed to retire through the above town. the rd light dragoons were also withdrawn, and posted upon the ascent between genappe and the position occupied by the two heavy brigades. the th hussars continued on the south side of genappe, as rear guard. neither the centre, nor the right, column experienced any serious molestation in its retreat while on the french side of the genappe: large bodies of cavalry were seen in motion, but their advanced guards limited their attacks to skirmishing. at length the th hussars retired through genappe, after having thrown out their right squadron, commanded by major hodge, as rear guard, to cover the retreat of the centre column, regulating its proceedings in conformity with such orders as it might receive from major general sir william dÖrnberg, who had been desired to superintend the movements of the skirmishers. major hodge led out the right troop, under captain elphinstone, to skirmish, while lieutenant standish o'grady, who commanded the left troop, held the high road, from which he had occasionally to send assistance to the former, and frequently to advance, to enable the skirmishers to hold their ground, as their movements were difficult, through ploughed fields so soft that the horses always sank up to their knees, and sometimes to their girths. in this manner, every inch of ground was disputed, until within a short distance of genappe. here dÖrnberg informed lieutenant o'grady that he must leave him; that it was of the utmost importance to face the enemy boldly at this spot, as the bridge in the town of genappe was so narrow that the squadron would have to pass it in file; that he was to endeavour as much as possible to obtain time for drawing off the skirmishers, but not to compromise his troop too much. lieutenant o'grady then called in his skirmishers, and advanced with his own troop boldly up the road at a trot. the cavalry immediately opposed to him, went about, followed by him for some distance; and he thus continued alternately advancing and retiring, until he saw all the right troop safe on the road in his rear. he then began to retire at a walk, occasionally halting and fronting, until he turned the corner of the town of genappe: when he filed the men from the left, and passed through the place at a gallop. upon the arrival of the squadron at the opposite entrance of genappe, it was posted between this point and the main body of the th hussars, which had been drawn up on the road in a column of divisions, prepared to check the advance of the enemy on his debouching from the town. the british left cavalry column continued its retreat, which was towards the little bridge of thuy, by deep narrow lanes, converted by the tremendous pour of rain into perfect streams. vivian withdrew the th and th hussars from the position he last occupied, but on their approaching the genappe an interruption occurred in consequence of vandeleur's brigade not having effected its passage across the bridge; and the delay became so great that he was induced to put about the th hussars, with a view to their affording a support to the st german hussars, should they require it. in a short time after this, vandeleur's brigade resumed its progress: the th hussars followed; and, as the st hussars, with which regiment vivian himself was at the moment, continued to maintain a vigorous and effective skirmish, he ordered the th to resume its retrograde movement; having previously directed that some men of the th hussars should be dismounted on reaching the opposite bank of the genappe, and be prepared with their carbines to defend the passage, should the retreat of the remainder of the brigade be severely pressed. after skirmishing some time, vivian despatched a squadron of the st german hussars to the bridge, and the moment he began to do so, the french cavalry again pushed forward with so much boldness and rapidity as to interpose between the left squadron and the main body of the regiment, and to compel that squadron to pass the genappe lower down than the bridge over which the brigade passed the little stream. having ascertained that all was ready, vivian galloped down the road to the bridge with the remainder of the st german hussars. the french followed them, loudly cheering, but as soon as the hussars cleared the bridge, and the enemy's dragoons reached it, some of the dismounted men that had been formed along the top of the opposite bank, in rear of a hedge, overlooking the bridge and a hollow way, through which the road led from it up the ascent, opened a fire upon the foremost of the french lancers that had come up to the other end of the bridge, while the remainder of the th, and the whole of the th hussars, were drawn up along the rising ground or bank. the good countenance here shown by vivian's brigade, combined with the soft and miry state of the ground after the thunderstorm had set in, completely checked the pursuit by the enemy's cavalry, which now turned towards the high road. the left cavalry column, after vivian's brigade had remained in its position for some little time, continued its retreat without further molestation (the enemy having contented himself with merely detaching a patrol to watch its movements) along a narrow cross road, running nearly parallel with the charleroi high road, and leading through the villages of glabbaix, maransart, aywiers, frischermont, smohain, and verd cocou. here vivian's brigade arrived in the evening, in the vicinity of the forest of soignies, and bivouacked; while vandeleur's brigade passed the night somewhat nearer to the ground which had been selected for the position to be taken up by the anglo-allied army. the right cavalry column, consisting only, as previously stated, of the st and nd light dragoons of the king's german legion, and of the th british hussars, effected its retreat in good order, protected by its skirmishers, as far as the ford, which it crossed above genappe. at this point, the french cavalry suspended its pursuit, and proceeded, in like manner as that on the right had done, to join the main body on the high road; while the british right cavalry column continued its retreat unmolested towards the position of waterloo, in rear of which it bivouacked. a large body of french cavalry, consisting of from sixteen to eighteen squadrons, was now entering genappe by the charleroi road, followed by the main body of the french army under napoleon. the earl of uxbridge, who was desirous of checking the enemy's advance, so as to gain sufficient time for the orderly retreat of the anglo-allied army, and to prevent a compromise of any portion of the rearmost troops, decided upon embracing the advantage which the narrow defile of genappe seemed to present in aid of his design. the town consists mainly of houses lining the high road, on the brussels side of the bridge. the road then ascends a ridge, the brow of which is about six or seven hundred yards distant, and here lord uxbridge had halted the heavy brigades of lord edward somerset and of sir william ponsonby, and posted them so as to cover the retirement of the light cavalry. at first, he formed them in line; somerset's on the right, and ponsonby's on the left, of the high road; but observing by the enemy's formidable advance, that the light cavalry would soon be compelled to fall back, his lordship drew up somerset's brigade in a column of half squadrons upon, but close to, the right of the road itself, so as to admit of troops retiring by its left; and formed ponsonby's brigade into a column of half squadrons upon the left of the high road, and somewhat to the rear. the th hussars were formed at some little distance in the rear of genappe, and the rd light dragoons were drawn up in support of that regiment, and about midway between it and the heavy cavalry on the height. the squadron of the th hussars, under major hodge, it will be recollected, was halted between the main body of that regiment and the town of genappe. thus posted, the centre retiring cavalry column remained about twenty minutes, when loud shouts announced that the french had entered the town. presently a few horsemen appeared galloping out of the street, and dashed at speed into major hodge's squadron. they were found, on being taken, to be quite inebriated. in a few moments afterwards, the french column showed its head within the town; the leading troop consisted of lancers, all very young men, mounted on very small horses, and commanded by a fine looking, and, as it subsequently appeared, a very brave man. the column remained about fifteen minutes within the town, its head halted at the outlet facing the british rear guard, and its flanks protected by the houses. the street not being straight, and the rear of the column not being aware that the front had halted, continued pressing forward, until the whole mass became so jammed that it was impossible for the foremost ranks to go about, should such a movement become necessary. their apparent hesitation and indecision induced lord uxbridge, who stood upon some elevated ground adjoining the right of the road, to order the th hussars to charge. the latter, animated by the presence of the commander of the cavalry, who was also their own colonel, rushed forward with the most determined spirit and intrepidity; while the french, awaiting the onslaught, opposed to them a close, compact, and impenetrable phalanx of lances; which, being securely flanked by the houses, and backed by a solid mass of horsemen, presented a complete _chevaux de frise_. hence, it is not surprising that the charge should have made no impression upon the enemy; nevertheless, the contest was maintained for some considerable time; the hussars cutting at their opponents, and the latter parrying and thrusting, neither party giving way a single inch of ground; both the commanding officer of the lancers, and major hodge, commanding the leading squadron of the hussars, were killed, gallantly fighting to the last. the french had by this time established a battery of horse artillery on the left of genappe and upon the opposite bank of the river, from which they opened a brisk fire upon the british cavalry in support, and several shot struck the main body of the th hussars, upsetting men and horses, and causing great impediments in their rear. the french lancers now advanced, and drove the th hussars upon their reserve; but here the th rallied, renewed their attack, and forced back the lancers upon the town. the latter having been reinforced, rallied, in their turn, and drove back the hussars. these, however, again rallied, and resolutely faced their opponents, with whom they gallantly continued a fierce encounter for some time longer, when to terminate a conflict which was most obstinate and sanguinary without being productive of any favourable result, but in which the bravery of the th hussars shone most conspicuously, and became the theme of admiration of all who witnessed it, lord uxbridge decided upon withdrawing that regiment and charging with the st life guards. as soon as the hussars went about, in pursuance of the orders received, the lancers followed them. in the _mêlée_ which ensued, the french lost quite as many men as did the hussars; and when at length the latter were able to disengage themselves, the former did not attempt to follow them. the th retired through the rd light dragoons, took the first favourable turn off the road and reformed in the adjoining field. during this contest, the french, having become sensible of the evil that might arise from the closely wedged state of the cavalry in the town, began to clear the rear of the most advanced portions of the column, so as to admit of more freedom of movement in case of disaster. a battery of british horse artillery had taken post close to a house on the height occupied by the heavy cavalry, and on the left of the road; and it was now replying to the french battery on the opposite bank of the river. so exceedingly elated were the french with having repulsed the th hussars in this their first serious encounter with the british cavalry, that immediately on that regiment retiring, the whole column that was in genappe raised the war cry, and rent the air with shouts of "_en avant!_--_en avant!_" evincing the greatest impatience to follow up this momentary advantage, and to attack the supports; for which, indeed, the opportunity appeared very favourable, as the ranks of the latter were suffering considerable annoyance from the well directed and effective fire of the french guns on the opposite bank of the river. they now abandoned the secure cover to which they had been indebted for their temporary success, and were advancing up the ascent with all the confidence of a fancied superiority, when the earl of uxbridge, seizing upon the advantage presented for attacking them while moving up hill, with their flanks unsupported, and a narrow defile in their rear, and being also desirous of affording the st life guards an opportunity of charging, brought forward that regiment through the rd light dragoons, who opened out for its passage to the front. the life guards now made their charge, most gallantly headed by colonel sir john elley, deputy adjutant general, who, at the moment of contact with the enemy, began by cutting down two men right and left. it was truly a splendid charge; its rapid rush down into the enemy's mass, was as terrific in appearance as it was destructive in its effect; for although the french met the attack with firmness, they were utterly unable to hold their ground a single moment, were overthrown with great slaughter, and literally ridden down in such a manner that the road was instantaneously covered with men and horses, scattered in all directions. the life guards, pursuing their victorious course, dashed into genappe, and drove all before them as far as the opposite outlet of the town. this brilliant and eminently successful charge made a deep impression upon the enemy, who now conducted his pursuit with extreme caution. the rd light dragoons, which had supported the st life guards in their charge, became again the last regiment in the rear guard, and continued so during the remainder of the retreat. ponsonby's brigade had deployed to the right of the high road, and the guns were so disposed as to take advantageous positions, retiring _en échiquier_. the enemy, after quitting genappe, tried to get upon the flanks of the centre retiring column, chiefly upon the right flank; but the royals, greys, and inniskillings, manoeuvred beautifully; retiring by alternate squadrons, and covered by their own skirmishers, who completely beat the french light cavalry in that kind of warfare. finding that from the deep state of the ground, there was not the least danger of his being turned by the enemy, lord uxbridge gradually withdrew ponsonby's brigade to the high road. he kept the light cavalry, protected by the household brigade, as the rear guard, and slowly retired into the chosen position in front of waterloo, the guns and rockets constantly plying the enemy's advance, which, although it pressed forward twice or thrice, and made preparations to attack, never ventured to come to close quarters with its opponents; and the column received from it no further molestation. on arriving at the foot of the anglo-allied position, the rd light dragoons moved off to the (allied) right of the high road, and into the hollow in which lies the orchard of the farm of la haye sainte. here they were drawn up, prepared to meet the french advanced guard, should it follow them, or to fall upon its flank, should it venture to continue its march along the road. the latter, however, halted upon the height which intervenes between la haye sainte and la belle alliance, and opened a fire upon the centre of the duke of wellington's line, above the former farm, from two batteries of horse artillery. picton, who was then upon the rising ground in rear of la haye sainte, and who was intently watching the enemy's advance along the high road, perceived columns of infantry advancing from la belle alliance. he immediately took upon himself to unite the two batteries nearest at hand, which were those under major lloyd of the british artillery, and major cleeves of the king's german legion (although not belonging to his own division), and to place them in position on the high ground close to the charleroi road. the guns immediately opened a brisk cannonade upon the french columns, of which they had obtained a most accurate range just as their leading divisions had entered the inclosed space between the high banks which line the high road where it is cut through the height before mentioned as intervening between la belle alliance and la haye sainte. this mass of the enemy's infantry suffered severely from the fire, to which it stood exposed about half an hour: for the head of the column having been unable to retrograde, in consequence of the pressure from its rear, and prevented by the high bank on either side of the road from filing off to a flank, could not readily extricate itself from so embarrassing a situation. during the whole of this fire, the allied batteries were replied to, though very ineffectually, by the two batteries of french horse artillery posted on the height in question. it was now twilight: the approaching darkness was greatly accelerated by the lowering aspect of the sky. picquets were hastily thrown forward by both armies, and to so great a height had the mutual spirit of defiance arisen, that the near approach of opposing parties, advancing to take up their ground for the night, led to little cavalry affairs, which, though unproductive of any useful result to either side, were distinguished, on different points of the lines, by a chivalrous bravery which seemed to require a prudent restraint. in one of these affairs, captain heyliger of the th hussars, made a very brilliant charge with his troop; and when the duke of wellington sent to check him, his grace desired to be made acquainted with the name of an officer who had displayed so much gallantry. a very spirited charge was also made by the right troop of the nd light dragoons of the king's german legion, under lieutenant hugo; who was allowed by his commanding officer to volunteer for that service, and who, from the vicinity of hougomont, boldly rushed up the height intervening between that point and mon plaisir, and gallantly drove back a portion of the french advanced guard of cavalry; recapturing at the same time three carriages filled with british sick and wounded. * * * * * the manner in which the duke of wellington withdrew his army from the position of quatre bras to the one of waterloo, must ever render that retreat a perfect model of operations of this nature, performed in the immediate presence of a powerful enemy. those dispositions which have been described as having been made by him for the purpose of masking the retirement of the main body, of affording perfect security to the passage of the defile in his rear, and of ensuring the orderly and regular assembly of the several corps on the ground respectively allotted to them in the new position, evince altogether a degree of skill which has never been surpassed. in such operations, the covering of the army by its cavalry and light troops necessarily forms an important feature; and a glance at the manner in which this duty was fulfilled by the earl of uxbridge, with the cavalry, horse artillery, and a few light battalions, at his disposal, is sufficient to show that the exemplification of such feature on this occasion was exceedingly beautiful. indeed, so orderly and so perfect were all the arrangements connected with this retreat, from its commencement to its close, that the movements partook more of the appearance of a field day upon a large scale, than of an operation executed in the actual presence of an enemy; and this was particularly observable as regarded the protection afforded by the cavalry and horse artillery, which manoeuvred to admiration, and in a style that, combined with the brilliant charge by the st life guards at genappe, evidently impressed the enemy with a due sense of the efficiency of the gallant troops immediately in his front. it may here also be remarked, that the judicious dispositions made by lord uxbridge in covering this retreat, and the high degree of confidence with which he inspired the cavalry, afforded well grounded anticipations of the success likely to attend his measures when conducting that cavalry in the open battle field, on which, it was foreseen, its prowess would so very soon be tested. the british and german portion of the cavalry was in excellent order, and seemed already to have imbibed, in a high degree, that gallant bearing and chivalrous spirit, which it beheld and admired in its distinguished chief. in the course of the evening, the duke received from prince blÜcher a reply to the request he had made for his support in the position he was now occupying. it was highly characteristic of the old man, who had written it, in the following terms, without previously conferring with, or addressing himself to, any one:--"i shall not come with two corps only, but with my whole army; upon this understanding, however, that should the french not attack us on the th, we shall attack them on the th." * * * * * the duke, who, as has already been explained, had, from the commencement of the campaign, considered it very possible that napoleon would advance by the mons road, still entertained apprehensions of an attempt on the part of his opponent to turn him by hal, and seize brussels by a _coup de main_. for this, however, he was fully prepared, having made his dispositions for the security of that flank, in the manner pointed out in the following instructions, which he issued to major general the hon. sir charles colville:-- " th june . "the army retired this day from its position at quatre bras to its present position in front of waterloo. "the brigades of the fourth division, at braine le comte, are to retire at daylight tomorrow morning upon hal. "major general colville must be guided by the intelligence he receives of the enemy's movements in his march to hal, whether he moves by the direct route or by enghien. "prince frederick of orange is to occupy with his corps the position between hal and enghien, and is to defend it as long as possible. "the army will probably continue in its position in front of waterloo tomorrow. "lieutenant colonel torrens will inform lieutenant general sir charles colville of the position and situation of the armies." the respective lines of picquets and vedettes had scarcely been taken up along the low ground that skirted the front of the anglo-allied position, and the last gun had just boomed from the heights, when "heaven's artillery," accompanied by vivid flashes of lightning, again peeled forth in solemn and awful grandeur; while the rain, pouring down in torrents, imparted the utmost gloom and discomfort to the bivouacs, which the opposing armies had established for the night, upon the ground destined to become celebrated in history, even to the remotest ages. chapter viii. it was not until the night of the th, after zieten's and pirch's _corps d'armée_ had retired to tilly and gentinnes, that it was decided the prussian army should retreat upon wavre. this decision was communicated in the orders then transmitted from the prussian head quarters to the first and second _corps d'armée_ (zieten's and pirch's) directing them to bivouac at bierge and st anne, in the vicinity of wavre; as also in the orders forwarded, on the next morning, to the bivouacs of the third and fourth corps (thielemann's and bÜlow's), at gembloux and basse bodecée, directing them to fall back, and bivouac at la bavette and dion le mont near wavre. zieten's and pirch's corps retired by mont st guibert, in rear of which defile the latter corps remained a considerable time as rear guard, while the former marched on to wavre, where it arrived about midday, crossed the dyle, and took up its position at bierge. pirch followed the same route, but took post on the right bank of the dyle, between st anne and aisemont. with the first glimmering of daylight the troops, which, under the command of general jagow, had continued in full possession of bry and its immediate vicinity during the night, began to retire, firstly, in the direction of sombref, and thence to gembloux, which they reached before the arrival of thielemann's corps. after the receipt of the order pointing out the direction of the retreat, jagow conducted these troops, in the course of the th, towards their respective brigades. lieutenant colonel sohr, whose cavalry brigade with half a horse battery, formed the rear guard of the line of retreat of zieten's and pirch's corps, received orders to take up a concealed position between tilly and gentinnes, thence to watch the movements of the enemy; and, as soon as he found himself pressed by the latter, to fall back upon the defile of mont st guibert. thielemann, who, it will be recollected, had received a message from gneisenau, leaving it optional with him to retire by tilly or gembloux, according to circumstances, decided on falling back upon the latter point; being well aware that the enemy was in possession of the villages of st amand and ligny, and of the field of battle to within a very short distance from sombref. he had collected together his widely disseminated brigades, and drawn in his advanced posts; an operation which, executed in the darkness of the night, retarded his departure so much that it was two o'clock in the morning before the reserve artillery, which formed the head of the column, struck into the road which at point du jour, leads from the namur _chaussée_ to gembloux. the rear guard of this line of retreat, which consisted of the ninth infantry brigade, under major general borcke, and the reserve cavalry, under general hobe, and was drawn up along the namur road, having in its front the fleurus _chaussée_, leading directly towards the enemy, did not commence its march until after four o'clock, when the sun had risen. the main body of the corps reached gembloux at six o'clock in the morning. on approaching this place, thielemann learned that bÜlow had posted the fourth corps about three miles in rear of gembloux, upon the old roman road; whereupon major weyrach, aide de camp to prince blÜcher, who had continued with thielemann during the night of the th, set off to seek out the field marshal, and to report to him the position and attendant circumstances of the third and fourth _corps d'armée_. he soon succeeded in discovering the prussian head quarters at mélioreux, and communicated the above important information to count gneisenau. thielemann gave his own corps a halt on the other side of the town, in order that his troops might obtain rest and refreshment. * * * * * the advance of bÜlow's corps had reached basse bodecée, upon the old roman road, at nightfall of the th of june. here that general became acquainted with the loss of the battle of ligny: whereupon he ordered the brigades of his corps to be posted at intervals along this road, with the exception of the thirteenth (under lieutenant general hake), which was directed to bivouac more to the rear, near hottoment, where the same road is intersected by that which conducts from namur to louvain. both corps remained for some hours in a state of uncertainty as to the direction to be taken for forming a junction with the first and second corps. thielemann wrote to bÜlow that he had received no orders from prince blÜcher, but that he presumed the retreat was upon st trond. he also stated that he had not been followed by the enemy, but that he had heard distant firing on the right, which he concluded was connected with the duke of wellington's army. at length, about half past nine o'clock, prince blÜcher's aide de camp, major weyrach, arrived at bÜlow's head quarters, and brought the orders for the retreat of the fourth corps to dion le mont, near wavre, by walhain and corbaix. the orders also required that bÜlow should post the main body of his rear guard (which consisted of the fourteenth brigade) at vieux sart; as also that he should send a detachment, consisting of one regiment of cavalry, two battalions of infantry, and two guns of horse artillery, to the defile of mont st guibert, to act, in the first instance as a support to lieutenant colonel sohr, who was at tilly, and then, upon the latter falling back, to act as rear guard in this direction. lieutenant colonel ledebur was accordingly detached upon this duty with the th hussars, the fusilier battalions of the th regiment of infantry and st regiment of pomeranian landwehr, together with two guns from the horse battery no. . the corps itself moved directly upon dion le mont, and on reaching the height near that town, on which is situated the public house of _a tous vents_, took up a position close to the intersection of the roads leading to louvain, wavre, and gembloux. * * * * * at two o'clock in the afternoon, thielemann commenced his march upon wavre; where the corps arrived late in the evening, and took up its position at la bavette, leaving the ninth infantry brigade (general borcke) and the cavalry brigade of colonel count lottum, on the right bank of the dyle. in this position the corps was now rejoined by colonel marwitz' cavalry brigade, which had retired by tilly; as also by the nd battalion of the rd kurmark landwehr, and the two squadrons of the th kurmark landwehr cavalry, which troops had been left at dinant. the squadron of the th uhlans that had been detached to onoz, also joined, but having fallen in with a superior force of the enemy's cavalry, had experienced a great loss. the two squadrons of the th hussars, belonging to this corps, had not yet arrived from ciney. * * * * * the prussian head quarters were established, early on the th, at wavre. the veteran field marshal, who was still suffering considerably in consequence of his fall, was obliged to seek rest the moment he arrived there, and did not quit his bed during the remainder of the day. in the course of the forenoon, lieutenant massow, who had been despatched with a message to the duke of wellington, returned with the one from his grace, communicating the intention of the latter to fall back upon waterloo and accept a battle there, provided he received the support of two prussian corps. (see page .) there was every disposition to enter into this proposal, but some degree of uncertainty existed as to whether bÜlow's corps would join the army on the th, as also a certain misgiving respecting the park of ammunition of both zieten's and pirch's corps, which had been directed upon gembloux, a circumstance that excited apprehensions as to the possibility of furnishing the much needed supply of ammunition to these corps which were at hand. in this state of uncertainty, no other resolution could be adopted than that of holding the position in front and in rear of the dyle (with the advanced guard of the fourth corps as far forward as mont st guibert), until the required ammunition should be obtained; and blÜcher deferred replying to wellington's communication, in the hope that his army would very soon be relieved from the unpleasant circumstances above mentioned. * * * * * while the prussians were thus effecting their retreat in good order, along the cross roads of that part of the country (high road there was none), no corresponding activity manifested itself on the part of the french, whom the morning's dawn found still lying in their bivouac. their vedettes stood within half a mile of the columns of thielemann's rear guard; the retreat of which, not having commenced until after sunrise, might have been easily remarked: and had the french detached but the smallest patrol, they could not have failed to discover the direction of that retreat--whether towards namur or gembloux. it was not until after thielemann had retired a sufficient distance to escape further notice that any disposition for movement occurred to disturb the perfect quietude of their repose. then, pajol with a division of his light cavalry corps, under lieutenant general baron soult, consisting of the st, th, and th hussars, was detached in pursuit of the prussians. he struck into the namur road, and shortly afterwards lieutenant general baron teste's infantry division of lobau's corps (the sixth), followed in support, and took up a position on the heights of mazy. pajol had not proceeded very far when he perceived a prussian battery retiring upon namur, which he lost no time in capturing and forwarding to head quarters; where the circumstance strengthened the belief that blÜcher had retreated by that road. it was the prussian horse battery no. , belonging to the second corps, which, having towards the end of the battle expended every shot, had driven off the field to procure a fresh supply of ammunition, but had not succeeded in falling in with the reserve ammunition waggons. the battery neither returned to its own corps, nor did it comply with thielemann's express order to march upon gembloux, but consumed much time in uselessly driving first in one direction, and then in another. it was accompanied at this moment by a squadron of the th prussian uhlans, which the third corps had neglected to recall from onoz. the squadron retired on the approach of the french cavalry, and escaped with a loss of men; but all the guns fell into the hands of the enemy. pajol, feeling at last some reason to doubt that namur was a point in the prussian retreat, diverged from the high road, and proceeded to st denis, where he was joined by teste's division. a brigade of excelmans' cavalry corps had been detached to offer support to pajol, should the latter require it; but in consequence of certain information, gained upon the road, it was subsequently directed to proceed towards gembloux, on approaching which it discovered traces of the prussian retreat. grouchy, who commanded the right wing of the french army in napoleon's absence, repaired early in the morning to the emperor's quarters at fleurus, for instructions, according to an order he had received to that effect on the previous evening. he was desired to wait and accompany the emperor, who was going to visit the field of battle. the latter, however, did not start from fleurus until between eight and nine o'clock, and on reaching st amand, he examined the approaches by which this village had been attacked the day before; then, he rode about the field, gave directions for the care of the wounded; and, as he passed in front of different regiments, that were falling in without arms on the ground where they were bivouacked, he was received with loud cheers. he addressed himself to nearly all the corps, and assured them of the lively satisfaction he had felt on witnessing their conduct in the battle. having dismounted, he conversed freely, and at great length, with grouchy and gÉrard, on the state of public opinion in paris, the different political parties, and on various other subjects quite unconnected with those military operations upon the successful issue of which depended the stability of his present power. that napoleon should have neglected to follow up the advantages which fortune had thrown in his way on the morning of the th of june, is quite incomprehensible. with the exception of a prussian picquet at gentinnes, his whole front as far as gembloux, was perfectly clear of an enemy. wellington was still in position at quatre bras, where his left had become exposed by the retreat of the prussians, and in rear of which point was the defile of genappe. there was nothing to prevent napoleon from marching directly upon that defile; and supporting, by a vigorous attack upon the anglo-allied left and rear, a simultaneous movement against the front by the force under ney. whither had fled the mighty spirit which had shone forth with such dazzling brilliancy in former wars, and which had never displayed the energy of its powers of combination, and activity in following up successes, more eminently than in the campaign of the previous year? when before did he omit pressing every advantage to the utmost, or neglect to seize that moment of time, in which, having defeated one portion of his enemies, he was enabled to fall with combined force upon another? his army was not more fatigued than was that of wellington, which had arrived at quatre bras by forced marches. the troops which he subsequently did lead upon that point, when it was too late, consisting chiefly of the imperial guard and the sixth corps, were comparatively fresh. the former had not been engaged at ligny until towards the termination of the action, when they suffered scarcely any loss; the latter, which arrived later, had remained intact. the idea of forming a junction with ney, with a view of attacking wellington, was certainly entertained; but its execution was most unaccountably and unnecessarily delayed until its intended effect could not but fall powerless upon a vigilant enemy, fully prepared, by having improved the precious moments of time, thus lost, to detect the purpose of the movement, and to ward off the intended blow. with an army greatly inferior in numbers to the united forces of his adversaries, napoleon's prospects of success rested exclusively upon his utmost skill and address, not only in preventing that union of force, but also in so planning, arranging, and executing his combinations, that having succeeded in defeating one opponent with a superior mass, he might then precipitate himself in like manner upon another, at the very moment when the latter might be occupied or engaged with one of his marshals. this would have exacted of him the most untiring energy, the application of all his great resources in strategical science, a lightning-swift decision, and a daring resolution both in adopting and in executing all his movements. it was by the exercise of such powerful mental resources as these, that, unaided by a sufficiently corresponding amount of physical force, he had conducted the campaign of ; but the spirit by which they were conceived, and the genius which instinctively seized the means of their execution, seemed to have abandoned him in this, his last, campaign: a faint gleam of the old spirit was visible in its opening movements, but it was now rather a wildfire, dazzling him for a moment, on the downward path to his destiny, than the star which had so often led him to victory. the last flash of his genius was brief, and, on the memorable plains of fleurus, seemed to disappear, and leave him in utter darkness. the same fatal inactivity which had marked the french emperor's proceedings on the evening of the th, and during the morning of the th, again manifested itself upon the th of june: and it was not until nearly noon of this day, upon receiving a report of a reconnaissance, made in the direction of quatre bras, and upon learning that a considerable body of prussians had been discovered at gembloux, that he made any disposition for the movement of his troops, beyond the previous detaching of pajol's light cavalry in pursuit of the prussians along the namur road. he now ordered the following troops to proceed to occupy a position in advance of marbais, across the namur road, facing quatre bras:-- lobau's infantry corps (the sixth), with the exception of the twenty first division, under lieutenant general teste, which had already been detached in support of pajol; milhaud's corps of heavy cavalry (_cuirassiers_), lieutenant general baron subervie's light cavalry brigade, from pajol's corps; the third light cavalry division (belonging to the third corps), under lieutenant general baron domon; and the imperial guard, both cavalry and infantry. to marshal grouchy he confided the pursuit of the prussians, and for this purpose he placed at his disposal as great an extent of force as his limited means would admit: a force, certainly not sufficient to enable that marshal to confront the whole prussian army, should the latter, after having rallied and concentrated its strength, make a stand against him, but quite so to enable him to watch its movements, and to manoeuvre so as to maintain his communication with the main army, and, if pressed by superior numbers, to effect a junction with napoleon. the following were the troops thus detached under grouchy:-- +---------------------------------------+--------+-------+---------+----+ | |infantry|cavalry|artillery|guns| +---------------------------------------+--------+-------+---------+----+ |third corps, general count vandamme | , | | | | | | | | | | |fourth corps, general count gÉrard | , | , | , | | | | | | | | |twenty first division (sixth corps), }| | | | | | lieutenant general baron teste }| , | | | | | | | | | | |fourth division (first cavalry corps),}| | | | | | lieutenant general count pajol }| | , | | | | | | | | | |second cavalry corps, lieutenant }| | | | | | general count excelmans }| | , | | | | +--------+-------+---------+----+ | | , | , | , | | |deduct loss on th, | , | | | | | +--------+-------+---------+----+ | total | , | , | , | | +---------------------------------------+--------+-------+---------+----+ , men and guns. the seventh infantry division, under lieutenant general girard (belonging to the second corps) having suffered very severely in the battle, was left upon the field. napoleon's instructions to grouchy were extremely simple and concise: "pursue the prussians, complete their defeat by attacking them as soon as you come up with them, and never let them out of your sight. i am going to unite the remainder of this portion of the army with marshal ney's corps, to march against the english, and to fight them if they should hold their ground between this and the forest of soignies. you will communicate with me by the paved road which leads to quatre bras." no particular direction was prescribed, because the emperor was totally ignorant of the real line of the prussian retreat. at the same time he was strongly impressed with the idea that blÜcher had retired upon namur and liege, with a view to occupy the line of the meuse, whence he might seriously endanger the right of the french army, as also its main line of operation, should it advance upon brussels. grouchy did not hesitate to remark to the emperor, that the prussians, having commenced their retreat at ten o'clock the previous night, had gained several hours' start of the troops with which he was to follow them; that although the reports received from the advanced cavalry conveyed no positive information as to the direction in which the great mass of the prussian army had effected its retreat, appearances as yet seemed to justify the supposition that blÜcher had fallen back upon namur; and that as he would thus have to pursue in a direction contrary to that which napoleon was himself going to take, with very little chance of being able to prevent the execution of any dispositions the prussians might have resolved upon when quitting the field of battle, he begged to be allowed to follow the emperor in his projected movement upon quatre bras. napoleon declined to entertain this proposition, repeated the order he had already given to him, adding that it rested with him (grouchy) to discover the route taken by the prussians, whose defeat he was to complete by attacking them the moment he came up with them; while he himself would proceed to fight the english. * * * * * the order was immediately given for the advance of the troops previously assembled near marbais, preceded by subervie's division of light cavalry, as advanced guard. by the time they reached quatre bras, which was about two o'clock, the whole of wellington's infantry had crossed the genappe, and was retiring along the high road to brussels, protected by the cavalry, which was now pressed by the french, in the manner described in the preceding chapter. the march of the french troops through bry, in the direction of quatre bras, became known to the prussians through lieutenant colonel sohr, who still held his cavalry brigade, even at this time, posted in rear of tilly. shortly afterwards, some of the french cavalry having approached, he began to retire slowly towards mont st guibert, and, as he frequently formed up, in wait for the enemy, he did not reach that point until the evening of the th. here he found lieutenant colonel ledebur, who had arrived with his detachment, and had received orders to maintain the defile. * * * * * upon the departure of napoleon, grouchy ordered vandamme and gÉrard to get their corps under arms, and to move them, in the first instance, to the junction of the gembloux road with that to namur; and having subsequently received intelligence that a considerable body of prussians had passed through the former town, he desired that those two corps should continue their movement upon that point. in the mean time, he repaired to the advanced posts of excelmans' dragoons, which were by this time beyond gembloux. it was part of this cavalry which followed lieutenant colonel sohr, on the left. they merely threw out skirmishers against him; and, as night set in, they abandoned the pursuit in this direction. the corps of vandamme and gÉrard did not reach gembloux until very late in the evening. the former was posted in advance, the latter, in rear, of the town; near which also, and on the right bank of the ormeau, was stationed the sixth light cavalry division, under general vallin, who succeeded to the command, upon lieutenant general maurin being wounded at the battle of ligny. the first brigade of lieutenant general chastel's tenth cavalry division, consisting of the th and th dragoons, under general bonnemain, was pushed on to sart à wallain, and the th dragoons (from general vincent's brigade of the ninth cavalry division, under lieutenant general baron soult), were detached to perwès. from both these points, reports were sent into gembloux that the prussians had retired upon wavre. pajol, with his light cavalry and teste's infantry division, had returned from st denis, between namur and gembloux, to the original position occupied by the latter in the morning, at mazy, in the immediate vicinity of the field of ligny; a movement for which no satisfactory cause has ever been assigned. the extent of information obtained by grouchy concerning the prussian retreat, and the nature of the dispositions which he adopted in consequence, will be best explained by the following despatch which he addressed to the emperor:-- "gembloux, le juin, "gembloux, th june, à dix heures du soir. at ten o'clock in the evening. "sire,--j'ai l'honneur de vous "sire,--i have the honour to report rendre compte que j'occupe to you that i occupy gembloux, gembloux et que ma cavalerie est à and that my cavalry is at sauvenières. l'ennemi, fort d'environ sauvenières. the enemy, about thirty trente mille hommes, continue thousand men strong, continues his son mouvement de retraite; movement of retreat. we have seized on lui a saisi ici un parc de here of his, a pen of horned bêtes à cornes, des magasins et des cattle, magazines and baggage. bagages. "il paraît d'après tous les rapports, "it would appear according to qu'arrivés à sauvenières, les all the reports, that, on arrival at prussiens se sont divisés en deux sauvenières, the prussians divided colonnes: l'une a dû prendre la themselves into two columns: one route de wavre, en passant par of which took the road to wavre, sart à wallain, l'autre colonne passing by sart à wallain; the paraît s'être dirigée sur perwès. other column would appear to have been directed on perwès. "on peut peutêtre en inférer "it may perhaps be inferred from qu'une portion va joindre wellington, this that one portion is going to et que le centre, qui est l'armée join wellington; and that the de blÜcher, se retire sur liège: centre, which is the army of une autre colonne avec de blÜcher, is retiring on liege. l'artillerie ayant fait son mouvement another column with artillery having de retraite par namur, le général made its retreat by namur, general excelmans a ordre de pousser ce excelmans has the order to push this soir six escadrons sur sart à wallain evening six squadrons on to sart à et trois escadrons sur perwès. wallain, and three squadrons on to d'après leur rapport, si la masse perwès. according to their report, des prussiens se retire sur wavre, if the mass of the prussians is je la suivrai dans cette direction, retiring on wavre, i shall follow afin qu'ils ne puissent pas gagner them in that direction, so as to bruxelles, et de les séparer de prevent them from reaching brussels, wellington. and to keep them separated from wellington. "si, au contraire, mes renseignemens "if, on the contrary, my enquiries prouvent que la principale prove that the principal prussian force prussienne a marche sur perwès, force has marched on perwès, i je me dirigerai par cette ville shall proceed by that town in à la poursuite de l'ennemi. pursuit of the enemy. "les généraux thielemann et "generals thielemann and borstel faisaient partie de borstel formed part of the army l'armée que votre majesté a that your majesty defeated yesterday. battue hier; ils étaient encore ce they were still here at o'clock matin à heures ici, et ont this morning, and have announced annoncé que vingt mille hommes des that twenty thousand of their men leurs avaient été mis hors de combat. have been disabled. they ils ont demande en partant asked, in leaving, the distances of les distances de wavre, perwès wavre, perwès, and hannut. et hannut. blÜcher a été blÜcher has been slightly wounded blessé légèrement au bras, ce qui in the arm; which, however, has not ne l'a pas empêché de continuer hindered him from continuing to à commander après s'être fait command after having his wound panser. il n'a point passé par dressed. he has not passed by gembloux. gembloux. "je suis avec respect, de "i am with respect, votre majesté, "sire, "sire, le fidèle sujet, "the faithful subject of "le maréchal comte de "your majesty, grouchy." "marshal count de grouchy." although the information conveyed in this despatch was incorrect on some points, and imperfect on others, inasmuch as it represented that prussian columns had retired upon namur and perwès, which was not the case, and gave no account of the columns (first and second corps) which had retreated by tilly and gentinnes, still it was well calculated to satisfy napoleon, that at least the spirit of his instructions had been understood by the marshal. the latter had stated that he suspected a portion of the prussian troops was proceeding to join wellington, and that, should he ascertain, through his cavalry detached to sart à wallain and perwès, that the great mass of the prussians was retiring upon wavre, it was his intention to pursue them in that direction, "so as to prevent them from reaching brussels, and to keep them separated from wellington." four hours afterwards (that is, at two o'clock on the morning of the th) he sent off another despatch to the emperor, reporting that he had decided on marching upon either corbaix or wavre. * * * * * the retreat of the prussian army, after its defeat at ligny on the th of june, was conducted with great skill, and executed in very good order. by detaining thielemann's corps upon the field of battle until the morning of the th, ample security was afforded to the line of retreat by gembloux; and by not withdrawing bÜlow's corps from that town until thielemann drew near to it, the distance between the main bodies of these two corps became so limited as to present the ready means of opposing their combined force to a vigorous pursuit should such be attempted. by the evening of the th, the entire prussian army (with the exception of the ninth and thirteenth brigades, and the reserve cavalry of the third corps, which arrived by six o'clock on the following morning) had assembled in the immediate vicinity of wavre--two corps on the right, and the remaining two corps on the left, bank of the dyle--in perfect order, and fully prepared to resume the offensive. upon the two lines of retreat, the rear guards were well disposed at vieux sart and mont st guibert; where they continued during that night, and whence they retired leisurely on the following day. on the prussian left, patrols were despatched towards the main road leading from namur to louvain. on the right, a detachment was sent from zieten's corps to limale, on the left bank of the dyle, to cover the flank, and patrols were pushed higher up the river, to communicate with the post of mont st guibert. major falkenhausen had been detached, during the day, to seroulx for the purpose of reconnoitring the country in the vicinity of genappe, and of the high road to brussels; and he succeeded in discovering, from the wooded tracts beyond seroulx, the advance of the french army along the _chaussée_. patrols were also detached towards lasne, couture, and aywiers, to observe the defiles along the rivulet of the lasne. such were the dispositions of the defeated prussians on the evening of the th, while the victorious french had not advanced beyond gembloux. the former had fallen back, in good order, upon a line with, and a short distance from, the anglo-allied army on their right; while their opponents, though encountering no obstacle of importance, had made but little progress, and were widely diverging from, instead of closely co-operating with, the main army from which they had been detached. these dispositions, so ably planned and so efficiently performed, were well calculated to facilitate the grand operation of the morrow, namely, blÜcher's flank movement to the right, to effect a junction with wellington. the retreat to wavre did not in any way incapacitate the prussian army for the resumption of actively offensive operations. with respect to its material, it so happened that the park of reserve ammunition waggons had, in the first instance, been directed upon gembloux; and colonel rÖhl, who superintended the ordnance department of the army, sent his aide de camp during the night of the th to conduct this reserve to wavre; whilst he himself hastened to the latter town, for the purpose of putting the whole of the artillery, accordingly as it arrived there, again in a fit state for action. the supply of ammunition, however, was necessarily incomplete; but in order to prevent any failure in this respect, should some mishap occur to the park of reserve ammunition waggons, a courier was despatched to maestricht, with directions for the speedy transport of a supply of ammunition from thence to the army, by means of the common waggons of the country. similar orders were conveyed to cologne, wesel, and münster: and, by way of precaution, an express was sent to liege for the removal of the battering train to maestricht; as also for the destruction, in case of danger, of the iron foundry in the arsenal of the former place. fortunately, however, the reserve ammunition waggons reached wavre safely at five o'clock in the afternoon of the th. the corps and batteries were furnished with a complete supply of ammunition, and the army was thus placed in a perfectly efficient state for commencing another battle. this turn of affairs was most encouraging, and blÜcher delayed not another moment in despatching to wellington the reply to which allusion has already been made. (see page .) as regards the influence which the defeat at ligny exercised over the _morale_ of the prussian army, its injurious effects were made manifest amongst the newly raised drafts from the rhenish and westphalian provinces, and from the duchy of berg. of these troops, , men betook themselves to a flight which admitted of no check until they reached liege and aix la chapelle. among the rhenish troops, particularly those from provinces which had formerly belonged to france, there were many old french soldiers; and although several of them fought with great bravery, others evinced a bad disposition, and there were instances in which they passed over to their former companions in arms. such, however, was not the case with the troops from the other western districts of the prussian state: there was scarcely a single man amongst the missing, who belonged to any of the old westphalian provinces, mark, cleve, minden, and ravensberg, whilst several came from that of münster. but the _morale_ of the great mass of the prussian army continued unshaken. the spirit of the troops was neither tamed nor broken; and their enthusiasm, though damped, had not been subdued. unbounded confidence was placed in the firm decision and restless energy of their aged and venerated chief; who, though suffering from the effects of his fall, by which his whole frame had sustained a severe shock, evinced not the slightest apprehension of fatal consequences to the campaign resulting from this defeat. his unbending nature led him to cast aside for the moment those purely political interests and theoretically strategical principles, by which a more cautious and less enterprising commander might have been induced to secure the line of the meuse, and to preserve his direct communications with the prussian states, and thus afford but a doubtful and an inefficient support to his ally. placing full reliance on the resources of his own mind, and on the stern, warlike character of his troops; he devoted his whole energies to the attainment of the one grand object--that of crushing napoleon by combining with wellington. this confidence in himself and in his soldiers was strikingly and characteristically manifested in the concluding words of a general order which he issued to the army on the morning of the th. "i shall immediately lead you against the enemy;--we shall beat him, because it is our duty to do so." towards midnight of the th, a communication reached blÜcher from general mÜffling (already mentioned as having been attached to the british head quarters) to the following effect. "the anglo-allied army is posted with its right upon braine l'alleud, its centre upon mont st jean, and its left near la haye; having the enemy in its front. the duke awaits the attack, but calculates upon prussian support." this intelligence was forwarded, at midnight, to general count bÜlow, accompanied by the following order:--"you will therefore, at daybreak, march with the fourth corps from dion le mont, through wavre, taking the direction of chapelle st lambert, in which vicinity you will keep your force concealed as much as possible, in case the enemy should not, by that time, be seriously engaged with the duke of wellington; but should it be otherwise, you will make a most vigorous attack upon the enemy's right flank. the second corps will follow you as a direct support: the first and third corps will also be held in readiness to move in the same direction if necessary. you will leave a detachment in observation at mont st guibert; which, if pressed, will gradually fall back upon wavre. all the baggage train, and everything not actually required in the field of action, will be sent to louvain." instructions, in conformity with the above, were also forwarded to the commanders of the other corps; and a communication of these arrangements was despatched to general mÜffling, with an explanation that the fatigue of the troops could not possibly admit of earlier support. this general was, at the same time, requested to forward timely intelligence of the attack upon the duke, and of the nature of that attack, that measures might be adopted accordingly. * * * * * at five o'clock on the morning of the th, pajol started from mazy, with soult's cavalry division and teste's infantry division, marching by st denis and grand lez, to tourinnes; where he was to await further orders. at about eight o'clock, excelmans' corps of heavy cavalry, consisting of eight regiments of dragoons, was put in motion; and at nine o'clock, vandamme's and gÉrard's infantry corps began their march along one and the same road, by sart à wallain, upon wavre. the left of this column was protected, towards the dyle, by the advance of maurin's division of light cavalry, under general vallin. it was about half past ten o'clock, when excelmans' advanced guard came up with the prussian rear guard, on the road to wavre. he immediately formed his troops in position, resting their left upon the wooded ravine near the farm of la plaquerie, and their right in the direction of neuf sart. while his skirmishers were engaged with those of the enemy, he sent the _chef d'escadron_ d'estourmel, to inform marshal grouchy of what was going on in front, and also to make known to him that the prussian army had continued its retreat upon wavre during a part of the night and that morning, for the purpose of forming a closer communication with the duke of wellington's forces. the march of the third and fourth corps was greatly retarded by the bad state of the roads, and frequent halts were occasioned by the narrowness and miry nature of the defiles. gÉrard, having preceded the column, reached sart à wallain at eleven o'clock, where he found grouchy breakfasting in the house of m. hollaËrt, a notary. in about half an hour after his arrival, colonel simon loriÈre, who was acting as his chief of the staff, suddenly heard, while walking in the garden of the house, a distant but violent cannonade, of which he immediately went to apprise his general. grouchy repaired at once to the garden, accompanied by gÉrard, vandamme, excelmans, and several other officers. he immediately called for m. hollaËrt, and asked him in what part of the country he considered this tremendous cannonade to be going on. the latter, pointing to the forest of soignies, replied that it must be in the direction of planchenoit, mont st jean, and that vicinity. gÉrard then declared his opinion to be in favour of the expediency of marching in the direction of the cannonade, in order to connect the movements of the detached force more closely with napoleon's operations; and offered to lead his own corps towards the battle. this measure was opposed by the marshal, as also by general baltus, of the artillery, who represented the difficulties of a march in which this arm might be compromised. on the other hand, general valaze, commanding engineer of gÉrard's corps, after having coincided in the opinion expressed by the latter, observed that he had three companies of sappers, by aid of which he could remove many obstacles. gÉrard then gave his assurance that he could at all events move on with the gun carriages and limbers. grouchy, however, stated his determination to act in conformity with his instructions; which were, to pursue and attack the prussians, and never to lose sight of them. it had just been intimated to him that his troops had come up with a rear guard of the enemy's infantry, and he did not consider his information was sufficient to warrant the conclusion that blÜcher was drawn up, in expectation of being attacked by him at wavre; or that he would continue his retreat upon brussels; or, that if, in manoeuvring to effect his junction with wellington, he would do so in front, or in rear, of the forest of soignies. he has since declared, that he did not deem it his duty to follow the counsel given by gÉrard, but to attack the prussians; that to effect the proposed movement with the whole of his forces would have been acting contrary to his orders; that to have detached only a portion of those forces in the direction of the forest of soignies, would have been to separate the two corps of his army by a river, whose waters were swollen by the rain, and whose banks were swampy, and thus have rendered their mutual support impossible, however essential it might have become; finally, that a war of inspiration appertains alone to the general in chief, and that his lieutenants must confine themselves to that of execution. hence the march to wavre was continued. whilst proceeding to the advanced guard, grouchy received the despatch, dated from the farm of caillou, the th of june, at ten o'clock in the morning, acquainting him that the emperor was going to attack the anglo-allied army, in its position at waterloo; desiring him to direct his movements upon wavre in such a manner as to draw his forces nearer to those of napoleon, and, especially, to keep up a close communication with the latter. the receipt of these instructions was not followed by any immediate change in grouchy's dispositions. he despatched no cavalry force--not even a single patrol--to watch any movements that might be attempted, or actually then in course of execution, by the prussians, towards the field on which the emperor had intimated to him his intention of attacking the force under wellington; and hence it is almost needless to add, that he neglected to establish that close and active communication with the main army which was so essentially important for the accomplishment of the object of the general plan of operations, and to which napoleon had especially directed his attention in the before mentioned despatch. his sole aim seemed to be a direct advance upon wavre; and this he carried into execution without at all detaching to, or in any way manoeuvring by, his left. on the contrary, upon arriving in person at the position occupied by excelmans, he desired the latter to move to his right, and take post at dion le mont; and the ground thus vacated was shortly afterwards taken up by vallin's light cavalry division. * * * * * at daybreak of the th of june, bÜlow, in conformity with the order which he had received during the previous night from blÜcher, quitted his position near dion le mont, to march through wavre to st lambert. this was the commencement of the important flank movement of the prussians in support of the anglo-allied army in position in front of waterloo; and every measure of precaution was adopted with a view to its being carried into effect with certainty and safety. the sun had not yet risen when major witowsky was despatched with a detachment of the nd silesian hussars, to maransart, for the purpose of closely reconnoitring the defiles of the lasne, which had already been patrolled the evening before, and to observe the country in front of those defiles, in the direction of the enemy's position. major falkenhausen, previously mentioned as having pushed a reconnaissance beyond seroulx on the th, was now directed also to reconnoitre the lasne. scouring parties were sent out, which kept up the communication that had been opened the previous day with lieutenant colonel ledebur at mont st guibert: the whole country between the dyle and the charleroi high road was carefully explored; and correct intelligence was continually sent to the rear concerning the french army. by means of this vigilant look out, the prussians secured the important advantage of retarding the communications between the french emperor and his marshal, since it compelled the bearer of despatches to pursue a very circuitous route. at half past nine o'clock, on the morning of the th, whilst bÜlow's corps was on the march to st lambert, the following additional despatch was forwarded to general mÜffling:-- "wavre, th june , at half past nine o'clock. "i request you will say to the duke of wellington, in my name, that even ill as i am, i shall, nevertheless, put myself at the head of my troops, for the purpose of immediately attacking the enemy's right flank, should napoleon undertake anything against the duke. if, however, the day should pass over without a hostile attack, it is my opinion that we ought tomorrow, with our combined forces, to attack the french army. i commission you to communicate this as the result of my inward conviction, and to represent to him that i consider this proposal to be the best and most suitable in our present position. "blÜcher." the prussians very soon discovered that the french had made no disposition whatever for the protection of their right flank. major witowsky had proceeded as far as maransart before he fell in with an enemy's patrol; and major falkenhausen found the defiles of the lasne perfectly free and unobserved. upon receiving this intelligence, blÜcher decided upon supporting the anglo-allied army, by directing the march of his whole force, or at least of three corps, towards the wood of paris, and debouching from thence upon the flank and rear of the enemy; and major lÜtzow was immediately despatched for the purpose of narrowly watching, from the other side of the above wood, the french movements directed against the position of the anglo-allied army. no report as yet had been received from the rear guard, concerning grouchy's advance, and as blÜcher's object was now to gain the defiles of the lasne without interruption, and to occupy in force the wood of paris, he determined to avail himself of the time and opportunity which offered for the projected movement. being, however, uncertain as to the amount of grouchy's force, the prince deemed it advisable that wavre should not be abandoned until the greater part of the army had passed the defiles of st lambert; and with this view, he directed that as soon as bÜlow's corps should have proceeded beyond wavre, zieten's corps was to commence its march by fromont and ohain to join the left wing of wellington's army near la haye. pirch's corps was ordered to follow bÜlow's in the direction of st lambert; and thielemann's corps, after retaining possession of the defile of wavre sufficiently long to render the general movement of the army secure, was then gradually to follow zieten's corps upon ohain. an unfortunate incident occurred during the passage of bÜlow's corps, through wavre, which materially impeded the march of the troops. the advanced guard, consisting of the fifteenth brigade (under general losthin), with the nd silesian hussars, and a twelve pounder battery, had scarcely passed through the town when a fire broke out in the main street, and extended itself with great rapidity. this not only caused a suspension of the march of the main body of the corps, but created much alarm, in consequence of the great number of ammunition waggons in the place. every exertion was made to extinguish the fire. the st battalion of the th regiment, under major lÖwenfeld, and the th pioneer company, were ordered upon this duty; and after they had encountered considerable difficulty, their efforts were crowned with success. in the mean time the advanced guard of bÜlow's corps had continued its march, and reached st lambert by eleven o'clock. the sixteenth, and then the thirteenth, brigade arrived much later; and the fourteenth brigade, which formed the rear guard, was a long way behind. the advanced guard did not wait the arrival of the other brigades, but proceeded forthwith to cross the defile of st lambert. having effected the passage, which was attended with great difficulty, in consequence of the soft and miry state of the valley, it halted in the wood of paris, where it continued a considerable time, waiting for the approach of the main body. patrols, however, from the nd silesian hussars, were immediately sent forward to feel for the anglo-allied left, and to reconnoitre the french right. zieten's corps (the first) commenced its march, upon the left bank of the dyle, towards ohain, about noon. whilst bÜlow's reserve cavalry, following the thirteenth infantry brigade, was passing through wavre, french cavalry had penetrated between the rear guard of this corps, at vieux sart, and the detachment under lieutenant colonel ledebur at mont st guibert. the nd pomeranian, and the st silesian, landwehr cavalry were immediately detached from the reserve cavalry of the corps, to aid in checking the advance of the enemy. the prussian lieutenant colonel ledebur, who was still at mont st guibert, having received intelligence of the approach of the french, decided on commencing his retreat towards wavre. lieutenant colonel sohr, who had fallen back early in the morning from mont st guibert, sent cavalry and two guns of horse artillery as a reinforcement to ledebur. the latter now succeeded in forming a junction with the two cavalry regiments detached from the reserve, as also, subsequently, with the cavalry brigade under sohr, after a slight affair with the third french corps (vandamme's), whilst making good his retreat to auzel. pirch's corps (the second) broke up from its position between st anne and aisemont, on the right bank of the dyle, about noon, for the purpose of passing the defile of wavre. the st battalion of the th regiment, which occupied this town, was relieved by a battalion of the th regiment, belonging to the third corps (thielemann's). pirch had just put his corps in motion, with a view to cross the dyle by the town of wavre, when the approach of the enemy was announced. the defile was crowded with the troops; the progress of their march could not be otherwise than slow; and at this moment lieutenant colonel sohr, whose brigade formed the rear guard of the corps, sent in word, that the enemy presented a force of six regiments of cavalry, ten pieces of artillery, and two strong columns of infantry. the wood of sarats, close to the farm of auzel, was now occupied by some battalions of the eighth brigade, the command of which had devolved upon colonel reckow. pirch placed the whole of the rear guard under the orders of general brause, the commander of the seventh brigade, and reinforced lieutenant colonel sohr with the th hussars and four pieces of horse artillery. brause posted the remaining battalions of the eighth brigade in rear of the wood, and the three regiments of cavalry on the right, with the foot battery no. in their front. the seventh brigade, deployed into line, remained in reserve. lieutenant colonel ledebur retired slowly before the enemy, and formed a junction with the eighth brigade, under colonel reckow; who maintained his position until three o'clock in the afternoon, against the advanced guard of vandamme's corps. between three and four o'clock, general brause ordered the retreat. lieutenant colonel sohr crossed the bridge at the mill of bierge, which was occupied by two companies of the nd battalion of the th regiment; and then followed the reserve cavalry of pirch's corps, to which his brigade belonged, but which he did not overtake until he reached the field of waterloo. the enemy did not advance with much vigour; the retreat was conducted with perfect order, and the fusilier battalion of the st pomeranian landwehr, under major krÜger, distinguished itself on the occasion. after the passage of the river had been effected, the st battalion of the elbe landwehr remained at bierge until the bridge was destroyed and the mill set on fire. the th hussars and the nd battalion of the elbe landwehr were posted in observation of the passages across the dyle, and did not rejoin the corps before the following day. blÜcher had quitted wavre before eleven o'clock in the forenoon, and repaired to the vicinity of limale, in order to make himself acquainted with the nature of the country in the direction of st lambert. whilst here, he received intelligence of the approach of the enemy towards wavre. colonel clausewitz, chief of the staff of the third corps, was immediately made the bearer of an order for thielemann to defend the position at this place, in the event of the enemy advancing in force; but, should the latter cross the dyle higher up the stream, or not appear in great strength (a point concerning which nothing positive was then known), he was to leave only a few battalions in position at wavre, and to follow the main army, with his corps, as a reserve, in the direction of couture. * * * * * grouchy's movements, on the th and th, form so striking a feature in the history of this campaign, and exercised so important an influence upon the fate of the decisive battle of waterloo, that it becomes an essential point in the study of that history, to examine how far he complied with, and carried into effect, the instructions received from his master, and to what degree his proceedings, consequent upon his ascertaining the direction of the prussian retreat, coincided with the general plan and object of napoleon's operations. on a reference to the account of his transactions during the th, given in the despatch written at ten o'clock on that night, it appears he was completely ignorant of the line by which the principal mass of the prussian army had retreated, namely, that of tilly and gentinnes, by zieten's and pirch's corps, although his cavalry had driven back the prussian detachment from the latter place to mont st guibert, but from whence it appears to have been withdrawn in the night. his attention seems to have been much less devoted to this quarter than it was to his right, in which direction he detached as far as perwès. the main body of his forces did not proceed further than gembloux on the th, that is, about five miles from the field of ligny. upon a first consideration, we are strongly impressed by the striking contrast between this march, in pursuit of a defeated army, which had commenced its retreat on the previous night, and which presented no check to the advance, and the march of napoleon from the same field, by quatre bras and genappe, as far as la belle alliance, in front of the waterloo position, a distance of about sixteen or seventeen miles; and this, too, in rear of a victorious army, with a cavalry rear guard boldly and successfully impeding the advance of its pursuers. it must, however, be taken into account, that in one most important respect napoleon possessed a decided advantage over grouchy--an advantage, the magnitude of which increased with every moment that elapsed after the wet weather had set in; for while the former moved the whole distance along a paved high road, the latter had to proceed entirely by cross roads, which may more properly be designated common field roads. it is to this particular point that both grouchy and gÉrard refer in justification of the late arrival of the infantry at gembloux. nevertheless, grouchy detached considerably to his right, with his cavalry, misled by the same idea which had prevailed with napoleon, that blÜcher had retreated upon the meuse; and the very circumstance of his dragoons having reached perwès on the night of the th, proves that had he organised a more extended, more combined, and more energetic reconnaissance, with the sixty five squadrons of cavalry which had been placed under his orders, he might have connected his operations on the right of the dyle with those of napoleon on the left of that river, by occupying the line of nil st vincent, corbaix, mont st guibert, and the bridge of moustier. the only check he would have experienced would have been at the prussian post of mont st guibert; which, however, in the case of an active reconnaissance, as above, might have been attacked by a strong detachment in front, and turned by corbaix on its left. to show the connection which this disposition would have secured with napoleon's movements, it is only necessary to state, that the third cavalry division, under lieutenant general domon, had been detached from the emperor's column to reconnoitre the country between the dyle and the high road to brussels; and that the th regiment of _chasseurs à cheval_ pushed as far as the bridge of moustier, on which line its skirmishers exchanged a few carabine shots with some prussian dragoons, who did not, however, appear willing to engage further with them. it was by means of this reconnaissance that napoleon ascertained the retreat, through tilly and gentinnes, of the principal prussian column, consisting of zieten's and pirch's corps, although the line by which they retired was undiscovered by grouchy, in whose immediate sphere of operations it was situated. but if such good grounds exist for inferring that, on the th, an earlier and a clearer insight into the enemy's movements might have been obtained by the corps detached in pursuit of the prussians, and that when obtained, it would have rendered the communication with the operations of the main army on the left of the dyle, a matter not only important in the highest degree, but also perfectly practicable; and if a failure in this respect be attributable to the absence of sufficient energy and vigour on the part of grouchy, how much more forcibly does it not expose the extraordinary, the unaccountable, dilatoriness of napoleon himself during the whole of the precious morning of the th! how striking a view it unfolds of what might have been accomplished, had the bivouac at ligny been broken up a few hours earlier! then, wellington's army was still between quatre bras and the narrow defile of genappe, open to an attack in front by ney, simultaneously with one in flank by the force collected at marbais (a part of which might have been detached across the genappe, towards the rear of the anglo-allied army, by villers la ville and bousseval, masked by the wood of berme); and the rearmost corps of the prussian army (thielemann's), which was retreating through gembloux, might have been attacked with effect, by the superior force of all arms under grouchy. as regards grouchy's movements during the early part of the th, it is very remarkable, that although he had in his despatch, written at ten o'clock the previous night, communicated to napoleon his surmises of an intended junction of a portion of blÜcher's forces with those of wellington, and his consequent intention of following the prussians in the direction of wavre, _afin qu'ils ne puissent pas gagner bruxelles, et de les séparer de wellington_, and although he must or ought to have been aware that wavre was only twelve miles distant from napoleon's main line of operations, whereas gembloux was about fifteen miles distant from wavre, he not only delayed his departure from gembloux until between seven and eight o'clock in the morning, but manoeuvred by his right; taking the more circuitous line, through sart à wallain, and rendering his operations still more dilatory by moving both vandamme's and gerard's corps along one and the same road. had he not, from want of sufficient vigilance, continued ignorant of the fact, that the principal prussian column, consisting of the first and second corps, had retired upon wavre, at so short a distance from his left as by the line of tilly, gentinnes, and mont st guibert, there can be very little doubt that he would have marched upon the latter point, which the prussians, aware of its importance, had occupied with a rear guard; but even with the amount of information which he possessed, and with the inference justly impressed upon his mind that a co-operation between blÜcher and wellington was projected, we are at a loss to account for his not having moved upon mont st guibert, and manoeuvred by his left. in his despatch, written at two o'clock in the morning, he mentioned to the emperor his design of marching upon corbaix or wavre; a movement of which napoleon, in his reply, expressed his approval; and if he had directed one of his infantry corps along the line of corbaix and la baraque, and the other by that of mont st guibert and moustier, there can be no doubt that, even late as was the hour at which he started from gembloux, he would, in a great measure, have fulfilled the expectations of his imperial master. in this case, he would naturally have so divided his cavalry, that one portion would have scoured the country along the front and right of the column marching by corbaix and la baraque, and the other portion would have been employed in a similar manner along the front and left of the column moving upon mont st guibert and moustier. both at this point and at ottignies, about eight hundred yards lower down the stream, there is a stone bridge across the dyle. there is a direct road from moustier to st lambert, scarcely five miles distant, and another to the field of waterloo. the cavalry in advance of the left column could not have failed to discover the prussian troops in march to join the left of wellington; for they were then passing slowly, and with extreme difficulty, through the defiles of st lambert and lasne. this discovery would have led to the right column being moved by its left, from la baraque to moustier; the cavalry attached to it masking the movement as long as possible. the left column would then, in all probability, have followed its advanced cavalry to st lambert; and the right corps have either moved upon the same point as a reinforcement, or have diverged upon lasne as a support, upon which the former might have fallen back, if compelled to effect its retreat towards planchenoit. in this manner might grouchy have so far realised the anxious expectation of napoleon as to have fallen upon bÜlow _flagrante delicto_, and have materially procrastinated the co-operation of blÜcher with wellington on the th of june; a co-operation which a contrary proceeding, originating in fatal tardiness of movement, and exhibiting useless manoeuvring in a false direction, could not fail to render easy in execution and successful in result. but beyond such procrastination of the meditated junction of blÜcher's and wellington's forces, grouchy could have effected nothing. the junction itself could not have been prevented. the tendency of grouchy's movements had been too narrowly watched; the country between the dyle and the charleroi road to brussels had been too vigilantly explored; and the movements, in succession, of the different prussian corps had been too nicely calculated and determined; to admit of the possibility of a failure, as regarded the arrival of a considerable portion of the prussian forces on the left of the anglo-allied army. blÜcher had made so admirable a disposition of his four _corps d'armée_, that two of them could at any time have combined, and therefore have presented a superior force to grouchy, at any point between wavre and planchenoit; whilst the remainder of the army might have continued its march to the field of waterloo. had grouchy moved by st guibert and moustier upon st lambert, thielemann's corps would then have been on the march towards couture, according to his original instructions; and finding bÜlow engaged with the enemy, would have joined him. grouchy might then have contrived to hold both these corps at bay, and thus have reduced the co-operating prussian force at waterloo to the two corps under zieten and pirch, besides considerably retarding that co-operation; since without having experienced the effects of any such interruption to the progress of the other corps, as we have here supposed, these two generals did not reach the field of battle until seven o'clock in the evening of the th. such is the extent of the advantage which, under the circumstances, grouchy would have gained by a march from gembloux upon st lambert; a most important one, no doubt, as time for pushing the struggle with wellington, with the whole force at his immediate disposal, before the arrival of the prussians, was of the most vital consequence to napoleon; and this advantage grouchy entirely lost by his march upon wavre--a march which enabled blÜcher to appear with three, out of his four, _corps d'armée_, on the great and decisive field of action; and that in sufficient time to render the victory as complete as could reasonably be desired. no exertions, however, on the part of grouchy, after he broke up from gembloux on the morning of the th, could have effectually frustrated the junction of wellington and blÜcher. two great errors, for which that marshal was not accountable, reduced the contemplated junction from a measure of calculation to one of certainty. the first and principal of these has already been adverted to at some length, and cannot be too closely kept in view--the fatal neglect of a vigorous pursuit of the defeated prussians, on the night of the th and morning of the th, by a detached corps; combined with the extraordinary delay in the attack upon wellington at quatre bras, on the latter day. the second error arose from the want of a strong reconnaissance and vigilant look out on the right of the main french army, on the morning of the th, followed up by the occupation of the defiles of the lasne. * * * * * it was nearly four o'clock when vandamme's corps arrived in front of the position which thielemann was in the act of quitting, with a view to follow and support the remaining three prussian corps that were at that moment on the march towards the field of waterloo; and, with a fire that was opened from the french batteries, commenced the battle of wavre, which will be described in its proper place in a subsequent chapter. chapter ix. it rained incessantly during the night of the th, occasionally in torrents; whilst loud and frequent peals of thunder fell ominously on the ear of the toil-worn soldier, startling him from the fitful slumber, which was all the rest the chill and comfortless bivouac on the field of waterloo could afford him in that tempestuous night. scarcely had the morning dawned when the numerous groups, stretched around the smouldering remains of the bivouac fires, or couched in the hollows, or lying under such slender cover as the few trees and brushwood within range of the positions of their respective regiments afforded, were seen gradually in motion; and as the eye of an observer wandered along the space which lay between the main bodies of the hostile armies--a space varying in no greater width than from one thousand to fifteen hundred yards--the officers in command of the several picquets might be seen, on either side, withdrawing their vedettes and sentries from the very limited and almost conversational distance that had separated them from their opponents during the night, concentrating their detachments, and establishing their main posts more within the immediate range of the respective positions occupied by the grand armies. as the morning advanced, the dense vapoury masses which had so long rolled slowly and heavily over the plain, gradually began, as if relieved by the constant discharge of their contents, to soar into a higher region, where, during the whole day, with little or but imperceptible motion, they hung spread out into a broad expansive vault, through which the rays of the sun were unable fully to penetrate, until just at the moment of its sinking from the scene of strife, when it shed the full blaze of its setting splendour upon the victorious advance of the anglo-allied army. the drying and cleaning of firearms soon became general, and the continuous discharge of muskets, at rapid and irregular intervals, fell upon the ear like the rattle of a brisk and widely extended skirmish. all at once, the scene became more animated and exciting. drums, bugles, and trumpets were heard over the whole field, sounding the "assembly"; and never was the call to arms, in either army, responded to with greater zeal, alacrity, and cheerfulness. while the regimental inspections, tellings off, and preparatory arrangements of detail were proceeding, staff officers were seen galloping in various directions; and, shortly afterwards, the different brigades, which, by their bivouacs had but faintly and irregularly traced the line of battle taken up by each army, were moved and distributed in the precise order prescribed by the illustrious chiefs who had on that day, and for the first and only time, met to measure swords. * * * * * the field of waterloo is intersected by two high roads (_chaussées_) conspicuous by their great width and uniformity, as also by the pavement which runs along the centre of each. these two roads, the eastern one leading from charleroi and genappe, and the western from nivelles, form a junction at the village of mont st jean, whence their continuance, in one main road, is directed upon the capital of belgium. in front of the above junction; and offering, as it were, a natural military position for the defence of this approach to brussels, a gentle elevated ridge of ground is intersected, at right angles, by the charleroi road, about yards north of the farm called la haye sainte, and follows a westerly direction until about midway between the two high roads: whence it takes a south-westerly course, and terminates abruptly at its point of intersection with the nivelles road, about yards north of hougomont, a country seat, with farm, offices, gardens, orchards, and wood. on the east side, the ridge extends itself perpendicularly from the charleroi road until it reaches a point, distant about seven hundred yards, where, elevating itself into a mound or knoll, it overlooks the hamlet of papelotte; and thence, taking a north-easterly course, expands into an open plateau. this ridge constituted the position of the first line of the duke of wellington's army, which line is more distinctly defined by a road, entering on the east side, from wavre, by ohain, and winding along the summit of the ridge until it joins the charleroi high road just above la haye sainte; from which point of junction a cross road proceeds along the remaining portion of the ridge, and thus connects the two high roads with each other. the undulations of the ground in rear of this position were admirably adapted to the disposition of the second line and reserves, presenting a gently inclined reverse slope along nearly the whole extent of the ridge, with fine open and convenient stations for cavalry, perfectly concealed from the enemy's observation. the right of the main position is bounded by a valley, which has its source very considerably in rear of the centre of the french position, by which it is intersected; and thence, sweeping round the southern and western inclosures of hougomont, proceeds in the direction of merbe braine. into this valley a ravine directs its course in rear of, and parallel with, the principal portion of the right wing of the anglo-allied position, at a distance from the latter varying from to yards; and between this ravine, which is intersected by the nivelles road, and merbe braine, rises a sort of plateau, upon which was posted a portion of the second corps, commanded by lieutenant general lord hill, destined to act, as circumstances might require, either in reserve to the first line, or _en potence_ to it in repelling any attack upon that flank of the anglo-allied army. * * * * * upon the extreme left of the first or main line was stationed vivian's light cavalry brigade, comprising the th and th hussars, and the st hussars of the king's german legion. the two former regiments were in line, in rear of the wavre road, and withdrawn a little from the crest of the ridge: the right of the th resting upon a lane, which, leading up from smohain, crossing over the position, and descending along its reverse slope, proceeds in the direction of the village of verd cocou. the st hussars of the king's german legion were also in line, and formed in reserve. the left of the brigade was completely _en l'air_, upon high, open, and flat ground; the main ridge widening considerably in that direction, as previously explained. a picquet, consisting of a squadron of the th hussars (under captain taylor), occupied the village of smohain, down in the valley which, having its source a little to the westward of la haye sainte, takes an easterly and therefore parallel course with that part of the ridge which formed the left wing of the british position. the advanced post of this picquet was on the further side of the village, and its vedettes formed a chain on the rising ground beyond, within half-carbine shot of some french cavalry, standing dismounted in close columns. a party was detached from the picquet as a patrol on the road to ohain. [illustration: battle of waterloo at / past o'clock a.m.] the village of smohain, as also the farms of la haye and papelotte, with adjacent houses and inclosures, were occupied by a portion of the second brigade of perponcher's division of the troops of the netherlands. the regiment of orange nassau, consisting of two battalions, held smohain and la haye: while the farm of papelotte was occupied by the light company of the rd battalion of the nd regiment of nassau, which, together with the nd battalion of this regiment, and four guns of captain byleveld's dutch-belgian battery of horse artillery, were posted upon the exterior slope, immediately under the brow of the main ridge, and a little to the westward of the lane leading directly up the slope from the farm of papelotte. the advanced posts of these troops were at the foot, and their line of sentries extended along the brow, of the opposite slope of the valley; this line receded towards the western limit of the hamlet of papelotte, where it joined the general line of picquets along the bottom of the exterior slope of the position of the anglo-allied left wing. on the right of vivian's brigade, and having its own right resting upon a narrow lane, forming a slight hollow way, lined with hedges, stood vandeleur's brigade of light cavalry, consisting of the th, th, and th british light dragoons, in columns of squadrons, by regiments, left in front. the lane on which its right rested descending the interior slope of the position, joined the other lane which led from vivian's right to verd cocou. * * * * * the extreme left of the infantry of the main line of the position was formed by the fifth hanoverian brigade, under colonel vincke, belonging to picton's division. it was formed in columns of battalions, those of hameln and hildesheim (under majors strube and rheden) in first, and those of peine and gifhorn (under major count ludolph von westphalen, and major hammerstein) in second, line; and was posted somewhat under the crest of the ridge, upon the reverse slope, and in rear of the junction of a lane leading up from papelotte, with the wavre road. on the immediate right of vincke's brigade, and having its own right upon the knoll which presents the highest and most commanding point along the position of the left wing of the anglo-allied army, the fourth hanoverian brigade, under colonel best, was drawn up. it formed part of the sixth division, and was composed of the landwehr battalions of lüneburg, verden, and osterode, which were deployed in front line; and of münden, which was in reserve. a battery of hanoverian foot artillery, under captain rettberg, was attached to this brigade, and, from the peculiarly favourable circumstances of the ground, which formed a sort of natural fieldwork, was most advantageously placed. upon the exterior slope of that portion of the ridge which lies between the before mentioned knoll and the genappe high road, bylandt's brigade of perponcher's division of the troops of the netherlands was deployed in front line. it consisted of the th battalion of dutch light infantry, the th battalion of the belgian line, and of the th, th, and th battalions of dutch militia. of the above, the th battalion of dutch militia was posted in reserve, along with the remaining four guns of captain byleveld's battery of horse artillery attached to this brigade, in rear of the straggling hedge which lines the wavre road, between the knoll and the charleroi high road. upon the interior slope of the ridge, and at a distance of about two hundred yards from the wavre road, was posted the ninth brigade of british infantry, under major general sir denis pack, in a line of battalion columns, at deploying intervals. it consisted of the rd battalion st royal regiment, the st battalion nd royal highlanders, nd battalion th regiment, and of the nd highlanders. the left regiment, the th, was stationed on the knoll, in rear of the right of best's hanoverian brigade; and on the right of the th stood, in succession, the nd, nd, and st royals. upon the right, but more in advance, of pack's brigade, and at a short distance in rear of the hedge along the wavre road, stood the eighth brigade of british infantry, under major general sir james kempt, also in line of battalion columns, at deploying intervals, and comprising the th regiment, the nd regiment, the st battalion th highlanders, and the st battalion th rifles. the right of the nd regiment rested upon a high bank of the charleroi road; on its left stood the th highlanders, and the th formed the left regiment of the brigade. in the immediate front of the right of the brigade, and at a distance from the wavre road of about yards, there was a knoll having on its right a large sand pit, adjoining the charleroi road; and partially facing the small garden in rear of la haye sainte. on the allied side of the knoll was a single hedge, extending about yards from the charleroi road in a direction parallel to the wavre road. in the sand pit were posted two companies of the st battalion th british rifles; the knoll and hedge were occupied by another company of the same regiment. these advanced companies had placed an _abatis_ across the high road, near that part of it which is joined by the hedgerow. the remaining companies lined a portion of the wavre road, commencing from the point of its intersection with the charleroi road. these two brigades, namely, the eighth and ninth british, together with the fifth hanoverian brigade, constituted the fifth division, under lieutenant general sir thomas picton. * * * * * along the continuation of the ridge on the right of the great charleroi road, the third division, commanded by lieutenant general sir charles alten, was disposed in the following order:-- the second brigade of the king's german legion, commanded by colonel ompteda, which formed the left of the division, consisted of the st and nd light battalions (under lieutenant colonel von dem bussche, and major baring), and of the th and th line battalions of the king's german legion (under lieutenant colonels linsingen and schrÖder). the st light battalion was formed in column of companies at quarter distance, left in front. it stood a little in rear of the cross road which unites the great nivelles road with that of charleroi, on which last its left flank rested. to the right of this column stood the th line battalion, formed in column at quarter distance upon one of its centre companies. in rear of these two columns, and fronting the deploying interval between them, stood the th line battalion, in second line, in column of companies, at quarter distance, upon one of its centre companies. [illustration] [illustration: la haye sainte] the nd light battalion, under the command of major baring, occupied the farm of la haye sainte. the buildings of this farm are so disposed as to form three sides of a square, the north side comprising the farm house itself, with a portion of the stabling; the west side the remainder of the stables and cow houses; and the south side principally a large barn: a brick wall, extending along the great road, unites the north and south buildings, and thus forms the fourth boundary of the large quadrangular farm yard. on the south, or french, side of the farm, and down in the valley, which here separates the allied and french positions, lies an orchard, about yards long and wide, having for its eastern boundary, the great road, in direct prolongation of the wall which incloses the farm yard on that side. this orchard is inclosed within a hedgerow; as is also a kitchen garden, on the north side of the farm, excepting the boundary of the latter along the road side, which is a continuation of the eastern wall. a large gate and a doorway, the former almost facing the east end of the barn, and the latter quite close to the east end of the dwelling house, lead from the yard into the great road; another gate, at the south end of the stabling which forms the western side, as also a large door from the west end of the great barn, lead both into a small narrow portion of the orchard, whence there is an outlet into the open fields on the right. from the front door of the dwelling house, which faces the farm yard, there is a passage to the back or north side of the house, whence a door opens into the kitchen garden. since daybreak, the little garrison, amounting to scarcely men, had been busily engaged in strengthening their post to the fullest extent of the means within their reach, which, however, were extremely limited. among the difficulties which they had to overcome, it may be remarked that, on the preceding evening, immediately after taking possession of the farm, the soldiers had broken up the great barn door, on the west side, for firewood; and that, about the same period, the carpenters of the regiment were detached to hougomont, in compliance with an order received to that effect. unfortunately, also, the mule laden with the regimental trenching tools had been lost the day before, so that not even a hatchet was forthcoming. loop holes were pierced through the walls; and a barricade was thrown across the high road, in prolongation of the south wall. the battalion was composed of six companies, of which major baring posted three in the orchard, two in the buildings, and one in the garden. on the right of ompteda's brigade stood the first hanoverian brigade, under major general count kielmansegge, consisting of the field battalions of bremen, verden, duke of york, grubenhagen, and lüneburg. the last mentioned battalion was formed in column, at quarter distance, upon one of its centre companies; the head of the column in line with, and at a deploying interval from, that of the right column of ompteda's brigade. next, on the right, at the proper interval for deployment, stood the two battalions verden and bremen, in contiguous columns of companies, at quarter distance; the former right in front, the latter left in front. the two battalions york and grubenhagen were formed in second line, in rear of the centre of the interval between the battalions lüneburg and verden, in contiguous columns of companies, at quarter distance, york right, and grubenhagen left, in front. on the right of kielmansegge's hanoverian brigade, was posted the fifth british brigade, commanded by major general sir colin halkett, and comprising the nd battalion th, the st battalion rd, nd battalion th, and nd battalion rd, british regiments. its position was more forward than that of the other portion of alten's division, with which its front was in an oblique direction, its right shoulders having been brought forward so as to preserve the parallelism between the general line and the crest of the main ridge. the nd battalions rd and th regiments formed contiguous columns of companies, at quarter distance, the former right, the latter left, in front; and at a deploying interval for two battalions from the head of the column formed by the bremen battalion. the other two battalions of this brigade, the st battalion rd and nd battalion th regiments, were formed in contiguous columns of companies, at quarter distance, in second line, and in right rear of the rd and th regiments; the rd right, and the th left, in front. in rear of the centre of the interval between the right of kielmansegge's, and the left of halkett's brigade, was posted, in second line, the st battalion of the st regiment of nassau, forming part of the nassau brigade, commanded by major general kruse. the battalion was in column on a central company. the remainder of this brigade, consisting of the nd and rd battalions of the same regiment, was formed in contiguous columns, in a third line, as a reserve. * * * * * on the right of halkett's brigade, the first british division, commanded by major general cooke, was posted. it consisted of the first and second brigades of guards, and was disposed in the following manner:-- the first brigade commanded by major general maitland, and comprising the nd and rd battalions of the st regiment of foot guards, formed the left brigade of the division. the rd battalion stood in columns of companies, at quarter distance, on the crest of the ridge; and between it and the head of the right column of halkett's brigade, there was a deploying interval for one battalion. the nd battalion was placed in right rear of the rd, also in column of companies, at quarter distance: it was on the reverse slope, and immediately under the crest of the ridge. [illustration: hougomont] the second brigade, comprising the nd battalion of the nd or coldstream regiment, and the nd battalion of the rd regiment of foot guards, and commanded by major general sir john byng, was posted on the crest of the ridge, between the first brigade and the nivelles road. the nd battalion rd foot guards was on the left, the nd battalion of the coldstream guards on the right, and more in advance on the brow of the hill; and the disposition was such, that the four battalions of the division were placed _en échiquier_. the buildings of hougomont, its gardens and orchards, were completely overlooked from the commanding ground occupied by the second brigade, which formed the reserve to the troops therein posted, consisting (including those in the wood) of the four light companies of the division, the st battalion of the nd regiment of nassau, a company of hanoverian field riflemen, and a detachment of a hundred men from the field battalion lüneburg of kielmansegge's brigade. the principal dwelling house or château of hougomont was a substantial brick building, of a square form. adjoining its north-east angle was the farmer's house, the east end of which abutted on the great garden; and in the angle between this house and the château was a narrow tower, of the same height as the latter, to which its interior served as a staircase. at the south-east corner of, and communicating with, the château stood a very neat little chapel. on the north, or british, side of the château, was a spacious farm yard, bounded on the west by a large barn and a shed, and on the east by cow houses and stabling adjoining the garden. there was a continuation of the stabling along the north side, and a gateway; and near the centre of the yard there was a drawwell of which the superstructure formed a dovecot. on the south, or french, side of the château, and inclosing the latter, was the court yard; of which a barn on the west, the gardener's house, some stables and other offices on the south, and the garden wall on the east, formed the boundaries. there was a communication between the court and the farm yard, by means of a doorway in the small portion of wall connecting the château with the great barn; and through the whole length of the latter building there was also a carriage way leading from the one court into the other. a gateway, passing through a portion of the gardener's house, led out from the court yard to the south, or french, side; and from this gate a narrow road conducted across the open space between the buildings and the wood, through which it took its course in the same direction until it gained the fields beyond the inclosures. there was also a pathway from this road, commencing at the corner of the little garden, and traversing the wood in the direction of the south-east angle of the general boundary of the inclosures, whence it continued towards la belle alliance. the approach to hougomont from the nivelles road was lined, nearly as far as the château, by fine tall elms: it conducted to the gate of the farm yard facing the british line; and, sweeping along the west side, it led also to the south gate of the court yard. on the east side of the buildings was a large garden, laid out with all the formality which characterises the flemish style. it was inclosed on the south and east sides by a high brick wall, and on the north side, facing the british line, by a hedge. adjoining the east side of the garden, but considerably wider and longer than the latter, was the large orchard, and along the north side was the smaller orchard--the latter bounded by a hedge and hollow way, and the former inclosed within high and compact hedges, partially lined by a ditch on the inner side. a prolongation of the southern hedge of the great orchard formed the boundary of the wood facing the south garden wall, and in the narrow space between these two boundaries was a row of apple trees, which, together with the hedge, served to conceal, in a great measure, the garden wall from the view of an enemy, approaching through the wood. there was a small garden in front of the gardener's house, formed by the continuation of the south garden wall until it met another wall issuing perpendicularly from the south gateway leading out of the court yard. there were two inclosures on the west side, of which one served as a kitchen garden. the wood extended in length, southwards, about yards, and its greatest width was about yards. it was bounded on the west by another orchard; and on the east by two large inclosures, of which the one nearest the great orchard was a grass field fenced with hedges, and lined by a ditch on the inner side. although the site of the buildings of hougomont was but slightly elevated above the valley, which, as already remarked, winds along the south and west inclosures, there was a gradual but uninterrupted ascent of the ground from thence as far as the eastern portion of the fence which divides the two inclosures, beyond the great orchard; where it attained a height not much inferior to that of either the french or allied front lines, between which it was centrically situated. on the south, or french, side of that hedge, the ground inclined at first gently, and then rapidly, into the valley; but on the west, throughout the extent of the wood, and on the north of the allied side, across the great orchard, the descent was everywhere very gradual. such was hougomont--a decidedly important point in the field of battle, from its prominent position in the immediate front of the right of the british line; and rendered ever memorable by the truly heroic and successful stand maintained throughout the day by the troops allotted for its defence. * * * * * from the first moment of the occupation of this post, measures were concerted and adopted for strengthening the means of defence which it presented. during the night, the garden walls were pierced with numerous loopholes; and, in order to enable the men to fire down from the tops of the walls upon their assailants, platforms constructed out of such materials as the place afforded were raised wherever the depth of the wall on the inner side rendered such a measure desirable. in many places, however, and especially on the eastern side, the ground formed embankments against the wall, sufficiently elevated to obviate the necessity of any additional aid for such purpose. the outer gates were closed up, with the exception of the one from the farm yard, which faced the anglo-allied position, and which was left open in order to facilitate the communication with the latter. the different flanking fires which were offered by the relative situations of the garden walls, and the fences of the orchards, woods, and other inclosures, imparted to the post a strength, of which, in the course of the action, due advantage was taken. in short, every precaution was adopted which the means at hand suggested for contributing to the security of the place; and the preparations that were in progress indicated, on the part of the troops stationed in this quarter, an intention to give the enemy a warm reception, and a resolution to maintain a vigorous defence. when, on the previous evening, the light companies of the division were thrown into hougomont, it was so arranged that those of the second brigade, under the command of lieutenant colonel macdonell, should occupy the buildings and the gardens: and that those of the first brigade, under lieutenant colonel lord saltoun, should hold the great orchard and the wood; in which latter the hanoverians and nassauers were principally stationed. * * * * * the abrupt termination of the ridge along which the allied front line was posted, at its point of junction with the nivelles road, was in the direct rear of the buildings of hougomont. on the other side of the road, this termination presented a sudden and bold, though short, slope down into the long valley which, after sweeping by hougomont, proceeds in the direction of merbe braine. a portion of the slope, including the summit, was covered with brushwood, and its base was bounded by a horse path, partially lined with a stunted hedge; forming, altogether, excellent cover for light infantry. on the other side of the valley, the ground ascends, at first abruptly, and then gradually, to the summit of that portion of the main ridge upon which the left of the french army rested; and from the point of junction of the avenue conducting to hougomont with the great nivelles road, a narrow road leads directly up the opposite slope, and stretches across the ridge or plateau in the direction of braine l'alleud. [illustration] along a portion of this road, principally consisting of a hollow way, were posted in advance, some light troops of the anglo-allied army. they formed a part of the fourth brigade of the fourth division (under colonel mitchell), attached to the second corps, commanded by lieutenant general lord hill. the brigade consisted of the rd battalion of the th british regiment (under lieutenant colonel tidy), of the rd fusiliers (under colonel sir henry ellis), and of the st british light infantry (under lieutenant colonel rice), which troops were disposed in the following manner. along that portion of the hougomont avenue which is nearest to the nivelles road was extended the light company of the rd regiment. on its right was an _abatis_, which had been thrown across the great road; and close upon the right of this artificial obstacle, a company of the st regiment was posted. four more companies of this regiment, and the light company of the th, were extended along the hollow way alluded to as stretching across the ridge, on the extreme left of the french position. the remainder of the st stood in column of support, about two hundred yards in rear of the hollow way. the rd regiment was stationed on the left of the nivelles road, on the reverse slope, and immediately under the crest of the main ridge, in rear of the second brigade of guards. the th regiment was posted in column on the southern descent from the plateau, on which was assembled the second british division; and from the view which it possessed of the ground occupied by the st, it was well placed as a reserve to the light infantry. in a ravine, descending from the immediate right of the skirmishers of the brigade down into the valley, was posted a squadron of the th british hussars (under captain wodehouse), from which a picquet was detached to the right of the _abatis_, as also an intermediate one for keeping up the communication; and some vedettes were thrown out to the right, having in their front a continuation of the ravine, possessing a more marked and distinct character. * * * * * the troops posted upon the plateau already described as situated on the west of the nivelles road and in front of the village of merbe braine, and which, together with colonel mitchell's brigade, constituted the extreme right of the anglo-allied army, under the command of lord hill, were available either as a reserve to the main line of battle, or as a defence against any hostile attempt upon the right flank. they consisted of the main body of the second infantry division, commanded by lieutenant general sir henry clinton. this was composed of the third british light brigade, under major general sir frederick adam; of the first brigade of the king's german legion, under colonel du plat; and of the third hanoverian brigade, under colonel halkett. adam's brigade, consisting of the nd regiment (under colonel sir john colborne), of the st regiment (under colonel reynell), of the nd battalion of the th regiment (under lieutenant colonel norcott), and two companies of the rd battalion of the latter corps (under lieutenant colonel ross), was, previous to the commencement of the battle, posted between the village of merbe braine and the nivelles road, near where the latter is intersected by the cross road leading to braine l'alleud: but as soon as the first attack was made upon hougomont (with which the battle opened), it was advanced beyond this cross road, and stood, in battalion columns of companies, at quarter distance, on the plateau; whence it overlooked the nivelles road, and had a full view of that portion of the main front line to which the troops of clinton's division formed a reserve. du plat's brigade of the king's german legion, consisting of the st line battalion (under major robertson), of the nd (under major mÜller), of the rd (under lieutenant colonel wissell), and of the th (under major reh), stood in open column, near the foot of the slope descending towards the nivelles road. halkett's brigade, consisting of the landwehr battalions bremervörde (under lieutenant colonel von der schulenburg), salzgitter (under major hammerstein), osnabrück (under major count mÜnster), and quackenbrück (under major von dem bussche hÜnefeld), was posted in contiguous close columns of battalions, on the north side of the plateau, near the village of merbe braine. * * * * * the second general line of the anglo-allied army consisted entirely of cavalry, british and german. posted partly on the reverse slope of the main ridge, and partly in the hollows in rear, it was entirely screened from the enemy's observation. the brigades were formed, for the most part, by regiments, in close columns of squadrons, at deploying intervals. commencing from the right, near to the nivelles road, stood the fifth brigade, under major general sir colquhoun grant, consisting of the th and th hussars, and of the th light dragoons (under colonel doherty.) on the left of grant's brigade was posted the third brigade under major general sir william dÖrnberg, consisting of the rd light dragoons, and of the st and nd light dragoons of the king's german legion. the cumberland hanoverian hussars (under lieutenant colonel hake) were attached to, and formed in rear of, this brigade. they properly belonged to colonel estorff's hanoverian cavalry brigade: as did also the prince regent's hussars (under lieutenant colonel ferdinand count kielmansegge), and the bremen and verden hussars (under colonel august von dem bussche); which regiments were detached with the force at hal. still more to the left, and in rear of the right of alten's division, stood the rd hussars of the king's german legion, under colonel sir frederick von arentsschildt. immediately on the right of the charleroi road, and in rear of alten's division, the first or household brigade, under major general lord edward somerset, was drawn up. it comprised the st and nd life guards, the royal horse guards (blue), and the st dragoon guards. on the left of the charleroi road, and in rear of picton's division, stood the second brigade, under major general sir william ponsonby; consisting of the st dragoons (royals), the nd dragoons (scots greys), and the th dragoons (inniskillings). the fourth and sixth brigades, under major generals sir john vandeleur and sir hussey vivian, were posted upon the extreme left of the main line of the position, as previously explained. * * * * * the reserves consisted of the dutch-belgian cavalry division, under lieutenant general baron collaert; of the brunswick corps, comprising both cavalry and infantry, the command of which, since the fall of the duke, had devolved upon colonel olfermann; and of the tenth british brigade, under major general sir john lambert. the latter formed part of the sixth division, commanded by lieutenant general the hon. sir lowry cole; and had only just reached the field, after having performed forced marches from ghent. collaert's division was stationed in rear of the centre, and within the angle formed by the junction of the high roads leading from charleroi and nivelles. it comprised the first brigade, commanded by major general trip, and consisting of the st dutch carabiniers, the nd belgian carabiniers, and the rd dutch carabiniers; the second brigade, commanded by major general ghigny, and consisting of the th dutch dragoons, and the th belgian hussars; and the third brigade, commanded by major general van merlen, and consisting of the th belgian light dragoons, and the th dutch hussars. the brunswick corps was posted between the northern portion of the village of merbe braine and the nivelles road, on which its left rested; and comprised the following troops:--a regiment of hussars, a squadron of lancers, the advanced guard battalion (which was at this time detached to the right of merbe braine); a light infantry brigade, under lieutenant colonel buttlar, consisting of the guard battalion, and the st, nd, and rd light battalions; and an infantry brigade, under lieutenant colonel specht, consisting of the st, nd, and rd line battalions. lambert's brigade was posted near the farm of mont st jean; and consisted of the th regiment (under lieutenant colonel brooke), of the th regiment (under major hare), and of the th regiment (under major heyland). in order to afford greater security to the right flank of the anglo-allied army, and also to keep open the communication with the detached forces near hal, and at tubize, namely, the corps of prince frederick of orange, and the sixth british and sixth hanoverian brigades, under lieutenant general sir charles colville; it was deemed essential to occupy the small town of braine l'alleud, about three quarters of a mile westward of merbe braine: and whence a road leads to tubize, which is distant between eight and nine miles. with this view, the third division of the netherlands, commanded by lieutenant general baron chassÉ, was placed under the orders of general lord hill; a part of whose corps, as previously explained, formed the extreme right of the anglo-allied position. the first brigade, under colonel ditmers, occupied the town itself. it consisted of the th battalion of belgian light infantry, the nd battalion of the dutch line, and of the th, th, th, and th battalions of dutch militia. the th battalion, detached a little to the left, kept up the communication with clinton's british division. the second brigade, under major general d'aubremÉ, occupied a good position about half a mile in advance of braine l'alleud, upon a height on which stood the farm of vieux foriez. * * * * * it was at a very early hour of the th, that lieutenant colonel torrens, deputy quartermaster general, reached braine le comte, and delivered to sir charles colville the order (see page ), for his falling back upon hal. that general immediately put in motion his two brigades. these consisted of the sixth british brigade, under major general johnstone, and the sixth hanoverian brigade, under major general sir james lyon, accompanied by major brome's british foot battery. the remaining brigade (the fourth british, under colonel mitchell), as also the other foot battery, belonging to the fourth division (captain rettberg's hanoverian), were on the field of waterloo. on reaching tubize, colville fell in with the advance of prince frederick's corps: and as that was the point of junction with the road leading by braine le château and braine l'alleud to the position in front of waterloo; he halted there, and despatched lieutenant colonel woodford, assistant quartermaster general to the division, to report his proceedings to the duke. his grace expressed himself perfectly satisfied; and desired lieutenant colonel woodford to remain upon the field of waterloo, in order that he might be prepared to return to sir charles colville with any instructions which circumstances might induce the duke to transmit to him. * * * * * the artillery of the anglo-allied army, commanded by colonel sir george wood, was distributed in the following manner:-- on the extreme left was a british horse battery[ ] of six guns, under lieutenant colonel sir robert gardiner, with vivian's hussar brigade. upon the exterior slope of the main ridge, and above the hamlet of papelotte, were four guns of captain byleveld's dutch-belgian horse battery, attached to perponcher's division. the remaining four guns of this battery were on the crest of the main ridge, in rear of that division. on the highest point of the position of the left wing, and in front of the right of best's hanoverian brigade, was posted captain rettberg's hanoverian foot battery of six guns. in front of kempt's brigade stood major rogers's british foot battery of six guns. major lloyd's british, and captain cleeves's king's german, foot batteries, of six guns each, were with alten's division. major kuhlmann's king's german horse battery, and captain sandham's british foot battery, of six guns each, were attached to cooke's division. all the above batteries were posted in front line; as was also lieutenant colonel sir hew ross's british horse battery (from the reserve), of six guns, which was posted on the height immediately in rear of la haye sainte, and near the intersection of the wavre road with the charleroi high road, in which latter two of its guns were stationed. major sympher's king's german horse battery, and captain bolton's british foot battery, of six guns each, were attached to clinton's division. the remaining horse batteries were with the cavalry. they were (exclusive of lieutenant colonel sir robert gardiner's already mentioned) major bull's of six howitzers; lieutenant colonel webber smith's of six guns; major whinyates's of six guns, and provided with rockets; captain mercer's of six guns; and major ramsay's of six guns. captain petter's dutch-belgian horse battery of eight guns, was attached to collaert's cavalry division. the dutch-belgian horse battery under captain van der smissen, and foot battery under captain lux, of eight guns each, were with chassÉ's division at braine l'alleud. the brunswick horse battery, under captain heinemann; and foot battery, under major moll, of eight guns each, were with the brunswick corps. the british horse battery under major beane, and foot battery under captain sinclair (belonging to the sixth division), as also the hanoverian foot battery under captain braun, all three having six guns each, were in reserve near mont st jean. the whole of the batteries were engaged in the front line, more or less, during the course of the battle. * * * * * this disposition of wellington's forces, so completely in accordance with the general features of the ground which he had selected with consummate judgment as the field on which he was prepared to give battle to his imperial rival in the great art of war, was admirably calculated for either offensive or defensive measures. the opposite line of heights, which the enemy would naturally crown with the main line of his forces, was fully within the effectual range of cannon shot; and no hostile movement could be made against any part of the position, that would remain undiscovered within the range of musketry. the formation of the ground in rear of the ridge, along the brow of which his front line was posted, was such as effectually to screen from the enemy's observation any movements of the supports and reserves, preparatory to either a contemplated attack, or to the assembling of the necessary means of resistance at any threatened point. in rear of the main front line the ground was practicable for the movements of all arms, the country was perfectly open, and the two high roads added still further to the facility of communication between the front and rear. the occupation of the posts of hougomont and la haye sainte presented important advantages in aid alike of offensive and defensive operations. the right flank was rendered secure, not only by the position of clinton's division, commanding the valley skirting the village of merbe braine, but also by the occupation of the town of braine l'alleud, whence chassÉ's division could co-operate so as to render any attempt of the enemy to turn that flank a most hazardous experiment. although the left of the main front line rested upon an open plain or elevated plateau, and was therefore completely _en l'air_: yet the village of smohain, the farms of la haye and papelotte, together with the scattered houses and numerous enclosures on the abrupt slope descending into the valley in front, by being well garnished with infantry, offered the means of protracted resistance; while cavalry was at hand, on the high ground, to cover the latter if forced to retire, and to frustrate the complete development of the enemy's disposition of attack. the latter description of force was also available in maintaining a vigilant look out for any direct flank attack; which, however, was the less to be apprehended in consequence of the preconcerted prussian co-operation in that quarter. * * * * * the position also afforded ample security for a retreat. the two broad high roads uniting at a point in rear of the centre, greatly facilitated the retirement of unbroken masses upon mont st jean; while the village itself, and the numerous buildings and inclosures which lined the great road as far as the forest of soignies, presented the ready means of securing the further retreat of those masses, which, it may be assumed, would have constituted a main central column. on the right, the villages of merbe braine, le mesnil, and l'estraye, connected with braine l'alleud and with one another, as also with the forest, by several cross roads, and intersected by numerous inclosures, were well calculated for the retirement of the extreme right of the army, by the advantages which they afforded for covering such retreat with light troops. on the left, the ground was more open, but the distance between the position and the forest was infinitely less, the latter stretching southward to the village of verd cocou; and the troops retiring in this direction, being much closer to the high road, would have their right in a great measure protected by the well defended retreat of the central column. the forest itself, consisting almost entirely of tall trees, unaccompanied by underwood, was passable for all arms; it was intersected by numerous roads and lanes in every direction; and its southern extremity, adjoining the high road, was thickly skirted with houses and gardens, adding considerably to its capabilities for a vigorous stand against the further advance of an enemy. the retrograde march of the detached forces from tubize and hal upon brussels, and their junction with the remainder of the anglo-allied army in the position of uccle, between that capital and the forest of soignies, will readily present itself to the minds of military men studying the dispositions and movements to which a retreat would have probably given rise; but this is a subject which, embracing as it naturally would, the consequent operations of the prussians, opens a wide field for discussion, into which it is unnecessary to enter. * * * * * the general direction of the front line of the french army was nearly parallel with that of the anglo-allies. the high road from charleroi to brussels, which intersected the allied position near its centre, also passed through the centre of the french line. the point of this intersection was la belle alliance, a small farm house and inn; and the distance from the one position to the other, taken along the high road between these two points, was yards. about two hundred yards in the french rear of this house is a summit, the altitude of which exceeds, by about thirteen feet, that of any point along the anglo-allied position. a ridge issuing from it, and extending in a north easterly direction towards frischermont, formed the position of the right wing of the front line of the french army. on the west side, a road leading from the summit, descends rather rapidly as a hollow way down into and across the long valley that takes its course towards hougomont, then ascends until it reaches another ridge, along which it winds round that post, at a distance varying from to about yards, until it joins the nivelles _chaussée_; and that winding road indicates pretty nearly the ground occupied by the left wing of the french front line. * * * * * the right wing of this line consisted of the first _corps d'armée_, commanded by lieutenant general count d'erlon, comprising four divisions of infantry, and one of light cavalry. its left division, which was the second, commanded by lieutenant general baron donzelot, rested its left upon la belle alliance. the first brigade of this division, under general baron schmith, consisted of the th regiment of light infantry and the th regiment of the line; the former comprising three, and the latter, two, battalions. the second brigade, under general aulard, consisted of the th and st regiments of the line, each comprising two battalions. these brigades were deployed in two lines, the second at a distance of sixty yards in rear of the first. on the right of the second division was the first, commanded by lieutenant general alix. its first brigade, under general baron quiot, consisted of the th and th regiments of the line, each comprising two battalions. its second brigade under general baron bourgeois, consisted of the th and th regiments of the line, each comprising two battalions. the brigades were deployed in two lines, the second at a distance of sixty yards in rear of the first. on the right of the first division stood the third, commanded by lieutenant general baron marcognet. its first brigade, under general noguÈs, consisted of the st and th regiments of the line; and its second brigade, under general grenier, of the th and th regiments of the line; all four regiments comprising two battalions each. these two brigades were, in like manner, deployed in two lines, the second at a distance of sixty yards in rear of the first. on the right of the third division, nearest to the extremity of the ridge, and immediately opposite the farms of papelotte and la haye, was posted the fourth division, commanded by lieutenant general count durutte. its first brigade, under general chevalier pegot, consisted of the th and th regiments of the line; and its second brigade, under general brue, of the th and th regiments of the line; all four regiments comprising two battalions each. these two brigades were also deployed in two lines, the second at a distance of sixty yards in rear of the first. the cavalry attached to this corps, which was the first division, commanded by lieutenant general baron jaquinot, was posted in a valley on the right of the infantry: having in its front the village of smohain, which it held in observation, as also the château of frischermont, on the right of the valley; at the same time throwing out patrols in the direction of ohain. it was deployed in three lines. its first brigade, under general bruno, consisting of the rd and th _chasseurs_; and its second brigade, under general gobrecht, of the rd and th lancers. the artillery attached to the infantry corps, consisting of five batteries of eight guns each (including a reserve battery of eight twelve pounders), was ranged along the front of the different divisions respectively; and the battery of horse artillery--six guns--attached to the first division of cavalry, was posted on the right of the latter. * * * * * the left wing of the front line of the french army was formed by the second corps, commanded by lieutenant general count reille, comprising three divisions of infantry and one of light cavalry. its right division, which was the fifth, commanded by lieutenant general baron bachelu, rested its right upon la belle alliance, and was ranged along the descent from thence down into the valley, which, more westward, winds past hougomont. the first brigade of this division, under general husson, consisted of the nd regiment of light infantry and the st regiment of the line, the former comprising two, and the latter, three, battalions; and the second brigade, under general baron campy, of the nd and th regiments of the line, the former comprising two, and the latter, three, battalions. the brigades were deployed in two lines, the second at a distance of sixty yards in rear of the first. on the left of the fifth division, and upon the height facing the southern boundary of hougomont, stood the ninth division, commanded by lieutenant general count foy. its first brigade, under general baron gauthier, consisted of the nd and rd regiments of the line, comprising two battalions each. its second brigade, under general baron jamin, consisted of the th regiment of light infantry, and of the th regiment of the line, each comprising three battalions. these two brigades were, in like manner, deployed in two lines, the second at a distance of sixty yards in rear of the first. on the left of the ninth division, and along the ridge of the western boundary of hougomont, stood the sixth division, commanded by prince jerome napoleon. its first brigade, under general baron bauduin, consisted of the st regiment of light infantry and of the rd regiment of the line, the former comprising three, and the latter two, battalions. its second brigade, under general baron soye, consisted of the st and nd regiments of the line, comprising three battalions each. these two brigades were also deployed in two lines, the second at a distance of sixty yards in rear of the first. on the left of the infantry, was posted the light cavalry attached to the corps, namely, the second cavalry division, commanded by lieutenant general baron pirÉ. its first brigade, under general baron hubera, consisted of the st and th _chasseurs_; and its second brigade, under general mathieu, of the th and th lancers. it stood across the nivelles high road, in three deployed lines, rather under the crest of the ridge, on its reverse slope; and threw out picquets in the direction of braine l'alleud, as also more to its left, thus keeping up a vigilant look out around this flank of the army. * * * * * the second general line of the french army was formed in the following manner:-- in the centre, close along the west side of the charleroi high road, stood the sixth corps, commanded by lieutenant general count lobau. only two of its divisions, the nineteenth and twentieth, were present; the twenty first was with the army under marshal grouchy. each of the two divisions formed a close column of battalions by grand divisions; the head of the column of the nineteenth division being distant about a hundred yards in rear of the right of the second corps, and an interval of about two hundred yards was preserved between the rear of the nineteenth division and the head of the column of the twentieth division. the former was commanded by lieutenant general baron simmer; and its first brigade, under general baron de bellair, consisted of the th and th regiments of the line, the former comprising two, the latter, three, battalions. its second brigade, under general simmer, consisted of the th and th regiments of the line, comprising two battalions each. the twentieth division was commanded by lieutenant general baron jeannin: its first brigade, under general bony, consisted of the th regiment of light infantry, and of the th regiment of the line; and its second brigade, under general tromelin, of the th regiment of the line; all three regiments comprising two battalions each. there were three batteries of foot artillery, of eight guns each, attached to the divisions, including one of reserve; as also a horse battery of six guns. they were posted on the left flank of the corps. on the right of these two divisions of the sixth corps, and separated from them by the high road only, were stationed the third light cavalry division, commanded by lieutenant general baron domon, and the fifth light cavalry division, commanded by lieutenant general baron subervie (belonging to the first cavalry corps, commanded by general count pajol). they were formed in close column of regiments by squadrons. the first brigade of the former, under general baron dommanget, consisted of the th and th _chasseurs_; and the second brigade, under general baron vinot, of the th _chasseurs_. the first brigade of the fifth division, under general count colbert, consisted of the st and nd lancers; and the second brigade, under general merlin, of the th _chasseurs_. the two batteries of horse artillery attached to these two divisions, comprising six guns each, were posted on the right flank of the column. the right wing of the second french general line was composed of the fourth cavalry corps, commanded by lieutenant general count milhaud, which was posted on a parallel ridge, in rear of the two central divisions of the first infantry corps, and distant from them about two hundred yards. it was deployed in two lines, the second at a distance of sixty yards in rear of the first. the corps consisted of two heavy cavalry divisions--the thirteenth, commanded by lieutenant general wathier st alphonse, and the fourteenth, under lieutenant general baron delort. the first brigade of the thirteenth division, under general dubois, consisted of the st and th _cuirassiers_; the second, under general baron travers, of the th and th _cuirassiers_. the first brigade of the fourteenth division, under general baron farine, consisted of the th and th _cuirassiers_; and the second, under general baron vial, of the th and th _cuirassiers_. the two batteries of horse artillery attached to this corps, comprising six guns each, were stationed, one in the centre, and the other on the left flank. the left wing of the french second general line, composed of the third cavalry corps, commanded by lieutenant general kellermann (count de valmy), was posted about two hundred yards in rear of the centre of the second infantry corps. it was deployed in two lines, the second at a distance of sixty yards in rear of the first. the corps consisted of two heavy cavalry divisions: the eleventh, commanded by lieutenant general baron l'heritier; and the twelfth, under lieutenant general roussel d'hurbal. the first brigade of the eleventh division, under general baron picquet, consisted of the nd and th dragoons; and the second, under general gniton, of the th and th _cuirassiers_. the first brigade of the twelfth division, under general baron blancard, consisted of the st and nd carabiniers; and the second, of the nd and rd _cuirassiers_. the two batteries of horse artillery attached to this corps, comprising six guns each, were posted one upon each flank. * * * * * the third general line, forming the grand reserve of the whole line of battle, and comprising the entire force of the imperial guards, cavalry and infantry, under the command of lieutenant general count drouot, was thus formed. the infantry of the imperial guard constituted the centre of the reserve. it consisted of four regiments of grenadiers, four regiments of _chasseurs_, two regiments of _tirailleurs_, and two regiments of _voltigeurs_; each regiment divided into two battalions. the st and nd regiments of grenadiers, and the st and nd of _chasseurs_, formed the old guard, under lieutenant general count friant; the rd and th regiments of grenadiers, and the rd and th of _chasseurs_ formed the _moyenne_, or middle, guard, under lieutenant general count morand; the four regiments of _tirailleurs_ and _voltigeurs_ constituted the young guard under lieutenant general count duhesme. this force was posted somewhat in advance of the farm of rossomme, in six lines of four battalions each, at a distance of twenty yards from one another, and so disposed that the charleroi high road alone separated the two right, from the two left, battalions of each line. to each description of the infantry of the imperial guard; the old, the middle, and the young, guard, two batteries, of eight guns each, were attached. these were stationed on either flank; and the reserve artillery of the guard, consisting of twenty four guns, was posted in rear of these lines. the right wing of the third line, or reserve, consisted of the light cavalry of the imperial guard, commanded by lieutenant general lefÈbvre desnouettes, namely, the _chasseurs_ and lancers of the guard. it was posted at a distance of about two hundred yards in rear of the fourth cavalry corps and deployed in two lines, the second at a distance of sixty yards in rear of the first. the two batteries of horse artillery belonging to the corps, comprising six guns each, were posted in its centre. the left wing of the third line, or reserve, consisted of the heavy cavalry of the imperial guard, commanded by lieutenant general count guyot, namely, the grenadiers and dragoons of the guard. it was stationed in rear of the third cavalry corps, and deployed in two lines, the second at a distance of sixty yards in rear of the first. its two batteries of horse artillery, comprising six guns each, were posted in the centre. this admirable order of battle, at once grand, simple, and imposing, and presenting to its skilful designer the most ample means of sustaining, by an immediate and efficient support, any attack, from whatever point he might wish to direct it, and of possessing everywhere a respectable force at hand to oppose any attack upon himself, from whatever quarter it might be made, was no less remarkable for the regularity and precision with which the several masses, constituting thirteen distinct columns, advanced to their destined stations, than for the unusual degree of warlike pomp and high martial bearing with which the lines drew up in this mighty battle array. the movements throughout were executed under the cheering and spirit stirring sounds of bugles, drums, and trumpets, sending forth the long cherished national military airs of the republic and of the empire. the weather had cleared up a little, and to the anglo-allied army, the crowning of the opposite heights by the french lines, with all its accompanying circumstances, presented a magnificent spectacle. * * * * * napoleon has frequently been blamed for having thus consumed some very precious time in a mere ostentatious display of his forces. public opinion, however, should not suffer itself to be too easily influenced by the apparent justness of such censure, and it would be ungenerous to the established renown of the french leader not to attach due weight to the following circumstances. in the account of the battle attributed to the emperor's own dictation, one cause of delay in commencing offensive operations is represented to have been the soft and miry state of the ground after the excessive rain which had fallen during the night; in consequence of which it was found impossible to manoeuvre the artillery and the cavalry, and it was considered advisable to wait until the ground had, in some degree, resumed its natural consistency. when, therefore, the manoeuvring of these two arms was pronounced to be practicable, though attended with some difficulty, which, however, it was added, would gradually disappear; the employment of the interval in an orderly and a deliberate formation of a well-defined order of battle, was a measure scarcely questionable _at the moment_, however much the _subsequent_ course of events may have proved that it militated against the chances of success on the part of the french. the additional impulse which this imposing spectacle was calculated to impart to the moral force of his troops, is also well worthy of consideration. his soldiers, as they contemplated the extended double front line of infantry, disposed as if about to enfold the enemy in a deadly embrace, and the fluttering of gay lance flags on either extremity, indicating that its flanks were duly protected; as they glanced at the second general line, a double one of cavalry, superbly mounted, and proudly mailed in glittering helmet and cuirass; and, as they scanned the well disposed reserves and serried centre; their reliance on their own strength and in the resources of their leader was unbounded, their anticipations of success were heightened, and their eager longing for the contest was greatly augmented. and while adverting to the grand spectacle in a moral point of view, it would be well to consider whether it may not have also been designed to exert a powerful influence on that portion of the anglo-allied forces with which the emperor was tampering, in the full expectation of seeing them again range themselves under his victorious eagles: but which wellington, with judicious foresight and prompt address, broke up as a united body, and distributed among his british troops; thus securing himself against the possible enactment of a scene similar to that which so powerfully contributed to napoleon's disaster on the plains of leipzig. but supposing it to be admitted upon these grounds that the delay of the attack, having once been determined, was judiciously and advantageously employed, we ought also to consider whether the delay itself may not have been superinduced by motives of far higher import. although the miry state of the ground has been put forward as the ostensible cause, can we for a moment imagine that napoleon was the man to have allowed himself to be deterred by such an obstacle from commencing the attack at an earlier hour; had he, at the moment, been sufficiently acquainted with the actual state of things to foresee that the delay, together with the possibility of a lengthened contest, and of the approach of aid to the british general from the prussian side, tended to render his situation one of extreme peril? may we not rather be justified in inferring, that his object was to gain time for the due execution and successful development of grouchy's operations! the despatch which the emperor had received from grouchy, dated gembloux, th june, at p.m. (see page ), clearly explained that general's intentions, which were, that should the mass of the prussian forces retire upon wavre, he would follow them in that direction, so as to prevent them from either reaching brussels or forming a junction with wellington; but that if, on the other hand, they should fall back upon perwès, he would advance towards that town in pursuit of them. in the former case, napoleon's delay was likely to facilitate the combined operation; because in order to prevent the junction with wellington, grouchy required sufficient time to throw himself between the prussians and the emperor: and, in the latter case, the delay would be immaterial, because then the prussian co-operation with wellington was not to be apprehended; and the battle with the anglo-allied army would have to be fought by the emperor, unsupported by grouchy. it may, perhaps, be argued that napoleon, by commencing his attack much earlier, would not have been under the necessity of employing a considerable portion of his reserve against the prussians in defence of his right flank, at a time when he so urgently needed them for following up and strengthening his attacks upon the duke of wellington's line. there existed, however, no such striking disparity, in point of numbers, between wellington's forces, and his own, as to warrant his throwing away a chance amounting, according to the information he had already received, almost to a certainty, of being enabled to bring his greatest mass to bear against each army separately: and which would doubtless have been the case as regards the anglo-allied army, had grouchy, by the adoption of more vigorous and energetic measures, manoeuvred in such a manner as to sufficiently impede the prussian co-operation by posting one of his corps so as to command the defiles of st lambert and lasne, and holding the other in reserve, to be employed by either the emperor or himself, according to circumstances. whether napoleon was really actuated by any such motives, must remain a doubtful point. these remarks, however, are offered for the consideration of those who censure him for his delay in commencing the battle of waterloo. * * * * * the strength of the anglo-allied army in the field was as follows:-- +--------------------+---------+--------+----------+-----+ | |infantry.|cavalry.|artillery.|guns.| | +---------+--------+----------+-----+ |british | , | , | , | | |king's german legion| , | , | | | |hanoverians | , | | | | |brunswickers | , | | | | |nassauers | , | -- | -- | -- | |dutch-belgians | , | , | , | | | +---------+--------+----------+-----+ | total | , | , | , | | +--------------------+---------+--------+----------+-----+ grand total. infantry , cavalry , artillery , ------- total , men, and guns. * * * * * the french army consisted of:-- infantry , cavalry , artillery , ------- total , men, and guns. * * * * * the martial sounds already adverted to as having accompanied the march of the french columns into position, had scarcely been wafted towards the anglo-allied army, when mounted officers were discerned galloping along the opposite heights, and taking up the necessary alignments; and, presently, the simultaneous flashing of bayonets over dark masses, on various points, and the roll of drums, now become more distinctly audible, announced the arrival of the heads of the columns destined to constitute the front line. as this gradually developed itself, and was seen extending on either side, from la belle alliance, and apparently almost overlapping both flanks of the allies, the scene became truly imposing and highly exciting. the two armies were now fairly in presence of each other; and their mutual observation was governed by the most intense interest, and the most scrutinizing anxiety. in a still greater degree did these feelings actuate their commanders, while watching each other's preparatory movements, and minutely scanning the surface of the arena on which tactical skill, habitual prowess, physical strength, and moral courage, were to decide, not alone their own, but in all probability, the fate of europe. apart from national interests and considerations, and viewed solely in connection with the opposite characters of the two illustrious chiefs; the approaching contest was contemplated with anxious solicitude by the whole military world. need this create surprise when we reflect that the struggle was one for mastery between the far famed conqueror of italy, and the victorious liberator of the peninsula; between the triumphant vanquisher of eastern europe, and the bold and successful invader of the south of france! never was the issue of a single battle looked forward to as involving consequences of such vast importance--of such universal influence. footnotes: [footnote : for the sake of uniformity, and to prevent misconception, i have adopted, throughout this work, the terms "horse battery" and "foot battery," employed in all the continental armies, although in the british service the distinction is better known by the terms "troop" and "brigade."] chapter x. while the preparatory dispositions, alluded to in the preceding chapter, were in progress, napoleon ordered the following despatch to be forwarded to grouchy:-- "en avant de la ferme "in front of the farm de caillou, de caillou, le juin, th june, à heures du matin. at o'clock in the morning. "monsieur le maréchal, "monsieur marshal, "l'empereur a reçu votre "the emperor has received dernier rapport daté de gembloux. your last report dated from vous ne parlez à sa majesté que des gembloux. you only speak to his deux colonnes prussiennes qui ont majesty of the two prussian passé à sauvenières et sarra walin; columns and sarra walin; however qu'une troisième colonne, qui the reports say that a third était assez forte, a passé à gery column, which was pretty strong, et gentinnes, se dirrigeant sur has passed by gery and gentinnes, wavres. directing itself on wavre. "l'empereur me charge de vous "the emperor charges me to prévenir, qu'en ce moment s.m. va inform you, that at this moment faire attaquer l'armée anglaise qui his majesty is going to attack the a pris position à waterloo, près de english army which has taken up a pris position à waterloo, près de a position at waterloo, near the a pris position à waterloo, près de forest of soignies; so his majesty la forêt de soignes; ainsi s.m. desires that you would direct your désire que vous dirigiez vos movemens movements on wavre in such a sur wavres, afin de vous manner as you may approach us, so rapprocher de nous, vous mettre en as to put yourself in touch with rapport d'opérations et lier les the operations and to knit up the communications, poussant devant vous communications; pushing before les corps de l'armée prussienne you the corps of the prussian qui ont pris cette direction et qui army which has taken that auraient pu s'arrêter à wavres, ou direction, and which may have vous devez arriver le plus tôt halted at wavre, where you should possible. arrive at the earliest possible moment. vous ferez suivre les colonnes you will cause the enemy's ennemies qui ont pris sur votre columns which have taken (the droite par quelques corps légers, road) on your right to be afin d'observer leur mouvements followed by some light corps, in et ramasser leurs fuyards; instruisez order to observe their movements moi immédiatement de vos and to collect their fugitives. dispositions et de votre marche, instruct me immediately of your ainsi que des nouvelles que vous dispositions and of your march, as avez sur les ennemis, et ne négligez well as of the news you may have pas de lier vos communications avec of the enemy, and do not neglect to nous; l'empereur désire avoir très knit up your communications with souvent de vos nouvelles. us. the emperor desires to receive news from you very frequently. "le major général "the major general duc de dalmatie." duke de dalmatia." it will thus be seen that grouchy's report, despatched from gembloux on the previous night, was well calculated to inspire the emperor with great confidence as to the result of his present plan of operations, notwithstanding the very little progress that had hitherto been made in that quarter; and which, as already remarked, must be ascribed principally to his own inactivity during the early part of the th. he approved of the movement upon wavre, in pursuit of the great mass of the prussian army: but at the same time expressed his desire that it should be executed in such a manner as to draw the detached force more within the sphere of the operations of the main french army; and above all, he enforced the necessity of maintaining a close communication with the latter. some time before the battle commenced, a prussian patrol reached the village of smohain, in which was posted the picquet of the th british hussars, under captain taylor; whom the officer accompanying the patrol desired to report to the duke of wellington that general count bÜlow was at st lambert, and advancing with his _corps d'armée_. captain taylor immediately despatched lieutenant lindsey, of the th, with the intelligence to head quarters, as directed. the prussian officer was certainly ignorant of the very slow progress made by the main body of bÜlow's corps; and the information which he thus conveyed to the duke, before the battle had commenced, naturally led the latter to calculate upon a much earlier arrival of the prussians than could possibly take place: for, in point of fact, it was only bÜlow's advanced guard which had then reached st lambert. * * * * * the formation of the french lines was scarcely completed when the magnificent and animating spectacle which they presented was heightened in an extraordinary degree by the passing of the emperor along them, attended by a numerous and brilliant staff. the troops hailed him with loud and fervent acclamations. there was depicted on their brows a deep rooted confidence in his ability, with such an army, to chain victory to the car in which he had already advanced in triumph to within a few miles of the capital of belgium. they exulted in the idea that they were now fairly ranged in battle array, under the chief of their choice, and the idol of their devotion, against the army of that nation which of all others had proved the most inveterate and the most enduring in its hostility to france; a nation which had not only by its wealth cemented and held together the great european league which had once precipitated that idol from the throne, but had also flung into the scale her own native strength and valour, by which the fleets of the empire had been destroyed, its armies driven out of the peninsula, and the sceptres of spain and portugal wrested from its grasp. they appeared as if excited by the assurance, that the hour had arrived in which the disasters of the nile and trafalgar, of salamanca and vittoria, were to be cast into the dark shade of oblivion, by the dazzling splendour of the triumph about to be achieved. [illustration] never throughout the whole of his career had napoleon received from his soldiers more unequivocal demonstrations of attachment to his person, of unlimited confidence in his power, of complete devotion to his cause, and of absolute submission to his will, than were manifested in this short and fatal campaign by which that career was terminated. with an army thus animated by one sentiment, and presenting in appearance and material all that his practised eye could desire, it may readily be conceived that he fully participated in the general confidence of a signal victory. * * * * * wellington's dispositions remained as previously described. shortly before the action commenced, he rode down to hougomont, and, proceeding by the lane which crosses the wood in the direction of la belle alliance, remained a few minutes at the point where the lane reaches the eastern boundary of the wood. having made his observations upon that portion of the enemy's line which came under his view, he ordered the light companies of the british guards that were in the wood to be relieved by the nassau battalion and the hanoverian light infantry. the former were then withdrawn to the great orchard, where the light companies of the first brigade remained, while those of the second brigade moved on, along the rear of the inclosures, to the lane which passes between the right of the buildings and the kitchen garden, and leads into the wood on that side. the duke next rode up to the high ground on the nivelles road, unaccompanied by his staff, to reconnoitre the enemy's left. he then rode along to the left of his own line as far as la haye. when the action began, he was in front of the left of the first brigade of guards. * * * * * napoleon, having completed the inspection of his troops, proceeded to take up his own station upon the height in rear of la belle alliance, which afforded him a commanding view of the whole field. the infantry brigades speedily formed lines of battalion columns respectively. the state of the ground was reported practicable for the movements of artillery. all was in perfect readiness. the anxiously looked for moment had now arrived. the emperor sent an order to reille to begin the battle by an attack upon hougomont; and it was about half past eleven o'clock when, from the right of prince jerome's division, a column, advancing towards the south-western boundary of the wood, rapidly extended itself into a strong line of skirmishers. as they approached the wood, a few straggling shots from behind the outermost trees and hedges gave warning that the defenders were prepared for resistance, and announced to both armies that the battle had actually commenced. the french, hastening their advance to obtain a better view of their opponents, began to single them out; and the shots from both sides, quickening in succession, speedily increased into a brisk and well sustained fire of musketry. jerome's supporting columns had not advanced far when the duke of wellington, with his staff, galloped up to the spot on which the coldstream guards were formed; and having directed his glass upon the french columns, the guns of captain sandham's foot battery, attached to cooke's division, were ordered to the front. they instantly unlimbered and opened the cannonade from the anglo-allied position. the first discharge was from a howitzer, the shell of which burst over the head of a column moving towards the hougomont inclosures. the shots from the remaining guns in succession also took effect; and the battery was soon in full play. it was immediately followed up by an equally well directed fire from captain cleeves's foot battery of the german legion, in front of alten's division. the batteries of reille's corps now opened in their turn, to draw off the fire from their columns. napoleon sent an order to kellermann to push forward his twelve pieces of horse artillery into the front line, facing hougomont. the intervals between the reports from the guns on either side rapidly diminished: in a brief space of time no intervals could be distinguished; and the cannonade, increasing in violence every moment, now thundered forth in one continual roar. "----deep throated engines belch'd, whose roar imbowel'd with outrageous noise the air." the french columns, as they moved towards hougomont, were twice checked by the fire from the british batteries; which, having been given with remarkable precision, appeared to cause considerable loss and disorder among them. at length they effected their advance. the french skirmishers, followed by fresh supports, had, in the mean time, made good their entrance into the wood; and such was the boldness of their advance that they soon drove the nassau battalion and hanoverian riflemen before them. they were also pushing forward in considerable force across the inclosures adjoining the left of the wood. at this moment, wellington gave orders, in person, to major bull's british howitzer horse battery, which had just been drawn up on that part of the main ridge which was immediately in rear of the great orchard of hougomont, to dislodge the enemy's infantry from those inclosures by means of shells. this service, which, considering the proximity of the allied troops in the wood, was of a very delicate nature, was executed with admirable skill, and attended with the desired effect. the enemy was forced to abandon the fields in front of the great orchard; from which the light companies of the first brigade of guards now moved on, as did also those of the second brigade, from the lane and kitchen garden on the right, to relieve the nassauers and hanoverians in the wood. they dashed forward with the most determined resolution, blazing away in the very faces of their opponents, whose further advance they completely checked; and then gallantly pressing on, they gradually succeeded in clearing the wood of the french skirmishers. with the exception of the cannonade maintained between the french left and the anglo-allied right wing, and which was gradually extending towards the opposite extremities of the hostile lines, the action was as yet confined to the post of hougomont. about this time, a body of french cavalry, issuing from the low ground near papelotte, approached that part of the anglo-allied left wing which was occupied by best's hanoverian infantry brigade, and captain rettberg's hanoverian foot battery. it was a strong _reconnaissance_, made by the french to ascertain whether the summit on which the above battery was posted had really been intrenched, its appearance, as viewed from the opposite heights, having induced a supposition that such was the case. best, expecting to be attacked, immediately formed his brigade into battalion squares; but the french cavalry speedily retired. jerome now moved down fresh columns to reinforce his skirmishers. they were directed more against the allied right of the wood, while a part of foy's division was ordered to support the attack by a simultaneous advance against the front. the descent of jerome's troops was observed from the position of the extreme right of the allied second line, which afforded a partial view up the valley on that side of hougomont. two guns were therefore detached, under captain napier, from captain bolton's battery, to open a fire upon the advancing columns; but they were instantly cannonaded by the batteries on the french extreme left, particularly by the horse battery of pirÉ's light cavalry, on the height intersected by the nivelles road. the remaining guns of the battery were brought into action, as were also those of major sympher's hanoverian horse battery; and a vigorous fire was now maintained against both the attacking troops and the french guns. lieutenant colonel webber smith, whose british horse battery was also with clinton's division, but lower down the slope, commenced firing up the valley, across the nivelles road, at one of jerome's columns; but on ascertaining that the latter was somewhat beyond the effectual range of his six pounders, he detached an officer to the right of the front line in rear of hougomont, to discover whether a more commanding position could be obtained for his battery on that part of the field. in the mean time, jerome's skirmishers, having been very strongly reinforced, renewed their attack upon the wood, in conjunction with foy's infantry on their right. the light companies of the british guards presented a stout and desperate resistance, but were forced to yield to an overwhelming superiority of numbers. retiring from tree to tree, and frequently hazarding a bold and obstinate stand, by which they suffered most severely, they at length withdrew from the unavailing contest: those of the coldstream and rd regiment seeking shelter partly in the lane adjoining the right of the château, and partly behind a haystack which fronted the wood near the south-west angle of the buildings; while those of the st regiment fell back into the great orchard, on the left. the french skirmishers, finding themselves relieved for the moment from any immediate pressure upon their front, now rapidly advanced towards the buildings and garden. the hedge which lined the wood on this side appeared to them, as it gradually presented itself to their view, to form also the boundary of the great garden. in the full confidence that this important post was now within their grasp, they rushed forward at the _pas de charge_ to force an entrance. they were instantly and fatally undeceived. a deadly fire bursting forth from the loop holes and platforms along the garden wall, which was parallel to, and about thirty yards distant from, the hedge, laid prostrate the leading files. those which came up in rapid succession were staggered by the sudden and unexpected appearance of this little fortress. not venturing upon an escalade, they were forced to take advantage of such cover as was afforded by the hedge and trees; whence they kept up a popping fire, though at fearful odds, with opponents so well concealed by the wall, as also by a row of apple trees which ran along its exterior. the french infantry were pushing forward through the wood in support of this attack, when major bull's horse battery recommenced its fire; and a shower of howitzer shells fell amongst them, causing the greatest destruction and confusion in their ranks. again the defenders dashed forward from the flanks, and regained a considerable portion of the wood; whereupon major bull ceased firing in that direction, and pointed his guns on strong columns of french infantry in support, which he succeeded in causing to retrograde; notwithstanding the very galling fire to which he was himself at that time exposed, not only from the batteries in his front, but also from pirÉ's horse battery on the french height adjoining the nivelles road, by which his own battery was completely enfiladed. the french that were in the wood having rallied, and obtained a vast preponderance of force, now advanced in a most determined manner against the light infantry of the british guards, and compelled the latter to retire to their former posts on the flanks of the château and gardens. at the same time, jerome's light troops were advancing rapidly, and in great force, against the right of the buildings. that portion of the light companies of the coldstream and rd regiment of guards which was outside the farm made a gallant stand, under cover of the haystack, and from the lane before mentioned. the haystack itself was set on fire by the french in one of their attacks, and was now in full blaze. these guardsmen held their ground with the greatest bravery until they saw themselves completely outflanked, and in danger of being cut off from all retreat. they then hastily withdrew into the great court yard by the gate which faces the allied position; and which they instantly closed and endeavoured to block up with ladders, posts, barrows, or whatever was nearest at hand. the french, however, succeeded in forcing the gate; but the defenders betook themselves to the nearest cover, whence they poured a fire upon the intruders, and then rushing forward, a struggle ensued which was distinguished by the most intrepid courage on both sides. at length, lieutenant colonel macdonell, captain wyndham, ensigns gooch and hervey, and sergeant graham, of the coldstream guards, by dint of great personal strength and exertions, combined with extraordinary bravery and perseverance, succeeded in closing the gate against their assailants. those of the latter who had entered the court yard fell a sacrifice to their undaunted and conspicuous gallantry. the remainder of the french skirmishers, passing on by the left and to the rear of hougomont, and, crossing the avenue leading to it from the nivelles road, and the adjacent rivulet, spread themselves over some broken ground partially covered with brushwood. they were now immediately under the position to which lieutenant colonel smith had moved his battery from its former station on the other side of the nivelles road, and which was in front of the extreme right of the first line of the anglo-allied army. this battery had just been hotly engaged with, and had suffered severely from, the horse battery posted in front of pirÉ's light cavalry brigade; which had previously directed its fire upon bull's guns, and which maintained the cannonade with lieutenant colonel smith's battery for the purpose of covering the advance of these light troops. smith had succeeded in silencing the fire of his opponent; when the french skirmishers, taking advantage of both the broken ground and the high corn beyond it, suddenly opened upon his battery a popping fire so destructive in its effects, that in a few moments several of the gunners and horses were killed, and so much damage was sustained by the limbers, that it became absolutely necessary to withdraw the guns into a little hollow way that led from the rear of the battery into the nivelles road, and in which it remained some time for the purpose of refitting and getting into order. this daring onset of the french skirmishers was checked by the advance of four companies of the coldstream regiment of guards, under lieutenant colonel woodford. they then fell back to the wall of the farm yard, near which they collected a considerable force, when colonel woodford charged them. they gave way immediately, and withdrew from the contest; which afforded colonel woodford an opportunity of entering the farm with a part of the reinforcement by the side door in the lane. the remainder of the detached force occupied the inclosures between the château and the nivelles road. during this advance of the french skirmishers against the extreme right of the allied front line, the troops which formed their support attempted again to force open the rear gate of hougomont. the individuals before mentioned as having closed the gate, were, at the time, occupied in rendering it more secure by placing against it some pieces of ash timber that lay in the yard. the french failing in their endeavours to push in the gate, a brave grenadier volunteered to climb over and open it from the inside. captain wyndham, on perceiving the latter at the top of the gate, instantly desired sergeant graham, whose musket he was holding whilst the latter was bringing forward another piece of timber, to drop the wood, take his firelock, and shoot the intruder. the order was instantly obeyed; and the intrepid assailant, who, for any useful result, ought to have been accompanied by a score of his comrades, fell beneath graham's deadly aim. it was at this moment that the french skirmishers who had advanced against the main position, were falling back upon their support; and the whole of these troops were driven off by the advance of the four companies of the coldstream guards, detached from the main position, as previously described. in the mean time, the french infantry in the wood, finding their advance against the garden so suddenly checked, endeavoured to turn it by its left. with this view they were debouching through a large gap in the fence, forming an outlet from the wood into the orchard; when lieutenant colonel lord saltoun, seizing the favourable opportunity, made a most gallant charge upon the head of the column with the light companies of the first brigade of guards, and succeeded in driving the enemy back into the wood. shortly afterwards, a large body of the enemy's light troops began to advance stealthily along the eastern hedge of the hougomont inclosures, communicating at the same time with the infantry in the wood on their left. this was immediately followed by a direct front attack upon the orchard; which compelled lord saltoun gradually to withdraw his greatly reduced force, from tree to tree, until he reached the hollow way in rear of that inclosure. the light troops in front of alten's division, having perceived the french creeping along the hedge so as to turn the left flank of hougomont, were on the point of forming to oppose them; but on the latter being pointed out to the prince of orange, who had just come to the front to make his observations, he coolly remarked:--"no, don't stir--the duke is sure to see that movement, and will take some step to counteract it." he had scarcely spoken, when two companies of the rd regiment of british guards, detached from the allied line, were seen advancing along the same hedge, in an opposite direction, to meet them. lord saltoun being thus reinforced upon his left, and the french skirmishers in his front having become exposed to a sharp flanking fire from the guards lining the eastern garden wall, he resumed the offensive; cleared the orchard of the enemy, and reoccupied its front hedge: while the detachment on the left drove the french along the outer hedge, and down into the hollow whence they had debouched; and then joined the troops in the great orchard. the front hedge of the orchard, the front wall of the garden, with the lane and avenue on the right, constituted at this time the outer line of the defence of hougomont. * * * * * during the progress of the contest of hougomont, ney had been occupied in making his preparatory dispositions for carrying into execution napoleon's intended grand attack upon the centre and left of the anglo-allied line. the troops destined for this service consisted of the whole of d'erlon's _corps d'armée_, and of roussel's division of kellermann's cavalry corps. their advance was to be covered and supported by no less than ten batteries, which were now brought forward and posted along a ridge that intervened between the french right and the allied left wing, affording the guns a range of from six hundred to eight hundred yards of the duke's line. these batteries consisted of the three twelve-pounder batteries of the first, second, and sixth corps, drawn up with their left close upon the charleroi road; of the four divisional foot batteries; of the horse battery belonging to jaquinot's light cavalry brigade; and of the two horse batteries of milhaud's corps of _cuirassiers_, which stood in second line, in rear of d'erlon's corps--altogether seventy four guns. this imposing force of infantry, cavalry, and artillery, exclusive of the ample cavalry reserves at hand, was not more than commensurate with the importance of the object which napoleon had in view. his aim was not only to turn the allied left, but also to force the centre of the position; and, by gaining possession of the farms of la haye sainte and mont st jean, to cut off wellington's main line of communication by the high road to brussels, and, at the same time, to prevent any contemplated junction of the prussian and anglo-allied armies. this appeared to him preferable to any plan of operation against the allied right, where the skilful dispositions made by the duke would require such a plan to embrace the attack and repulse of the troops occupying braine l'alleud, and the post of vieux foriez, as well as the forcing of the position, _en potence_, held by lord hill; a consideration which, combined with a knowledge of the existence of a considerable body of allied troops near hal, and the fear of allowing himself to be induced into too great an extension of his own force towards his left, caused him to resign all idea of attempting any movement of importance in that quarter. he felt, moreover, that even a successful attack upon the right would, in all probability, induce the duke to fall back upon the prussians; and thus effect that junction which it was his great object to frustrate: whereas, an attack upon the anglo-allied left, which was not so strong, if successful, held out to him the prospect of his being enabled, by aid of the presumed vigorous co-operation on the part of grouchy, and the momentarily expected arrival of a portion of that marshal's forces on his own right, to defeat both armies in detail. the batteries had been regularly posted and fully prepared for action, and the infantry columns had advanced to the inner brow of the intervening ridge, when ney sent word to the emperor that the preliminary arrangements were completed, and that he only waited his majesty's orders to commence the attack. napoleon immediately took a general view of the field of battle, and continuing his observations beyond his right, in order to discover, if possible, any indication of the approach either of grouchy or of a hostile force, he perceived in the direction of st lambert an indistinct mass, having the appearance of a body of troops; and pointing out the object to soult, who was near him at the time, asked his opinion; whereupon the marshal observed, that he really conceived it to be a column on the march, and that there was great reason to believe it was a detachment from grouchy. all the staff directed their telescopes upon the point indicated; and, as the atmosphere was not very clear, different opinions were entertained: some asserting that what had been taken for troops were trees; others that they were columns in position; whilst several agreed with soult, that they were troops on the march. in this state of uncertainty and suspense, the emperor sent for general domon, and desired him to proceed instantly with a strong reconnoitring party to the right, and procure correct intelligence; to put himself quickly in communication with the troops approaching from st lambert; to effect a junction with them, if they belonged to marshal grouchy, and to impede their advance if they proved to be enemies. at the same time, the two light cavalry divisions of domon and subervie proceeded some distance in the direction of the wood of paris; and were then drawn up _en potence_ to the right of the french army. not long after domon's departure, napoleon's impatience to ascertain the precise character of the distant column was relieved by the arrival of an officer of _chasseurs_ with a prussian hussar, who had just been taken prisoner; and who was the bearer of a letter, addressed by the prussian general bÜlow to the duke of wellington, to acquaint the latter with his arrival at st lambert. the prisoner stated that the column which was perceptible in the vicinity of this village, was the advanced guard of bÜlow's corps, which had not been engaged at ligny; that he had been in the morning at wavre; that the three other prussian corps were stationed close to that town, and had passed the previous night there, without perceiving any indication of an enemy in their front; and that a patrol of his own regiment had advanced, during the night, as far as two leagues from wavre without encountering any body of french troops. soult who had just at that moment written the following letter to grouchy, in reply to his second report from gembloux, immediately added a postscript, referring to the above intelligence, and sent off the despatch, accompanied by the intercepted communication and the hussar's report. "du champ de bataille "on the field of battle de waterloo, le , à at waterloo, the th, at une heure après midi. one o'clock in the afternoon. "monsieur le maréchal, "monsieur marshal, "vous avez écrit ce matin, à "you wrote at two o'clock this deux heures, à l'empereur que vous morning to the emperor that you marcheriez sur sart à wallain; would march on sart à wallain; donc votre projet était de vous consequently your plan was to porter à corbaix ou à wavres: ce proceed to corbaix or to wavre. this mouvement est conforme aux movement is in accordance with the dispositions qui vous ont été dispositions which have been communiquées: cependant l'empereur communicated to you: however the m'ordonne de vous dire que vous emperor orders me to say to you devez toujours manoeuvrer dans that you ought always to manoeuvre notre direction; c'est à vous à voir in our direction. it is for you to le point où nous sommes pour vous consider our present position in régler en conséquence et pour lier order to guide yourself accordingly, nos communications, ainsi que pour and to knit up our communications être toujours en mesure pour in such a way as to be always tomber sur quelques troupes within limits to fall upon some ennemies qui chercheraient à inquiéter of the enemy's troops which would notre droite, et les écraser. endeavour to annoy our right, and en ce moment la bataille est engagée to crush them. at this moment sur la ligna de waterloo. the battle has commenced on the le centre de l'armée anglaise est line of waterloo. the centre of the à mont saint jean, ainsi manoeuvrez english army is at mont st jean, pour joindre notre droite. so manoeuvre to join our right. "le duc de dalmatie. "the duke of dalmatia. "p.s.--une lettre qu'on vient "p.s.--a letter which has just d'intercepter porte que le général been intercepted states that general bÜlow doit attaquer notre flanc. bÜlow is about to attack our flank. nous croyons apercevoir ce corps we believe we see this corps on sur les hauteurs de saint lambert; the heights of saint lambert; ainsi ne perdez pas un instant pour therefore lose not an instant in vous rapprocher de nous et nous coming nearer to us and joining us, joindre, et pour écraser bÜlow and in crushing bÜlow whom you que vous prendrez en flagrant délit." will take in the very act." the above letter is of much historical importance. although conveying napoleon's approval of grouchy's movement upon either corbaix or wavre, it clearly indicates the commencement of that anxiety and uneasiness of mind which the emperor experienced through the fear of even the possibility of a want of just conception on the part of the marshal, of the true spirit in which the combination of his movements with those of the main army should be carried on. he draws the marshal's attention to the necessity of his manoeuvring so as to prevent the execution of any hostile design against the right flank of the main army, which is then engaged with wellington's forces, and names mont st jean, the centre of the duke's position, as a guiding point. this anxiety was naturally augmented very considerably by the discovery of bÜlow's troops, and the postscript accordingly enjoins still more urgently the necessity of a close and active co-operation. very shortly after the officer who was the bearer of this despatch had started, a message was sent in by general domon to the effect that his scouts had fallen in with detachments from the enemy in the direction of st lambert; and that he had just sent out patrols towards other points to obtain intelligence of marshal grouchy, and to communicate with him, if practicable. it is to be observed, however, that the troops discovered by the french cavalry did not belong to bÜlow's main body, but merely to his advanced guard. the former was the mass first seen from la belle alliance, when it was moving across the heights of st lambert, on the right or opposite bank of the lasne; but as explained in a preceding chapter, it encountered great obstruction and much delay during its march towards the field: whilst the latter, awaiting its arrival, rested concealed in the wood of paris, near lasne. thus it appears that both commanders were deceived as to the proximity of any considerable body of prussians at this period of the day. nevertheless, the conviction of such a proximity, while it imparted increased confidence to wellington, in regard to the speedy execution of the plan of combined operation which he had preconcerted with blÜcher, compelled napoleon to employ additional vigilance and circumspection upon his right flank. great, however, as was the necessity for such vigilance; the measures that were adopted were lamentably deficient in energy, vigour, and judgement. considering that the main body of bÜlow's corps was on the point of entering the defile of st lambert, in which it had to overcome the greatest difficulties; it appears unaccountable that the officer employed in reconnoitring and patroling beyond the extreme right of the french army should not have urged the occupation of the wood of paris with a detached body of infantry, with a view to impede bÜlow's advance, and compel him to take a more circuitous route. in this manner the prussian co-operation might have been so far obstructed or delayed as to secure to napoleon the power of advancing against wellington with almost the entire of his force; and of thus, perhaps, accomplishing his grand object of defeating both armies in detail. no disposition of this kind was made; but, in place of it, domon's and subervie's light cavalry divisions were moved to the right, _en potence_ to the front line, their picquets not extending beyond the plateau in front of the wood of paris. whether this culpable neglect arose from the want of due penetration and foresight on the part of general domon; or from this officer having been instructed not to act as if in command of a detached corps, but only to take up a position, within a prescribed distance, _en potence_ to the general front line; or, from an over confident expectation on the part of napoleon of approaching aid from grouchy; are points not easily determined: but there can be no doubt that the error of not occupying the wood of paris with a strong body of infantry, flanked and supported by the cavalry, was fatal to the development of napoleon's original design. one infantry division, combined with domon's and subervie's cavalry divisions, would have sufficed for obstructing the debouching of bÜlow's corps from the almost impassable defile of st lambert; and compelling it to move by its right, into the line of march of zieten's corps, which did not reach the field before seven o'clock in the evening. to move by its left, along the deep and miry valley of the lasne, would have been impracticable so long as the wood of paris and its vicinity continued to be occupied by the french. in short, the importance of seizing upon the means that presented themselves for materially retarding, if not of completely frustrating, the co-operation of the principal portion of the prussian forces, was of so vital a nature, that the french emperor would have been justified in detaching the whole of lobau's corps, along with the cavalry already mentioned, under an experienced and enterprising general, such as lobau himself, to operate against the prussians whilst these were occupied in passing the defiles which led to his right flank. none of those troops were engaged with the anglo-allied army during any part of the day; so that, without diminishing the numbers actually opposed to the latter, they might have been detached in the manner suggested: instead of remaining, as was the case, drawn up _en potence_ on the immediate field of action, to be attacked by the prussians, who were permitted to pass the defiles without interruption, to collect their forces under cover of the wood of paris, to debouch from the latter successively and at their leisure, and to organise their movements of attack in perfect security, and with the most systematic order and regularity. chapter xi. napoleon, having taken the precaution of posting a cavalry corps of observation upon his right flank, no longer delayed sending the order to ney for the commencement of the grand attack upon the centre and left wing of the anglo-allied army. about the same time, wellington, considering that some of the battalions along the right wing of his front line were too much exposed to the enemy's cannonade, which had from the commencement been principally directed against them, and which was now conducted with increased vigour, withdrew them more under shelter of the crest of the ridge. it might then be about half past one, or perhaps a quarter before two o'clock. the simultaneous advance of d'erlon's four divisions of infantry, amounting to more than , men, was grand and imposing. as the heads of the columns cleared their own line of batteries ranged along the crest of the intervening ridge, and as the points on which they were directed for attack opened out to their view, loud and reiterated shouts arose from their ranks of "_vive l'empereur!_" which, as the masses began to descend the exterior slope of their position, were suddenly drowned in the roar produced by the discharge of seventy four pieces of french cannon over their heads. the effects of the latter upon picton's division, and upon bylandt's dutch-belgian brigade, which, as before stated, was deployed upon the exterior slope of the anglo-allied position, were severely felt. light troops now issued forth from each column, and soon spread out into a line of skirmishers extending the whole length of the valley. as donzelot's division, which was on the left, approached la haye sainte, one of its brigades moved out to attack that farm, while the other continued its advance on the right of the charleroi road; and it was not long before a sharp fire of musketry along and around the hedges of the orchard of la haye sainte announced the first resistance to d'erlon's formidable advance. shortly afterwards a dropping fire commenced among the hedges and inclosures of papelotte, la haye, and smohain; which were occupied by the nassau battalions under prince bernhard of saxe weimar. the right brigade of durutte's division was thrown out against the troops defending these inclosures; while the left brigade continued to advance across the valley, so as to form a support to marcognet's division on its left, and, at the same time, to connect this attack with the advance of the latter against the main front line of the allied right wing. durutte's skirmishers pressed boldly forward against those of prince bernhard's brigade; and it was not long before they succeeded in gaining possession of the farm house of papelotte, driving out the light company of the rd battalion of the nd regiment of nassau, commanded by captain rettberg; but the latter, on being reinforced with four additional companies, resumed the offensive, and gallantly retook the farm. the contest in this quarter was now limited to a persistent skirmish; which extended itself along la haye and smohain, occupied by the regiment of orange nassau. with this _tiraillade_ on either flank of d'erlon's corps, the central columns pursued their onward course, and began to ascend the exterior slope of the allied position. [illustration] immediately on the departure of d'erlon's corps from the french position, bachelu's infantry division, which constituted the right of reille's corps, was moved forward to the immediate height between la belle alliance and la haye sainte (where it is intersected by the hollow way formed by the charleroi road), in order to maintain that point, to be at hand as a reserve to the attacking force, and to keep up the connection between the right and left wings of the front line of the french army. the three central columns continued their advance up the exterior slope of the allied position. the nature of the ground still admitted of the play of the french batteries over their heads, and great was the havoc produced by this fire upon picton's devoted ranks. as the heads of the columns neared the deployed line of bylandt's brigade, the shouts of "_vive l'empereur!_" were renewed. the skirmishers in advance had scarcely opened their fire upon the brigade, in order to prepare for, and give increased effect to, the succeeding charge of the columns; when the dutch-belgians, who had already evinced a considerable degree of unsteadiness, began firing in their turn, but with very little effect: immediately after which they commenced a hurried retreat, not partially and promiscuously, but collectively and simultaneously--so much so, that the movement carried with it the appearance of its having resulted from a word of command. the disorder of these troops rapidly augmented; but, on their reaching the straggling hedge along the crest of the position, an endeavour was made to rally them upon the th battalion of dutch militia. this attempt, however, notwithstanding the most strenuous and praiseworthy exertions on the part of the officers, completely failed. the reserve battalion and the artillerymen of captain byleveld's battery, though they seemed to stem the torrent for a moment, were quickly swept away by its accumulating force. as they rushed past the british columns, hissings, hootings, and execrations were indignantly heaped upon them; and one portion, in its eagerness to get away, nearly ran over the grenadier company of the th british regiment, the men of which were so enraged, that it was with difficulty they could be prevented from firing upon the fugitives. some of the men of the st, or royal scots, were also desirous of shooting them. nothing seemed to restrain their flight, which ceased only when they found themselves completely across and covered by the main ridge along which the anglo-allied army was drawn up. here they continued, comparatively under shelter, during the remainder of the battle, as a reserve; in which capacity alone, considering their losses and their crippled state, they could now be rendered serviceable. picton, who had been calmly watching the french movements, and whose quick and practised eye detected the increasing unsteadiness and wavering disposition of the dutch-belgians, appeared to expect but a feeble resistance on their part; and upon his aide de camp, captain tyler,[ ] remarking to him that he was sure they would run, he said, "never mind; they shall have a taste of it, at all events." he had certainly not anticipated the possibility of their retiring so precipitately as they did the moment the french came within musket range of their ranks. now, however, that these troops had completely cleared away to the rear, and left him no other means wherewith to brave the coming storm than could be afforded by the shattered remnants of kempt's and pack's brigades which had survived the sanguinary fight of quatre bras, picton immediately deployed his force, and assumed an attitude of patient but determined resistance. when the disparity in relative numbers of the assailants and defenders is considered, the attempt to make head with such odds, against the advancing masses of an enemy elated by his triumphant progress, was, it must be admitted, a daring and critical undertaking. each brigade presented a thin two deep line. their united strength did not amount to more than about , men; whilst of the french force, the central attacking columns alone, which were now advancing directly upon these two brigades, consisted of nearly , men. picton had, moreover, no infantry reserve whatever, from which he could obtain support in case of success, or upon which he could fall back in case of disaster. he was not, however, one to be daunted by the approach of heavy columns, formidable as they might appear in point of numbers, when he could meet them with a well trained british line, though it should be but two deep, and present but a fourth of the numerical force of its opponents. it is true, that nearly all the regiments in kempt's and pack's brigades had lost half their numbers in the battle of the th; but picton well knew that they had not lost that indomitable spirit, which, under his guidance, had immortalised them on that memorable field of battle. there, he had triumphantly led them both in line against heavy columns of infantry, and in squares against charging squadrons of cavalry. what, then, might not be achieved by such innate valour--by such consummate discipline? the entire confidence which he reposed in his men was warmly reciprocated on their part. with such a chief to lead them, they would have bravely confronted the whole french army, had it been moving in mass against them. the flight of the panic-stricken dutch-belgians produced no effect upon them beyond that of exciting their derision and contempt. the th, nd, and th regiments of kempt's brigade, when deployed, occupied a line parallel to, and about fifty yards distant from, the hedge along the wavre road, its right resting on a high bank lining the charleroi road, and its left terminating at a point in rear of that part of the wavre road which begins to incline for a short distance towards the left rear. in their right front, immediately overlooking the intersection of the charleroi and wavre roads, stood (as before stated) the reserve of the st battalion th rifles; they had two companies, under major leach, posted in the sand pit adjoining the left of the charleroi road; and one company, under captain johnston, at the hedge on the knoll in rear of the sand pit. their commanding officer colonel sir andrew barnard, and lieutenant colonel cameron, were with these advanced companies, watching the enemy's movements. pack's line was in left rear of kempt's brigade, and about yards distant from the wavre road. its left rested upon the knoll between the wavre road and a small coppice on the reverse slope of the position; but the centre and right extended across a considerable hollow which occurs on the right of that coppice. the front of the interval between the two brigades became, after the retreat of the dutch-belgians, completely exposed and uncovered. the french left central attacking column had continued its advance in a direction contiguous to, and parallel with, the high road, until the skirmishers in front were suddenly checked by the companies of the th british rifles posted in the sand pit; which obstacle had hitherto been in a great measure concealed from their view by the particular formation of the ground, combined with the height of the intervening corn. influenced by the discovery of this impediment, and by the appearance of the _abatis_ upon the high road, the column inclined to the right so as to clear the sand pit; and as their skirmishers were pressing on in that direction, the companies of the th became turned, and were forced to fall back upon the other company stationed along the little hedge in rear of the pit. so vigorous and effective was the fire maintained from this hedge by the british riflemen, both upon the skirmishers and upon the column itself, that the latter was induced to swerve still further to the right, out of its original direction. the retreat of bylandt's brigade having removed all impediment to the advance of the central attacking columns, the three companies of the th soon found themselves outflanked by the french skirmishers, and gradually retired upon their reserve. the light companies of the other regiments of kempt's brigade, which had moved out to skirmish, fell back in like manner, accordingly as the french columns advanced. with a view to secure the left flank of the attacking force, and at the same time to connect the movements with those on the opposite side of the high road, the french presented a strong line, or rather a mass, of skirmishers, in the interval between that road and the left central column. as the columns now rapidly approached the crest of the anglo-allied position, the greater part of the batteries along the french ridge--that is, all those which had been cannonading that portion of the line embraced by the attack--gradually suspended their fire. the partial cessation of their thunder was immediately succeeded by loud and reiterated shouts from the columns of "_vive l'empereur!_"; whilst at short intervals were heard the cheering exhortations of "_en avant! en avant!_" mingled with the continued roll of drums beating the _pas de charge_. the left central column was advancing in a direction which would have brought it in immediate contact with the right of the th british regiment and the left of the th highlanders, and had arrived within about forty yards of the hedge lining the edge of the wavre road, when picton moved forward kempt's brigade close to the hedge; where it was joined by its light companies, who came running in, followed by some of the most daring of the french skirmishers, who, however, were quickly driven back. suddenly the column halted, and commenced a deployment to its right, the rear battalions moving out rapidly to disengage their front. picton, seizing upon the favourable moment, ordered the brigade to fire a volley into the deploying mass; and its brief but full and condensed report had scarcely died away, when his voice was heard loudly calling "charge! charge! hurrah!" answering with a tremendous shout, his devoted followers burst through the nearest of the two hedges that lined the wavre road. in doing this their order was in some degree broken; and, when making their way through the further hedge, a fire was poured into them by such of their opponents as had their front uncovered. the enemy's skirmishers that had previously fallen back upon the flanks of the column instantly darted forward; and by their rapid and close telling fire assisted in the endeavour to augment the apparent disorder of kempt's line. the th highlanders suffered greatly, and experienced some delay in clearing the hedges. the ensign (birtwhistle) carrying the regimental colour of the nd, was severely wounded. lieutenant belcher, who commanded the left centre subdivision, took the colour from him. in the next moment it was seized by a french officer, whose horse had just been shot under him. a struggle ensued between him and lieutenant belcher; but, while the former was attempting to draw his sword, the covering colour sergeant (named switzer) gave him a thrust in the breast with his halbert, and the right hand man of the subdivision (named lacy) shot him, just as brevet major toole, commanding the right centre subdivision, called out, though too late (for the french officer fell dead at lieutenant belcher's feet), "save the brave fellow!" the delay in crossing the hedges was but momentary; order was speedily restored: and then, levelling their bayonets, the brigade disclosed to view the glorious sight of a british line of infantry at the charge. it was during this brief struggle that a severe and irreparable blow was inflicted upon the entire british army, and a whole nation plunged into grief and mourning for the loss of a chief; the brilliancy of whose career had so excited her admiration, and the fame of whose exploits had so exalted her pride. the truly brave and noble picton was struck by a musket ball on the right temple. his death, which was instantaneous, was first observed by the earl of uxbridge's aide de camp, captain horace seymour; whom he was, at the moment, desiring to rally the highlanders. captain seymour, whose horse was just then falling, immediately called the attention of picton's aide de camp, captain tyler, to the fact of the general having been wounded; and, in the next moment, the hero's lifeless corpse was, with the assistance of a private soldier of the nearest regiment, borne from off his charger by that officer. thus fell the gallant soldier, who, as the leader of the third or "fighting division" in the peninsular war, had already acquired an imperishable renown in the history of the british army. as his life was spent in fighting the battles of his country, his death was an end suited to his stirring career. his brave spirit passed away amidst the roar and din of the bloody conflict, and his eyes closed on his last of fields in the very moment of the advance of his troops to victory. the french column, surprised in the midst of its attempted deployment, and appalled by the bold and determined onset of kempt's line, appeared as if struck by a panic, fell into irremediable confusion, and fled with precipitation from its pursuers. just as the british brigade bore down the slope, its front was partially crossed from the right by french _cuirassiers_, followed by the nd british life guards; the former, dashing in amongst their own thickly scattered infantry skirmishers; who threw themselves down to allow both fugitives and pursuers to ride over them, and then, in many cases, rose up and fired after the latter. but although the greater part of the _cuirassiers_ turned about and boldly faced their opponents, whereby several isolated individual contests occurred; the nd life guards soon obtained the mastery, and compelled them to resume their flight: whilst the th rifles speedily closed upon the disordered mass of infantry through which this portion of the cavalry had passed, and amongst which the greatest confusion and consternation prevailed. many flew wildly they scarcely knew whither; others delivered themselves up; and several were seized as prisoners. on its right, the brigade was supported in the charge by the st light battalion of the king's german legion; which crossed over for that purpose from the opposite side of the high road. immediately after passing through the hedge, the extreme left of the th regiment had unexpectedly found itself almost in contact with a well formed french column still advancing against the allied position. the right wing of the regiment was too deeply engaged with the column directly before it to admit of its attention being drawn off to any other quarter; but the left wing, having a clearer front, boldly brought forward its right shoulders, thus detaching itself from the right wing, and fired into the left flank of the advancing column at the very moment when the head of the latter was charged by the right regiment (the royals) of ponsonby's brigade of heavy cavalry. kempt, becoming aware of the prolongation of the french attack along the line to his left, and of the consequently exposed state of this flank; and possessing no infantry support or reserve of any kind, felt himself under the necessity of restraining his men from further pursuit, and ordered the brigade to halt and reform. the left wing of the th, however, having its whole attention fixed upon the column charged by the royals, followed these dragoons some distance down the slope, and assisted them in securing a great number of prisoners; after which it fell back, and rejoined the right wing of the regiment. the th rifles continued advancing, and driving the french skirmishers before them beyond the knoll by the sand pit. * * * * * from this extremely gallant and most decisive attack by kempt's brigade, we must proceed to describe the no less brilliant charges performed by both somerset's and ponsonby's cavalry brigades; but to afford a more ready comprehension of this period of the action, it will be necessary, in the first instance, to revert, to the attack and defence of la haye sainte. the french skirmishers thrown out by the left brigade of donzelot's division advanced boldly and resolutely against the orchard of la haye sainte. the first shot tore away the bridle of major baring's horse close to his hand, and the second killed major bÖsewiel, the next in command. the three companies of the nd light battalion of the king's german legion, which, as before stated, were posted in the orchard, together with two companies of the st light battalion of the king's german legion under captains wynecken and goeden, and a company of hanoverian riflemen under major spÖrken, which were extended on the right of the farm, presented a gallant resistance to the enemy; but the latter continued to press forward with superior force, and the main body of the french brigade having formed two columns of attack, which were rapidly advancing, one into the orchard, and the other towards the buildings, major baring fell back with his men upon the barn. at this moment, colonel klencke reached the farm with the lüneburg field battalion; which wellington, on observing the french advance, had detached from the left of kielmansegge's brigade as a reinforcement to the troops of la haye sainte. baring immediately endeavoured to recover the orchard; and had already made the enemy give way, when he perceived a strong line of _cuirassiers_ forming in right front of the inclosure. at the same time, lieutenant meyer came to report to him that the enemy had surrounded the garden in which his company was posted, and that it had become no longer tenable. baring ordered him to fall back into the buildings, and to assist in their defence. the skirmishers upon the right, on the sudden appearance of the cavalry, ran in upon the orchard to collect together: but coming in contact with the newly arrived hanoverians, the latter got into disorder; and the effect produced by the sight of the advancing line of _cuirassiers_ in their front, as also by the shouts of the french infantry gaining possession of the garden in their rear, was such, that notwithstanding all baring's exertions to halt and collect his men, the whole of these troops betook themselves to an indiscriminate flight towards the main position of the allied army, a course which they seemed to imagine constituted their only chance of safety. they were speedily undeceived. the cavalry overtook them in the midst of their confused retreat, rode over, sabred, and still further dispersed them; whilst, to add to the severity of their loss, they became exposed, after the cavalry had passed on, to a flank fire from the enemy's infantry lining the hedge of the garden. a portion of them succeeded in gaining the main position; whilst the remainder, securing themselves in the buildings, augmented the little garrison under lieutenants carey and grÆme, and ensign frank, who bravely and successfully maintained possession in defiance of the vigorous attacks on the part of the french light troops. the lüneburg hanoverian battalion, however, suffered most severely: many were killed and wounded; among the latter was the commanding officer, lieutenant colonel klencke, and among the prisoners taken was major dachenhausen. some on the left saved themselves by a precipitate retreat into the high road. the few that were collected together again during the remainder of the day constituted but a very insignificant portion of the original strength of the battalion. the earl of uxbridge, on perceiving the advance of the french cavalry by la haye sainte, on the british right of the charleroi road (the same alluded to as having dispersed the hanoverian lüneburg battalion and baring's skirmishers of the legion), as also the approach of the infantry columns which constituted the attack upon the allied left wing on the opposite side of that road, decided upon a simultaneous charge by the heavy cavalry brigades of lord edward somerset and sir william ponsonby; the former against the enemy's cavalry, the latter against his masses of infantry. the resolution was scarcely formed when he proceeded to carry it into instant execution. riding up to lord edward somerset, he ordered him to prepare to form line, keeping the blues in support: and galloping on to ponsonby's brigade on the opposite side of the high road, he ordered that officer to wheel into line as soon as he saw the other brigade do so, and to hold the scots greys in support. he then returned to the household brigade, and immediately put the whole in motion. as this was the first grand attack made by the french on that day in fair open field, lord uxbridge felt very desirous, in meeting it, to establish, if possible, the superior prowess of the british cavalry; and thus to inspire it with confidence, and cause it to be held in respect by its opponents. he, therefore, with a view to excite the courage and heighten the enthusiasm of his followers, led the advance in person, placing himself in front of the left of somerset's brigade, so as to be at about the centre of the line when the brigades should unite, on the continuation of the advance, in front of the allied position. nobly and faithfully did these brave dragoons fulfil his anxious expectations. for the purpose of ensuring efficient support to his cavalry attacks, lord uxbridge had, before the commencement of the battle, intimated to the generals of brigade that as he could not be present everywhere to give orders, he expected they would always take upon themselves to conform to, and support, offensive movements in their front; and having on this occasion light cavalry brigades on either flank of the charging force, he felt in a great degree justified in placing himself in front line, particularly as he had assigned to each of the advancing brigades its own immediate support. though greatly palliated by the adoption of these precautionary measures, this was perhaps not altogether a prudent act on the part of the commander of the entire cavalry of an army; since, in the charge of an extended line of cavalry against an enemy close at hand, the _carrière_ once begun, the leader becomes so completely identified and mixed up with that line itself, that his virtual command is rapidly limited to that of a squadron officer; whereas, when accompanying a _second_ line, he is enabled to draw off, or reinforce, as circumstances may render expedient. his eager desire, however, to render this first charge a brilliant affair, combined with his own chivalric nature, led him to assume the post of honour and of danger, in order to animate by his example as a bold and determined soldier. at the same time, he trusted to the dispositions he had already made, and to the alertness of his brigadiers, for due support to his attack; but which, from fortuitous circumstances, as will be seen by the sequel, was not forthcoming at the moment it was most urgently required. the french line of cavalry, as it advanced, presented an imposing appearance. these veteran warriors bore with them an air of confident superiority and anticipated triumph, joined with a sort of _gaieté de coeur_, inspired no doubt by the reflection that they were about to encounter and overthrow their most implacable enemies, the british. their advance, like that of the infantry on their right, had been to a certain extent triumphant; and, as the flight of the dutch-belgians had led that infantry to imagine that victory was already within its grasp, so the dispersion of the hanoverians was hailed by these dragoons as a happy prelude to their grand attack. they had now ascended the brow of the ridge on which the anglo-allied infantry was posted, prepared for their reception: a vigorous fire was opened upon them by the four guns of ross's british horse battery on the right of the high road, as also by lloyd's british foot battery still further to the right; but a few seconds sufficed to restore the order of their advance: in the next moment their trumpets sounded the charge; when, amidst shouts of "_vive l'empereur!_" this gallant line, glittering in all the splendour reflected from burnished helmet and cuirass, rushed on to the attack. on the other hand, the british household brigade, presenting a beautiful line, and animated by an equal degree of enthusiasm, had already been put into charging speed; and just as the _cuirassiers_ came close upon the squares, and received a fire from their front faces, the two lines dashed into each other with indescribable impetuosity. the shock was terrific. the british, in order to close as much as possible upon the _cuirassiers_, whose swords were much longer, and whose bodies were encased in steel, whilst their own were without such defence, seemed for a moment striving to wedge themselves in between the horses of their infuriated antagonists. swords gleamed high in air with the suddenness and rapidity of the lightning flash, now clashing violently together, and now clanging heavily upon resisting armour; whilst with the din of the battle shock were mingled the shouts and yells of the combatants. riders vainly struggling for mastery quickly fell under the deadly thrust or the well delivered cut. horses, plunging and rearing, staggered to the earth, or broke wildly from their ranks. but desperate and bloody as was the struggle, it was of brief duration. the physical superiority of the british, aided by transcendant valour, was speedily made manifest; and the _cuirassiers_, notwithstanding their most gallant and resolute resistance, were driven down from off the ridge, which they had ascended only a few minutes before with all the pride and confidence of men accustomed and determined to overcome every obstacle. this first collision at the charge did not occur, however, throughout the entire extent of the opposing lines. somerset's line was not parallel to that of the _cuirassiers_, and as its right was thrown somewhat forward, this came first in contact with the enemy, and the collision, in consequence of the rapidity of the charge on both sides, followed in instantaneous succession in the direction of the allied left until intercepted in its further progress by a natural obstruction consisting of the hollow way through which the cross roads lead into the charleroi road. the _cuirassiers_ on the right of the french line were suddenly thrown out of their speed by coming unexpectedly on this hollow way, into which they consequently descended abruptly and confusedly; and as they began to urge their horses up the opposite bank, they beheld the nd british life guards, which formed the left of somerset's brigade, in full speed towards them. all idea of resistance, in such a situation, was abandoned as hopeless. they immediately filed away down this hollow way to their right, and struck across the charleroi road into the field in front of the th british rifles; followed by the nd life guards, who were in equal disorder from having to pick their way as they best could down the steep banks adjoining the intersection of the two roads. these _cuirassiers_, after having rushed in upon the french infantry skirmishers thickly and confusedly congregated in that quarter, reined in their steeds, and fronting their pursuers, engaged them individually in hand to hand combat. they were soon, however, made sensible of their inferiority in this species of contest, and either submitted to the victors, or fled with precipitation; whilst at the same time, kempt's brigade was charging gloriously down the exterior slope of the allied position, and closing upon the infantry with which these horsemen had become intermingled, in the manner previously described. no sooner did ponsonby perceive the household cavalry in motion, than in pursuance of the orders he had received, he led on his own brigade; but not being sufficiently aware of the state of affairs on the opposite side of the wavre road, and not wishing to launch his line against the enemy's masses until the favourable moment had arrived, he commanded a temporary halt, and rode up to the hedge in order that he might, by personal observation, ensure the correct timing of the charge. he was accompanied by colonel muter, commanding the inniskilling dragoons; whom he desired to return and place himself in front of the centre squadron, and to order and conduct the movement, the moment he should observe him hold up his cocked hat as a signal. it is necessary to remark that the scots greys, who stood in support some short time previously to this advance, just where the enemy's round shot, after passing over the ridge in front, descended in quick succession and occasioned some losses in their ranks, were ordered to some lower ground in left rear of the other two regiments; which new position they had scarcely reached when the latter were advanced as above, and the greys immediately conformed to this movement. during the advance of alix's french division (the first), its rear brigade, which consisted of the th and th regiments, inclined to its right, moved out of the mass, and formed two columns, of two battalions each, in support, _en échelon_ to the leading brigade, consisting of the th and th regiments. in like manner, the rear brigade of marcognet's division (the third), consisting of the st and th regiments, broke into two columns, of two battalions each, in support, _en échelon_ to, but more immediately in rear of, the leading brigade, consisting of the th and th regiments. while kempt's brigade was bravely charging down the slope on the right, the heads of the leading brigades of alix's and marcognet's divisions, with conspicuous gallantry, and amidst shouts of triumph, crowned the crest of the allied position on the left, crossing the wavre road and the straggling hedge, by which their order had been in some degree disturbed. alix's leading brigade, having passed clear of kempt's left, found itself unopposed by infantry, in its front; but the head of marcognet's column, after passing close by the right of captain rettberg's hanoverian foot battery, from which it had received a very destructive fire, during its advance, beheld a short but compact line of highlanders directly in its front. this was the remnant of the nd regiment which had so gallantly fought, and so greatly suffered, at quatre bras. it did not at that moment consist of more than men, whilst the opposing column numbered about , . pack, who was in front of the nd, on seeing the head of the french column making its way through the hedge, resolved in his own mind that not a moment must be allowed to it for observation and reflection, as otherwise the french would succeed in establishing themselves in great force on the summit of the british position. he instantly decided upon a measure, which, in daring and determination, was fully commensurate with the emergency of the occasion. addressing himself to the highlanders, he said, in an energetic tone, " nd, you must charge--all in front of you have given way!" with loud cheers, and under the animating sounds of their native pibroch, the nd moved steadily on with the noble mien and gallant bearing of men bent upon upholding, at any sacrifice, the honour and glory of their country. that portion of the french column which had by this time crossed the hedge was in perfect order, and presented a bold and determined front. as the nd approached the column, it received from it a fire; which, however, it did not return, but continued to advance steadily until it had arrived within twenty or thirty yards distance, when the head of the french column appeared panic struck, and facing about in the greatest confusion, endeavoured to escape; the highlanders, at the same moment, throwing into the mass a concentrated fire, most destructive in its effects. the nd immediately charged; but at this very moment ponsonby's brigade came up. colonel muter had just before perceived the raised cocked hat, when he instantly ordered and conducted the advance of the brigade. it will be recollected that the scots greys had been ordered to support the royals and inniskillings; but having as was before explained, moved down into lower ground on the left, to get more under cover from the enemy's cannonade, and subsequently advanced in left rear of those two regiments, they beheld in their direct front the head of marcognet's division establishing itself on the height. their course from that moment was obvious. they soon got up into line, or nearly so, with the remainder of the brigade, and joined in the general charge. upon ponsonby's brigade coming up with the infantry, it passed through the latter as well, and as quickly as it could: in some instances intervals were made for the dragoons by the wheeling of companies; in others, by that of subdivisions or of sections: but generally the passage was effected in rather an irregular manner; and under the circumstances this was unavoidable. of the remaining regiments of pack's brigade, the th, which formed the left, having its front covered by best's hanoverians, remained in support, on the summit or knoll immediately above, and on the left of, the hollow in which the rest of the brigade had been posted. the st royal scots, and the nd highlanders on the right of the nd, moved forward immediately after the advance by the latter, and crossing the hedge, assisted ponsonby's cavalry in securing prisoners. as the scots greys passed through, and mingled with, the highlanders; the enthusiasm of both corps was extraordinary. they mutually cheered. "scotland for ever!" was their war shout. the smoke in which the head of the french column was enshrouded had not cleared away, when the greys dashed into the mass. so eager was the desire, so strong the determination, of the highlanders to aid their compatriots in completing the work so gloriously begun, that many were seen holding on by the stirrups of the horsemen; while all rushed forward, leaving none but the disabled in their rear. the leading portion of the column soon yielded to this infuriated onset; the remainder, which was yet in the act of ascending the exterior slope, appalled by the sudden appearance of cavalry at a moment when, judging by the sound of musketry fire in front, they had naturally concluded that it was with infantry alone they had to contend, were hurled back in confusion by the impetus of the shock. the dragoons, having the advantage of the descent, appeared to mow down the mass; which, bending under the pressure, quickly spread itself outwards in all directions. yet, in that mass were many gallant spirits, who could not be brought to yield without a struggle; and these fought bravely to the death: not that they served to impede, but only to mark more strongly the course of the impetuous torrent as it swept wildly past them, presenting to the eye of the artistic observer those streaks which, arising incidentally from such partial and individual contests, invariably characterize the track of a charge of cavalry. within that mass too, was borne the imperial eagle of the th regiment, proudly displaying on its banner the names of austerlitz, jena, friedland, essling, and wagram--fields in which this regiment had covered itself with glory, and acquired the distinguished title of "the invincibles." a devoted band encircled the sacred standard, which attracted the observation, and excited the ambition of a daring and adventurous soldier, named ewart, a sergeant of the greys. after a desperate struggle, evincing on his part great physical strength combined with extraordinary dexterity, he succeeded in capturing the cherished trophy. the gallant fellow was directed to proceed with it to brussels, where he was received with acclamations by thousands who came forward to welcome and congratulate him. without pausing for a moment to reform, those of the greys who had forced their way through, or on either flank of, the mass, rushed boldly onward against the leading supporting column of marcognet's right brigade. this body of men, lost in amazement at the suddenness, the wildness, of the charge; and its terrific effects upon their countrymen on the higher ground in front, had either not taken advantage of the very few moments that had intervened, by preparing an effectual resistance to cavalry; or, if they attempted the necessary formation, did so when there was no longer time for its completion. their outer files certainly opened a fire which proved very destructive to their assailants; but to such a degree had the impetus of the charge been augmented by the rapidly increasing descent of the slope, that these brave dragoons possessed as little of the power as of the will to check their speed, and they plunged down into the mass with a force that was truly irresistible. its foremost ranks driven back with irrepressible violence, the entire column tottered for a moment, and then sank under the overpowering wave. hundreds were crushed to rise no more; and hundreds rose again but to surrender to the victors; who speedily swept their prisoners to the rear, while the highlanders secured those taken from the leading column. along the remainder of the line, the charge of the "union brigade" was equally brilliant and successful. on the right, the royal dragoons, by inclining somewhat to their left, during the advance, brought their centre squadron to bear upon the head of the leading column of alix's division, which had crossed the hedges lining the wavre road, and being unchecked, was rapidly advancing across the crest of the ridge. suddenly its loud shouts of triumph ceased as it perceived the close approach of cavalry up the interior slope of the anglo-allied position. whether it was actuated by a consciousness of danger from the disorder necessarily occasioned in its rear by the passage through the banked up hedges, by a dread of being caught in the midst of any attempt to assume a formation better adapted for effective resistance, or of being entirely cut off from all support, it is difficult to decide, but the head of this column certainly appeared to be seized with a panic. having thrown out an irregular and scattering fire, which served only to bring down about twenty of the dragoons; it instantly faced about, and endeavoured to regain the opposite side of the hedges. the royals, however, were slashing in amongst them before this object could be effected. the rear ranks of the column, still pressing forward, and unconscious of the obstruction in front, now met those that were hurled back upon them down the exterior slope by the charge of the royals, who continued pressing forward against both front and flanks of the mass. the whole was in a moment so jammed together as to have become perfectly helpless, men tried in vain to use their muskets, which were either jerked out of their hands, or discharged at random, in the attempt. gradually, a scattering flight from the rear loosened the unmanageable mass, which now rolled back helplessly along its downward course. many brave spirits, hitherto pent up in the midst of the throng, appeared disposed to hazard a defiance; and amongst these the swords of the royals dealt fearful havoc: many threw down their arms, and gave themselves up in despair; and these were hurried off by the conquerors to the rear of the british line. the th french regiment, which formed a direct support to the th regiment, comprising the column thus attacked, though astounded by the scene before it, and almost driven back by the panic stricken fugitives, still retained a considerable semblance of order. amidst the crowd that was now precipitating itself on this supporting column, to seek its shelter and protection, was an officer, the bearer of the eagle of the th regiment. this standard, on which were inscribed the victories of jena, eylau, eckmühl, essling, and wagram, was accompanied at the moment by a party apparently forming a guard for its defence. captain clark, commanding the centre squadron of the royals, on discovering the group, instantly gave the order, "right shoulders forward--attack the colour!" and led directly upon the eagle himself. on reaching it, he ran his sword through the body of the standard bearer who immediately fell, and the eagle dropped across the head of captain clark's horse. he endeavoured to catch it with his left hand, but could only touch the fringe of the colour, and it would probably have fallen to the ground, and have been lost in the confusion of the moment, had it not been saved by corporal stiles; who, having been standard coverer, and therefore posted immediately in rear of the squadron leader, came up at the instant, on captain clark's left, and caught the colour as it struck, in falling, against his own horse's neck. so great were the confusion and dismay created in the second column by the rush towards it of the disorganised remnant of the leading body, mixed up as it were with the dragoons still pressing eagerly forward, as also by the signal overthrow of the columns on their right by the inniskillings, that the entire mass speedily yielded to the pressure, and commenced a disorderly flight, pursued by the royals to the foot of the valley by which the two positions were divided. the inniskillings, forming the centre regiment of the brigade, did not come quite so soon into contact with the french infantry as did the flank regiments. the columns in their immediate front were the two formed by the th and th french regiments, of two battalions each; which, as previously explained, advanced in support, and in right rear, of alix's leading brigade. only the left, and part of the centre, squadron of the inniskillings had to pass through british infantry as they advanced; the front of the right squadron was clear. the irish "_hurrah!_" loud, wild, and shrill, rent the air as the inniskillings, bursting through the hedge and bounding over the road, dashed boldly down the slope towards the french columns, which were about a hundred yards distant; an interval that imparted an additional impetus to their charge, and assisted in securing for it a result equally brilliant with that obtained by the other two regiments. the right and centre squadrons bore down upon the th french regiment; while the left squadron alone charged the th regiment. these two columns, like those on their right and left, were not allowed time to recover from their astonishment at the unexpected, sudden, and vehement charge of cavalry launched against them. a feeble and irregular fire was the only attempt they made to avert the impending danger. in the next instant the dragoons were amongst them, plying their swords with fearful swiftness and dexterity, and cleaving their way into the midst of the masses; which, rolling back, and scattering outwards, presented an extraordinary scene of confusion. in addition to the destruction effected by this regiment, the number of prisoners which it secured was immense. the household brigade continued its charge down the slope on the right, and partly on the left, of la haye sainte, with the most distinguished gallantry and success; and bringing their right shoulders forward, the st life guards pressed severely on the rear of the _cuirassiers_, as a very considerable portion of them rushed tumultuously towards that part of the high road beyond the orchard of la haye sainte which lies between high banks, and which was thus completely choked up with the fugitives. many of those who found their retreat so seriously impeded, again faced their opponents, and a desperate hand to hand contest ensued; which, however, was suddenly terminated by a destructive fire poured down upon the st life guards, from the top of the banks, by the light troops of bachelu's division that crowned the heights through which the road has been excavated. the king's dragoon guards, leaving this struggle on their right, and rattling across the _pavé_, boldly ascended the enemy's position. they were joined on their left, by the nd life guards, whose course had been by the left of la haye sainte. with these were now mingled royals and inniskillings, while further to the left were the greys--the whole line, without even any semblance of regularity, madly pursuing their wild career, as if intoxicated with the excess of triumph. then it was that lord uxbridge, who had so gallantly led the charge in person, and incited all by his example, eagerly sought for the support on which he had confidently calculated; when, to his great surprise and mortification, he discovered that there was none at hand. ponsonby's own immediate support, which lord uxbridge himself had ordered to be formed by the greys, had necessarily been employed in front line on the left, in the manner described; a fact of which, from his own position as leader of that line, he had been quite unaware. the direct support of somerset's brigade, consisting of the blues, had, during the charge, come up with, and joined, the front line. the regiment was kept well in hand; and, by its comparatively good order, facilitated the drawing off of the remainder of that brigade from further pursuit. but it was on the left of the high road, in rear of ponsonby's line, that support was most needed. his lordship could not account for the circumstance of neither of the light cavalry brigades, posted on the extreme left, having come up in support of ponsonby's advance, in conformity with the general instructions conveyed to his brigadiers on the subject of affording mutual support. the fact is, that vandeleur's brigade, which was the nearest, was then in motion for the purpose of affording its aid; but its progress was unfortunately impeded by its having previously to make a retrograde movement in order to pass a hollow way which separated it from the troops on the right. in vain did lord uxbridge sound to halt and rally--neither voice nor trumpet was heeded. in a few seconds more, the advanced line was seen crowning the enemy's position. the king's dragoon guards were suddenly exposed to a severe fire from the batteries and from bachelu's columns of infantry on their right; and perceiving a strong and well formed body of _cuirassiers_ on the point of advancing from the hollow beyond the ridge they had so rashly ascended, they, with such of the royals and inniskillings as had joined them, at length commenced a hasty retreat. the greys, along with many of the royals and inniskillings, dashed in amongst the batteries, and then, wheeling sharply to their left, rode along the line of cannon in that direction, sabring the gunners and stabbing the horses, until they became sensible of the approach of a body of french lancers moving down obliquely from the left upon the arena of this memorable conflict. they now fell back; but, with their horses blown and exhausted, it was not long before they were overtaken by the lancers. these formed the advance of jacquinot's light cavalry brigade, which had been unaccountably remiss in not having afforded a prompt and close support to the attacking columns of infantry. both the british heavy cavalry brigades were now in full retreat. somerset's regained the position without any serious molestation: but ponsonby's dragoons, particularly the greys, who were upon the extreme left, suffered severely from jaquinot's lancers and _chasseurs_, the greater part of them being in a state of the utmost confusion and exhaustion; whilst the latter were infinitely superior in numerical force, were in good order, and mounted on horses perfectly fresh. on their right the lancers charged in open column; the remainder, extending in open lancer order towards their left, rapidly spread over the plain, darting upon the stragglers and wounded of the british cavalry who came within their reach; and, at the same time, giving confidence to such of their own scattered infantry as were still retreating in disorder and confusion. at length, the support so greatly needed by ponsonby's brigade arrived upon its left flank. vandeleur, having passed the hollow way and ravine which intercepted his progress towards the scene of action, had reached that part of the crest of the position occupied by best's hanoverian brigade, through which it now advanced to the front in open column of divisions. the th light dragoons, being the leading regiment, moved quickly down the slope: the th regiment remained higher up the acclivity; while the th were drawn up in reserve upon the brow of the hill. the th and th wheeled into line to their right. lieutenant colonel the hon. frederick ponsonby, who commanded the th, perceiving the confusion that prevailed amidst the french infantry in the valley, as also the extremely critical situation of a great number of scattered red coated dragoons nearly on the crest of the french position, instantly charged a mass of unsteady infantry which intervened between him and these dragoons. this infantry comprised the rearmost supporting column of marcognet's division, and was the only one of the attacking columns yet intact. it was now destined to share their fate. already alarmed by the disorder into which the entire of the infantry on its left had been thrown, and now attacked so suddenly and unexpectedly on its right, it was penetrated by the charge of the th. these dragoons having forced their way through the column, whereby their order was naturally much broken, came upon the right flank of the lancers who were in pursuit of ponsonby's brigade. quickening their speed, they dashed in amongst the french cavalry, and acting almost perpendicularly upon their flank, they "rolled up" such as were immediately in their front. the th light dragoons, with vandeleur at their head, very gallantly charged obliquely upon the front of the lancers, whose further advance was completely checked by this double attack. on their extreme right, the th rather clashed with some of the retiring dragoons: but the two regiments, carrying every thing before them, succeeded in driving the french light cavalry down again to the foot of the valley; which they had been ordered, previously to their charge, not to pass. some few of both the th and th did, nevertheless, madly rush up the opposite height; where, by this time, fresh troops had arrived, who made them suffer for their temerity. ghigny's dutch-belgian light cavalry brigade, which had, at the commencement of this cavalry attack, crossed the charleroi road, came up, in the mean time, to the brow of the main position, on the left of vandeleur's brigade. one of its regiments, the th light dragoons, went down the slope, following the th light dragoons; and after experiencing the effects of a brisk fire which was kept up by durutte's skirmishers from behind a bank and hedge, low down the slope, and from which the th light dragoons had previously suffered, it assisted in completing the dispersion of the french infantry. the other regiment (the th hussars) remained a few minutes upon the height, and then advanced to draw off the retiring cavalry. vivian, who had come forward in person from the extreme left, and proceeded some way down the slope for the purpose of making his observations, upon perceiving ponsonby's brigade charging in disorder up the french heights, immediately sent back word for the th and th british hussars to move through the hollow way to their right, leaving the remaining regiment of his brigade, the st hussars of the king's german legion, to keep a look out to the left. very shortly afterwards, two guns detached in advance from his horse battery, drew up on the brow of the main ridge; but had scarcely opened a fire when a well directed shot from one of the french batteries passed through the ammunition boxes of one of the limbers, causing an explosion, which drew forth a shout of triumph on the part of the french artillerymen. the charge of vandeleur's brigade having succeeded, without the active aid of even its own immediate support, the th light dragoons; the further advance of the th and th hussars was not required, but they continued in their new position, on the right of the lane leading to verd cocou, and the two guns rejoined their battery. major whinyates's rocket troop, having been brought up to the crest of the main ridge, from its previous position in reserve near mont st jean, its rocket sections were moved down to the foot of the exterior slope, whence they discharged several rockets at the french troops then formed, or in the act of reforming, upon the opposite heights. immediately after the execution of this service, which was gallantly and skilfully conducted, the troop rejoined its guns on the crest of the position. in the general _mêlée_ which resulted from the charge of the british heavy dragoons, and the overthrow of such masses of infantry, augmented as it was by the subsequent charges of, firstly, the french lancers, and, then, the two regiments of british light cavalry, severe losses were sustained on both sides; and the british army was deprived of some of its brightest ornaments. the gallant leader of the "union brigade," when endeavouring to return to the allied position, after using the most strenuous but fruitless exertions to restrain his men in their wild pursuit, and to withdraw them from a contest in which they had already gained undying fame, became a sacrifice to his chivalrous and patriotic zeal. intercepted by a party of the lancers in the soft ground of a newly ploughed field, out of which his exhausted steed had not the power to extricate itself, he fell beneath their deadly thrusts. sir william ponsonby had highly distinguished himself as a cavalry officer in spain; and, independently of his merits as a soldier, which were justly appreciated by the whole service, his amiable disposition and private virtues endeared him to all his brother officers. his equally gallant namesake, colonel the hon. frederick ponsonby, immediately after his brilliant charge with the th light dragoons, first through a column of infantry, and then upon the right flank of the lancers, was endeavouring to withdraw his regiment from further pursuit, when he was disabled in both arms, and carried by his horse up to the crest of the french position; where, receiving a sabre cut, he was struck senseless to the ground; and it was very generally supposed at the time that he had been left dead on the field. lieutenant colonel hay, who commanded the th light dragoons, was desperately and dangerously wounded. colonel hamilton, the commanding officer of the scots greys, after gallantly leading his regiment through the enemy's columns, across the valley, and up the opposite heights, was last seen far in advance; where it is presumed, from his never having again appeared, he fell in the midst of the french lines, a sacrifice to his distinguished but indiscreet valour. colonel fuller, who commanded the st, or king's, dragoon guards, was killed when pursuing the _cuirassiers_: he boldly led his regiment up the french height immediately upon the allied left of the charleroi road. in addition to the above mentioned, the british cavalry engaged in this affair sustained a very heavy loss in both officers and men. with the exception of the bodies of the slain; of such of the wounded as were too far from their respective lines to be removed; of loose horses, some wildly careering about, others quietly grazing, and many staggering, plunging, or convulsively pawing the ground around them, from the agony of their wounds; the arena of this terrible conflict, which had ceased but a few minutes before, was now perfectly clear. the retiring crowds of french infantry had disappeared behind the foremost ridge of their position, to collect and reform their scattered remnants. the british cavalry were similarly employed--somerset's brigade on the right of the charleroi road, near the orchard of the farm of mont st jean; ponsonby's on the opposite side of the road, in rear of a coppice bordering the hollow below that farm; and vandeleur's on the interior slope of the position, more to the right than where it had been posted during the earlier part of the day. pack's and best's brigades closed to their right upon kempt's, so as to fill up the interval occasioned by the retreat of bylandt's dutch-belgian brigade; and the knoll in front of kempt's brigade was again occupied by three companies of the th regiment; as was also the farm of la haye sainte by the nd light battalion king's german legion, reinforced by two companies of the st light battalion of that corps. major general sir john lambert's infantry brigade, which had been kept in reserve near mont st jean, was put in motion at the time ponsonby's dragoons advanced to the charge; and it was now placed on the left of the charleroi road, in column, at quarter distance, in rear and in support of the fifth division. the importance of the result of this signal defeat of the french attack was fully commensurate with the glory by which its achievement was distinguished. the object of that attack, which was to force the centre and left wing of the anglo-allied army and to establish a very considerable body of troops in the vicinity of mont st jean, was completely frustrated: , prisoners were taken; two eagles were captured; and between thirty and forty pieces of cannon were put _hors de combat_ for the greater part of the remainder of the day. thus terminated one of the grandest scenes which distinguished the mighty drama enacted on the ever memorable plains of waterloo; a scene presenting in bold relief, genuine british valour crowned with resplendent triumph; a scene, which should be indelibly impressed upon the minds as well of living british warriors as of their successors in ages yet unborn. * * * * * britons! before other scenes are disclosed to your view, take one retrospective glance at this glorious, this instructive, spectacle. let your imagination carry you to the rear of that celebrated position, and a little to the left of the charleroi road. behold, in the foreground, on the right, a british line of cavalry advancing to the charge, exulting in the consciousness of its innate courage, indomitable spirit, and strength of arm. whilst you are admiring the beautiful order and perfect steadiness of their advance, your eyes are suddenly attracted by the glittering splendour of a line of horsemen in burnished coats of mail, rising above the brow, and now crowning the summit of the ridge. they are the far famed _cuirassiers_ of france, led on by a kellermann; gallant spirits that have hitherto overcome the finest troops that could be brought against them, and have grown grey in glory. trumpets sound the charge; in the next instant your ears catch the low thundering noise of their horses' hoofs, and your breathless excitement is wound to the highest pitch as the adverse lines clash together with a shock which, at the moment, you expect must end in their mutual annihilation. observe the british, how they seem to doubt, for a second, in what manner to deal with their opponents. now they urge their powerful steeds into the intervals between the necks of those of the _cuirassiers_. swords, brandished high in air, gleam fitfully in rapid succession throughout the lines, here clashing together, there clanging against helmets and cuirass which ring under their redoubled strokes. see! the struggle is but a moment doubtful--the _cuirassiers_, seemingly encumbered by their coats of mail, are yielding to superior strength, dexterity, and bravery combined--men and horses reel and stagger to the earth--gaps open out in their line--numbers are backing out--others are fairly turning round--their whole line now bends, and breaks asunder into fragments--in the next moment they appear, as if by a miracle, to be swept from off the crest of the position, and being closely and hotly pursued by the victors, the whole rushing down the other side of the ridge, are snatched from your view. your attention is now irresistibly drawn to that part of the foreground immediately facing you; where you have barely time to catch sight of a line of british infantry just as it forces its way through the hedge that runs along the crest of the ridge, to charge a column advancing up the other side. at the moment the shouts that proclaim its triumph reach your ear, you are struck by the majestic advance, close to your left, of another line of british horsemen. these halt just under the brow of the ridge. in their left front your eye now also embraces a line of british infantry; whilst at the same time you see the heads of two hostile columns, issuing through the hedge, and crowning the ridge amidst shouts of "_vive l'empereur!_" the one nearest to you, finding no immediate opposition to its further advance, is rapidly establishing itself on the height: the other is instantly met by a small but daring band of scotch highlanders. a struggle ensues; the furthest column is concealed from your view by the smoke in which it is suddenly enshrouded; but at the very moment when doubts arise in your mind as to the result, the cavalry rushes forward, and, passing through intervals opened out for it by the infantry, which immediately follows in pursuit, charges both these heads of columns, cutting them up, as it were, root and branch; and then bounding through the hedge, the whole disappear as if by magic. now let your imagination, keeping pace with the intensity of feeling excited by such a scene, carry you up to the summit of the ridge. behold, at once, the glorious spectacle spread out before you! the dragoons are in the midst of the enemy's columns--the furious impetuosity of their onslaught overcomes all resistance--the terror stricken masses, paralyzed by this sudden apparition of cavalry amongst them, have neither time nor resolution to form squares, and limit their defence to a feeble, hasty, straggling fire from their ill cemented edges--a flight, commencing from the rearmost ranks, is rapidly augmented by the outward scattering occasioned by the continually increasing pressure upon the front--the entire slope is soon covered with the dispersed elements of the previously attacking force--parties of infantry are hurrying over the brow of the ridge to aid others of the cavalry in securing the prisoners-- , of these are swept to the rear, and two eagles are gloriously captured. from the momentary contemplation of these trophies, your eyes instinctively revert to the course of the victors, whom you now perceive in the middle distance of the view--a broken line of daring horsemen, rushing up the opposite heights. their intoxicating triumph admits of no restraint. they heed not the trumpet's call to halt and rally; but plunging wildly amidst the formidable line of batteries ranged along the french position, they commence sabring the gunners, stabbing the horses, and seem to clear the ground of every living being. but physical efforts, however powerfully developed and sustained, have their limit: exhausted nature yields at length; and their fiery steeds, subdued, not by force but by exhaustion, retire with lagging faltering pace. you look in vain for a support--there is none--but your eye is suddenly caught by the fluttering lance flags of a column of the enemy's cavalry, approaching from the left, and you become nervously alive to the danger that awaits the valiant band of heroes, who are only now made sensible of the necessity of retiring to collect and rally their scattered numbers. seeing no support ready to receive them, and becoming aware of the near approach of hostile cavalry, they make a last and desperate effort. those who are best mounted, and whose horses are least blown, succeed in regaining the allied position unmolested; but a very considerable number are overtaken by the lancers, with whom they now contend under a fearful disadvantage in point of speed and order. but mark! a rescue is at hand--a gallant line of friendly cavalry throws itself against the right flank of the lancers, the further portion, or left, of that line first dashing through and scattering an unsteady mass of infantry, the sole remaining column out of the entire attacking force that has yet kept together. the tide of destruction now sets in strongly against the lancers. their pursuit is checked. the heavy dragoons are relieved from the pressure. a _mêlée_ ensues; but you are not kept long in suspense; for in another moment this newly arrived force, making good its way, succeeds in driving the lancers in confusion down to the foot of the valley. the arena in your front is speedily cleared of both friends and foes--the discharge of rockets, which now attracts your attention, appears like a display of fireworks in celebration of the glorious triumph--the affair has terminated. but stay to witness the concluding part of the scene. observe the splendidly attired group entering upon the right, just above la haye sainte. it is headed by one whom you cannot for a moment mistake--the illustrious wellington. lord uxbridge, returning from his brilliant charge, now joins the duke, while the whole _corps diplomatique et militaire_ express in the strongest terms their admiration of the grand military spectacle of which they have been spectators. among them are representatives of nearly all the continental nations, so that this glorious triumph of your valiant countrymen may be said to have been achieved in the face of congregated europe. honour, imperishable honour, to every british soldier engaged in that never to be forgotten fight! when britain again puts forth her strength in battle, may her sovereign's guards inherit the same heroic spirit which animated those of george, prince regent, and inspire them with the desire to maintain in all their pristine purity and freshness the laurels transmitted to them from the field of waterloo; and when the soldiers of the three united kingdoms shall again be found fighting side by side against the common enemy, may they prove to the world that they have not degenerated from the men of the "union brigade,"[ ] who by their heroic deeds on that great day, so faithfully represented the military virtues of the british empire! [illustration] footnotes: [footnote : the dutch-belgians having been posted in line on the exterior slope, where, from the circumstance of their having been the only troops of the anglo-allied left wing so distinctly visible to the enemy, they became exposed in an especial manner to the destructive effects of the formidable array of french batteries, which continued playing over the heads of the attacking columns. the losses of bylandt's brigade on the th had already thinned, and in a measure disorganised, its ranks; but those which it suffered on this occasion were terrific, and the numerous gaps that so rapidly presented themselves along the line, as well as the number of superior officers that were observed to fall, could scarcely fail to produce a prejudicial effect among these raw troops. their confidence in their own power of resistance had also been very considerably shaken, by the circumstance of their having been deployed in a two-deep line; instead of having been allowed to assume the three-deep formation to which they had previously been accustomed. in this affair, perponcher had two horses shot under him. bylandt was wounded, as were also colonel van zuylen van nyefelt, lieutenant colonel westenberg who commanded the th battalion of dutch militia, and several other officers. had the british soldiers been fully aware of all these circumstances, their feelings would assuredly not have been so greatly roused against the dutch-belgians as they were on this particular occasion. but they had neither time nor opportunity for reflection. they only saw the hurried and confused retreat; and this, at such a moment, would have equally exasperated them, had the troops so retiring been british. that picton, who could perceive all that was passing along the exterior slope, should have given vent to his irritation in the remark he made to captain tyler, is more surprising; but it must be borne in mind, that his habitual reliance upon his own british infantry, with which he felt that he could attempt anything, usually led him to make but little allowance for the failure or discomfiture of troops in general under almost any circumstances.] [footnote : sir william ponsonby's brigade was thus designated from the circumstance of its having consisted of an english regiment, the royals; a scotch regiment, the greys; and an irish regiment, the inniskillings.] chapter xii. much as the attention of both commanders had been absorbed by the contest described in the last chapter, the attack and defence of hougomont had nevertheless been renewed and maintained with unabated vigour. the assailants, who continued in possession of the wood, having been strengthened by powerful reinforcements from both jerome's and foy's divisions, now opened so rapid and indiscriminate a fire upon the garden wall that it might almost be supposed they entertained the hope of battering it down with their shower of bullets. they failed to make any impression upon the little garrison; though they obtained partial successes on the flanks, which again were counteracted on the part of the defenders by the aid of detachments from the main body of byng's brigade of guards, as also by the natural advantages of the localities. thus, upon the right, a retreat of the guards from the hedge which lines the avenue and road leading to the château, if followed up by the french, would draw upon the latter a murderous fire from the banks, brushwood, and other cover, in rear of the avenue, together with a flank fire from behind the buildings: and, upon the left, if they succeeded in forcing back the defenders from the front to the rear hedge of the orchard, their left flank became exposed to a severe fire from the troops lining the eastern garden wall, while they suffered at the same time from the new fire directed against their front by the retreating party, formed under cover of the hollow way by which that rear hedge is bounded. it was about two o'clock when byng, perceiving the increased pressure upon the troops in the orchard, and the great diminution which had taken place in their numbers, desired colonel hepburn, who commanded the nd battalion of the rd foot guards, to move down the slope with the remainder of his men as a reinforcement. colonel hepburn on reaching the hollow way found it occupied by lord saltoun with a very small force; and his lordship having scarcely a man remaining of his own battalion, gave over to the colonel the command of that part of hougomont, and rejoined maitland's brigade. after a short time, hepburn and his battalion made a sudden and vigorous rush into the great orchard from the hollow way in its rear. the french skirmishers gave way; and, as they crowded together while retreating through the gap that leads into the wood, they suffered severely from the concentrated fire poured upon them by the guards; who quickly established themselves along the front hedge of the orchard. this happened nearly at the same time in which the french were repulsed in their grand attack upon the centre and left of the duke of wellington's line. it might be about half past two o'clock. the battle was then limited to a general cannonade, the roar of which was incessant; and its effects, now that the range on both sides had been very accurately obtained, were most galling and destructive to the troops posted along the interior slope of either position. alten's light troops again spread themselves out to the front as soon as kellermann's _cuirassiers_ had been swept from off the exterior slope of the anglo-allied position. they had not been out long before their attention was directed to a heavy column of infantry, apparently advancing from the vicinity of la belle alliance towards la haye sainte. it was bachelu's division, which had fallen back a little after the failure of d'erlon's attack, to which it had acted as a reserve. lieutenant colonel vigoureux, of the th british regiment, who commanded these light troops of alten's division, immediately threw them forward to meet the column. they poured a well concentrated and most galling fire upon the mass; which immediately brought its right shoulders forward, and took the direction of hougomont, either in consequence of that fire, or in accordance with orders previously given. the ground over which it wound its course descended sufficiently to render the movement indistinct to the british batteries on the position; but the circumstance having been communicated to captain cleeves, whose foot battery of the king's german legion was posted on the most commanding point of the ridge on the right of the charleroi road, this officer lost not a moment in making his arrangements. he permitted the column to continue its march unmolested until it reached a point immediately in his front, on which he had directed his guns so as to concentrate upon the mass, at the proper moment, the whole fire of his battery. the column continued its march, and had cleared more than two-thirds of the distance between la belle alliance and hougomont, when, having well entered within captain cleeves's line of fire, three rounds from each gun were thrown into it with astonishing rapidity, and awful effect. in a moment the greater portion of the column appeared to be dispersed, and flying back in confusion towards the lower ground for shelter; leaving an immense number of dead and dying to attest the fatal accuracy of the fire from the battery. as no hostile force of either cavalry or infantry appeared in its immediate vicinity, bachelu soon succeeded in rallying his division and renewing the advance. a similar result followed; whereupon all further attempt to effect the contemplated movement was abandoned: and thus a most serious flank attack upon hougomont was completely frustrated by the skilfully managed fire of a single battery. bachelu now took post again, upon the right of foy, leaving a considerable interval between his division and the charleroi road. foiled in his varied and repeated attacks upon hougomont, napoleon had now recourse to incendiary projectiles. for this purpose he had ordered a battery of howitzers to be formed, from which shells were thrown so as to descend into the buildings. the great barn, the outhouses on the north side of the château, the farmer's house, and finally the château itself, were speedily set on fire. dense volumes of smoke, enveloping the whole post and its defenders, were wafted slowly towards the anglo-allied line; the roofs of the buildings soon fell in; and, shortly before three o'clock, the flames burst forth with great brilliancy. many of the wounded had been carried, or had crawled, into the buildings; but although their comrades entertained the most distressing apprehensions for their safety, the stern sense of duty and of honour prescribed that of the post itself as paramount to every other consideration. invested as the place was by an enemy so overwhelmingly superior in numbers, and so unceasingly on the alert to seize upon any advantage that might offer; not a man could be spared to assist in extricating the sufferers from their perilous situation. obedience to the natural dictates of humanity was necessarily sacrificed to that which was due to the severe demands of discipline. thus several perished in the flames. others, who had contrived to crawl into the open courts, could scarcely breathe in the scorching and suffocating atmosphere. many who had sought shelter, or had been laid, in the chapel, and whose terrors were excited as they heard the crashing fall of burning timbers, or the frequent explosion of shells around them, at length beheld the flames penetrating the door of the sanctuary. the prayers that had been fervently, though silently, offered up from that holy place, had surely been accepted--the fire, reaching the feet of the wooden image of the saviour of mankind, that stood above the entrance, seemed to feel the sacred presence; for here its progress terminated; and this, without the aid of human efforts. the conflagration did not occasion a moment's relaxation in the heroic exertions of the brave defenders of hougomont. the courage and devotedness of the men kept pace with the zeal and intelligence of their officers; and no sooner did new difficulties arise than they were met and overcome by the most judicious arrangements, combined with the most consummate gallantry. * * * * * it was now about half past three o'clock. the anglo-allied line continued compact and unshaken in its original position. its advanced posts of la haye sainte and hougomont had successfully resisted the most formidable assaults. the left wing had sustained considerable loss in meeting and repelling the french right wing, but the losses endured by the latter in that attack were infinitely more severe: whole columns of infantry had been completely overthrown and dispersed; squadrons of the most splendid and most devoted cavalry had shared a similar fate; whilst from thirty to forty pieces of cannon had been rendered useless for nearly the remainder of the day. hence, the french emperor did not deem it advisable to renew, at least so soon, an attack upon the left of the anglo-allied army. he decided on forming a grand attack upon its right and centre: and since reille's infantry had already suffered very considerably in its assaults upon hougomont, he determined upon employing his cavalry for that purpose; more especially as the ground in front of that part of the allied line appeared well adapted for the movements of this description of force. to gain possession of la haye sainte and hougomont, as a preliminary step, was undoubtedly the most judicious course: but hitherto his endeavours to obtain that vantage ground had altogether failed, and he was now compelled to limit his plan; combining with the projected attack, renewed assaults against those posts; which, even if again unsuccessful, would at least serve to divert in some degree, the enemy's attention. napoleon also contemplated a more important diversion, by causing a demonstration to be made with pirÉ's light cavalry against wellington's right flank. in pursuance of this plan, renewed efforts were made by the attacking force against hougomont; and two columns from donzelot's division descended upon la haye sainte. meanwhile, major baring having applied for a reinforcement, two companies were detached to his post from the st light battalion of the king's german legion. to these and a part of his own battalion, he intrusted the defence of the garden; and, abandoning altogether the orchard, he placed the remainder of his force in the buildings, distributing their defence among the three officers who had so courageously maintained them during the previous attack. the french columns advanced against this post with the most undaunted resolution and the most conspicuous gallantry. the well aimed bullets of the german rifles, though they told quickly and fearfully amidst their masses, arrested not their progress for a moment. they rushed close up to the walls; and, seizing the rifles as they protruded through the loop holes, endeavoured to wrest them from the hands of the defenders. they also made a most furious assault against the gates and doors, in defence of which many lives were sacrificed. the greatest struggle was at the western opening to the large barn, the door of which was wanting. the french, determined to make good an entrance, encountered the brave germans equally resolute to prevent them. the foremost frenchmen, dashing boldly on to force their way, were struck down by the deliberate fire from the rifles the instant they reached the threshold; and seventeen of their dead bodies already formed a rampart for those who continued to press forward to carry on the struggle. it was nearly four o'clock when certain movements made by the lancers on the french extreme left, led the duke to suspect an attack from that quarter; and which, considering the almost isolated position of his detached force at braine l'alleud and vieux foriez, might, if successful, be attended with very serious consequences to himself. he drew lord uxbridge's attention to that point; and the latter immediately despatched grant, with the th light dragoons and the th hussars of his brigade to attack the lancers, detaching at the same time the nd light dragoons of the king's german legion from dÖrnberg's brigade, towards braine l'alleud, for the purpose both of facilitating the attack, by manoeuvring on the left of the lancers, and of watching the enemy's dispositions in that direction. the fire of artillery along both lines had been maintained with the utmost vigour. at this moment, however, a most furious cannonade was directed against that part of the anglo-allied line which was situated between the two high roads. while some of the french light batteries took post in advance, others of the imperial guard, comprising twelve pounders, opened a fire from the heights in rear of, and above, la belle alliance; and as the batteries upon the main french line were ranged along the arc of the chord formed by the allied line, the french artillery was enabled by its very great numerical superiority in guns to concentrate an overwhelming fire upon any part of the duke's position. the allied infantry posted in columns along the interior slope of the ridge, were entirely screened from the observation of the french, who could not distinguish any portion of their enemies beyond the devoted british and german artillerymen at their guns; which, despite the severity of the fire from their opponents, were worked with the most admirable coolness and intrepidity, and with a precision beyond all praise. the thunder of the artillery continued pealing forth in an uninterrupted roll, and the scene became awfully grand. the guns having once obtained the required range, were fired without intermission. instantaneous flashes met the eye, all along the heights, succeeded by volumes of smoke bounding forth along the ground in front, and enveloping the batteries in clouds. the earth trembled beneath the dread concussion. the oldest soldiers had never witnessed a cannonade conducted with such fury, with such desperation. [illustration] the allied columns of infantry were lying down upon the ground to shelter themselves as much as possible from the iron shower that fell fast and heavily--round shot, tearing frightful rents directly through their masses, or ploughing up the earth beside them; shells, bursting in the midst of the serried columns, and scattering destruction in their fall, or previously burying themselves in the soft loose soil to be again forced upwards in eruptions of iron, mud, and stones, that fell among them like volcanic fragments. during this terrible conflict of artillery, ney was making his preparatory dispositions with the cavalry which napoleon had desired him to launch against the anglo-allied right wing. he first formed for attack, milhaud's corps of _cuirassiers_, consisting of twenty four squadrons; and directed lefÈbvre desnouette's light cavalry division of the guard, comprising seven squadrons of lancers and twelve squadrons of _chasseurs_, to follow and support--in all forty three squadrons--constituting a magnificent array of gallant horsemen. as they began to advance, the first line, of _cuirassiers_, shone in burnished steel, relieved by black horse hair crested helmets; next came the red lancers of the guard, in their gaudy uniform, and mounted on richly caparisoned steeds, their fluttering lance flags heightening the brilliancy of their display; whilst the third line, comprising the _chasseurs_ of the guard, in their rich costume of green and gold, with fur trimmed pelisses _à la hussard_, and black bearskin shakos, completed the gorgeous, yet harmonious, colouring of this military spectacle. though formed in successive lines of columns in the hollow space on the immediate left of la haye sainte, where they were sheltered in some degree from the cannonade that raged so furiously above them, the rear lines obliqued to the left on the advance, and became _echelonned_ to the first line, so as to present a general front extending from the charleroi road on their right to the hougomont inclosures on their left. as they ascended the ridge, the french artillery suspended their fire; and the allied batteries commenced pouring a destructive shower of grape shot amidst their devoted ranks. fiercely and fatally did this iron hail rattle against the helmed and steel clad _cuirassiers_, here glancing off, there penetrating the armour; wounding or laying prostrate many a gallant warrior at the very moment when the brightest visions of glory had opened on his ardent imagination. this iron sleet, however, caused no perceptible check to their progress; and, with shouts of "_vive l'empereur!_" they accelerated their pace until, having arrived within about forty yards of the guns, they received the last and well prepared discharge. its effects were terrific: but though their order was somewhat broken, their courage was not shaken. the charge was sounded; a cheer followed; and, in the next instant, they rushed up to the very cannon's mouth. in accordance with previous instructions given by the duke of wellington himself, the artillerymen withdrew, upon the close approach of the cavalry, and sought shelter either beside, or in rear of, the infantry squares; or, where occasion required, they threw themselves under the projecting bayonets of the outer kneeling ranks for protection. the _cuirassiers_, on crowning the crest of the ridge; and finding themselves so unexpectedly in possession of a line of batteries, shouted loudly forth their triumph; and, then renewing their onward charge, were, in a moment, lost to the view of the lancers and _chasseurs_ of the guard. these troops, carried away by the enthusiasm of the moment and the eager desire to share in the fancied victory, advanced with the same fiery impetuosity, and the whole force was now fairly across the ridge. the allied infantry, distributed in chequered squares along the interior slope, were fully prepared to meet the attack. some little apprehension had been entertained for the safety of the right of the front line, where the brunswickers, who, as before remarked, were mostly young, raw troops, had taken up the ground previously occupied by byng's brigade of guards, which had been entirely absorbed by the defence of hougomont, with the exception of two companies which, with the colours, had been withdrawn, as a reserve, to a more sheltered position on the right of the nivelles road. as the french cavalry advanced, the rd british regiment of infantry was led up to the front line, and into an interval between the brunswick squares. this regiment had nearly reached the brow of the ridge when it was suddenly ordered to halt and prepare to receive cavalry; and the _chasseurs_ of the guard appearing the next moment in its front, a fire from this face was opened so hastily that scarcely a shot could have told upon the enemy. it instantly recovered this somewhat nervous precipitation, and presented a bold and determined stand; as did also the brunswickers, who acted on this occasion in a manner that would have reflected credit on the most experienced veterans. the cannonade had necessarily ceased along the right wing of the anglo-allied front line, and along the french batteries to which it was opposed. hence the vehement cheering on the part of the french cavalry became the more distinctly audible and the more highly exciting. a sullen silence was maintained throughout the allied squares, which were all at the "prepare,"--front ranks kneeling, and the second at the charge,--thus forming a _chevaux de frise_, over which the rear ranks were ready to fire, as occasion might demand. as the cavalry now rushed down upon the squares, the front faces of the latter opened their fire when the former had approached within about thirty paces of them. the effect of this fire was to create disorder and confusion in the leading squadron or half squadron (as the case might be), which would then open out from the centre, and obliquing to the right and left respectively, pass on by the flanks of the square attacked, to the fire from which it would consequently become completely exposed. the succeeding repeated the manoeuvre of the leading divisions; and their disorder became greater and greater as the continually augmenting obstacles in their front, the upset riders and horses, increased in multitude. here, as at quatre bras, the french cavalry did not rush to the shock against a single british square. the horsemen of the leading divisions who escaped the opposing fire, failed to maintain the direction of their speed with unabated vigour, and to dash against the square, heedless of personal danger, and intent only upon securing the sole chance that offered for the success of their immediate followers. that portion of the cavalry which passed through the intervals between the foremost squares, directed their advance upon those that were in rear; and the squares being generally _en échiquier_, the opening out and dividing of the attacking squadrons in the manner described, soon commingled the horsemen of different regiments, and added considerably to the disorder already caused by the dropping fire which assailed them in all directions. the anglo-allied cavalry, having the advantage of perfect order, now advanced to the charge; and after encountering some little resistance on different points, speedily succeeded in relieving the squares from the presence of the enemy, whom they pursued over the crest of the ridge and down the exterior slope. no sooner was ney's cavalry driven from the position, than the allied artillerymen flew from their shelter to their guns, and the french batteries recommenced their fire. the former dealt destruction amidst the retiring masses as soon as, and wherever, they were uncovered by the allied cavalry; but some of the british regiments, giving too much rein to their ardour, carried their pursuit rather too far; particularly the rd british light dragoons; who, having attacked the flank of a column of _cuirassiers_ whilst the latter was advancing against the st regiment of dutch carabiniers, by which it was then attacked in front--trip himself leading--drove both the _cuirassiers_ and a body of lancers across the hollow on the right of la haye sainte, back upon their own batteries on the heights beyond, and thus created confusion amongst the french gunners; who, however, made them pay for their temerity as they withdrew again towards their own position. towards the allied right, the lancers, pursued by the st light dragoons of the king's german legion, instantly reformed, and, resuming their charge, became themselves the pursuers; but on advancing over the ridge, they were not only exposed again to the fire from the squares, but were at the same time most unexpectedly assailed by a brisk discharge of round shot from captain bolton's british foot battery, which had just been rapidly advanced to its left front, and very judiciously posted on some favourable ground close to, and on the right of, the nivelles road, and in direct rear of the main ridge. its fire was directed with great precision at the french cavalry in the intervals between the squares in its front, and by its valuable assistance the enemy was soon compelled to retire again across the ridge. it will be readily conceived that such assistance was most essential, when it is recollected that, at this time, the th hussars, the st light dragoons of the king's german legion, the brunswick hussars, and the squadron of brunswick lancers, were the only cavalry regiments posted in rear of that portion of the front line extending from the nivelles road on the right, to the position of halkett's british infantry brigade on the left, in rear of which latter stood the rd light dragoons. the manner in which those regiments charged and repelled the french cavalry opposed to them, merits the highest commendation. the french cavalry evinced the greatest alacrity, nay, impatience, in again getting into order--actuated, no doubt, by a sense of shame and indignation at finding its efforts frustrated, and its valour fruitless; although in possession of the enemy's guns, and at liberty to act at its own discretion against his squares. the advance was speedily renewed; but evidently conducted with more caution, though not with less enthusiasm. again did this brilliant array of horsemen boldly face the iron shower of grape, and gallantly crown the crest of the anglo-allied right wing. but now, instead of attacking indiscriminately as before, one portion was allotted to that service; whilst the remainder was kept in more compact order to stem the onset of the allied cavalry, by which, on the former occasion, they had been so signally repulsed. the charges were repeated against the squares, in the same style, and upon the same system, as before; and with an equally fruitless result. this portion of the attacking force became gradually exhausted and out of order: but the remainder appeared well formed up, and moving forward to charge the second line comprising allied cavalry; which, however, did not wait for the attack, but instantly advanced to meet it. the latter consisted of somerset's brigade on the left (greatly diminished by the effects of its former charge, on the occasion of the french attack of the allied left and centre); of the rd british light dragoons, in rear of halkett's british infantry brigade; of trip's dutch-belgian carabinier brigade, in rear of the rd; of the brunswick hussars and lancers, more to the right; of the st light dragoons of the king's german legion, close to the nivelles road; and of the th british hussars, on the interior slope of that portion of the ridge which was immediately in left rear of hougomont--a force scarcely amounting to half the number of squadrons with which the french cavalry had commenced this attack. the charge was executed under great excitement, and with the utmost steadiness and gallantry. the struggle was desperate and sanguinary: but the french cavalry, assailed in front by the same description of force, and on their flanks by the fire from the squares, at length went about; and were followed, as before, over the ridge and down the exterior slope. in rear of the right of the anglo-allied line, where, as previously observed, the cavalry was then so very weak in numbers, the st light dragoons of the king's german legion had deployed into line, in order to occupy more ground and show a greater front. as the french lancers were attacking the squares, and advancing through the intervals between them, notwithstanding the renewed fire from bolton's battery, the regiment hastened forward to charge them. the germans had not proceeded far when it was discovered that a body of the enemy's cavalry had penetrated to the open space on their left. with great presence of mind and admirable promptitude, major reizenstein, who perceived the danger to which the regiment was exposed by the already meditated attack upon its left flank, drew off a great part of it, and, with a right-shoulder-forward movement, advanced to meet these new assailants who were now coming on at full speed. the mutual impetuosity of the charge, and violence of the shock, were terrific. the two lines dashed at and through each other, and those of the horsemen that were yet firm in their saddles, wheeling sharply round, again rushed to the fierce encounter with the most resolute bravery; and the dispersed riders, after rapidly exchanging cuts and thrusts, _en passant_, sought out their respective corps. as the cavalry retired, the infantry that had attacked la haye sainte desisted from their fruitless endeavours to force the gallant little garrison. not long afterwards, major baring, on finding that the ammunition of his men had, by the constant firing, been reduced to less than one half, became apprehensive of its speedy exhaustion; and despatched an officer to request a supply, which was promised to him. in the mean time, the germans set about diligently repairing the injuries they had sustained, and making the best preparation in their power to meet the next attack. upon the first advance of the french cavalry, by the allied left of hougomont, a body of infantry skirmishers crept along the boundary hedge of the great orchard on that side, and by thus turning the flank of the rd guards, who were at the same time assailed with renewed vigour in front, compelled them to retire into the hollow way in rear of the inclosure; but, as the cavalry withdrew, so did the light troops on the left of the orchard, and lieutenant colonel hepburn, advancing his men from their cover, drove back the french skirmishers in the orchard, and again occupied its front hedge. the contest at this time, between the allied left, and the french right, wing was limited to a continued cannonade, with light troops skirmishing in the valley which separated the two positions. the nassau troops, under prince bernhard of saxe weimar, maintained their ground with great spirit along the villages and inclosures upon the extreme left of the anglo-allied army. grant, who, it will be recollected, had been detached with the th light dragoons and the th hussars, to attack the th and th french lancers, upon the extreme left of the french line, in consequence of certain menacing dispositions on their part, was first made aware that these had been merely a diversion to draw off a portion of the allied cavalry from the real point of attack, by the shouts which suddenly proceeded from their ranks; when, on turning round to ascertain the cause, he perceived the french in possession of the batteries along the crest of the position, and charging the squares posted on the interior slope. observing a repetition of the attack, and the want of cavalry on that part of the position which he had quitted; he most judiciously took upon himself to return to it with both regiments: and, as will appear in the sequel, he arrived there at a most critical moment, when his absence might have produced the most fatal consequences. as a precautionary measure, the right squadron of the th hussars, under captain wodehouse, was left in its original position, to observe the extreme left of the french line; and the nd light dragoons of the king's german legion continued to keep a look out between that point and braine l'alleud. napoleon, perceiving the necessity of affording an immediate support to ney's attack, sent an order to kellermann to advance for that purpose, with his corps of heavy cavalry, consisting of the two divisions commanded by l'heritier and roussel d'urbal, and comprising (at the commencement of the battle) seven squadrons of dragoons, eleven squadrons of _cuirassiers_, and six squadrons of carabiniers. in the mean time, ney, with a similar object in view, had ordered forward guyot's heavy cavalry division of the guard, comprising six squadrons of horse grenadiers, and seven squadrons of dragoons. these thirty-seven squadrons, combined with the force which had already attacked, and which had originally consisted of forty-three squadrons, constituted a stupendous array of cavalry, in comparison with that which was then posted in rear of the right wing of the anglo-allied army; and which received no accession beyond the five squadrons that grant was in the act of withdrawing, as before explained, from the extreme right. guyot's division of the guard having been placed by napoleon at ney's disposal, when he first desired him to form the grand cavalry attack, the marshal was entitled to employ it if he thought proper; but it is doubtful whether napoleon, after having sent forward kellermann's corps, was desirous that the combined force should be thus prematurely engaged, since it would deprive him of his only cavalry reserve. still, when we consider the limited extent of the field of battle, and the consequent facility with which he might have either suspended the employment of the heavy cavalry of the guard, or countermanded kellermann's advance, it is reasonable to infer that the french emperor was not altogether displeased with the grand experiment which was about to be made, and which encouraged the most sanguine expectations of a glorious triumph. the coming attack was, like the former one, preceded by a violent cannonade. as before, the french batteries concentrated their fire upon the allied artillery and squares. the entire space immediately in rear of the crest of the ridge that marked the front line of the duke's right wing, was again assailed with a tempest of shot and shell. again were whole files torn away, and compact sections rent asunder. but the extraordinary skill and the untiring energies of the british and german gunners, combined with the heroic forbearance and the admirable steadiness of the squares, fully impressed upon the mind of wellington the conviction that, however formidable and disproportionate the force that his powerful adversary could wield against him, it might yet be made to suffer an exhaustion, moral as well as physical, that would render it totally unavailable and helpless at the moment when its extremest tension and fullest application would be so urgently required to extricate the emperor from that perilous crisis which, by his grace's masterly arrangements, was gradually approaching its consummation. to act exclusively on the defensive, to maintain his ground in defiance of every assault and every stratagem; and yet to harass and weaken his enemy to the extent of his power, constituted the grand point on which hinged the practical development of those arrangements. a defeat and dispersion of his army before the arrival of the prussian troops, would lead to new measures, to additional sacrifices--perhaps to irretrievable disasters. but his resolve was fixed and irrevocable; for he knew that he could fearlessly rely upon the devotion, the endurance, and the valour of his british and german soldiers. and this implicit confidence was nobly reciprocated; for as the troops remarked the serenity of his countenance and demeanour when rectifying any confusion or disorder, or felt as if spellbound by the magic influence of a few simple and homely words from his lips, they entertained no doubts as to the result of their glorious exertions. when the tremendous cavalry force, which ney had thus assembled, moved forward to the attack, the whole space between la haye sainte and hougomont appeared one moving glittering mass; and, as it approached the anglo-allied position, undulating with the conformation of the ground, it resembled a sea in agitation. upon reaching the crest of the ridge and regaining temporary possession of the batteries, its very shouts sounded on the distant ear like the ominous roar of breakers thundering on the shore. like waves following in quick succession, the whole mass now appeared to roll over the ridge; and as the light curling smoke arose from the fire which was opened by the squares, and by which the latter sought to stem the current of the advancing host, it resembled the foam and spray thrown up by the mighty waters as they dash on isolated rocks and beetling crags; and, as the mass separated and rushed in every direction, completely covering the interior slope, it bore the appearance of innumerable eddies and counter currents, threatening to overwhelm and engulf the obstructions by which its onward course had been opposed. the storm continued to rage with the greatest violence; and the devoted squares seemed lost in the midst of the tumultuous onset. in vain did the maddening mass chafe and fret away its strength against these impregnable barriers; which, based upon the sacred principles of honour, discipline, and duty, and cemented by the ties of patriotism and the impulse of national glory, stood proudly unmoved and inaccessible. disorder and confusion, produced by the commingling of corps, and by the scattering fire from the faces of the chequered squares, gradually led to the retreat of parties of horsemen across the ridge; these were followed by broken squadrons, and, at length, the retrograde movement became general. then the allied dragoons, who had been judiciously kept in readiness to act at the favourable moment, darted forward to complete the disorganisation and overthrow of the now receding waves of the french cavalry. the allied artillery had barely time to fire a few rounds into the retiring masses, when the enemy's formidable support rapidly advanced to renew the attack; and, as if it had been made aware that the right of the anglo-allied line was the weakest part, from the want of a sufficient cavalry support, its efforts appeared particularly directed to that point. a body of heavy dragoons was drawn up in line, and advanced up the ridge leaving the hougomont inclosures immediately on its left. at this moment, however, grant had most opportunely returned with the th light dragoons and th hussars from the extreme right; and instantly forming the th, which was the leading regiment, in line to the front, moved it up to the crest of the ridge, over which it gallantly charged and routed the french dragoons, driving them about three hundred yards down to the low ground near the north-east angle of the great orchard of hougomont. the th hussars were also formed to the front, on the left of the th light dragoons, and charged a mass of _cuirassiers_, which was driven back a like distance, upon large bodies of cavalry. as these were observed commencing offensive operations, both in front and on the flank, the two regiments, first the th, and then the th; were compelled to retreat to the main position, and take post in rear of the squares; but this they did with so much order and regularity that their presence and example imparted new life and confidence to the young brunswickers; whose steadiness, on the right of the line, had been severely tested in the course of the grand cavalry attack. notwithstanding these reverses, and the decided failure of their former attempts, the french horsemen most gallantly and resolutely renewed their advance, and again plunged in masses amidst the allied squares. failing in their direct attack, they rode through the intervals between the squares in all directions, exhibiting extraordinary coolness and intrepidity. some of the most daring approached close up to the ranks, to draw forth the fire from a square; and thus secure a better chance of success for the squadron prepared to seize the advantage and to charge. small parties of desperate fellows would endeavour to force an opening at some weak point, by cutting aside the bayonets and firing at the defenders with their pistols. but the squares were proof against every assault and every stratagem. more cavalry crossed over the summit of the ridge; and the greater part of the interior slope occupied by the allied right wing seemed covered with horsemen of all kinds--_cuirassiers_, lancers, carabiniers, _chasseurs_, dragoons, and horse grenadiers. the french, enraged at their want of success, brandishing their swords, and exciting one another by shouts of "_vive l'empereur!_" reiterated their attacks with redoubled but fruitless vigour. like the majestic oaks of the forest, which are poetically said to strike their roots deeper and more tenaciously into the earth as the fury of the storm increases, so stood the anglo-allied squares, grand in the imposing attitude of their strength, and bidding defiance to the tempestuous elements by which they were assailed on every side. at length, the attack evinced symptoms of exhaustion; the charges became less frequent and less vigorous; disorder and confusion were rapidly augmenting; the spirit of enthusiasm and the confidence of superiority were quickly yielding to the feeling of despondency and the sense of hopelessness. the anglo-allied cavalry again advanced, and once more swept the mingled host, comprising every description of mounted troops, from off the ground on which they had so fruitlessly frittered away their strength. on this occasion, a body of _cuirassiers_, having been intercepted in its direct line of retreat by a party of british light dragoons, was induced to surrender; but taking advantage of the weakness of their escort, they suddenly broke away, and galloped down the nivelles road, by which they hoped to return to the french lines. they were fatally deceived. as they passed the high bank, covered with brushwood, on the right of the road, where a detachment of the st regiment was stationed as one of the supports to the light troops extended in front of the extreme right, they were fired upon, though but partially, in consequence of their close pursuit by the light dragoons. this attracted the attention of captain ross of that regiment, who was posted with his company more in advance, and close to the _abatis_ which had been thrown across the road near the head of the avenue leading to hougomont. captain ross, being thus prepared, also fired upon the _cuirassiers_; whereupon their commanding officer, finding all further retreat effectually cut off by the _abatis_, surrendered to captain ross, declaring that he would not give himself up to the dragoons. at this spot eighty of the _cuirassiers_ and twelve of their horses were killed; and the remainder, about sixty, were dismounted, taken, or dispersed. * * * * * shortly before this, ney, perceiving the ill success of his cavalry attacks, determined on combining them with such infantry as he had at his disposal. between d'erlon's and reille's corps there was now a great interval, and the only troops of which he could make use for the above object, consisted of bachelu's division, on the right of the latter, as donzelot's division, on the left of the former, was still required for the attack upon la haye sainte, which he now ordered to be vigorously renewed, whilst he advanced a heavy column of bachelu's infantry towards the centre of the allied right wing. wellington, who had, from the first, anticipated that the attacks of cavalry would be followed up by others, in which that arm would be combined with infantry, was fully prepared to meet this contingency, having as soon as he had ascertained that the enemy was not disposed to attempt any serious movement against his right flank, despatched an order to chassÉ to evacuate braine l'alleud and its vicinity, and to proceed with his dutch-belgian division, towards the principal scene of action, along the low ground through merbe braine. by this means, his grace, who contemplated reinforcing his first line with troops from his second, would be enabled to supply their place in the latter with others of equal strength. chassÉ's movement, executed with much judgement, was in a great measure, if not entirely, concealed from the enemy's observation; and was very skilfully covered by the nd light dragoons of the king's german legion, who continued hovering near the left flank of the french army. in the mean time, the attack upon la haye sainte had been renewed with the same fury as before. major baring on perceiving the advance of the enemy's columns, sent an officer to the position with this intelligence, and repeated his request for ammunition. the light company of the th line battalion of the king's german legion was sent to his assistance; but the supply of ammunition, of which he stood so much in need, was not forthcoming: and he therefore, after waiting half an hour longer, during which the contest was uninterrupted, despatched another officer on the same errand. this application proved equally unsuccessful. he received, however, a reinforcement of two flank companies from the st regiment of nassau. the great struggle was again at the open entrance to the barn; and the french, finding all their efforts to force an entrance so obstinately and successfully frustrated, had recourse to the expedient of setting the place on fire. a thick smoke was soon observed issuing from the barn. the greatest consternation pervaded the little garrison; for although there was a pond in the yard, there were no means at hand for conveying the water to the point of danger. major baring, whose anxiety was extreme, glancing his eye at the large camp kettles borne by the recently arrived nassauers, instantly pulled one from off a man's back: several officers followed his example, and filling the kettles with water, carried them in the face of almost certain death, to the fire. the men hesitated not a moment. every kettle was instantly applied to the same good office, and the fire was fortunately extinguished; though at the sacrifice of many a brave soldier. several of the men, although covered with wounds, rejected all persuasion to retire. their constant reply was, "so long as our officers fight, and we can stand, we will not stir from the spot." at length the enemy, wearied out by this most resolute and gallant defence, once more withdrew. at the commencement of this attack, while one portion of the enemy's force was principally directed against the western entrance of the great barn; the other, leaving the buildings on its right, advanced higher up the slope, as if intending either to penetrate the farm by the garden, or to cut off its communication with the main position. the prince of orange, conceiving this to be a favourable opportunity for attacking the french column, ordered the th and th line battalions of ompteda's brigade of the king's german legion to deploy and advance. the line was quickly formed; and the battalions, bounding across the narrow sunken road, rushed forward, at a charging pace, driving the enemy before them. but a body of _cuirassiers_, that had unsuccessfully charged the left squares of kielmansegge's hanoverian brigade, whilst those battalions were advancing, came upon the right flank of the latter, unexpectedly for both parties. the th line battalion, which was on the right, having been supported in sufficient time by somerset's heavy cavalry brigade, suffered little loss; but the th line battalion--being on the left, and more in advance, in the act of charging when the _cuirassiers_ appeared--was completely surprised, and its right wing cut down and dispersed. the commanding officer of the battalion, colonel schrÖder, was mortally wounded: several other officers fell: ensign de moreau, who carried and defended the king's colour, having been severely wounded, as also the serjeant who afterwards held it, the enemy succeeded in carrying off the prize. major petersdorf, the next in command, collected the scattered remnant of the battalion, and posted it in rear of the hollow way. the moment the anglo-allied right wing became cleared of the presence of the french cavalry, it was again exposed to a furious cannonade. several of the guns along the main ridge were by this time disabled. major bull, who had been obliged at an earlier period to withdraw his howitzer battery to the second line for the purpose of repairing casualties and completing ammunition, advanced again to his former post in the front line, along with major ramsay's horse battery, during the second general charge of the french cavalry. these batteries suffered severely from pirÉ's guns, stationed on the extreme left of the french line. bull directed lieutenant louis to turn his two right guns towards them, and it was not long before this officer succeeded in silencing them; a service which, as they enfiladed the allied right flank, was of considerable advantage, during the remainder of the battle, to all the batteries and troops in this part of the field. the duke, considering that a reinforcement of artillery was particularly required in front of cooke's division and the brunswick infantry against which the enemy was evidently preparing fresh attacks, ordered up lieutenant colonel dickson's british horse battery, commanded by major mercer, and major sympher's horse battery of the king's german legion, into the front line: the former, to the left of lieutenant colonel smith's horse battery, in front of the brunswickers; and the latter further to the left. major mercer's battery had barely time to get into action, when a heavy column of cavalry, composed of horse grenadiers and _cuirassiers_, was seen ascending the ridge, and advancing at a rapid rate directly towards the spot upon which it had taken post. the guns, which were nine pounders, were each loaded with a round and a case shot; and were run close up to a bank of two or three feet in height, which descended from the narrow cross road along the ridge, and which thus formed a sort of _genouillère_ to the battery. in front, the summit of the ridge consisted of a flat surface, of forty or fifty yards in width, whence the ground descended rapidly towards the plain that divided the two armies. the column continued to advance until it came quite close upon these guns, the muzzles of which were nearly on a level with the cross road; when it suddenly recoiled from the very destructive fire with which it was received. the horsemen of the leading squadrons faced about, and endeavoured to force their way to the rear; confusion ensued, and the whole mass broke into a disorderly crowd. several minutes elapsed ere they succeeded in quitting the summit of the ridge, during which the fire from the battery was incessant; and, from the shortness of the distance, the size of the objects, and the elevation of the ground on which they stood, the consequent carnage was truly frightful. many, instead of seeking safety in retreat, dashed through the intervals between the guns, and surrendered: but the greater part, rendered desperate at finding themselves held, as it were, in front of the battery, actually fought their way through their own ranks; and, in the struggle, blows were exchanged on all sides. at length, the wreck of this formidable column gained shelter under the slope of the ridge, leaving the summit encumbered with its killed and wounded. about the same time, a strong column of french infantry, supported by cavalry, was advancing against the centre of the anglo-allied right wing. whilst the opposed batteries were concentrating upon it a vigorous fire, lord uxbridge brought forward somerset's heavy cavalry brigade from its position on the right of the charleroi road, for the purpose of attacking this column; and also ordered up, in support, trip's dutch-belgian carabinier brigade. the attack was made with great gallantry by the household cavalry, which succeeded in checking the advance of the enemy; but, having been so much reduced in numbers, it was unable to penetrate the column, which received it with a heavy fire. as somerset retired; the french cavalry by which the column had been supported, prepared to advance. trip's dutch-belgian cavalry was now at hand. uxbridge, pleased with their fine appearance, and desirous of exciting in them a courageous enthusiasm, placed himself conspicuously in their front, and ordering the "charge," led them towards the enemy. he had proceeded but a very short distance, when his aide de camp, captain horace seymour, galloped close up to him, and made him aware that not a single man of them was following him. turning round his horse, he instantly rode up to trip, and addressed himself to this officer with great warmth. then, appealing to the brigade in terms the most exhorting and encouraging, and inciting them by gestures the most animated and significant, he repeated the order to charge, and again led the way in person. but this attempt was equally abortive; and uxbridge, exasperated and indignant, rode away from the brigade, leaving it to adopt any course which its commander might think proper: and as the french cavalry, to which this hesitation was but too manifest, was now advancing rapidly to the attack, the dutch-belgians went about, and retired in such haste and disorder that the two right squadrons of the rd hussars of the king's german legion experienced the greatest difficulty in maintaining their ground, and avoiding being carried along to the rear by these horsemen in the wildness of their flight. the rd hussars had just moved up into the second line, in rear of kruse's nassau brigade, when this occurred; and the left squadron, being free from any interruption of the kind, gallantly charged and completely overthrew that portion of the _cuirassiers_ which was in its immediate front. as soon as the other two squadrons had recovered their order, which had been so unexpectedly disturbed by the fugitive dutch-belgians, the whole regiment advanced to the crest of the position; where it received from lord uxbridge, in person, the order to charge a line of french cavalry, distant about yards, and consisting of about three squadrons of _cuirassiers_ and three squadrons of heavy dragoons. commencing the charge with a steady trot, and then plunging into a gallop, they broke through the enemy's line, which was advancing at a short trot, or almost at a walk; but became so completely turned and hemmed in upon their flanks and rear, that a vast proportion of them was cut off. the remainder, dispersed, and pursued by the french cavalry, rode back to the infantry squares, in rear of which the regiment reformed. here the great loss which it had suffered in these two attacks become manifest. it was reduced to between sixty and seventy files, which were formed into two squadrons, and posted in rear of kielmansegge's hanoverian brigade. about this time, the earl of uxbridge, on examining the state of his cavalry, perceived the cumberland regiment of hanoverian hussars at some distance in the rear, on the brussels road. he immediately ordered them forward; and on their coming up, he posted them where they were by no means much exposed, but where they would at least _appear_ to fill a gap occasioned by the severe losses experienced by somerset's and ponsonby's brigades: for the manner of their commanding officer, whilst being thus posted, rendered his lordship doubtful of their continuing there if attacked. that he had reason to apprehend something of this kind, was subsequently proved; for colonel hake, on finding the shot flying about him a little, took himself and his regiment out of the field: on discovering which, lord uxbridge despatched his aide de camp, captain horace seymour, with an order for his return. when captain seymour delivered this order, the colonel remarked that he had no confidence in his men, that they were volunteers, and that their horses were their own property. the regiment continued moving to the rear; notwithstanding captain seymour's repeating the order to halt, and asking the second in command to save the honour and character of the corps, by placing himself at its head and fronting the men. finding his remonstrances produced no effect, he laid hold of the bridle of the colonel's horse, and commented upon his conduct in terms such as no man of honour could have been expected to listen to unmoved. this officer, however, appeared perfectly callous to any sense of shame; and far more disposed to submit to those attacks upon his honour than he had been to receive those of the enemy upon his person and his regiment. upon rejoining the earl of uxbridge and relating what had passed; captain seymour was again directed to proceed to the commanding officer, and to desire that, if he persevered in refusing to resume his position in the line, he would, at least, form the regiment across the high road, _out_ of fire. but even this order was disregarded, and the corps went altogether to the rear, spreading alarm and confusion all the way to brussels. in front of the right of the anglo-allied line, the french column of horse grenadiers and _cuirassiers_, which had met with so disastrous a repulse from major mercer's horse battery, was reformed for another attack; to meet which the british gunners were fully prepared: for the french horsemen had not retired so far down the hill but that the high caps of the horse grenadiers of the leading squadrons, were visible above the brow of the exterior slope. the second attempt was preluded by a cloud of skirmishers, who, advancing to within a very short distance of the front of the battery, did considerable mischief to the gunners with their carbines and pistols; but their intention being evidently to draw forth their fire, no notice was taken of them. then the column again ascended the ridge, and advanced to attack the battery; but on this occasion their pace scarcely exceeded a walk, or at most a gentle trot, too many obstacles lying in their way to admit of more rapid movement without confusion. experience having shown the gunners the destructive effects of a close fire, they allowed the leading squadrons to attain about half the distance between the brow of the slope and the narrow road in their front before they commenced. the result, as may be readily imagined, was precisely similar to that of the former attack, which has already been detailed. again the french horsemen fell into confusion, and again for several minutes were they exposed to a deliberate and an unerring fire of case shot, within a distance of not more than twenty yards, so that the pile of killed and wounded, left on the ground immediately in front of the battery, before great, was now enormous. other batteries along this part of the position were equally successful in repelling the attacks of the enemy's _cuirassiers_, who were assembling in considerable numbers at the foot of the exterior slope, close to the hougomont inclosures, apparently with the object of cutting off the direct communication with that post, and forcing the right of the allied front line. the moment seemed favourable for such a project. several of the allied guns had by this time become completely disabled; the nd battalion of the rd british guards, awfully reduced, had been driven into the hollow way in rear of the orchards of hougomont; the young brunswick infantry had suffered severe losses; and the supporting cavalry had become greatly exhausted by its repeated charges. but wellington, foreseeing the probability of a serious attempt upon this weakened point of his line, and perceiving the approach of chassÉ's division (see page ), supplied the required remedy by desiring lord hill to bring forward troops from the second line. the zeal, intelligence, and activity which had ever characterized the hero of almaraz and arroyo del molino when carrying out the designs of the chief under whom he had acquired a lasting fame, seemed but to wait this summons to the more immediate scene of action, to appear again in all their accustomed vigour. he immediately put in motion du plat's infantry brigade of the king's german legion. as the latter advanced across the nivelles road, from its left, the nd line battalion became the leading column. it was followed by the th, then by the rd, and lastly by the st line battalion. as the nd approached the crest of the ridge, several gunners ran in upon it for shelter from the enemy's _cuirassiers_, whose main body was now advancing against this battalion. the four light companies of the brigade, however, had just posted themselves close to the three small trees near this part of the crest of the ridge; and being armed with rifles, they delivered so destructive a fire into the cavalry as to compel it to withdraw. some of the allied cavalry then moved forward in pursuit, and du plat's brigade continued its advance until the nd line battalion had approached close to the hedge of the great orchard of hougomont, whence a dropping fire was opened upon the germans by the french skirmishers. the dragoons made a sudden and rapid retreat through the intervals of the columns, in left front of which a fresh line of hostile cavalry now presented itself. captain sympher, who, with his horse battery of the legion, had accompanied du plat's advance, instantly unlimbered; and poured round shot through the intervals of the columns, the latter maintaining, at the same time, a very effective independent file fire. the _cuirassiers_ gallantly advanced, notwithstanding this formidable resistance. they first became exposed to a flank fire from the left face of the th line battalion square, and then again to that from the left face of the rd line battalion: nevertheless, they resolutely attacked the battery, the gunners of which either flew to the last mentioned square for protection, or sought shelter under the carriages. at length, after having suffered severe losses by the unremitting fire from the nearest squares, the french cavalry retired in disorder; receiving a renewed discharge from the battery, which was again in full play. when du plat's brigade moved down the slope, the nd and rd light, and nd line, battalions of the brunswickers, advanced a short distance over the crest of the ridge, in left rear of the former. here they became exposed to a destructive fire of both artillery and musketry, the latter from the french skirmishers that had crept from along the eastern hedge of hougomont, close under the brow of that part of the anglo-allied position. they withstood this heavy fire, as also the subsequent charges of cavalry, with great steadiness and courage; but as soon as the french horsemen were driven back by a portion of the allied cavalry (consisting of the rd british light dragoons, the st light dragoons of the king's german legion, and the brunswick hussars and lancers), the above mentioned battalions withdrew from their exposed situation to the interior slope. the french skirmishers, who had, during this last attack by their cavalry, pushed forward a very considerable force through the great orchard of hougomont, and along its eastern boundary, now concentrated a most galling fire upon the squares of the legionary brigade, whose commander, du plat, was mortally wounded; several officers fell, and all those that were mounted had their horses shot under them. the fire ceased; and in the next moment the _cuirassiers_, having rallied, renewed their charge: but with no greater success than before; and a third charge proved equally ineffectual against the determined bravery and patient endurance of the soldiers of the legion. about the time that du plat's brigade moved into the first line, a considerable body of french _cuirassiers_, which still remained in the hollow westward of la haye sainte, exposed to a fire from one or two of the allied batteries, advanced at a walk, to make another effort to break the right centre of wellington's line. this proved as unsuccessful as the previous attacks. the squares, reserving their fire until the close approach of the hostile cavalry, and then directing it against the latter in the most cool and deliberate manner, which the absence of all impetus in an attack at a walk enabled them to do with unerring effect, soon compelled the shattered squadrons once more to withdraw from a contest which the unexampled steadiness of the allied infantry had rendered almost hopeless on their part. the french cavalry that attacked the squares of du plat's brigade, immediately in rear of hougomont, had no sooner been driven off by the gallant resistance of the germans, than the skirmishers, who, as before observed, had advanced in such numbers along the eastern inclosures of that post, crept close up under the brow of that part of the ridge on the interior slope of which was posted the main body of the brunswick infantry. at this time, however, lord hill was bringing forward adam's british light infantry brigade, having directed it to cross the nivelles road, and to advance in columns up the slope, in rear of the brunswickers. (the brigade had, some time before, been moved from the plateau on the right, close to the edge of the nivelles road, in which position it had continued in immediate reserve.) suddenly the summit in its front was crowded with the french skirmishers, who were almost as quickly concealed by the smoke from the rattling fire which they opened upon the allied artillery and the squares. the gunners, whose numbers were fearfully diminished, were speedily driven back from their crippled batteries upon the nearest infantry; upon which the concentration of this galling fire threatened the most serious consequences. but succour was at hand. wellington, in the midst of the shower of bullets, had galloped to the front of adam's brigade, ordered it to form line, four deep; and then, pointing to the daring skirmishers on the height, called out, with perfect coolness and unaffected assurance, "drive those fellows away!" with loud cheers, the brigade moved rapidly up the slope, eager to obey the duke's command. from the want of sufficient space, the nd regiment was not formed in line with, but in rear of, the st and nd battalion of the th regiment, to which it consequently served as a support. the french skirmishers began to give way as the firm and intrepid front of the brigade presented itself to their view. adam continued his advance, driving the french infantry before him. on crossing the ridge, the brigade brought forward its right shoulders, and, when halted, it stood in a slight hollow; which, commencing in front of the right of the position occupied by maitland's brigade of guards, descends towards the north-east angle of the great orchard of hougomont. at the former point the nd battalion of the th regiment formed the left; and at the latter, the st regiment with the two companies of the rd battalion of the th regiment formed the right, of this line. the enemy's cavalry having been perceived preparing for attack, the battalions of the brigade formed squares: and as the interval between the st and the nd battalion th regiment, in this new position, was larger than was desirable; colonel sir john colborne moved down the nd regiment, in squares of wings of battalions, to fill up the space; which he reached just in time to throw a most effective oblique fire upon the cavalry which was in the act of attacking the st regiment. the french carabiniers and horse grenadiers of the guard made some gallant attacks upon the brigade. they generally advanced by _their_ right of the hougomont inclosures, then fell upon the st regiment, by which their charge was invariably broken; when such portions of them as continued in any degree of order, rushed onward in apparent infatuation upon the right wing square of the nd regiment; from the front and right faces of which they received a close, well directed fire, which completed their disorder and confusion. in one of these attacks, major eeles, whose company of the rd battalion th rifles was attached to the st regiment, upon observing the approach of the carabiniers towards the right angle of the front face of the square, moved his company to the right, in line with the rear face, and, placing himself in its front, prevented his men from firing until the carabiniers approached within thirty or forty yards of the square; when he ordered a volley, which, combined with a cross fire from the st, brought down so many horses and men to the ground, at the same moment, that the further progress of the charge was most effectually frustrated. in an instant, one half of the attacking force was on the ground; some few men and horses were killed; more were wounded; but by far the greater part were thrown down over the dead, the dying, and the wounded. these, after a short interval, began to extricate themselves from the mass, and made the best of their way back to their supports; some on horseback but most of them on foot. adam's brigade, by means of the advanced position which it thus occupied, along the space between the hougomont inclosures and the right front of maitland's brigade, presented an effectual barrier to the advance of the french cavalry against that portion of the allied front line which was situated upon the right of the latter point. in the intervals between the charges of cavalry, it suffered severely from the enemy's artillery; more particularly the st regiment, and nd battalion th rifles, the position of these regiments being somewhat more exposed than that of the nd. halkett's hanoverian brigade had moved from its present position, near merbe braine, into the space within the angle formed by the nivelles road and the hollow way which leads from the right of the front line down into the low ground below hougomont; and it was shortly after adam moved into his forward position, that halkett advanced, with the landwehr battalions osnabrück and salzgitter, and took post on the exterior slope of the main ridge, in rear of du plat's brigade. * * * * * it was now about six o'clock. the formidable attacks made by the french along the entire line of the anglo-allied army had been productive of no positive advantage; the advanced posts of hougomont and la haye sainte had successfully resisted the furious assaults which had hitherto been directed against them: and the forward position taken up by adam's british brigade, made it manifest to the french emperor that, notwithstanding the gallantry, enthusiasm, and devotion displayed in those attacks by the finest troops he had ever assembled together, headed, too, by generals of the highest celebrity; still greater efforts, and still greater sacrifices must be made if he hoped to drive the british lion from the position which it yet proudly retained with so firm a footing, before the prussian eagle, which for some time past had hovered over, and was at this moment darting at, his extreme right, should alight, in the plenitude of its force, to satiate its thirst for vengeance in the fierce and sanguinary struggle. napoleon sent an order to ney to renew the attack upon the centre. to execute this with effect, however, fresh infantry was requisite; and the marshal had none at his disposal. he therefore despatched his first aide de camp, colonel heymÈs, to represent to the emperor the exhausted condition of his troops: half of which were placed _hors de combat_, and the other half overcome by fatigue, and failing in ammunition; and to request he would send him reinforcements. at this moment, however, lobau's corps and the young guard were required for the security of the french right flank against the offensive operations of the prussians; consequently, the battalions of the old guard, which constituted the only remaining reserve of infantry, could not be spared. to ney's demand for fresh troops, napoleon therefore replied,--"_ou voulez vous que j'en prenne? voulez vous que j'en fusse?_" ney, on being made acquainted with the manner in which his request had been received, saw very plainly that the battle was far from being gained: and darted off to animate, by his presence, the attack which was now renewed upon la haye sainte; and which was covered by a vigorous fire from the french artillery against that portion of the anglo-allied line immediately in rear of this post, in order to disturb any attempt to relieve or assist its defenders. the united remains of somerset's and ponsonby's brigades, which were on the reverse slope, behind ompteda's brigade of the king's german legion, and which were extended in single file for the purpose of making a _show_ of force, suffered much from this cannonade. on perceiving its effects, lord uxbridge sent an aide de camp to recommend lord edward somerset to withdraw his men from the range of the enemy's guns. the latter sent back word that, were he to do so, the dutch-belgian cavalry, who were in support, would immediately move off the field! somerset retained his position until the end of the battle. shortly before the columns from donzelot's division advanced to this attack of la haye sainte, a party of horse artillery, which had been detached from whinyates's rocket battery, proceeded, under captain dansey, along the charleroi road, to the front of the centre of the anglo-allied line, and came into action with rockets, near that farm, leaving its two guns in the rear, under lieutenant wright. captain dansey very soon received a severe wound, which obliged him to retire; and the party, after firing a few rockets, fell back a little, to where its horses were standing. it was then commanded by a serjeant (daniel dunnett), who, on perceiving the advance of the nearest french column towards the farm, dismounted his men as coolly and deliberately as if exercising on woolwich common, though without any support whatever; laid rockets on the ground, and discharged them in succession into the mass--every one of them appearing to take effect. the advance of the column was checked, and was not resumed until sergeant dunnett, having expended all his rockets, retired with his party to rejoin the guns in rear. major baring's detachment, after its extraordinary and successful exertions in repelling the previous assaults, was fearfully reduced in numbers; but its excellent spirit and conspicuous bravery remained unshaken. one circumstance, however, could not fail to render unavailing all their efforts, their courage, and their endurance. notwithstanding major baring's urgently repeated applications for a supply of ammunition, his men were still left without the means of adequately defending their post against the host of enemies by which they were successively assailed.[ ] they cheerfully repaired, as far as practicable, the gaps made in the walls by the french artillery, and betrayed no despondency as they looked upon the sad and numerous proofs that lay around them of the immense sacrifices they had already made. but when, upon counting the cartridges, they discovered that they had not, upon an average, more than from three to four each, their consciousness of the desperate situation to which they were reduced, and of the impossibility of holding out under such circumstances, led to remonstrances, which their gallant commander could not but admit to be reasonable. yet no sooner did the latter, upon perceiving two french columns again advancing towards the farm, exhort them to renewed courage, and also to a careful economy of the ammunition, than he received the unanimous reply,--"no man will desert you,--we will fight and die with you!" the french, exasperated by the protracted resistance of this handful of brave defenders, now came on with redoubled fury. the open end of the great barn was first assailed. again they succeeded in setting the building on fire; but the germans, having recourse to the same expedient as on the previous occasion, again contrived to extinguish the flames. baring's anxiety and uneasiness increased with every shot that was fired by his men; and he again sent to the rear for ammunition, coupling his demand with a distinct report, that he must and would abandon the place should no supply be forthcoming. this message, however, proved equally ineffectual. the fire of the garrison was gradually diminishing: perplexity was depicted in every countenance: many of the men now called out urgently for ammunition,--"we will readily stand by you, but we must have the means of defending ourselves!" even their officers, who during the whole day had displayed the greatest courage, represented to their commander the impossibility of retaining the post under such circumstances. the french, who failed not to observe the distressing situation to which the defenders were reduced, now boldly broke in the door at that end of the long western building which is nearest to the entrance of the great barn, already so frequently assailed. the passage from the door through the building into the farm yard having been barricaded, but few of the enemy could enter at a time. these were instantly bayoneted, and the rear hesitated to follow. they now climbed up the outer wall of the long building, and mounted the roof, from which they easily picked off the defenders; who, not possessing the means of retaliation, were completely at their mercy. at the same time, they pressed in through the open barn, which it was impossible to defend any longer. baring was now reduced to the painful necessity of abandoning the place, and gave the order to retire through the dwelling house into the garden. many of the men were overtaken in the narrow passage through the house by the victors, who vented their fury upon them in the lowest abuse and most brutal treatment. baring having satisfied himself that the possession of the dwelling house by the enemy must render the garden quite untenable; and finding that his officers fully agreed with him on this point, he made the men retire, singly, to the main position. the greater part of them, accompanied by their brave but disconsolate commander, descended into the high road by an opening in the bank adjoining the north-east angle of the garden, and retired along the opposite side of the _chaussée_. baring sent back to their respective regiments the remains of the reinforcements he had received; and, with the few men that were left of his own battalion, he attached himself to two companies of the st light battalion of the king's german legion, which were then posted in the hollow way close to the right of the high road. the surrender of la haye sainte, under the circumstances which have been described, was as purely honourable, as its defence against an overwhelming and furious host had been heroically brave. a thorough conviction that further resistance must have been marked by the sacrifice of the entire remnant of his courageous band at once suggested to the mind of a commander like baring, gifted with the requisite discernment and forethought of a true soldier, the reservation of such gallant spirits for some other part of the great contest; in which they might yet face their enemies, if not on equal terms, at least in a manner that would render their bravery and devotion not altogether unavailable in the general struggle for victory. * * * * * loud and reiterated shouts of triumph having announced to the french emperor the capture of la haye sainte; he immediately ordered it to be followed up by a vigorous attack upon the centre of the anglo-allied line, and by a simultaneous renewal of the assault upon hougomont. it was quite evident to ney, that without an additional force of infantry, it would be impossible for him to follow up, with effect, the advantage which he anticipated from the capture of la haye sainte. the cavalry, which napoleon had placed at his disposal, had been nearly annihilated in the course of its numerous attacks upon the anglo-allied line,--attacks executed throughout with the greatest gallantry, but unproductive of any solid or decisive result upon a single point of that line. if this arm, comprising the flower of the chivalric cavalry of france, had failed him when it sallied forth, gaily exulting in the freshness of its vigour, proudly conscious of the imposing attitude of its masses, and unrestrainedly impatient for the onslaught which was to exalt still more its already high renown; how could he calculate upon its efficacy, now that it was comparatively paralyzed? the state to which his infantry was reduced presented a prospect almost as cheerless. d'erlon's corps, severely crippled by its signally unsuccessful attack upon the anglo-allied left wing and centre, had still further exhausted its force by repeated assaults against la haye sainte, on its left; and, since the arrival of bÜlow, it had been compelled to resort to active precautionary measures on its right. on the other hand, reille's corps had suffered immense losses in its incessant, yet unavailing, efforts to gain possession of the important post of hougomont. but ney, _le plus brave des braves_, in whose character resolution and perseverance were pre-eminent, was not to be deterred by this discouraging aspect, from fulfilling, to the best of his abilities, the task imposed upon him by his imperial master. there can be but little doubt that at the time he made his urgent demand upon the emperor for a fresh supply of infantry, he had projected an assault upon the anglo-allied right wing, in accordance with that prominent feature in the tactics of the empire,--the column of attack in mass of battalions--to be supported by his cavalry, whilst this arm still continued vigorous and effective. now, however, his exhausted means precluded the execution of such a plan of attack; and he therefore had recourse, as far as was practicable with his reduced extent of force, to another system, which had been attended with so much success in the time of the republic, and which had always found great favour with the french soldiery--the grand attack _en tirailleurs_. in this way he would be better enabled to conceal the weakened condition of his troops; and he might also succeed in making such an impression upon some important point of the allied line, as would induce the emperor to seize upon the advantage gained, and, launching forth his reserve, strike the decisive blow. the whole of donzelot's division, supported by a part of alix's division, as also a considerable body of _cuirassiers_, forming the gallant remnants of entire regiments, were put in motion against the centre of the anglo-allied line; whilst fresh reinforcements were poured down from reille's corps into the hougomont inclosures. the first disposition made by the captors of la haye sainte, was to avail themselves of the advantage which the possession of the farm house, the garden, and the adjacent high bank, afforded them for pouring a commanding fire upon the two companies of the th british rifles which occupied the knoll by the sand pit on the opposite side of the road; when these, being at the same time pressed in front, finding their post no longer tenable, retreated upon their main body in the wavre road. the french at the same time contrived to push two guns round by the garden hedge to the bank of the high road, and immediately opened a fire of grape upon kempt's brigade posted along, and in rear of, the wavre road, on the opposite side of the _chaussée_; but this was speedily silenced by the st battalion of the th british rifles, who, taking a deliberate aim at the artillerymen, destroyed them before they could discharge a second round. there then issued from under cover of the farm, a large body of infantry, which, as it ascended the main ridge, spread out into a very close line of skirmishers, who pressed boldly forward against the left of alten's division. their concentrated fire was telling fearfully upon the devoted squares. alten sent an order to ompteda to deploy one of his battalions, if practicable, and advance against the enemy. ompteda, as brave and high minded a soldier as ever graced the profession of arms, was quite prepared to execute the order: but being fully aware, from previous observation, that in the hollow behind the curtain formed by the _tirailleurs_ there lay in wait a body of the enemy's cavalry; he felt it his duty to represent the imminent risk which was likely to attend such a movement. at this moment of hesitation, the prince of orange rode up to ompteda and ordered him to deploy. the latter respectfully submitted the same opinion he had before expressed to alten's messenger; whereupon his royal highness became impatient, repeated the order, and forbade further reply. ompteda, with the true spirit of a soldier, instantly deployed the th line battalion, placed himself at its head, and gallantly led it against the mass of _tirailleurs_, who had continued to crowd forward; and under whose teazing fire the germans displayed the greatest steadiness and bravery. the french gave way as the line advanced at the charge; and as it approached the garden of la haye sainte, they suddenly and rapidly sought shelter along the hedges. in the next moment, the battalion was furiously assailed by a regiment of _cuirassiers_; who, taking the line in its right flank, fairly rolled it up. this cavalry charge, preconcerted with great skill, and executed with amazing rapidity, proved awfully destructive to the courageous but unfortunate germans; and fully, and fatally, confirmed the truth of the unheeded prediction of their intrepid commander. so severe was the loss sustained, that out of the whole battalion, not more than about thirty men with a few officers were gradually collected in the hollow way that lay along the front of the left of the brigade. amongst the slain was ompteda himself, who with his followers, thus fell a sacrifice to the absence of that precaution, the necessity for which he had vainly endeavoured to impress upon his superior officer. whilst the french _cuirassiers_ were cutting and stabbing in all directions, and completing their work of destruction amidst the unfortunate germans; the th british rifles, who, from the other side of the high road, had been attentive observers of the scene, had already taken aim at the _cuirassiers_, but had refrained from firing, fearing to injure their friends, at length poured in amongst them a terrific volley, just at the very moment when the rd hussars of the king's german legion advanced to the rescue of their compatriots: which sent both sides flying, and completely cleared the front of ompteda's brigade. shortly afterwards the rd hussars again advanced: but the support of the _cuirassiers_ having, in the mean time, ascended the slope: the former, so inferior in numbers, were brought to a stand; and, after a brief struggle, were compelled to withdraw. a mass of _tirailleurs_ now ascended by their left, from the hollow westward of la haye sainte (in which hollow they could assemble in comparative security since the capture of that post by the french), and pushed forward with great boldness against the advanced square of maitland's british brigade, formed by the rd battalion of the st foot guards. their fire, concentrated upon the square and maintained with astonishing rapidity and vigour, was most galling to the british guards. also upon their left, another portion of their numbers poured a destructive fire upon the left square of adam's brigade, formed by the nd battalion of the th rifles. maitland, perceiving the serious annoyance which his rd battalion experienced from the fire of the french skirmishers, directed lieutenant colonel d'oyley, who commanded it, to advance for the purpose of dislodging them; and being well aware that some of the enemy's cavalry were drawn up near the foot of the slope, he threw the flank faces of the square into sections, in which order the battalion moved forward, being thus prepared to reform square with the greatest expedition. under a tremendous fire from the opposite french batteries, which had perceived this movement, the guards gallantly drove the skirmishers down the slope; and so marked was their steadiness on this occasion, that a body of french cavalry, which was now observed approaching, struck with the promptitude and precision with which the gaps caused in their ranks by the round shot were closed, neither assaulted them in their advance nor molested them in their retreat to their position on the brow of the hill, which was effected in perfect order. the cavalry, though it refrained from attacking, received the fire of the guards; and then, dashing along the front of the nd regiment, it exposed itself to another vigorous fire by which it was nearly destroyed. of all the troops comprising the anglo-allied army at waterloo, the most exposed to the fierce onslaught of the french cavalry and to the continuous cannonade of their artillery, were the two british squares posted, during a very great portion of the battle, in advance--at times, considerably so--of the narrow road which ran along the crest of the duke's position. they consisted of the rd battalion of the st guards, belonging to maitland's brigade; and of the th and rd regiments acting together as one corps, belonging to halkett's brigade. it was upon these troops that fell the first burst of the grand cavalry attacks; and it was upon these troops, also, that the french gunners seldom neglected to pour their destructive missiles, so long as they continued to constitute, by their exposed position, such prominent marks for their fire. an attack upon the square of the guards by skirmishers has just been described; and it was not long after this that the square of the th and rd was attacked by some french artillery, which trotted boldly up the slope directly in front of those regiments, and having approached within a fearfully short distance, unlimbered two of its guns, from which several rounds of grape were discharged in rapid succession, into the very heart of the square. awful gaps were made in its devoted ranks; but the readiness and alacrity with which they were filled up, at the commands of their officers, by men prepared to share the same fate as that which had befallen their predecessors, was truly heroic. that an occasional murmur broke forth, cannot be denied--not, however, at their exposed situation, but at the stern refusal to allow them to charge the guns; near which the french cavalry was hovering, ready to take advantage of any such attempt. the duke was frequently an eye witness of this devotedness of his soldiers; but when asked for support, his reply was that there was none to spare; or, if for permission to attack, that this could not be granted; and, if any intimation were made to him that it might become necessary to fall back a little out of fire, it was met, in a cool and decided tone, that every man must stand his ground, and that there must not even be a semblance of retreat. * * * * * the reinforcements from reille's corps having moved to hougomont, the skirmishers in and around this post were relieved upon all points. the wood, as also the fences on either flank, soon swarmed with _tirailleurs_; and the brisk rattle of musketry that followed, intermingled with shouts of "_en avant!_", seemed to betoken a determination on the part of the french that the capture of la haye sainte should not be their only triumph achieved in front of the anglo-allied army. everywhere the assault was bravely met by the gallant defenders of the post. the flank companies of the guards, within the walls and buildings, held at defiance every attempt of their assailants to dislodge them from their cover. by this time, all the outhouses were on fire, with the exception of those that fronted the wood. the roof and upper storey of the château had fallen in, and flames continued bursting forth on all sides with the greatest fury. the heat had become so intense as to produce upon the men whose duty brought them within its influence, a feeling of suffocation; while the frequently emitted volumes of thick smoke gave an indistinctness to every object around them. yet so admirable was the system of defence, so perfect were the discipline and the order, maintained throughout this trying scene by the devoted garrison, that the enemy completely failed in forcing an opening at any one point. the well maintained fire from the walls was such as to deter the french from attempting an escalade. whilst the central portion of the tirailleurs kept up an incessant fire from behind the hedge and trees facing the south buildings and the gardens, the remainder pressed on in crowds against the inclosures by which the post was flanked. on the right, the nd battalion of the coldstream guards, lining the hedge that bordered the main approach to the château, successfully withstood this furious onset. on the left, the nd battalion of the rd guards, in the orchard, having suffered such frightful losses, found it impossible to stem the overwhelming torrent, and speedily fell back upon its friendly hollow way. the french _tirailleurs_, pushing forward in pursuit, were staggered by the sudden and vigorous fire opened upon them by the troops within the eastern garden wall; and the rd guards having, in the mean time, been reinforced by the nd line battalion and the light companies of du plat's brigade, drove the enemy back to the front hedge of the orchard; whence they were shortly, in their turn, compelled to retire. again the flank fire from the eastern garden wall, combined with that in front from the defenders of the orchard, as they reached the rear hedge, compelled the enemy to fall back. the rd guards once more lined the front hedge; and also, in conjunction with the light troops of du plat's brigade, and the remains of both the brunswick advanced guard battalion, and the st battalion of the nd regiment of nassau, forced the entrance into the wood near the south-east angle of the garden wall, and firmly established themselves in that quarter. at the commencement of this last mentioned attack upon hougomont, the right of adam's brigade was considered too near the inclosures of that post, and exposed to be taken from thence in flank. it was therefore withdrawn further up the slope, towards the crest of the main position; and after a brief interval, it retired to the reverse slope in order to be covered from the enemy's cannonade which had been directed against it. * * * * * it was now nearly seven o'clock. the troops defending hougomont and its inclosures had succeeded in repelling the last assault; and the contest in and around this post again degenerated into a _tiraillade_ kept up with more or less vigour on all points. along the front of the extreme right of the anglo-allied line, the skirmishers from mitchell's british infantry brigade maintained their ground with great steadiness and gallantry. the main body of the brunswick infantry stood on the interior slope, in rear of adam's brigade; and chassÉ's dutch-belgian infantry division, which had arrived from braine l'alleud, was deployed along, and in rear of, the nivelles road, its centre intersected by the narrow road leading from the _chaussée_ to the village of merbe braine, which position it had taken up on the advance of adam's brigade to the general front line. in front of the anglo-allied left, the skirmishers of both armies were continually engaged; and upon the extreme left the troops in smohain, la haye, papelotte, and adjacent inclosures, successfully resisted all attempts of the enemy to dislodge them. the attack upon the centre of the anglo-allied line had been incessant from the moment la haye sainte fell into the possession of the french. on their left of the charleroi road, they debouched from that farm and ascended the position in clouds of skirmishers. one portion of them crowded upon the artificial mound which abutted upon the high bank of the road, and was situated about sixty yards only in front of the hollow way occupied by ompteda's brigade. on the opposite side of the charleroi road, the fire from the french troops on the knoll above the sand pit was maintained with remarkable rapidity and perseverance. they continued, as before, to conceal themselves as much as possible under the brow of the knoll, exposing only so much of their bodies as was necessary to enable them to fire over its crest in a kneeling position. this fire was replied to with the greatest spirit and determination on the part of kempt's and lambert's brigades. on the allied right of the high road, the exhausted remnant of ompteda's brigade was no longer a match for the daring _tirailleurs_ that crowded together in its front. its stock of ammunition had begun to fail; many who had not a cartridge left fell to the rear, and more than the usual number assisted the wounded out of action. exposed as alten's division had been to the most furious assaults of artillery, cavalry, and infantry; the british and german brigades of which it was composed had become awfully diminished; and the facility which the possession of la haye sainte now afforded the french for continuing their desperate endeavours to force that part of the allied line, rendered the situation of these troops extremely critical. alten, who had throughout the day displayed the same coolness, intrepidity, and skill, which had characterised his career in the peninsular war; and who, by his presence and example, had so powerfully sustained the energies of his men, was not permitted to witness the closing scene of their glorious exertions: for about this time he was wounded, and compelled to quit the field; leaving the command of the division to his gallant countryman kielmansegge. at a short distance in rear of lambert's brigade stood that of pack (with the exception of the st royal scots, then in front line), in contiguous columns at quarter distance, its right resting on the high road; while further to the rear, as a reserve, was posted vincke's hanoverian brigade, having two of its battalions, hameln and gifhorn, in contiguous close columns on the left of the road, and the other battalions, piene and hildesheim, in a similar formation, on the right of the road, near the farm of mont st jean. the pertinacity and zeal displayed by the french in their attacks upon the centre of the anglo-allied line, and the indications now manifested of following them up with increased force, were in accordance with napoleon's great object of breaking that centre, and overthrowing the right wing of the duke's army: and for the execution of this latter part of his plan, he was preparing to strike another formidable blow; even now that the prussians were fairly _aux prises_ with the troops constituting the extreme right of his army in and around planchenoit. but previously to entering into the subject of the concluding scene of the struggle between the anglo-allied and french armies, it will be necessary to revert to the operations of the prussian forces, in order to arrive at a full and comprehensive development and due interconnection of all the leading features and various bearings of the great battle, the result of which was to determine the issue of the campaign in belgium. footnotes: [footnote : two different causes have been assigned for the non-compliance with major baring's requisitions for ammunition; namely, the interception of the communication between the post and the main line and the difficulty in procuring _rifle_ ammunition. the first appears scarcely tenable; for, although the communication was frequently cut off by the french, as they passed by the farm when attacking the main position, it was as frequently open and available. this is sufficiently proved by the different reinforcements that were sent into the farm: ammunition might have been escorted thither with equal facility; and yet baring had made three distinct applications for a supply _before_ the nassau detachment was added to his force. the difficulty of procuring _rifle_ ammunition certainly appears a more probable cause; but, even in this case, it is impossible to overlook the circumstance that the post in question was immediately in front of the brigade to which its defenders belonged, and of which two out of the four battalions composing it were armed with rifles. since the above was written it has been communicated to me from hanover, upon excellent authority, that the cause of major baring not having been supplied with ammunition arose from the circumstance, that there existed only one cart with rifle ammunition for the two light battalions of the king's german legion; and that this cart was involved in the precipitate retreat of a great part of the baggage, &c., and thrown into a ditch.] chapter xiii. blücher's dispositions for the grand flank movement of his army towards the field on which wellington had announced to him his intention of accepting battle from napoleon, provided he might calculate on the marshal's assistance, were fully described in chapter viii. reconnoitring parties and patrols had been pushed forward, early in the day, to feel for the left of the anglo-allied army, the communication with which was successfully established. it then became desirable to explore the ground that lay more to the right front of the prussians, in the direction of the right flank of the main french army, in order to ascertain the nature of any precautionary measures adopted by napoleon to impede the junction of the allied commanders. major lÜtzow, of the staff, was sent upon this duty, with a detachment of the nd silesian hussars; and on reaching the wood of paris, he not only found this unoccupied, but discovered that no steps whatever had been taken by the french to cover and secure their right flank. a prussian troop of hussars advanced beyond the wood of paris, to a point near frischermont, whence it had a good view of both the french and allied dispositions and movements; and where it was not even menaced by the approach of any hostile party. as major lÜtzow, fully alive to the importance of speedily occupying the wood of paris, was returning to communicate the above intelligence to the prince, he met general grolman, the quartermaster general of the army, to whom he immediately represented how matters stood: when this officer directly pushed forward the silesian hussars and two battalions of infantry from bÜlow's advanced guard, to take possession of the wood; these troops having fortunately just crossed the defile of st lambert. grolman at the same time sent a message to the prince, suggesting that the fifteenth and sixteenth brigades should be ordered to follow the advanced guard as soon as they should be collected on the french side of the defile. great as had been the difficulties hitherto encountered along the prussian line of march, the passage of the defile of st lambert seemed to present an almost insurmountable obstacle. the rain which had set in during the afternoon of the th, and had continued without cessation the entire night, had transformed the valley of the lasne into a perfect swamp. the miry and watery state of the roads between wavre and st lambert had caused so many stoppages and breaks in the columns that they were frequently lengthened out for miles. blÜcher showed himself on every point of the line of march, encouraging his exhausted soldiers, and inciting them to renewed efforts. the troops, after a short halt to collect their scattered ranks, entered the defile. as the ground yielded to their pressure, both cavalry and infantry became dispirited; and when the artillery were fairly checked by the guns sinking axle deep, and the men, already worn down by fatigue, were required to work them out, their murmurs broke forth in exclamations of--"we _cannot_ get on." "but we _must_ get on," was old blÜcher's reply; "i have given my word to wellington, and you will surely not make me break it: only exert yourselves a few hours longer, children, and certain victory is ours." this appeal from their venerated chief was not made in vain: it served to revive the drooping energies of the wearied, and to stimulate still further to successful exertion the more robust and able bodied. at length, after considerable delay and constant difficulty, the passage of the fifteenth and sixteenth brigades, as also of the reserve of both cavalry and artillery, was accomplished; and by four o'clock these troops had ascended the opposite slope of the valley, and reached the plateau of the ridge which, constituting the narrow interval between the lasne and the smohain, with a rapid fall on either side towards those streams, presented a comparatively dry and firm soil favourable for the further operations of the prussian forces in this direction. as the troops reached the wood of paris, they were disposed, with a considerable front, and in a close compact order, on each side of the road leading from lasne towards planchenoit. the artillery kept the road itself; and the cavalry was drawn up in rear of the wood, ready to follow the infantry. the thirteenth and fourteenth brigades were expected to join in a short time; and pirch's corps was following along the same line. it had been blÜcher's intention to await the arrival of these troops, and then to debouch with the assembled force; but having watched the progress of the battle, he became apprehensive, on perceiving the tremendous cannonade, and the renewed attack after four o'clock, that the enemy might direct a still greater force against wellington's line, and succeed in breaking the latter before he commenced the attack on his side of the field. he could clearly distinguish napoleon's reserves, in rear of la belle alliance, evidently prepared for being launched against the anglo-allied line, which had already sustained the most desperate attacks. the frequent and pressing communications he had received from the duke also showed how anxiously the latter relied on his support. these considerations satisfied the prince, that the moment had arrived in which his appearance on the field would be productive of consequences the most favourable to the views of his ally, and the most influential on the development of their combined exertions; and he now gave the order for the attack to commence, even with the small amount of force then at his disposal, as also for the hastening of the march of the troops still in the rear. * * * * * it was half past four o'clock when the fifteenth and sixteenth brigades debouched from the wood of paris; the former on the right, the latter on the left; and each in the usual brigade formation for advance peculiar to prussian tactics. the direction of the attack was perpendicular to the right flank of the french army; and consequently, also, to the charleroi road, which constituted the french main line of operation. in order to cover the left flank, colonel hiller, commanding the sixteenth brigade, detached both the rd battalions of the th regiment and the st silesian landwehr, under major keller, to keep a look out in that direction as far as the rivulet of the lasne; beyond which, major falkenhausen was scouring the country with one hundred horsemen of the rd regiment of silesian landwehr cavalry. general losthin, commanding the fifteenth brigade, detached three battalions towards frischermont and smohain, to cover the right flank. they were the nd battalion of the th regiment, and the rd battalion of the rd silesian landwehr, followed by the st battalion of the former regiment. domon's cavalry continued drawn up _en potence_, and was at a considerable distance from the prussian advance, when blÜcher ordered a cannonade to open upon it; more with a view to make known his arrival to the anglo-allied army, and to induce the french to withhold the employment of a still greater force against the latter, than from any motive affecting his own immediate operations at the moment. domon now sent forward a regiment of _chasseurs à cheval_ to attack the prussian column, whilst he followed with his whole line. hereupon the nd silesian hussars and the nd neumark landwehr cavalry moved through the intervals of the infantry, and formed up in front; the hussars to the left, and the landwehr to the right. they then advanced, followed by the rd silesian landwehr cavalry in support, and drove back the french _chasseurs_; but becoming menaced in flank, and observing domon's whole line advancing, they were, in their turn, compelled to retire. this movement was covered by the horse battery no. ; and more particularly by captain schmidt's foot battery of the fifteenth brigade, which drew up to oppose the pursuit of the french cavalry. the vigorous fire which continued to be maintained by both these batteries, combined with the advance of the prussian infantry columns, induced domon to decline following up his attack at the moment. the three battalions already mentioned as having been detached to the right, had, by this time, reached smohain. their advance in that direction had been conducted with so much caution, that they debouched from the south-eastern inclosures of the village most unexpectedly for both the allied troops in that vicinity, and the infantry forming the extreme right of the french front line. the prussians continued to advance; crossed the principal fence which separated them from the french extreme right, and drew up in line almost at right angles with the direction of the enemy's front--two battalions in line, with the third in support. it was half past five o'clock when this took place. the french at once advanced against them; whereupon the prussians retired, and after regaining the hedges in the valley, lined the latter as skirmishers, and maintained a vigorous and successful _tiraillade_ with their opponents. in the mean time napoleon, judging from the boldness of the prussian advance, that considerable support was at hand; and apprehensive, no doubt, of the evil consequence likely to arise from that advance, if not promptly and effectually checked, had ordered the sixth corps, under count lobau, to move forthwith to the right from its reserve station in rear of la belle alliance; and, in conjunction with domon's cavalry, to take up a position favourable for repelling the attack by which he was menaced on that side of the field. blÜcher, observing this disposition, the execution of which was effected with great rapidity and in good order, proceeded to give a broader and more imposing front to his own troops. he extended his right flank to the wooded heights of frischermont, and rested his left upon a ravine descending to the lasne, close to the wood of virère. the reserve cavalry, under prince william of prussia, was put in motion, in two columns, towards the left flank; on which it was subsequently formed up. when lobau's corps moved off to the right, the regiments of the old and middle guard advanced and took up the position, in reserve, which it had occupied on the heights in rear of la belle alliance. as lobau's corps advanced and passed domon's cavalry, the latter was disposed as a support. having crossed the valley which, commencing from the ridge above planchenoit, on the north side of the village, descends towards smohain, he opened a brisk fire from his guns upon bÜlow's line. a spirited cannonade ensued, in the course of which the prussian foot battery no. had three guns disabled. it was not long, however, before the remaining brigades of bÜlow's corps, the thirteenth and fourteenth, came up. their batteries hastened to the front, and materially increased the force of the prussian fire. blÜcher, who had now the whole of bÜlow's corps at his disposal, was bent upon following up his original intention of directing his attack against the enemy's rear. with this view he made the sixteenth brigade take ground to its left, and brought up the fourteenth brigade in its rear, as a support; whilst at the same time he supplied the place of the former in the line by posting the thirteenth brigade on the left of the fifteenth. general hacke, who commanded the thirteenth brigade, detached the st and rd battalions of the second neumark landwehr to the right, in support of the troops in smohain. a portion of this detachment occupied frischermont, thus obtaining an _appui_ for the prussian right flank, and securing the communication with the prince of saxe weimar's brigade, posted along the inclosures in front of the extreme left of the anglo-allied army. this flank was also covered by the west prussian uhlans and the nd neumark landwehr cavalry, that had been detached from the reserve cavalry of the fourth corps under prince william of prussia; which was following, as a support, the left wing of bÜlow's line, now advancing in the direction of planchenoit. the artillery along the prussian line had by this time assumed a formidable appearance, the following batteries of the corps having come successively into action,--the twelve pounder batteries nos. and , the six pounder batteries nos. , , , and , and the horse batteries nos. and --comprising altogether sixty four guns. the ground over which bÜlow's corps was now in the act of advancing, was highly favourable for the development of a force destined to attack the flank of an army, the front of which was so completely _aux prises_ with the enemy as was that of the french at this moment. nearly at all points it commanded the position occupied by the french right _en potence_; the line was remarkably well _appui'd_ on the flanks; and its front was parallel with the enemy's main line of operation. * * * * * the force which lobau had at his disposal was greatly inferior to that of the corps he was sent to oppose. the former amounted to fifteen battalions, twenty one squadrons, and forty two guns--the latter (exclusive of the six battalions and eight squadrons detached to the right) consisted of thirty battalions, twenty seven squadrons, and sixty four guns. he could not present a front sufficiently extensive and compact that would secure him from being turned in either flank. hence, when he perceived that the principal force in this well planned attack was advancing from the prussian left, in the direction of planchenoit, which then lay in his right rear, unoccupied by any french troops; he felt the necessity of retiring towards the charleroi road, which he did by withdrawing his brigades _en échiquier_. it was not long before several round shot from the prussian batteries reached the charleroi road; some of them falling both in front and rear of la belle alliance, where napoleon was then stationed. it was evident to the latter that, unless reinforcements were despatched in support of lobau, his right flank, already so seriously menaced, would speedily be turned. his trusty guard with which, in former campaigns, he had so frequently succeeded in stemming the current that had suddenly set in against him from some previously hidden source and threatened to overwhelm him, constituted the sole reserve at his disposal. engaged during so many hours in carrying on a desperate attack along his whole front, without having as yet secured one single point of vantage ground; he clearly foresaw that without some vigorous effort, by aid of a powerful reserve, no ray of victory would ever gleam upon his arms on that side of the field. but now that he was also engaged in defensive operations along his right, against another enemy, by whom even his rear and the main line of his retreat became endangered; the necessity of employing a portion of this reserve in a direction different from that which he had contemplated, was alike obvious and urgent. the appearance of bÜlow's left bearing down upon planchenoit, turning lobau's right; and the powerful batteries along the prussian front admirably disposed in accordance with the favourable nature of the ground, over which the whole line was gradually approaching; distinctly indicated the immediate possession of that village in force, as the true and only measure that could be adopted for averting the impending danger. the two divisions of the young guard, posted on the plateau on the right of the _chaussée_ close to rosomme, and consisting of four battalions of _voltigeurs_, and four battalions of _tirailleurs_, were the nearest at hand for the occupation of planchenoit; and napoleon accordingly desired general duhesme instantly to march thither with that force, accompanied by twenty four pieces of cannon of the guard, and place himself on the right of lobau's corps. it was about this time (six o'clock) that napoleon replied to ney's demand for fresh infantry, _ou voulez vous que j'en prenne? voulez vous que j'en fasse?_ an expression, the force of which is rendered sufficiently obvious by the critical circumstances of his position. * * * * * it was also at this period that blÜcher received intelligence that thielemann was attacked by a superior force at wavre, and that it was doubtful whether he would be able to maintain his ground. but the determination of the prince to carry out his present plan of attack was fixed and irrevocable. he saw clearly that it was on the field where he himself stood that the fate of the campaign must be decided; and that by giving the fullest effect in his power to the combined operation which he had preconcerted with wellington, and which was already developing itself with so fair a prospect of success, he was pursuing the right and only course by which the main army of napoleon could be overthrown--a course founded upon the leading principle of all strategy, that of bringing the greatest mass to bear upon the decisive point. he immediately gave orders that thielemann should be directed to hold out as well as he could, and to dispute every inch of ground with his opponents. at the same time, he desired bÜlow to continue pressing forward with his left, and to gain possession of the village of planchenoit. colonel hiller, who commanded the sixth brigade, formed the latter into three columns of attack. two battalions of the th regiment, under major wittig, marched on the right against the village; two battalions of the st silesian landwehr, under major fischer, in the centre; and two battalions of the nd silesian landwehr, under lieutenant colonel blandowsky, formed the left column. the fourteenth brigade followed as a reserve, sending forward the st battalions of the th regiment and st pomeranian landwehr as a support to the columns of attack. in the mean time the troops of the young guard had occupied planchenoit, and made their dispositions for its defence. as the skirmishers that preceded the prussian columns approached the eastern inclosures of the village, they were received with a most destructive fire by the french _tirailleurs_. some pieces of artillery were also brought to bear directly upon the columns; which, nevertheless, advanced with great bravery and steadiness, captured a howitzer and two guns, and gained possession of the churchyard. the occupation of this spot, which is naturally strong, being inclosed within a low stone wall, strengthened nearly all round by a steep outer bank, and commanding by its elevated position a very considerable portion of the village, appeared to offer great security to the prussian troops; but the young guard, evidently prepared for this contingency, flew to the surrounding houses and gardens, whence they opened a concentrated fire upon the possessors of the churchyard. to this the latter replied with great spirit; and as the distance by which the hostile parties were separated was extremely limited, numbers fell in rapid succession on both sides. at length the french supports having come up and joined in this contest, and one of the columns having shown itself in rear of the prussians; the latter were compelled to abandon the advantages they had acquired, and to withdraw altogether from the village. they were followed by some of lobau's cavalry; which, however, having fallen into the line of fire of the prussian battery, no. , was forced to retire. the prussian troops that had been driven out of planchenoit immediately rallied and reformed. the nd battalions of the th regiment and st pomeranian landwehr now joined their respective st battalions, which had previously acted in support of the attacking columns, and advanced to a second assault, followed by the th regiment. napoleon, perceiving the determination of the prussian commander to persevere in his attack upon planchenoit, as also his dispositions for completely turning the french right, ordered general morand, colonel in chief of the _chasseurs à pied_ of the old guard, to march to the village with a battalion from each of the nd regiments of grenadiers and _chasseurs_. these battalions reached the scene of action just as the prussians had re-entered the village; and taking the lead in the contest, succeeded in driving them out of the place, pursuing them as far as their main position on the opposite heights. here the french skirmishers penetrated amongst the prussian batteries; but were overthrown and cut up by the th squadron of the nd silesian hussars. the french cavalry now showed a disposition to advance; and it was not long before a regiment of lancers, which took the lead, was attacked and defeated by the th prussian hussars. in following up the pursuit, however, after their charge, the hussars were suddenly involved in the fire from a battalion of french infantry, and were forced to fall back. on the other hand, a regiment of french _chasseurs à cheval_ was driven off in a similar manner by a prussian battalion. by the advance of the sixteenth and fourteenth brigades against planchenoit, a vacant space had been created in the prussian line between those troops and the thirteenth and fifteenth brigades, which still maintained their ground with great gallantry, in the open field on the right. this vacant space was now covered by the main body of the reserve cavalry of bÜlow's corps, commanded by prince william of prussia; which by its perfect steadiness and good countenance, not only induced the enemy to confine himself to the defensive, but advanced in support of the prussian infantry, even in the midst of the opposing musketry fire, and here occupied the place which, had the line been complete, would have been held by infantry. on this occasion, the loss of the prussian cavalry was considerable. the brigadiers, colonel count schwerin, and lieutenant colonel watzdorf, were killed. the latter although previously wounded, would not quit the field; and was soon afterwards struck by a shot which deprived the prussian army of a very distinguished officer. napoleon, observing preparatory dispositions for a renewal of the attack on planchenoit by bÜlow, who was only waiting for the co-operation and support of pirch's corps which was now rapidly approaching, deemed it advisable to send a further reinforcement to the troops in the village. this consisted of the st battalion of the nd regiment of the _chasseurs_ of the guard, under general pelet; to whom he represented the great importance of maintaining possession of planchenoit. at the same time, orders were sent to the st battalion of the st regiment of the _chasseurs_ of the guard, which was with the emperor's baggage at caillou, to march to the wood of chantelet, for the purpose of covering the right of planchenoit, and securing the village from being turned. the situation of napoleon had become critical in the extreme. the prussian attack seemed to be checked for the moment; and the occupation of planchenoit in sufficient force held out the prospect of a protracted, if not a successful, struggle in that quarter, should the attack be renewed. still it must have appeared sufficiently evident to the emperor that blÜcher was but awaiting either the arrival of an additional portion of his army, or the favourable moment when he might combine his attack with a simultaneous one by wellington. should the prussian general succeed in defeating the troops comprising the french right _en potence_, napoleon's line of retreat by the charleroi road would be completely intercepted, and his main front line being thus taken in flank and rear, would become an easy prey to the anglo-allied army. he might yet attempt a skilful retreat upon nivelles; but with an army so exhausted by its repeated and ineffectual attacks upon wellington's unshaken line, this would have been a hazardous operation. it is, moreover, very questionable whether the idea of retreat ever entered into his views; for a retreat, after such sacrifices had been made, harassed and interrupted as it undoubtedly would be by the two hostile armies which had succeeded in effecting a junction, must prove no less disastrous than a signal defeat, and equally involve the downfall of his military and political power. hence his desperate resolve to peril the fate of his brave army and of his resuscitated empire upon another and a final struggle for victory over wellington; whose troops had, with such truly heroic courage and such inflexible endurance, successfully withstood the most furious attacks which he had repeatedly launched against them during the whole day. by a victory alone, no matter how dearly purchased, could he hope to keep alive the national enthusiasm which he had again awakened: but which would assuredly relapse into irrecoverable apathy, should the _prestige_ of returning glory be torn from the idol of the military portion of his subjects, and the empire become again exposed to be overrun by those foreign legions that had once more taken up arms with a firm resolve finally to crush a power, the existence of which was incompatible with the security and independence of the states of europe. as the prospect of the consequences of failure thus flashed across his mind; napoleon, like a desperate gambler, driven to his last stake, determined to risk his all upon another venture. the meditated blow was to be struck against his bold antagonist, wellington; whose line was to be attacked along its entire front by a simultaneous effort, while its right and centre were to be forced at all hazards. he immediately ordered general count druot to collect all his battalions of the guard that were still in reserve, in front of la belle alliance. these were accordingly moved forward from their position near the house of de coster; and the two battalions of the st regiment of grenadiers, which had previously been stationed on the height in rear of la belle alliance, were now destined to form a reserve to the attacking columns. d'erlon and reille were at the same time ordered to advance the whole of the remaining disposable force against the enemy, with a view to second the main attack. the centre of the anglo-allied line, immediately in rear of la haye sainte, was not to be allowed a moment's respite from the attacks which continued to be made against it by the troops occupying, and debouching from, that farm. these were also to carry the centre by assault, as soon as the guard should reach the height. wellington, who seemed to have acquired a thorough insight into his opponent's designs, having satisfied himself that his position was destined shortly to be again assailed by a formidable force, became anxious for the arrival of the prussian troops expected on his extreme left. he desired his aide de camp, lieutenant colonel fremantle, to proceed immediately in that direction, to hasten the advance of any corps he might fall in with, and to represent to its commander that if he would supply him with the means of strengthening those points along his line which had been so seriously weakened by repeated attacks, he entertained no doubt of not only maintaining his ground, but of also gaining the victory. although the duke was fully aware that bÜlow's corps was in active operation against the extreme right of the french army, the ground upon which that operation was mainly carried on was too remote from his own immediate sphere of action to admit of his calculating upon support from it, beyond that of a diversion of the enemy's forces; and it was only from the high ground on which the extreme left of the anglo-allied line rested, that a general view could be obtained of the prussian movements. as regards, however, the village of planchenoit itself, the spire of the church was all that could be seen even from the point alluded to; so that it was scarcely possible to distinguish which was the successful party in that quarter. napoleon might (as he really did) present an efficient check to the prussian attack, and at the same time retain sufficient force wherewith he might make another vigorous assault upon the anglo-allied army. when, therefore, the duke beheld his line so fearfully reduced in numbers, which he had no means of replacing, and which the indomitable courage of his british and german troops alone had hitherto been able to supply, it is not surprising that he should have manifested some little impatience for the arrival of that portion of the prussian forces which was to co-operate more immediately with his own army. the latter, with the exception of the dutch-belgian troops, which still continued in reserve, for it was useless to place them where they would be exposed to the brunt of the battle shock, presented but a mere wreck of that proud array which it had displayed in the morning. but, if the vain confidence of strength had departed, the more noble pride of unflinching bravery still remained unshaken. exposed, however, as they had been for so many hours to a tremendous cannonade, which only ceased at times but to give place to attacks of cavalry and musketry; their exemplary passive forbearance seemed, in some instances, to be approaching its utmost limits. frequent messages reached the duke from commanding officers, soliciting reinforcements and support since their corps were reduced to skeletons; but the only reply they received was, that no reinforcements could be granted, and that they must hold their ground to the last man. occasionally too, as he rode along the line, a murmur would reach his ear, indicative of impatience to be led against the enemy. this would draw from him some encouraging appeal, such as "wait a little longer, my lads; and your wishes shall be gratified." in all three arms of the service the losses had been awfully severe. battalions, dwindled to mere handfuls of men, were commanded by either captains or subalterns. a vast number of guns along the whole extent of the line had been disabled. the british and german cavalry brigades, with the exception of vivian's and vandeleur's on the left, were reduced to less than the ordinary strength of regiments--somerset's and ponsonby's brigades united did not comprise two squadrons. many, it is true, had quitted the ranks to assist the wounded, and to convey prisoners to the rear; but if amongst these were to be found the weak and faint hearted, the brave spirits that remained nobly represented the valour and devotion which, under the guidance of a master hand, were destined to be crowned with lasting triumph. familiarised as the men had become with scenes, in rapid succession, of violent death under almost every variety of aspect, from the sudden gush of life to the slow and lingering anguish--from the calm and tranquil sleep "that knows no waking," to the ghastly writhings of convulsive death throes--the short and frequent command of "close up!" as their comrades fell around them, was as mechanically obeyed as would have been any common parade order in a barrack square. such was the situation of the troops against which napoleon was meditating an assault with all the force he could collect, in the hope--his last and only hope--of seeing his eagles soaring in triumph over those heights upon which the british standard continued to wave in proud defiance. * * * * * the battalions of the imperial guard which had been collected in front of la belle alliance, and which were to constitute the leading feature in the general attack upon the anglo-allied line, consisted of nine battalions, exclusive of the two battalions of the st regiment of grenadiers, destined, as previously observed, to remain as a reserve. these nine battalions were formed into two columns of attack. the first comprised four battalions of the middle guard, namely, the st and nd battalions of the rd regiment of grenadiers, and the st and nd battalions of the rd regiment of _chasseurs_. it was formed in mass of battalions, and destined to advance against the centre of the right wing of the anglo-allied army. the second column of attack consisted of the three remaining battalions of the middle guard--namely, the st battalion of the th regiment of grenadiers, and the st and nd battalions of the th regiment of _chasseurs_--and of two battalions of the old guard, namely, the st and nd battalions of the st regiment of _chasseurs_. these five battalions were moved down into the hollow adjoining the south-eastern angle of the inclosures of hougomont, and there formed into a column in mass, which was to support the first column, and to direct its advance somewhat more to the left. in rear, and on the right and left, of these columns, stood the remains of that splendid cavalry, with which wellington's line had been so furiously and so perseveringly assailed, occupying the interval that had been continually augmenting between d'erlon's and reille's corps. they formed the last and only cavalry reserve remaining at napoleon's disposal, for following up the attack by the guard, should the latter prove successful; or for covering its retreat, in the event of failure. * * * * * it was shortly before the columns of attack were put in motion that vivian, whose hussar brigade it will be recollected, was posted upon the extreme left of the anglo-allied line, was informed by patrols which he had detached to look out to his left for the expected arrival of the prussians, that the latter were advancing in force along the road from ohain. having satisfied himself as to the fact, and perceiving their advanced cavalry coming on, vivian felt that there could be no longer any apprehension of the left of the army being turned: and having previously understood from sir william delancey and other staff officers, that fresh cavalry was much wanted in the centre; he proposed to vandeleur, who was on his right, and who was his senior officer, that the two brigades should move towards the centre, where they might be of service. vandeleur declined to act without orders: whereupon vivian put his own brigade in motion, passing along the rear of vandeleur's, and soon after having commenced his march he met lord uxbridge; who was much pleased to find that the duke's wishes had thus been anticipated, and sent orders to vandeleur to follow, accompanying the former brigade himself towards the centre, passing along the foot of the slope in rear of the position of the left wing of the anglo-allied line. the prussian troops, whose advance had thus induced vivian to quit the extreme left, were the advanced guard of zieten's corps: and consisted of a part of the first infantry brigade, namely, the rd battalion th regiment, the st and nd battalions th regiment, the rd battalion st westphalian landwehr, and the st and rd silesian rifle companies; as also of a part of the reserve cavalry, namely, the st silesian hussars, the brandenburg uhlans, the brandenburg dragoons, and the nd kurmark landwehr cavalry. they had already been joined by lieutenant colonel fremantle, who delivered to zieten the duke's message: in reply to which that general remarked that he did not feel himself authorised to detach his corps in the manner proposed; adding, however, that the great mass of the prussian army was arriving upon the field. the remainder of the reserve cavalry which was commanded by lieutenant general rÖder, together with the main body of the corps, were still considerably in the rear. they were met by captain jackson of the british staff corps, who had been sent to look for them. these troops did not reach the field of battle until after the victory had been decided. wellington, finding that there was no chance of his shattered line being strengthened by the arrival, in sufficient time, of a prussian force from his left, to support his weak points of defence; and that he must therefore depend solely on his own resources for the means of warding off the desperate blow which napoleon was about to strike, immediately made such dispositions as the circumstances of the moment appeared to him to demand. the incessant attacks made by the french light troops debouching from la haye sainte, from the moment that farm fell into their possession, had caused great havoc in the centre of his line, where the want of reinforcement became most apparent. to meet this deficiency, he ordered the brunswick battalions, which stood at this time in rear of maitland's and adam's brigades--namely, the nd and rd light, and the st, nd, and rd line, battalions, to move by their left into the interval between halkett's british, and kruse's nassau, brigade. to occupy the ground thus vacated by the brunswickers, he put in motion d'aubremÉ's dutch-belgian infantry brigade from its recently assumed position in rear of the nivelles road; whence the other brigade of chassÉ's dutch-belgian division, under major general ditmer, was shortly afterwards ordered to move in the direction of the left of maitland's british brigade. the remains of his cavalry stood in rear of the centre; towards which vivian's and vandeleur's brigades were now moving from the left, as previously explained. whilst the imperial guard was forming for attack, the french troops in possession of la haye sainte and its inclosures, now consisting of the entire of donzelot's division, from the left of d'erlon's corps, renewed, with redoubled vigour, their assault upon the centre of the allied line: the object being evidently either to force that point previously to the arrival of the guard on its left, and thus facilitate the assault to be made by the latter; or to harass it in such a manner that, should the effort of the guard prove successful, they would be enabled completely to overthrow the allied centre. the fire from the skirmishers that had located themselves between the farm and the position, and from those on the knoll by the sand pit on the opposite side of the high road, had been incessant since the capture of that post. ompteda's brigade of the king's german legion, which had hitherto occupied the hollow way that descends into the _chaussée_, was reduced to a mere handful of men: the two squares in which kielmansegge's hanoverian brigade, the next on the (allied) right, had stood its ground so many hours, were fearfully diminished; kruse's nassau brigade, still further to the right, formed in three contiguous columns (two in front and one in rear), began to evince symptoms of hesitation; and the interval between this and halkett's british brigade had become much greater than was consistent with the due security of this part of the line. so weakened indeed was the latter at this period, that, to remedy the evil in some degree, it had been deemed advisable, with a view rather of giving it the appearance of greater strength than of affording any very active support, to draw close up in its rear, the skeleton remains of the scots greys and of the rd hussars of the king's german legion. on the allied left of the high road, an unremitting fire was maintained against their opponents by the th and th british regiments in extended order along the front hedge of the wavre road, commencing from the charleroi _chaussée_, as also from the th, th, st, and th british regiments, deployed behind the embanked hedge on the rear side of that road. the th british regiment had been brought up by lambert, and posted, in square, in the angle formed by the junction of the above roads: having one face parallel with, and close to, the _chaussée_, for the purpose either of throwing a flank fire upon the french troops on the opposite side, should these succeed, as appeared very probable, in compelling ompteda's and kielmansegge's brigades to retire; or, of pouring a close, deadly volley upon any column endeavouring to penetrate along the high road itself. the artillery on the allied right of the high road, in front of these brigades, was at this moment completely disabled. two british artillerymen were observed vainly endeavouring to serve a couple of guns, but were compelled to desist from the want of all material for loading. such was the state of things in the centre of the anglo-allied army, when the continued popping fire from the french skirmishers suddenly quickened into a fierce _tiraillade_ which threatened to bear down every thing opposed to it. the bank along the high road, beyond the garden of la haye sainte, and the mound adjoining it, which latter was quite close to the allied position, became all at once thickly crowded with skirmishers. those that lined the banks seemed intent upon keeping down the fire from the british regiments of kempt's and lambert's brigades, along the wavre road; while those under cover of the little mound in advance, as if aware of the object of the formation of the th british regiment, and sensible of the necessity of securing their right flank in their meditated forcing of the position, opened such a close, sharp, fire upon that regiment that, within the brief space of a few minutes, it lost more than half of its numbers. at the same time, taking advantage of the crippled state of the allied artillery in this quarter, the french brought up two guns in advance of the north-western angle of the garden of la haye sainte, in which position they were covered from any fire from the opposite side of the high road by the skirmishers occupying the bank and the mound. from these guns a smart fire of grape was opened, and maintained without intermission, upon the left square of kielmansegge's brigade (consisting of the field battalions grubenhagen and york), at the short distance of one hundred and fifty, and afterwards of scarcely one hundred, paces. the square manifested the most exemplary submission and forbearance, notwithstanding the ravages that continued to be made in its ranks; not venturing to reply to the fire, by the apprehension of cavalry being under the brow of the position, prepared to take instant advantage of any favourable opportunity for a charge. the right square (consisting of the field battalions bremen and verden) also suffered most severely. some other guns, which had accompanied the columns in rear of the french skirmishers, were suddenly brought forward, and opened so destructive a discharge of grape upon this latter square, that one of its sides was literally completely blown away; the remainder being left standing in the form of a triangle. the commander, and many other officers, were wounded. the ammunition was failing rapidly. the combined fire of grape and musketry continued to increase in violence; and the square finally dwindled into a mere clump of men. the french _tirailleurs_ continued pressing forward in a very compact line, whilst the sound of drums beating the _pas de charge_ announced the advance of the columns immediately in their rear. the prince of orange, perceiving the probability of the centre of the allied line being forced, unless some great effort were made to check the enemy's advance, ordered the st and nd nassau battalions of kruse's brigade to charge, gallantly placing himself at their head. his royal highness was soon struck by a bullet in the left shoulder; the attack failed; and the nassauers were falling back, when the reinforcement which wellington had provided for this part of the line, consisting of five battalions of brunswick infantry, moved rapidly into the interval between kruse's nassau, and halkett's british, brigades. but so unexpectedly did the brunswickers find themselves placed under a most destructive fire, and so suddenly were the heads of their columns assailed, that they were unable, in the midst of the thick smoke in which they became involved, to recover from the partial irregularities by which, under such circumstances, their advance was accompanied, and to form up in sufficient order, before they came in close contact with the enemy: whose vigorous attack compelled them, as also kruse's, kielmansegge's, and ompteda's brigades, to fall back about a hundred paces. at this critical moment, wellington hastened to the spot in person, to avert so alarming a catastrophe as that of having his centre broken, at a time, too, when he was preparing to receive a formidable attack, directed against another point of his line, situated at but a short distance on the right of that centre. he addressed himself to the brunswickers; and succeeded, by the electrifying influence of his voice, gesture, and presence, in rallying the discomfited columns. the rd line battalion, under major normann, was the first to reform in good order: it then boldly stood its ground; and, when the enemy's infantry approached, received it with so destructive a fire as completely to check its further advance. by dint of example and encouragement on the part of all the commanding officers, the brigades on the left of the brunswickers were also rallied and formed up: upon seeing which, the duke galloped off to the right. just at this time, vivian's hussar brigade drew up immediately in rear of these troops--relieving the exhausted remains of the scots greys and rd hussars of the king's german legion--the th and th british hussars in front, and the st hussars of the king's german legion in second, line. the presence and appearance of this fresh cavalry tended very considerably to restore confidence to that part of the line. the brigade had previously, in consequence of a mistake in the transmission of orders, been halted on the left of the high road about midway between the front line and the farm of mont st jean; whence, however, it was speedily brought forward, and posted as above, by lord uxbridge. the prince of orange, alten, and almost all the superior officers of the third division, had been wounded. but kielmansegge, who now commanded in this part of the field, was fully alive to the critical circumstances under which the third division was placed; and exhibited great ability, coolness, and determination, by the manner in which he succeeded in restoring it to order. still, the persevering and incessant _tiraillade_ kept up against these troops by the french was such that the fire thrown out from their shattered and enfeebled ranks was quite inadequate to repress it. the french skirmishers again crowded close up to the line; maintaining a most rapid and destructive fire. the allied infantry was once more on the point of giving way. one battalion of the brunswickers was retiring in close column, but in good order; having totally exhausted its ammunition. the nassauers were falling back _en masse_ against the horses' heads of the th hussars; who, keeping their files closed, prevented further retreat. vivian and captain shakespeare of the th (acting as his extra aide de camp), rendered themselves conspicuous at this moment by their endeavours to halt and encourage the nassauers. the hanoverians and the german legion on the left, led by kielmansegge, now resolutely dashed forward, at the double quick--their drums rolling. the enemy fell back. the brunswickers took up the movement, as then did also the nassauers--vivian and his aide de camp cheering them on; whilst the hussars followed in close support. in this manner, kielmansegge succeeded in leading back the shattered remnants of the division to the place they had so long and so honourably occupied on the ridge. vivian's brigade, by its proximity to these troops, against which so close and unremitting a fire of musketry was maintained, was placed in a very trying situation for cavalry, and suffered much in consequence. as soon, however, as the infantry had rallied and resumed their former position in the line, vivian withdrew his brigade under the crest of the ridge, a distance of not more than thirty yards, to place his men a little out of fire; and when thus posted, he was better prepared to make an attack if required. the fire from the enemy's infantry in front of this part of the line suddenly slackened; and it was soon manifest that they were falling back: the change arose out of occurrences on their left, which will be explained in the next chapter. chapter xiv. it was during the fierce and desperate conflict just described as having taken place in the centre of the anglo-allied line, that the french imperial guard moved forward to the attack; and this was the signal for the simultaneous advance of all the disposable battalions of d'erlon's and reille's corps. in the preliminary pause which occurred in the fire from the french batteries, from the first moment of the advance until the columns had sufficiently descended from the heights to be below the range of their guns, the thunder of bÜlow's artillery upon the french extreme right, and of the guns brought to bear against it, was so distinctly audible that napoleon, apprehending its evil effects upon the troops on whose bravery, discipline, and devotion, his fate now hung, despatched aides de camp along the line to spread the false intelligence of the arrival of grouchy; and to declare that it now required but a little firmness to secure the victory to which they were advancing. the loud shouts with which this announcement was received by the troops, who had then descended below the range of the guns, were speedily drowned in the roar that burst forth from the entire line of the french batteries. the effects of this terrific cannonade upon the skeleton ranks of the allied front line, combined with the aspect of the advancing hosts, tended not in the slightest degree to shake that noble and unequalled courage with which the british and german troops had hitherto sustained every assault. the scene of havoc and devastation which met their view as they looked around them, the constant ravages which they had been destined passively to endure for so many hours, their ranks repeatedly torn open and their files scattered asunder, as shot and shell plunged in amongst them,--all conduced to excite in the breasts of men of such impenetrable mould a feeling of exultation and relief, as they observed the approach of the enemy's infantry, and panted for the long wished for moment when they might grapple with their deadly foe at close quarters, in a hand to hand encounter. most fully did they realise the expectations entertained of them by their enemy, but admirer, the brave general foy; who had felt it his duty, prior to the commencement of the battle, to declare to the emperor, that his majesty had an infantry opposed to him which he had never known to yield. the french troops, perceiving their whole front line in motion, felt conscious that the final struggle was at hand, and assured that the varied fortunes of the day were to be wound up by some splendid triumph. the guard proudly took the lead in this grand attack--that sacred cohort, whose glory had ever shone conspicuously when a great crisis summoned forth those energies by which its valour and its prowess had acquired for it imperishable renown. the greatest enthusiasm reigned amidst the devoted defenders of the imperial diadem; which was now to be strengthened by the fame of their renowned successes, and adorned with fresh wreaths of never fading laurels. napoleon, nervously anxious to strain to its utmost tension, the daring spirit and high resolve which animated his troops, galloped forward to the inner gentle slope of the eminence on the left of the charleroi road, which, overlooking the farm of la haye sainte, formed the most prominent point of his whole line, and by which was to pass the leading column of the guard, there to strengthen, by the magic spell of his immediate presence, the link which bound their fortunes to his own fate, and to the destiny of the empire. as they approached, he pointed significantly to the allied position; a gesture which drew forth renewed shouts of "_vive l'empereur!_" the fond regards which he seemed to cast upon these, his old and tried campaigners, and the air of confidence he assumed, as he contemplated their advance; rivetted upon him the affectionate gaze of the devoted band, to hundreds of whom it proved the last look upon the idol for whom they were to sacrifice their lives. at this time, d'erlon's corps presented an advance of columns in _echelon_ between the charleroi road and its right flank which was engaged with the prussians: whilst reille's corps, descending in columns, some into the wood, others into the inclosures on the right, and some also still more to the right, outside of hougomont, and close upon the centre of the line, seemed bent upon carrying that post by main force; and upon seconding, with one mighty effort, the main attack by the imperial guard. this general advance of columns was preceded by a host of skirmishers, whose line spreading along the valley in front of d'erlon's corps, gradually became engaged with the light troops of the left wing of the anglo-allied army; and the sudden impulse given to the rattle of musketry in the wood of hougomont betokened that the brave defenders of this post were already engaged in a renewed and desperate struggle for the maintenance of its possession. the french skirmishers between the wood of hougomont and the extreme left of their army, continued to maintain a desultory warfare with the allied light troops in the front, consisting of the rd regiment of british guards, the light companies of the th and rd british regiments, and six companies of the st british regiment. pirÉ's light cavalry brigade was still in the position it had occupied upon the extreme left of the french front line, having a few vedettes thrown out; which were narrowly watched by those belonging to captain wodehouse's squadron of the th british hussars. * * * * * as the leading column of the imperial guard began to ascend the slightly inclined tongue of ground that projects from that part of the ridge of the duke's position in rear of the crest of which maitland's brigade of guards was lying down at the time, it became very much exposed to the concentrated fire from nearly all the batteries of the anglo-allied right wing, by which the most frightful havoc was dealt amidst its devoted ranks. the line of skirmishers which preceded it, now pushed rapidly and boldly forward up to the very summit of the duke's position; for the purpose both of concealing by their veil of smoke the precise direction of the advance of the columns, and of driving away the artillerymen from their guns by the fire of which the guard was suffering so severely. notwithstanding the terrible havoc made in the ranks of the leading column of the imperial guard, it continued its advance in admirable order and with the greatest enthusiasm. several of its superior officers placed themselves at its head. ney's horse having been shot under him; he drew his sword, and chivalrously led the way on foot, sustaining to the last his appropriate and well earned _nom de guerre--le plus brave des braves_. general friant, who commanded the grenadiers, fell severely wounded. general michel, colonel _en second_ of the _chasseurs_, was killed a few moments afterwards. the fall of the latter occasioned some hesitation--the st battalion of the rd regiment of grenadiers halted; but at the call of general poret de morvan, who commanded it, it renewed its advance at the _pas de charge_, amidst loud shouts of "_vive l'empereur!_" as the column neared the rise of ground which constituted the highest point of the ridge occupied by the right wing of the duke's line, it gradually passed the line of fire hitherto directed upon it by the greater portion of the batteries on the british right of that point. wellington rode up to the british foot battery posted on the immediate right of maitland's brigade of guards, with its own right thrown somewhat forward, and addressing himself to an artillery officer (lieutenant sharpin), hastily asked who commanded it. the latter replied that captain bolton having just been killed, it was now under the command of captain napier. the duke then said, "tell him to keep a look out to his left, for the french will soon be with him." the message had scarcely been communicated when the bearskin caps of the leading divisions of the column of the imperial guard appeared just above the summit of the hill. the cannonade hitherto directed upon this point from the distant french batteries, now ceased; but a swarm of skirmishers opened a sharp and teasing fire among the british gunners. in the next moment, however, they were scattered and driven back upon the main body by a sudden shower of canister, grape, and shrapnel shells, poured forth from napier's guns; which now kept up a terrific fire upon the column, within a distance of forty or fifty yards. nevertheless the french guards continued to advance. they had now topped the summit. to the astonishment of the officers who were at their head, there appeared in their immediate front no direct impediment to their further advance. they could only distinguish dimly through the smoke extending from napier's battery, the cocked hats of a few mounted officers; little imagining, probably, that the most prominent of these was the great duke himself. pressing boldly forward, they had arrived within fifty paces of the spot on which the british guards were lying down, when wellington gave the talismanic call--"up, guards; make ready!" and ordered maitland to attack. it was a moment of thrilling excitement. the british guards springing up so suddenly in a most compact four deep line, appeared to the french as if starting out of the ground. the latter, with their high bonnets, as they crowned the summit of the ridge, appeared to the british, through the smoky haze, like a corps of giants bearing down upon them. the british guards instantly opened their fire with a tremendous volley, thrown in with amazing coolness, deliberation, and precision. an oblique fire was also poured in among them from the rd and th british regiments, which halkett had most promptly and judiciously pushed forward to the immediate left of the guards at this critical moment. the head of the column became, as it were, convulsed by the shock, and nearly the entire mass staggered under the effect. in less than a single minute more than three hundred of these brave old warriors fell, to rise no more. but the high spirit and innate valour which actuated the mass were not to be subdued by a first repulse. its officers, placing themselves conspicuously in its front and on its flanks, called aloud, waved their swords; and, by encouraging words and gestures, commenced a deployment in order to acquire a more extended front. but the head of the column being continually shattered and driven back upon the mass, by the well sustained and rapidly destructive fire by which it was assailed within so extremely limited a space, this attempt altogether failed. the front of the column was becoming momentarily more disordered and broken up; men were turning round and disappearing by the flanks, whilst others in the rear began firing over the heads of those before them. the confusion into which the french guards had now been thrown became manifest. the duke ordered maitland to charge; whilst, at the same instant, the gallant lord saltoun, equally alive to the real situation of the column, called out, "now's the time, my boys!" the brigade sprang forward, with a loud cheer, to the charge. numbers of the french guards nearest to the british, threw down their arms and knapsacks, and dispersed. the flanks began rapidly to spread out; and then the mass partaking more generally of the panic, appeared as if rent asunder by some invisible power. during the advance of the attacking column of the imperial guard, one of its battalions had moved out from the mass to its right (probably for the better security of that flank from any attempt that might be made to molest it from the dip or hollow on that side of the projecting tongue of ground along which the main attack had proceeded), and took a direction which brought it immediately in front of halkett's left wing, consisting of the shattered remnants of the th and rd british regiments, formed in a four deep line, scarcely exceeding, if equalling, in extent (such had been their losses), the front of the approaching column. the order in which this column advanced was admirable. its formation was undisturbed by the fire of artillery, of which arm there was none in this part of the field in working condition; and, as it pressed on with the compactness and regularity of a parade movement, it appeared at the same time to be animated with the best spirit. presently the column halted and fired; and, in return, received a well directed volley; after delivering which, the th and rd regiments ported arms, and, with a loud cheer, dashed forward at the charge. on reaching the ground where they expected to meet the french guards, they were greatly astonished at discovering, through the clearing smoke, that their recent opponents were flying in a mass. at this moment, major van der smissen's dutch-belgian horse battery, which had just come up by the right of halkett's brigade, opened upon them a terrific fire from which they suffered immensely. the british guards had continued their charge some distance down the slope of the hill; when maitland perceived the second attacking column of the imperial guard advancing on his right, and exposing his brigade to the imminent risk of being turned on that flank. he accordingly resolved to face about the right wing of his brigade, and to give the words, "halt, front," as soon as he had got his line parallel with the front of the advancing column. this manoeuvre was executed with great regularity and precision by the right wing, with which maitland was immediately present, and which he had well in hand. but amidst their victorious shouts, and the noise of the firing of cannon and other arms, the command was imperfectly understood by the left wing: and the first sense of danger led to a cry of "form square" being passed along their line, it being naturally assumed that the enemy's cavalry would take advantage of their isolated position; which, however, was not the case. the flanks of the rd battalion, of which this left wing was composed, gave way as if to form square. saltoun conspicuously exerted himself in endeavouring to rectify the mistake, but in vain; and the whole of the battalion went to the rear. the confusion in which they retired was unavoidable; but it was not the confusion consequent upon either defeat or panic: it resulted simply from a misunderstanding of the command; and no greater or more distinguished proof could be afforded of the excellent order, cool self-possession, and admirable discipline of these troops, than the steadiness, alacrity, and intelligence with which, upon regaining the crest of the ridge, they obeyed the command then given of "halt, front, form up;" mechanically resuming their four deep formation, and instantly darting forward at the double quick, to their proper place on the left of the nd battalion, so that the whole brigade was now in one steady and compact line; parallel with the front of the advancing second attacking column of the imperial guard. how marked a contrast did such conduct on the part of the british guards, who thus, in the battle's front, so gloriously upheld their country's honour, offer to that of a considerable body of the allied troops then posted in second line as their support! d'aubremÉ's infantry brigade of chassÉ's dutch-belgian division, which, as before stated, had been moved into the space in rear of maitland's brigade, previously occupied by the brunswickers, was now formed into three large squares, of two battalions each. these troops, on hearing the loud shouts of the second advancing column of the french imperial guard--of that very column which had been moving in rear of the british guards while the latter were retiring from their triumphant charge towards their original position--became so unsteady, and evinced so decided a disposition to quit their ranks, that vandeleur, whose brigade of british light dragoons was at this time drawn up in their rear, deemed it advisable to close his squadron intervals, the better to impede their contemplated retreat; and was induced, along with his major of brigade, major childers of the th light dragoons, captain tomkinson of the same regiment, and several of his officers, on perceiving that the squares were on the point of giving way, to dart forward and endeavour, partly by menaces, and partly by exhortations, to induce them to maintain their ground. the dutch-belgian officers exerted themselves in restoring order and confidence; but their men were evidently bent upon abandoning their position in this part of the field. between them and the attacking column intervened the crest of the main ridge, occupied by the duke's first line; the latter holding out to them a bright example of perfect discipline, of unflinching steadiness, and patient endurance. of the attacking column itself they could see absolutely nothing; but its shouts alone seemed sufficient to scare them off the ground! besides, they had but just entered the immediate field of action, and had not hitherto been engaged with the enemy; whereas the british brigade of guards had been exposed during eight hours to an incessant cannonade, and to numerous and desperate attacks of both cavalry and infantry. of such materials was composed the duke's second line in rear of the main point of attack by the french army at this, the most critical moment of the whole battle! * * * * * the second attacking column of the french imperial guard, which, as before explained, had been formed in the hollow adjacent to the south-east angle of the hougomont inclosures, advanced in a line parallel with, and at a very short distance from, the hedge forming the eastern boundary. on reaching the foot of the british position, however, the column diverged a little to its right, either to take advantage of a slight undulation of the ground which seemed to offer a partial cover from the tremendous fire of artillery that continued to pour upon it, or solely for the purpose of directing its advance upon the point at which it perceived the first attacking column was engaged, and at which it might be better enabled to follow up any success that column might obtain. between the heads of the two attacking columns there was a distance, during their advance, of from ten to twelve minutes' march. whether this difference in the time of their movement was intentional, or arose from a misunderstanding in the conveyance of orders, or from any other accident, is uncertain; but it is quite evident that, by forming two separate attacks, they subjected themselves to the imminent risk of being defeated in detail--a risk which, as will be presently shown, was speedily converted into a reality. [illustration] the second, like the first, column of attack, advanced with great boldness, and in excellent order, and appeared animated by the best possible spirit. its left front was covered by a cloud of skirmishers, in order to conceal its movement as much as possible from the view of the british line. the battalions of adam's brigade threw out each a company for the purpose of checking them. during the advance of the column, and more especially as it descended the gentle declivity eastward of the great orchard of hougomont, it suffered severely from the british cannonade. so destructive indeed had been the fire from some of the british batteries on the right of maitland's brigade, from the commencement of the advance of the imperial guard, that the french were at length induced suddenly to push forward a body of _cuirassiers_ to endeavour to silence these guns. in this they partially succeeded; the _cuirassiers_ having gallantly charged one of the batteries, and forced the gunners to seek shelter in the rear of the infantry--driving in, at the same time, the skirmishers of the nd battalion of the th regiment, and those of the nd regiment. they were checked, however, by the to them sudden and unexpected appearance of adam's brigade, which had just been moved, in its four deep line, close up to the narrow road that runs along the summit of the ridge. the nd regiment, which was more directly opposed to them, came down to the "prepare for cavalry!" as a renewal of the attack seemed probable, a squadron of the rd british light dragoons, under captain cox, was detached across the ridge, down the outer slope, towards the great orchard; from the rear of which it charged the _cuirassiers_ as they advanced again towards the guns, overcame them, and pursued them across the plain, far in rear of the second attacking column of the imperial guard, until it fell into a fire thrown out upon it from the head of a french column of infantry, by which its files were scattered, and the whole compelled to make a hasty retreat towards the allied position. had the second column of attack continued in the original direction of its advance, it would have come upon the centre of adam's brigade: but having, as it began to ascend the exterior slope of the main ridge of the allied position, slightly diverged to its right, as before observed, by following the direction of a very gentle hollow, constituting the re-entering angle formed by the tongue of ground that projected from the front of maitland's brigade, and that part of the ridge occupied by adam's brigade, it, in some degree, lent its left flank to the latter. this circumstance was not only observed, but had been in a great measure anticipated, by lieutenant colonel sir john colborne, commanding the nd regiment, an officer of great repute in the british army. he had been watching with intense anxiety the progress of the enemy's column; and, seizing the most favourable moment, he, without orders, and upon his own responsibility, wheeled the left company of the nd to the left, and then formed the remainder of the regiment upon that company, for the purpose of bringing its front nearly parallel with the flank of the french column. at this moment adam rode up, and asked colborne what he was going to do; to which the latter replied, "to make that column feel our fire." adam, approving of this, ordered colborne to move on; and galloped off to bring up his right regiment, the st. the duke, who had just seen maitland's brigade reformed and posted in the best order, parallel with the front of the attacking column, was at this moment stationed on the right of napier's battery. he despatched an aide de camp (major the hon. henry percy) to direct sir henry clinton to advance and attack the imperial guard: but a single glance at colborne's forward movement satisfied him that his intention had been anticipated; and he immediately pushed forward the nd battalion of the th regiment to the left of the nd. the head of the french column had by this time nearly reached the brow of the ridge, its front covering almost the whole of napier's battery, and a portion of the extreme right of maitland's brigade. it was still gallantly pressing forward, in defiance of the most galling fire poured into its front by the battery and by the british guards, when the sudden and imposing appearance of the four deep line of the nd regiment bearing directly towards its left flank in the most admirable and compact order imaginable, caused it to halt. in the next instant, wheeling up its left sections, it opened a rapid and destructive fire from the entire length of its left flank against the nd regiment. colborne, having brought his line parallel to the flank of the imperial guard, also halted, and poured a deadly fire into the mass; and, almost at the same moment, the rifles of the nd battalion th regiment, then coming up on the left, were levelled and discharged with unerring aim into the more advanced portion of the column. the st regiment was, at this time, rapidly advancing on the right, to complete the brigade movement. colborne, eager fully to carry out his projected flank attack upon the enemy's column, caused his men to cease firing, and then gave the command, "charge! charge!" it was answered by three hearty british cheers that rose distinctly above the shouts of "_vive l'empereur!_", and the now straggling and unsteady fire from the column. the nd battalion th regiment hastened to join in the charge on the left. the movement was remarkable for the order, the steadiness, the resoluteness, and the daring, by which it was characterised. the column of the imperial guard, which already seemed to reel to and fro under the effect of the front and flank fire which had been so successfully brought to bear upon it, was evidently in consternation as it beheld the close advance of adam's brigade. some daring spirits--and it contained many within its ranks--still endeavoured to make at least a show of resistance; but the disorder, which had been rapidly increasing, now became uncontrollable: and this second column of the imperial guard, breaking into the wildest confusion, shared the fate of the first; with this difference, however, that in consequence of the combined front and flank fire in which it had been so fatally involved, and of the unrestrained pursuit which deprived it of the power of rallying its component parts, it became so thoroughly disjointed and dispersed that, with the exception of the two rear battalions which constituted the st regiment of _chasseurs_ (old guard), it is extremely doubtful whether any portion of it ever reunited, as a regularly formed military body, during the brief remaining period of the battle--certainly not on the allied side of la belle alliance, towards which point it directed its retreat. it is necessary to remark that this regiment of the old guard, which was commanded by general cambronne, formed a separate column of support in _echelon_ to, and immediate left rear of, the three battalions of the middle guard: but so close to each other were the two columns, that although an interval was observed between them by adam's brigade when the latter stood in the general front line of the allied position, they appeared to it but as one column, when charged in flank; and may, to all intents and purposes, be considered as having formed one general column of attack. cambronne's battalions, however, forming the rear of the column, did not become exposed to the fire from adam's brigade; inasmuch as neither the st regiment nor the nd battalion th regiment could complete the brigade flank movement in time to open a fire upon the mass before the actual charge was commenced. hence, although they turned, along with the rest of the column; yet, unlike the latter, they retained a considerable degree of order. troops could scarcely be placed in a more critical situation than was this second attacking column of the imperial guard from the moment it came to a halt. with its front immediately facing a battery within sixty or seventy yards' distance, the double shotted guns of which continued ploughing through the mass, and tearing up its ranks; with its left flank faced outwards to repel a formidable attack on that side, and its right flank partially exposed to the oblique fire from the greater portion of the line of british guards; the interior of the mass, enveloped in smoke, feeling a pressure from both front and flank, and yet perceiving no indication of the means of extricating itself from so perilous a position, it was truly a most trying moment even to such veteran warriors as those which constituted the renowned imperial guard of france. any attempt at deployment to its right, while thus attacked on its left, was of course out of the question. had it continued to advance until adam's brigade had approached quite close to its left flank, the charge of the latter must have brought it to a stand, and rendered the efforts of the head of the column abortive. if, on the other hand, after having faced altogether to the left, and converted that flank into a compact line, it had advanced to meet the nd regiment when it first became aware of this attack, it would still have been exposed on the right (its previous front) to the havoc created by napier's guns, as also to a charge by maitland's brigade; which by bringing forward its left shoulders, might have rendered the situation of the column so hopeless, as probably to have led to its immediate and unqualified surrender on the spot. the dilemma into which these veterans were thus thrown was mainly attributable to the fatal neglect of not accompanying the column with an effective support of cavalry. a strong body of the latter on each flank, or in its immediate rear, would have secured the column from any such flank attack as that which so successfully arrested its progress, and so completely effected its dispersion. the direction given to adam's line by its "right shoulder forward" movement having brought it perpendicular to the general front of the french position, that officer became naturally anxious for support upon his right flank, to secure the latter from the enemy's cavalry; which, it was to be presumed, would now be brought forward from his reserve, since none of it had been employed in immediate support of the last attack. he urgently requested for this purpose, the aid of troops from the other part of clinton's division; and lieutenant colonel halkett, seeing what was required, immediately advanced with the nearest battalion of his hanoverian brigade, the osnabrück landwehr, in column at quarter distance, and close up in right rear of the st regiment. thus adam's brigade, maintaining its four deep line, and being flanked by the hanoverian battalion which could form square at any moment, was secured against cavalry. the confused and disordered mass of the imperial guard, from the first impulse given to it by the flank charge, hastened a short distance in a direction parallel with that of the anglo-allied line, and then naturally inclining towards the french position, it fell into nearly the same track of retreat as that pursued by the first attacking column, namely towards the first rise of ground intersected by the charleroi road, a little beyond the southern extremity of the orchard of la haye sainte. as it approached the rear of those columns of d'erlon's corps, which had been so desperately opposing alten's division; the latter became infected with the panic, and commingled with the flying guard. adam's brigade continued its triumphant advance, at first parallel, for a short distance, to the allied line; and then, bringing forward its left shoulders, swept proudly onward in the direction of the french height before mentioned; crowds of fugitives hurrying along and striving to escape from the pursuing wave that seemed every instant on the point of engulfing them. during its advance, the front of adam's brigade was partially crossed by the squadron of the rd light dragoons, under lieutenant banner, retiring in disorder from its charge. mistaken for hostile cavalry, these dragoons were unfortunately fired upon by the nd regiment; and it was not until the foremost of them had fallen close upon the bayonets, that the error was discovered. immediately after this incident, a fire of grape was opened upon the nd by three french field pieces in the prolongation of its right flank. this enfilading of the regiment in its four deep line was a judicious measure on the part of the french artillery, and well calculated to derange the advance of adam's brigade. it was, however, very gallantly and speedily checked by the wheeling up and advance of the right section of the nd, under lieutenant gawler; who succeeded in driving off the guns, whilst the rest of the regiment continued its pursuit. wellington, as soon as he saw that the success of the charge by adam's brigade was so decisive, requested uxbridge immediately to launch forward some fresh cavalry to check the probable advance of that of the enemy; and to second the efforts of the infantry in front, by boldly attacking the french reserves, which appeared collected in front of la belle alliance, the critical point of napoleon's line. lieutenant colonel lord greenock, assistant quarter master general of the cavalry, was despatched to vivian with orders for him to move his hussar brigade to its right from its position in rear of alten's division, so as to get clear of the infantry, and then to advance directly to the front by the right of maitland's brigade of guards. at the same time, the duke turned round to order up the nearest supports to the space which had been vacated in his front line by the advance of adam's brigade. but what a spectacle met his view! the three dutch-belgian squares, into which d'aubremÉ's brigade had been formed, and whose unsteadiness, previously described, had greatly augmented as the firing and shouting on the exterior slope of the ridge, of which they could see nothing, became more continuous and intense, were now in a state bordering on dissolution. the faces of the squares were already broken at intervals by groups in the act of abandoning their ranks; whilst several officers of vandeleur's brigade, which, as before observed (see pages - ), was drawn up in their rear, were zealously exerting themselves in endeavouring to induce these troops to stand fast. the duke, observing this, called out, "that's right; tell them the french are retiring." this intelligence, quickly caught up and spread through their ranks, had the desired effect of restoring them to order. they shortly afterwards formed into columns, and advanced to the front line. * * * * * in order to preserve a distinct and connected view of the combined operations against napoleon, it will be necessary, previously to describing the general advance of the allied line, consequent upon the failure of the attack by the french imperial guard, to revert to the movements of the prussians. it will be recollected that vivian's, and subsequently vandeleur's, brigade, quitted the left of the anglo-allied line, on the approach of the advanced guard of zieten's corps towards that point. shortly before the arrival of these troops, the french skirmishers in front of durutte's division, which constituted the angle of the _potence_ on which stood the extreme right of napoleon's army, having been considerably reinforced, were pushed forward for the purpose of establishing themselves in the houses and inclosures in the valley below them; and of impeding, by this means, the connection between bÜlow's corps and the anglo-allied left. the nassauers, of prince bernhard of saxe weimar's brigade, fell back from the houses of the hamlet of papelotte; but firmly maintained their ground on the allied side of the valley, retaining possession of the farms of papelotte and la haye. the french skirmishers, passing further to their right, pressed on to the village of smohain; where they became warmly engaged with the prussian troops that had been so judiciously posted in that quarter. blÜcher, perceiving the infantry of the advanced guard of zieten's corps upon the height above smohain, sent an order for its moving by the shortest way to engage the enemy in the valley. the prussian general mÜffling, attached to the headquarters staff of the duke of wellington, was at that moment in this vicinity, and gave the requisite instructions to the staff officer sent forward from zieten's corps. about this time, the fifth and sixth infantry brigades, as also the reserve cavalry of pirch's corps, reached the field, in rear of bÜlow. pirch, placing himself at the head of his leading brigade (the fifth), immediately conducted it in the direction of planchenoit; and, on coming up with the fourteenth and sixteenth brigades, he began, in conjunction with colonel hiller, to make the necessary dispositions for the third attack upon that village. the sixth brigade was ordered to follow as a reserve; and the attack was to be supported by a simultaneous advance of the right wing of bÜlow's corps against lobau's line, which was exceedingly well drawn up, and exhibited every indication of making a determined stand. blÜcher had despatched an order to the seventh brigade (of pirch's corps) to move together with the th kurmark landwehr cavalry, upon maransart, on the south side of the lasne, for the purpose of covering his left flank. the remaining brigade (the eighth) of pirch's corps, which had been detained in consequence of the rear guard affair near wavre, received orders from pirch to quicken its advance. the reserve cavalry of pirch's corps was deployed in three lines on the right of the cavalry of the fourth corps. the first line consisted of the pomeranian hussars and the brandenburg hussars; the second, of the silesian uhlans, two squadrons of the th neumark dragoons, and the queen's dragoons; and the third, of the th kurmark and elbe landwehr cavalry. these lines of cavalry thus occupied the interval between the wings of bÜlow's corps; and, at the same time, served to impose, by their display of force, upon the french cavalry, under domon, which was then in reserve. blÜcher, judging the recapture of planchenoit to be a most essential aid in the general operations against the french, as affording the means not only of turning the right of lobau's corps, but also of molesting the rear of the french army, and of endangering its main line of retreat, ordered the immediate advance of the troops destined for the third attack upon that village. they were formed in the following order:--the nd and rd battalions of the nd regiment (fifth brigade) made the attack in the direction of the church; the st and nd battalions of the th westphalian landwehr, formed into one, were directed upon the french left of the village; the st battalion of the nd regiment followed in rear of the central space between these two columns; major witzleben led the rd battalion of the th regiment (fifth brigade) towards the heights on the (french) right of the village; and the remainder of this regiment, which had occupied the outer edge of the wood of virère on the left, also advanced. the th regiment and the nd pomeranian landwehr, belonging to the fourteenth brigade, and the st and nd battalions of the th regiment, with the st and nd battalions of the st silesian landwehr, belonging to the sixteenth brigade, followed in support of this attack. the whole force was disposed in chequered columns, preceded by a strong line of skirmishers, and covered by the prussian batteries on the heights in rear. the horse battery, no. , posted on the high ground upon the right of the wood of virère, was principally occupied in diverting the fire from a horse battery of the reserve artillery of the french imperial guard, which had one half of its guns above the hollow way formed by the road leading down into planchenoit from la maison du roi, and the other half detached to an elevated spot in the south part of the village, whence it had a commanding view of a considerable portion of the advancing columns. simultaneously with this third attack upon planchenoit, the thirteenth and fifteenth brigades, which constituted bÜlow's right wing, advanced against lobau's line, covered by a force of artillery much superior to that which the french could bring to bear against them. they were disposed in chequered columns of battalions, in the following manner:--in front line were the nd battalion of the th regiment and the rd battalion of the rd silesian landwehr; in the second line were the st and rd battalions of the th regiment, the st and nd battalions of the rd silesian landwehr, and the st battalion of the th regiment; in the third line were the three battalions of the th silesian landwehr, and the nd battalion of the th regiment. the three battalions of the rd neumark landwehr followed in reserve. the right of this advance was supported by the west prussian uhlans and the nd neumark landwehr cavalry. in the mean time, the first infantry brigade of zieten's corps, having continued its descent into the valley, passing hacke's infantry in and about smohain on its left, advanced upon la haye and papelotte, and mistaking the nassauers for french, through the similarity of uniform, opened a sharp fire upon them, and drove them from their post. the latter at first replied to this fire, which was kept up for some minutes, killing and wounding on both sides, until the error was discovered. these troops then began pressing forward, conjointly with those from smohain, against the french skirmishers. the advanced cavalry of zieten's corps, which had been seen approaching the left of wellington's line, had now joined. the brandenburg dragoons and brandenburg uhlans, drew up in line in rear of the wavre road, and on the immediate left of best's hanoverian infantry brigade. the st silesian hussars formed upon the outer slope of the ridge, in rear of the lane leading from the wavre road down to papelotte. the nd kurmark landwehr cavalry drew up in the hollow in the rear of the interval between the landwehr battalions osterode and verden of best's brigade. it was on the ground immediately in front of this interval that captain rettberg's hanoverian foot battery had been posted throughout the day: and as the latter had expended the whole of its ammunition, it withdrew to the rear as the prussian horse battery, no. , came up, by which it was then relieved; and the prussians opened a cannonade from this point upon the opposite heights. the prussian foot battery, no. , quitting the wavre road, proceeded some way down the outer slope of the ridge to seek a favourable point whence it could by its fire cover the advance of the infantry in the valley. such was the general disposition of blÜcher's forces relatively with that of wellington's army at the time when the latter had defeated the attacking columns of the french imperial guard; and was following up its triumph by boldly assailing the very centre of napoleon's position, at which point the latter had collected his sole remaining reserves. perhaps a more comprehensive view of this relative disposition of the prussian troops may be afforded by simply stating, by way of a summary, that the advanced portion of zieten's corps had joined the left of the allied line, that part of pirch's corps (including his reserve cavalry) had joined bÜlow; and that the latter was on the advance--his right to attack lobau, and his left to make a third assault upon planchenoit--the french opposed to them evincing, at all points, every indication of making a firm and determined stand. * * * * * we must now resume the detail of the brilliant and decisive dispositions of the duke of wellington, whom we left triumphantly defeating the french imperial guard, and requesting the earl of uxbridge to bring forward fresh cavalry, to aid the advancing infantry in taking immediate advantage of the disorder and confusion into which the enemy had been thrown by the failure of his last grand attack. there is not, perhaps, an instance in modern history, in which the threatening tide of battle, has, through the lightning-like promptitude of decision, and the energetic application of yet remaining resources, been so suddenly and powerfully controlled, and so majestically and irresistibly hurled back, overwhelming all and everything that, in the previous plenitude of its force it had borne aloft with buoyant hopes, and carried along exultingly in its course, as it was by the immortal wellington in this his last, his crowning, victory. never did a battle field present so complete, so magical, a transition of scene as that which succeeded the defeat of the imperial guards of france by the guards of the sovereign of england and the british light infantry brigade. the state of the duke's army at the time of napoleon's last grand attack has already been adverted to; but let us glance again, for a moment, at the awfully diminished numbers, and almost exhausted energies, of those heroic bands which, in front line, had been exposed to the incessant and concentrated cannonade from a range of batteries forming almost the entire arc of which that line was the chord [_or rather_ forming the chord of which that line was the arc]; subjected to repeated and vigorous attacks of all arms during so many hours; and now called upon to resist "to the death" another assault more fierce and determined than any they had yet encountered--look at the rear of that line, and observe the palpable defection in the ranks of an ally; whose contingent, whilst it constituted so great a proportion of the duke's entire force, had already afforded too evident proofs that in a calculation of available resources, its services must be thrown entirely out of the scale--see, too, at increased intervals, the wrecks of the british and german cavalry, with, however, the fortunate exception of the two light brigades so opportunely brought from the extreme left to the rear of the menaced point of attack--how discouraging an aspect, when compared with that of the french army advancing to its last grand attack! is it to be wondered that, at that moment, doubts as to the issue of the great contest should have prevailed in the minds even of those who were prepared to support their noble chief to the last drop of their blood? and yet, with such apparently inefficient elements, the bare contemplation of which might have both weighed down the energies, and altered the purpose, of another general, did the british chief not only successfully defeat this most formidable assault, but finally gain a signal and resplendent victory. it would, however, be unjust to the abilities, and to the fame of the duke, to ascribe such victory solely to his defeat of the attacking columns of the imperial guard upon his own position; though such, no doubt, was the foundation upon which he erected the structure of his final triumph. the nine battalions of the guard, of which the attacking columns had been composed, were defeated; but these, it must be borne in mind, constituted but the _van_ of the attacking force, which comprised no less than the whole front line of the french army. d'erlon's corps from the right, and reille's corps from the left, were pouring forth their numerous columns, the principal portion of which had already reached more than midway towards the allied position, and presented a formidable array; whilst from the heights which they had quitted, their artillery thundered forth as vigorously, over their heads, upon the exhausted line of the allies, as at any previous period of the battle. the four battalions of the first attacking column of the guard had been rallied with great rapidity by napoleon; and posted on a commanding eminence, intersected by the charleroi road in front of his centre. near la belle alliance, reserves had been collected, principally of cavalry; and though the latter consisted entirely of the remains of corps that had previously suffered great losses, they might have been wielded with powerful effect against any point at which the advancing infantry should succeed in making an impression. besides these, there stood on the french extreme left, a brigade of light cavalry which had not been engaged during any part of the day, and had never yet moved out of its position. on the other hand, too, however glorious the result of the struggle with the imperial guard, it could not but tend to cripple still further the slender physical means which the duke yet retained at his disposal. victory, hovering over the brave conquerors of the imperial guard, alighted for a moment at the feet of wellington; and ere the goddess could be scared away by the still threatening countenance of the enemy, britain's hero secured her favour by the display of that extraordinary foresight, prompt decision, and unflinching determination which, though at all times his distinguishing characteristics, now shone forth with more than ordinary brilliancy. his perfect knowledge of the character and composition of the french army plainly told him that a signal defeat of the imperial guard, a force employed only on occasions of great and critical emergency, would be certain to exercise a powerful influence upon the _morale_ of the enemy's troops; but it also told him that, unless instant advantage were taken of that defeat, unless it were followed up in such a manner as to render the incipient panic which it had created, general and uncontrollable, that same army might, through the powerful influence and indefatigable exertions of such men as napoleon and ney, rapidly recover the shock; d'erlon's and reille's columns, although faltering for a moment, might pursue their advance with determined efforts to regain the footing which the guard had lost; the veterans composing the latter force, resolved to avenge their defeat, might speedily rally, and, with desperate resolution, renew their attack, aided by a more direct and effective support by the cavalry reserves collected in front of la belle alliance. this view had scarcely passed across the mind of the duke, when his decision was fully made. with those critically slender means, to which allusion has more than once been made, and which in the hands of many a commander would have been deemed totally inadequate for even the maintenance of the position, at such fearful odds, wellington determined to compensate for the awfully reduced and exhausted state of the fighting portion of his troops, and the utter want of confidence in the remainder, by one of those bold and daring acts, which, when hazarded at the right moment, carry with them the _prestige_ of conscious superiority, and allow an enemy no time to discover deficiencies, or to calculate mischances. no sooner was the second attacking column of the imperial guard defeated and dispersed, than he ordered it to be vigorously pursued, and the rallied force of the first column to be attacked, by adam's brigade; whilst at the same moment he launched forth vivian's hussar brigade against the cavalry reserves near la belle alliance, before these had made their dispositions for attack, and even before they had recovered from the surprise and hesitation which prevailed amongst them on witnessing the discomfiture of the guard. vivian, the moment he received the order to advance, wheeled his brigade, half squadrons to the right. thus the th hussars became the leading regiment, the th hussars followed, and the st hussars of the german legion, which had stood in second line, moved off, as soon as its front was clear, in rear of the latter corps. the brigade proceeded, at a trot, a short distance in rear of the infantry, and parallel to the crest of the position; and, as it approached the right of maitland's brigade of guards, vivian, ordering the leading half squadron to wheel to the left, through napier's battery, led it perpendicularly to the front. as the column thus advanced across the ridge, in left front of vandeleur's light cavalry brigade, it was saluted by the latter with cheers of encouragement; and in a similar manner by maitland's brigade of guards as it passed their flank. the smoke lay heavily along the entire position; and especially, at this moment, over that part of the exterior slope of the ridge on which the struggle with the french imperial guard had taken place, and across which vivian was now leading his brigade. on advancing further, and getting clear of the smoke, he obtained a more distinct view of the dispositions of the enemy's forces in his direct front. a very considerable portion appeared in great confusion; disordered columns of infantry were hurrying back to the main position, up the slope, on which were numerous stragglers of all arms, and in various uniforms, mixed together and retiring in crowds. guns were firing from different points to cover the retreat, and the discharge of musketry in and about hougomont continued very brisk. on arriving about midway towards the enemy's position, well formed bodies of troops were observed on the french left of la belle alliance, posted as if fully prepared to resist the threatened attack. they consisted of two squares of infantry, with cavalry and guns formed on the flanks and between them. the cavalry on their left was somewhat advanced, comprising separate bodies, partially covering one another, but presenting a general front, and posted on some rising ground about two hundred yards on the allied left of the south-east angle of the hougomont inclosures. the two squares here alluded to were the two battalions of the grenadiers of the old guard, which had been placed in reserve of the main attack by that force as previously explained. the cavalry on the left was thus disposed--first, on the slope of the little eminence, a portion of the lancers of the imperial guard; then, in left rear of the latter, on lower ground, were two squadrons of the dragoons of the guard, and, in their right rear, two more squadrons of the same corps; in right rear of these again, and on the summit of the eminence, stood the brigade of carabiniers. in rear of these, and of the squares themselves, as also on the right of the latter, were collected the remainder of that portion of the french cavalry which had made such repeated attacks upon the duke's line during the day. all these different bodies of cavalry were but mere wrecks of their former selves--regiments, and, in many instances, entire brigades, were diminished to less than squadrons. in the morning, as they came fresh into the field, they constituted the flower of the french cavalry; now, so severe had been their losses, they presented a mere phantom of their former splendour. vivian, as soon as he perceived this disposition of the enemy's forces in his immediate front, decided upon forming a front line with the th and th british hussars, and upon holding the st hussars of the german legion in second line, in support. for this purpose, and also with a view to oppose, and, if possible, to turn, the left of the enemy's cavalry, he made the leading regiment, the th hussars, incline to its right. shortly afterwards, vivian was joined by colonel sir colin campbell of the staff, who brought him an order from the duke that he was not to attack before the infantry came up, unless he felt confident of success. vivian remarked that as the allied infantry in its anxiety to get on, was probably not in compact order, its safety might be seriously endangered should it be exposed to a cavalry attack; and that, in his opinion, it would be better that not a moment should be lost on his part in driving off the cavalry which appeared in his front. sir colin campbell coincided in this opinion, and returned to the duke. after the very short pause at the head of the column, consequent upon this little discussion, vivian, continuing the advance, ordered the th hussars to form line on the front half squadron, and, at the same time, sent orders to his two other regiments also to form line on their leading half squadrons respectively, but then to remain in support. the rapid pace which had been maintained by the head of the column, and the incline to the right which had been given to it, required great activity on the part of the left half squadrons to get up into line; and as vivian ordered the charge as soon as the first squadron was formed, it was executed not in line but rather in _echelon_ of squadrons, which, under the circumstances of the moment, as will presently be seen, was the preferable and more desirable formation. just as the charge was ordered, the nd light dragoons of the king's german legion, in a column of squadrons, which had been detached from the main position, almost simultaneously with the advance of vivian's brigade, came up on the right of the th hussars, and in a direction rather crossing the front of the latter regiment, which had its left thrown somewhat forward whilst the germans were moving straight to their front, and directly upon the french dragoons of the guard before mentioned as posted in the hollow on the allied right of the eminence on which stood the french cavalry about to be charged by vivian's brigade. the dragoons at first appeared disposed to resist the germans, and received them with a tolerably effective carbine fire from their rear ranks; but the former charged home, cut down several of the enemy's horsemen, and made some prisoners. in following up the charge, however, the regiment exposed its right flank to a body of _cuirassiers_, by which it was thrown into disorder. lieutenant colonel de jonquiÈres, the commanding officer, ordered the halt and rally to be sounded; but in the next moment he was wounded, as was also lieutenant colonel maydell. [illustration] major friedrichs, who was next in command, highly distinguished himself on this occasion by the spirited manner in which he rallied several of his men together; and as those that had been dispersed, rapidly placed themselves on his flanks, and thus extended his new line, he made another charge, which sent the enemy's cavalry about, and put it to flight. the regiment then continued moving forward, with proper caution, along the base of the higher ground on the left, over which the th british hussars were also charging and advancing. in the mean time, the latter regiment made its charge: the right, centre, and left squadrons, in rapid succession, dashed in amongst the french cavalry posted as before mentioned. the left squadron of the th had scarcely closed with the enemy, before the whole of the cavalry on the (french) left of the squares of the guard, was in full flight. vivian, perceiving the complete success of this brilliant charge, ordered a halt; and then returned as quickly as possible to the th hussars. after the th hussars had pursued the french cavalry about two hundred yards, a body of _cuirassiers_ charged their right squadron, on its right flank, and forced it about a hundred yards away to the left, whilst the centre and left squadrons not being aware of vivian's order to halt continued their pursuit, inclining to their right, under lieutenant colonel lord robert manners, then commanding the th. previously to describing the subsequent proceedings of this brigade, it is necessary to revert to other matters in order to connect them with the general disposition of the main army. * * * * * adam's light infantry brigade had, in the mean time, been steadily advancing from the moment of its charge upon the left flank of the second attacking column of the french imperial guard, sweeping along the front of the right centre of the anglo-allied position, and bringing forward its left shoulders as it neared the charleroi road, so that its left skirted the orchard of la haye sainte. it had now reached the hollow immediately under the nearest french height which was intersected by that road, and upon which the troops that had composed the first attacking column of the guard had been rallied by napoleon, and formed into three squares. the nd regiment of _chasseurs_ of the old guard having formed the extreme left of the attacking force had been closely observed by lieutenant colonel halkett, who continued to follow it very steadily with the osnabrück landwehr battalion as it retired towards the high road, inclining to la belle alliance. wellington, perceiving the confusion in which the columns of the french imperial guard fell back after the decided failure of their attack--a confusion which was evidently extending itself with wonderful rapidity to a vast portion of the troops in their vicinity who witnessed their discomfiture; remarking also the beautiful advance of vivian's hussar brigade against the french reserves posted close to la belle alliance, and in the very heart of napoleon's position; as well as the steady and triumphant march of adam's brigade, which, driving a host of fugitives before it, had now closely approached the nearest rise of the french position contiguous to the charleroi road; finally, observing that bÜlow's movement upon planchenoit had begun to take effect, perceiving the fire of his cannon, and being also aware that part of a prussian corps had joined his own left by ohain,--he ordered a general advance of the whole of his line of infantry, supported by the cavalry and artillery. as this long wished for command rapidly passed along the line, loud and joyous were the shouts with which it was received. the passive endurance, not unaccompanied by murmurs, with which the allied troops had, during so many hours, withstood the incessant attacks of cavalry, infantry, and artillery, to which so vast, so awful, a proportion of their comrades had fallen a sacrifice, now gave place to feelings of intense exultation, of intoxicating triumph. at the same time, when they saw that the advance was general, that the enemy had retired in confusion from his last grand attack, and that the brigades detached to the front were boldly assailing his reserves, the conviction flashed across their minds that if the duke had hitherto resisted their demands to be led to the attack, his consummate and unerring judgement had caused him to defer the advance until that attack could be undertaken with every probability of success. just at this decisive moment, the faint rays of the setting sun shone forth, and as they struggled to penetrate the almost universal haze created by the hitherto unremitting volumes of smoke which a close dense atmosphere appeared incapable of altogether dissipating, they cast upon the varied and multitudinous objects on the field, a lurid light, imparting to them a colouring so strikingly impressive, as can never be effaced from the memories of those who witnessed that magnificent battle scene. in front of the line, on the rise occupied by maitland's brigade of guards, stood prominently in view, the great and noble duke himself, his hat raised high in air, as the signal for the commencement of the general advance; leaders in front of their divisions and brigades, appearing, by their animated gestures, to take their tone from their great chieftain; unfurled colours raised aloft, proudly displaying their shattered remnants; drums, bugles, trumpets, sending forth their warlike sounds to commingle with the enthusiastic and tumultuous cheering of the troops; artillerymen occupied in working out their guns from the soft soil in which they had become so deeply imbedded; squadrons and supports pressing forward to gain the ridge, as this became vacated by the first line, to behold, and participate in, the glorious triumph; numerous isolated soldiers, hurrying on, wherever they could be spared from attending the wounded, to join their ranks, and share in the inspiring excitement of such a moment; in the distance, in front, the retiring masses of the french, intermingled with crowds of fugitives of all arms, mounted and dismounted; far away to the left, the dark columns of the prussians, and the smoke ascending from their batteries; on the right, and somewhat in advance, the dense vapour still slowly circling upwards from the glowing embers of hougomont, assuming a reddish glare as it floated over the heads of the brave defenders of that post of honour;--all appeared to the eyes of the beholder illumined, as it were, by a light partaking rather of the supernatural, than of the ordinary effects of sunshine. it was of brief duration. the sun sank rapidly below the horizon, and if the gorgeous colouring which departed with it had been congenial to the exhilarated feelings of the victors; so, in an equal degree, must the succeeding twilight, rendered still more gloomy by a clouded sky, have toned in with the dejected and gloomy spirits of the vanquished. with these there prevailed no other sentiments than those of a vexed and mortified perplexity, or an extreme dismay. the panic which had set in was extending itself wildly and speedily throughout the line, and despondency was depicted in every countenance. the duke galloped off to adam's brigade, which was then in the valley immediately below the height on which the three squares of the french guard were posted; and as these appeared inclined to make a stand, he ordered adam to attack them. the latter, however, suggested to his grace that as the brigade, in consequence of its rapid advance over the heavy soil in the valley, encumbered as the latter was with dead and dying men and horses, both singly and in heaps, had become somewhat loose in its formation, it might be advisable to halt it, to allow the files to close in. this was accordingly done. but after a few moments only had elapsed, the duke said, "they won't stand--better attack them;" and being at the time close to the colours of the centre regiment (the nd), he called out, "go on, colborne, go on!" * * * * * colonel sir colin campbell now rejoined the duke, and explained the grounds upon which vivian had decided upon attacking the french cavalry reserves: on learning which lord uxbridge, who was present, determined upon personally leading the attack with the hussars, and participating in the final and decisive triumph of the british cavalry; and was on the point of darting off to that part of the field, when his intentions were suddenly frustrated by a grape shot from a battery on the height above him striking and severely wounding his right leg. reluctantly compelled to desist from further exertion, this gallant and noble warrior, who had so bravely, so chivalrously, so skilfully, and so successfully, led the british cavalry throughout the day, had still the satisfaction of feeling and knowing that although not permitted to witness the closing triumph of that branch of the service of which he was at once the chief, the ornament, and pride, he had well and truly performed his duty to his sovereign and his country. he was supported for some moments by sir colin campbell, and shortly afterwards, with the assistance of a party of the rd light dragoons, carried into the high road, along which he was borne to waterloo; and, when subsequently undergoing, at that village, the necessary operation of amputation, so great were the satisfaction and contentment which had been wrought in his mind as he calmly reflected on the brilliant exploits that had marked the arduous and varied struggle, that observing the anxious and compassionate looks of his friends around his couch, he exclaimed, "who would not lose a leg for such a victory?" seldom indeed has a cavalry chief more distinguished himself in the field than did the earl of uxbridge on this great day. as he flew from one point to another, now boldly rushing into the fight at the head of a glorious charge, then skilfully covering a retreat under the pressure of overpowering numbers; here zealously endeavouring by his own personal example to stimulate and rouse into action the lukewarm energies of an ally; there collecting and rallying, for further high emprize, the remnants of the devoted bands of his own nation; restlessly vigilant in watching and preparing for the manoeuvres of a renowned and powerful cavalry, admirably appointed and equipped, and led by a kellermann, a guyot, and a lefÈbvre desnouettes; evincing the most cool and resolute confidence in the prowess of his followers, as he dashed forward either to break asunder the combined advance of the enemy's masses, or to follow up the advantage already gained by the allied infantry--he seemed to blend and embody in his own character, in a pre-eminent degree, the heroic valour of ancient chivalry with the skilled address of modern cavalry tacticians. * * * * * as adam's brigade ascended the hill, in compliance with wellington's orders, to charge the french squares, it was received with a heavy fire from their front and flanks. the duke being at this time close to the centre of the advancing line, against which point this fire was principally directed, incurred great personal risk; and as the shot flew fast and thick about him, sir colin campbell said to him, "this is no place for you--you had better move." to this the duke replied, "i will when i see those fellows off." on the near and imposing approach of the brigade, in the attitude of charging, the imperial guard ceased firing, faced to the rear, and commenced a retreat by word of command. as they withdrew, his grace rode up the valley in the direction of his right front, and came upon the plain, on which vivian was successfully attacking the french reserves. * * * * * the gallant charge made by the th hussars upon the french cavalry posted in its right front, has already been described. after ordering the halt and rally, vivian galloped towards the th hussars, which regiment he found well formed in line, and in perfect order. in its front stood the two squares of the grenadiers of the old guard: in its left front, and much nearer to it, were posted artillery and cavalry, in advance of the proper right of the squares. this cavalry consisted principally of _cuirassiers_--the wrecks of entire brigades. nearer to, and partly in rear of, the squares, stood the _chasseurs_ and _grenadiers à cheval_ of the imperial guard, greatly reduced in numbers. it was immediately evident to vivian that the attack must in the first instance be directed against the advanced cavalry and artillery; and having put the line in motion, he placed himself in front of the centre, beside lieutenant colonel the hon. henry murray, the commanding officer, for the purpose of putting the regiment into the required direction. this having been effected, he ordered the charge; when the hussars dashed forward with the greatest impetuosity, and, at the same time, with as much steadiness and regularity as if they had been at field day exercise on hounslow heath. thus, the direction of the charge by the th diverged as much to the left, as that by the th had inclined to the right. just as the charge commenced, some french artillery coming from their right and slanting towards the right of the th, made a bold push to cross the front of the latter at a gallop. but the attempt failed, and the hussars were instantly among them, cutting down the artillerymen and drivers, and securing the guns. in the next moment they fell upon the advanced cavalry, which they completely dispersed; and then, bringing forward their left shoulders, they attacked the cavalry and guns that stood more to the right front, and near to the right square, which was now retiring. this cavalry appeared, at first, determined upon making a stand; and an officer in its front dashed forward, and fired at lieutenant colonel murray; but, in another moment, the th were fiercely and dexterously plying their swords amongst them. they were forced to give way, the artillerymen were driven from their guns, and the whole fled in disorder. the charge then ceased to be compact, for the assailants and the flying were intermingled pell mell; all riding as fast as the confusion of the _mêlée_ would permit; a part of them along the high road, but the principal portion on the allied right of the latter; the whole, however, passing by la belle alliance, and leaving the two squares of the guard on their right. vivian, satisfied with the complete success of the charge, ordered the regiment to halt and reform; whilst he proceeded himself to bring up the st hussars of the legion, which corps he had left in reserve. on his way he found major the hon. frederick howard, with the right squadron of the th hussars, which, as before stated (see page ), had been driven to the left by a charge of _cuirassiers_. this squadron stood forward within a short distance of the left square of the grenadiers of the guard, from the fire of which it was losing men fast. vivian doubted for a moment how far it might be advisable to attack the square; but perceiving an infantry regiment in red advancing on his left, and calculating on its immediately charging the face and angle of the square next to it, he ordered major howard to charge the face and angle to which he was opposed. this was executed with the greatest gallantry and determination. vivian himself joined in the charge, on the right of the squadron. the hussars charged home to the bayonets of the french guard, and a fierce conflict ensued. major howard was killed at the head of his men. he was shot in the mouth, and fell senseless to the ground; when one of the imperial guard stepped out of the ranks, and brutally beat his head with the butt end of his musket. two other officers, lieutenants arnold and bacon, were wounded. lieutenant gunning was killed immediately previous to the attack. the regiment of infantry, however, did not charge, as vivian had expected; but continued pursuing a separate column in its own immediate front on the high road. although the square, a very strong one, cannot be said to have been broken by the shock, for the veteran soldiers of whom it was composed knew too well their power of resistance against such a handful of horsemen; still the manner in which the latter, notwithstanding the rapid diminution of their number, continued cutting at the ranks, parrying bayonet thrusts, and pertinaciously pressing on, reflects the highest credit on the th british hussars. the men fought with desperation; maddened probably by the fall of their officers. the square, yielding to the pressure, continued to fall back until it reached the hollow way formed by the narrow road that leads from the _chaussée_ in rear of la belle alliance, towards the left of the french position. into this the guard hastily descended in confusion, and escaping by either outlet, mingled with the host of fugitives hurrying along the general line of retreat of the french army. in the mean time, the remainder of the th hussars, consisting of the left and centre squadrons, that had, in the course of the first charge, crossed over to the right of the rise of ground on which the french reserve cavalry had been posted, had continued its course, under lord robert manners, down into the valley, south-east of the hougomont inclosures. the routed cavalry spread out in the utmost confusion--_cuirassiers_, of an almost gigantic size, galloped as hard as they could; and numbers tumbled off their horses to save themselves. the hussars now came upon retiring infantry that appeared seized with a panic as their routed cavalry dashed past them--the large bearskin caps, worn by several of them, betokened a portion of the imperial guard--they commenced throwing down their arms, numbers of them loudly calling out "_pardon!_" then crossing the same narrow road, before mentioned as leading from la belle alliance to the left of the french position (but on the allied right of the hollow way by which the square of the guard effected its escape), the hussars brought up their right shoulders, and ascended the height in rear of the hollow road. upon the slope of the hill, about half a battalion of the french guard had rallied and formed, with some cavalry close behind them, and opened a sharp fire upon the th. part of the th hussars, at this time, reached the hollow way, an obstacle, however, which rendered _their_ attack wholly impracticable. lord robert manners halted for a minute, when within about forty paces from them, to allow his men to form up. he then gave a cheer and charged; when the imperial guard and the cavalry instantly turned and fled: the greater portion of the former throwing themselves down, and many of the latter tumbling off their horses. the hussars pursued up to the brow of the hill: on the further, or south, side of which was a deep hollow; and beyond this a knoll (on the allied right of the charleroi road and nearly opposite de coster's house) upon which another square of infantry had formed, and appeared very steady. at this time a party of the th hussars--not more than from thirty to thirty five men--continuing the charge, before described, close along the right of la belle alliance and trimotion, and crossing the narrow road near its junction with the charleroi road, dashed down the hollow, and ascending the height above mentioned, charged the square in most gallant style; but, as might have been expected, was checked and turned by the latter. lord robert manners and captain taylor had rallied a party of the th hussars, with a view to support the th, should these be charged in their turn; which however did not occur. the two last mentioned regiments had, by this time, been thrown so much into disorder by their charges, that it became necessary to check their further advance, in order to gain time for collecting and reforming their ranks. although this measure was supported by the coming up of the st hussars of the legion to take post in front of the brigade, and was also rendered secure by the advance, on the right, of vandeleur's brigade (which had come up on vivian's right, and between him and the inclosures of hougomont, in column of squadrons, at the moment he was preparing to charge the square of the imperial guard with the party of the th hussars under major howard); still the rallying and reforming of those two regiments was attended with considerable difficulty, inasmuch as they had become completely intermingled with the fugitives. * * * * * it is now necessary to recur to adam's brigade, which we left advancing, and driving before it, near the charleroi road, the three squares of the guard that had retired as it approached to charge them. it will be recollected that, upon the brigade first advancing from the allied position, lieutenant colonel halkett followed it in immediate rear of its right flank, with the osnabrück battalion of hanoverian landwehr. when adam reached the three squares above mentioned, halkett, having the shortest space of ground to move over, soon came up in line with the brigade, still pursuing the column formed by the two battalions of _chasseurs_ of the old guard. the osnabrückers having then become much annoyed by a fire that opened upon them obliquely from a french battery within a very short distance of their right, their st company broke into subdivisions and, supported by the sharpshooters of the battalion, made a dash at the artillery, and captured six guns. during the greater part of the advance, they had been in almost close contact with the column formed by the two battalions of _chasseurs_ of the old guard; and halkett frequently called out to them to surrender. having for some short time fixed his eye upon an individual whom he took to be the general officer in command of the guard, from his being in full uniform, and from the animation he displayed in his endeavours to induce his men to stand their ground; and observing that the column, after receiving the fire of the osnabrückers, left the general with two officers in its rear, he ordered the sharpshooters to dash on, whilst he, at the same time darted forward at full gallop to attack the general. when he had come up with him, and was about to cut him down; the latter called out that he would surrender. cambronne, for he it was, then preceded halkett as he returned to the hanoverian battalion; but had not gone many paces before halkett's horse was wounded, and fell to the ground. in a few seconds, however, halkett succeeded in getting him on his legs again, when he found that his prisoner was escaping in the direction of the french column: he instantly overtook him, seized him by the _aiguilette_, brought him to the battalion, and gave him in charge to a serjeant of the osnabrückers who was to deliver him to the duke. adam's brigade had by this time crossed to the opposite side of the charleroi road, and, bringing forward its left shoulders, was continuing its advance, in pursuit of the defeated squares, in a direction parallel with that road; whilst halkett, by continuing on the inner flank, and following the battalions of the _chasseurs_ of the old guard, had got somewhat in advance, or rather, in right front of that brigade; and had, shortly before, reached the immediate vicinity of that part of the field on which vivian was in the act of preparing to charge the square of the grenadiers of the old guard with the squadron of the th hussars under major howard. the osnabrückers will here be recognised as the regiment of allied infantry already alluded to in the description given of that charge. adam, after his repulse of the three squares of the imperial guard, perceiving that he was so much in front of the main line of the anglo-allied army, and not being aware of vivian's advance, had become apprehensive of an attack upon his right flank; and he therefore desired his brigade major, major blair, to proceed in the prolongation of his right flank, and observe whether there was any threatening appearance of the enemy's cavalry in that quarter. the latter, pursuing his errand, met the duke of wellington moving at a quick pace, followed by a single individual, to whom major blair addressed himself, but who immediately checked him by remarking, "_monsieur, je ne parle pas un seul mot d'anglais!_" major blair then explained to him, in french, the order he had received, to which he replied, "_le duc lui même a été voir; il n'y a rien à craindre_;" whereupon the former returned to adam, with this satisfactory information. here, then, was the great chieftain himself, still in the battle's front, vigilantly watching, and eagerly seizing advantage of, the course of events; braving every peril, and acting solely upon his own personal observation; his staff, and even orderlies, almost all killed or wounded; the very few that remained untouched, carrying messages; his only attendant, a foreigner (major count de sales, a sardinian officer), attached to his suite! it is impossible not to recognise in the extraordinary degree of security with which this great man so fearlessly exposed himself throughout the entire day, the protecting interposition of an all wise and merciful providence. at this moment, too, he was not only upon the track of his great antagonist; but, in all probability, within the shortest distance that ever separated these wonderful men from each other: the one, alone, and in front of his advancing line, borne forward on the wings of victory, and upheld by the knowledge of his might and the fulness of his glory; the other, seeking shelter amidst his devoted, yet broken and dispirited, cohorts; abandoning himself to despair, and flying from the fatal field on which the sceptre he had usurped was signally and irrecoverably struck from his iron grasp. chapter xv. the very forward movement of vivian's brigade, and the vigorous attack which it made against the centre of the french position, having rendered obvious the necessity of an immediate support, vandeleur's brigade was despatched across the ridge in column of half squadrons, right in front, at the moment of the general advance of the line. it proceeded at a smart trot along the east side of the hougomont inclosures, and then descended into the valley in rear of the latter, passing vivian's brigade on its left. here it fell in with disordered columns of the french infantry in full retreat; as also cavalry, of all kinds mixed together, the _cuirassiers_ throwing off their armour to facilitate their flight. in the midst of this confusion, however, there stood higher up the valley a large column on the opposite side of the road which connects the centre with the left of the french position, forming square, and seemingly determined to oppose the further advance of the brigade. the latter, receiving the fire from the column, charged; and the french giving way, the whole of them were taken or destroyed. in this charge the th light dragoons, forming the right of the brigade, captured a battery on the height to which the before mentioned road ascends. it was the last which had maintained the cannonade from the french left wing. vandeleur's brigade continued to press forward, driving a host of fugitives before it. it was by this time in advance, and rather in right front, of vivian. colonel sir felton harvey, of the staff, came up to its then commander, lieutenant colonel sleigh, of the th light dragoons,--vandeleur having taken the command of the cavalry upon the fall of lord uxbridge,--and informed him that a french cavalry brigade was moving along the heights on the right (or western) side of the valley. the cavalry did not, however, venture to descend into the lower ground, where it might have fallen upon sleigh's right flank; but continued its course along the high ground towards some point on the charleroi road, quite in rear of the main french army, apparently with the intention of protecting the retreat and rallying the fugitives. it was pirÉ's light cavalry brigade, that had been stationed throughout the day on the extreme left of the french line. in this manner, vivian's brigade, which had not only broken, but completely pierced, the centre of the french position, had its right effectually protected; and due advantage was promptly taken of the disorder into which its bold and successful advance had thrown those french troops that had been moving in that quarter. at the same time, vivian's left was secured by the advance of adam's brigade, which continued to drive before it, along the left side of the charleroi road, the squares of the guard, as also the _cuirassiers_ by whom the latter were supported. these _cuirassiers_, it should be observed, had fronted and evinced a disposition to charge as the brigade crossed the high road. adam, however, feeling secure in his four deep formation, continued pressing towards them; and when, along that part of his line against which the attack was threatened, the british bayonets were lowered, the _cuirassiers_ declined the contest. having thus detailed the brilliant successes of these three british brigades, with which wellington had so boldly assailed the centre, and effectually destroyed the last reserves, of the enemy; it is now time to consider their important consequences in conjunction with the general advance of the anglo-allied army; and for this purpose it will be necessary to take a more extended view of the prominent features which the field of battle presented at this period of the day. * * * * * on no part of the french army, beyond the immediate sphere of action of the above brigades, did the advance of the latter exercise so powerful an influence as on d'erlon's corps, which constituted its right wing. the defeat of the second attacking column of the imperial guard, it will be recollected, involved in it the retreat of donzelot's division of that corps; which, from the cover afforded it by the possession of la haye sainte, and from the hollow on its left of that farm, had so furiously assailed the central portion of the duke's line, occupied by alten's division. on the opposite side of the charleroi road, from the knoll above the sand pit, part of alix's division was still maintaining a most destructive fire upon the remains of picton's division and of lambert's brigade posted along the wavre road. the remainder of this division, as well as that under marcognet, were advancing across the valley which separated the anglo-allied left, from the french right, wing; and presented an array of columns between the knoll on the left of la haye sainte and the left of durutte's division: which latter was now operating in concert with lobau's corps in maintaining a defensive position against the advance of the prussians. when, therefore, wellington so suddenly launched forth vivian's hussar brigade against napoleon's reserves, then posted close to la belle alliance in the very centre of the french army; and also pushed forward adam's light infantry brigade past the farm and orchard of la haye sainte towards the eminence on which stood the three rallied squares of the imperial guard; he completely turned the left of d'erlon's corps: and by means of the brilliant success which attended these movements, he gradually established himself in rear both of d'erlon and of lobau; the latter of whom was still defending himself against blÜcher's advance. in like manner, the columns of reille's corps, comprising the left wing of the french army, and which were advancing through, and contiguously to, the hougomont inclosures, were turned in their right flank. thus, by this bold and masterly manoeuvre, the whole front line of the french army, which, a short time before, had presented so menacing an appearance, was thrown into disorder and confusion: and supported as that manoeuvre was by the advance, at the right moment, of the duke's entire line; any attempt, on the part of the french, to rally and resume the offensive, was entirely frustrated. the firm, decided, and determined attitude which wellington had assumed, had, in fact, struck terror and dismay into the ranks of his opponent: who, perceiving the hasty and confused retreat of his troops, as also the extreme pressure upon his right by the formidable and now more general attack on the part of blÜcher, became completely paralyzed; and conscious of the utter futility of attempting to stem the torrent, he threw himself for temporary shelter into the square of the nd battalion of the nd regiment of _chasseurs_ of the guard. the anglo-allied line continued its magnificent advance; which was in truth a march of triumph, not of attack, since all fled before its approach. in the centre, lambert's brigade, together with the st or royal scots, crossed to the charleroi road, and took possession of la haye sainte; which was found entirely abandoned to the wounded and the dying, who constituted its sole but numerous occupants. the troops that had stood in rear of hougomont, now poured into its inclosures, aiding and supporting those who had so bravely maintained that important post in completely clearing it of its assailants; as many of the latter in the wood, ignorant of what was passing in the open field, still endeavoured to hold their ground. the light troops on the right of hougomont crossed the nivelles road without opposition: not only the infantry in their front having retired, but pirÉ's light cavalry brigade, which had formed the extreme left of the french army during the whole day, having been ordered to proceed to the rear of the centre to cover the general retreat. the extreme left of the line was flanked by the prussian regiments of cavalry, belonging to zieten's corps, previously mentioned as having joined shortly before the general advance; and the battalions of the first prussian infantry brigade, together with the nassau brigade under prince bernhard of saxe weimar, were pressing up the heights against the left of durutte's division posted at the apex of the angle of _potence_ on which stood the extreme right of the french army. as the allied left descended the outer slope of the position, those columns of d'erlon's corps which had advanced to attack it, were hastily retiring; part of them, indeed, along and near the charleroi road, had already fallen back in disorder the moment they became aware of the defeat of the troops on the other side of that road, and of the advance of adam's brigade, by which their left flank was completely turned, and their rear most seriously endangered. durutte's division, forming, as before observed, the right of d'erlon's corps, and posted in the angle of _potence_, perceiving in its direct rear, the retreat of the imperial guard, followed by british infantry; as also that of the columns of its own corps on its left, followed by the anglo-allied line; besides the attack of the prussians in its front and on its right, and which was increasing every moment in vigour and effect; at once saw the certainty of its being cut off if it remained in its present attitude: and hence, aware of its own helplessness, it took to flight. in the next moment the renewed cheering along the anglo-allied left wing, announced that it had reached and captured the strong line of batteries; by the fire of which, maintained during the entire day, its ranks had been so awfully diminished. zieten's battalions took possession, also, of the batteries which had protected the apex of the angle of _potence_, and which had been covered by durutte's division. notwithstanding the confused retreat of the flank columns of d'erlon's corps, those which constituted the central portion of his line had hitherto retired in some little degree of order: but now they began rapidly to dissolve as the allied line approached; and, soon spreading out, they broke forth into one general crowd of fugitives. the flight of these troops immediately along the rear of lobau's line, at the very moment of its being most vigorously assailed by the thirteenth and fifteenth infantry brigades of bÜlow's corps, covered by an overpowering cannonade, involved its ranks in the general panic which had become uncontrollable. the whole corps rushed wildly into the stream of fugitives which, with overwhelming force, had set in towards rossomme and maison du roi, on the charleroi road, the direct line of retreat. by this time (about a quarter past eight o'clock), adam's brigade, pursuing its course on the left side of the high road, was ascending the higher ground in rear of la belle alliance. here it fell into the line of fire of one of bÜlow's batteries; which had immediately followed up the retreat of lobau's corps, and opened a cannonade from the previous position of the latter, at a distance of about seven hundred yards. wellington, perceiving that this fire might occasion serious injury to his advancing troops, directed count de sales (who was still his sole attendant) to proceed to the prussian battery, and cause it to cease firing; its commanding officer not being aware that its shot were falling among british troops. bÜlow, on becoming acquainted with this circumstance, immediately checked the fire of his artillery; and, at the same time, ordered the infantry of his right to refrain from firing during its forward movement. the road which leads from the _chaussée_ across the height in rear of la belle alliance, towards planchenoit, becomes, after a distance of about a hundred yards, a complete hollow way. as it was approached by adam's brigade, a column of artillery and infantry, from the french right, was hastily retreating up that part of it which was in front of the nd regiment, quite unaware of its having fallen into the immediate vicinity of british infantry. astonished by the sudden appearance of the latter along the bank, the column hesitated for a moment what course to adopt. the infantry at first presented some little show of defence; but soon threw down their arms, dispersed and escaped as best they could. the artillery made a dash at the opposite bank, but some of the horses of each gun were instantly brought down by a fire from the british, and the attempt failed. the commanding officer of the battery, as if in a fit of desperation, standing in the centre of his guns, waved his sword above his head in defiance. a soldier from the nd regiment sprang forward, parried his thrust, closed with him, threw him on the ground, and bayoneted him. the guns were immediately abandoned. on the right of the brigade, the st regiment having gained the height on which a reserve battery of the imperial guard had been posted the entire day, and had just made an attempt to draw off into the high road, it was captured by that corps; when some men of the right flank company of the latter (captain reed's), under lieutenant torriano, immediately turned round one of the guns, which was then discharged into the retiring columns of the imperial guard by captain campbell, aide de camp to major general adam, and was, there is reason to believe, the last french gun fired on that day. lieutenant colonel halkett, who, with the hanoverian battalion osnabrück, had entered the charleroi road, near la belle alliance, continued to press before him the two battalions of the _chasseurs_ of the old guard, under the protection of which, napoleon with several of his principal staff officers were retiring from the field. halkett soon found himself in the midst of a great but disordered mass of the enemy's cavalry, which menaced the battalion in a most vociferous manner; but, after receiving the fire from the latter, it went off in all directions. further on, perceiving several guns in full retreat, he sent the sharpshooters of the battalion, supported by a company, amongst them; who, by their fire, increased the confusion, and then made many prisoners, and cut the traces of the horses from the leading guns. the regiments of prussian cavalry belonging to zieten's corps, before mentioned as having joined the left of the anglo-allied army, after crossing the valley and ascending the french position, had got somewhat in advance of the left of the anglo-allied infantry, taking the direction of rossomme; but they soon found their progress most seriously obstructed and retarded by the vast crowds of fugitives of all arms intermingled in the wildest confusion. such was also the case with the much more advanced british light cavalry brigades under vandeleur and vivian on the right of the charleroi road. in fact, the cavalry thus situated in the van of the duke's victorious army, had now become almost helpless: it seemed as if carried aloft on the billows of the agitated sea, yielding rather to its impulses than controlling the angry element. as might have been expected, there were innumerable instances in which the rage and disappointment of the conquered foe gave rise to covert assaults, which, however, were speedily repressed; more especially by the prussians, against whom a word or look sufficed to draw down their vengeance upon an enemy whom they held in detestation. the th and th british hussars of vivian's brigade, whilst endeavouring to reform between la belle alliance and rossomme, found themselves in the midst of an immense crowd, composed partly of defeated soldiers of the imperial guard; who could but ill conceal their mortification, and who seized every opportunity that afforded to gratify their hatred and revenge. lieutenant colonel the hon. henry murray, commanding the th, was very nearly bayoneted by one of them; and his orderly was compelled, for the security of his master, to cut down five or six in rapid succession. a remarkable exception to the general disorganisation of the french army was manifested about this time in front of vandeleur's brigade, which was the furthest in advance of any of the allied troops. in the midst of the crowd of fugitives which impeded the progress of the brigade; there appeared a regiment of cavalry, moving at a walk, in close column, and in perfect order, as if disdaining to allow itself to be contaminated by the confusion that prevailed around it. it was the _grenadiers à cheval_. the th british light dragoons were the nearest to it, having got in advance of the rest of the brigade, and were opposite the right flank of the column, whence a few pistol or carbine shots were fired at them. the th made a partial attack; but they were so much inferior in numbers (being very weak at this period), and were so greatly obstructed in their movements by the crowd, that they were unable to produce any impression upon so compact and steady a body of cavalry; which literally walked from the field in the most orderly manner, moving majestically along the stream, the surface of which was covered with the innumerable wrecks into which the rest of the french army had been scattered. as napoleon and his staff were at this time retiring along the high road, on the right flank of this cavalry of the guard; it is reasonable to infer that the latter was therefore induced to maintain the admirable order in which it was thus seen, to secure the emperor's retreat. whilst the great mass of the french army, in a state of thorough disorganisation, was thus driven by wellington's victorious troops across the whole extent of ground which had constituted its general position; as also, on its right, by that portion of the prussian troops consisting of part of zieten's, and of the right wing of bÜlow's, corps: the battalions of the french imperial guard in planchenoit were maintaining a most desperate and obstinate contest with bÜlow's left wing, aided by a part of pirch's corps, to which the attack of the village had been confided. the principal force of the imperial guard having taken post within the central portion of the village, and strongly occupied the churchyard; the headmost columns of this third prussian attack met with a most destructive fire as they pressed forward through the lanes that led towards the eastern side of the church. the supporting columns now came up, and joined in the _fusillade_ that was maintained with the french in the churchyard; the stone wall encircling which, lined with troops, gave to it the appearance of a little fortress. the prussians, extending their front so as to envelope a considerable portion of the churchyard, and taking advantage of the houses and inclosures which they had reached on their own side, maintained a terrific fire upon their opponents; and as the latter appeared resolved to keep them at bay to the last, a great loss of life occurred on both sides. the soldiers of the imperial guard fought desperately; and so greatly was their animosity excited, that some officers of the th prussian regiment and of the silesian landwehr, who had been made prisoners in the previous attack, were with difficulty saved by general pelet's personal exertions from becoming a sacrifice to their fury. reinforcements were moved into the churchyard from the reserves on its western side; and the pertinacity with which the attacks upon it were repelled showed very plainly that other means than that of a front assault must be resorted to for forcing the french from a post which afforded them such superior advantages in the defence of the village. if the prussians attempted to outflank the churchyard by advancing along the low open space on its right; they became exposed to the commanding fire from its walls, to that from the opposite houses, and in front, to the reserves. if they ventured to pass close by its left they had but a narrow road open to them, bounded by the churchyard wall on one side strongly lined by the defenders, and by houses on the other which the enemy still occupied, and presenting also at its further extremity a farm house and its offices in flames, situated so close to the churchyard as to conceal by its smoke any column of reserve that might be posted in that quarter. hence it was determined to act upon a broader extent of front, and to turn the entire village on both flanks; so as either to force, or to intercept, the retreat of the enemy from his stronghold in the churchyard. on the prussian left, major witzleben, with the fusilier battalion of the th regiment, had already crossed the rivulet which divides the village into two nearly equal parts, and was attacking that portion of the french guard which was posted upon the narrow ridge which lies between that rivulet and the lasne. his skirmishers were joined upon their left by those that had preceded the st and nd battalions of this regiment; and which latter having pushed through the wood of virère, were now following close up in support of the attack on this part of planchenoit. these skirmishers were also connected on their left with those of the fusilier battalions of both the th regiment and the st silesian landwehr, under major keller, who was advancing along the right bank of the lasne. along the crest of this ridge runs a narrow road, with several cottages on either side of the latter: the ground is throughout intersected with hedges and studded with trees; and altogether admirably adapted for a protracted defence by light troops. every house, every lane, and every hedge was gallantly contested. the prussians not only boldly attacking in front; but skilfully and gradually turning the ridge upon both sides, at length gained possession of all this portion of the village, and thus outflanked the troops in the churchyard, who maintained to the last a most desperate defence. in the mean time, the houses and inclosures on the left of the church had also been turned on that side by the right of the prussian attack: and principally by the th westphalian landwehr, the skirmishers of which had beaten back their opponents close under the walls of the burning buildings; the bright flames from which, gleaming upon the combatants, who rent the air with their shouts, gave a peculiar wildness to this scene of mortal strife. but still more wild and awful must have been the scene within the church, as the red flood of light which they poured through the windows of the aisles, fell upon the agonised and distorted features of the wounded and the dying with which that sacred edifice was at this moment filled. the prussians continued pressing forward along both flanks of the village, driving the imperial guard from house to house, from hedge to hedge, and from tree to tree, until at length it became obvious to the french that their rear would soon be intercepted. the latter were also by this time fully aware of the _déroute_ of the main army; and, giving up all for lost as they fell back upon the western portion of the village, they made a hasty and disorderly retreat towards maison du roi. the _chasseurs_ of the old guard were the last to quit the churchyard, and suffered severely as they retired. their numbers were awfully diminished; and pelet, collecting together about of them, found himself vigorously assailed by the prussian cavalry from the moment he quitted the confines of planchenoit and entered upon the plain between the latter and the high road. at one time, his ranks having opened out too much in the hurry of their retreat, some of the prussian troops in pursuit, both cavalry and infantry, endeavoured to capture the eagle, which, covered with black crape, was carried in the midst of this devoted little band of veterans. pelet, taking advantage of a spot of ground which afforded them some degree of cover against the fire of grape by which they were constantly assailed, halted the standard bearer, and called out "_a moi, chasseurs! sauvons l'aigle ou mourons autour d'elle!_" the _chasseurs_ immediately pressed around him, forming what is usually termed the rallying square; and, lowering their bayonets, succeeded in repulsing the charge of cavalry. some guns were then brought to bear upon them, and subsequently a brisk fire of musketry: but notwithstanding the awful sacrifice which was thus offered up in defence of their precious charge, they succeeded in reaching the main line of retreat, favoured by the universal confusion, as also by the general obscurity which now prevailed; and thus saved alike the eagle and the honour of the regiment. the reserve cavalry of the second and fourth prussian corps received orders to pass to the front through the infantry: that of the fourth corps, under prince william of prussia, moved by the right of planchenoit, as also through the village itself; but its progress was greatly impeded by the fugitives that crowded towards maison du roi. in the mean time, the prussian battalions that had been detached for the protection of the left of the attack upon planchenoit, namely the fusilier battalion of the th regiment, and that of the st silesian landwehr, under major keller, as also that of the th regiment, under major witzleben, had turned the village, and followed the enemy nearly in the direction of maison du roi. they met with some resistance on the part of the battalion of the grenadiers of the imperial guard, which had advanced from caillon, in pursuance of the orders it had received, into the wood of chantelet; but they soon forced their way to the high road, and by their presence added greatly to the disorder in which the enemy was flying from the field. major falkenhausen, having remarked the retreat of the french, as he stood on the height of seroulx, to which he had been detached with one hundred horsemen of the rd silesian landwehr cavalry, also moved down upon the high road, and charging the flank of the flying foe, tended still further to augment the alarm and confusion that prevailed. when the french imperial guard was falling back from planchenoit in disorder and confusion towards the high road between rossomme and maison du roi, wellington's advanced brigades had reached the former place. it was about half past eight o'clock--perhaps somewhat later--and the darkness, which had been rapidly setting in, had become so great as to render it difficult to distinguish one particular body of troops from another. some little time before this, one of the prussian advanced regiments of cavalry, suddenly entering the high road between la belle alliance and rossomme, came into partial collision with the th british hussars; who, not anticipating the presence of any other foreign troops in that vicinity than those of the french army, commenced an attack upon them: cuts were exchanged, and some few lives lost, before the error was corrected. the st hussars of the german legion, while advancing along the right of the high road, came upon the rear of vandeleur's brigade, and were all but in collision with the th and th british light dragoons; which regiments, having previously ascertained that a brigade of french cavalry (pirÉ's) was on their right, and perceiving, though but dimly, in the dark, the approach of a strong body of horsemen towards their rear, concluded that an attempt was made to intercept their retreat. they immediately went "threes about," and struck into a charge. on the other hand, the st german hussars, not being aware that any british cavalry was in their front, and misled in a great measure by the sudden clamour of french voices proceeding from the numerous fugitives, who, taking the alarm, were endeavouring to get out of their way, prepared to charge, and gave a loud cheer. this cheer was fortunately recognised by the british dragoons, when in the act of charging, as that of the st german hussars; and was thus the means of preventing a rencontre that might have been productive of the most fatal consequences to the parties concerned. wellington had, previously to this, given orders that the main body of his army should halt upon what had been the french position, in the line of la belle alliance; having arranged, by communication with blÜcher, that the latter, whose troops were comparatively fresh, should take up the pursuit: and, as the prussians continued moving forward in great force towards the high road, he directed his own troops to proceed to the right of the latter, so as to leave it clear for their advance. the prussian regiments, on passing the british, caused their bands to play the national anthem, _god save the king!_ a compliment which was greeted, on the part of the latter, by hearty and friendly cheers. the duke now stood with his advance of both infantry and cavalry, on the elevated ground beyond rossomme, overlooking maison du roi. the moon had risen, and by the light it gradually spread over the field, as also by the objects set fire to at intervals along the high road, the retreating line of his vanquished foe became sufficiently perceptible to satisfy him that the brilliant victory he had gained was rendered secure beyond a doubt. having ordered his advanced brigades to take up their bivouacs for the night, he returned from this distant part of the field, and proceeded leisurely along the charleroi road back towards waterloo. adam's brigade bivouacked on the spot it had reached; vandeleur's on the right, near the wood of callois in which stood the observatory; while vivian, inclining somewhat to his right, led his hussars much further in advance of the army, on the french side of the observatory, and established his bivouac close to the hamlet of hilaincourt. on approaching la belle alliance, wellington ordered the whole of his army to bivouac on the field of battle. on reaching that point, he met blÜcher; and mutual congratulations took place between them on the splendid victory achieved. the latter, taking advantage of the designation of the house as felicitously applicable to the meeting of the two commanders, and considering also that it had constituted the direction point for the advance of the main portion of his troops, styled this glorious contest the battle of la belle alliance. with the promise of vigorously following up the pursuit, and allowing the enemy no opportunity of rallying within a march from the field, he took his leave of the duke; who then continued to ride leisurely towards waterloo, where he passed the night. the circumstances of the duke having established his head quarters in this village, and the name of the latter being more consonant to english pronunciation than that of any other place nearer to the field, acquired for this ever memorable struggle, the designation, by the british, of the battle of waterloo. blÜcher, determined to allow no breathing time to the flying enemy, and to deprive him of all power of rallying, at least on this side of the french frontier, gave orders that bÜlow's corps should undertake the pursuit along the charleroi road; that zieten's corps should follow in support of bÜlow; and that pirch's corps should march by aywiers, and cross the dyle, for the purpose of intercepting grouchy's troops; which, it was presumed, would soon be retreating from wavre towards the sambre. the prussian battalions, already mentioned as having turned the village of planchenoit, and entered the high road near maison du roi, accompanied by only three squadrons of uhlans, formed the advance of the pursuing army. gneisenau, placing himself at their head, proceeded to carry into effect the commands of his veteran chief and friend. the cavalry, under prince william, followed; and then the infantry of the two corps. at genappe, the first important defile through which the main french army retired, an immense number of carriages and waggons of all kinds had been collected together--some having been withdrawn from the field, and others, such as those of the commissariat or ordnance departments, having come up to join, or to follow in the track of, the french army. by judicious management, these materials, combined with a suitable defence, would have afforded the means of seriously impeding the further pursuit by the victors. some intention of this kind appeared to have been entertained, as several waggons had been upset, so as to obstruct the crossing of the bridge, a narrow passage only being left to admit stragglers. but no sooner did the prussian advance appear, in the moonlight, descending from the heights overlooking genappe, with drums beating and bugles sounding, than the rearmost of the french troops (for rear guard there was none to an army from which all semblance of order and regularity had vanished), immediately after firing a few shots, fled from the place. this was at about eleven o'clock. the quantity of baggage that was collected here presented a rich booty to the prussians; but the most valuable and most interesting object consisted of napoleon's travelling carriage, which, with all its contents, fell into the hands of the fusilier battalion of the th regiment. the infantry of bÜlow's and zieten's corps halted at genappe: but as soon as the prussian advance, including the cavalry under prince william, had succeeded in forcing its way through the immense mass of waggons and carriages of all kinds with which this defile had been blocked up, gneisenau, moving the infantry along the road, and flanking it on each side by the cavalry, continued the pursuit. he succeeded in driving the french from not less than seven bivouacs, which they had taken up in succession; but each of which they abandoned the moment they heard the sounds of the prussian drums or bugles. * * * * * it was an hour after midnight when napoleon reached quatre bras; whence he despatched several officers to make known to grouchy the loss of the battle, and to order him to retire upon namur. the officers whom he had previously detached from genappe to ligny, for the purpose of moving girard's division, which had been left there, into position at quatre bras, now brought him word that they had not succeeded in finding it. there appeared to be no possibility of presenting, at this point, any effectual check to the prussian pursuit. general nÈgre of the artillery was here with the parks of reserve, but accompanied by a very feeble escort. the soldiers of the first and second corps, who, during the advance of the th, had crossed the sambre by the bridge of marchiennes, had quitted the high road, both at quatre bras and at gosselies, to proceed in the direction of that point; and with so much precipitation that they could not be halted for the purpose of forming something like a rear guard. the sixth corps, the imperial guard, and part of the cavalry, retreated upon charleroi, whither napoleon himself proceeded; after having sent his brother jerome to marchiennes, with orders to rally the troops between avesnes and maubeuge. * * * * * in the mean time, gneisenau continued his wild nocturnal chase, which was truly _lÜtzow's wilde verwegene jagd_. his followers, however, having been on the march or in action, since daybreak, were becoming weary, especially the infantry: besides which, several, impelled by hunger, stopped on the way to plunder provision waggons; so that their numbers had greatly diminished. but gneisenau, who was the life and soul of the pursuit, and who seemed bent on pushing forward whilst a man and horse remained, now had recourse to a stratagem, which, as regarded its effect upon the enemy, fully compensated for the exhaustion of his infantry. observing that the fugitives always took alarm at the sound of the drum, which announced the presence even of infantry thus far in pursuit, and close upon their rear; he ordered the last remaining drummer, who was unable to proceed further on foot, to mount one of the horses that had been disengaged from napoleon's travelling carriage, and then to keep up with the cavalry, and beat the drum without intermission. in this manner gneisenau passed through quatre bras, which had been abandoned on his approach; and even the heights of frasne were left free to him; whilst the affrighted foe, completely scattered and dispersed, endeavoured to escape by gosselies, marchiennes, and charleroi. upon reaching the inn of _à l'empereur_ on the high road beyond frasne, this favoured companion of blÜcher halted his followers, who then consisted but of a few squadrons and a party of the th regiment, and allowed them to take rest; satisfied with having thus, by mere beat of drum and shouts of triumph, succeeded in scaring the remnant of the french army across the sambre. * * * * * such was the termination of this ever memorable battle--a battle, remarkable for the spectacle it afforded, on the one hand, of a bravery the most noble and undaunted; of a passive endurance, the most calm, dignified, and sublime; of a loyalty and patriotism, the most stern and inflexible: and on the other, of a gallantry in assault the most daring and reckless; of a devotion to their chief, the most zealous and unbounded; and, lastly, of a physical overthrow and moral annihilation unexampled in the history of modern warfare. such was the consummation of a victory, the most brilliant in its development, the most decisive in its operation, and the most comprehensive in its result, of any that had occurred since the commencement of that revolution which it was thus the instrument of bringing to the termination so long and so ardently desired by the suffering and indignant nations of europe. from the contemplation of the triumph, the glory, and the result, of such a battle: we are impelled to turn our thoughts upon the melancholy spectacle of the awfully severe losses sustained by both the victors and the vanquished; whose heroic exertions and noble endurance could not but be attended with immense sacrifice. the following table shows the losses sustained by the troops composing the anglo-allied army:-- +--------------------++----------------------------+ | | killed. | | +---------+-----------+-------+ | |officers.|noncom. |horses.| | | |officers, | | | | |trumpeters,| | | | |drummers, | | | | |and | | | | |privates. | | +--------------------+---------+-----------+-------+ |british | | | | |king's german legion| | | | |hanoverians | | | -- | |brunswickers | | | | |nassauers | | | -- | +--------------------+---------+-----------+-------+ | total | | | | +--------------------+---------+-----------+-------+ +--------------------+-----------------------------+ | | wounded. | | +---------+-----------+-------+ | |officers.|noncom. |horses.| | | |officers, | | | | |trumpeters,| | | | |drummers, | | | | |and | | | | |privates. | | +--------------------+---------+-----------+-------+ |british | | | | |king's german legion| | | | |hanoverians | | | -- | |brunswickers | | | -- | |nassauers | | | -- | +--------------------+---------+-----------+-------+ | total | | | | +--------------------+---------+-----------+-------+ +--------------------+---------------------+-------+ | | missing. | | +---------+-----------+-------+ | |officers.|noncom. |horses.| | | |officers, | | | | |trumpeters,| | | | |drummers, | | | | |and | | | | |privates. | | +--------------------+---------+-----------+-------+ |british | | | | |king's german legion| | | | |hanoverians | | | -- | |brunswickers | -- | | -- | |nassauers | -- | -- | -- | +--------------------+---------+-----------+-------+ | total | | | | +--------------------+---------+-----------+-------+ if to this loss be added that of the dutch-belgian troops--about , --the total number of noncommissioned officers, trumpeters, drummers, and privates, killed, wounded and missing, amounted to , . * * * * * the losses of the prussian army in the battle were as follows:-- +--------------------+-----------------------------+ | | killed. | | +---------+-----------+-------+ | |officers.|noncom. |horses.| | | |officers, | | | | |trumpeters,| | | | |drummers, | | | | |and | | | | |privates. | | +--------------------+---------+-----------+-------+ |zieten's corps | -- | | | |pirch's " | | | | |bÜlow's " | | | | | +---------+-----------+-------+ | total | | | | +--------------------+---------+-----------+-------+ +--------------------+-----------------------------+ | | wounded. | | +---------+-----------+-------+ | |officers.|noncom. |horses.| | | |officers, | | | | |trumpeters,| | | | |drummers, | | | | |and | | | | |privates. | | +--------------------+---------+-----------+-------+ |zieten's corps | | | | |pirch's " | | | | |bÜlow's " | | | | | +---------+-----------+-------+ | total | | | | +--------------------+---------+-----------+-------+ +--------------------+-----------------------------+ | | missing. | | +---------+-----------+-------+ | |officers.|noncom. |horses.| | | |officers, | | | | |trumpeters,| | | | |drummers, | | | | |and | | | | |privates. | | +--------------------+---------+-----------+-------+ |zieten's corps | -- | | | |pirch's " | | | | |bÜlow's " | | | | | +---------+-----------+-------+ | total | | | | +--------------------+---------+-----------+-------+ total under officers, trumpeters, drummers, and privates, killed, wounded, and missing, , . * * * * * in the absence of all returns it is difficult to estimate the losses of the french army. they were, however, immense; besides which, the whole of their artillery, ammunition waggons, and baggage, fell into the possession of the victors. of the french generals, michel and duhesme were killed; prince jerome, friant, and several others were wounded; and lobau, compans, and cambronne, were taken prisoners. * * * * * the minuteness of detail with which the foregoing history of the battle of waterloo has been written, the gradual development which has been presented of the motives and dispositions of the commanders, and the circumstantial description which has been afforded of the movements of the troops engaged--of the working, as it were, of the machinery in the hands of the three most renowned captains of the age--obviate the necessity of further comment upon those points; but it would be unjust to the honour, the fame, and the glory, of the actors in that memorable scene, to omit putting forth certain important considerations which are essential to enable an impartial public, and an unprejudiced posterity, to arrive at correct and satisfactory conclusions upon other points, hitherto involved in doubt and obscurity. these refer chiefly to the relative numerical strength of the combatants, the relative proportions in which the troops of the anglo-allied army were actively engaged with the enemy, the conduct of these troops respectively while so engaged, and lastly the extent of the actual share taken in the battle by the prussians. the most simple, and at the same time most rational, mode of computing the relative strength of armies is by placing in juxtaposition their respective numbers of battalions, squadrons, and guns. according to this rule, the anglo-allied and french armies, as they stood in front of each other at the commencement of the battle, were constituted as follows:-- battalions. squadrons. guns. anglo-allied army french napoleon having, about one o'clock, detached the light cavalry divisions of domon and subervie as a corps of observation upon his right flank; the opposed forces, from that hour until about six o'clock, stood as follows:-- battalions. squadrons. guns. anglo-allied army french during this period of the battle, the anglo-allied army was thus composed:-- battalions. squadrons. guns. british king's german legion hanoverians. -- brunswickers nassauers -- -- dutch-belgians --- --- --- total almost all these battalions were at one time or another in the front line, and all conducted themselves in the most courageous and exemplary manner, with the exception of five of the dutch-belgian battalions, which hastily retreated as the french approached, when making their first grand attack upon the anglo-allied centre and left wing, and took no further active part in the battle. the remainder of the above ten battalions in the service of the king of the netherlands, were three battalions forming the nd regiment of the nassau contingent, and two battalions of orange nassau, under prince bernhard of saxe weimar, and occupied the houses and inclosures in the valley in front of the extreme left of the allied line. these troops behaved extremely well. of the squadrons above mentioned, a large proportion, nearly one third, consisted of the dutch-belgian cavalry; but although their numbers serve to augment the amount of the anglo-allied cavalry _on paper_, the actual value of their services in the battle was by no means commensurate with their display of strength: and hence it was that the brunt of the cavalry contest devolved almost exclusively upon the british and german dragoons. the same observation applies in an equal degree to the artillery. about six o'clock, the relative strength of the contending forces was altered, on the part of the french army, by the detaching of lobau's corps and the young guard to oppose the prussians; and on that of the anglo-allied army, though somewhat later, by the bringing into the field of chassÉ's dutch-belgian division; so that they stood about that time as follows:-- battalions. squadrons. guns. anglo-allied army french army of the assistance derived by the duke of wellington from this augmentation of the twelve dutch-belgian battalions, a sufficient estimate may be deduced from the foregoing history of the battle--one half of them were with great difficulty prevented from abandoning the field, although, at the moment, they were not in contact with, nor did they even see, the enemy; and the other half only joined the front line (on the left of maitland's brigade) at the time of the general advance. whatever may have been the cause of the comparative supineness of the dutch-belgian troops; whether produced by dislike entertained towards recent political arrangements, which alienated each party from its native country, without, securing to either its national independence; or, by predilections imbibed for the chief against whose arms they were now opposed, and in whose ranks they had formerly served: the fact of such supineness is too well attested to admit of any doubt respecting the value to be attached to their co-operation in the great struggle so courageously and resolutely sustained by the remainder of the anglo-allied army; and becomes a most important point for consideration in any calculation of the relative strength of the combatants, when taken into conjunction with the actual proportion of the entire dutch-belgian force brought into the field to that of each of the allies, as appears by the following table:-- _amount of the effective strength of the anglo-allied army at the battle of waterloo._ +--------------------+---------+--------+----------+----------+-----+ | |infantry.|cavalry.|artillery.|total men.|guns.| +--------------------+---------+--------+----------+----------+-----+ |british | , | , | , | , | | |king's german legion| , | , | | , | | |hanoverians | , | | | , | | |brunswickers | , | | | , | | |nassauers | , | -- | -- | , | -- | |dutch-belgians | , | , | , | , | | | +---------+--------+----------+----------+-----+ | total | , | , | , | , | | +--------------------+---------+--------+----------+----------+-----+ hence it appears that the dutch-belgian contingent, compared with the british troops alone, consisted, in infantry, as , to , ; in cavalry, as , to , ; and, in guns, as to . * * * * * it is needless now to speculate upon what might have been the result, had this large proportion of force been replaced by a corresponding number of either british or german troops. the fact testifies abundantly, in addition to what has been already related, as to the heroic firmness and enduring courage with which the brave british and germans stood the brunt of that remarkable contest; and this, too, be it remembered, with unquestionably the finest army which even napoleon had ever collected together, formed exclusively of one nation--of that nation whose legions had at one time subjugated nearly the whole of europe--imbued with inveterate hatred against its foes, cherishing the most enthusiastic devotion to its chief, and filled with the ardent desire of restoring the fallen glory of the empire. of the conduct of the british infantry, of its heroic valour, its indomitable resistance, its proud defiance, and its admirable discipline, the history of the battle affords abundant testimony: further comment is superfluous. the superior prowess of the british cavalry also shone most conspicuously on this great day. the combined charge of the two heavy brigades against the french cavalry and infantry which attacked the centre and left wing of the anglo-allied army between one and two o'clock, whether we regard the brilliancy of its execution, or the magnitude of its success, is perhaps without a parallel in the last war: and when we consider the preponderance of the enemy in this arm, the frequency of his charges, and the masses with which he advanced, it is impossible to advert to the heroism of britain's cavalry, without at the same time according the praise so pre-eminently due to the skill of the noble and gallant chief who was the life and soul of its movements throughout the arduous and desperate struggle; and who so judiciously economised its strength, that when at the critical moment its services were required for securing the victory, he was enabled to bring forward two fresh brigades, which fulfilled those services in a style the most brilliant that can be conceived, and with a success which commanded the admiration of all who witnessed it. the british artillery, which had to contend against an immense preponderance of metal, evinced during the whole day, a degree of bravery, zeal, activity, and intelligence, which can never be surpassed; and nobly sustained its long and honourably acquired pre-eminence. of the troops of the king's german legion, whether cavalry, infantry, or artillery, it is impossible to speak in terms of too high praise; suffice it to remark that their conduct was, in every respect, on a par with that of the british. of the four hanoverian infantry brigades, that of kielmansegge, and a part of halkett's, were the most actively engaged: best's stood almost the entire day on the extreme left of the front line of the anglo-allied infantry; and vincke's in reserve in front of mont st jean. they had been but recently and hastily raised; and yet the manner in which such raw soldiers withstood, as kielmansegge's brigade did, for so great a length of time, the most furious assaults made by the gallant and well disciplined troops of france, would have conferred honour on long tried veterans. the brunswickers, who were also composed of young soldiers, performed a glorious part in the battle; and amply avenged the death of their prince. some of their battalions were much shaken at the moment alten's division was driven back a short distance; but they speedily rallied, and resumed their lost ground. altogether, their bravery, which was frequently called into action; and their endurance, which was severely tested, merited the strongest commendation. the troops constituting the nassau brigade under kruse (or more properly the st regiment of the nassau contingent), were attached to alten's division. they were consequently often in the thick of the fight; and though, on the occasion above alluded to, they were thrown into disorder and driven in by a furious onset of the enemy, they conducted themselves generally throughout the day with great steadiness and bravery. it is impossible to allude in terms of adequate praise to the services of that most important branch of the army, the general staff; the officers of which distinguished themselves no less by the zeal, the daring, and the activity, with which they carried into execution the commands of their respective chiefs, than by the alacrity and intelligence which they evinced in catching and imparting the true spirit of their instructions. the constant exposure to which their peculiar duties necessarily subjected them could not but entail upon them severe losses. few indeed were those who escaped unhurt throughout this arduous conflict. * * * * * the co-operation of the prussians in this battle has been gradually developed and fully detailed. that the communications which wellington received from blÜcher led him to expect that co-operation at a much earlier period, is beyond a doubt; but setting aside all consideration of the causes of the delay which attended the arrival of the prussian forces, it is equally doubtless that the tardiness of that co-operation had a more decided influence on the general result of the battle than if they had reached the field at an earlier period. for, supposing the prussians to have arrived in force before the french had become so seriously and desperately engaged with the anglo-allied army, napoleon was too much a master of his art to have risked a decisive battle with the combined forces of his antagonists. in this case he would, in all probability, have fallen back upon his frontier, have called in all available reserves from the interior, and by means of his triple line of fortresses, as well as by skilful manoeuvring, have endeavoured to separate once more the opposing armies, and to obtain another chance of beating them in detail. as it happened, however, he was too deeply involved in the contest with wellington; he had suffered too severely in his repeated attacks, to admit of a retreat, under such circumstances, being looked upon, even by his friends in paris, in any other light than that of a defeat: and he knew too well that with a defeat, however it might be produced, would vanish the only tie which yet bound him to the nation--the implied belief in his invincibility, and the firm reliance on his ability to re-establish and maintain the military glory of france. it is to this conviction alone that we can attribute the desperate resolve with which he risked the fate of the empire and his own political existence upon the issue of his final attack upon wellington's line, at a moment when the armies opposed to him had effected their junction; and which, by calling the whole of his force into requisition, deprived him of an adequate reserve, by aid of which he might have succeeded in effecting an orderly and honourable retreat. had the prussians succeeded in driving the french out of planchenoit half an hour earlier: such a circumstance, combined with the general advance of the anglo-allied line, would no doubt have caused the whole of lobau's corps, and perhaps also d'erlon's, to lay down their arms and surrender at discretion; since their retreat towards maison du roi would thus have been cut off, whilst the british advance would have frustrated any attempt to retire across the charleroi road. on the other hand, a similar result might have ensued, at least as regards lobau's corps, had that general advance occurred half an hour earlier; while the french right was engaged with the prussians at a greater distance from the charleroi road. in the former case, however, the final attack was judiciously delayed until, by the arrival of the additional force which was fast approaching, such a simultaneous attack could be made along the whole of the french right as would insure most decided success: and in the latter case, the final attack could not have been made at a more opportune moment, and with a greater prospect of success, than immediately after the signal defeat of the french imperial guard upon the anglo-allied position. indeed, contingencies of this kind might be brought forward with reference to any battle whatever; and when it is considered that there exists no example in modern warfare of so complete a victory, the result must appear as glorious, as decisive, and as comprehensive, as the most stern and rigid calculator of the chances of battle could have desired. as regards the actual share which the prussians had in the battle, it may be truly affirmed that the contest maintained between bÜlow's corps and lobau's troops in conjunction with a portion of the imperial guard, was most obstinate and sanguinary. in the three successive struggles for the possession of planchenoit, especially, the deadly animosity mutually cherished by the troops of both nations, was fearfully exemplified; and the losses sustained by the prussians in the comparatively brief period during which they were engaged, afforded ample proof of the value of their co-operation. it is undeniably true that the blow which decided the victory was that given by wellington, when, after having completely defeated the grand attack by the french imperial guard, he instantly followed up that defeat by boldly attacking and penetrating the centre of the enemy's lines, and sustaining this movement by the general advance of his whole army; but it is at the same time, equally true, that the powerful diversion effected by the prussians diminished the strength of those french lines by the corps of lobau which had not hitherto fired a single shot in this campaign, by twelve battalions of the imperial guard which had suffered scarcely any loss at ligny, and, finally, by eighteen squadrons of cavalry. the vigorous attack which was made by bÜlow upon lobau's line, simultaneously with the last assault upon planchenoit, contributed most materially to the general and fatal panic which seized upon the whole of the french army. the prussians too, by the energetic pursuit which they kept up during the night, under the guidance of the indefatigable gneisenau, rendered the victory still more complete and decisive; and effectually deprived the enemy of every opportunity of recovering himself on the belgian side of the frontier. in short, both armies admirably and honourably performed the parts respectively assigned to them--the one holding its defensive position with unparalleled bravery and unmitigated perseverance until the moment when its chief, having defeated the last desperate attempt of his opponent to force his line, leads it on to victory; the other operating a powerful diversion, by which the effect of that advance is made still more decisive; and rendering the victory complete by a harassing and vigorous pursuit--and thus was consummated the tactical solution of the plan which had been, with so much skill and foresight, strategically preconcerted by the allied commanders. the duke, when writing his despatch descriptive of the battle, in which he stated that his own army "never, upon any occasion, conducted itself better," was not unmindful of the important aid he had derived from the prussians. "i should not," he said, "do justice to my own feelings, or to marshal blÜcher and the prussian army, if i did not attribute the successful result of this arduous day to the cordial and timely assistance i received from them. the operation of general bÜlow upon the enemy's flank was a most decisive one; and, even if i had not found myself in a situation to make the attack which produced the final result, it would have forced the enemy to retire if his attacks should have failed, and would have prevented him from taking advantage of them if they should unfortunately have succeeded." on the other hand, the prince, although, as is manifest upon a perusal of a similar despatch on his part, he was not aware of the circumstances under which wellington had attacked the very centre of the french lines, and had pushed his advanced brigades along the rear of those troops to which he himself had been exposed, nevertheless did ample justice to the bravery of the british army, which, he remarked, "fought with a valour which it is impossible to surpass." long may great britain and prussia cherish that mutual amity which was engendered by the zealous and successful co-operation of the armies of these two great nations in bringing to so prompt and satisfactory a termination a war which (originating in the reassumption of the throne of france by that ambitious soldier and extraordinary man who had once already overrun the continent with his legions, subjugating emperors and kings to the influence of his mighty will) threatened once more to involve the nations in all the calamities and horrors which before had followed in the train of his triumphant but desolating career. the general peace, which was the ultimate result of their united efforts, still happily continues; and on every successive anniversary do the british and german troops commemorate their glorious and crowning victory; and europe, grateful for the lasting and inestimable blessings conferred upon her, emblazons forth in the pages of her history, the heroic deeds of the defenders of her liberty and independence. ----"thou fatal waterloo! millions of tongues record thee, and anew their children's lips shall echo them, and say-- here where the sword united nations drew, our countrymen were warring on that day! and this is much, and all which will not pass away." [illustration] chapter xvi. it was explained at the conclusion of the eighth chapter that thielemann, who had been ordered by blÜcher to defend the position of wavre in the event of the enemy advancing in force, or, if otherwise, to follow the main army in the direction of couture, was on the point of fulfilling the instructions appertaining to the latter contingency, when vandamme's corps arrived in front of that position, about four o'clock in the afternoon, and its artillery immediately opened a cannonade upon the prussian troops. all the brigades (the ninth, tenth, eleventh, and twelfth) of thielemann's corps, had, at that time, received the order to commence the general movement to the right. a detachment of only two battalions (the fusilier battalions of the th regiment and of the st kurmark landwehr), under colonel zepelin, from the ninth brigade, which had not yet crossed the dyle, was to be left in occupation of wavre. the twelfth brigade was already in full line of march, and the eleventh had been just put in motion. when general borcke, who commanded the ninth brigade, fell back upon wavre, for the purpose of carrying out his instructions, he found the bridge already barricaded, and therefore proceeded with his brigade to bas wavre: and having crossed the dyle at this point, left a detachment there, consisting of the sharpshooters of the fusilier battalion of the th regiment, and of those of the st battalion of the th regiment, under major ditfurth; whom he directed to destroy the bridge immediately. he then detached the nd battalion of the th regiment and his two squadrons of the kurmark landwehr cavalry, as a reinforcement to colonel zepelin at wavre; and, with the remainder of his brigade, continued his march. in the mean time, french _tirailleurs_ were observed extending along the opposite heights; and, in their rear, considerable masses of the enemy's troops appeared advancing. it soon became manifest that they contemplated forcing the passage of the river. thielemann, judging by the want of vigour displayed in the french pursuit; and by the enemy not having attempted to secure the passage of the dyle at moustier, limelette, and limale, that it was only a weak detachment of the enemy that was advancing upon wavre, confining itself to the design of creating some little uneasiness by its movement along this road to brussels, had hitherto been of opinion that the occupation of wavre by a few battalions, as directed by blÜcher, would be quite sufficient: but he now plainly saw that the moment had arrived which required him, in pursuance of his instructions, to maintain the position at wavre; and he accordingly ordered the halt of his whole corps for this purpose. the town of wavre is situated on the left bank of the dyle: having a suburb on the opposite side of the river, with which it is connected by two stone bridges; the principal one leading towards the middle, and a small one towards the upper end, of the town. higher up the stream, at the mill of bierge, at limale, and at limelette; as also below the town at bas wavre, there are wooden bridges. the river is not deep, but at the period of the battle it was swollen by the recent heavy rain. the low range of heights on either side of the valley is covered in many places with wood. the heights on the right bank are generally more elevated, but those on the left have steeper declivities, and offer a greater command of the river and its passages. the shortest road from namur to brussels passes through the town, besides which there are numerous cross roads practicable for the movement of all arms. the great number of hollow ways forms a prominent feature in the vicinity; and these, being in a miry state from the rain, were unfavourable to the progress of troops passing through them. the position was thus occupied:--the twelfth brigade (colonel stÜlpnagel), with the horse battery no. , was posted on the height in rear of bierge. the bridge in front of this village was barricaded, and the mill occupied for the defence of the bridge. the tenth brigade (colonel kÄmpfen) stood upon the height in rear of wavre, its right resting on a wood which lay between it and the twelfth brigade. the eleventh brigade (colonel luck) was formed across the brussels road. the reserve cavalry was drawn up, near la bavette, in columns of squadrons. the artillery was distributed along the heights. the horse battery no. remained in reserve. that part of the town of wavre which lies on the right bank, or, more properly, the suburb, was occupied by light troops only. the great bridge was barricaded as well as time and circumstances would admit. the houses adjoining the left bank of the river were hastily loopholed. the smaller bridge was left perfectly open. a detachment of two companies of light infantry, under major bornstÄdt was detached to reinforce the troops at the bridge of bas wavre. thielemann intended that the ninth brigade should be posted in rear of this general disposition of his troops, so that its services might be made available according as circumstances might require; but through some misunderstanding in the transmission of the order, general borcke was induced, after having moved along the brussels road until near la bavette, thence to turn off to his left, and continue his march, according to his original instructions, in the direction of fromont, bourgeois, and st lambert, towards couture; being under the impression that the whole corps had already commenced this march, in pursuance of the general plan, and that his brigade was destined to cover the movement. the departure of the brigade was not immediately discovered; and thus, by this misunderstanding, thielemann's force suffered an unexpected reduction of six battalions and the foot battery no. ; and consisted, therefore, of only , men; with which number he had now to contend against marshal grouchy's force, amounting altogether to , men. thielemann's position was certainly a very favourable one, and the occupation of it was arranged with great skill. as it was impossible to foresee in what manner the attack upon it would be conducted; whether it would be directed against one particular bridge, or against all the bridges, with the design of carrying the whole line by storm: thielemann limited the occupation of the town and of the line of the river to the number of light troops which might be sufficient for sustaining any sudden assault; taking care to have supports close at hand for that purpose: but disposing his reserves, which comprised his main force, so that they might become available at any point which might be pressed; or, should the enemy develop greatly superior numbers, as was subsequently the case, serve to guard against any flank attack. * * * * * as before explained, it was vandamme's corps which arrived in front of wavre between three and four o'clock. two batteries, of which one consisted of twelve pounders, were drawn up on the right of the road overlooking the valley, and opened the cannonade. these were subsequently reinforced by a third battery, posted on the left of the road. excelmans' cavalry corps was posted in right rear of vandamme. gÉrard, with the fourth french corps, was still in the rear on the march; and pajol, with his light cavalry, had only just passed through tourrines, situated scarcely half way between gembloux and wavre. marshal grouchy sent word to both these officers to accelerate their march. whilst the french skirmishers were gradually forcing back the prussian light troops into the valley, grouchy, hearing a powerful cannonade in the distance to his left, rode off a little way in that direction; and concluding that napoleon was closely engaged with wellington, conceived that as he had now reached the prussians, he would best fulfil his instructions by vigorously attacking them, so as to prevent their detaching reinforcements to the anglo-allied army. he was quite ignorant as to the strength of the enemy in his front, and was in doubt whether the whole prussian army was before him, or merely a strong detachment. of the fact that three prussian corps were on the march to co-operate with wellington's forces, he of course knew nothing. in this state of uncertainty, and with his troops _aux prises_ with the prussians, he was fearful of detaching to his left; since by so doing, he would expose himself to the risk of his main force becoming overpowered by superior numbers, and his detachment cut off. independently of other considerations which might have assisted in dissuading grouchy from detaching a portion of his force at this period, such as the length of time his troops had been upon the march, along bad and miry roads; he was perfectly justified, under all the circumstances of his then position, in adopting this course of proceeding. and even if he had been fully cognisant of the actual disposition of the prussian army, he could at this time have rendered no essential service to napoleon; the opportunity for doing so had been suffered to pass by, as was fully explained in chapter viii. his total ignorance, however, of blÜcher's proceedings, and of all that was then taking place between wavre and the field of waterloo, afforded undeniable proof of his having completely failed in acting up to the spirit of the instructions he had received, not to lose sight of the prussians, and in exercising that degree of enterprise, energy, and decision, which napoleon had so naturally anticipated from a general of grouchy's note and experience; especially when entrusted with so important a command, under such highly critical circumstances. a message having reached grouchy from pajol, communicating his having fallen into the marshal's line of operation, he directed that general to move upon limale. his right flank, however, continued to be protected by the th dragoons, detached from general berton's cavalry brigade (of excelmans' corps) _en reconnaissance_, towards the high road leading from namur to louvain. in the mean time, a vigorous cannonade was maintained between vandamme's and the prussian batteries across that part of the valley in which lay the town of wavre. under cover of the french guns, the skirmishers pressed down upon that portion of the town situated upon the right bank of the river, and of which they soon gained possession; the prussians having previously decided upon not making any effort to retain it. on reaching the river, however, they were met by a most destructive fire of musketry from the opposite houses and the bridge. the contest now became desperate, and the defence of the dyle was obstinately maintained by the prussians. the skirmishers rapidly extended on either flank along both banks of the river from bierge as far as bas wavre. all the prussian brigades pushed forward their sharpshooters. those of the th kurmark landwehr took up the line between the town and bas wavre, those of the rd kurmark landwehr took post in the town, between the two bridges; on the right of the latter stood the sharpshooters of the tenth brigade; and those of the twelfth brigade formed the right wing of the whole line at bierge. this _tiraillade_ had continued about an hour, when general hulot's division of gÉrard's _corps d'armée_ reached the field; and received orders to take possession of the mill at bierge, and to cross the dyle at that point. a battalion of vandamme's corps was at the time vainly attempting to effect a passage. upon the height opposite bierge were several guns of the third corps, endeavouring to keep down the fire from the prussian batteries on the other side of the valley. grouchy desired gÉrard to relieve the battalion attacking the mill at bierge by one of his own corps; whereupon the latter directed general hulot to push forward with a battalion of the th light infantry for that purpose. the battalion descended into the valley, covered by the fire from the guns on the height. its advance was much impeded by the swampy nature of the ground at the foot of the declivity, and by the numerous broad and deep drains by which the valley is intersected: and its order was still further deranged by the fire from the artillery on the opposite heights, as also by that of the prussian skirmishers posted along the left bank of the river, and strongly occupying the mill. the banks of the river at this part, more particularly the left bank, are mostly lined with trees; which tended still further to increase the means of resistance on the part of the prussians to the advance of the french troops. the latter on reaching the mill, and relieving vandamme's troops, made an attack; but without success. grouchy was on the point of ordering this attack to be renewed, when he received, between six and seven o'clock, soult's despatch, addressed to him from the field of waterloo at one o'clock in the afternoon: and desiring him to manoeuvre always in that direction, to maintain a close communication with the main army, and to lose not a moment in joining the latter, and attacking bÜlow's _corps d'armée_; which, it added, could then be seen upon the heights of st lambert. the circumstances in which grouchy found himself at the time this despatch reached him, held out no prospect of his being able to fulfil, even partially, the instructions which it contained. vandamme's efforts to force the bridges of wavre, and to capture the town, were completely frustrated by the most gallant defence maintained on the part of the prussians. the issue of the attack upon the mill of bierge appeared very doubtful. neither the main body of gÉrard's corps, nor general teste's division of the sixth corps, nor even pajol's light cavalry, had as yet arrived. grouchy, becoming impatient, rode hastily towards la baraque, accompanied by gÉrard, to meet the first mentioned force; and on coming up with the columns, directed their march upon limale, his object now being to turn the right of thielemann's position, and to prevent the retreat of the latter upon brussels, and at the same time open his direct road to st lambert. this he might succeed in effecting; but it is sufficiently evident from the above view of his position, at so late an hour of the day, that any important diversion on his part in favour of napoleon, was quite out of the question. on returning with gÉrard to wavre, grouchy found that notwithstanding the furious assaults that were made in rapid succession upon the bridges, supported by the vigorous cannonade from the heights, and the incessant fusillade along the banks of the river, no further progress was effected. as if determined that the passage should be forced, he dismounted from his horse, and placing himself at the head of a battalion, led on another attack upon the mill of bierge. but the bravery of the troops, though so strongly excited by the noble example of the marshal, could avail nothing against the indomitable resistance of the prussian defenders of this important post. gÉrard, who had accompanied the marshal in this attack, fell severely wounded by a shot which struck him in the breast. grouchy now decided upon leaving vandamme's corps and excelmans' cavalry in front of wavre and bierge; and proceeding himself with that portion of gÉrard's troops which was at hand, along the right bank of the dyle, towards limale, and uniting them to the remainder of the corps which had been ordered to march in the direction of that point from la baraque. this movement occupied considerable time, in consequence of the difficulties opposed to the march of troops along the side of the river. at length, having, arrived in front of limale, and formed a junction with pajol's cavalry, preparations were made for an attack. limale was at that time occupied by lieutenant colonel stengel with the three battalions of the th prussian regiment, two squadrons of the th uhlans, and one squadron of the westphalian landwehr cavalry. it was the detachment left by zieten for the purpose of covering the left flank of the third _corps d'armée_. it had unaccountably neglected to adopt any measures for barricading the bridge; the defence of which, if conducted with the same energy and resolution by which that of the bridges lower down the stream had been distinguished, might have been the means of preventing the french from crossing the dyle at all on that day. pajol, having reconnoitred the place and discovered his neglect, succeeded in gaining possession of the bridge by means of a brisk cavalry attack. hulot's infantry division of gÉrard's corps reached it shortly afterwards; and it was soon made manifest to lieutenant colonel stengel that he was attacked by a force much superior to his own. nevertheless he continued to fall gradually back, in good order, until thielemann pushed forward the twelfth brigade to his support. three battalions of the tenth brigade moved into the position thus vacated by the twelfth: and a general movement was made to the right by all the troops that could be spared from the defence of wavre and bierge. the th kurmark landwehr, belonging to the eleventh brigade, crossed the brussels road. the reserve cavalry was ordered to move upon limale, in support of the twelfth brigade. when colonel stÜlpnagel was ordered to move his brigade (the twelfth) upon limale, he left three battalions for the defence of bierge. with the remaining six battalions he came up close to the enemy, who was posted on a height in advance of limale, his left thrown considerably forward and covered by his cavalry, and his right resting upon some houses which he had occupied with infantry. this line, which was perpendicular to the direction of the original position of the prussians, had been taken up with great skill by grouchy, notwithstanding the difficulties with which the movement had been attended. his troops had to ascend the heights during the obscurity of the night, in rear of limale, by a narrow, rugged road, in the immediate proximity of the prussians, whose fire reached the head of the defile: and he was fully occupied until a very late hour, in posting the battalions in their proper places, as they filed out of the road, on reaching the height; whilst, in the mean time, pajol's light cavalry pushed rapidly round by the left. colonel stÜlpnagel posted the fusilier battalion of the th kurmark landwehr, and his battery, in reserve, in rear of the small wood on the right of bierge, and advanced to the attack, late as it was, with his five remaining battalions, having lieutenant colonel stengel with his detachment on the right. the darkness of the night prevented the prussians from correctly ascertaining the position and strength of the french; but nevertheless it was decided that an attempt should be made to regain limale, and drive back the enemy across the dyle. the attack was thus formed. two battalions in front, closely followed by the remaining three battalions. both the brigade squadrons joined the three squadrons under lieutenant colonel stengel; and the whole of the reserve cavalry formed in support. in this movement, however, the mutual connection of the advancing troops was greatly impeded by the darkness of the night. the two battalions in front line were on the point of passing a hollow way when they received a volley from two french battalions on the opposite side, by which their further advance was checked. the three battalions of the second line had inclined too much to the left, where they became engaged with french _tirailleurs_. lieutenant colonel stengel's detachment, in attempting to push forward, was checked by the french cavalry; and as the latter made a disposition which menaced his right flank, that officer fell back with his detachment as far as the wood near point du jour. the decided failure of the attack induced colonel stÜlpnagel to withdraw all his troops to the wood, leaving only the st battalion of the th kurmark landwehr in support of the chain of advanced posts. the reserve cavalry bivouacked in rear of the wood. thus ended the contest on this part of the field. the prussian and french picquets were so close to one another during the night, that the patrols were constantly clashing, and the whole line kept upon the _qui vive_. * * * * * upon the prussian left, the conflict for the possession of the town and bridges of wavre continued to be carried on with unabated fury on both sides until late in the night. vandamme devoted the whole of his corps to the attack; constantly pushing forward fresh troops to relieve those who had failed in their attempts to dislodge the prussians. the latter, who exhibited on this occasion an extraordinary degree of bravery and resolution, succeeded in repelling no less than thirteen different assaults; and even dislodged, in five instances, the french from the houses they occupied, from the commencement, on the right bank of the dyle. at one time the french had already gained possession of the great bridge and some houses on the left bank, when they were driven back again to their own side of the river by the prussian reserves--these having advanced to the relief of their comrades. the struggle was desperate, and apparently interminable. when the french attacked the houses nearest the bridge they succeeded in bursting open the doors, and by superiority of numbers, in possessing themselves of the ground floors. but even this did not induce the heroic defenders to relax their exertions; on the contrary, with increased fury, they defended the upper storeys of the houses, and held out most gallantly until relieved by the arrival of their supports. this brilliant defence of wavre was distinguished, on the part of the prussians, not only by the unflinching bravery of the troops, but also by the judicious disposal of the reserves; by means of which the enemy was foiled in every attempt to gain a permanent footing in the town. while the skirmishers and their supports were posted along the dyle and the adjacent houses, the reserves were concealed in the nearest streets, that lay in a direction parallel with that of the river: and at the moment the french columns of attack, already crippled by the fire concentrated from the skirmishers, endeavoured to force the bridge; these reserves rushed forward from their cover in the side streets, and presenting themselves in mass before the enemy, invariably drove them back with great slaughter. it was in this manner that the fusilier battalion of the th regiment, under major sprenger, and the rd battalion of the st kurmark landwehr, under major bornstÄdt, constantly repulsed, with admirable bravery, the attacks made with such superior numbers during the earlier part of the contest. one of these attacks having been attended with a somewhat favourable result, the nd battalion of the th regiment, under major beaufort, was brought forward; and, at a similarly critical moment, the st battalion of the th kurmark landwehr, under major grolman, came up; when both battalions succeeded in compelling the enemy to retire. these battalions then took post in the streets lying parallel with the river, in the manner before explained; and, with heroic courage, overcame every renewed attempt on the part of the french to establish themselves in the town. when, finally, it is considered that from four o'clock until night, four prussian battalions successfully maintained their ground against a whole _corps d'armée_, with which they were constantly and desperately engaged during the whole of that period; the merits of colonel zepelin and his brave troops are beyond all praise, and present one of the brightest examples of the defence of a town and of the passage of a river, recorded in military history. [illustration] both the bridges of wavre remained in the possession of the prussians, and the smaller one was barricaded during the night. at a late hour, as the fire on both sides began to slacken, the combatants bivouacked on their respective sides of the river. upon the prussian extreme left at bas wavre, the french had only shown one battalion. this occupied an isolated building, and was supported by two squadrons and a piece of artillery. several unsuccessful attempts were made to gain the bridge; which, at nightfall, continued in the possession of the prussians. grouchy was occupied late in the night in making his preparations for renewing the attack on the following morning. general teste's division of the sixth corps having at length arrived, his left wing, which was thus considerably reinforced, bivouacked upon the height westward of bierge; separated by this village and the dyle from his right wing which lay in front of wavre. he had not yet received any intelligence of napoleon's signal defeat at waterloo; and was therefore resolved upon following up, at daybreak, the advantages he had already gained, by forcing back the prussian right flank. thielemann, on the contrary, having despatched an officer of marwitz's cavalry brigade _en reconnaissance_ to the right, ascertained through this means that the allied armies had gained a complete victory; and he therefore fully expected that grouchy would be compelled to effect an immediate retreat. with the first dawn of the th of june, colonel stengel, whose detachment was posted on the extreme right of thielemann's corps, took upon himself to march off by st lambert, to join his _corps d'armée_ (the first); the grounds for which proceeding remain to the present time as unaccountable as his neglect on the previous day to secure the bridge of limale. in consequence of this movement, the twelfth brigade was necessitated to extend its line too much to the right and to retain a reserve of only three weak battalions upon the road leading through the wood to point du jour. the wood to the right was occupied by a battalion and two companies from each of the remaining regiments of the twelfth brigade. the left wing of this line, which rested upon bierge, was formed by six battalions of the tenth brigade. colonel luck, commanding the eleventh brigade, was directed to support this division, which was much too weak, with the three battalions of the rd kurmark landwehr; but to leave the two battalions of the th kurmark landwehr, as also the brigade squadrons, in rear of wavre, in a hollow near the windmill, where they served to cover the twelve pounder battery no. . the mill of bierge was occupied by two battalions of the twelfth brigade: wavre and bas wavre were held by the same troops which defended those points on the previous day. the barricades and preparations for defence were rendered more complete. lieutenant colonel ledebur, whose detachment, consisting of the th hussars, a squadron of landwehr cavalry, and two guns from the horse battery no. , had formed on the th the advance of the rear guard which thielemann's corps was considered to constitute, having reached st lambert before grouchy's attack became so decided, remained there during the night. early on the th, grouchy sent off three cavalry regiments to his left to watch these troops. they showed no indication of an intention to attack; and when, later in the day, they retired and disappeared from ledebur's view, the latter passed the defile, for the purpose of proceeding to join his _corps d'armée_ (the fourth), which, however, he did not reach before the th. this, as well as colonel stengel's detachment, thus withdrew from the field, without any apparent necessity, reducing thielemann's numbers, already too weak, and taking up a line of march, along which their services were comparatively useless. thielemann, concluding from the account that he had received of the defeat of napoleon, that the french would commence a retreat, renewed the combat at daybreak by an attack with his cavalry. colonel marwitz was sent forward, with the th uhlans and two squadrons of the th kurmark landwehr cavalry, towards the plateau above limale, occupied by grouchy's left wing: whilst general hobe followed this movement with the th and th uhlans, and formed up on the left of the advanced cavalry. the th uhlans were immediately afterwards advantageously posted in a hollow in support of colonel marwitz. the horse battery no. , subsequently reinforced by the foot battery no. , opened a cannonade upon the enemy's columns at the plateau; which displayed a great superiority of numbers, and were supported by a considerable force of cavalry. the preponderating number of guns in the enemy's line answered the fire of the prussians with great vigour; and as the intervening space was very limited, the numbers of killed and wounded were very great. the prussian artillery lost five guns on this occasion. grouchy delayed not a moment in making dispositions for an attack on his part. his force on this side of the field consisted of the three divisions of gÉrard's corps, and of teste's division of the sixth corps. the latter and two of the former were posted in front line; the remaining division, in reserve. he formed three columns of attack. that on the right consisted of teste's division, and was directed upon bierge; the central column was put in motion against the prussian centre; and that on the left against the right of the prussian formation. the head of each column was accompanied by a battery, and preceded by a swarm of skirmishers. at the same time, pajol put his cavalry in motion, and threatened to turn the prussian right. thielemann resolved upon not only offering to the enemy a vigorous opposition; but also upon assuming the offensive himself, and immediately gave the necessary orders for that purpose. he also reinforced his right with two more companies, and his left with an additional battalion. it was soon made manifest, however, that this attack failed to check the forward movement of the enemy. the ten prussian battalions were forced to give way to the advance of twenty two french battalions, which were followed by six more in support. the french gained possession of that part of the wood of rixansart which was on the right of the prussian position, and drove back the twelfth brigade. the battalions of the latter collected again immediately in rear of the wood, under the protection of the three before mentioned battalions of the eleventh brigade and of a battery of fifteen guns. general teste's division had in the mean time attacked bierge, which was bravely defended by the two battalions of the kurmark landwehr. whilst the engagement continued at this point, thielemann took up a second position in rear of the first, with four battalions of the tenth brigade, and occupied the small wood in rear of bierge. the prussian cavalry brigade, under colonels marwitz and count lottum, comprising twelve squadrons, secured the right towards chambre. about eight o'clock, just as this position had been taken up, thielemann received, through general pirch, the decisive and authentic intelligence that a great victory had been gained by the allies on the previous day, as also a communication of the fact of the second _corps d'armée_ having marched to intercept grouchy's retreat upon the sambre. advantage was immediately taken of these joyful tidings to raise the spirits of the troops, and to excite them to a renewed attack. with loud cheers the prussian batteries advanced to the attack; which was attended with complete success, and even the wood of rixansart was again taken. the enemy appeared irresolute, and as if impressed with the idea that thielemann had received reinforcements; but observing that no further progress was made, he renewed the attack on his part, and retook the wood of rixansart. it was not until about this time--towards nine o'clock--that teste's division gained possession of the village of bierge; on which occasion general penne, an officer of considerable distinction in the french army, was killed. the french were prevented for some time from debouching from the place, by the determined opposition of the _tirailleurs_ of the st prussian regiment, under major natzmer. thielemann had now done all which could possibly have been expected from any general under similar circumstances--with a force not equal to one half of that of the enemy, he had endeavoured, whenever an opportunity offered, and in defiance of superior numbers, to force back the french left wing upon the dyle; but now that he had failed in effecting this object, and that bierge, the key of his position, had been taken from him, whilst the french left was pressing forward with increased numbers to gain the brussels road, he saw very plainly that to attempt to maintain his ground any longer would be to expose himself to the imminent risk of total overthrow, and that no other course was left to him but to order a general retreat. * * * * * it was about ten o'clock in the morning when the prussian troops began to retire from the field. the town of wavre had not been attacked on the th, and colonel zepelin abandoned it without being much pressed upon his line of retreat. colonel marwitz was ordered to form the rear guard, which was furnished from the th and th uhlans, and the rd and th kurmark landwehr cavalry. it was accompanied by three batteries of horse, and one of foot, artillery. with these troops colonel marwitz took post, at first, in front of the brussels road; placing three batteries on his left, and the remaining one in reserve. thielemann gave the rear guard an express order not to march off until wavre had been completely evacuated. in the mean time, gÉrard's _corps d'armée_ had crossed the dyle both at bierge and at wavre. the two battalions of the th kurmark landwehr, which had been posted in the hollow in rear of the town, for the protection of the twelve pounder battery, became closely pressed in consequence of this movement. one of the battalions under major schmade had advanced against an enemy's column near the brussels road; when it unexpectedly received the fire of three french battalions, which were pushing forward under cover of an eminence, and followed by some cavalry. the battalion succeeded in reaching the small wood near la bavette; and as the enemy attempted to turn the latter, it suddenly attacked and drove him back, after which it came up with the rear guard. the other battalion, commanded by major schwerin, attacked a french battalion which was advancing against it, threw it back in confusion, and then continued its retreat. the gallantry and steadiness displayed in this affair by the kurmark landwehr acquired for the latter great and well merited renown. the french cavalry debouched from the wood of rixansart and drew up, with its left resting upon chambre. vandamme now advanced the columns of his corps towards the heights of la bavette, and pushed forward some cavalry along the high road. the latter, however, was driven back by colonel marwitz. it has been explained that general borcke, instead of posting his remaining six battalions in rear of the position at wavre, as intended by thielemann, proceeded on his march to couture, by st lambert. this place he reached about nightfall, when he despatched an officer to blÜcher to report his arrival. the latter, in reply, desired him to bivouac on the spot where he was, and to await further orders on the following morning. the brigade was still in its bivouac at seven o'clock the next morning, when colonel stengel passed through st lambert with his detachment. the latter informed general borcke that he had defended the bridge of limale, and had been followed by the enemy's troops. borcke, on hearing this, immediately broke up his bivouac, and decided upon securing the wood which extends from st rober as far as rixansart. he deployed two battalions of the th regiment along the edge of the wood, and held the remaining four battalions of his brigade, then with him, in reserve. perceiving french cavalry, at the time of their first attack, marching into the wood of rixansart for the purpose of advancing through it upon chambre; he opened a fire upon them from his battery, with the hope of checking their movement. the only effect it produced was that of their detaching three regiments of cavalry towards his brigade. these, however, contented themselves with watching his movements. it is curious that the ninth brigade, as if bent upon continuing the blunder committed the previous day of detaching itself from its corps, should not have attempted, with its six battalions, to effect a more important diversion upon the enemy's extreme left, from which it was not more than three thousand paces distant. it was then eight o'clock, and the battle was maintained until about eleven; and yet general borcke allowed the three cavalry regiments to move off and join the remainder of the french cavalry, towards ten o'clock, at chambre, without even attempting to molest their movement. thielemann effected his retreat, in several columns, by ottenburg and st achtenrode; at which latter place (about half way to louvain) he took up a position. the french cavalry followed as far as the brussels road, and the infantry occupied the heights of la bavette. between wavre and louvain the country assumes a new character, being covered with hedges, hollow ways, ditches, and gardens, and is altogether much intersected. from ottenburg as far as st achtenrode, there is almost one continued defile. in this, cavalry cannot act with advantage; and it was therefore fortunate for the prussian cavalry that it was followed but slowly by the french. the loss experienced by thielemann's _corps d'armée_ in this battle of the th and th of june, amounted to , men. no returns whatever of the losses sustained by grouchy's army are forthcoming, but they could not have been less than those of the prussians. * * * * * such was the battle of wavre; a battle the result of which was of no advantage to napoleon on the th, and of positive disadvantage to him on the th. on the former day it did not prevent the march of the great mass of the prussian army towards the field of waterloo; and, on the th, the continuance of the contest, while napoleon was in full flight, exposed this, the only remaining intact, portion of the french army, to the imminent risk of being completely cut off from all retreat. nor can this defeat of thielemann be looked upon as having shed additional lustre upon the french arms, when it is considered how long and successfully the prussians battled against them with less than half their strength. the errors which led to the circumstance of the force under grouchy--constituting, as napoleon himself has been pleased to term it, the right wing of the french army--becoming exclusively occupied in attacking a single corps of the prussian army; whilst the remaining three corps of the latter were wending their way unmolested towards the decisive field of battle, have already been sufficiently discussed: and now that their result has been fully exhibited, it is scarcely necessary to draw attention to the proof which the latter affords of the entire ignorance of each other's proceedings which characterised the conduct of napoleon and grouchy, great generals as they were, in this memorable campaign. the former received intelligence, before he began the battle with wellington, that the right wing was to follow the prussians to wavre, and to act in such a manner as to prevent these from detaching towards the anglo-allied army; and therefore felt satisfied that his general plan of operations was in successful progress. but in less than two hours from the commencement of the battle, the fatal consequence of both generals having unaccountably neglected to maintain a vigilant reconnaissance and an uninterrupted communication, was made manifest; and the first intimation napoleon received of the advance of the prussians towards la belle alliance was the distant view which he himself had, from his own field, of bÜlow's corps descending the heights of st lambert, at about one o'clock. the leading principle of the french emperor's plan was to endeavour, by all means in his power, to beat the armies opposed to him _in detail_. it was therefore incumbent on him, in order to insure the success of that plan, to adopt such precautionary measures as should procure for him the earliest and the clearest information concerning the movements of his enemies. if he found it necessary temporarily to divide his force, and act upon two lines; those measures became still more indispensable, and at the same time admitted the greater facility of execution. several reconnoitring parties, both upon the flanks of the army and in front of the interval between the two lines of operation, under the guidance of experienced, active and intelligent officers, would have obtained for both generals that insight into the movements and designs of their opponents which was so essential for the attainment of their common object: whilst parties detached from each wing, for the sole purpose of maintaining a close and direct communication between them, would have afforded the ready means of regulating each other's proceedings according to the circumstances under which they might have found themselves respectively placed. that there should have been so total a disregard of any measure of the kind appears almost incredible; yet such was the fact; and hence it came to pass that the despatch sent to grouchy, at one o'clock, from the heights in rear of la belle alliance did not reach him until seven in the evening; at which time, as before explained, it was too late to admit of the instructions it conveyed being fulfilled: and hence, also, grouchy was left battling with his entire force--not less than a third of the whole french army--against a single incomplete prussian corps, under thielemann, from daybreak until about eleven o'clock in the forenoon of the th, when he was first made acquainted with the fact that during the whole of that time the army under napoleon, having been most signally defeated and completely scattered on the preceding evening, was flying across the frontier in the wildest confusion. on receiving this latter intelligence, grouchy's first idea was to march against the rear of the main body of the prussian army: but, calculating that his force was not adequate for such an enterprise, that the victorious allies might detach to intercept his retreat, and that he should be closely followed by that portion of the prussians which he had just defeated; he decided on retiring upon namur, where he would regulate his further operations according to the intelligence he might gain in that quarter concerning the real state of affairs. [illustration] chapter xvii. it would be difficult to discover, in the whole history of the wars of modern times, an instance in which so fine, so splendid, an army as that of napoleon, one composed almost exclusively of veterans, all men of one nation, entirely devoted to their chief, and most enthusiastic in his cause, became so suddenly panic stricken, so completely disorganised, and so thoroughly scattered, as was the french army when it lost the battle of waterloo. a defeated army usually covers its retreat by a rear guard, but here there was nothing of the kind: and hence that army cannot be said to have retreated; but truly to have fled, from the field of battle. no attempt to rally was made on the belgian soil, and it was not until some of the scattered fragments of the immense wreck had been borne across the french frontier that their partial junction on different points indicated the revival of at least some portion of that mighty mass of warriors; who, but three days before, had marched across this same frontier in all the pride of strength, and in all the assurance of victory. the rearmost of the fugitives having reached the sambre, at charleroi, marchienne, and châtelet, by daybreak of the th, indulged themselves with the hope that they might then enjoy a short rest from the fatigues which the relentless pursuit by the prussians had entailed upon them during the night; but their fancied security was quickly disturbed by the appearance of a few prussian cavalry, judiciously thrown forward towards the sambre from the advanced guard at gosselies. they resumed their flight, taking the direction of beaumont and philippeville. * * * * * it had been arranged by wellington and blÜcher, on the field of waterloo, that the prussian army, not having been so much crippled and exhausted by the battle, should undertake the further pursuit, and proceed by charleroi towards avesnes and laon; whilst the anglo-allied army, after remaining during the night on the field, should advance by nivelles and binche towards peronne. on the following morning, the pursuing cavalry belonging to the first, fourth, and partly to the second, prussian _corps d'armée_, reached the vicinity of frasne and mellet. the fourth corps marched at daybreak from genappe, where it collected together the brigades which had been so much broken up by the continued pursuit. the th prussian hussars, under major colomb, were detached from this corps towards wavre, to observe marshal grouchy. they were supported by the st pomeranian landwehr cavalry; and, shortly afterwards, the nd silesian landwehr cavalry, under lieutenant colonel schill, also followed in the same direction. after some hours' rest, the fourth _corps d'armée_ marched to fontaine l'evêque, where it bivouacked. it had received orders to communicate from this place with mons. the advanced guard, under general sydow, was pushed forward, as far as lermes, on the road to thuin; it being intended that this corps should proceed by the road to maubeuge, along the sambre. the first _corps d'armée_, which had from the beginning followed the fourth as a reserve, now advanced in pursuit of the enemy by the direct road to charleroi. the light cavalry at the head of the column reached the passages of the sambre at châtelet, charleroi, and marchienne, without meeting any sort of opposition or impediment; nor did it perceive any thing of the enemy on the other side of the river. the corps halted for the night at charleroi: having its advanced guard at marchienne, and its outposts occupying the line from montigny by louveral as far as châtelet. detachments from the reserve cavalry were sent in the direction of fleurus, to secure the corps from any molestation on the part of grouchy; of whose proceedings nothing positive was then known at the prussian head quarters. * * * * * it was not until nearly five o'clock in the evening of the th, that general borcke, whose brigade, the ninth, was still in the vicinity of st lambert, discovered the retreat of grouchy's troops. he immediately communicated the fact to general thielemann, who ordered him to cross the dyle the next day (the th) and march upon namur. the french rear guard of gÉrard's _corps d'armée_ continued to occupy limale until nightfall. thielemann remained posted, during the night of the th, at st achtenrode; having his advanced guard at ottenburg. on the evening of the th, pirch received orders to march from the field of waterloo with his _corps d'armée_ (the second) in the direction of namur; for the purpose of turning marshal grouchy's left flank and intercepting his retreat upon the sambre. pirch made this movement during the night, passing through maransart, where he was joined by his seventh brigade; and crossing the genappe rivulet at bousseval, as also, subsequently, the dyle, on his way to mellery: which place he reached at eleven o'clock in the forenoon of the following day. his corps was much divided on this occasion. he had with him the sixth, seventh, and eighth infantry brigades, and twenty four squadrons of cavalry: but the fifth infantry brigade, and the remaining fourteen squadrons, were with that portion of the prussian army which was pursuing the enemy along the high road to charleroi. the corps being greatly fatigued by the night march and its exertions on the previous day, pirch ordered the troops to bivouac and to betake themselves to rest. during this march, lieutenant colonel sohr had pushed on with his cavalry brigade, as an advanced guard; and now he was required to gain intelligence concerning the enemy's movements, and to seek a communication with thielemann. he found the defile of mont st guibert strongly occupied by the enemy, but could obtain no information respecting thielemann's corps. when it is considered how very near to mellery gÉrard's _corps d'armée_ must have passed, in order to fall into the namur road at sombref; it seems extraordinary that pirch, who reached that place at eleven o'clock in the forenoon of the th,--the same hour at which grouchy, then beyond wavre, received the first intimation of the defeat of napoleon,--should have permitted gÉrard to continue his retreat unmolested. his troops required rest, it is true; but had he maintained a good look out in the direction of gembloux, he would, in all probability, after the lapse of a few hours, have been enabled to fulfil his instructions so far as to have completely intercepted the retreat of a considerable portion of grouchy's army. that part of the enemy's force which lieutenant colonel sohr observed at mont st guibert, was probably the advanced guard only of gÉrard's _corps d'armée_; since its rear guard remained at the bridge of limale until nightfall. taking all the circumstances into consideration, more especially the express object of the detached movement of the second prussian _corps d'armée_, it must be admitted that, on this occasion, there was a want of due vigilance on the part of general pirch. it was on the th, also, that prince blÜcher issued, whilst at genappe, a proclamation to his army; in which he thanked the troops for their conduct during the recent struggle. * * * * * at daybreak of the th, that portion of the duke of wellington's army which had fought the battle of waterloo, broke up from its bivouac, and began to move along the high road to nivelles. those troops which had been posted in front of hal during the th, consisting of stedman's dutch-belgian division, anthing's dutch-belgian indian brigade, and colonel estorff's hanoverian cavalry brigade, under prince frederick of the netherlands; as also of johnstone's british infantry brigade, and lyon's hanoverian infantry brigade, under lieutenant general sir charles colville, were likewise directed to march upon nivelles. the army occupied nivelles and the surrounding villages during the night of the th; in the course of which the duke arrived from brussels, and established his head quarters in the town. * * * * * an hour's rest was all that the harassing pursuit by the prussians permitted napoleon to enjoy at charleroi; and he was compelled to fly across the sambre, without the slightest chance of being enabled to check that pursuit on the belgian side of the frontier. the following inscription, which has been cut over the centre of the archway of the charleroi gate, is singularly appropriate to the flight of napoleon on this memorable occasion: "abiit. excessit. evasit. ervpit." the circumstances, however, under which the flight of cataline here described, and that of napoleon, took place, form a strange contrast. the former, subdued in the senate by the indignant philippics and burning eloquence of cicero, escaped from rome to the rebel camp of manlius, to take up arms against his native city for the purpose of satisfying the cravings of his profligate ambition; and the latter, defeated in the battle field, fled to the capital, in the vain hope of obtaining from the senate of his country further means of waging war against the legitimate sovereign. from charleroi, napoleon proceeded to philippeville; whence he hoped to be able to communicate more readily with grouchy. he continued here four hours; which he employed in expediting orders to generals rapp, lecourbe, and lamarque, to advance with their respective _corps d'armée_ by forced marches to paris: and also to the commandants of fortresses, to defend themselves to the last extremity. he desired soult to collect together all the troops that might arrive at this point, and conduct them to laon; for which place he himself started with post horses, at two o'clock in the afternoon. the general disposition of the respective armies on the evening of the th, was as follows:-- the anglo-allied army, which constituted the right wing of the advancing forces, was at nivelles and its vicinity. the duke of wellington's head quarters were at nivelles. of the prussian army, which formed the left wing, its first _corps d'armée_ was at charleroi; second corps on the march to mellery; third corps at st achtenrode; fourth corps at fontaine l'evêque; fifth brigade of the second corps at anderlues, near fontaine l'evêque. prince blÜcher's head quarters were at gosselies. the disorganized force of the main french army was in the vicinity of beaumont, philippeville, and avesnes. napoleon was posting towards laon. the detached portion of the french army under grouchy was on the march to namur. * * * * * the duke of wellington, in whose character the highest military talents of the warrior were so intimately blended with the most comprehensive views of the statesman, did not allow the dazzling allurements which beset the path of a conqueror to divert him for a single moment from that fixedness of purpose, or to dim that penetrating foresight which so peculiarly distinguished his proceedings on all great occasions of a similar nature, involving the peace, the honour, and the security of not only his own sovereign and country, but also of all the allied powers, in whose interests he was so actively engaged. he did not view the great battle he had gained in the light of an event to be followed up by an irruption into the enemy's country, conducted in such a manner as to humble to the dust the national pride of the french people; and to impose upon them the whole weight and burthen of the oppressions, ravages, and horrors which generally follow in the train of a victorious and lawless soldiery over the face of an enemy's country. his sole aim was directed to the carrying out of the great object of the war, which comprised not only the annihilation of the power of napoleon and of the adherents to his cause, but also the restoration of the legitimate sovereign to the throne of france. with the latter sovereign he had been in constant communication, devising means for his protection during his temporary exile in the netherlands; and now that the armies were on the point of crossing the frontier, counselling him to hasten forward and show himself in the midst of his people: in order that by identifying his cause with the common object of the allied powers he might avail himself of all the influence and advantages to be derived from the recent victory; and become, as it were, a participator in the brilliant successes which attended their arms on the glorious th of june. in proof of the sincerity of his intentions, and as a first step towards securing the good will, if not the friendly disposition, of the french people, more especially of the legitimists and the well and peaceably disposed; the duke issued the following general order to the whole of the troops under his command:-- nivelles, th june, . _general order._ . as the army is about to enter the french territory, the troops of the nations, which are at present under the command of field marshal the duke of wellington, are desired to recollect that their respective sovereigns are the allies of his majesty the king of france; and that france ought, therefore, to be treated as a friendly country. it is therefore required that nothing should be taken, either by officers or soldiers, for which payment be not made. the commissaries of the army will provide for the wants of the troops in the usual manner; and it is not permitted either to soldiers or officers to extort contributions. the commissaries will be authorised either by the field marshal, or by the generals who command the troops of the respective nations, in cases where their provisions are not supplied by an english commissary, to make the proper requisitions, for which regular receipts will be given; and it must be strictly understood that they will themselves be held responsible for whatever they obtain in way of requisition from the inhabitants of france, in the same manner in which they would be esteemed accountable for purchases made for their own government in the several dominions to which they belong. . the field marshal takes this opportunity of returning to the army his thanks for their conduct in the glorious action fought on the th instant, and he will not fail to report his sense of their conduct in the terms which it deserves to their several sovereigns. wellington. on the same day, the duke, in consequence of a report received by him from lieutenant general lecoq, and of a previous communication made to him by the king of saxony, consented to take command of the saxon _corps d'armée_, amounting to nearly , men. he directed the above general to march these troops to antwerp, and there await further orders. * * * * * the anglo-allied army marched this day to binche and mons. the british cavalry moved into villages between roeulx and mons. vivian's hussar brigade took the outpost duties on the sambre. the hanoverian cavalry furnished outposts towards maubeuge. the duke fixed his head quarters at binche. blÜcher, having secured the passage of the sambre in the neighbourhood of charleroi, continued his pursuit of the enemy, and crossed the french frontier on the th. he directed zieten to march the first _corps d'armée_ from charleroi to beaumont, to throw forward his advanced guard as far as solre le château, to detach a party of observation to the left towards florenne, and to watch the road from philippeville to beaumont. as the first _corps d'armée_ advanced, it discovered at every step fresh proofs of the extreme disorder in which the french army had retreated; and found twelve pieces of artillery which they had hitherto contrived to save from the great wreck at waterloo, but had now abandoned to their pursuers. on arriving at beaumont, the corps took up a bivouac. its advanced guard, under general jagow, consisting of the third infantry brigade, the st silesian hussars, and a horse battery, reached solre le château upon the road to avesnes. the prince, at the same time, ordered bÜlow to move the fourth _corps d'armée_ as far as colleret, where the road to thuin intersects the high road from beaumont to maubeuge, and to push on the advanced guard to beaufort. bÜlow accordingly directed general sydow to proceed with an advanced guard, consisting of a cavalry brigade, a horse battery, and two battalions of infantry, which had the day before reached lermes on the road to thuin, and to ascertain very particularly whether the french had established themselves on the sambre, to secure the bridges both here and at lobbes, and further, to restore these passages, should they have been destroyed by the enemy. another detachment, under colonel eicke, consisting of two fusilier battalions, the two squadrons attached to the thirteenth brigade, and of the nd silesian hussars, was sent forward to take possession, in the first instance, of the passages of the sambre, and then to join general sydow; who, proceeding by colleret towards beaufort, was to form both detachments into an advanced guard on reaching the latter place. in the mean time, the mass of the fourth corps, headed by the reserve cavalry under prince william of prussia, followed in one column. the progress made by this portion of the prussian army on the th was not so rapid as was desirable. considerable delay arose in consequence of the degree of caution imparted to the movements by the impression which bÜlow entertained that the enemy would defend the passages, and endeavour to maintain himself along the opposite side of the river. hence the advanced guard of the corps only reached ferrière la petite; part of the main body proceeded as far as montignies, and the remainder with the reserve artillery, did not get farther than the bridges across the sambre. the fifth brigade (belonging to the second _corps d'armée_) had started at daybreak from its bivouac at anderlues, near fontaine l'evêque; and directed its march, by binche, upon villers, towards maubeuge. the brigade was reinforced by one hundred dragoons under major busch, and half a horse battery; which detachment arrived at villers at five o'clock in the afternoon. this cavalry was employed in observing the fortress of maubeuge, from the mons road, as far as the sambre; and the brigade bivouacked at villers. a hanoverian regiment of hussars also observed the fortress on the right of the prussian cavalry upon the bavay road. * * * * * the left wing of the prussian army, comprising the third, and part of the second, _corps d'armée_, came into collision with the enemy this day, when pursuing that part of the french army which was under grouchy. thielemann, having learned that the latter had commenced his retreat upon gembloux, marched at five o'clock in the morning from st achtenrode to wavre; where he further ascertained that already on the afternoon of the th, the french had effected their retreat across the dyle, leaving only a rear guard on the left bank of the river. grouchy, when he decided on retiring upon namur, ordered general bonnemains to move on rapidly, by gembloux, with the th and th dragoons, as an advanced guard, and to reach that town as soon as possible, and secure the passage of the sambre. they were followed by the remainder of excelmans' cavalry, and the reserve artillery, together with the wounded. the infantry was put in motion in two columns: the one, consisting of the third _corps d'armée_, proceeding by gembloux; and the other, comprising the fourth corps, passing more to the right, and falling into the namur road in rear of sombref. the light cavalry was principally with the rear guard. to deceive thielemann, grouchy left his rear guard in wavre and limale, with cavalry picquets thrown out towards the prussians, until near evening; when it followed the main body to namur. thielemann, having placed the whole of his cavalry, with eight pieces of horse artillery, at the head of his column, now ordered them to move on at a trot, for the purpose of overtaking the enemy; but it was not until they had passed gembloux that they discovered the rear of grouchy's force, consisting of a few regiments of cavalry. these, however, now made so rapid a retreat, that it was impossible to bring them to action. at length, on arriving near the village of fallize, within about three miles from namur, the prussians found vandamme's rear guard posted on the brow of the declivity at the foot of which lay the town, in the valley of the meuse. it presented about two battalions of infantry, three regiments of cavalry, and four guns; and was formed to cover the retreat of the french troops. the prussian battery immediately opened a fire; during which colonel marwitz, moving out to the right, with the first cavalry brigade, and count lottum to the left, with the second, turned the enemy in both flanks. the latter brought forward a reserve of cavalry, when the th prussian uhlans, under colonel count dohna, at the head of the column that turned the enemy's left, made a most gallant attack upon the french dragoons; who met it with a volley from their carbines, but were overthrown. the th uhlans and a squadron of the th hussars also charged on this occasion, and captured three pieces of french horse artillery, which were in the act of moving off, as also fifty cavalry horses. the enemy's infantry now threw itself into the adjacent wood, with which the declivities that here lead down into the valley of the meuse are covered, and thus succeeded in preventing the prussians from following up their success. at this moment, intelligence was received that general pirch was pursuing the enemy with the second _corps d'armée_ upon the high road leading from sombref to namur; whereupon the cavalry of the third corps was moved into this direction. a french column, consisting of about twelve battalions and two batteries, but without any cavalry, was perceived marching along that road. they belonged to gÉrard's _corps d'armée_, which had effected its retreat by limale, through mont st guibert. upon the height on which the château of flavinnes is situated was posted a detachment from vandamme's corps, consisting of from four to five battalions with a battery, and a regiment of cavalry, for the purpose of receiving gÉrard's column as it fell back, and of protecting its retreat. as the enemy continued its retrograde march in close column and in good order; it was not deemed advisable to undertake an attack with the two prussian cavalry brigades of the third corps, which were much fatigued: but the horse battery was drawn up, and discharged several rounds of shell and grape at the french troops during their retreat upon the town. the latter, therefore, quitted the high road, and moved along the adjacent heights until they reached the battalions which had been drawn up in support, and which now opposed the further advance of pirch's _corps d'armée_. at this time, thielemann's cavalry withdrew, leaving the further pursuit of the enemy to the latter corps--to the movements of which it is now necessary to recur. it was not until five o'clock in the morning of the th that pirch received intelligence that the enemy was retiring by gembloux upon namur. lieutenant colonel sohr was immediately detached, in all haste, to gembloux with his cavalry brigade, a battery of horse artillery, and the fusilier battalions of the th, th, and rd regiments, as an advanced guard. on approaching that town, lieutenant colonel sohr ascertained that thielemann's cavalry was pursuing the enemy along the high road from gembloux to namur. he therefore decided upon marching by the narrow road on the right of the _chaussée_ leading from sombref, in full trot, covered by the wood, to overtake the french troops in retreat. at temploux, the latter presented a force of two battalions, some cavalry, and four pieces of artillery in position, prepared to cover the retreating column. lieutenant colonel sohr immediately attacked with both the regiments of hussars, supported by the battery of horse artillery; and defeated this portion of the enemy's forces. it was at this moment, too, that a cannonade was opened upon the latter by the horse battery, before mentioned, of thielemann's corps; whereupon it fell back upon the favourable position taken up near flavinnes, and in which the enemy appeared determined to make a stand. pirch immediately ordered the attack, and directed that it should be supported by major general krafft with the sixth brigade, which had closely followed the advanced guard, and had come up with the latter at four o'clock in the afternoon. three columns of attack were formed. the first consisted of the st battalion of the th regiment, the fusilier battalion of the th regiment, and the st battalion of the st elbe landwehr. it was under the command of major schmidt, and detached to the left of the road, to drive back the enemy's troops posted in the wood and upon the heights. the second consisted of the st and nd battalions of the th regiment, and the nd battalion of the th regiment, under colonel reuss, and of the nd and rd battalions of the elbe landwehr, under colonel bismark. this column, which advanced partly on the right, and partly on the left, of the road, was supported by the battery no , and led by major general krafft in person. the third column comprised the fusilier battalions which had constituted the infantry of the advanced guard; and was detached more to the right, towards the sambre, to support the general advance upon namur. general krafft, after having kept up a fire, for a short time, upon the enemy with his artillery, ordered the attack with his infantry. colonel reuss threw out his skirmishers, who were quickly followed by the columns of attack. the enemy, after some little resistance, was fairly driven into namur by a charge with bayonets, and suffered much loss. in the mean time, major schmidt, with his column of three battalions, had turned the enemy's right flank on the louvain road; and the french were now limited to the defence of the suburb, which, however, was maintained with great obstinacy. the prussian columns of attack, advancing at the _pas de charge_, drove the enemy out of the suburb, and endeavoured to gain possession of the gates of the town. colonel zastrow, the second in command of the sixth brigade, wished to burst open the gate which leads to the louvain road; but was repulsed by a most murderous fire of musketry and grape, directed upon the assailants from the walls of the town. on repeating the attempt, the prussian battalions fought with distinguished bravery, but with a great sacrifice of life. colonel zastrow was killed at their head; colonel bismark also fell; colonel reuss was wounded; and the sixth brigade alone lost forty four officers, and , under officers and privates. the main body of grouchy's army was at this time in full retreat upon dinant, along the defile of the meuse. the troops left in namur, to keep the prussians at bay as long as possible, consisted of general teste's division. they carefully barricaded all the gates, lined the walls facing the prussians, and made a most gallant resistance. the officers, finding that their men continued so perfectly steady as not to require their attention, armed themselves with the muskets of the wounded, and assisted in maintaining the fire from the walls. the greatest order prevailed in the town. the wounded, the provisions, and ammunition, had already been removed; and were on the line of march. general pirch was well aware that the french defended the town solely for the purpose of covering their retreat, and had therefore no intention of undertaking any serious attack; he simply wished to possess himself of the suburbs, and to hold the enemy in check by detaching troops to the porte de fer and the st nicholas gate. he thought that a demonstration against the latter gate would raise apprehensions in the minds of the french respecting the security of the bridge over the sambre. with this view, he ordered general brause to relieve, with the seventh brigade, the troops then engaged; and together with the advanced guard under lieutenant colonel sohr, to blockade the town. at the same time he directed the remainder of the corps to bivouac near temploux. general brause proceeded to post the fusilier battalion of the nd regiment in the direction of the porte de fer, and the fusilier battalion of the nd elbe landwehr towards the brussels gate. the main body of the seventh brigade, under colonel schon, was stationed in rear of the suburb. the first mentioned battalion stood, under cover, at four hundred paces distance from the porte de fer, having its _tirailleurs_ in the avenue near the gate. just as general brause rode up to examine its formation, an alarm was spread in front that the enemy was making a sortie. the general desired the commanding officer, major jochens, to lead his battalion quickly against the defenders, to overthrow them, and then, if possible, to penetrate into the town along with the retreating troops. as major jochens approached the gate, he found in its immediate vicinity the _tirailleurs_ of the sixth brigade, still maintaining the contest in that quarter. the attacking column and the _tirailleurs_ now rushed towards the gate and the walls; which the french, probably not deeming themselves strong enough to resist this pressure, abandoned in the greatest haste. general teste had, in fact, prepared everything for his retreat; and had so well calculated the time which the enemy would require in forcing an entrance by the porte de fer, that he succeeded in filing his battalions along the parapets of the bridge, which had been barricaded, and thus withdrew them to the south bank of the sambre. the prussians found it impossible to force open the gate. the windows of the adjoining house of the _douaniers_ were therefore driven in, and a small iron door which led from the interior of the house into the town was opened, and, in this manner, an entrance was effected for the assailants; who were conducted by major jochens, of the nd, and major luckowitz, of the th regiment, across the market place, and as far as the bridge over the sambre: which the french had barricaded, as before stated, and behind which they had again established themselves. these troops were closely followed by major schmidt, with the th regiment, and lastly by the nd elbe landwehr, in close column, under majors mirbach and lindern. the prussians immediately occupied the captured portion of the town; posted a column of reserve on the market place, and with loud cheers, made themselves masters of the bridge over the sambre. an attempt had been made to gain the enemy's rear, by means of a ford in this river; but it proved unsuccessful. the french were driven with so much impetuosity towards the gate leading out to dinant, that there appeared every probability of a considerable number of them falling into the hands of the prussians. the former, however, had heaped up large bundles of wood, intermingled with straw and pitch, against the gate, and set them on fire on the approach of the prussian troops. the gate and the street were soon in flames, and the pursuit was thus obstructed; but even had this not occurred, the great fatigue of the troops who, during the previous sixteen hours, had been either marching or fighting, was sufficient to deprive them of the power of following the retreating enemy with any degree of vigour. after nine o'clock in the evening, the town was in the possession of the prussians. major schmidt took the command at the dinant gate and major jochens at the bridge over the sambre. the remaining troops of the seventh, and some battalions of the sixth, brigade were posted by general brause upon the market place. the fusilier battalions of the advanced guard, which had supported the attack, more to the right, had also advanced into the town, towards the bridge over the sambre. they had been sharply cannonaded by the enemy from the right bank of the sambre. a small party of cavalry, under captain thielemann, of the pomeranian hussars, was sent forward a short distance on the road to dinant, to form the advance of the troops destined to pursue the enemy at daybreak. general teste's division retired slowly, and in good order, by the dinant road, as far as profondeville; where it took up a position during three hours. at midnight it resumed its march, and arrived at dinant at four o'clock on the following morning. this retreat of grouchy by namur upon dinant was executed in a skilful and masterly manner; and the gallant defence of the former town by general teste's division, unaided by artillery, merits the highest commendation. in this action the prussians suffered a loss, including that already mentioned as having occurred to the sixth brigade, of , men; and the french are supposed to have lost about the same number. in the last attack, the latter abandoned prisoners they had previously taken from the prussians. the second prussian _corps d'armée_ occupied namur during the night. the cavalry of the third corps bivouacked at temploux; the infantry of the latter (which had been rejoined on the march from wavre by the ninth brigade), near the town of gembloux. * * * * * the circumstances under which the french army, generally, was placed on the th of june rendered it sufficiently obvious that grouchy would be compelled to effect his retreat by namur; and further, that whatever show of resistance he might offer on that point would be solely intended to gain time for the security of his troops whilst retiring, in one column only by the long and narrow defile of the meuse which leads to dinant. aware that napoleon's defeated army was retiring along the direct line of operation, the charleroi road; he immediately saw the imminent risk of his own retreat becoming intercepted, and the consequent necessity of his effecting the latter in a parallel direction, with a view to his rejoining the main army as soon as practicable. to retire, therefore, by gembloux upon namur, and thence along the line of the meuse, by dinant and givet, naturally presented itself as the true and proper course to be pursued. to generals in command of _corps d'armée_, such as thielemann and pirch, a little reflection upon grouchy's critical position must have led to a similar conclusion. the inactivity of the former, during the afternoon and evening of the th, is probably to be explained by his having satisfied himself that the longer grouchy continued in the vicinity of wavre, the greater became the chance of his retreat being cut off by a portion of the allied armies; which, in their advance, would reach the sambre much sooner than it would be in the power of the french marshal to do: and that, therefore, it would be injudicious on his part to attempt to force the latter from the position, which appearances induced him to believe he still occupied with his entire force, on the dyle. he may also have been strengthened in this opinion by the circumstance of his not having received any positive instructions as to his future dispositions, or any reinforcements to secure for him a preponderance over grouchy. with pirch, however, the case was very different. he received distinct orders, on the evening of the th, to march at once from the field of waterloo, and continue his movement during that night, so as to cut off grouchy's retreat upon the sambre. it has already been explained, that on reaching mellery, at eleven o'clock on the following morning, he halted to give his troops rest; that he subsequently ascertained, through lieutenant colonel sohr, who had been despatched, during the march, with his cavalry brigade to reconnoitre on the left, that the french occupied the defile of mont st guibert in force. this intelligence might have satisfied him that grouchy had not yet reached namur; but, if he entertained any doubts on that point, these could easily have been settled by means of a reconnoitring party, detached from mellery, by gentinne, and st gery, to gembloux, a distance of seven miles. he would then have learned, that no portion whatever of grouchy's force had hitherto crossed this line, in retreat; that he had, consequently, gained considerably on his rear, and had it in his power, after allowing a few hours rest to his troops, to march them by the high road which leads directly from mellery into the high road near sombref, and to anticipate grouchy in the possession of namur. in this case, grouchy, on approaching the latter place, and finding it occupied by pirch, would, in all probability, have hesitated to risk the loss of so much time as an attempt to force the town and the pont de sambre would necessarily incur, and have preferred endeavouring to pass his troops across the sambre by some of the bridges and fords between charleroi and namur, and retire upon either philippeville or dinant; but with a prussian _corps d'armée_ at each of these points, and another in his rear, this would have been, to say the least of it, a most hazardous undertaking; and if he attempted to cross the meuse below namur, his chance of regaining napoleon's army would have been still more remote. but setting aside the circumstance of pirch's not having, in this manner, taken due advantage of the position in which he stood relatively with grouchy during the th; and passing to the fact, that he first learned, at five o'clock on the morning of the th, whilst still at mellery, that the enemy was retiring along the high road from gembloux to namur, pursued by thielemann's cavalry: it seems strange that, inferring, as he must naturally have done, that grouchy would only endeavour to hold out long enough at namur to effect his passage by the pont de sambre, and to cover his retreat to dinant, he did not immediately move off by his right, and push his troops across the sambre by some of the bridges and fords higher up the stream; and then, marching in the direction of profondeville, under cover of the wood of villers within the angle formed by the confluence of the sambre and the meuse, intercept grouchy's retreat through the long and narrow defile in which the road to dinant winds by the side of the last mentioned river. the situation in which grouchy would have been placed by a movement of this kind--his troops in a long, narrow, precipitous defile, obstructed in front by pirch, and attacked in rear by thielemann--would have been perilous in the extreme. pirch probably felt that his _corps d'armée_, part of which was then attached to the army pressing the enemy by the charleroi road, was not equal to cope with grouchy's troops; but in the case here supposed, by judiciously disposing his force then present so as to command the defile at some favourable point in its course, he would have secured for himself an advantage which, under such circumstances, would have fully compensated for his deficiency in regard to numbers. the scattered remnants of the main french army continued to be hurried forward in wild confusion across the frontier. some of the fugitives hastened towards avesnes, others to philippeville: whilst a very great proportion of them sought no temporary rest of this kind, but, throwing away their arms, fled into the interior, to return to their homes; the cavalry, in many instances, disposing of their horses to the country people. several of the superior officers hastily collected such of the troops as appeared better disposed, and conducted them in the direction of laon. napoleon reached the latter town in the afternoon of the th. after conferring with the _préfet_, he desired m. de bussy, one of his aides de camp, to superintend the defence of this important place; and despatched general dejean to avesnes, and general flahaut to guise. in the mean time, a body of troops had been discerned in the distance, moving towards the town. napoleon sent an aide de camp to reconnoitre it; when it proved to be a column of about three thousand men, which soult, jerome, morand, colbert, petit, and pelet had succeeded in rallying and preserving in order. napoleon now appeared intent upon remaining at laon until the remainder of the army had reassembled: but he subsequently yielded to the force of the arguments expressed in opposition to this determination by the duke of bassano and others who were present, and took his departure for paris; purposing, at the same time, to return to laon on the th or th of the month. * * * * * the following was the general disposition of the respective armies on the evening of the th:-- the anglo-allied army had its right at mons, and its left at binche. the british cavalry was cantoned in the villages of strepy, thieu, boussoit sur haine, ville sur haine, and coegnies; vivian's brigade in those of merbes ste. marie, bienne le hapart, and mons: and the hanoverian cavalry in those of givry and croix. the reserve was at soignies. the duke of wellington's head quarters were at binche. the prussian army had its first _corps d'armée_ at beaumont; fourth corps at collerets: second corps at namur, with the exception of the fifth brigade, which was on the march to blockade maubeuge, and bivouacked at villers: third corps was at gembloux, with its cavalry bivouacked at temploux. prince blÜcher's head quarters were at merbes le château. the french army under napoleon was completely dispersed. a few of the troops took refuge in avesnes, others in guise, and the principal body of them evincing any kind of order, but not exceeding three thousand men, reached laon. the french forces under grouchy were at dinant. napoleon quitted laon for paris. * * * * * on the st, the duke of wellington crossed the french frontier, moving the principal portion of his army to bavay, and the remainder from mons upon valenciennes, which fortress was immediately blockaded; and established his head quarters at malplaquet, celebrated as the scene of the glorious victory gained by the duke of marlborough and prince eugene over the french under marshals villars and boufflers on the th of september . both the allied commanders had now reached the triple line of fortresses, which, until the campaign of proved the contrary, had been considered by so many military men as presenting an insurmountable barrier to the advance of hostile armies into france by its north-eastern frontier. it was most essential that some of the principal fortresses should be secured; and made to constitute a new basis whence to direct the operations now contemplated against the interior. the following, which first presented themselves on the respective lines of advance of the two commanders, were destined to be immediately blockaded:--valenciennes, lequesnoy, and cambray, by the anglo-allied army; and maubeuge, landrecy, avesnes, and rocroi, by the prussians. the general arrangements for the besieging of the fortresses, and the planning of the further operations, above alluded to, were to form the subject of a conference to be held very shortly between the chiefs. prince blÜcher having, on this day, received reports from pirch and thielemann, detailing their proceedings during the two previous days, and showing that grouchy had succeeded in effecting his escape by dinant, immediately ordered that the second _corps d'armée_ should move upon thuin, and place itself under the orders of prince augustus of prussia; who was to undertake the besieging of the fortresses to be left in rear of the prussian army; and that the third corps should march by charleroi, and follow the first and fourth corps as a reserve. it will be recollected that captain thielemann was sent forward from namur, with a party of the pomeranian hussars, on the night of the th, a short distance along the road to dinant. he was joined at daybreak of the st by lieutenant colonel sohr, with the fusilier battalions of the th and rd regiments, the brandenburg and pomeranian hussars, and five pieces of horse artillery; when the whole force followed the enemy towards dinant. the latter had, during his retreat, seized every favourable opportunity in narrow and rocky parts of the defile, to barricade the road, and offer every obstruction to the pursuit: by means of which precaution, and the previous night march, the french contrived to gain so considerably in advance, that lieutenant colonel sohr deemed it prudent, when near dinant, to forego all further pursuit; and to endeavour to effect a junction with the main body of the prussian army, by moving upon florennes and walcour. at the former place he halted his detachment during the night of the st; and, in this manner, covered the left flank of the main army. anxious to gain intelligence concerning the assembling and marching of the french troops on the left of the allied armies, prince blÜcher despatched major falkenhausen, with the rd regiment of silesian landwehr cavalry, to scour the country in the vicinity of the road by rettel to laon. a detachment of fifty dragoons was posted at bossule le valcourt, in observation of philippeville. the fourth _corps d'armée_ was ordered by the prince to advance, this day, as far as maroilles, upon the road from maubeuge to landrecies. its advanced guard, under general sydow, was directed to proceed still further, and to blockade the latter fortress. * * * * * zieten, in pursuance of orders which he had received the night before, marched with the first _corps d'armée_ upon avesnes; which fortress, the advanced guard, under general jagow, was directed to blockade on both sides of the helpe. the march of the corps was made in two columns: the right, consisting of the first and second brigades, proceeded by semonsies, and halted at the junction of the road from maubeuge with that from beaumont to avesnes; the left, comprising the fourth brigade, the reserve cavalry, and reserve artillery, marched by solre le château, towards avesnes, and bivouacked near the first and second brigades. two companies of the fourth brigade, with twenty dragoons, were left to garrison beaumont; but after the capture of avesnes, they were ordered to move on to the latter place. it was between three and four o'clock when the advanced guard of the third brigade, consisting of the st silesian hussars, two rifle companies, and a fusilier battalion, arrived in front of the fortress of avesnes. the commandant having rejected zieten's summons to surrender, the latter ordered the bombardment to be commenced forthwith. ten howitzers, of which six were ten pounders and four seven pounders, drew up on the flank of the cavalry, and fired upon the town. the houses of the latter being all strongly built, the shells failed in setting any part on fire; and a twelve pounder battery produced no great effect upon the firm masonry of the works. at nightfall the bombardment was suspended; with the intention, however, of resuming it at midnight. when it ceased, a sortie was made by the french _tirailleurs_; but these were immediately encountered and gallantly driven in by the silesian rifles, who lost ten men on this occasion. immediately after midnight, the prussian batteries recommenced their fire. at the fourteenth round, a ten pounder shell struck the principal powder magazine, when a tremendous explosion ensued, by which forty houses were involved in one common ruin; but it occasioned no damage whatever to the fortifications. the panic, however, which it created amidst the garrison was such as to induce the latter to express its desire to capitulate. such a desire could only have proceeded from the want of sufficient energy on the part of the commandant, or from a bad disposition evinced by the garrison; for when the prussians subsequently entered the place, they found in it , cartridges for cannon, and a million musket ball cartridges. there were also in the fortress forty seven pieces of artillery, mostly of heavy calibre; which were now made available in the besieging of the remaining fortresses. the garrison, comprising three battalions of national guards, and two hundred veterans, were made prisoners of war. the national guards were disarmed, and sent off to their respective homes; but the veterans were conducted to cologne. the possession of avesnes, gained too with so little sacrifice of life, and with none of time, was of essential importance to the prussians; offering as it did a secure depôt for their material and supplies upon their new line of operation. it also served for the reception of their sick, and all who had been rendered incapable of keeping up with the army. * * * * * on the st, the french army continued collecting its scattered remnants between avesnes and laon. * * * * * the following was the general disposition of the respective armies on the evening of the st: the anglo-allied army had its principal force at bavay; and its right at valenciennes, which it blockaded. the duke of wellington's head quarters were at malplaquet. the prussian army had its first _corps d'armée_ near avesnes. the fourth corps at maroilles; its reserve cavalry blockading landrecy. the second corps at thuin, except the fifth brigade which blockaded maubeuge. the third corps at charleroi. prince blÜcher's head quarters were at noyelles sur sambre. the defeated portion of the french army lay between avesnes and laon. grouchy's force was at philippeville. the duke of wellington, steadfastly pursuing that line of policy which led him to constitute as an important feature of his plan, the practical assurance to the french people, that, although entering their country as a conqueror, he did so in hostility to none, save the usurper and his adherents, issued the following proclamation, previously to his quitting malplaquet:-- proclamation. proclamation. "je fais savoir aux français que "i make known to the french j'entre dans leur pays à la tête that i enter their country at the d'une armée déjà victorieuse, non en head of an army already victorious, ennemi (excepté de l'usurpateur, not as an enemy (except of the prononcé l'ennemi du genre usurper, declared to be the enemy humain, avec lequel on ne peut of mankind; with whom may be avoir ni paix ni trêve), mais pour had neither peace nor truce), but les aider à secouer le joug de fer to help them to shake off the yoke par lequel ils sont opprimés. of iron with which they are oppressed. "en consequence j'ai donné les "in consequence i have given the ordres ci joints à mon armée, et je annexed orders to my army, and demande qu'on me fasse connaître i request that i may be informed tout infracteur. of all infringers of them. "les français savent cependant "the french know, however, que j'ai le droit d'exiger qu'ils se that i have the right to require conduisent de manière que je that they will conduct themselves puisse les protéger contre ceux in such a manner that i may be able qui voudraient leur faire du mal. to protect them against those who would do them harm. "il faut donc qu'ils fournissent "it is necessary, then, that they aux réquisitions qui leur seront supply the requisitions which will faites de la part des personnes be made upon them by persons autorisées à les faire, en échange authorized to make the same, in pour des reçus en forme et ordre; exchange for the receipts in order et qu'ils se tiennent chez eux and form; and that they will stay paisiblement, et qu'ils n'aient at home peaceably; and that they aucune correspondence ou communication will not have any correspondence avec l'usurpateur ennemi, nor communication with the enemy ni avec ses adhérens. usurper nor with his adherents. "tous ceux qui s'absenteront de "all those who will absent leur domicile après l'entrée en themselves from their homes after france, et tous ceux qui se the entry in france and all those trouveront absens au service de who will be absent in the service l'usurpateur, seront considérés of the usurper, will be considered comme ses adhérens et comme as his adherents and as enemies; ennemis; et leurs propriétés and their properties will be seront affectées à la subsistance de appropriated to the subsistence of l'armée. the army. "donné au quartier général à "given at the head quarters malplaquet, ce de juin, . at malplaquet, this nd of june . "wellington." "wellington." no proclamation of a similar nature was issued by prince blÜcher, nor were any direct orders given by the latter to remind his troops that france was "to be treated as a friendly country," or to forbid them taking anything "for which payment be not made." hence, in the advance to paris, a marked contrast was observed between the conduct of the prussian, and that of the anglo-allied, army: the troops of the former committing great excesses and imposing severe exactions along their whole line of march; whilst the british and german troops under the duke of wellington acquired from the outset the good will and kindly disposition of the inhabitants of the country through which they passed. the anglo-allied troops inspired the people with confidence: the prussians awed them into subjection. much of the cause of all this may be traced to the different views entertained by the two great commanders. blÜcher's extreme hatred of the french would not allow him to modify, still less to abandon, the opinion which he had imbibed from the first moment he heard of the escape of napoleon from elba; that they ought not only to be thoroughly humbled, but also severely punished. neither he nor his soldiers could ever forget the monstrous cruelties and grinding extortions which their own country had been compelled to endure when overrun by the french: and now that they were once more brought into the land of their bitterest enemies, and another period of retribution had arrived; but one sentiment pervaded the whole prussian army--that those who had not scrupled to inflict the scourge of war throughout the whole continent, should, in their turn, be made duly sensible of its evils. a contrary train of ideas, or a different course of proceeding, on the part of the prussians was scarcely to be expected. hence the value of the excellent and orderly conduct of the british troops operating as a salutary counterpoise to the domineering and revengeful spirit which actuated the prussians. blÜcher felt equally with wellington that the advance upon paris before the approach of the allied armies, which were then only crossing the rhine, was a departure from strictly military principles; and that this could only be justified by the extraordinary moral effect which would be produced by the signal defeat of napoleon. but his views were limited to the military part of the plan, which was to make a dash at the capital; and, if possible, to intercept grouchy whilst endeavouring to rejoin the routed force under soult. wellington's admirable policy embraced a wider field. he invariably kept in view the great object for which the war had been undertaken. the information which he contrived to obtain relative to the effect which napoleon's disaster produced upon the minds of the leading men of the great political parties by which france was then agitated, and upon the members of the two chambers of parliament generally, combined with the knowledge he had already acquired of the disposition of the inhabitants of the department of the north, which, in fact, had not evinced that enthusiasm attendant upon the return of napoleon from elba that was manifested throughout the greater part of the nation, convinced him that by adopting measures calculated to impress upon the french people that the allies were friendly towards them, though inveterately hostile to napoleon, and by seizing every advantage afforded by the presence and the influence of their legitimate monarch, he was, by such means, insuring the security of the operations upon paris more effectually than could have been accomplished by additional military force applied under different circumstances. the aid which such a line of conduct, on the part of the duke, gave to the cause of louis xviii. was immense. the people of the northern departments, who, in general, were wearied by the continuance of wars undertaken for the sole purpose of aggrandizing and upholding the power of napoleon; and who now longed to enjoy the blessings of peace, saw in the friendly disposition of the allies, and the support which these yielded to the king's authority, a pledge of their determination to crush the war party, and at the same time, to cement their alliance with the legitimate sovereign. the white flag was soon seen to wave from countless steeples. the tide of royalty, favoured in no small degree by the versatile nature of the french character, was already setting in fast: and as it rolled steadily on towards the capital, the duke's customary foresight and good tact gave it an impulse which not only bore him along with it in easy triumph; but, when it subsequently reached the goal, swept away every vestige of the government usurped by napoleon and his adherents. chapter xviii. on the nd of june, the second and fourth british divisions, as also the cavalry, of the anglo-allied army marched to le cateau and its vicinity. the first and third british divisions, the divisions of dutch-belgian infantry attached to the first corps, the nassau troops, and the dutch-belgian cavalry were encamped near gommignies. the fifth and sixth british divisions, the brunswick corps, and the reserve artillery, were encamped about bavay. the advanced guard (vivian's brigade) was at st benin. troops of the corps under prince frederick of the netherlands blockaded valenciennes and le quesnoy. the duke of wellington's head quarters were at le cateau. prince blÜcher being desirous of bringing his different _corps d'armée_ into closer connection, moved the first and fourth only half a march this day. the former proceeded from avesnes to etroeungt, sending forward its advanced guard to la capelle, and patrols as far as the oise: the latter marched along the road leading from landrecy towards guise, as far as fesmy; pushing forward its advanced guard to henappe, and detachments to guise. scouring parties of cavalry were also detached from the first corps in the direction of rocroi. the third prussian _corps d'armée_ advanced from charleroi to beaumont; detaching towards philippeville and chimay, for the security of its left flank. the second prussian corps, which was destined to operate against the fortresses, moved from thuin. it was disposed in the following manner:--the fifth and seventh brigades, with the cavalry, blockaded maubeuge; the sixth brigade was on the march to landrecy; and the eighth brigade was moving upon philippeville and givet. prince blÜcher's head quarters were at catillon sur sambre. * * * * * grouchy's troops, on this day, reached rocroi. * * * * * the remains of the vanquished portion of the french army continued retiring upon laon, and collecting in its vicinity. soult had established the head quarters at this place. the men and horses of the artillery train were moved on to la fère, to be supplied with new ordnance; and every means was adopted to replace this branch of the service on an efficient footing. grouchy was effecting his retreat upon soissons, by the line of rocroi, réthel, and rheims; and it was considered, that as soon as the latter should be able to unite his force to the remains of the army collecting under soult, it would yet be found practicable, with the additional aid of reserves, to stem the advance of the allies. but where was the chief whose presence had heretofore been the spell by which a turbulent and restless soldiery was wont, when subdued by the _fortune de la guerre_, to be restored to its former self, and to be imbued with new life and renovated strength by the prospect of acquiring fresh glory in retrieving a great national disaster? had he flown towards the nearest _corps d'armée_ of rapp and lecourbe, to lead them, along with all the reserves that he could possibly collect together, including the regimental depôts, the _gensd'armerie_, and even the _douanerie_, against the flank of the victorious armies of wellington and blÜcher, during their hazardous advance upon the capital; and, in combination with soult and grouchy, to effect their separation, perhaps their destruction? no! the sword by which the empire had been raised and held in subjection, by which europe itself had been enthralled and all but conquered, had fallen powerless from his grasp. in him were no longer centred the might and the will of imperial france. these had been delegated through the constitution, to the organs of the nation, the elected representatives of the people. he no longer possessed, in his own person, the administrative and the executive; but was under the control of that power which, as before observed, when he quitted paris to join the army, he dreaded more than the enemy he was going to confront--the power of public opinion legitimately expressed. if he had so keenly felt its force before his downfall on the battle field; how great, nay, how hopeless, must have appeared to him the task of endeavouring to soothe its excitement, and to obtain its sanction to renewed sacrifices, when suddenly appearing in paris on the afternoon of the st of june--but one short week from the time of his assuming the command of his army--himself to announce the disastrous result of his enterprise. the imperialists in the capital, who had indulged in the most extravagant hopes engendered by the news of the victory at ligny, had scarcely manifested their exultation when sinister rumours began to spread of some sudden reverses which had befallen the cause of napoleon; and presently all doubts and suspense were removed by the unexpected appearance of the emperor himself, which gave rise to the most gloomy anticipations. napoleon immediately summoned a cabinet council. he frankly explained to his ministers the critical state of affairs; but, at the same time, with his usual confidence in his own resources, declared his conviction, that if the nation were called upon to rise _en masse_, the annihilation of the enemy would follow; but that if, instead of ordering new levies and adopting extraordinary measures, the chambers were to allow themselves to be drawn into debates, and to waste their time in disputation, all would be lost. "now that the enemy is in france," he added, "it is necessary that i should be invested with extraordinary power, that of a temporary dictatorship. as a measure of safety for the country, i might assume this power; but it would be better and more national that it should be conferred upon me by the chambers." the ministers were too well acquainted with the general views and disposition of the chamber of representatives to pronounce a direct approval of this step; but napoleon, perceiving their hesitation, called upon them to express their opinion upon the measures of public safety required by existing circumstances. carnot, the minister of the interior, conceived it to be essential that the country should be declared in danger; that the _fédérés_ and national guards should be called to arms; that paris should be placed in a stage of siege, and measures adopted for its defence; that at the last extremity the armed force should retire behind the loire, and take up an intrenched position; that the army of la vendée, where the civil war had nearly terminated, as also the corps of observation in the south, should be recalled: and the enemy checked until sufficient force could be united and organised for the assumption of a vigorous offensive, by which he should be driven out of france. decrÈs, the minister of the marine, and regnault de saint jean d'angely, the secretary of state, supported this opinion; but fouchÉ, the minister of police, and the remaining ministers, remarked that the safety of the state did not depend upon any particular measure which might thus be proposed, but upon the chambers; and upon their uniting with the head of the government: and that by manifesting towards them confidence and good faith, they would be induced to declare it to be their duty to unite with napoleon in the adoption of energetic measures for securing the honour and independence of the nation. this advice on the part of fouchÉ was an artful piece of dissimulation. no man in france possessed so intimate a knowledge of the secret workings of the public mind; he knew precisely the dispositions and views of the different factions, as also the character and temperament of their leaders. he knew also that the great parties in the chambers, with the exception of the imperialists, who were in the minority but whom he secretly flattered with the prospect of a napoleon ii., were fully prepared to depose the emperor, in favour of full constitutional freedom and liberal institutions. this knowledge, obtained with an adroitness and a precision quite peculiar to this celebrated minister of police, he made completely subservient to his own personal views. these had been, from the commencement of napoleon's second reign, to coquet with the factions in such a manner as to induce each to consider him an indispensable instrument in the realisation of its hopes; and to exert this extraordinary influence either to support or to undermine the power of napoleon, according as the fortunes of the latter might be in the ascendant or on the decline. the resolute attitude assumed by the allies soon satisfied him that, although the emperor might once more dazzle the world with some brilliant feat of arms, he must eventually succumb to the fixed determination of the sovereigns to crush his usurped authority; and to the overwhelming masses with which europe was preparing to subjugate the country. he had been, and was still, in secret communication with the ministers and advisers of louis xviii.; and was consequently in full possession of the general plans and intentions of the allies. when, therefore, napoleon's enterprise had so signally failed, and the reoccupation of paris appeared to be its necessary consequence: fouchÉ foresaw clearly, that were the proposed dictatorship to be assumed by means of a sudden and forced dissolution of the chambers, implying that the recent reverses had been produced by treachery on the part of the representatives; and were new levies to be raised _en masse_, in support of the force that yet remained available; the result would inevitably be anarchy and confusion in the capital, disorder and excesses throughout the whole country, renewed disasters to the nation, together with an awful and useless sacrifice of life. to prevent such a catastrophe, it was necessary to lull napoleon's suspicions of the intentions of the chambers; with which, at the same time, fouchÉ was fully acquainted. hence it was, that to gain sufficient time for the development of these intentions, fouchÉ gave to the council the advice before mentioned. he strongly expressed his disapproval of the projected dissolution of the chambers, and assumption of the dictatorship; declaring that any measures of that kind would only tend to create distrust, and, not improbably, a general revolt. but, at the same time, his agents were making known throughout paris the fullest extent of the disasters that had befallen napoleon, and which had caused his sudden and unexpected return; and the deputies were assembling in all haste, and in great numbers, to take a bold and decided step in this great national crisis. in thus dissembling from his master the real disposition of the great political parties, and the true state of the public mind, fouchÉ, no doubt, betrayed the trust reposed in him; but, setting aside the question whether he was really influenced by patriotic motives, or merely acting upon a system of deep duplicity and time serving expediency, there can also be no doubt that, by pursuing the line of conduct which he did on this important occasion, he became the means of preserving his country from the infliction of a still further accumulation of evils. the cabinet council continued in discussion; some supporting, and others disapproving, the propositions of napoleon: who, at length, yielding to the arguments of fouchÉ and carnot, declared he would submit himself to the loyalty of the chambers, and confer with them as to the measures which the critical position of the country might render necessary. in the mean time, the deputies had met, and commenced their deliberations on the existing state of affairs. m. de la fayette, the acknowledged leader of the liberal party, having received intelligence of the subject of discussion in the council, and aware that not a moment was to be lost in averting the blow with which their liberties were menaced, ascended the tribune, and thus addressed the chamber, amidst the most profound silence, and breathless suspense:-- "representatives! for the first time during many years you hear a voice, which the old friends of liberty will yet recognise. i rise to address you concerning the dangers to which the country is exposed. the sinister reports, which have been circulated during the last two days, are unhappily confirmed. this is the moment to rally round the national colours--the tricoloured standard of --the standard of liberty, equality, and public order. it is you alone who can now protect the country from foreign attacks and internal dissensions. it is you alone who can secure the independence and the honour of france. permit a veteran in the sacred cause of liberty, in all times a stranger to the spirit of faction, to submit to you some resolutions which appear to him to be demanded by a sense of the public danger, and by the love of our country. they are such as, i feel persuaded, you will see the necessity of adopting:-- "i. the chamber of deputies declares that the independence of the nation is menaced. "ii. the chamber declares its sittings permanent. any attempt to dissolve it, shall be considered high treason. whosoever shall render himself culpable of such an attempt shall be considered a traitor to his country, and immediately treated as such. "iii. the army of the line, and the national guards, who have fought, and still fight, for the liberty, the independence, and the territory of france, have merited well of the country. "iv. the minister of the interior is invited to assemble the principal officers of the parisian national guard, in order to consult on the means of providing it with arms, and of completing this corps of citizens; whose tried patriotism and zeal offer a sure guarantee for the liberty, prosperity, and tranquillity of the capital, and for the inviolability of the national representatives. "v. the ministers of war, of foreign affairs, of police, and of the interior are invited to repair immediately to the sittings of the chamber." * * * * * no one ventured to oppose these bold resolutions; and, after a brief discussion, in which their instant adoption was urged in the strongest manner, they were carried by acclamation, with the exception of the fourth, which was suspended on account of the invidious distinction which it appeared to convey between the troops of the line and the national guards. they were then transmitted to the chamber of peers; where, after a short discussion, they were adopted without amendment. the message from the chambers, conveying these resolutions, reached the council in the midst of its deliberations. napoleon was staggered by an act which he looked upon as an usurpation of the sovereign authority. to him, who had so long exercised an almost unlimited control in the state, who had led mighty armies to victory, and who had subjected powerful nations to his despotic sway, this sudden and energetic voice of the people, conveyed through the medium of their representatives, aroused him to a full sense of the wonderful change which had been effected in the public mind, and in his own individual position, through the intervention of a constitution. he was alike indignant at what he conceived to be a daring presumption, and mortified at his own miscalculation in having convoked the chambers. _j'avais bien pensé_, he remarked, _que j'aurais dû congédier ces gens-là avant mon départ_. after some reflection, he determined, if possible, to temporize with the chambers. he sent regnault de saint jean d'angely to the chamber of deputies, in his capacity of member, to soothe the irritation that prevailed, to relate that the army had been upon the point of gaining a great victory, when disaffected individuals created a panic; that the troops had since rallied; and that the emperor had hastened to paris to concert, with the ministers and the chambers, such measures for the public safety as circumstances seemed to require. carnot was directed to make a similar communication to the chamber of peers. regnault vainly endeavoured to fulfil his mission: the deputies had lost all patience, and insisted upon the ministers presenting themselves at the bar of the house. the latter at length obeyed the summons; napoleon having consented, though with great reluctance, to their compliance with the mandate. he required them, however, to be accompanied by his brother lucien, as an extraordinary commissioner, appointed to reply to the interrogatories of the chamber. at six o'clock in the evening, lucien buonaparte and the ministers made their appearance in the chamber of deputies. lucien announced that he had been sent there by napoleon as a commissioner extraordinary, to concert with the assembly measures of safety. he then placed in the hands of the president the message of which he was the bearer from his brother. it contained a succinct recital of the disasters experienced at mont st jean: and recommended the representatives to unite with the head of the state in preserving the country from the fate of poland, and from the reimposition of the yoke which it had thrown off. it stated, also, that it was desirable that the two chambers should appoint a commission of five members, to concert with the ministers the measures to be adopted for the public safety, and the means of treating for peace with the allied powers. this message was far from being favourably received. a stormy discussion ensued, in the course of which it was soon made manifest that the deputies required a more explicit declaration of napoleon's opinions and designs: one, in fact, more in accordance with the views which the majority of them evidently entertained, and was apparently determined to enforce. one of their number significantly remarked, as he addressed himself to the ministers, "you know as well as we do, that it is against napoleon alone that europe has declared war. from this moment, separate the cause of napoleon from that of the nation. in my opinion, there exists but one individual who stands in the way between us and peace. let him pronounce the word and the country will be saved!" several of the members spoke in a similar strain, and the debate was kept up with great animation, until at length it was agreed, that in conformity with the terms of the imperial message, a commission of five members should be appointed, consisting of the president and vice presidents of the chamber, to collect, in concert with the cabinet and with a committee from the house of peers, the fullest information upon the state of france, and to propose suitable measures of safety. the committee consisted of messrs lanjuinais, la fayette, dupont de l'eure, flangergues, and grenier. lucien now presented himself, in the same capacity of commissioner extraordinary, to the chamber of peers. after hearing the message, the latter also appointed a committee, which consisted of generals drouot, dejean, andreossy, and messrs boissy d'anglas and thibaudeau. napoleon, being fully informed of the proceedings of the chamber of deputies, and of the general tenor of the debates, hesitated a long time whether to dissolve the assembly or to abdicate the imperial crown. some of his ministers, on perceiving the direction of his views, assured him that the chamber had acquired too firm a hold of the public opinion to submit to any violent _coup d'état_; and expressed their opinion, that by withholding the act of abdication, he might eventually deprive himself of the power of vacating the throne in favour of his son. nevertheless he appeared determined to defer this step to the very last moment; trusting in the mean time some favourable event might occur, tending to modify the present disposition of the chamber. the deputies again met, at an early hour on the following morning. the utmost impatience was manifested for the report of the committee. two hours having elapsed, the members became greatly excited. some of them proposed that the exigencies of the state were such, that it was their duty to adopt immediate and decisive measures, without waiting for the report. at length, in the midst of the agitation and tumult which prevailed, general grenier, the reporter of the committee, suddenly made his appearance. he stated that, after a deliberation of five hours, the committee had resolved:-- "that the safety of the country required that the emperor should consent to the nomination, by the two chambers, of a commission, charged to negotiate directly with the coalesced powers; stipulating only that they should respect the national independence, the territorial integrity, and the right which belongs to every people of adopting such constitutions as it may think proper; and that these negotiations should be supported by the prompt development of the national force." this statement excited general murmurs of disapprobation. but the reporter, aware of the expectations of the chamber, proceeded:-- "this article, gentlemen, appears to me insufficient. it does not fulfil the object which the chamber proposes to itself, because it is possible that your deputation may not be admitted. i would not, therefore, urge the adoption of this measure, had i not reason to believe that you will soon receive a message in which the emperor will declare his wish; that the effect of this should first be tried; and that, should he then prove an insuperable obstacle to the nation being permitted to treat for its independence, he will be ready to make whatever sacrifice may be demanded of him." this produced an extraordinary sensation in the assembly. it was looked upon as an artful design upon the part of napoleon to create delay by proposing to the chambers a proceeding which he was well aware would prove unsuccessful; and to seize the first favourable opportunity of destroying their independence, and re-establishing his despotism--to re-enact, in short, the eighteenth of brumaire. the tumult had reached a fearful height. many members exclaimed vehemently against the report. at length, one of them, m. duchesne, ascended the tribune, and spoke in the following energetic and decided manner:-- "i do not believe that the project proposed by the committee is capable of attaining the desired end. the greatness of our disasters cannot be denied: they are sufficiently proved by the presence of the chief of our armies in the capital. if there are no bounds to the energies of the nation, there are limits to its means. the chambers cannot offer negotiations to the allied powers. the documents which have been communicated to us demonstrate that they have uniformly refused all the overtures which have been made to them; and they have declared that they will not treat with the french, as long as they shall have the emperor at their head." the speaker was here interrupted by the president, who announced that the message to which the reporter had referred would speedily be received. the interruption, however, at this most important point of the debate, renewed the tumult in the chamber. some exclaimed, "it is a concerted plan to make us lose time." others cried out, "some plot is concerting;" and the majority vociferated, "proceed, proceed; there is no middle course." duchesne continued:-- "it is necessary that we should be certain of finding in the development of the national force, a defence sufficient to support our negotiations, and to enable us to treat with success concerning our honour and independence. can that force be developed with sufficient rapidity? may not circumstances again lead victorious armies to the capital? then, and under their auspices, will reappear the ancient family." ("never! never!" exclaimed several voices.) "i freely express my opinion. what may be the consequences of these events? we have only _one_ certain means left, which is, to engage the emperor, in the name of the safety of the state, in the sacred name of a suffering country, to declare his _abdication_." no sooner was this word pronounced than the entire assembly rose; and amidst the clamour that ensued were heard a hundred voices exclaiming, "seconded! seconded!" when, at length, the president succeeded in restoring some degree of order, he said:-- "i cannot hope to arrive at any result, unless the agitation of the assembly be repressed. the safety of the country depends on the decision of this day. i entreat the chamber to wait for the emperor's message." the proposition of duchesne was instantly supported by general solignac: an officer who, during the last five years, had been made to suffer the severest mortifications, arising from the hatred entertained towards him by napoleon, in consequence of his refusal to be the servile instrument of his ambition; and, therefore, the curiosity of the chamber was naturally excited to hear what course he was about to adopt. "and i also," said the general; "i share in the uneasiness of him who has preceded me at this tribune. yes! we ought to consider the safety of the empire, and the maintenance of our liberal institutions; and, while the government is inclined to present to you such measures as tend to this end, it appears important to preserve to the chamber the honour of not having proposed an object which ought to be the free concession of the monarch. i move that a deputation of five members shall be appointed to proceed to the emperor, which deputation shall express to his majesty the urgency of his decision. their report will, i trust, satisfy at once the wish of the assembly, and that of the nation." this proposition was most favourably received, and the president was on the point of putting it to the vote, when solignac again appeared in the tribune. "i wish," said he, "to propose an amendment to my motion. several persons have intimated to me that we shall soon be informed of his majesty's determination. i consequently think it necessary that we should wait for _one hour_, to receive the message; which it seems is to be addressed to the chambers. i therefore move that we adjourn for that time." (this part of his speech was met with great disapprobation on the part of the chamber.) "gentlemen!" continued the general, "we all wish to save our country; but can we not reconcile this unanimous sentiment with the laudable desire that the chamber should preserve the honour of the chief of the state?" (cries of "yes! yes!") "if i requested that we should wait until this evening or tomorrow, some considerations might be opposed--but, one hour"--("yes! yes! to the vote!" was the general exclamation; and the chamber adjourned). in the mean time, napoleon had been made acquainted with the disposition of the chamber of representatives, by regnault de saint jean d'angely; who hastened to warn him that if he did not immediately abdicate, his deposition would, in all probability, be declared. he was enraged at the idea of this contemplated violence. "since that is the case," he said, "i will not abdicate at all. the chamber is composed of a set of jacobins, impracticables, and intriguers; who are seeking for disorder, or for place. i ought to have denounced them to the nation, and given them their dismissal. the time that has been lost may yet be recovered." regnault, however, urged him in the strongest manner to yield to imperious circumstances, and to renew the noble and generous sacrifice he made in . he assured him that if he did not take this step, he would be accused by the chamber, and even by the whole nation, of having, out of personal considerations alone, prevented the possibility of obtaining peace. solignac and other deputies were then announced. they boldly declared to him that he had no other course open to him but that of submission to the desire entertained by the representatives of the nation. solignac described to him the scene in the chamber of deputies, and the difficulty he had experienced in inducing the latter to suspend, even for one hour, their decision; which, if not anticipated by a voluntary abdication, would entail upon him the disgrace of forfeiture. even his brothers, lucien and joseph, now gave their opinion that the moment for resistance had passed. when the paroxysm of rage, to which these representations gave rise, had subsided: napoleon announced his determination to abdicate in favour of his son; and, desiring his brother lucien to take a pen, he dictated to him the following declaration:-- "frenchmen! in commencing the war for maintaining the national independence, i relied on the union of all efforts, of all desires, and the concurrence of all the national authorities. i had reason to hope for success, and i braved all the declarations of the powers allied against me. "circumstances appear to be changed. i offer myself a sacrifice to the hatred of the enemies of france. may they prove sincere in their declarations, and have really directed them solely against my power. my political life is terminated; and i proclaim my son, under the title of napoleon ii., emperor of the french. "the present ministers will form provisionally the council of the government. the interest which i take in my son induces me to invite the chamber to form the regency by a law without delay. "unite all for the public safety, in order to remain an independent nation. "napoleon." this was the last great act of his political life. defeated and humbled by foreign enemies, subdued and controlled by the representatives of the nation; he was forced to descend from a throne whence he had at one time swayed the destinies of sovereigns rendered dependent on his mighty will. almost all the previous changes and gradations in his extraordinary career had been preluded or accompanied by some magnificent scene of dramatic effect, or a violent _coup d'état_; but, in this instance, the transition was attended by no circumstance more remarkable than the quietude with which it was effected. the cessation of the political existence of such a man would have been most naturally looked for as an event coincident only with the termination of a life which, if not closed upon the pinnacle of glory, would be sought for amidst the shock of battle, or in the vortex of a state convulsion. that he meditated a second th of brumaire, there can be no doubt; but the decided tone of the debates in the national assembly, the solicitations of his friends, and the hope of securing the throne to his family, induced him to abandon all idea of such a project. it is, besides, more than probable that, aware as he was of the bad feeling that existed, to a great extent, both in the chambers and in the country, towards the bourbons; as also of the conflicting principles of the different factions, he calculated upon the chances of a revolution productive of anarchy and confusion, which he yet might be called upon to reduce to order and submission. when it is considered that the great mass of the army of the line was devoted to napoleon; that the rallied army of the north was falling back upon paris, where it would concentrate its strength and be reinforced from regimental depôts; and, further, that the armies on the eastern frontier were still holding their respective positions, and that even in la vendée the imperial troops had succeeded in quelling the insurrection,--when, in addition to all this, it is considered how great, how extraordinary, was the influence induced by the _prestige_ of napoleon with the majority of the nation, dazzled as the latter had been by countless victories that outweighed, in its estimation, those fatal disasters which it ascribed solely to the united power of the great european league established against france,--it is impossible not to be struck by the firm, bold, and determined attitude assumed by the french parliament. france, on this critical occasion, displayed one of the brightest examples the world has yet beheld of the force of constitutional legislation. under all the attendant circumstances, it was a remarkable triumph of free institutions over monarchical despotism. * * * * * it is now necessary to revert to the operations of the allied armies. on the d of june, wellington and blÜcher gave to the great mass of their troops a halt; not merely for the sake of affording them rest, but also for the purpose of collecting the stragglers, and bringing up the ammunition and the baggage. the only movement made on the part of the anglo-allied army, on this day, was that by major general lyon's sixth hanoverian brigade, which, together with grant's hussar brigade, lieutenant colonel webber smith's horse battery, major unett's and major brome's foot batteries, marched, under the personal command of sir charles colville, to attack cambray, the garrison of which, the duke had been led to believe, had abandoned the place, leaving in it at most three hundred or four hundred men. colville was furnished with a letter from the duke to the governor, summoning him to surrender; as also with some copies of his grace's proclamation of the nd to the french. the st brunswick light battalion was sent forward from the reserve at bavay, to watch le quesnoy; which fortress was still occupied by the enemy. the third prussian _corps d'armée_ was pushed forward to avesnes, by which means the three corps destined to advance upon paris were so placed that they could form a junction, with only half an ordinary march; and this relative position was maintained throughout the remainder of the line of advance. the allied commanders had an interview on this day at catillon, for the purpose of arranging their plan of combined operations. the intelligence they had procured having satisfied them that the enemy was collecting his forces at laon and soissons: they decided upon not pursuing him along that line, since their progress towards the capital might, in that case, be impeded by affairs of advanced and rear guards; but upon moving by the right bank of the oise, and crossing this river at either compiegne or pont st maxence. by thus turning the french left, they hoped to intercept the enemy's retreat, or at all events to reach paris before him; and in order to deceive him as to these intentions, he was to be followed by prussian cavalry, assuming to be the advanced guard of the allied armies. it was also settled, that as they might find it necessary to throw bridges across the oise, the british general should bring forward his pontoon train; that possessed by the prussians being inadequate for the purpose. in order to secure a good base whence to conduct these operations, it was further arranged that the corps under prince frederick of the netherlands should remain, for the purpose of besieging the fortresses situated on the scheldt, and between that river and the sambre: and that the following corps should undertake the besieging of the fortresses on the sambre, and between this last river and the moselle, namely, the second prussian _corps d'armée_, commanded by general pirch; the _corps d'armée_ of north germany, commanded at first by general count kleist von nollendorf, and subsequently by lieutenant general hacke; as also a portion of the garrison troops of luxemburg, commanded by lieutenant general prince louis of hesse homburg,--the whole of these german forces being placed under the chief command of prince augustus of prussia. this plan of operations was such as might have been expected from the combined councils of such leaders as wellington and blÜcher, and was undoubtedly the one best calculated to attain the object they had in view; and it was carried into effect with all that mutual cordiality and good fellowship which had invariably characterised their proceedings. on the morning of the th, the duke of wellington, in consequence of a report which he had received from sir charles colville, directed lord hill to march the two brigades of the fourth division then at le cateau, towards cambray, where they would join the other brigade of the division; and also to send with them a nine pounder battery. on the arrival of these troops, colville made his preparations for the attack; which took place in the evening, in the following manner. three columns of attack were formed. one commanded by lieutenant colonel sir neil campbell (major in the th regiment) escaladed at the angle formed by the valenciennes gateway and the curtain of the body of the place. a second, commanded by colonel sir william douglas, of the st regiment, and directed by lieutenant gilbert of the royal engineers, escaladed at a large ravelin near the amiens road. a third, consisting of colonel mitchell's brigade, and directed by captain thompson of the royal engineers, after having forced the outer gate of the couvre port in the hornwork, and passed both ditches, by means of the rails of the drawbridges, attempted to force the main paris gate; but not succeeding in this, it escaladed by a breach on that side, which was in a state of reparation. the three batteries of lieutenant colonel webber smith, and majors unett and brome, under the direction of lieutenant colonel hawker, rendered the most essential service in covering these attacks; which having succeeded, the town speedily fell into the hands of the assailants. the citadel continued to hold out, but the governor solicited a suspension of hostilities; which, however, could not be granted. of the anglo-allied army, the first and third british divisions, the dutch-belgian infantry attached to the first corps, and the dutch-belgian cavalry, were moved this day from gommignies, to forest, upon the road to le cateau, and then encamped between the villages of croix and bousies. the second british division continued at le cateau. the duke made no movement in advance; having found it necessary to afford additional time for the coming up of the pontoons and supplies. the reserve, consisting of the fifth and sixth divisions, of the brunswick corps, and the reserve artillery, was moved nearer to the main body; and cantoned and encamped in and about the villages of engle fontaine, rancour, and préau au bois. on this day proposals were made to the advanced posts of this corps under prince frederick of the netherlands near valenciennes, as also to those of the first prussian _corps d'armée_, for a suspension of hostilities, upon the grounds that napoleon had abdicated in favour of his son; that a provisional government had been appointed, consisting of fouchÉ, caulincourt, grenier, and quinette; and that these persons had sent ministers to the allied powers to treat for peace. both wellington and blÜcher considered that they would not be acting in accordance with the spirit and intentions of the alliance of the powers of europe were they to listen to such proposals, and therefore peremptorily refused to discontinue their operations. those which were addressed to the prussian commander emanated from general count morand, who commanded the rear guard of the french army at laon; and to whom blÜcher replied, that no armistice could be entered into, except in the case of napoleon being delivered up, and the fortresses in rear of the armies being abandoned and conceded as guarantees for its fulfilment. louis xviii., acting on the advice so urgently tendered to him by the duke of wellington, arrived at le cateau late in the evening, followed by a numerous train; and only awaited the surrender of the citadel of cambray to fix his temporary residence in the latter town. * * * * * the prussian army renewed its operations on the th, according to the plan agreed upon the day before by the allied commanders. at break of day, lieutenant colonel schmiedeberg was despatched with the silesian regiment of uhlans, and some horse artillery, towards laon; for the purpose, in conjunction with the detachments already sent from the first _corps d'armée_, of watching and deceiving the enemy. blÜcher disposed his three _corps d'armée_ in two columns. the left column, which was the one nearest to the enemy, consisted of the first and third corps; and was to move close along the oise--the third corps remaining half a march in rear of the first. the right column, formed by the fourth _corps d'armée_, was to advance along a parallel road, keeping on a line with the former, and at the distance of about half a march. the left column moved upon compiegne, the right upon pont st maxence. at nine o'clock, the first _corps d'armée_ (zieten's) commenced its march from etroeungt towards guise. the advanced guard, under major general jagow, to which were attached the th foot battery, and two ten pounder howitzers, halted when opposite to st laurent, a suburb of guise, in order to observe the fortress on this side; whilst zieten sent an infantry brigade, a regiment of cavalry, together with a horse, and a foot, battery, by st germain and la bussière, across the oise, to menace the place from the other side. the enemy, on finding himself completely invested, withdrew his troops into the citadel; whereupon preparations were immediately made by the prussians to open their batteries against that part: but previously to giving the order to commence the cannonade, zieten sent a summons to the commandant to surrender; with which the latter did not hesitate to comply. the garrison, consisting of eighteen officers and three hundred and fifty men, laid down their arms on the glacis, and were made prisoners of war. the prussians found in the place, fourteen pieces of cannon, three thousand muskets, two million musket ball cartridges, a quantity of ammunition, and considerable magazines; and gained, what was of more importance, another strong point in their new base of operations, without having fired a single cannon shot. major mÜller, with the two weak fusilier battalions of the th regiment, and of the nd westphalian landwehr, remained to garrison the place. as soon as the remainder of zieten's corps arrived near guise, which was before the place surrendered; the advanced guard, consisting of the third brigade, moved on, but did not reach origny before nine o'clock in the evening. the st regiment of silesian hussars pushed on as far as ribemont. parties were also detached from the reserve cavalry towards crecy, pont à bussy, and la fère, to observe the serre. thielemann, with the third _corps d'armée_, moved from avesnes upon nouvion; which he reached about four o'clock in the afternoon. the detachments of observation which had been previously sent out to the left from this corps, to endeavour to gain intelligence concerning grouchy's army, reached hirson and vervin in the evening. scouring parties were also sent towards the road leading from mézières by montcornet towards laon. bÜlow, with the fourth _corps d'armée_, which formed the right prussian column, marched from ferny to aisonville and bernonville. parties of cavalry, detached from the corps, reached chatillon sur oise, and found st quentin unoccupied. this circumstance having been made known to general sydow, upon his arrival at fontaine notre dame with the advanced guard, he pushed on, and took possession of that important town. a detachment of from five hundred to six hundred french cavalry had marched from this place on the previous day towards laon. the troops which had been employed in the investment of landrecies rejoined the fourth corps on this day. by means of these movements, and of the halt of the duke of wellington at le cateau, the prussians were a day's march in advance of the anglo-allied army. * * * * * grouchy's troops this day reached réthel. * * * * * the positions of the respective armies on the evening of the th were as follows:-- the first, second, and third divisions of the anglo-allied army were in and around le cateau cambresis: the fourth division at cambray; the fifth and sixth divisions, the brunswick corps, and reserve artillery, at, and in the vicinity of, engle fontaine. the duke of wellington's head quarters were at le cateau cambresis. the first prussian _corps d'armée_ was at guise, the third at muvion, and the fourth at aisonville and bernonville. prince blÜcher's head quarters were at henappe. the french troops under soult were at laon; those under grouchy at réthel. * * * * * on the th, the provisional government in paris, which had been appointed on the previous day after a stormy discussion in both chambers on the subject of the recognition of napoleon ii., and which consisted of the duke of otranto (fouchÉ), minister of the police; the duke of vicenza (caulincourt), minister of foreign affairs; carnot, minister of the interior; general grenier; and m. quinette; issued the following proclamation:-- "frenchmen! "within the period of a few days, brilliant successes and dreadful reverses have marked your destinies. "a great sacrifice appeared necessary to your peace and that of the world; and napoleon abdicated the imperial throne. his abdication forms the termination of his political life. his son is proclaimed. "your new constitution, which possesses as yet only good principles, is about to undergo its application; and even those principles are to be purified and extended. "there no longer exist powers jealous of one another. the space is free to the enlightened patriotism of your representatives; and the peers feel, think, and vote, as they are directed by the public opinion. "after twenty five years of political tempests, the moment has arrived when every thing wise and sublime that has been conceived respecting social institutions may be perfected in yours. let reason and genius speak, and from whatever side their voices may proceed, they shall be heard. "plenipotentiaries have been despatched, in order to treat in the name of the nation, and to negotiate with the powers of europe that peace which they have promised on one condition, which is now fulfilled. "the whole world will, like you, be attentive to their reply. their answer will make known whether justice and promises are accounted anything on earth. "frenchmen! be united! let all rally under circumstances of such vast importance. let civil discords be appeased. let dissensions be silent at this period, in which the great interests of nations are to be discussed. from the northern frontier to the pyrenees, and from la vendée to marseilles, let all france be united. "who is the man, that, born on the soil of france, whatever may be his party or political opinions, will not range himself under the national standard, to defend the independence of the country. "armies may in part be destroyed; but the experience of all ages and of all nations proves that a brave people, combating for justice and liberty, cannot be vanquished. "the emperor, in abdicating, has offered himself a sacrifice. the members of the government devote themselves to the due execution of the authority with which they have been invested by your representatives. "the duke of otranto, "t. berlier, secretary." "june th, ." * * * * * on the th, louis xviii., at the suggestion of the duke of wellington, despatched an officer, le comte d'audenarde, with a summons, in his majesty's name, for the governor, baron roos, to surrender the citadel of cambray. the summons was obeyed, and the garrison capitulated; when the duke immediately gave over the fortress entirely to his majesty. the main body of the anglo-allied army advanced this day to joncour. the fourth division continued at cambray. the reserve moved on to marets. the first prussian _corps d'armée_ marched this day from guise to cérisy, on the road from st quentin to la fère: its advanced guard pushed on to fargnières, near the latter place. an officer and thirty dragoons were detached across the oise to cut off the communication between this fortress and laon, by which means the investment of the place was effected. along the right bank of the oise, la fère was protected by inundations, and no favourable points presented themselves for the establishment of batteries. on this account, preparations were made in the night to cross the river below the place, and gain the heights which command the fortress on the laon side. during the march of the advanced guard, major general jagow, who commanded it, sent a detachment of the st silesian hussars to chauny, which communicated by its left, through st gobain, with captain goschitzky in crespy, and by its left, with the outpost at jussy of the advanced guard of the fourth corps. the parties detached on the previous day to crecy, pont à bussy, and along the serre, were now called in. the third prussian _corps d'armée_ marched from nouvion to homblières and its vicinity. two of its brigades occupied passages across the oise, namely, the ninth at origny, and the twelfth at neuvillette. the eleventh brigade bivouacked at marey, and the tenth at homblières and menil st laurent. the detachments sent out from this corps on the previous day towards the road leading from mezières to laon, brought in word that at eleven o'clock in the forenoon of the th, the french troops had abandoned aubenton, and marched off to monternet; also that grouchy's army had reached rocroi on the rd, and réthel on the th; and it was presumed that his next march was to be on soissons. on the receipt of this intelligence these detachments were drawn back, and their observation limited to the ground nearest to the left bank of the oise. the advanced guard of the fourth prussian _corps d'armée_ was closely followed by the reserve cavalry, and all these troops were placed under the command of prince william of prussia. the cavalry marched along the road leading to chauny, as far as montescour, where it bivouacked. the main body of the corps reached essigny le grand. at st quentin, prince blÜcher received a letter from laon addressed to the allied commanders by the commissioners sent from the two chambers of the french parliament; in which they communicated the fact of napoleon's abdication, and of the elevation of his son to the throne, and stated that they had been deputed by the provisional government to negotiate an armistice. to this the prince replied verbally, by an aide de camp, that he would suspend hostilities on arriving at paris, provided buonaparte was given up to him, and several fortresses on the frontiers delivered up as sureties; and provided, also, that the duke of wellington should agree to what might be proposed. according to the accounts which were this day received from lieutenant colonel schmiedeberg it was presumed that the enemy was still at laon. the reports from the detachments of the third _corps d'armée_ also confirmed this view, and intimated that grouchy's troops were yet two marches distant from laon. this intelligence, combined with the attempts made by the french to induce the allies to enter into negotiations, clearly showed the importance of endeavouring, by means of a forced march, to gain the passages of the oise, and then to intercept the enemy's line of retreat by soissons upon paris. in the night of the th, however, decided information was received that the french army had marched from laon to soissons, a fact from which it was naturally concluded that the enemy was no longer deceived as to the advance of the prussians towards laon; and that he was therefore bent upon effecting his further retreat, or, perhaps, even of anticipating their movements towards the oise, and detaching towards compiegne. hence, not a moment was now to be lost in securing the points of passage, particularly that at compiegne; to which prince blÜcher attached so much more importance from the circumstance that his army had no pontoons; and that the british pontoon train was still far behind, and not to be calculated upon. the prince decided upon moving his left column (the first and third corps) on compiegne, and his right column (the fourth corps) upon pont st maxence; the latter to secure the passage both at this place, and at creil lower down the oise. * * * * * soult, who had been indefatigable in collecting at laon the remains of the defeated portion of the french army, marched the latter, on the th, to soissons; where it was to be joined by the force under grouchy: who, having preceded his troops which were yet a march and a half distant, had arrived in that town, to take the command of the whole army, according to instructions conveyed to him from the provisional government. soult, as soon as he found himself thus superseded in the command, quitted the army, and repaired to paris; disgusted with the abrupt and uncourteous manner in which he had been treated. * * * * * the position of the respective armies, on the evening of the th, were as follows:-- of the anglo-allied army, the advanced guard (vivian's brigade) was at crisour, near st quentin. the second division, the nassau troops, and the british cavalry, were encamped in the vicinity of joncour. the first and third divisions, the dutch-belgian infantry attached to the first corps, and the dutch-belgian cavalry, were encamped near serain and premont. the fourth division, with grant's light cavalry brigade, was at cambray. the fifth and sixth divisions, the brunswick infantry and cavalry, and the reserve artillery, were encamped at, and in the vicinity of, marets. the duke of wellington's head quarters were at joncour. the first prussian _corps d'armée_ was at cérisy; the third at homblières; and the fourth at essigny le grand. prince blÜcher's head quarters were at st quentin. the right wing of the french army, led by vandamme, was at rheims; the left, with grouchy, at soissons. * * * * * on the th, napoleon withdrew from the capital to the country palace of malmaison, whence he issued the following address to the army:-- "soldiers! "while obeying the necessity which removes me from the french army; i carry with me the happy assurance that it will justify, by the eminent services which the country expects from it, the praises which our enemies themselves have not been able to refuse it. "soldiers! i shall follow your steps, though absent. i know all the corps; and not one of them will obtain a single advantage over the enemy, but i shall give it credit for the courage it may have displayed. both you and i have been calumniated. men, very unfit to appreciate your labours, have seen in the marks of attachment which you have given me, a zeal of which i was the sole object. let your future successes convince them that it was the country above all things, which you served in obeying me; and that if i had any share in your affection, i owe it to my ardent love for france--our common mother. "soldiers! some efforts more, and the coalition will be dissolved. napoleon will recognise you by the blows which you are about to strike. save the honour, the independence, of france! be, unto the last, the same men which i have known you for these twenty years; and you will be invincible. "napoleon." "de la malmaison, le juin ." chapter xix. on the th, the duke of wellington marched the main body of his army to vermand and its vicinity. major general sir john byng, who was now in command of the first corps, having heard, on passing that village, that the duke himself was there, immediately waited upon his grace for any orders he might wish to give him. the duke, on seeing him, said, "you are the very person i wish to see--i want you to take peronne. you may as well take with you a brigade of guards, and a dutch-belgian brigade. i shall be there almost as soon as yourself." byng having given the necessary orders for maitland's brigade, and a dutch-belgian brigade of chassÉ's division attached to his corps, to proceed on this duty; the former was immediately put in motion. the duke, on reaching peronne just as these troops arrived there, summoned the garrison, and then proceeded, in person, to reconnoitre that fortress: and perceiving the possibility of taking it by storm, gave orders to prepare for an assault. his grace then directed the attack to be made upon the hornwork which covers the suburb on the left of the somme. lieutenant colonel lord saltoun immediately led on the light troops of maitland's brigade, stormed, and carried the outwork, with but little loss; on observing which, the duke, being satisfied the place would prove an easy capture, returned to vermand. some pieces of dutch artillery were now brought into the hornwork, and a cannonade was opened upon the town; but the fire kept up on both sides was trifling, and of short duration: for byng having sent forward his acting assistant quartermaster general, lieutenant colonel the hon. j. stanhope, with a white flag, the civil authorities interfered, and urged the garrison to capitulate; whereupon the maiden fortress of peronne surrendered on the condition that its defenders should lay down their arms, and be allowed to repair to their homes. byng, on returning to vermand, to report the capture of the fortress to the duke, met the dutch-belgian brigade, which had been ordered to move to peronne at the same time as the guards, about half way towards that place! colville's division rejoined the main body of the army from cambray; which place was handed over to the troops of the king of france, under the duke of berry. the reserve moved on to bellicourt and belle englise. upon returning in the night to his head quarters at vermand, the duke of wellington found a note from prince blÜcher, forwarding to him the letter from the french commissioners before referred to, and to which his grace immediately replied as follows:-- "head quarters, th june .-- p.m. "as field marshal the duke of wellington has only at this moment returned to his quarters, he has only now received from marshal prince blÜcher the letter of their excellencies, and which their excellencies had sent to the prussian outposts. "when the field marshal last heard from the head quarters of the allied sovereigns, the st instant, their majesties were at heidelberg, and they must still be in that direction. it must be obvious to their excellencies that the field marshal can neither prevent nor aid their excellencies in reaching their majesties; but if he has it in his power, or if their excellencies think proper to pass through the countries in which the troops are under his command, the field marshal begs they will let him know in what manner he can facilitate their journey. "the field marshal was not aware that any officer commanding an advanced post had agreed verbally, or in any other manner, to a suspension of hostilities. "since the th instant, when napoleon buonaparte, at the head of the french armies, invaded the dominions of the king of the netherlands, and attacked the prussian army; the field marshal has considered his sovereign, and those powers whose armies he commands, in a state of war with the government of france; and he does not consider the abdication of napoleon buonaparte of his usurped authority, under all the circumstances which have preceded and attended that measure, as the attainment of the object held out in the declarations and treaties of the allies, which should induce them to lay down their arms. "the field marshal cannot consent therefore to any suspension of hostilities, however desirous he is of preventing the further effusion of blood. "as the only object on which their excellencies desired to converse with the field marshal was the proposed suspension of hostilities: they will, probably, after the perusal of his sentiments and intentions, as above declared, consider any interview with him an useless waste of time; but, if their excellencies should still do him the honour to desire to have an interview with him, the field marshal will be ready to meet them at the time and place they shall appoint. "the field marshal begs their excellencies will receive the assurance of his high consideration. "wellington." * * * * * from the moment that prince blÜcher had become aware of the retirement of the french troops from laon upon soissons, he was most anxious to secure the passage across the oise at compiegne, verberie, pont st maxence, and creil. in the middle of the night of the th, he therefore sent an order for the advanced guard of the first prussian _corps d'armée_ to proceed on the following day, from fargnières, by forced march, as far as the first named place. in the afternoon of the th, it reached noyon, where it halted for a rest, having marched five leagues; and having nearly an equal distance before it to compiegne. the twelve pounder battery and the four ten pounder howitzers which had been attached to this advanced guard (the third brigade under major general jagow) were, by zieten's order, left under the protection of a battalion, to be employed with the first brigade, which was directed to make an attempt upon the fortress of la fère. the advanced guard after having sent on a squadron of the st silesian hussars, under major hertel, to compiegne, with orders to push forward a detachment thence upon the road to soissons, resumed its march in the evening. it was still in movement about midnight, when major general jagow received a communication from the front that major hertel had, with his squadron, entered compiegne at eight o'clock in the evening; and had learned from the mayor that a french corps was on the march from soissons to that town, in which it had already bespoken ten thousand rations. jagow immediately communicated this important circumstance to zieten, and ordered his troops, after another short but indispensable halt, to continue their toilsome march. on the morning of this day, the first brigade of zieten's _corps d'armée_ completed the investment of la fère. the troops that had been previously detached to this point by general jagow were moved off to follow this officer's brigade on the road to compiegne. notwithstanding the vigorous bombardment which the prussians maintained against the fortress until noon, and by which several buildings were set on fire, they failed to induce the garrison to surrender. as it was not intended, however, to attempt any more serious attack: the brigade, after leaving the fusilier battalion of the th regiment and a squadron of the brandenburg uhlans to watch the fortress, followed the _corps d'armée_, which had marched to noyon; but it did not even reach chauny, scarcely seven miles from la fère. zieten, on arriving at chauny at eight o'clock in the evening, with the remainder of his corps--the second and fourth brigades, the reserve artillery, and a reserve cavalry brigade--considered his troops too much fatigued to fulfil blÜcher's intentions that they should march as far as noyon; and he therefore ordered them to bivouack at chauny. the third prussian _corps d'armée_ marched from the vicinity of homblières to that of guiscard; partly by jussy, and partly by st quentin and ham. it was only the eleventh brigade, with the greater portion of the reserve cavalry and artillery, that took the latter road. these troops on reaching the fortified town of ham, found it occupied by the enemy; who seemed prepared to oppose their passing through the place. general hobe, who commanded them, summoned the commander of the garrison to open the gates and allow the troops to march through; and on perceiving that this summons was disobeyed, he tried the effect of a few cannon shot, which quickly procured a free passage for his force. no further notice was taken, and no further use was made, by the prussians of this otherwise insignificant place. a detachment of the reserve cavalry of this corps was sent to chauny, from which it pushed forward a small party along the road towards soissons, which the latter pursued until on arriving at about a league beyond coucy, it came upon an enemy's outpost, consisting of a regiment of dragoons and a battalion of infantry. the fourth _corps d'armée_ was also required to make a forced march on this day--namely, from essigny le grand as far as lassigny, and its advanced guard was to reach gournay, and thence push forward detachments to clermont, creil, and pont st maxence, for the purpose of securing and examining the bridges across the oise, and of preparing all that was requisite for effecting a passage for the troops. bÜlow, in his brigade orders, drew the attention of his troops to the necessity which had arisen for those forced marches on the part of the prussian army with a view to obtain a decisive result. the advanced guard started at four o'clock in the morning from jussy, and proceeded by lassigny to gournay, situated upon the road from peronne to pont st maxence; but the detachments which it sent thence towards clermont, creil, pont st maxence, and verberie, did not reach those places until the following day. the reserve artillery of the fourth corps commenced its march at five o'clock in the morning, following the advanced guard, and reached ressons late in the evening; where it bivouacked, as did also, subsequently, the main body of the corps, after a march of about twenty five miles. * * * * * whilst the prussians were thus, on the th, hastening towards compiegne; the french general, count d'erlon, was, on this very day, also marching upon that point from soissons, with the remains of his _corps d'armée_--about four thousand men--having succeeded, through his urgent representations of the expediency of such a movement, in obtaining grouchy's assent to its execution. the troops of the third and fourth french _corps d'armée_ moved this day from rheims towards soissons, a distance which they could not, however, accomplish in one day's march. * * * * * the positions of the respective armies on the evening of the th were as follows:-- of the anglo-allied army, the advanced guard (vivian's hussar brigade) was at mattignies, near the somme, having its picquets on that river. the second division, the nassau troops, and the british cavalry, were encamped near beauvois and lanchy. the first and third divisions, the dutch-belgian infantry attached to the first corps, and the dutch-belgian cavalry, were encamped near caulaincourt and martin de des près. the fourth division was encamped at gouay. the first british brigade of guards was at peronne. the reserve, consisting of the fifth and sixth divisions, the brunswick troops, and the reserve artillery was encamped near nourois, magny, and belle englise. the pontoon train was at estrées. the duke of wellington's head quarters were at vermand. the second and fourth brigades of the first prussian _corps d'armée_ were at chauny, not far from which was also the first brigade. the third brigade, forming the advanced guard, was on the march to compiegne. the third corps was at guiscard. the fourth corps was at ressons. prince blÜcher's head quarters were at genvry, near noyon. the french troops under d'erlon were not far from compiegne, on the road from soissons. those of the third and fourth corps, under vandamme, were at some point between rheims and soissons. grouchy's head quarters were at soissons. * * * * * it was half past four o'clock in the morning of the th, when the advanced guard of the prussian _corps d'armée_ (the third brigade), after a forced march of about twenty five miles, reached compiegne. general jagow immediately posted his troops, in the most advantageous manner, in and about the town, so as to be prepared to meet any attack that the enemy might make; and detached three squadrons of the st silesian hussars upon the soissons road, and the remaining squadron upon the paris road, in observation. about five o'clock, by which time he had scarcely completed his arrangements, information reached him from the hussars on the soissons road that the enemy was advancing. this was, as before remarked, count d'erlon, with the remains of his _corps d'armée_; from which circumstance it will be seen that if zieten's advanced guard had arrived but a single half hour later, the french would have anticipated the prussians in securing the bridge of compiegne. from along the edge of the extensive wood which adjoins this town, a fire was quickly opened by the french skirmishers against the prussian picquets. very shortly afterwards a column of infantry appeared advancing from their rear. a half battery of prussian horse artillery, which had been posted on the soissons road, in front of the gate on that side of the town, having allowed the column to approach within a suitable range, directed a fire upon it with such vigour and precision, that in a few moments more the mass rushed for shelter into the wood. four french guns were now brought forward, and these replied to the prussian artillery; during which the enemy moved through the wood to his left. the prussians concluded from this movement that he contemplated abandoning the attack in this quarter, for the purpose of assailing the lower and weaker side of the town, by the crespy and paris roads: but on renewing his advance, he soon showed that he was only masking his retreat; whereupon the st silesian hussars advanced along the road to soissons in pursuit. by the result of this affair, which lasted an hour and a half but was limited to a cannonade and mutual _tiraillade_, the french were foiled in their attempt to cover their retreat by securing compiegne, and checking the advance of the prussians along the oise. the third prussian brigade, however, which had continually formed the advanced guard of the first _corps d'armée_ since the battle of waterloo, was too much exhausted by its efforts during the previous day and night, to attempt seriously to molest the enemy during his retreat; a circumstance of which the latter failed not to take advantage. zieten decided upon relieving these troops from the duties of an advanced guard by the second brigade; which, however, had not yet come up: and hence the french gained some valuable time. the main body of zieten's corps did not reach compiegne until mid day. blÜcher, who had already arrived there, ordered that the advanced guard (now consisting of the second brigade) and the reserve cavalry, preceded by one hundred riflemen, should march through the wood towards villers cotterets, followed by the main body of the corps; it having been his intention to throw these troops upon the enemy's line of retreat, in the event of the advanced guard falling in with french troops at or near that point. this order, however, was not strictly followed by zieten, who marched the main body of his corps, including the reserve cavalry, and the reserve artillery, through the wood of compiegne to gillicourt, detaching only his second brigade, reinforced by the brandenburg dragoons and five pieces of horse artillery, towards villers cotterets. the st silesian hussars were pushed forward upon the road from compiegne to soissons, to cover the left flank during this movement. the reserve cavalry, in front of the column of the main body, reached gillicourt just as the enemy (under count d'erlon) had crossed the defile formed by a tributary stream of the oise in which that place is situated. the st west prussian dragoons and the brandenburg uhlans, together with a horse battery, went on in pursuit; and the third brigade was ordered to follow the latter in support. the fourth brigade was directed to maintain the defile of gillicourt. the enemy's rear guard was overtaken on this side of crespy by the two regiments of cavalry, which threw it back in disorder upon that town. the french quickly retired from the place; whereupon the third brigade, with a cavalry brigade, bivouacked there, throwing out parties of dragoons in the direction of the enemy's retreat. the fourth brigade, the other cavalry brigade, and the reserve artillery, bivouacked at gillicourt. the second brigade, with the additional force attached to it, as before mentioned, reached longpré, not far from villers cotterets, in the middle of the night. the long march which the troops of the first _corps d'armée_ made this day from noyon, and the probability of their coming into collision with the enemy on the following day, rendered a few hours' rest absolutely necessary. separated from one another as zieten's brigades thus were, a strong support was essentially requisite; and this was supplied in good time by the third prussian _corps d'armée_ which marched on this day from guiscard to compiegne. prince blÜcher directed its commander, thielemann, to detach strongly towards soissons; for the purpose of observing the enemy, and of molesting him should he be retiring. the cavalry thus detached presenting the means of covering zieten's left flank; the st silesian hussars, which had been previously posted on the soissons road, were directed to rejoin their own corps. the third corps bivouacked on the left bank of the oise, with the exception of the twelfth brigade which remained on the right bank at venette. on the same day, the fourth prussian _corps d'armée_, forming the right column, marched from ressons and its vicinity, with orders to cross the oise lower down the stream, at verberie, pont st maxence, or creil. bÜlow formed his advanced guard with the rd neumark landwehr, a battalion of the st silesian landwehr, the th hussars, the st pomeranian landwehr cavalry, and half the horse battery no. , and desired general sydow, who commanded the advanced guard, to move off with a detachment, at the first break of day, and secure the bridge over the oise at creil. this general, aware of the importance of attaining the object in view, proceeded himself, at the head of a squadron of the th hussars, and of one hundred infantry, the latter being transported in carts, and reached creil with his small detachment just as the french were on the point of entering the place. the latter were immediately attacked and repulsed: and the prussian infantry occupied the bridge; which, on the arrival of the advanced guard, was given over to the st silesian landwehr, whilst the remainder of the troops, after a short halt, commenced their march upon senlis. another striking instance was thus again afforded of the vast importance of a correct calculation of time in military operations. the prussians, on this morning, reached the bridge of compiegne, only half an hour before the french approached it; and had they arrived at creil but a few minutes later, they would have found the french in possession of the bridge at this point. major blankenburg was detached in advance, with the st pomeranian landwehr cavalry, from creil towards senlis. they had but just reached this town, and had begun to bivouack on the great market place; when, towards nine o'clock in the evening, kellermann, with the first _cuirassier_ brigade of french cavalry, approached on the opposite side, and made a dash at the very spot occupied by the prussians. major blankenburg had barely time to mount; nevertheless, with such of his men as were accoutred and prepared, he attacked the french horsemen, and drove them back to the gates of the town. the latter, however, collecting their strength, renewed their attack, overpowered the prussians; and forced them to retire along the road to pont st maxence. kellermann's brigade then resumed its march along the prescribed line of retreat. in the mean time, his second _cuirassier_ brigade, and d'erlon's french _corps d'armée_, were retiring along the same road towards senlis. upon this point also general sydow was moving from creil, with the advanced guard of the fourth prussian corps; following, as it was supposed, the detached st pomeranian landwehr cavalry. on reaching senlis at ten o'clock in the evening, with the head of the column, consisting of the th hussars and the rd battalion of the rd neumark landwehr, and finding the place unoccupied, he took possession of it. the french troops had already approached close to the town, from the side of crespy. the prussian infantry were immediately posted in the houses nearest to the gate: and as soon as the enemy's cavalry came fully within the effective range of musketry, they suddenly opened upon the latter a sharp fire; which compelled it to go about. the head of d'erlon's corps now came up; but was forced, along with the cavalry, to take another direction. sydow, having collected the whole of the advanced guard, followed the french some little distance; and bivouacked, about midnight, somewhat in advance of senlis. the latter, however, reached, next morning, the road leading through gonesse to paris. during the operation of the advanced guard of the fourth prussian _corps d'armée_, another detachment of the latter was sent to occupy pont st maxence and verberie. the french having partially destroyed the bridge at the former point, the nd pomeranian landwehr cavalry were ferried to the opposite bank of the river, and detachments were immediately pushed on to verberie and senlis. the fourteenth brigade followed the cavalry, and was passed over the river in a similar manner; after which it occupied the heights on both sides of the great paris road. these troops bivouacked for the night on their position; whilst the main body of the corps, on reaching pont st maxence, remained on the right bank of the river. the greatest activity was used in repairing the bridge sufficiently for the passage of artillery. in this manner blÜcher had effectually secured the line of the oise; and, by pushing forward his advanced troops as far as villers cotterets, had closed so much upon the flank of the retiring enemy, that he had every reasonable expectation of succeeding in cutting off the line of retreat of the latter upon the capital. * * * * * grouchy, on discovering that the detachments he had thrown out to gain the passages of the oise, on his left, had been thwarted by the rapidity of the prussian movement, and had been compelled to fall back, now employed them in covering his retreat by means of partial combats. hence arose the engagements at compiegne, crespy, and senlis; but such was the feebleness of the french resistance, and so frequent were the desertions of the soldiers, who threw away their arms, and fled to their homes, that it was evident the reorganisation of the army, and the reanimation of its former spirit, were far from having been thoroughly effected. it has been said that a cry of alarm spread through its ranks of, "our retreat is cut off!" as soon as it was known that the prussians were upon its right flank. at all events it appears tolerably certain that the army was not in that state which would have warranted grouchy in risking any serious stand against the prussians. to succeed in reaching the capital by means of forced marches; and to secure his troops, as far as practicable, from molestation, was all that he could hope to accomplish. * * * * * on the th, the main body of the anglo-allied army, crossing the somme at willecourt, marched through nesle upon roye. the fourth division marched through peronne, towards roye. two battalions of the dutch-belgian brigade at peronne were ordered to remain in occupation of that place: the remainder of the brigade, and the brigade of guards at peronne, marched through nesle to the village of crescy, and joined the first corps. the fifth division, the brunswick cavalry, and the reserve brigade of howitzers, moved upon ham. the sixth division, the brunswick infantry, and the reserve artillery, encamped between the villages of douilly and villers. notwithstanding the precautions which the duke of wellington had taken to ensure the orderly conduct of his troops, and to conciliate in their favour the good disposition of the inhabitants along the line of march, it being his anxious desire that they should be considered as being on a friendly footing, and as acting on behalf of the legitimate sovereign, there was one portion of his army which committed the greatest excesses: these were the dutch-belgian troops, who set his orders on this head completely at defiance. they pillaged wherever they went, not even excepting the head quarters, the house which he himself occupied: they forced the safeguards, and rescued, at the point of the bayonet, the prisoners from the _gensd'armerie_ which the duke had formed for the police of the army. two of the officers had just rendered themselves conspicuous by participating in, and actually encouraging, these disorders, which had arisen to such a height as to arouse his grace's just indignation and severe censure. he desired the general officer then in command of that part of the army to put in full force his general order of the th of june, to cause a roll call of companies to be made every hour, and to see that every officer and soldier was present. he also directed him to place the two officers before alluded to in arrest, and to send them to the hague, to be disposed of by the king of the netherlands; to whom he forwarded a copy of the letter containing these instructions. this letter, which strongly evidenced the feelings of annoyance, under which the duke wrote it, concluding with the following cutting reproof:--_je ne veux pas commander de tels officiers. je suis assez longtemps soldat pour savoir que les pillards, et ceux qui les encouragent, ne valent rien devant l'ennemi; et je n'en veux pas_. the following were the positions of the respective armies on the evening of the th:-- the first prussian. _corps d'armée_ had its main body at gillicourt; its second brigade at longpré, about half a league from villers cotterets; and its third brigade at crespy. the main body of the third prussian _corps d'armée_ was at compiegne; it had strong detachments in the direction of soissons. the main body of the fourth prussian corps was at pont st maxence; it had its advanced guard at senlis, and detachments at creil and verberie. prince blÜcher's head quarters were at compiegne. of the anglo-allied army, the second division, the nassau troops, and the british and hanoverian cavalry, were in the vicinity of roye. the third division, one brigade of the first division, the dutch-belgian infantry attached to the first corps, and the dutch-belgian cavalry, were encamped near the villages of crescy, billencourt, and bereuil. the fourth division was at the village of puzeaux, on the road to roye. the brigade of guards was at crescy. the fifth division and the brunswick cavalry were at ham. the sixth division, the brunswick infantry, and the reserve artillery, were between the villages of douilly and villers. the duke of wellington's head quarters were at nesle. the remains of the first and second french _corps d'armée_, detachments from which had this day been defeated at compiegne, crespy, creil, and senlis, were in full retreat, partly upon the senlis, and partly upon the soissons, road. the imperial guard and the sixth corps were at villers cotterets. the third and fourth corps were at soissons. grouchy's head quarters were at villers cotterets. * * * * * general pirch ii. having learned, upon his arrival at one o'clock of the morning of the th, with the advanced guard of the first prussian _corps d'armée_, at longpré, near villers cotterets, that the latter place was not occupied by the enemy in any force, determined to capture the place forthwith by a surprise. the troops detached to the front on this service (the fusilier battalion of the th regiment and the brandenburg dragoons), favoured by the darkness (which as yet was scarcely relieved by the approaching dawn), as also by the wood through which they advanced, fell upon a detachment that was moving by a by road through the wood, consisting of a french horse battery of fourteen guns, twenty ammunition waggons, and an escort of one hundred and fifty men. the whole vicinity of villers cotterets was, in fact, filled with french troops; thus dispersed, that they might sooner obtain refreshment after the long march, and be prepared to start again at two o'clock in the morning. thus they were all in motion at the time of this capture. general pirch now pushed on to villers cotterets, where the prussians made many prisoners. grouchy himself narrowly escaped being taken as he was mounting his horse and hastening out of the opposite side of the town. on reaching the windmill height upon the road to nanteuil, he succeeded in collecting together and forming his troops. pirch, after detaching cavalry in pursuit of the enemy, as also towards longpré to cover his right, and towards soissons to protect his left, took up a defensive position. he deployed his infantry, with the foot battery, upon the height at the garden of the château, posted two battalions at the point of a wood that jutted out on his right; and was still occupied in making his arrangements, when a cavalry detachment, on the soissons road, sent in word that a hostile corps was to be seen approaching from soissons. another report was received immediately afterwards, that the enemy showed much cavalry on that side, and was already detaching two regiments of the latter arm towards the prussian left flank; as also another cavalry force, along with from twenty to twenty five pieces of artillery against the right flank. in the mean time, the french marshal had collected about nine thousand men on the height before mentioned, near the road to nanteuil; one third of whom had already constituted the rear guard, and the remainder was composed of troops that had halted during the night in the vicinity, as at vauciennes, coyolles, and pisseleux. with these troops, grouchy showed every disposition to accept an engagement. general pirch ii., finding himself thus critically situated between two separate and overpowering hostile forces, prepared to effect his retreat. this was facilitated in a peculiar manner. the troops of vandamme's corps, perceiving the prussians thus posted on the high road to paris, and imagining their force to be greater than it really was, fell into the greatest disorder, and with loud cries of "into the woods on the left, towards la ferté milon--we are cut off from paris!" they all rushed in that direction; with the exception of two thousand men and some guns conducted by vandamme himself by the way of pisseleux, leaving villers cotterets on their right, and masking the movement by a vigorous attack upon this place. the th prussian regiment was driven back by the enemy's superior numbers; and pirch, after having kept up a brisk cannonade, gradually withdrew the regiment from villers cotterets, for the purpose of moving upon crespy, the direction previously laid down for him, with a view to the concentration of the corps. as grouchy was moving by the soissons road towards nanteuil, pirch was desirous of proceeding in a parallel direction, through longpré; but he was subsequently induced, on consideration of the defiles in that direction, and which he did not deem it prudent to pass so near to the enemy, to prefer retiring along the compiegne road, as far as where it is joined by the one leading from viviers; and where, for the covering of the left flank and rear, a squadron of the brandenburg dragoons had already been posted. from this point he struck into the road leading by buts, and reached, towards mid day, frenois la rivière, where he gave his troops a few hours' rest; and then proceeded by crespy to nanteuil, which place he reached about nine o'clock in the evening, having marched twenty one leagues within the last thirty eight hours, during six of which he had also been engaged with the enemy. he had succeeded in creating confusion in one portion of the retiring french force, and in impeding the retreat of that which was with grouchy himself sufficiently long to enable zieten to anticipate the latter in his arrival at nanteuil. it has already been explained, when describing the proceedings of the th, how much separated the brigades of the first prussian corps d'armÉe were from one another. the first was still on the march from la fère (it rejoined on the afternoon of this day); the second, with the brandenburg dragoons, was near villers cotterets; the third, with a cavalry brigade, was at crespy; and the fourth, with the other cavalry brigade was at gillicourt. hence zieten was desirous, on the morning of the th, to concentrate his corps at crespy; leaving only a strong cavalry detachment at villers cotterets. but whilst despatching the order to pirch to move upon crespy; he received a report from this general, that he had fallen upon the french troops retreating through villers cotterets, and was upon the point of being driven back by superior numbers. zieten, considering that the prussian troops at crespy, the nearest to villers cotterets, were nearly three leagues distant from the latter point, decided upon not attempting to give any direct support to pirch; but to advance with the third brigade, together with the reserve cavalry and artillery, towards levignon, on the great paris road, between villers cotterets and nanteuil, and, if possible, occupy that point before the french could reach it. he found the latter in the act of marching through the village; and immediately ordered a howitzer battery to be drawn up, which commenced throwing shells into the place. he also ordered the st west prussian dragoons, and the st silesian hussars, with a horse battery, to attack the enemy. the french, however, retired in such haste, that they were not overtaken until about midway between levignon and nanteuil; when they halted their rear guard, which made front against the prussians. they comprised the second _corps d'armée_, under reille, who had with him several regiments of cavalry, and continued their march; supporting, however, the rear guard. on coming up with the latter, two squadrons of the nd west prussian dragoons charged; but they were repulsed, and attacked in flank by a french regiment of lancers. the enemy now advanced, with the hope of completely routing the prussian cavalry. this attempt failed in consequence of a most successful attack by the st silesian hussars; by which the french were put to flight, and two of their guns captured. the horse battery drew up, at the same time, on the left of the high road, and, by its effective fire, committed great havoc amidst the flying enemy; who was pursued by the prussian cavalry even beyond nanteuil. during the movement upon levignon, general hobe came up with a cavalry brigade from the third _corps d'armée_. it advanced by the right, along the road from crespy to nanteuil, with the design of intercepting a portion of the enemy's retreating columns; but the french, in the mean time, fled in such haste, that only a few prisoners were made. notwithstanding the pressure thus made upon the french line of retreat, count reille succeeded in uniting the remains of his _corps d'armée_ with those of count d'erlon's corps which had escaped through crespy and by the left of senlis. the french imperial guards, and the sixth _corps d'armée_, which were under the more immediate orders of grouchy, and had formed the column that retired through villers cotterets in the morning, reached levignon after zieten had passed through it in pursuit of reille's troops to nanteuil; and becoming acquainted with the danger of their proceeding further on that road, they turned off to their left, to make their retreat through assy, meaux, claye, and vincennes. general vandamme, who, with the third and fourth french _corps d'armée_, was most in the rear, and had withdrawn from the high road at villers cotterets on perceiving the prussian brigade in possession of that place, took the direction of la ferté milon, meaux, crossing the marne at l'agny, to paris. bÜlow, who had been directed to move the fourth _corps d'armée_ from pont st maxence to marly la ville, on the th, deemed it advisable to augment his advanced guard; and therefore added to it the fourteenth brigade and the reserve cavalry, and placed the whole under the command of prince william of prussia. in the afternoon prince william fell upon detachments of d'erlon's, and also upon reille's _corps d'armée_, which latter was retreating from nanteuil. he immediately attacked the enemy, dispersed a great number of his troops, and took more than two thousand prisoners. it was evening before the advanced guard reached gonesse, where it bivouacked. detachments were pushed on to the front as far as le bourget and stains, which points were occupied by the enemy. the main body of the corps arrived at marly la ville in the evening, and halted there for the night. thielemann, having been directed to proceed with the third _corps d'armée_ from compiegne to senlis, should its support not be required by the first corps, marched his infantry and artillery upon crespy, and sent the reserve cavalry by verberie; but on hearing that the first corps was engaged with the enemy, he drew in his cavalry towards crespy, from verberie, as soon as it arrived there. the first cavalry brigade, with six pieces of horse artillery, was pushed on from crespy, along the road to nanteuil; where it joined the reserve cavalry of the first _corps d'armée_, but not in time to take any active part in the engagement at that place. the second cavalry brigade was detached towards villers cotterets. the main body of the third _corps d'armée_ bivouacked for the night at crespy and its vicinity. prince blÜcher deemed it advisable to send, on this day, a strong detachment of cavalry, consisting of the queen's dragoons, under lieutenant colonel kamecke, beyond the left of the first prussian corps, towards the marne, for the purpose of gaining intelligence of the enemy's movements in that direction. lieutenant colonel kamecke was instructed to act discretionally; and to proceed, subsequently, by meaux, or château thierry, and endeavour to open a communication with the advance of the bavarian army. thus it will be seen that, on the th, the prussian army succeeded in cutting off the line of retreat of the french troops by the soissons high road, compelling the greater portion of them to seek, along cross roads, the line of the marne, by meaux and l'agny. it had, since it crossed the oise, created great disorder and confusion in the french ranks, captured sixteen pieces of cannon, and made, altogether, four thousand prisoners. the prussians now occupied both the high roads leading from senlis and soissons, and had their advanced posts (those of the fourth _corps d'armée_) within five miles of paris. the sound of their cannon was already heard in the capital, where the greatest consternation prevailed amongst the citizens; whose fears had been previously excited by the most exaggerated reports brought in by fugitives from the retreating army. the fortified works that had been thrown up on the north side, appeared sufficient to check the progress of the allied armies, and to secure paris from a _coup de main_; but time was essential for the organisation of the defence, for the recovery of the exhausted remains of the army of the north expected to arrive on the morrow, and for the collection of every available defensive means. it was only by the assumption of a sufficiently respectable, if not an imposing, attitude, that they could hope to succeed in negotiating for the preservation of the capital and the establishment of their own prescribed form of government--perhaps, by some extraordinary effort, to disconcert the plans of their enemies, and obtain a triumph under the walls of paris. actuated by these considerations, the provisional government was desirous of inducing the victorious commanders of the allied armies to enter into negotiations. another commission was appointed, the members of which were messrs andreossy, valence, boissy d'anglas, flangergues, and la benardiÈre. they were directed to proceed to the head quarters of the allied field marshals, again to solicit a suspension of hostilities and to negotiate an armistice. during these proceedings in paris, a renewed application had been received by prince blÜcher, on the th, and by the duke of wellington on the th, from the first named commissioners, for a suspension of hostilities; as also a request that a passport and assurances of safety might be accorded to napoleon and his family, to enable them to pass to the united states of america: the provisional government having previously succeeded, through the medium of representations made to the ex-emperor by some of his friends, in persuading the latter to consent to this step. prince blÜcher declined taking any notice of the application, conceiving his former verbal reply quite sufficient. the duke of wellington referred the commissioners to his note of the th on the proposed suspension of hostilities; and stated that, with regard to the passport for napoleon, he had no authority from his government, or from the allies, to give any answer to such demand. * * * * * the anglo-allied army advanced this day from nesle, so as to bring its right in rear of st just, and its left in rear of la taulle, where the high road from compiegne joins the high road from roye to paris. the second corps, under lord hill, as also the british and hanoverian cavalry, marched by montdidier to petit crevecoeur. the first corps, under sir john byng, marched upon couchy. the reserve, under sir james kempt, marched upon roye. * * * * * the following were the positions of the respective armies on the evening of the th:-- the fourth prussian _corps d'armée_, which was the nearest to paris, was posted at marly la ville; having detachments pushed forward close to le bourget and stains. the first prussian _corps d'armée_ stood in rear of nanteuil; having its advanced guard at le plessis, belleville, and dammartin. the third _corps d'armée_ was at crespy and in its vicinity. prince blÜcher's head quarters were at senlis. the anglo-allied army had its right behind st just and its left behind la taulle. its reserve was at roye. the advanced guard (vivian's hussar brigade) was at antheuil. the second and fourth divisions, the nassau troops, and the hanoverian cavalry, were encamped at petit crevecoeur, on the road to st just. the british cavalry was encamped near la taulle and ressons. the first and third divisions, and the dutch-belgian troops, were encamped near couchy. the fifth and sixth divisions, the brunswick troops, and reserve artillery, were encamped near roye. the duke of wellington's head quarters were at orville. the remains of the first and second french _corps d'armée_, after forming a junction at gonesse, where the high roads from nanteuil and senlis unite, reached the suburbs of paris. the imperial guard and the sixth corps, immediately under grouchy, were in full retreat from meaux by claie and vincennes. the third and fourth corps, under vandamme, having crossed the marne at meaux, were retreating by lagny and vincennes. * * * * * blÜcher having issued orders, during the night of the th, for the continuation of the advance upon paris; the advanced guard of the fourth prussian _corps d'armée_ moved, on the morning of the th, from gonesse to le bourget, which place it found abandoned by the enemy; who, however, was strongly posted at st denis, towards which point therefore, some battalions were pushed forward in observation. the enemy having been driven out of stains, this post was occupied by two fusilier battalions and a regiment of cavalry, under lieutenant colonel schill, for the purpose of securing the right flank of the corps. la cour neuve, between st denis and le bourget, was also occupied. the main body of the corps broke up from marly la ville at seven o'clock in the morning; and on reaching le bourget, bivouacked in its vicinity. the advanced guard of the first prussian _corps d'armée_ pushed on, at daybreak, from dammartin to blanc mesnil; whence, immediately on its arrival, it sent detachments beyond the wood of bondy, to reconnoitre the enemy's preparations of defence. the main body of this corps took up a position, having its right resting on blanc mesnil, and its left on aulnay. it sent out infantry detachments towards livry, and along the ourcq canal, towards bondy and pantin; and cavalry parties towards grande drancey and banbigny. zieten also occupied nonneville with the th regiment of infantry; and the th uhlans furnished outposts at the ourcq canal, communicating with those of the fourth corps. the third prussian _corps d'armée_ marched from crespy as far as dammartin, in the vicinity of which it was bivouacked. the reserve cavalry was sent forward as far as tremblay, in direct support of the first _corps d'armée_. * * * * * the first and second french _corps d'armée_ had reached the suburbs of paris on the gonesse road, during the night; and held possession of le bourget until the morning of the th. the imperial guard and the sixth corps, as also the reinforcements that had arrived from the interior, were, during the forenoon of the th, on the high road by claie and pantin, under the command of grouchy; and were directed to occupy several defensive points on that side. the third and fourth _corps d'armée_, under vandamme, reached paris at noon on the th, by the lagny road: they passed through the capital, and occupied the heights of montrouge on the south side. * * * * * the anglo-allied army arrived, on the th, at different points on the road between gournay and pont st maxence. the advanced guard, consisting of vivian's light cavalry brigade, supported by that of arentsschildt, crossed the oise at pont st maxence, and reached senlis. the british cavalry moved from la taulle to pont st maxence. the second corps, under lord hill, moved from petit crevecoeur to clermont. the first corps, under sir john byng, moved from its camp near couchy, by estrée st denis, along the high road to st martin longeau. the reserve, under sir james kempt, moved from its camp near roye, to gournay, on the road to pont st maxence. * * * * * the following were the positions of the respective armies on the evening of the th:-- the first prussian _corps d'armée_ had its advanced guard and reserve cavalry at aulnay and savegny; with detachments of the latter at serran, livry, bondy, and baubigny. the fusilier battalion of the th regiment stood at nonneville. the th uhlans and the st silesian hussars, with two horse batteries, were posted along the ourcq canal. the corps itself rested its right on blanc mesnil, and its left on aulnay. the third _corps d'armée_ was at dammartin and in its vicinity. its reserve cavalry stood at tremblay, in support of zieten. the fourth corps had its advanced guard between le bourget and st denis, which it invested. lieutenant colonel von schill, with the st silesian landwehr cavalry and two battalions of infantry, was posted at stains. the corps itself was at le bourget. prince blÜcher's head quarters were at gonesse. the advanced guard of the anglo-allied army was at senlis. the british cavalry was at pont st maxence. the second and fourth divisions, the nassau troops, and estorff's light cavalry, were at clermont. the first and third divisions, and the dutch-belgian troops, were at st martin longeau. the fifth and sixth divisions, the brunswick troops, and the reserve artillery, were at gournay. the pontoon train and hawser bridges were at estrée st denis. the duke of wellington's head quarters were at le plessis longeau. the french troops comprising the army of the north had entered the capital. * * * * * the french force in the capital, after the arrival of the army that had been defeated in belgium, consisted as follows:--the troops under grouchy including the depôts that had come up from the district of the loire and from other parts of the interior, amounted to or , men. they were reinforced, also, by a very considerable amount of field artillery. one portion of these troops was posted at montmartre, at st denis, and in rear of the ourcq canal: the remainder, under vandamme, occupied the heights of montrouge, on the opposite side, with the exception of the cavalry, which lay in the wood of boulogne. the national guards amounted to about , men: their disposition, however, was very doubtful; and, in general, they were considered as but little disposed to offer any resistance to the allied armies. there was another description of force called the federal _tirailleurs_, raised in the suburbs, and consisting chiefly of veterans: they amounted to , men. hence, setting aside the national guard, there remained, for the defence of paris, a disposable force of about or , men, besides a numerous artillery. marshal davoust, prince of eckmÜhl, was appointed to the chief command of the french army, and his head quarters were fixed at la villette. the measures which had been adopted for taking advantage of the local capabilities of defence which the capital afforded, consisted in the intrenchments that had been raised around the heights of montmartre, monfauçon, and belleville. an advanced line of defence was presented by the ourcq canal; which, proceeding through the wood of bondy and contiguously to the high road from meaux, has an arm that branches off from pantin towards st denis. this canal, which was thirty feet wide but not entirely completed, had been filled with water. along its inner bank ran a high dam, forming an excellent parapet, in which embrasures were cut to admit heavy ordnance; and st denis, which formed the _point d'appui_ of this line of defence on the seine, was strongly fortified. the ground on the north side of this town, too, had been inundated by means of the little rivers rouillon and la vieille mer. the village of aubervilliers, which formed an advanced post at musket shot distance from the line, was occupied: and in rear of it the canal was covered by a sort of _tête de pont_, which secured the communication between both banks. the barriers to the several approaches to paris were covered by works with strong batteries. vincennes had been strengthened, and covered by the works which defended la pissotte. a strong _tête de pont_ was also constructed upon the left bank of the marne, to cover the bridge of charenton. all ferries and boats upon the seine and the marne were transported to the left bank. the bridge of neuilly had been partially destroyed; and the wooden bridge at bessons, over the seine, had been burned. several villages, parks, and gardens, on the right bank of the seine and the marne, were rendered defensible by the walls being crenelated, the approaches barricaded, and the gates blocked up. upon the left bank of the seine, on the south side of the capital, preparations for defence were comparatively neglected; they were limited to the heights of montrouge. for the defence of the principal works, three hundred guns of large calibre were supplied; and for the manning of these, twenty companies of marine artillery, which had been brought into the capital. the line between st denis and vincennes was defended by the first, second, and sixth _corps d'armée_. the imperial guard formed the reserve, and was posted at menil montant. the cavalry was stationed in the bois de boulogne. the third and fourth _corps d'armée_, under vandamme, defended the south side of paris, and occupied montrouge. in the midst of all these preparations, the provisional government, the majority of which, under the influence of fouchÉ, was most desirous of effecting a cessation of hostilities, though acting ostensibly upon the grounds of a necessity of gaining time for the completion of the measures of defence, and of securing the capital from an assault, could not be otherwise than convinced, from the tenor of the replies made by the allied commanders to all its propositions, that the presence of napoleon in paris was the chief obstacle to any satisfactory arrangement. general becker had been appointed to attend the latter at malmaison, to watch over his safety, to insure him that respect to which he was so eminently entitled, and to prevent the ill-disposed from making use of his name for purposes of excitement and tumult. symptoms of a rising among the buonapartists in paris had been manifested on the th, a circumstance naturally consequent upon the re-union in the capital of so many regiments of the line, as also of the imperial guard; whose excitement, devotion, and enthusiasm, had napoleon placed himself once more at their head, might have been such as to have brought them into hostile and fierce collision with the other great parties of the state; and thus have led to scenes of the wildest anarchy and confusion within the walls, whilst the enemy was thundering at the gates from without. hence every effort was employed to induce the ex-emperor to quit the capital. the fact of the arrival of the prussians in front of st denis, and the possibility of an attempt being made to carry him off from malmaison, were explained to him with much earnestness. he immediately referred to the map, and on perceiving the practicability of this _coup de main_; he adopted precautionary measures of defence. he also offered to the government his services in the capacity of general only; remarking, that he was prepared to march against the enemy, and frustrate his bold and hazardous attempt upon the capital. this proposal was sternly rejected. fouchÉ declared that to accede to it would be to remove every chance of arrangement with the allied powers; to create fresh troubles and disorders throughout the country; and, though a temporary success might be gained, to bring down eventually the concentrated force of the immense european armament upon the devoted capital. the commissioners appointed by the government to communicate its wishes to napoleon, no longer hesitated in arranging his departure. the minister of the marine, and count boulay, repaired to his residence, and explained to him that the duke of wellington and prince blÜcher had refused to give him any safeguard or passport; and that he had now only to take his immediate departure. napoleon at length yielded to what he considered to be his destiny; and the preparations for travelling having been completed, he entered his carriage about five o'clock in the afternoon of the th, accompanied by generals bertrand, gourgaud, and other devoted friends, and took the road to rochefort: whither two frigates had been ordered for the embarkation of himself and suite for america. napoleon narrowly escaped falling into the hands of the prussians, whilst at malmaison. blÜcher, hearing that he was living there in retirement, had despatched major colomb, on the th, with the th hussars and two battalions of infantry to secure the bridge of chatou, lower down the seine, leading directly to the house. fortunately, however, for napoleon; the prince of eckmÜhl, when he ascertained that the prussians were nearing the capital, had desired general becker to cause this bridge to be destroyed. hence major colomb was much disappointed at finding there was no passage at this point, which in fact was not more than eight hundred yards distant from the palace in which napoleon was yet remaining at the time of the arrival of the prussians. on the th, the new commissioners appointed by the french government waited upon the duke of wellington at estrée, for the purpose of negotiating a suspension of hostilities. in the course of the discussion which took place on this occasion, the duke declared that he had nothing to add to the communication he had made to the former commissioners; that he could not but consider the abdication as a deception; and would not feel himself justified in suspending his operations on such a pretext, which was by no means calculated to fulfil the object the allies had in view. he explained that, besides napoleon, there were his adherents, who were the declared enemies of the allies; and stated that before he could agree to any suspension he "must see some steps taken to re-establish a government in france which should afford the allies some chance of peace." upon this point his grace was pressed to give some explanation as to what would satisfy the allies. he replied that he had no authority from his own government, much less from the allies, to enter upon the subject; and that all he could do was to give them his private opinion, which he should certainly urge upon the allies with all the influence he might be supposed to possess, unless otherwise instructed by his own government. this opinion was a remarkable illustration of the sound judgment, straightforward policy, and unerring foresight which are so pre-eminently characteristic of the career of this great man. subsequent events proved its correctness to the letter. it was in strict accordance with the design traced out and enforced by the united diplomacy of europe. it is best expressed in the duke's own words:-- "i then told them that i conceived the best security for europe was the restoration of the king, and that the establishment of any other government than the king's in france must inevitably lead to new and endless wars; that buonaparte and the army having overturned the king's government, the natural and simple measure, after buonaparte was prisoner or out of the way and the army defeated, was to recall the king to his authority: and that it was a much more dignified proceeding to recall him without conditions, and to trust to the energy of their constitutions for any reforms they wished to make either in the government or the constitution, than now to make conditions with their sovereign; and that, above all, it was important that they should recall the king without loss of time, as it would not then appear that the measure had been forced upon them by the allies. "the commissioners professed, individually and collectively, their earnest desire to see the king restored in the manner i had mentioned, which they said was likewise the desire of the provisional government. ---- ---- was, however, of opinion that the two chambers could not be brought to recall the king without conditions: and he mentioned, as those upon which they would probably insist, and upon which it was desirable the king should give way; the responsibility of the administration, and the alteration of the constitution so far as that the initiative in making the laws should be vested in the assemblies and not in the king. "i told them regarding the first point, that i had every reason to believe that the king had determined to form a ministry which should be individually and collectively responsible for all the acts of the government; and that i did not doubt that his majesty would not oppose himself to the wishes of the french people, if it was desired that the initiative in framing the laws should be invested in the assemblies: that, however, i had no authority to speak on this subject; and recommended to them not to look after little points of difference, and if they really wished to restore the government of their king, to do it at once and without any conditions. "in the course of this conversation they stated that the assemblies had proclaimed napoleon ii. as emperor only to conciliate the officers and soldiers of the army; who had come into paris in such numbers after the battle, that they had been apprehensive of a civil war in paris if this measure had not been adopted. "while we were discussing the conditions to be proposed to the king; and the evils and inconveniences which the mode of making the laws and the want of responsibility and power in the ministers, had occasioned; i received from sir charles stuart, the king's declaration of the th, countersigned by m. de talleyrand: which i immediately communicated to the french commissioners, and pointed out to them the king's promise to make the alteration in his administration which they had proposed to be made in the constitution. "they objected to certain paragraphs in the declaration referable to the exclusion of certain persons from the king's presence, to the intention announced to punish some of those concerned in the plot which had brought back buonaparte, and to that of calling together the old houses of legislature; upon which, at their desire, i wrote to m. de talleyrand, a letter, of which sir charles stuart will probably have sent to england a copy, which i communicated to the commissioners before i sent it. "i then told them i could not talk more upon the suspension of our operations, which they urged in the most earnest manner in order to give them time to take their measures to recall the king, until i should see marshal blÜcher; to whose head quarters i promised to go that evening. "before i set off, the commissioners asked me whether the appointment of a regency to conduct the affairs of the government in the name of napoleon ii. was likely to satisfy the allies, and would be such an arrangement as would induce me to stop my operations? i answered, certainly not; that i conceived the allies, after their declaration, would never treat with napoleon or any of his family; that the appointment of napoleon ii. was to be attributed to napoleon i., and the acknowledgment of him to the desire to conciliate the army; and that i should not stop my operations in consequence of such an arrangement. "they then asked me what would be the case if any other prince of a royal house were called to the throne of france? to which i said it was impossible for me to answer such loose questions; that, as an individual, i had made them acquainted with my opinion of what it was best for them to do, and it rested with them either to follow this opinion or not. "one of the commissioners, before i went away, took occasion to tell me that he wished i had given a more positive answer to this last question; and i determined to take another opportunity of doing so before the commissioners should report this conversation to paris. "i left them at etrées, and went to the head quarters at le plessis, to give the orders for the movement of the troops in the morning, and i overtook them again in the night at louvres. i then told them i had considered their last question since i had last seen them, and that i felt no objection to give them my opinion on it as an individual: that, in my opinion, europe had no hope of peace if any person excepting the king were called to the throne of france; that any person so called must be considered an usurper, whatever his rank and quality; that he must act as an usurper, and must endeavour to turn the attention of the country from the defects of his title towards war and foreign conquests; that the powers of europe must, in such a case, guard themselves against this evil, and that i could only assure them that, unless otherwise ordered by my government, i would exert any influence i might possess over the allied sovereigns to induce them to insist upon securities for the preservation of peace, besides the treaty itself, if such an arrangement as they had stated were adopted. "the commissioners replied that they perfectly understood me, and some of them added--_et vous avez raison_." chapter xx. prince blÜcher had satisfied himself, by means of the reconnaissances made during the th, that very considerable pains had been taken by the enemy to oppose a serious obstruction to the farther advance of troops marching against the north side of paris. he was now desirous of ascertaining whether the disposition and spirit of the enemy's troops were at all commensurate with the extent of the works which he saw before him: and, with this view, he directed bÜlow to make an attack, in the night of the th, with part of his _corps d'armée_, upon aubervilliers. he also desired zieten to support this attack, by raising as much alarm as possible in the villages of bondy and pontin. before the attack commenced, blÜcher was joined by wellington in person, who communicated to him the proposals which had been made by the french commissioners. being already engaged in an important operation, he could not consent to suspend hostilities; and the two commanders agreed in opinion that, as long as napoleon remained in paris, they could not arrest their operations without insisting upon his being delivered up to them. accordingly, the duke wrote a letter immediately to the commissioners to this effect. blÜcher confided the attack upon aubervilliers to general sydow, with the thirteenth brigade (nine battalions), together with one battalion of the fourteenth brigade, and two regiments of cavalry. the remainder of the fourth _corps d'armée_ was held under arms, in readiness to follow up any acquired advantage. four battalions advanced in column, under colonel lettow, supported by the remaining five battalions. the arrangements, being made during the night, occupied some little time, so that twilight had set in when the attack commenced. colonel lettow penetrated the extensive village on three sides, forced the barriers, and carried every thing before him with the bayonet. the place had been occupied by one thousand of the enemy's best troops; of whom two hundred were made prisoners, and the remainder pursued as far as the canal of st denis. general sydow, accompanied by major lÜtzow of the staff, immediately made a reconnaissance of the canal; and soon discovered that its opposite bank was lined with infantry in great force, and that the different points of passage were defended by batteries. nevertheless he made the attempt to advance; but the troops were received with a vigorous fire of both artillery and musketry; and it soon became evident, that the enemy's fortified position could not be taken except at a great sacrifice of both time and men. sydow, therefore, limited his operations to the occupation of the captured village. a simultaneous advance towards the canal was made, on the left of aubervilliers, by the rd battalion of the st pomeranian landwehr, and the th regiment of hussars; which maintained the communication with the first corps. a sharp _tiraillade_ took place, which terminated in the withdrawal of these troops to their former position. by means of this reconnaissance it was made sufficiently manifest that the line of the canal of st denis could not be carried without a serious assault, preluded by a heavy cannonade. it then became a question with the allied commanders, who had thus, most fortunately, the opportunity of concerting measures in person, whether it would not be advisable to endeavour to turn the enemy's strongly fortified lines of st denis and montmartre, by masking those lines with one army, whilst the other should move off to the right, and cross to the left bank of the seine, lower down the stream. although this movement would have the effect of extending and dividing the allied forces, and consequently of augmenting the chances of success on the part of the enemy: should the latter possess the disposition and the means, not only of acting determinedly on the defensive, but also of assuming the offensive, accordingly as circumstances might favour the attempt; still any defeat of this kind was fully counterbalanced by the advantages which the plan presented. it cut off the entire communication with normandy, from which paris derived its chief supplies; whilst the approach of the bavarian army towards the opposite side was gradually limiting the resources of the capital in that quarter. it enabled the commanders to present their forces simultaneously at different points: and thus, by continuing that display of vigour which had characterised their advance, they were far more likely to impose upon the _morale_ of both the defeated army and the citizens, than by limiting their combined operations to the attack of the stronghold presented by the lines of st denis; for to do this, would, in all probability, require time, and it was evident from the repeated proposals made by the french government for a suspension of hostilities, that time was their great object, whether for the purpose of facilitating the collection and organisation of their resources, or in the hope of obtaining more favourable terms from the allies. it had also been tolerably well ascertained that, although fortified works had been thrown up on the right bank of the seine, the defence of the left bank had been comparatively neglected. a further inducement towards the adoption of this plan arose from a report which was now received from major colomb, stating that although he had found the bridge of chatou, leading to malmaison, destroyed: he had hastened to that of st germain, on hearing that it had not been injured; and succeeded in gaining possession of it at the very moment the french were on the point of effecting its destruction. the bridge of maisons, still lower down the stream, was also taken and occupied. no time was lost by the prussian commander in taking advantage of the captured bridges across the seine. lieutenant colonel sohr received an order that night to move, with his cavalry brigade (the brandenburg and pomeranian hussars), from the vicinity of louvres, and to regulate his march so that he might cross the seine at st germain on the following morning. thence he was to proceed so as to appear, with his brigade, on the st of july, upon the orleans road from paris; where he was to interrupt this communication, and increase the confusion already produced in that quarter by the fugitives from the capital. altogether, he was to act independently and discretionally; and, as far as practicable, to impede the supplies of provisions from the western and southern provinces. it was arranged that the prussian army should move to its right for the purpose of crossing the seine; and, in order to mask the operation as much as possible, the advanced posts of the first and fourth corps d'armÉe were to remain in their present position until the arrival of the anglo-allied army, which was expected to take place on the evening of the th. the third corps was directed to resume, at five o'clock in the morning of the th, its march upon gonesse; and thence to proceed to st germain: but in such a manner as to conceal its movements by means of the valley of montmorency, and not to reach the more open ground about argenteuil until darkness should have completely set in. from the latter point it would then complete its march to st germain. the first corps was ordered to break up from its bivouac at ten o'clock in the evening, and march southward of gonesse by montmorency, franconville, cormeilles, and maisons, at which latter point it was to cross the seine, and immediately open a communication with the third corps. the fourth corps d'armÉe was directed to move, at daybreak of the st of july, by the right of st denis, and to bombard this place during its march to argenteuil; in which direction it was to effect a junction with the first and third corps. the advanced posts of the first and fourth corps were to remain until relieved by the british troops; and then, in like manner, to follow the rest of the army. these movements were punctually directed in the manner described. as the first and third _corps d'armée_ moved off to the right, count bÜlow considered it necessary to strengthen the outposts of the fourth corps, so as to be prepared to meet the enemy should the latter debouch from st denis. he therefore ordered colonel hiller to take post in observation of this point, with six battalions, a regiment of cavalry, half of a six pounder battery, and two pieces of horse artillery. about three o'clock in the afternoon, the prussian outposts reported that french columns were advancing from st denis, and that the vedettes were already driven in. colonel hiller immediately pushed forward the sharpshooters of two battalions, as also two squadrons of cavalry, with two pieces of horse artillery. at the same time, the troops at stains got under arms, and were prepared to support. a very brisk _tiraillade_ ensued, although there was no cover for the skirmishers on the plain, except the trees along the great road and the high corn, which served to conceal their approach. the enemy had also sent detachments towards epinay and pierrefitte; but at these points, as also in advance of stains, the french were compelled to give way and to retire, without having succeeded in their object of forcing back the prussian outposts. the main body of the fourth _corps d'armée_ remained, during the th, in its position at le bourget; its advanced guard, under general sydow, was detached to the right, towards argenteuil, to communicate with the third _corps d'armée_. as the former was to move off on the following morning, it became necessary to hold the outposts strictly on the defensive. aubervilliers was the most open to attack. two companies were posted at the outlets, towards the french side; and in rear of these, two other companies were formed in support. still further to the rear was the main position; on which these troops, if overpowered, were to fall back. it lay along the villages of chantourterelle, courneuve, and merville, connected together by a water course lined with bushes, and consisting of separate country houses and châteaux, mostly within walls, which had been loopholed for _tirailleurs_. six battalions, chiefly extended in skirmishing order, were considered sufficient to occupy the whole of this line, as far as the high road from le bourget. partial skirmishing, at a distance, was kept up; though, on the side of the prussians, it was more for the purpose of diverting the attention of the enemy, and concealing from him the general movement to the right. bivouac fires were maintained during the night on the ground vacated by the different corps, in order to deceive the enemy by their apparent indication of the continued presence of the prussian army in front of the lines of st denis. * * * * * on this day, the advanced guard of the anglo-allied army (vivian's hussar brigade) reached vauderlan. the british cavalry moved to louvres. estorff's cavalry, attached to the second corps, crossed the oise at creil, and proceeded by chantilly to luzarches. the infantry of this corps marched from clermont to chantilly. the first corps moved from its camp near st martin longeau, crossed the oise at pont st maxence, and advanced until the head of the column reached la capelle, and its rear rested upon senlis. the reserve moved from its camp, near gournay, by pont st maxence, the head of the column reaching fleurines on the road to senlis, and the rear resting upon pont st maxence. * * * * * the following were the positions of the respective armies on the evening of the th:-- the first prussian _corps d' armée_ commenced its march, at half past ten o'clock in the evening, from blancmesnil and aulnay towards st germain, passing, during the night, through gonesse, montmorency, and le mesnil, to carrière au mont, near st germain--leaving its outposts in the position they had hitherto occupied. the third _corps d'armée_ marched, during the night, from dammartin to st germain, by gonesse and argenteuil; at which latter place, however, its reserve cavalry was halted. the fourth _corps d'armée_ remained in its position at le bourget, to cover the march of the rest of the army. its outposts continued at stains, st denis, and aubervilliers. lieutenant colonel von sohr, with the brandenburg and pomeranian hussars, crossed the seine at st germain, and was advancing towards versailles. major von colomb, with the th hussars, occupied the bridge of st germain. the head quarters of prince blÜcher continued at gonesse. the advanced guard of the anglo-allied army was at vauderlan. the british cavalry was encamped on the plain about louvres. the hanoverian cavalry was at luzarches. the second and fourth divisions, and the nassau troops, were upon the high road between la capelle and senlis. the fifth and sixth divisions, the brunswick troops, and the reserve artillery, were upon the high road between fleurines and pont st maxence. the pontoon train and hawser bridges were at senlis. the duke of wellington's head quarters were at louvres. the french army remained within the lines of paris. * * * * * since the departure of napoleon, both the army and the citizens looked upon the parliament as the sole directing power; and, in full reliance upon its integrity, appeared willingly submissive to its dictates. fouchÉ, who had been in secret communication with the allies, decided upon exercising, in accordance with their views, the great influence he had succeeded in acquiring over a very considerable portion of the deputies. it was mainly by means of this influence that he contrived to remove the principal obstacle in the way of all negotiation--the presence of napoleon. his next step was to prepare the chamber for the return to power of the legitimate monarch: a measure which he could only hope to accomplish by holding it forth as the sole alternative to the destruction of paris by the vast and overwhelming force of the allied armies marching towards the capital from the north and east frontiers; and by combining with it the adoption of such modifications of the charter as should satisfy the desires of the constitutionalists and the moderately disposed of all parties. aware that the army was animated with a spirit of determined resistance towards the allies; he plainly saw that, unless conciliated, the turbulent buonapartists, with whom its ranks were filled, might speedily frustrate the accomplishment of his plans by which the peace of the capital was to be preserved, and ultimately prevent the attainment of that extended constitutional power for which the deputies were contending. he, therefore, with his usual adroitness, addressed himself to its chief, marshal davoust, prince of eckmÜhl; and by his skilful exposition of the political posture of affairs, he succeeded in gaining over the marshal to his views. the latter wrote to him on the evening of the th, that he had overcome his prejudices; and had arrived at the conclusion that the only safe course to be pursued consisted in entering into an armistice, and proclaiming louis xviii. on the th, the prince, as the head of the french army, addressed the following letter to both wellington and blÜcher:-- "head quarters, la villette, june , . "my lord, "your hostile movements continue, although, according to the declarations of the allied sovereigns, the motives of the war which they make upon us no longer exist; since the emperor napoleon has abdicated. "at the moment when blood is again on the point of flowing, i receive from marshal the duke of albufera a telegraphic despatch, of which i transmit you a copy. my lord, i guarantee this armistice on my honour. all the reasons you might have had to continue hostilities are destroyed; because you can have no other instruction from your government than that which the austrian generals had from theirs. "i make the formal demand to your excellency of ceasing all hostilities, and of our proceeding to agree to an armistice, according to the decision of congress. i cannot believe, my lord, that my request will be ineffectual; you will take upon yourself a great responsibility in the eyes of your fellow countrymen. "no other motive but that of putting an end to the effusion of blood, and the interests of my country, has dictated this letter. "if i present myself on the field of battle, with the idea of your talents, i shall carry the conviction of there combating for the most sacred of causes--that of the defence and independence of my country; and, whatever may be the result, i shall merit your esteem. "accept, &c., "the marshal prince of eckmÜhl, "minister at war." to this the duke of wellington replied in the following terms:-- "head quarters, july , -- a.m. "monsieur le marÉchal, "i have just received your excellency's letter of the th june, in which your excellency communicates to me the intelligence you have received of an armistice having been concluded by general frimont with marshal the duke of albufera. "i have already made known, in writing, to the french commissioners sent to the allied powers, and verbally, to the commissioners sent to me, the reasons which have prevented me from suspending my operations; which reasons, i have cause to believe, are fully adopted by the allies of my sovereign, and of those whose armies i have the honour of commanding. "i have every wish to prevent the further effusion of the blood of the brave troops under my command; but it must be upon the conditions which shall secure the re-establishment and the stability of the general peace. "i have the honour to be, &c., "wellington." prince blÜcher, who entertained a great contempt for diplomacy, attributing as he did the cause of the renewal of the war to the ill concocted schemes to which that war had given birth, had hitherto refrained from either receiving in person, or noticing in writing, any communication addressed to him by the french authorities. he applied himself solely to the military solution of the great problem on which depended the peace of europe. upon this occasion, however, tempted probably by the opportunity which was offered to him of sharply retorting upon the marshal, under whose government of hamburg the greatest excesses had been committed upon his countrymen; he was induced to pen the following reply, couched in his rough native german, as if to evince both his disdain of the usual diplomatic mode of communication, and his dislike of even the very language of the country he so thoroughly detested:-- "_to the french general davoust._ "head quarters, july , . "marshal, "it is not conformable to truth that, because napoleon has abdicated the throne, there exists no further motive for war between the allied powers and france. his abdication is conditional; that is, in favour of his son: but a decree of the allied powers excludes not only napoleon, but every member of his family, from the throne. "if general frimont has considered himself authorised to conclude an armistice with your general opposed to him, that is no motive for us to do the same. we shall pursue our victory. god has given us strength and resolution to do so. beware, marshal, of what you do; and forbear devoting another city to destruction! for you know what liberties the exasperated soldiers would take, should your capital be carried by storm. do you solicit the maledictions of paris, in addition to those of hamburg? "we shall enter paris to protect the respectable inhabitants against the mob, by whom they are threatened with pillage. an armistice can be made with security nowhere but in paris. this, our relative position towards your nation, be pleased, marshal, not to mistake! "let me finally observe to you, marshal, if you mean to negotiate with us, it is matter of surprise that, in defiance of the law of nations, you detain our officers dispatched with letters and orders. "in the usual form of conventional civility, i have the honour to be, "marshal, "your obedient servant, "blÜcher." * * * * * whilst thus endeavouring to draw the allied generals into negotiation; fouchÉ and davoust felt the necessity of carrying out their plans with the greatest caution, and in such a manner as to prevent any unfavourable construction being put upon their motives by the army. on the evening of the th of june, there was an assemblage of general officers at the head quarters in villette; at which it was proposed to send up an address to the chamber of representatives expressive of the determined spirit of resistance which animated the troops, and of their hostility to the bourbons. it was adopted by the majority; and davoust, though secretly working with fouchÉ for the restoration of louis xviii., did not hesitate to attach to it his signature. it was couched in the following terms:-- "camp at villette, th june. "representatives of the people! "we are in presence of our enemies. we swear before you and the world to defend, to our last breath, the cause of our independence and the national honour. "it is wished to impose the bourbons upon us, but these princes are rejected by the immense majority of frenchmen. if their return could be agreed to, recollect, representatives, that you would sign the annihilation of the army; which for twenty years has been the palladium of french honour. there are in war, especially when it has been long conducted, successes and reverses. in our successes, we have appeared great and generous. if it is wished to humble us in our reverses, we shall know how to die. "the bourbons present no guarantee to the nation. we received them with sentiments of the most generous confidence: we forgot all the calamities they had caused us in their rage to deprive us of our most sacred rights. well! what return did they make for this confidence? they treated us as rebels and as vanquished. representatives! these reflections are terrible, because they are true. history will one day relate what the bourbons have done to replace themselves on the throne of france; it will also narrate the conduct of the army; of that army essentially national; and posterity will judge which best deserved the esteem of the world. "the marshal prince of eckmÜhl, minister at war, "count pajol, commanding the first corps of cavalry, "count d'erlon, commanding the right wing, "count vandamme, general in chief." (and fifteen other generals.) the chambers being thus appealed to, felt it incumbent on them to issue a proclamation explanatory of the political situation of france; and of their own intentions under all the critical circumstances in which it presented itself to their view. this document, cautiously drawn up by the constitutionalists who formed the preponderating party in the state, and strongly marked by the policy which was pursued throughout by fouchÉ, was framed with great tact. although it acknowledged the nomination of napoleon's son to the empire, it manifested no hostility to the bourbons: it expressed a desire to secure a monarchical and representative government; but, at the same time, declared that the head of the government, whoever he might be, must enter into a solemn compact and abide by the constitutional charter. in short, its general tone was sufficiently independent to secure for it, if not the approbation, at least the acquiescence, of both the liberals and the buonapartists; whilst, on the other hand, it significantly indicated the terms upon which a bourbon might re-ascend the throne, and rally round him the friends of constitutional order and civil rights. with but few exceptions it admitted of being reconciled with the proclamation published on the th of june by louis xviii. it ran thus:-- "frenchmen! "the foreign powers proclaimed, in the face of europe, that they were only armed against napoleon; and that they wished to respect our independence, and the right which belongs to every nation to choose a government suitable to its habits and its interests. "napoleon is no longer the chief of the state. he has renounced the throne, and his abdication has been accepted by your representatives. he is removed from us. his son is called to the empire by the constitution of the state. the coalesced sovereigns are informed of this; and the war ought to be terminated, if the promises of kings have any foundation in truth. "while plenipotentiaries have been sent to the allied powers to treat for peace in the name of france; the generals of two of those powers have refused any suspension of arms. their troops have accelerated their marches under favour of a moment of hesitation and trouble. they are now at the very gates of the capital, and no communication has stated for what object the war is continued. our plenipotentiaries will soon declare whether we must renounce peace. in the mean time, resistance is not only legitimate, but necessary: and humanity, in requiring an account of the blood uselessly shed, will not accuse those brave men who only combat to repel from their houses the scourges of war, murder, and pillage; and to defend with their lives the cause of liberty, and of that independence the imprescriptible right of which has been guaranteed to them even by the manifestoes of their enemies. "amidst these circumstances, your representatives cannot forget that they were not chosen to stipulate for the interests of any individual party, but for the whole nation. every act of weakness will dishonour them, and will only tend to endanger the future tranquillity of france. while the government is employing all the means in its power to obtain a solid peace; or, should that not be obtained without compromising our honour, to repel the battalions of foreigners: what more advantages to the nation can be done than to collect and establish the fundamental rules of a monarchical and representative government, destined to secure to all citizens the free enjoyment of those sacred rights which sacrifices so numerous and so great have purchased; and to rally for ever, under the national colours, that great body of frenchmen who have no other interest, and no other wish, than an honourable repose and a just independence. "meanwhile the chambers conceive that their duty and their dignity require them to declare that they will never acknowledge, as legitimate chief of the state, him who, on ascending the throne, shall refuse to acknowledge the rights of the nation, and to consecrate them by a solemn compact. the constitutional charter is drawn up; and if the force of arms should succeed in temporarily imposing upon us a master--if the destinies of a great nation are again to be delivered up to the caprice and arbitrary will of a small number of privileged persons--then, in yielding to force, the national representation will protest in the face of the whole world against the oppression of the french people. "your representatives will appeal to the energy of the present and future generations to renew their claim both to national independence, and the rights of civil and religious liberty. for these rights they now appeal to the reason and the justice of all civilized nations." notwithstanding the continued endeavours, on the part of the french commissioners appointed by the chambers, to induce the allied generals to enter upon an armistice; the military operations were not for a moment interrupted. on the morning of the st of july, bÜlow's _corps d' armée_ (the fourth) moved off to its right, towards argenteuil. during the movement, however; the enemy, as if at length aware, or desirous of ascertaining the nature, of blÜcher's operation, attacked the village of aubervilliers in front, from the canal of st denis, and penetrated as far as the church situated in the centre of the place. the french were here met by the prussian support; and two battalions from the main position arriving immediately afterwards, they were prevented from making any further progress. nevertheless, a prolonged _tiraillade_, as well as a howitzer fire, on the part of the french, were maintained; during which the march of bÜlow's corps continued in operation, the fourteenth brigade being left in support to the advanced posts until the arrival of the anglo-allied troops. * * * * * in the afternoon, the duke of wellington's army reached le bourget; and took up the position vacated by prince blÜcher, whose advanced posts it immediately relieved. three companies of light infantry from colville's division were thrown into aubervilliers. the prussians who had hitherto been stationed for the purpose of masking as much as possible the general movement of their army to the right, had kept up a desultory fire from that portion of the village which was in their possession; abstaining from making any direct attack, since this might have led to the advance of the french in great force at the moment the former were no longer supported by the main army, and before the anglo-allied troops had arrived. the british light companies, mentioned as having been thrown into aubervilliers, were under no restraint of this kind; and lieutenant colonel sir neil campbell, who commanded them, determined to push forward, and possess himself, if possible, of the entire village. having first gained two or three of the highest houses, he broke from the top of these into some that were lower; and thence forcing his way through the partition walls of others, without much firing, since the french did not appear disposed to make an obstinate resistance (being by that time probably aware of the prussian movement to the right, and of the arrival of the anglo-allied army), he succeeded in obtaining possession of one side of a whole street, and of the greater portion of the village. the french officer in command then proposed a truce; which was accepted, since the post he occupied lay between the british and a battery upon the canal. the remaining outposts were taken up from the prussians without any molestation on the part of the enemy; and the main anglo-allied army occupied a position, having its right upon the height of richebourg, and its left upon the wood of bondy. * * * * * it will be recollected that lieutenant colonel sohr, of the prussian light cavalry, was directed to pass the bridge of st germain on the morning of the th of june, and to show himself on the orleans road upon the st of july. starting at daybreak of the th, the brigade passed through montmorency and argenteuil, towards st germain; where it fell in with major colomb's detachment, consisting of the th hussars and two battalions of infantry. it then moved on about a league further, to marly, upon the versailles road; which it reached at nightfall, and where it bivouacked. on the morning of the st of july, lieutenant colonel sohr resumed his march, and took the direction of versailles, which place, however, he did not reach until noon; much delay having occurred whilst passing through the intersected ground in that quarter, and in awaiting the reports from the detachments sent out in different directions to gain intelligence of the enemy. this bold and hazardous movement of lieutenant colonel sohr's brigade, which was acting independently as a free corps for the time, did not escape the enemy's observation. general excelmans, who commanded the french cavalry on the south side of paris, on receiving information that two regiments of prussian hussars were advancing by marly upon versailles, resolved to attack them. for this purpose he proceeded himself with the th, th, and th dragoons, and the th hussars, comprising a force of three thousand men, along the road from montrouge towards plessis piquet, against the front of the prussian brigade. at the same time, the light cavalry division of general pirÉ, together with the rd regiment of infantry, consisting of three battalions, were detached against the flank and rear of the prussian brigade. the th and th lancers marched by the sèvres road upon viroflay; the th _chasseurs_ proceeded to occupy the cross roads connecting sèvres with the northern portion of versailles; the st _chasseurs_ moved by sèvres towards rocquencourt, about three miles from versailles, on the road to st germain; in which direction the rd infantry followed. both the latter regiments were destined to cut off the retreat of the prussian cavalry, should it be driven back by excelmans. an exceedingly well planned ambush was now laid in and about rocquencourt, and every precaution taken by the detaching of small parties on the look out. it was late in the afternoon when lieutenant colonel sohr received intelligence that the enemy's cavalry was approaching, and that his advanced guard was attacked. he immediately advanced with both his hussar regiments, and drove back the enemy upon villa coublai, in the defile of which village a sharp engagement ensued. in this attack the ranks of the prussian hussars had become disordered; and, as the latter retired, they were fallen upon by the th and th french lancers of pirÉ's light cavalry brigade, before alluded to as having been posted in ambush. they then fell back upon versailles, pursued by the french; who vainly endeavoured to force an entrance into the town, at the gate of which a gallant resistance was made by the prussians. the short time that was gained by this resistance sufficed for collecting the main body of the brigade on the open space at the outlet leading to st germain, towards which point it might have retreated through the park; but, having received information of the advance of thielemann's corps, and expecting every moment to derive from it a support, lieutenant colonel sohr retired by the more direct road through rocquencourt. about seven o'clock in the evening, at which time the hussars had collected their scattered force together, and were on the point of commencing their further retreat upon st germain: sohr received intelligence, upon which he could rely, that he had been turned by both cavalry and infantry; and that his line of retreat had been intercepted. his decision was instantly formed. he knew his men, their devotion, and their courage; and resolved upon cutting his way through the enemy with the sword. on quitting versailles the prussian hussars were fired upon by the national guard from the barrier. they had not proceeded far when word was brought in, that prussian and english cavalry were approaching from the side of st germain; but they were speedily undeceived. it was the st regiment of french _chasseurs_. in the next moment they were formed for attack, and advanced at a gallop. the _chasseurs_ came on in the same style; but they were completely overthrown, and their commanding officer lay stretched upon the ground by a pistol shot. as they were pursued by the hussars, a fire was unexpectedly opened upon the latter by two companies of the rd battalion of the rd french regiment, posted behind some hedges, near le chesnay; whereupon sohr, with the greater part of his hussars, struck into a field road to the right, in order to turn this village, which was occupied by the enemy. this, however, led them to a bridge, with adjacent houses, occupied by two more companies of the above battalion; from which they also received a sharp fire. meeting with this new obstacle, and aware of the proximity of the great mass of cavalry under excelmans, in their rear; the diminished and disordered remnant of the two prussian regiments, about hussars, rallying upon their chief, dashed across a meadow, with a determination to force a passage through the village of le chesnay. here the _chasseurs_ again opposed them, but were once more overthrown; and the prussians now followed a road which conducted them through the village, but which unfortunately led into a large court whence there was no other outlet. not only was their further progress thus checked, but their whole body was suddenly assailed by a fire from infantry, already posted in this quarter; whilst the pursuing cavalry prevented every chance of escape. their situation had become truly desperate; but their bravery, instead of succumbing, appeared incited to the highest pitch by the heroic example of lieutenant colonel sohr: who rejected the offer of quarter, and fell, severely wounded by a pistol shot. victory favoured the strongest: but it was a victory gained by immeasurably superior numbers over the dead and dying of a gallant band of warriors; who fought to the last, and did all that the most inflexible bravery could accomplish. the losses incurred by this brigade during the short campaign had already reduced it, previously to this affair, to between and men: and on the present occasion it suffered a still further loss of ten officers, and from to men. the detaching of these two regiments so much in advance of the prussian general movement to the right; and the orders given to lieutenant colonel sohr, to cross the seine on the morning of the th of june, appear a questionable measure. it is true that this officer was desired to consider himself as acting independently, and without reference to the troops that were to follow in the same direction; but then it must be recollected that he had to proceed along a very considerable portion of the circumference of a circle, from the centre of which the enemy could detach superior force along radii far shorter than the distance between the prussian brigade and the main army: so that, with a vigilant look out, the french possessed every facility of cutting off his retreat. his orders were to interrupt the communication with paris by the orleans road, and to spread alarm and confusion on that side of the capital: but in issuing them the effect likely to be produced upon the _morale_ of the citizens could have alone been contemplated; and, in all probability, it was at the same time conceived that, as no fortified works had been thrown up on the south side, the french troops intended to direct their attention mainly, if not wholly, towards the armies in front of the northern portion of the capital. the effect thus sought to be produced might have been obtained in the case of a weak garrison; but that of paris, comprising as it did about , troops of the line, besides the national guards, was not to be so lightly treated. in carrying into execution the order to create alarm and confusion on the south side of paris, these two regiments of hussars would naturally draw in that direction the attention of the french commanders; and thus lead, as the result proved, not only to the cutting off of so comparatively weak a force, but also to the posting of a respectable body of troops at the threatened point, in anticipation of the enemy's following up the attack in greater force. even previously to obtaining the insight thus afforded into a part of the plan of the invaders, the movements of the latter had been more narrowly watched than was supposed: as may be readily inferred from the fact of excelmans having been detached, on the st, towards versailles, with a body of cavalry; and of the position at montrouge having been occupied in considerable force. all circumstances considered, the preferable course would have been, to have employed sohr's brigade as an advanced guard only; having immediate support from the main columns in its rear. it so happened that the advanced guard of thielemann's corps, consisting of the ninth infantry brigade, under general borcke, was on the march from st germain (which it had left about seven o'clock in the evening) to take post at marly; when it received intelligence of the two cavalry regiments, under lieutenant colonel sohr, having been completely defeated. borcke hastened forward, and it was not long before his advance became engaged with the french _tirailleurs_ proceeding from versailles. the enemy was immediately attacked, and driven back upon rocquencourt. as darkness was setting in, borcke drew up his force with caution. he pushed forward the fusilier battalion of the th regiment, supported by the st battalion of the th regiment; and held the remainder in battalion columns on the right and left of the road. the vigour of the attack made by the first named battalion was such that the enemy retired in all haste upon the nearest suburb of paris; whilst borcke bivouacked at rocquencourt. besides the cavalry under excelmans, the remains of the third and fourth french _corps d'armée_ were detached to the south of paris; on which side vandamme, who commanded, took up a position, having his right upon the seine, his left by montrouge, and his centre in rear of issy. he placed a portion of his troops in the villages of vanves and issy; the houses and walls of which appeared to offer great advantages for defence. his advanced guard occupied chatillon, clamord, meudon, sèvres, and st cloud. in the evening he was joined by the imperial guard, which he posted in support. * * * * * the following were the positions of the respective armies on the evening of the st of july:-- the second corps of the anglo-allied army, under lord hill, comprising the second and fourth divisions, the nassau troops, and estorff's hanoverian cavalry brigade, was in the position previously occupied by the fourth prussian corps; having its right upon the great road about pierrefitte, its left upon the great road of senlis, and its advanced posts at aubervilliers and in front of st denis. the first corps, under sir john byng, comprising the first and third divisions, and the dutch-belgian troops, were in the position previously occupied by the first prussian corps; having its right upon the great road behind le bourget; its left upon the forest of bondy, and its advanced posts along the ourcq canal. the reserve, under sir james kempt, was encamped between louvres and vauderlan. the cavalry was encamped and cantoned about the villages of groussainville, vauderlan, and roissy. the pontoon train and the hawser bridges were at sarcelles, on the chantilly road to paris. the head quarters of the duke of wellington were at gonesse. the first prussian _corps d'armée_ was encamped between the villages of le mesnil and carrière au mont, on the left bank of the seine, not far from st germain. the third corps was also on the left bank of the seine, in the valley, and near st germain. its advanced guard (the ninth brigade) was at rocquencourt. the fourth corps was upon the march to st germain. prince blÜcher's head quarters were at st germain. the third and fourth french _corps d'armée_ and the imperial guard were on the south side of paris, their right upon the seine, their left by montrouge; with the advanced guard at chatillon, clamord, meudon, sèvres, and st cloud. the remainder of the french army continued within the capital. the prince of eckmÜhl's head quarters were at villette. at daybreak of the nd of july, blÜcher put the whole prussian army in motion towards the south side of paris, where he purposed taking possession of the advantageous position comprising the heights of meudon and chatillon, and their immediate vicinity. thielemann's advanced guard (the ninth brigade) immediately proceeded to occupy versailles. the corps itself halted two hours at rocquencourt to wait for the arrival of zieten's corps. as the latter corps advanced, it threw out a detachment to its left, consisting of the st battalion of the st west prussian regiment, two pieces of horse artillery, and a squadron of cavalry, under captain krensky: who was directed to proceed by malmaison towards st cloud, communicating with major colomb, who had already been detached, with the force before mentioned as being under his command, towards the bridge of neuilly; and to keep a look out to the left of the direct road to paris. on zieten's advanced guard reaching ville d'avray, whence it drove off a french picquet, information was obtained that the enemy was restoring the bridge of st cloud, which he had previously destroyed; and that he occupied the bois de boulogne in considerable force. the third brigade was therefore ordered to proceed by its left towards st cloud, and to oppose any movement which might be attempted against that flank. it was three o'clock in the afternoon when zieten's first brigade, under steinmetz, reached sèvres. here the french were strongly posted, occupying the place itself, the heights of bellevue; and having their light troops well disposed amongst the adjacent gardens and vineyards. the first prussian brigade was followed in support by the second and fourth brigades; and, notwithstanding the very gallant defence that was made, these troops succeeded in forcing the french to abandon their stronghold, and fall back upon moulineau. here the french made another stand; but were again defeated by steinmetz, who had closely pursued them. whilst the first brigade was thus gaining ground; the second, together with the reserve artillery, advanced towards the heights of meudon. the reserve cavalry of the corps followed the first brigade, in support. the fourth brigade occupied sèvres. major general jagow, who had been detached to the left with the third brigade, having ascertained that the enemy was not likely to undertake any movement from the bois de boulogne, and that captain krensky's detachment was on the look out in that direction, proceeded to rejoin the corps; and on reaching sèvres, towards evening, he was directed by zieten to take up a position with his brigade to the right, on the heights of meudon. in the evening, the french, after having reformed, and collected their defeated force at issy, made an attempt to regain possession of moulineau; but the attack failed, and they were driven back upon issy. here they were reinforced: fifteen battalions were posted in and about issy, supported by numerous guns and cavalry: their light infantry occupying the vineyards in front of the village. about half past ten o'clock in the night, however, the prussians, who kept a sharp look out, heard these troops marching off; and perceived that their departure was conducted in rather a disorderly manner. instant advantage was taken of this circumstance, and a part of the first and second prussian brigades attacked the french; who fled back upon the suburb of vaugirard in such confusion that paris might have been entered at this moment, if more force had been at hand. during the night, zieten posted his corps in the following manner:--his right upon the height of clamord, his centre upon that of meudon, and his left in moulineau; sèvres still occupied; the advanced guard in issy, in the rear of which village was the reserve cavalry in support. whilst zieten's corps had been thus successfully effecting its movement against the south side of the capital; thielemann's, which formed the right column, proceeded towards plessis piquet, and pushed forward its advanced guard to the heights of chatillon, which it reached late in the evening. bÜlow's corps, acting as a reserve, occupied versailles and its vicinity during the night. during the whole of this day, the troops of the anglo-allied army continued in position in front of the fortified lines on the north side of paris. the duke having established a bridge at argenteuil, detachments were sent across the seine: and these, having secured the villages of asnières, courbevoie, and suresnes on the left bank of the seine, opened a communication with the prussians. the allied commanders had thus succeeded in shutting up the french forces within their lines. wellington was perfectly prepared to attack the north side of paris, if circumstances should render such a step necessary; or if a favourable opportunity should present itself: whilst blÜcher, having secured a strong position in front of the south side, which was mostly open and defenceless, was equally ready to storm the capital with his collected force. the effect of this well conceived and successfully executed plan of operation was to divide the enemy's attention between two opposite points of the town. should he attempt to assail the one army with his principal force, he would immediately find himself attacked by the other army; without possessing the means wherewith to carry on the contest with both simultaneously. on the other hand, should a general and formidable assault be made by those armies, on the opposite points, at the same time; the necessary division of his forces, in arranging his plan of defence, would render his situation still more desperate. * * * * * the provisional government, fully alive to this state of things, and duly aware of the approach of the bavarian, russian, and austrian armies, clearly saw the inutility of further resistance to the allies, and instructed the commissioners to wait upon the duke of wellington, and report to his grace the fact of napoleon having quitted paris on the th to embark for the united states, and to press the point of a suspension of hostilities. to this representation the duke replied that the great obstacle to the armistice having thus been removed, there remained only the question as to the terms; which he thought should be the halting of the anglo-allied and prussian armies in their present positions, the withdrawal of the french army from paris across the loire, and the placing of the capital in the keeping of the national guards until the king should order otherwise. he offered, if they agreed to these terms, to endeavour to prevail on prince blÜcher to halt his troops, and send an officer to settle the details; but, at the same time, he told them distinctly that he would not consent to suspend hostilities so long as a french soldier remained in paris. having received this explicit declaration on the part of his grace, the commissioners withdrew. * * * * * the following were the positions of the respective armies during the night of the nd of july:-- the troops of the anglo-allied army continued in position in front of the lines of st denis. detachments were at asnières, courbevoie, and suresnes, on the left hank of the seine. the first prussian _corps d'armée_ had its right on the height of clamard, its centre on that of meudon, its left at moulineau, and its advanced guard at issy; in rear of which point was the reserve cavalry of the corps. of the third corps, the ninth brigade was at chatillon, the tenth and eleventh brigades were in front of vélizy, the twelfth brigade was at chatenay and sceaux. the reserve cavalry of the corps bivouacked about plessis piquet. of the fourth corps, the sixteenth brigade was at montreail, in advance of versailles; the thirteenth brigade bivouacked near viroflay; the fourteenth brigade bivouacked at le chesnay bel air, not far from rocquencourt. the reserve cavalry of the corps was partly in front of versailles, and partly on the left of montreail. the troops composing the right wing of the french army occupied the lines on the right bank of the seine, whence they were watching the british. some troops were posted in the bois de boulogne, and several posts were established along both banks of the river. the left wing extended from the seine as far as the orleans road. it held vaugirard strongly occupied, the main body was posted between the barrières de l'ecole militaire and de l'enfer. at three o'clock on the morning of the rd of july, vandamme advanced in two columns from vaugirard to the attack of issy. between vaugirard and the seine, he had a considerable force of cavalry, the front of which was flanked by a battery advantageously posted near auteuil on the right bank of the river. the action commenced with a brisk cannonade: the french having brought twenty pieces of cannon against the front of the village, which was then vigorously assailed by his infantry. the prussians had constructed some barricades, and other defences, during the night; but these did not protect them from the sharp fire of case shot which was poured upon them by the french batteries, the guns of which enfiladed the streets. the th and th prussian regiments, and the nd westphalian landwehr, supported by a half battery of twelve pounders, fought with great bravery. there was much loss on both sides. at length the french withdrew; but only to advance again, considerably reinforced. the second prussian brigade was immediately ordered to join the first, and the whole of the troops of the first corps stood to their arms. zieten sent a request to prince blÜcher for the support of two brigades of bÜlow's corps; and, at the same time, begged thielemann to advance (in conformity with instructions conveyed to him from head quarters) from chatillon, and threaten the enemy's left flank. in the mean time, the french renewed their attack upon issy; which, however, again proved unsuccessful. this was followed by a heavy cannonade and by further assaults, without any decided advantage having been gained over the defenders. the french did not appear disposed to venture upon a more general attack, which would have offered them a much greater chance of forcing back the prussian advanced guard; probably considering that, if unsuccessful, it might end in the suburbs of paris being easily carried by storm: and hence, after four hours' continued but fruitless attempts upon zieten's advanced position, they fell back upon paris; the prussian _tirailleurs_ following them until they came within a very short distance of the barriers. * * * * * at a council of war, which had been held during the previous night in paris, it was decided that the defence of the capital was not practicable against the allied armies. nevertheless, davoust was desirous that another attempt should be made on the prussian army: but now that this had failed in the manner described, that the two allied armies were in full communication with each other, and that a british corps was likewise moving upon the left of the seine towards neuilly, a capitulation was determined upon. accordingly, at seven o'clock in the morning, the fire on the part of the french suddenly ceased; and general revest was deputed to pass over to zieten's corps, which of all the allied troops was the nearest to the capital, for the purpose of offering a capitulation, and requesting an immediate armistice. blÜcher, however, required from marshal davoust, the commander in chief of the french army, a negotiator possessing greater powers, before he would finally agree to a suspension of hostilities; and indicated the palace of st cloud as the place where the negotiations should be carried on, to which point he then removed his head quarters. during the contest at issy, the detachments on the left of the first prussian corps, under captain krensky, were engaged rather sharply with the enemy between st cloud and neuilly; which ended in the french being driven back upon the bridge at the latter place, towards which point also a body of british troops was advancing. thus zieten's corps, the same that had opened the campaign with the actions along the sambre, had the honour of closing it with those at issy and neuilly on the seine. * * * * * officers, furnished with full powers by their respective chiefs, soon met at st cloud; whither the duke of wellington had already repaired in person to join prince blÜcher; and the result of their deliberations was the following:-- _military convention._ this day, the rd of july , the commissioners named by the commanders in chief of the respective armies; that is to say, the baron bignon, holding the portfolio of foreign affairs; the count guilleminot, chief of the general staff of the french army; the count de bondy, prefect of the department of the seine; being furnished with the full powers of his excellency the marshal prince of eckmÜhl, commander in chief of the french army, on one side: and major general baron mÜffling, furnished with the full powers of his highness the field marshal prince blÜcher, commander in chief of the prussian army; and colonel hervey, furnished with the full powers of his excellency the duke of wellington, commander in chief of the english army, on the other side, have agreed to the following articles. article i. there shall be a suspension of arms between the allied armies commanded by his highness the prince blÜcher and his grace the duke of wellington, and the french army under the walls of paris. article ii. the french army shall put itself in march tomorrow, to take up a position beyond the loire. paris shall be completely evacuated in three days; and the movement behind the loire shall be effected within eight days. article iii. the french army shall take with it all its _matériel_, field artillery, military chest, horses, and property of regiments, without exception. all persons belonging to the depôts shall also be removed, as well as those belonging to the different branches of administration which appertain to the army. article iv. the sick and wounded, and the medical officers whom it may be necessary to leave with them, are placed under the special protection of the commanders in chief of the english and prussian armies. article v. the military, and those holding employments to whom the foregoing article relates, shall be at liberty, immediately after their recovery, to rejoin the corps to which they belong. article vi. the wives and children of all individuals belonging to the french army shall be at liberty to remain in paris. the wives shall be allowed to quit paris for the purpose of rejoining the army, and to carry with them their property and that of their husbands. article vii. the officers of the line employed with the _fédérés_, or with the _tirailleurs_ of the national guard, may either join the army, or return to their homes or the places of their birth. article viii. tomorrow, the th of july, at mid day, st denis, st ouen, clichy, and neuilly shall be given up. the day after tomorrow, the th, at the same hour, montmartre shall be given up. the third day, the th, all the barriers shall be given up. article ix. the duty of the city of paris shall continue to be done by the national guard, and by the corps of the municipal _gensd'armerie_. article x. the commanders in chief of the english and prussian armies engage to respect, and to make those under their command respect, the actual authorities, so long as they shall exist. article xi. public property, with the exception of that which relates to war, whether it belongs to the government, or depends upon the municipal authority, shall be respected; and the allied powers will not interfere in any manner with its administration and management. article xii. private persons and property shall be equally respected. the inhabitants, and in general all individuals who shall be in the capital, shall continue to enjoy their rights and liberties, without being disturbed or called to account, either as to the situations which they hold, or may have held, or as to their conduct or political opinions. article xiii. the foreign troops shall not interpose any obstacles to the provisioning of the capital; and will protect, on the contrary, the arrival and the free circulation of the articles which are destined for it. article xiv. the present convention shall be observed, and shall serve to regulate the mutual relations until the conclusion of peace. in case of rupture, it must be denounced in the usual forms at least ten days beforehand. article xv. if any difficulties arise in the execution of any one of the articles of the present convention, the interpretation of it shall be made in favour of the french army and of the city of paris. article xvi. the present convention is declared common to all the allied armies, provided it be ratified by the powers on which these armies are dependant. article xvii. the ratifications shall be exchanged tomorrow, the th of july, at six o'clock in the morning, at the bridge of neuilly. article xviii. commissioners shall be named by the respective parties in order to watch over the execution of the present convention. done and signed at st cloud, in triplicate, by the commissioners above named, the day and year before mentioned. the baron bignon. the count guilleminot. the count de bondy. the baron de mÜffling. f.b. hervey, colonel. approved and ratified the present suspension of arms, at paris, the rd of july . the marshal prince of eckmÜhl. afterwards approved by prince blÜcher and the duke of wellington; and the ratifications exchanged on the th of july. * * * * * the terms of the convention were literally fulfilled. on the th, the french army, commanded by marshal davoust, quitted paris; and proceeded on its march to the loire: and the anglo-allied troops occupied st denis, st ouen, clichy, and neuilly. on the th, the latter took possession of montmartre. on the th, they occupied the barriers of paris, upon the right of the seine; and the prussians those upon the left bank. on the th, the two allied armies entered paris: the chamber of peers, having received from the provisional government a notification of the course of events, terminated its sittings; the chamber of deputies protested, but in vain. their president (lanjuinais) quitted his chair; and on the following day, the doors were closed, and the approaches guarded by foreign troops. on the th, the french king, louis xviii., made his public entry into his capital, amidst the acclamations of the people, and again occupied the palace of his ancestors. it was also on the th that napoleon buonaparte embarked, at rochefort, on board the french frigate _la saale_; and proceeded, accompanied by _la méduse_, in which was his suite, to the roads of the isle of aix, with the intention of setting sail to america. on the th, the wind became favourable: but a british fleet made its appearance; and napoleon, seeing the difficulty of eluding the vigilance of its cruisers, resolved, after having previously communicated with captain maitland, upon placing himself under his protection on board the _bellerophon_, which vessel he accordingly reached on the th. on the following day, captain maitland sailed for england; and arrived at torbay, with his illustrious charge, on the th. the ex-emperor was not permitted to land; and the british government having decided upon sending him to the island of st helena, he was removed to the _northumberland_ man of war, under rear admiral sir george cockburn, in which ship he sailed for that distant rock; the final abode on earth of the man whose extraordinary career marks the most stirring and eventful period in the history of europe. * * * * * the convention of paris constituted a basis for the resumption of negotiations for the general peace which, a few months before, had been so unexpectedly interrupted. the celebrated statesmen of that remarkable period--castlereagh, nesselrode, metternich, hardenberg, and talleyrand--aided by distinguished representatives of the minor european states, now perceived the importance of establishing a more closely cemented alliance; reconciling the clashing interests of emulative governments, securing the rights of the legitimate sovereign of france, and consolidating the re-established order of things in that country. the mere engagement of the french government to a treaty of peace and grateful amity was not considered a sufficient guarantee for the long desired repose of europe. france, which dictated laws according to her own desires and interests to the entire continent, was now, in her turn, to be subjected to the most severe conditions. in order to guarantee her compliance with the demands required of her by the wants and necessities of the nations panting for that peace which was to relieve their exhausted means, and to avert the dangers of internal dissensions; she was destined to witness the occupation of her frontier fortresses by a vast army, comprising contingent forces from the allied powers, and requiring to be maintained upon a full war establishment at her expense: whilst, at the same time, heavy contributions were laid upon her for the purpose of indemnifying the sovereigns who had been compelled again to take up arms against her. but, notwithstanding these reverses and indemnities, france herself is, perhaps, the country that has most benefited by that general peace which was established on the ruins of her empire. the rational form of government which was secured to her by an enlarged constitutional charter has gradually introduced among her people the most salutary reforms, and the most liberal institutions; the stimulus given to her industry by the cessation of harassing wars, of persecuting conscriptions, and of vexatious imposts, rapidly obtained for her a commercial prosperity to which she had long been a stranger; whilst an unusual period of tranquillity has so completely renovated and invigorated her resources, both moral and physical, as to place her again in the rank of the highest powers. now that the nation has completely recovered from the effects of the convulsive throes which attended its dissolution as an empire, and has assumed the calm and dignified attitude of repose; in its resuscitated strength it contemplates the past in a more rational and philosophic spirit, balancing the evil with the good. if the public mind of france dwell for a time upon the tyrannical exercise of napoleon's power upon the people; the sadness of the reflection is palliated by his flattering, though personally ambitious, desire to render france the arbitress of europe: if it perceive the rights of the citizens subverted for the furtherance of his designs, the impression thus produced vanishes at the contemplation of the _code napoleon_: if it appear shocked by the general perversion of labour from its natural sphere to purely military purposes; it is again soothed by the grandeur in design, and utility in effect, of mighty enterprises, conferring employment on myriads of artists and artisans: if it be disposed to disapprove of the spoliation authorized in foreign states; it is speedily flattered by the grand idea of rendering paris the centre of civilization and of the arts: and finally, if it feel pained and subdued by a contemplation of the disasters of moscow, vittoria, leipzic, and waterloo; it revives and rejoices in recounting the glorious triumphs of marengo, austerlitz, jena, and wagram. * * * * * if one country more than any other required a lasting peace to enable her to recover from the effects of the immense sacrifices she had made, in life and treasure--sacrifices which proved, beyond doubt, the salvation of europe--that country was great britain. through the intelligence of her statesmen, the freedom of her constitution, the enterprise of her merchants, the industry of her artisans, and the bravery of her naval and military defenders; she continues to maintain her lofty position in the scale of nations, and even to extend her empire and her sway to the furthermost points of the earth. but to whom is she mainly indebted for this proud pre-eminence, this unparalleled grandeur? to such a question every briton, no matter what may be the direction of his political feelings or party prejudices, will unhesitatingly reply--to the rare talent, the untiring zeal, and practised skill of her chief who led, as also to the inflexible courage, extraordinary endurance, and the perfect discipline of her sons who fought, her last and ever memorable struggle on the continent of europe--the battle of waterloo. it was upon the solid foundation thus obtained that was raised that well cemented superstructure, the solemn compact of sovereigns and states, constituting the general peace of : and although, as time rolls on, symptoms of decay may be traced in some portions of the edifice, still it stands a monument of the downfall of an insatiable ambition aiming at universal dominion; and continues to this day the surest guarantee of the preservation of that equitable balance of power which can alone secure the permanence of the tranquillity and prosperity of europe. supplement. the battle of waterloo, followed as it was by the advance of the anglo-allied and prussian armies upon paris, was so decisive in its effects, and so comprehensive in its results, that the great object of the war--the destruction of the power of napoleon and the restoration of the legitimate sovereign--was attained while the armies of the upper rhine and of italy were but commencing their invasion of the french territory. had the successes attendant upon the exertions of wellington and blÜcher assumed a less decisive character, and, more especially, had reverses taken the place of those successes; the operations of the armies advancing from the rhine and across the alps would have acquired an immense importance in the history of the war: but the brilliant course of events in the north of france materially diminished the interest excited by the military transactions in other parts of the kingdom. upon this ground it has been considered, that to enter into any very detailed account of the movements and dispositions of the allies, on the eastern frontier, is unnecessary; and that the completion of the present work will be sufficiently accomplished by the addition of a simple outline of the daily progress and attendant circumstances of the advance of each army into the interior of the country. [illustration] _operations of the german corps d'armée._ this corps, which was composed of contingent forces supplied by the petty princes of north germany, was assembled, in the middle of april, in the vicinity of coblentz. it amounted to , men, divided into thirty battalions, twelve squadrons, and two and a half batteries; and was placed under the command of general count kleist von nollendorf. at a somewhat later period it crossed the rhine at coblentz and neuwied, and took up a position on the moselle and the sarre; its right communicating with the third prussian _corps d'armée_, and its left with the bavarian troops at zweibrücken. its advanced posts extended along the french frontier from arlon to mertzig. its head quarters were at trier, on the moselle. in this position it remained until the th of june, when its commander, general von engelhard (in the absence of count kleist, who was ill), advanced from trier to arlon; which it reached on the th. here it continued until the st, when it received an order from prince blÜcher to move into france by bastogne and neufchâteau; and to gain possession of the fortresses of sedan and bouillon. on the nd, the corps commenced its march, in two columns: the one by neufchâteau, upon sedan; the other by recogne, upon bouillon. sedan, after a few days' bombardment, capitulated on the th of june. an attempt was made to take bouillon by a _coup de main_; but its garrison was strong enough to frustrate this project. the place was not considered of sufficient importance to render a regular siege expedient, and it was therefore simply invested, from the th of june, until the st of august; when it was blockaded at all points by troops of the netherlands, under prince frederick of orange. on the th of june, lieutenant general von hacke, who had been appointed to the command of the german corps, directed the advanced guard to move upon charleville, which lies under the guns of the fortress of mézières, and to carry the place by storm. the capture was successfully made by some hessian battalions, and tended greatly to facilitate the siege of mézières. moveable columns were detached to observe the fortresses of montmédy, laon, and rheims. the last named place was taken by capitulation on the th of july; and the garrison, amounting to , men, retired behind the loire. lieutenant general von hacke finding that, notwithstanding his vigorous bombardment of mézières, which he commenced on the th of june, his summons to surrender was unheeded by the commandant, general lemoine, undertook a regular siege of the place, and opened trenches on the nd of august. on the th, the french garrison gave up the town and retired into the citadel, which surrendered on the st of september. the efforts of the corps were now directed upon montmédy, around which fortress it had succeeded in placing twelve batteries in position by the th of september. after an obstinate resistance, the garrison concluded a convention on the th of september; by which it was to retire, with arms and baggage, behind the loire. after the capture of montmédy, the german _corps d'armée_ went into cantonments in the department of the ardennes; whence it returned home in the month of november. _operations of the army of the upper rhine, under the command of field marshal his highness prince schwartzenberg._ this army consisted of four _corps d'armée_, and reserves; composed of troops of austria, bavaria, würtemberg, saxony, of hesse darmstadt, and of the petty princes. its strength was as follows:-- battalions. squadrons. batteries. first _corps d'armée_ , men, in second " , " third " , " fourth " , " austrian reserve corps , " blockade corps , " saxon _corps d'armée_ , " --------------------------------------------- total , men, in according to the general plan of operations projected by prince schwartzenberg, this army was to cross the rhine in two columns. the right column, consisting of the third corps, under field marshal the crown prince of wÜrtemberg; and of the fourth corps, or the bavarian army, under field marshal prince wrÈde, was to cross the rhine between germersheim and mannheim. the left column, consisting of the first corps, under the master general of the ordnance, count colloredo, and of the second corps, under general prince hohenzollern heckingen, together with the austrian reserve corps; the whole being commanded by general the archduke ferdinand, was to cross the rhine between basle and rheinfelden. the column formed by the right wing was to be supported by the russian army, under field marshal count barclay de tolly, which was expected to be collected at kaiserslautern by the st of july. the object of the operations, in the first instance, was the concentration of the army of the upper rhine and the russian army at nancy. as soon as prince schwartzenberg was made acquainted with the commencement of hostilities in belgium, he gave his orders for the advance of his army. the fourth, or bavarian, _corps d'armée_ was directed immediately to cross the sarre: and, by turning the vosgian mountains, to cut off the french corps under general rapp, collected in the environs of strasburg, from its base of operations; and to intercept its communications with the interior of france. a russian corps, under general count lambert, forming the advance of the army of count barclay de tolly, was united to the _corps d'armée_ of prince wrÈde; who was to employ it principally in keeping up the communication with the north german _corps d'armée_, under lieutenant general von hacke. _fourth corps d'armée, prince wrÈde._ on the th of june, the bavarian army crossed the rhine at mannheim and oppenheim, and advanced towards the sarre. on the th, some trifling affairs of advanced posts occurred near landau and dahn. on the rd, the army having approached the sarre, proceeded, in two columns, to take possession of the passages across the river at saarbrück and saargemünd. the right column, under lieutenant general count beckers, attacked saarbrück; where it was opposed by the french general meriage. the bavarians carried the suburb and the bridge, and penetrated into the town along with the retiring french; of whom they made four officers and seventy men prisoners, and killed and wounded one hundred men: suffering a loss, on their own part, of three officers and from fifty to sixty men killed and wounded. count beckers occupied the town, posted his division on the heights towards forbach: and detached patrols along the road to metz, as far as st avold; and to the right along the sarre, as far as saarlouis. the left column, consisting of the first infantry division, under lieutenant general baron von ragliovich, and of the first cavalry division, under his royal highness prince charles of bavaria, advanced against saargemünd; at which point the french had constructed a _tête de pont_ on the right bank of the river. after some resistance, this was taken possession of by the bavarians; whereupon baron von ragliovich marched through the town, and took up a position on the opposite heights, commanding the roads leading to bouquenom and lüneville. the fourth infantry division, under lieutenant general baron zollern, advanced towards the fortress of bitsch; which, however, the french commandant, general kreutzer, refused to surrender. the russian corps, under count lambert, attached to the right wing of prince wrÈde's army, advanced as far as ottweiler and ramstein. on the th, prince wrÈde occupied bouquenom; and detached the cavalry division under prince charles towards pfalzburg, to observe this place. his second, third, and fourth divisions, and the reserve, were collected at saargemünd. the russian troops under count lambert occupied saarbrück; having previously detached the cavalry, under lieutenant general czernitscheff, as far as st avold. on the th, prince wrÈde's head quarters were at morhenge; and, on the th, his advanced posts penetrated as far as nancy, where he established his head quarters on the th. from st dieuze the prince detached to the left, in order to discover the march of general rapp; who, however, was still on the rhine, and whose retreat had thus become cut off by the occupation of nancy. prince wrÈde halted at nancy, to await the arrival of the austrian and russian _corps d'armée_. upon his right, lieutenant general czernitscheff crossed the moselle, on the th, within sight of metz; and carried by storm, on the rd of july, the town of chalons sur marne. the garrison of this place had promised to make no resistance, and yet fired upon the russian advanced guard; whereupon the cavalry immediately dismounted, scaled the ramparts, broke open the gates, sabred a part of the garrison, made the remainder prisoners, including the french general rigault, and pillaged the town. after remaining four days in the vicinity of nancy and lüneville, prince wrÈde received an order from prince schwartzenberg to move at once upon paris, with the fourth, or bavarian corps; which was destined to become the advanced guard of the army of the upper rhine. this order was given in consequence of the desire expressed by the duke of wellington and prince blÜcher, that the army of the upper rhine should afford immediate support to their operations in front of paris. on the th of july, the main body of the bavarian army reached chalons; in the vicinity of which it remained during the th. on this day, its advanced posts communicated, by epernay, with the prussian army. on the th, prince wrÈde received intelligence of the convention of paris; and, at the same time, directions to move towards the loire. on the th, lieutenant general czernitscheff fell in with the enemy between st prix and montmirail; and drove him across the morin, towards the seine. previously to the arrival of the corps at château thierry; the french garrison had abandoned the place, leaving behind it several pieces of cannon, with ammunition. on the th of july, the bavarian army took up a position between the seine and the marne; and prince wrÈde's head quarters were at la ferté sous jouarre. _third corps d'armée, crown prince of wÜrtemberg._ on the nd of june, a portion of the third _corps d'armée_, under the crown prince of wÜrtemberg, took possession of the intrenchments of germersheim, on the left bank of the rhine. lieutenant field marshal count wallmoden was posted, with ten battalions and four squadrons, in observation of the fortress of landau, and the line of the queich. the main body of the corps stood between bruchsal and philipsburg. on the d, the corps crossed the rhine at germersheim, and passed the line of the queich without opposition. the crown prince was directed to proceed by weissenburg and hagenau, with a view to complete, in conjunction with the fourth _corps d'armée_, the plan of intercepting the retreat of general rapp. on the th, the corps advanced to bergzabern and nieder ottersbach; at both of which points it fell in with the enemy, and drove him back. count wallmoden left a small detachment to observe landau; and advanced, with the remainder of his force, as far as rheinzabern. on the th, the crown prince ordered the advance towards the lines of weissenburg, in two columns. the first column assembled at bergzabern, and the second moved forward by nieder ottersbach. count wallmoden was directed to advance upon lauterburg. the crown prince advanced his corps still further along the hagenau road. his advanced guard pushed on to inglesheim, and the main body of the corps reached the lines of weissenburg; which the french abandoned in the night, and fell back upon the forest of hagenau, occupying the large village of surburg. on the th, the crown prince attacked and defeated the enemy at the last mentioned place, with his right column; whilst the left column, under count wallmoden, was equally successful in an attack which it made upon the french general rothenburg, posted, with , infantry and a regiment of cavalry, at selz. on the following day, general rapp fell back upon the defile of brümath; but this he quitted in the night, and took up a favourable position in the rear of the suffel, near strasburg. his force comprised twenty four battalions of infantry, four regiments of cavalry, and a numerous artillery, and amounted to nearly , men. the crown prince of wÜrtemberg, whose force amounted altogether to more than , men, succeeded, on the th, after a smart action, in forcing general rapp to retire within the fortress of strasburg. the loss of the third corps on this occasion amounted to officers, and , men, killed and wounded. that of the french was about , men. _austrian reserve corps, archduke ferdinand._ the third corps remained in front of strasburg until the th of july; when it was relieved by the arrival of the second austrian corps, under prince hohenzollern, from the vicinity of colmar. at this last point the advanced guard of the austrian reserve corps, under lieutenant field marshal stutterheim, moved upon remiremont, and the main body upon st marie aux mines. the austrian reserve corps itself reached raon l'etape; whence it subsequently moved (on the th) to neufchâteau. the third corps, under the crown prince of wÜrtemberg, marched into the vicinity of molsheim. on the th of july, the crown prince reached lüneville; but instead of proceeding to nancy, according to its original destination, the corps, on the th, took the road to neufchâteau. the advance was in two columns; the one upon bayon, and the other upon rembervillers. these two columns moved respectively, the one, by vaucouleurs, joinville, brienne le château, troyes, and auxonne; and the other, by neufchâteau, chaumont, bar sur aube, vendoeuvres, bar sur seine, and chatillon: at which points (auxonne and chatillon) they halted on the th. on the st, the corps entered into cantonments between montbard and tonnerre. _first and second corps--count colloredo and prince von hohenzollern.--reserve corps, archduke ferdinand._ the first and second austrian _corps d'armée_ and the reserve corps, forming the left wing of the army of the upper rhine, crossed this river at rheinfelden and basle in the night of the th of june. on the th, the first, under count colloredo, was directed upon belfort and montbelliard; and, on the same day, the austrians invested the fortress of huningen. the advanced guard of the first corps had an affair with a french detachment of , men belonging to the corps of general lecourbe, and repulsed it as far as donnemarie. on the th, the first corps fell in with the enemy near chabannes, between donnemarie and belfort, when the french force, amounting to , infantry and cavalry, was driven back upon belfort. major general von scheither of the first corps was detached against montbelliard, a town fortified and defended by a citadel. after having maintained a most destructive fire against the place, the austrian troops carried it by storm; with a loss, however, of officers and , men, killed and wounded. with the exception of a few sorties of little consequence, general rapp remained very quiet in the fortress of strasburg. the news of the capture of paris by the british and prussian troops led to a suspension of hostilities; which was concluded on the th of july, and extended to the fortress of strasburg, landau, lutzelstein, huningen, schlettstadt, lichtenberg, pfalzburg, neuf brisac, and belfort. _the russian army._ the main body of the russian army, commanded by field marshal count barclay de tolly, and amounting to , men, crossed the rhine at mannheim, on the th of june; and followed the army of the upper rhine. the greater portion of it reached paris and its vicinity by the middle of july. _operations of the army of italy._ the army of italy, composed of austrian and sardinian troops, and amounting to , men, was under the command of general baron frimont. it was destined to act against the army of the alps, under marshal suchet, posted in the vicinity of chambery and grenoble. it is uncertain what was the amount of force under suchet, it having been estimated from , to , men; but the corps of observation on the var, in the vicinity of antibes and toulon, under marshal brune, amounted to , , and was not occupied with any enemy in its front. baron frimont's army was divided into two corps: the one under lieutenant field marshal radivojevich, was to advance by the valais towards lyons; and the other, which was in piedmont, under lieutenant field marshal count bubna, was to penetrate into the south of france, through savoy. marshal suchet had received orders from napoleon to commence operations on the th of june; and by rapid marches to secure the mountain passes in the valais and in savoy, and close them against the austrians. on the th, his troops advanced at all points for the purpose of gaining the frontier from montmeilian, as far as geneva; which he invested. thence he purposed to obtain possession of the important passes of meillerie and st maurice; and in this way to check the advance of the austrian columns from the valais. at meillerie the french were met and driven back by the advanced guard of the austrian right column, on the st of june. by means of forced marches the whole of this column, which baron frimont himself accompanied, reached the arve on the th of june. the left column, under count bubna, crossed mount cenis on the th and th of june. on the th, it was sharply opposed by the french at conflans; of which place, however, the austrians succeeded in gaining possession. in order to secure the passage of the arve the advanced guard of the right column detached, on the th, to bonneville, on its left; but the french, who had already fortified this place, maintained a stout resistance. in the mean time, however, the austrians gained possession of the passage at carrouge; by which means the french were placed under the necessity of evacuating bonneville, and abandoning the valley of the arve. the column now passed geneva, and drove the enemy from the heights of grand saconex and from st genix. on the th, this part of the army moved towards the jura; and, on the st july, it made its dispositions for attacking the redoubts and intrenchments which the french had thrown up to defend the passes. the most vigorous assault was made upon the pass of les rousses; but the austrians were driven back. reserves were then brought up; and the french having quitted their intrenchments to meet the latter, and a good opportunity having offered for a flank attack upon them with cavalry and artillery, the pass was captured by the austrians: and the french were compelled to abandon both it and the other passes of the jura. the austrian advanced guard pursued the enemy, and reached, in the evening, st claude, on the road leading to the left from gex; and st laurent, in the original direction of the attack, beyond les rousses. in the mean time, the austrian reserve corps, under lieutenant field marshal meerville, was directed to advance, and to throw back the french upon the rhone. the latter, in retreating, destroyed the bridge of seyselle; and, by holding the fort of l'ecluse, closed the road from geneva to lyons. a redoubt had been constructed in front of the fort, and completely commanded the approach. it was gallantly stormed and carried by the regiment of esterhazy. the fort itself was now turned by the reserve corps along the left bank of the rhone, with the design of forcing the passage at the perte du rhone. here the french had constructed a _tête de pont_; which, however, they were forced to abandon in consequence of a movement made by the first corps under lieutenant field marshal radivojevich. on retiring, they destroyed the very beautiful stone bridge then existing; and thus rendered it necessary for the austrians to construct temporary bridges over the extremely narrow space between the rocks which confine the stream at this remarkable spot. the advanced guard of the reserve corps, under general count hardegg, first crossed the rhone, and found the enemy posted at charix, in rear of chatillon, on the road to nantua. count hardegg immediately attacked him; and, after encountering an obstinate resistance, forced him to retire. the troops of the first austrian corps, which, in the mean time, were left in front of the fort l'ecluse, had commenced a bombardment; and this, after twenty six hours' duration, considerably damaged the fort. a powder magazine exploded, which caused a general conflagration; to escape which the garrison rushed out, and surrendered at discretion to the austrians: and thus, in three days, the high road from geneva to lyons was opened to the army of italy. on the rd july, general bogdan, with the advanced guard of the first austrian corps, having been reinforced by lieutenant field marshal radivojevich, attacked the enemy with much impetuosity at ojanax, beyond st claude; where the french general maransin had taken up a favourable position, with , men. the austrians turned his left flank, and forced him to retire. the corps reached bourg en bresse on the th july. on the th july, a detachment, under major general von pflÜger, was pushed on to maçon on the saône; and gained possession of the _tête de pont_ constructed there, and of the place itself. on the th july, the second corps, under count bubna, reached echelles. a detachment, consisting principally of sardinian troops, under lieutenant general count latour, had been directed to observe grenoble; in front of which its advanced guard arrived on the th july. on the th, the suburbs were attacked; and the communication between this place and lyons was cut off. the garrison, consisting of eight battalions of the national guard, offered to capitulate on the th, on the condition of being permitted to return to their homes. that a vigorous defence might have been maintained was evident from the fact of the austrians having found in the place fifty four guns and eight mortars, and large quantities of provisions. count bubna's corps and the reserve corps, by simultaneous movements, assembled together in front of lyons on the th. an armistice was solicited by the garrison on the th july, and granted upon condition that lyons and the intrenched camp should be evacuated; and that marshal suchet should retire with his corps behind the loire, keeping his advanced posts within a stipulated line of demarcation. having secured possession of the line of the rhone as far down as its junction with the isère, as also of that part of the saône between maçon and lyons; the army of italy now proceeded towards the upper line of the latter river, leaving the second corps, under count bubna, at lyons, in front of marshal suchet. the first corps marched upon chalons sur saône, in order to gain the _tête de pont_ at that point. at this time, the fourth division of the army, under the french general lecourbe, was at salins, between dôle and pontarlier: and as besançon had not yet been invested, baron frimont detached a part of the reserve corps, under general hecht, to salins; whilst general fÖlseis, detached from the first corps towards dôle. the advanced guard of the first corps had arrived in front of the _tête de pont_ at chalons, and had completed its dispositions for attack; when the place surrendered. by the advance, at the same time, of hecht upon salins, and of fÖlseis from dôle upon besançon; the retreat of the french general laplane was completely cut off. this led to a convention which stipulated the dissolution of the national guards, the surrender of all the officers, and the abandonment of one of the forts of salins to the austrians. on the th, the first _corps d'armée_ advanced from chalons sur saône as far as autun; and besançon having in the mean time been occupied by the austrian troops of the army of the upper rhine, a junction was effected with the latter by the army of italy by dijon. the sardinian general d'osasca, who had been detached to nice, concluded on the th of july an armistice with marshal brune, who commanded the army of the var, in front of the maritime alps; and thus terminated all hostilities on that side of france. * * * * * the foregoing outline will suffice to show the nature, extent, and interconnection of the operations of the allied armies which invaded france along her eastern and south-eastern frontier; and at the same time afford a clear proof that amongst the more immediate consequences of the decisive battle of waterloo and speedy capture of paris must be ranked that of their having been the means of averting the more general and protracted warfare which would probably have taken place, had a different result in belgium emboldened the french to act with vigour and effect in other parts of the country. * * * * * the reduction of the fortresses left in rear of the british and prussian armies, adjoining their main line of operations, and which was confided to prince augustus of prussia, with the second prussian _corps d'armée_, assisted by the british battering train, was effected in the following manner:-- maubeuge--siege commenced th july, capitulated th july. landrecies do. th do., do. st do. marienberg do. th do., do. th do. philippeville do. th august, do. th august. rocroy do. th do., do. th do. prince augustus had made every preparation for commencing the siege of charlemont and its connecting forts, the two givets and the mont d'hours, on the th of september, when the commandant, general burcke, foreseeing that the occupation of the detached forts would divide his force too much, entered into negotiations, and surrendered those works on the th, withdrawing his troops into charlemont; the bombardment of which was to have opened on the rd of september: but, on the th, prince augustus received information from paris that hostilities were to cease throughout the whole of france. appendix. [captain siborne also included in this _appendix_ a number of state papers, military orders, and statistical returns, in french and english; of which a list will be found at pages to . these are omitted in this fourth edition, simply from want of space.--e.a.] vi. _effective strength and composition of the anglo-allied army under the command of field marshal the duke of wellington._ first corps.--his royal highness the prince of orange. _first division_, major general cooke. men. first british brigade, { nd battalion st guards major general maitland. { rd do. do. , second british brigade, { nd do. coldstream guards , major general sir john byng. { nd do. rd guards. , ------ , artillery, {captain sandham's british foot battery. lieutenant colonel adye. {major kuhlmann's horse battery, k.g. legion. _third division_, lieutenant general sir charles alten. { nd battalion th regiment fifth british brigade, { rd regiment. major general sir colin halkett. { nd battalion th regiment { nd do. rd do. { st light battalion. second brigade k.g. legion, { nd do. do. colonel von ompteda. { th line do. { th do. do. {field battalion bremen first hanoverian brigade, {do. do. verden major general count kielmansegge. {do. do. york. {do. do. lüneburg. {do. do. grubenhagen {do. jäger corps ------ , artillery, lieutenant colonel {major lloyd's british foot battery. williamson. {captain cleeves's foot battery, k.g. legion _second dutch-belgian division_, lieutenant general baron de perponcher. men { th regiment of the line { th jäger battalion first brigade, { th militia battalion major general count de bylandt.{ th do. do. { th do. do. second brigade, { nd regiment of nassau, battalions , h.s.h. the prince bernhard of saxe weimar. {regiment of orange nassau, do. , ------ , artillery, {captain byleveld's horse battery. major van opstal. {captain stievenaar's foot battery. _third dutch-belgian division_, lieutenant general baron chassÉ. { nd regiment of the line { th jäger battalion first brigade, { th militia battalion major general ditmers. { th do. do. { th do. do. { th do. do. { rd regiment of the line { th do. do. second brigade, { th do. do. major general d'aubremÉ. { th jäger battalion { rd militia battalion { th do. do. ------ , artillery, {captain krahmer's horse battery. major van der smissen. {captain lux's foot battery. ------ total first corps, men , and guns second corps.--lieutenant general lord hill. _second division_, lieutenant general sir h. clinton. { st battalion nd regiment , third british brigade, { st do. st do. major general adam. { nd do. th do. { rd do. th do. { st line battalion first brigade k.g. legion, { nd do. do. colonel du plat. { rd do. do. { th do. do. ------ carry forward , {landwehr battalion bremervörde third hanoverian brigade, { do. do. osnabrück colonel halkett. { do. do. quackenbrück { do. do. salzgitter ------- , artillery, {captain bolton's british foot battery. lieutenant colonel gold. {major sympher's horse battery, k.g. legion. _fourth division_, lieutenant general sir charles colville. { rd battalion th regiment fourth british brigade, { st do. rd do. colonel mitchell. { st regiment { nd battalion th regiment sixth british brigade, { st do. th do. major general johnstone. { nd do. th do. { st do. st do. {field battalion lauenburg { do. do. calenberg sixth hanoverian brigade, {landwehr battalion nienburg major general sir james lyon. { do. do. hoya { do. do. bentheim ------ , artillery, {major brome's british foot battery. lieutenant colonel {captain von rettberg's hanoverian foot hawker. { battery. _first dutch-belgian division_, lieutenant general stedmann. { th regiment of the line } { th do. do. } first brigade, { th jäger battalion } major general hauw. { th militia do. } { th do. do. } { th do. do. } , } { st regiment of the line } { th jäger battalion } second brigade, { st militia do. } major general eerens. { nd do. do. } { th do. do. } artillery, captain wynands's foot battery. { th regiment, battalions } dutch-belgian indian brigade, {flankers } lieutenant general anthing. { th jäger battalion } , { th do. do. } artillery, captain riesz's foot battery. detachments from th and th line battalions of the k.g. legion, } distributed among the other battalions, and orderlies from foreign} battalions } ------- total second corps, men , and guns reserve. _fifth division_, lieutenant general sir thomas picton. men. { st battalion th regiment eighth british brigade, { st do. nd do. major general sir james kempt. { st do. th do. { st do. th do. { rd do. st do. ninth british brigade, { st do. nd do. major general sir denis pack. { nd do. th do. { st do. nd do. {landwehr battalion hameln fifth hanoverian brigade, { do. do. gifhorn colonel von vincke. { do. do. hildesheim { do. do. peine ------ , artillery, {major rogers's british foot battery. major heisse. {captain braun's hanoverian foot battery. _sixth division_, lieutenant general hon. sir l. cole. { st battalion th regiment tenth british brigade, { st do. th do. major general sir john lambert. { st do. th do. { nd do. st do. {landwehr battalion verden fourth hanoverian brigade, { do. do. lüneburg colonel best. { do. do. osterode { do. do. münden ------ , artillery, lieutenant colonel {major unett's british foot battery. brÜckmann. {captain sinclair's do. do. {lieutenant colonel sir hew ross's horse { battery. british reserve artillery, {major beane's horse battery. major drummond. {major morisson's foot battery. {captain hutchesson's foot battery. {captain ilbert's do. do. _seventh division_. { nd battalion th regiment seventh british brigade. { nd do. th do. { nd do. th do. { th veteran battalion british garrison troops. { st foreign do. { nd garrison do. ------ , _brunswick corps_, h.s.h. the duke of brunswick. men. major von rauschenplatt. advanced guard battalion {guard battalion light brigade, { st light battalion lieutenant colonel von buttlar. { nd do. do. { rd do. do. { st line do. line brigade, { nd do. do. lieutenant colonel von specht. { rd do. do. ------ , artillery, {captain heinemann's horse battery. major mahn. {major moll's foot battery. _hanoverian reserve corps_, lieutenant general von der decken. first brigade, {field battalion hoya } lieutenant colonel von {landwehr battalion mölln } bennigsen. { do. do. bremerlehe } {landwehr battalion nordheim } second brigade, { do. do. ahlefeldt } lieutenant colonel von beaulieu. { do. do. springe } {landwehr battalion otterndorf } , third brigade, { do. do. zelle } lieutenant colonel bodecker. { do. do. ratzeburg } {landwehr battalion hanover } fourth brigade, { do. do. uelzen } lieutenant colonel wissel. { do. do. neustadt } { do. do. diepholz } _nassau contingent_, general von kruse. st regiment-- battalions , ------ total reserve, men , and guns cavalry. _british, and king's german legion_. men. { st life guards first brigade, { nd do. major general lord e. somerset. {royal horse guards (blue) { st dragoon guards. { st, or royal, dragoons second brigade, { nd dragoons (scots greys) major general sir w. ponsonby. { th (or inniskilling) dragoons. { st light dragoons, k.g. legion third brigade, { nd do. do. do. major general sir w. dÖrnberg. { rd light dragoons. { th do. do. fourth brigade, { th do. do. major general sir j. vandeleur. { th do. do. { nd hussars, k.g. legion fifth brigade, { th do. major general sir colq. grant. { th do. { st do. k.g. legion. sixth brigade, { th do. major general sir h. vivian. { th do. seventh brigade, { rd do. k.g. legion colonel sir f.v. arentsschildt. { th light dragoons. { . major bull's (howitzers). { . lieutenant colonel webber smith's. british horse batteries, { . lieutenant colonel sir robert gardiner's. attached to the cavalry. { . captain whinyates's (with rockets). { . captain mercer's. { . captain ramsay's. _hanoverian_. {prince regent's hussars first brigade, {bremen and verden hussars colonel von estorff. {cumberland hussars. brunswick cavalry. {regiment of hussars. {squadron of uhlans. _dutch-belgian_. { st dutch carabiniers first brigade, { nd belgian do. major general trip. { rd dutch do. second brigade, { th dutch light dragoons. major general de ghigny. { th belgian hussars. third brigade, { th do. light dragoons major general van merlen. { th dutch hussars. artillery, {captain petter's half horse battery. {captain gey's half horse battery. ______ men , and guns artillery. _british._ guns. men. foot batteries of guns each } , do, do. do. ( prs) } horse do. do. , _king's german legion._ foot battery of guns } horse batteries of guns each } _hanoverian._ foot batteries of guns each _brunswick._ foot battery of guns } horse do. do. } _dutch-belgian._ foot batteries of guns each horse do. do. ---- ------ , engineers, sappers and miners, waggon train, and staff corps , total strength. infantry , cavalry , artillery , engineers, waggon train, &c. , ------- grand total. men , and guns viii. _effective strength and composition of the prussian army under the command of field marshal prince blÜcher von wahlstadt._ first corps d'armÉe.--lieutenant general von zieten. first brigade, general von steinmetz. batts. men. th and th regiments of the line. } st westphalian landwehr regiment. } - / , st and rd silesian rifle companies } second brigade, general von pirch ii. th and th regiments of the line } nd westphalian landwehr regiment. } , third brigade, general von jagow. th and th regiments of the line } rd westphalian landwehr regiment. } - / , nd and th silesian rifle companies. } fourth brigade, general von henkel. th regiment of the line.... } th westphalian landwehr regiment } , ------- , _reserve cavalry of the first corps._--lieutenant general von rÖder. brigade of general von treskow. squad. brandenburg dragoons (no. ) } st west prussian dragoons (no. ) } brandenburg uhlans } } , brigade of lieutenant colonel von lÜtzow. } th uhlans } st and nd kurmark landwehr regiments. } st silesian hussars } st westphalian landwehr regiment. } _reserve artillery of the first corps._--colonel von lehmann. pounder foot batteries nos. , , and } do. do. nos. , , , , and } howitzer battery no. } , horse batteries nos. , , and ... } ------ total-- battalions, squadrons, batteries men , and guns second corps d'armÉe.--general von pirch i. fifth brigade, general von tippelskirchen. batts. men. nd and th regiments of the line } th westphalian landwehr regiment } , sixth brigade, general von krafft. th and th regiments of the line } st elbe landwehr regiment } , seventh brigade, general von brause. th and nd regiments of the line } nd elbe landwehr regiment } , eighth brigade, colonel von langen. st and rd regiments of the line } rd elbe landwehr regiment } , ------ , _reserve cavalry of the second corps._--general von jÜrgass. brigade of colonel von thÜmen. squad. silesian uhlans } th neumark dragoons } th hussars } } brigade of colonel count schulenburg. } st queen's dragoons } th kurmark landwehr regiment } , } brigade of lieutenant colonel von sohr, } rd brandenburg hussars } th pomeranian hussars } th kurmark landwehr regiment } elbe landwehr regiment } _reserve artillery of the second corps._--colonel von rÖhl. pounder foot batteries nos. and } do. do. nos. , , , and } , horse batteries no. , , and } ------ total-- battalions, squadrons, batteries men , and guns third corps d'armÉe.--lieutenant general von thielemann. ninth brigade, general von borcke. batts. men. th and th regiments of the line } st kurmark landwehr regiment } , tenth brigade, colonel von kÄmpfen. th regiment of the line } nd kurmark landwehr regiment } , eleventh brigade, colonel von luck. rd and th kurmark landwehr regiments. , twelfth brigade, colonel von stÜlpnagel. st regiment of the line } th and th kurmark landwehr regiments } , ------ , _reserve cavalry of the third corps._--general von hobe. brigade of colonel von der marwitz. squad. th uhlans } th do. } th hussars } } brigade of colonel count lottum. } , th uhlans } th dragoons } rd kurmark landwehr regiment } th do. do. do. } _reserve artillery of the third corps._--colonel von mohnhaupt. pounder foot battery no. } do. do. nos. and } horse batteries nos. , , and } ------ total-- battalions, squadrons, batteries men , and guns fourth corps d'armÉe.--general count bÜlow von dennewitz. thirteenth brigade, lieutenant general von hacke. batts. men. th regiment of the line } nd and rd neumark landwehr regiments. } , fourteenth brigade, general von ryssel. th regiment of the line } st and nd pomeranian landwehr regiments } , fifteenth brigade, general von losthin. th regiment of the line } rd and th silesian landwehr regiments } , sixteenth brigade, colonel von hiller. th regiment of the line } st and nd silesian landwehr regiments. } , ------- , _reserve cavalry of the fourth corps._--general, prince william of prussia. brigade of general von sydow. squad. st west prussian uhlans } nd silesian hussars } th hussars } } brigade of colonel count schwerin. } th hussars } , st and nd neumark landwehr regiments } st and nd pomeranian landwehr regiments } } brigade of lieutenant colonel von watzdorf. } st, nd, and rd silesian landwehr regiments } _reserve artillery of the fourth corps._--lieutenant colonel von bardeleben. pounder foot batteries nos. , , and } do. do. nos. , , , , & } , horse batteries nos. , , and } ------ total-- battalions, squadrons, batteries men , and guns total strength. infantry. cavalry. artillery. guns. first _corps d'armée_ , , , second do. , , , third do. , , fourth do. , , , ---------------------------------- , , , grand total-- , men and guns. ix. _effective strength and composition of the french army, under the command of napoleon buonaparte._ imperial guard.--marshal mortier, duke of treviso. (on the th june.) batt. men. lieutenant general count friant. st and nd regiments of grenadiers. , lieutenant general count roguet. rd and th regiments of grenadiers. , lieutenant general count morand. st and nd regiments of _chasseurs_ , lieutenant general count michel. rd and th regiments of _chasseurs_ , lieutenant general count duhesme. st and rd regiments of _tirailleurs_ , lieutenant general count barrois. st and rd regiments of _voltigeurs_ , lieutenant general lefèbvre desnouettes. squad --lancers and _chasseurs à cheval_ , lieutenant general count guyot. dragoons and _grenadiers à cheval_ , _gendarmerie d'élite_ lieutenant general desvaux de st maurice. foot batteries } horse do } , marines ( ) } engineers ------ total-- battalions squadrons, batteries men , and guns first corps d'armÉe.--lieutenant general count d'erlon. (on the th june.) batt. men first division, lieuyenant general alix } th, th, th, and th regiments of the line } } second division, lieutenant general baron donzelot. } th (light), th, th, and st regiments of the line } } , third division, lieutenant general baron marcognet. } st, th, th, and th regiments of the line. } } fourth division, lieutenant general count durutte. } th, th, th, and th regiments of the line. } first cavalry division, lieutenant general baron jaquinot. squad. rd and th _chasseurs_ } rd and th lancers } , artillery. foot batteries } horse battery } , engineers ------ total-- battalions, squadrons, batteries men , and guns second corps d'armÉe.--lieutenant general count reille. (on the th june.) batt. men fifth division, lieutenant general baron bachelu. nd (light), st, nd, and th regiments of the line } } sixth division, prince jerome napoleon. } st (light), st, nd, and rd regiments of the line } } seventh division, lieutenant general count girard. } , th (light) and nd regiments of the line, and th} } light infantry } } } ninth division, lieutenant general count foy. } th (light), nd, rd, and th regiments of the line } second cavalry division, lieutenant general baron pirÉ. squad st and th _chasseurs_ } th and th lancers } , artillery. foot batteries } horse battery } , engineers ------ total-- battalions, squadrons, batteries men , and guns third corps d'armÉe.--lieutenant general count vandamme. (on the th june.) batt. men. eighth division, lieutenant general baron lefol. th (light), rd, th, and th regiments of the line } } tenth division, lieutenant general baron habert. } th, th, nd, and th regiments of the line } , } eleventh division, lieutenant general berthezene. } th, th, rd, and th regiments of the line } third cavalry division, lieutenant general baron domon. squad. th and th _chasseurs_ } th _chasseurs_ } artillery. foot batteries } horse battery } engineers ------ total-- battalions, squadrons, batteries men , and guns fourth corps d'armÉe.--lieutenant general count gÉrard. (on the st may.) batt. twelfth division, lieutenant general baron pecheux. } th, th, and rd regiments of the line. } } thirteenth division, lieutenant general baron vichery. } th, th, th, and th regiments of the line } , } fourteenth division, lieutenant general hulot. } th (light), th, th, and th regiments of the line } seventh cavalry division, lieutenant general maurin. squad th hussars } th _chasseurs_ } reserve cavalry division, lieutenant general baron jaquinot. th, th, th, and th dragoons , artillery. foot batteries } horse battery } , engineers ------ total-- battalions, squadrons, batteries men , and guns sixth corps d'armÉe.--lieutenant general count lobau. (on the th june.) batt. men. nineteenth division, lieutenant general baron simmer. } th, th, th, and th regiments of the line } } twentieth division, lieutenant general baron jeannin. } th (light), th, th, and th regiments of the line } , } twenty first division, lieutenant general baron teste. } th (light), th, th, and th regiments of the line } artillery. foot batteries } horse battery } engineers ------ total-- battalions, batteries men , and guns reserve cavalry.--marshal grouchy. _first corps_--lieutenant general count pajol. (in june.) squad. fourth cavalry division, lieutenant general baron soult. } st, th, and th hussars } } fifth cavalry division, lieutenant general baron subervie. } , st and nd lancers } th _chasseurs_ } artillery. horse batteries _second corps_-lieutenant general count excelmans. (in june.) squad. ninth cavalry division, lieutenant general strolz. } th, th, th, and th dragoons } } tenth cavalry division, lieutenant general baron chastel. } , th, th, th, and th dragoons } artillery. horse batteries _third corps_--lieutenant general kellermann (count de valmy). (in june.) squad. eleventh cavalry division, lieutenant general baron l'heritier. } nd and th dragoons } th and th _cuirassiers_ } } twelfth cavalry division, lieutenant general roussel d'hurbal. } st and nd carabiniers } nd and rd _cuirassiers_ } artillery. horse batteries _fourth corps_--lieutenant general count milhaud (on the th june) squad. men. thirteenth cavalry division, lieutenant general wathier. } st, th, th, and th cuirassiers } , } fourteenth cavalry division, lieutenant general baron delort. } th, th, th, and th cuirassiers } artillery. horse batteries ------ total-- squadrons, batteries men , and guns total strength. infantry. cavalry. artillery. engineers, &c. guns. imperial guard , , , first corps d'armée , , , second do. do. , , , third do. do, , fourth do. do. , , , sixth do. do. , -- four corps of reserve cavalry -- , , -- ------ ------ ------ ----- --- , , , , grand total-- , men and guns. xxxii. _list of officers of the king's german legion who were present at the defence of la haye sainte._ _ nd light battalion._ majors--g. baring; a. bösewiel, _killed_. captains--e. holtzermann, _taken prisoner_; w. schaumann, _killed_. lieutenants--f. kessler, _wounded_; c. meyer; o. lindam, _wounded_; b. riefkugel, _wounded_; a. tobin, _taken prisoner_; t. carey, _wounded_; e. biedermann; d. græme, _wounded_; s. earl. ensigns--f. von robertson, _killed_; g. frank, _wounded_; w. smith; l. baring. lieutenant and adjutant--w. timmann, _wounded_. surgeon--g. heise. _ st light battalion._ captains--von gilsa, _wounded_; von marschalck, _killed_. lieutenant--kuntze. ensign--baumgarten. _skirmishers of th line battalion._ captain--von wurmb, _killed_. lieutenants--witte, _wounded_; schläger. ensign--walther, _wounded_. xxxv. _list of british officers who were present at the defence of hougomont._ _ nd battalion of coldstream, or nd, regiment of foot guards._ major--a.g. woodford, colonel. captains and lieutenant colonels--j. macdonell, _wounded_; d. mackinnon, _wounded_; hon. j. walpole; h. dawkins; hon. e. acheson; h. wyndham, _wounded_. lieutenants and captains--g. bowles; t. sowerby; w.l. walton; w.g. baynes; c.a.f. bentinck, adjutant; j.s. cowell; e. sumner, _wounded_; j.l. blackman, _killed_; b. lord hotham; hon. r. moore, _wounded_; t. chaplin. ensigns--hon. j. forbes; h. gooch; a. cuyler; m. beaufoy; h.f. griffiths, _wounded_; j. montague, _wounded_; g.r. buckley; j. hervey; h. vane; f.j. douglass; r. bowen; a. gordon; hon. w. forbes; c. short. adjutant--c.a.f. bentinck. quarter master--b. selway. surgeon--w. whymper. assistant surgeons--g. smith; w. hunter. _ nd battalion of the rd regiment of foot guards._ major--f. hepburn. lieutenant colonel. captains and lieutenant colonels--h.w. rooke; w.c. master; d. mercer; c. dashwood, _wounded_; f. home; e. bowater, _wounded_; c. west, _wounded_. lieutenants and captains--w. stothert, adjutant; w. drummond; r.b. hesketh, _wounded_; h. hawkins; r.h. wigston; hon. j.b. rodney; c.j. barnet; j.w. moorhouse; e.b. fairfield; g. evelyn, _wounded_; hon. h. forbes, _killed_; j. elrington; h.b. montgomerie, _wounded_; t. crawford, _killed_; j. ashton, _killed_. ensigns--c. lake, _wounded_; hon. e. stopford; b. drummond; g.d. standen; d. baird, _wounded_; w. james; w.f. hamilton; hon. g. anson; t. wedgewood; w. butler; a.c. cochrane; j. prendergast; c. simpson, _wounded_; h.s. blane; h. montague. adjutant--w. stothert, captain, _wounded_. quarter master--j. skuce. surgeon--s. good. assistant surgeons--j.r. warde; f. g. hanrott. _ st regiment of foot guards._ captains and lieutenant colonels--lord saltoun; c.p. ellis, _wounded_.[ ] footnotes: [footnote : i know not the names of the remaining officers of the light companies of the first brigade of guards detached to hougomont.-w.s.] xli. _list of officers of the british army who were present in the actions on the th, th, and th of june , including those posted near hal on the th; and distinguishing such as were killed, wounded or missing._[ ] staff. _commander in chief_--field marshal his grace the duke of wellington, k.g., g.c.b., &c. _military secretary_--lieutenant colonel lord fitzroy somerset, st foot guards, _w._ _aides de camp_--lieutenant colonels, j. fremantle, nd foot guards; c.f. canning, rd foot guards, _k._; hon. sir alex. gordon, rd foot guards, _k._; lieutenant lord george lennox, th light dragoons; hereditary prince of nassau usingen. _extra aides de camp_--lieutenant colonel hon. henry percy, th light dragoons; captain lord arthur hill, half pay; lieutenant hon. george cathcart, th dragoon guards. general h.r.h. the prince of orange, _w._ _aides de camp_--lieutenant colonel tripp, th foot; captains, lord john somerset, half pay; hon. francis russell, half pay. _extra aides de camp_--captain earl of march, nd foot; lieutenant h. webster, th light dragoons. lieutenant general the earl of uxbridge, g.c.b., _w._; _aides de camp_--major w. thornhill, th hussars, _w._; captain h. seymour, th foot, _w._ _extra aides de camp_--captains t. wildman, th hussars, _w._; j. fraser, th hussars, _w._ lieutenant general lord hill, g.c.b. _aides de camp_--major r. egerton, th foot; lieutenant colonel c. hill, royal horse guards, _w._; major c.h. churchill, st foot guards; captain d. mackworth, th foot. _extra aide de camp_--captain hon. o. bridgeman, st foot guards, _w._ lieutenant general sir thomas picton, g.c.b., _k._; _aides de camp_--captains, j. tyler, rd foot, _w._; n. chambers, st foot guards, _k._ _extra aide de camp_--captain b. price, half pay. lieutenant general sir henry clinton, g.c.b. _aide de camp_--captain f. dawkins, st foot guards. lieutenant general c. count alten, k.c.b., _w._ aide de camp--lieutenant w. havelock, rd foot, _w._; major ch. heise, nd battalion king's german legion. lieutenant general sir charles colville, g.c.b. _aides de camp_--captain j. jackson, th foot; lieutenant f.w. frankland, nd foot. _extra aide de camp_--captain lord james hay, st foot guards. major general v. count alten. _aide de camp_--lieutenant baron estorff, nd dragoons, king's german legion. major general sir john vandeleur, k.c.b. _aide de camp_--captain w. armstrong, th light dragoons. _major of brigade_--major m. childers, th light dragoons. major general cooke, _w._; _aide de camp_--captain g. desbrowe, st foot guards. _extra aide de camp_--ensign a. cuyler, nd foot guards. major general sir james kempt, k.c.b., _w._; _aide de camp_-captain hon. charles gore, half pay. _major of brigade_--captain c. eeles, th foot. major general hon. sir w. ponsonby, k.c.b., _k._; _aide de camp_--lieutenant b. christie, th dragoon guards. _extra aide de camp_--major d. evans, th west india regiment. _major of brigade_--major reignolds, nd dragoons, _k._ major general sir john byng, k.c.b. _aide de camp_--captain h. dumaresq, th foot, _w._ _major of brigade_--captain w. stothert, rd foot guards, _w._ major general sir denis pack, k.c.b., _w._; _aide de camp_--major e. l'estrange, st foot, _k._ _major of brigade_--captain c. smith, rd foot, _k._ major general lord e. somerset, k.c.b. _aide de camp_--lieutenant h. somerset, th hussars. _major of brigade_--major h. g. smith, th foot, _k._ major general sir colquhoun grant, k.c.b., _w._; _aide de camp_--lieutenant r. mansfield, th. hussars, _w._ _extra aide de camp_--captain w. moray, th light dragoons, _w._ _major of brigade_--captain jones, half pay. major general sir james lyon, k.c.b. _aide de camp_--lieutenant j. m'glashan, nd light battalion, king's german legion. _major of brigade_--captain richter, st ceylon regiment. major general p. maitland, _aide de camp_--ensign lord hay, st foot guards, _k._ _extra aide de camp_--cornet lord william p. lennox, royal horse guards. _major of brigade_--captain j. gunthorpe, st foot guards. major general g. johnstone, _aide de camp_--captain c.g. gray, th foot. _major of brigade_--captain s. holmes, th foot. major general f. adam, _w._; _aide de camp_--lieutenant r.p. campbell, th foot. _extra aide de camp_--captain c. yorke, nd foot. _major of brigade_--major hunter blair, st foot, _w._ major general sir colin halkett, k.c.b. _w._; _aides de camp_--captains, h. marschalk, st light battalion, king's german legion, _k._; a. holme, nd light battalion, king's german legion. _major of brigade_--captain w. crofton, th foot, _k._ major general sir hussey vivian, k.c.b. _aide de camp_--captain e. keane, th hussars. _extra aide de camp_--lieutenant c. a. fitzroy, royal horse guards. _major of brigade_--captain t.n. harris, half pay, _w._ adjutant general--major general sir edward barnes, k.c.b., _w._ _aide de camp_--major a. hamilton, th west india regiment, _w._ _departmental adjutant general_--colonel sir john elley, k.c.b., royal horse guards, _w._ _assistant adjutants general_--lieutenant colonels, s. waters, unattached, _w._; sir george h. berkeley, k.c.b., th foot, _w._; sir guy campbell, bart., th foot; sir noel hill, k.c.b., st foot guards; d. barclay, st foot guards; h. rooke, rd foot guards; e. currie, th foot, _k._; majors, a. wylly, th foot; g. evatt, th foot; w. darling, half pay; f. breymann, nd light battalion, king's german legion. _deputy assistant adjutants general_--captains, hon. e.s. erskine, th foot, _w._; lord charles fitzroy, st foot guards; c. bentinck, nd foot guards; l. grant, th foot; h. blanckley, rd foot; hon. w. curzon, th foot, _k._ lieutenants, j. hamilton, th foot, _w._; j. harford, th royal veteran battalion; e. gerstlacher, rd hussars, king's german legion; j. rooke, half pay. _deputy judge advocate_--lieutenant colonel s. goodman, half pay. deputy quarter master general--colonel sir william delancey, k.c.b., _k._ _assistant quarter masters general_--colonels, hon. a. abercromby, nd foot guards, _w._; f.b. hervey, th light dragoons. lieutenant colonels, r. torrens, st west india regiment; sir charles broke, k.c.b., permanent; sir jeremiah dickson, k.c.b., permanent; lord greenock, permanent; j. woodford, st foot guards; c. grant, th foot; sir william gomm, k.c.b., nd foot guards; sir henry bradford, k.c.b., st foot guards, _w._; sir george scovell, k.c.b., half pay; d. kelly, rd foot. majors, w. campbell, rd foot; hon. george l. dawson, st dragoon guards, _w._; e. beckwith, th foot, _w._; j. shaw, rd foot; j. jessop, rd foot, _w._ _deputy assistant quarter masters general_--captains, e. fitzgerald, th foot, _w._; t. wright, royal staff corps, _w._; h. mcleod, th foot, _w._; j. mitchell, th foot, _w._; w. moore, st foot guards; g. hillier, th foot; j. fraser, th foot; w. cameron, st foot guards; f. read, royal staff corps. lieutenants, p. barrailler, rd foot; b. jackson, royal staff corps; a. brauns, royal staff corps. _commandant at head quarters_--colonel sir colin campbell, k.c.b., nd foot guards. cavalry. _ st life guards._ major--s. ferrier, lieutenant colonel, _k._ captains--j. whale, _w._; m. lind, _k._; e. kelly, _w._; j. berger, major. lieutenants--g. randall; w. mayne; h. wyatt. sub lieutenants--w. s. kichardson, _w._; s. cox, _w._; w. wombwell; g. storey. surgeon--r. gough. assistant surgeon--j.h. james. veterinary surgeon--f. dalton. _ nd life guards._ major--hon. e.p. lygon, lieutenant colonel. captains--w. boyce, major; r. fitzgerald, lieutenant colonel, _k._; hon. h.e. irby; j.p.m. kenyon. lieutenants--r. meares; w. elliott; s. waymouth, _w._ and _m._; c. barton. sub lieutenants--a. kenyon; t. martin; a. m'innes; j. clues, adjutant. surgeon--s. broughton. assistant surgeon--t. drinkwater. veterinary surgeon--j. field. _royal horse guards, blue._ lieutenant colonels--sir john elley, colonel, _w._; sir r.c. hill, _w._ major--r.c. packe, _k._ captains--j. thoyts; w.r. clayton; c. hill, lieutenant colonel, _w._; w.t. drake. lieutenants--j.b. riddlesden; w.c. shawe, _w._; e.w. bouverie, _w._; h.e. boates; t.b. tathwell; g. smith; hon. g.j. watson. cornets--j. k. picard; j. arnold. surgeon--d. slow. veterinary surgeon--j. seddall. troop quarter masters--t. varley, _w._; p. watmough; t. hardy; j. varley, _w._; t. troy. _ st (or king's) dragoon guards._ lieutenant colonel--w. fuller, colonel, _k._ captains--h. graham, major, _k._; m. turner, _w._; j.f. naylor, _w._; w. elton; j.d. brughurst, major, _k._; j.p. sweeny, _w._; r. wallace; t.n. quicke; g.e. battersby, _k._ lieutenants--j. leatham; w. sterling; r. babington; f. brooke, _k._; r.t. hamley; t.c. brander; t. shelver, adjutant, k.; e. hamill; w.d.a. irvine, _w._; j.e. greaves; j.n. hibbert. cornets--g. quicke; j.f. middleton; hon. h.b. bernard, _k._; w.w. huntley. paymaster--j. webster. surgeon--j. going. assistant surgeons--w. m'auley; robert pearson. _ st royal dragoons._ lieutenant colonel--a.b. clifton. major--p. dorville, lieutenant colonel. captains--c.e. radclyffe, major, _w._; a.k. clark, _w._; p. phipps; r. heathcote; e.c. windsor, _k._; c. l. methuin; c. foster, _k._ lieutenants--h.r. carden; g. gunning, _w._; t.r. keily, _w._; s. trafford, _w._; s. windawe, _w._; c. bridges; c. ommaney, _w._; c. blois, _w._; s. goodenough, _w._; r. magniac, _k._ cornets--w. sturges; j.c. sykes, _k._ adjutant cornet--t. shipley, _k._ quarter master--w. waddel. surgeon--g. steed. assistant surgeon--t. prosser. _ nd, or royal north british, dragoons (scots greys)._ lieutenant colonel--j.j. hamilton, colonel, _k._ major--j.b. clarke, lieutenant colonel, _w._; t.p. hankin, lieutenant colonel, _w._ captains--e. cheney, major; j. poole, _w._; r. vernon, major, _w._; t. reignolds, _k._; c.l. barnard, _k._; e. payne. lieutenants--john mills, _w._; f. stupart, _w._; g.h. falconer; j wemyss; j. carruthers, _w._; a. hamilton; t. truther, _k._; j. gape; c. wyndham, _w._; j.r.t. graham; h. m'millan. cornets--e. westby, _k._; f.c. kinchant, _k._; l. shuldam, _k._; w. crawford. paymaster--w. dawson. quarter master--j. lennox. surgeon--r. dunn. assistant surgeon--j. alexander. veterinary surgeon--j. trigg. _ th, or inniskilling, dragoons._ lieutenant colonel--j. muter, colonel, _w._ majors--f.s. miller, lieutenant colonel, _w._; h. madox. captains--w.f. browne, _w._; w.f. hadden; hon. s. douglass, _w._; e. holbech; t. mackay. lieutenants--t. biddulph; a.s. willett; j. linton; h.w. petre; a. hassard, _w._; f. johnson; r. down; b. barry; p. ruffo, _m._; m. dames. cornet--j.d. allingham. adjutant--m. m'cluskey, _k._ regimental quarter master--j. kerr. surgeon--j. bolton. assistant surgeons--w.h. rickatts; w. campbell. veterinary surgeon--r. vincent. paymaster--w. armstrong. _ th light dragoons._ colonel--earl of uxbridge, lieutenant general, _w._ lieutenant colonel--sir edward kerrison, colonel. majors--edward hodge, _k._; w. thornhill, _w._; captains--w. verner, _w._; t. w. robbins, _w._; e. keane; p.a. heyliger, _w._; t. wildman; j.j. frazer, _w._; j.d. elphinstone, _w._; e. wildman, _w._ lieutenants--s. o'grady; w. shirley; w. grenfell; r. douglass, _w._; r. uniacke; j. r. gordon, _w._; henry lord paget; j. daniel; e.j. peters, _w._; j. wildman; f. beatty, _w._; s. rice; f. towers. paymaster--t. feltom. lieutenant adjutant--a. meyers, _w._; quarter master--j. greenwood. surgeon--d. irwin. assistant surgeons--r.a. chermside; j. moffat. veterinary surgeon--r. dorville. _ th hussars._ lieutenant colonels--george quentin, colonel, _w._; lord robert manners. major--hon. f. howard, _k._; captains--t. w. taylor, major; h.c. stapleton; j. grey, _w._; j. gurwood, _w._; c. wood, _w._; h. floyd; a. shakespeare. lieutenants--j.w. parsons; c. gunning, _k._; w.s. smith; h.j. burn; r. arnold, _w._; w. cartwright; j.c. wallington; e. hodgson; w.c. hamilton; a. bacon, _w._; w.h.b. lindsey. paymaster--j. tallon. lieutenant and adjutant--j. hardman. assistant surgeon--g.s. jenks. veterinary surgeon--h.c. sannerman. _ th light dragoons._ lieutenant colonel--j.w. sleigh. major--a. money, lieutenant colonel. captains--j. bouchier; b. lutyens, major; m. childers, major; j.a. schreiber; j. jenkins; t. binney; j. duberley. lieutenants--g. sicker; f. wood, _w._; w. smith; r. coles, _w._; b. lye; e. phelips, _k._; j.r. rotton; j.s. moore, _w._; b. des voeux; r. millingan, _w._ cornets--b.p. browne; h. orme; g. schreiber, _w._; h.r. bullock; p.h. james. paymaster--d. lutyens adjutant--g. sicker. quarter master--j. hall. surgeon--j. o'meally. assistant surgeon--h. steel. _ th, or prince of wales's, light dragoons._ lieutenant colonel--hon. f.c. ponsonby, colonel, _w._; major--j.p. bridger. captains--s. stawell; g.f. erskine; e.w.t. sandys, _w._; h. wallace; a. barton; h. andrews. lieutenants--w. heydon; j. chatterton; j. vandeleur; w. hay; w.h. dowbiggen, _w._; a. goldsmid; j.d. calderwood; l.j. bertie, _k._; t. reed. cornets--j.e. lockhart _k._; j.h. slade. adjutant--j. griffiths. _ th light dragoons._ lieutenant colonel--p. doherty, colonel. major--s. boyse, lieutenant colonel, _w._; captains--b. lawrence, major; j. doherty, _w._; j. macalister, major; m. bowers; j. gubbins, _k._; c. gregorie; f. goulbourn; j. moss; g. doherty, _w._; j.h. drought; c.r. bowers, _w._; a.t. maclean; j. geale, _w._; r. nesbitt; g. pym, _w._; w. turner; j. mill, _w._; g.h. pack, _w._; h. acton; j. wallace; j.e. irving, _w._; j. wakefield. paymaster--a. strange. quarter master--w. minchin. surgeon--t.g. logan. assistant surgeon--a. armstrong. veterinary surgeon--j. coustant. _ th hussars._ lieutenant colonel--l.c. dalrymple, _w._; major--e. griffith, _k._; captains--j. thackwell, _w._; s. hancox; j. whiteford, _w._; p. wodehouse; f.c. philips; w. booth; j. buckley, _w._; j. carr. lieutenants--e. barrett; j. sherwood, _k._; w. bellairs; h. lane; w. byam, _w._; e. byam, _w._; g.a.f. dawkins, _w._; h. dixon; j.j. douglass; w. stewart. paymaster--j.c. cocksedge. lieutenant and adjutant--j. griffith. surgeon--t. cartan. assistant surgeons--s. jeyes; w. gibney. veterinary surgeon--c. dalwig. _ th light dragoons._ lieutenant colonel--james hay, _w._; majors--hon. h.b. lygon; g.h. murray. captains--j.h. belli, major; c. swetenham; r. weyland, _w._; w. persse; j.p. buchanan, _k._; w. tomkinson; c. king. lieutenants--j. barra; w. osten, _w._; t. wheeler; g. baker; r. beauchamp; n.d. crichton, _w._; e.b. lloyd; w. nepean; j.a. richardson; j. luard; w. harris; hon. c.t. monckton. cornets--w. beckwith; w. polhill; g. nugent. paymaster--g. neyland. lieutenant and adjutant--j. barra. quarter master--j. harrison. surgeon--j. robinson. assistant surgeon--j.m. mallock. veterinary surgeon--j. jones. _ th light dragoons._ lieutenant colonel--hon. h. murray. captains--a. kennedy; r. croker; r. ellis; j. grant, major; g. luard; j.r.l. lloyd. lieutenants--c. heste, _w._; t. dunkin; j. waldie; g. woodberry; hon. l.c. dawson; m. french; t. prior; r. coote; j.t. macbell; d. m'duffie; h. somerset; w.h. rowlls; j.r. gordon; c.c. moller; w. monins. paymaster--w. deane. lieutenant and adjutant--h. duperier, _w._; surgeon--w. chambers. assistant surgeons--l. pulsford; j. quincey. veterinary surgeon--d. pilcher. _ rd light dragoons._ lieutenant colonel--earl of portarlington, colonel. majors--j.m. sutcliffe, _w._; p.a. latour. captains--c.w. dance, _w._; p.z. cox; j. martin; t. gerrard, major, _w._; r. m'neil; h. grove, major; j.m. wallace. lieutenants--g. dodwell; a. bolton; s. coxen, _k._; c. tudor; j. banner; j. lewis; c. bacon; b. disney, _w._; r. johnson; t.b. wall, _w._; g.w. blathwayte. cornet--w. hemmings. paymaster--t. dillow. lieutenant and adjutant--h. hill; quarter master--j. grouchley. surgeon--s. steele. assistant surgeon--h. cowen. veterinary surgeon--j. ship. infantry. _ st regiment foot guards_ (_ nd and rd battalions_). majors--h. askew, colonel, _w._; hon. w. stuart, _w._; captains and lieutenant colonels--hon. h. townsend, _w._; r.h. cooke, _w._; e. stables, _k._; sir f. d'oyly, k.c.b., _k._; l.g. jones; h. d'oyly, _w._; g. fead, _w._; c. thomas, _k._; lord saltoun; j. reeve; w. miller, _w._; hon. j. stanhope; j.g. woodford; c. colquett; w.h. milnes, _w._; sir h.w. bradford, k.c.b., _w._; sir t.n. hill, k.c.b.; sir d. barclay, k.c.b.; sir u. burgh, k.c.b.; lord f. somerset, k.c.b. lieutenants and captains--r. adair, _w._; t. streatfield, _w._; j.h. davis; lord james hay, _k._; e. grose, _k._; j. gunthorpe, adjutant; hon. r. clements, _w._; lord c. fitzroy; j.h. hutchinson; r. ellison; h.w. powell; george desbrowe; w.g. cameron; lonsdale boldero; r.w. phillimore; c.p. ellis, _w._; j. simpson, _w._; a.f. viscount bury; e. clive; w.f. johnstone; e.f. luttrell, _w._; t. brown, _k._; e.p. buckley; f. dawkins; j. nixon; c.f.r. lascelles, _w._; w.g. moore; s.w. burgess, _w._ ensigns--r. batty, _w._; r. master; w. barton, _w._; hon. h.s.v. vernon; e. pardoe, _k._; j. butler; t.r. swinburne; c. j. vyner; f.d. swan; j.p. dirom, lieutenant; j.f.m. erskine; r. bruce, _w._; hon. t.s. bathurst; hon. e.a. edgcumbe; g. fludyer, _w._; w.f. tinling; a. greville; g.t. jacob; d. cameron; l. hurd; f. norton; h. lascelles; g. mure; g. allen; t.e. croft, _w._; hon. s.s.p. barrington, _k._; j. st. john; d. tighe; j. talbot. adjutant--c: allix, captain. quarter master--r. colquhoun. surgeons--w. curtis; w. watson. assistant surgeons--j. harrison; a. armstrong; j. gardner; f. gilder. _coldstream, or nd regiment, foot guards_ (_ nd battalion_). major--a. g. woodford, colonel. captains and lieutenant colonels--j. macdonell, lieutenant colonel, _w._; d. mackinnon, lieutenant colonel, _w._; hon. j. walpole; h. dawkins; h.a. abercromby, _k._; sir c. campbell, k.c.b.; hon. e. acheson; sir w. gomm, k.c.b.; h. wyndham, _w._ lieutenants and captains--g. bowles; t. sowerby; j. fremantle, lieutenant colonel; w.l. walton; w.g. baynes; c. a.f. bentinck, adjutant; j.s. cowell; e. sumner, _w._; j.l. blackman, _k._; lord hotham; hon. r. moore, _w._; t. chaplin. ensigns--hon. j. forbes; h. gooch; a. cuyler; m. beaufoy; h.f. griffiths, _w._; john montagu, _w._; g.r. buckley; j. hervey; h. vane; f.j. douglas; r. bowen; a. gordon; hon. w. forbes; c. short. adjutant--c.a.f. bentinck, captain. quarter master--b. selway. surgeon--w. whymper. assistant surgeons--g. smith; w. hunter. _ rd foot guards_ (_ nd battalion_). major--f. hepburn, colonel. captains and lieutenant colonels--h.w. rooke; d. mercer; hon. sir a. gordon, _k._; c. dashwood, _w._; f. home; c.f. canning, _k._; e. bowater, _w._; c. west, _w._ lieutenants and captains--w. stothert, adjutant; w. drummond; r.b. hesketh, _w._; h. hawkins; r.h. wigston; c.j. barnet; j.w. moorhouse; e.b. fairfield; g. evelyn, _w._; hon. h. forbes, _k._; j. elrington; h.b. montgomerie, _w._; t. crawford, _k._; j. ashton, _k._ ensigns--c. lake, _w._; hon. e. stopford; b. drummond; g.d. standen; d. baird, _w._; w.f. hamilton; w. james; hon. g. anson; t. wedgewood; w. butler; a.c. cochrane; j. prendergast; c. simpson, _w._; h.s. blane; h. montague. adjutant--w. stothert, captain, _w._ quarter master--j. skuce. surgeon--s. good. assistant surgeons--j.r. warde; f.g. hanrott. _ st regiment foot, or royal scots_ (_ rd battalion_). major--colin campbell, lieutenant colonel, _w._; captains--l. arquimbau, major, _w._; r. macdonald, major, _w._; h. massy, major, _w._; w. buckley, _k._; w. gordon; r. dudgeon, _w._ lieutenants--a. morrison, _w._; j. armstrong, _k._; j.e.o. neil, _k._; w.j. rea, _w._; j. ingram, _w._; w. clarke, _w._; g.c. johnstone; t. gordon; a. cameron, adjutant, _w._; j. stoyte, _w._; r.h. scott, _w._; g. lane, _w._; j. symes, _w._; j. alstone, _w._; w.g. young, _k._; j. mann, _w._; w. dobbs, _w._; j.f.w. millar, _w._; g. stewart, _w._; j.l. black, _w._ ensigns--a. glen; c. mudie; j.g. kennedy, _k._; c. lewis; c. graham, _w._; t. stephens, _w._; j. mackay, _w._; a. robertson, _k._; w. anderson, _k._; l.m. cooper, _w._; w. thomas. paymaster--j.c. thompson. adjutant--a. cameron, _w._; quarter master--t. griffith, _w._; surgeon--w. galliers. assistant surgeons--w. finnie; t. bolton. _ th regiment foot_ (_king's own_). lieutenant colonel--f. brooke. captains--g.d. wilson, major, _w._; c.j. edgell, _w._; w.l. wood; j. w. fletcher; h.t. shaw; r. erskine; d.s. craig; e.s. kirwan; j. browne, _w._ lieutenants--g. vincent; b. martin; g. richardson, _w._; p. boulby; h. boyd, _w._; g.h. hearne; b. collins, _w._; w. squire, _w._; j. bushel; r. mulholland; w. lonsdale; e. boulby; w. clarke; w. richardson, adjutant; f. field; w. reddock; a. gerard, _w._; j. l. fernandez; w. blagrave; c. levinge. ensigns--w. taylor; e. newton; w.h. matthews, _w._; j.e.h. holland; i. beer. paymaster--j. lansdale. quarter master--t. richards. surgeon--f. burton. assistant surgeons--w. morrah; j. french. _ th regiment foot_ (_ rd battalion_). majors--f.s. tidy, lieutenant colonel; j. keightley. captains--g. marley, major; t. ramsay; w. turnor; w. ross; r. adams; c. wilson; j.l. white; w. hewett. lieutenants--w. akenside; c.m. brannan; l. beachcroft; w. buckle, adjutant; g. baldwin; j. nickson; l. westwood; d. slocock; j.c. hartley; h. boldero. ensigns--w. reed; j. mackenzie; f.r. fane; r.b. newenham; c. frazer; a.t.e. adamson; w. keowen; j.m. wood; a. ormsby, _w._ ( th); j.r. smith; a. cooper, _w._; j. bowlby; j.p. matthews; r.j. stackpoole; r.b. holmes; hon. g.t. keppel. paymaster--r. mitton. quarter master--a. ross. assistant surgeons--a. shannon; henry terry. _ rd regiment foot_ (_royal welsh fusiliers_). lieutenant colonel--sir h.w. ellis, k.c.b., colonel, _w._; majors--t. dalmer, lieutenant colonel; j.h.e. hill, lieutenant colonel, _w._ captains--j. hawtyn, major, _k._; p. brown, major; f. dalmer, major; h. wynne; t. strangeway; w. campbell, major; c. jolliffe, _k._; t. farmer, _k._; h. johnson, _w._; h.s. blanckley. first lieutenants--f. o'flaherty; j. milne; w. walley; e.m. brown; f.l.g. cowel; g. hensham, _k._; r. smith; h. palmer; j.w. harris; j. enoch, adjutant; g. philips; j. macdonald; g. fielding; r.p. holmes; c. fryer; w.a. griffiths, _w._; j. clyde, _w._; a.a. brice; a.d. sidley _w._; a. clayhills; e. methold. second lieutenants--t. lilly; g. dunn; g. stainforth; g. fitzgibbon; w. leebody, _k._ ( th); t. towers; t. allan. paymaster--r. julian. lieutenant and adjutant--j. enoch. quarter master--g. sidley. surgeon--j. dunn. assistant surgeons--t. smith; j. williams. _ th_ (_inniskilling_) _regiment foot_. captains--j. hare, major, _w._; j. tucker, _w._; g. holmes, _k._ lieutenants--g. macdonald, _w._; w. henderson, _w._; r. handcock, _w._; e.w. drewe, _w._; j. betty; w.f. fortescue, _w._; w. talbot; j. millar, _w._; c. manley, _w._; t. craddock, _w._ ensigns--w. kater; t. handcock, _w._; t. smith, _w._; s. ireland. _k._; j. ditmas, _w._ quarter master--t. taylor. assistant surgeons--t. mostyn; g. fitz gerald. _ th regiment foot._ lieutenant colonels--sir charles philip belson, k.c.b., colonel; b. nixon, _w._; majors--w.p. meacham, _k._; w. irving, _w._; r. llewellyn, _w._; captains--c. cadell; r. kelly, _w._; j. bowles, _w._; t. english, _w._; c. teulon, _w._ lieutenants--j.h. crumner; j.f. wilkinson, _w._; m. semple; r.p. gilbert, _w._; r.p. eason, _w._; w. irwin, _w._; h. hilliard, _w._; s. moore; j. coen, _w._; c.b. carruthers, _w._; j.t. clarke, _w._; j.w. shelton, _w._; j. deares, _w._; e.e. hill; g. ingram, _w._; t.w. colleton; j. parry. ensigns--r. t. stewart; w. serjeantson; r. martin; j. simpkin; w. mountsteven, _w._; w. lynam. lieutenant and adjutant--t. bridgeland, _w._; paymaster--j. dewes. quarter master--r. reynolds. assistant surgeon--p.h. lavens. _ th regiment foot_ (_ nd battalion_). lieutenant colonel--a. hamilton, _w._ majors--n.w. bailey, _w._; c.a. vigoureux, _w._; t.w. chambers, _k._; captains--a. m'nab, _k._; r. howard; a. gore, _w._; m. ryan; d. sinclair-finneane. lieutenants--b.w. nicholson; j. gowan; r. mayne; m. andrews; r. heaviside; r.c. elliot, _w._; a.w. freear; j. rumley, _w._; r. daniells, _w._; p. neville; j. roe, _w._; t.o. halloran; r. hughes, _w._; p. lockwood, _w._; j. pratt, _w._; h. beere, _k._; e. prendergast, _k._; w.o. warren, _w._; t. moneypenny, _w._; r. harrison; j. roe; f. tincombe. ensigns--r.n. rogers; j. james, _k._; e. macready; j. bullen, _k._ paymaster--h.b. wray. lieutenant and adjutant--m. andrews, _w._; quarter master--williamson. surgeon--j.g. elkington. assistant surgeons--j. evans; p. clarke. _ nd regiment foot._ majors--j. hicks, lieutenant colonel; f. calvert. captains--c. hames, major; h.r. lewen; w.h. toole, major, _w._; j. crowe, _w._; j. boyce, _k._; t. cassan, _k._; e. whitty, _k._; h. harrison, _w._; c. wallett, _w._; s. cane. lieutenants--h.w. brookes, _w._; g. barr, _w._; m.w. meighan, _w._; s.h. lawrence, _w._; t. butler; j. boase, _w._; t. ross lewin, _w._; h. butterworth, _w._; j.s. m'culloch; j.r. colthurst, _w._; b. hill; j. harvey; j. robinson, _w._; g. brock; r.t. belcher; j. fitzgerald, _w._; t.j. horan, _w._; e. stephens, _w._; h. quill, _w._; j. jagoe, _w._; g. small; b.r. o'connor; h. newton; j. peyton. ensigns--j. lucas; j. m'conchy; h. metcalf, _w._; j. birtwhistle, _w._; a. stuart, _w._; g. brown; w. bennet, _w._; c. dallas, _w._; lieutenant and adjutant--d. davis, _w._; paymaster--t. hart. quarter master--w. stevens. surgeon--w. buchanan. assistant surgeons--r. lawder; h. m'clintock. _ rd regiment foot ( nd battalion)._ lieutenant colonel--w.k. elphinstone. majors--g. colclough; e. parkinson, _w._; captains--w. m'intyre, _w._; c. knight, _w._; j. haigh, _k._; j.m. harty, _w._; r. gore; j. longden. lieutenants--t. reid, _w._; g. barrs; h.r. buck, _k._; a.h. trevor; j. boyce, _k._; a. gore, _k._; j. hart; j. markland, _w._; t.h. patterson; r. westmore, _w._; t.d. haigh, _w._; g. whannel; j.g. ogle, _w._; s.a. pagan, _w._; e. clabon; j. lynam; j. archibald; j. forlong, _w._; j. cameron, _w._ ensigns--h. bain, _w._; j. alderson, _w._; j.a. howard, _w._; a. watson; c. smith; w. hodson; g. blackall; g. drury, _w._; w.h. grote. paymaster--e. stoddart. adjutant--w. thain, _w._ quarter master--j. fazakerly. surgeon--r. learer. assistant surgeons--w. fry; d. finlayson. _ th regiment foot ( nd battalion)._ majors--c. macalister; j. slessor, lieutenant colonel. captains--c.w. wall; w. rawson; h. rutherford; t. m'niell; r. cameron; n. dromgoole. lieutenants--s. s. scarfe; j.w. amos; j. osbourne; t. m'donough; r. thobourne; w. farrant; a. barnwell; j. hildebrant; p. murdock; j. wilder; n.r. tompkins; e. shewell; w. rainsford; g. wilkins; j. middleton. ensigns--j.m. bliss; w.l. hedding; j. hewetson; w. macalister; j.b. wyatt; lord s. ker; n. m'donnell; r. pottenger; a.d. hamilton; j. thomas. paymaster--w. bury. adjutant--c. s. brearey. quarter master--r. foot. surgeon--c.s. doyle. assistant surgeons--w. keoghoe; j. purcell. _ th regiment foot._ majors--a.r. heyland, _k._; f. browne. captains--s. stretton, major; r. turton; c. ellis, _w._; j.h. barnet, _w._; r. philips; w. fisher, _k._; e.c. bowen; p. bishop; j.d. franklyn; w. kelly. lieutenants--j. thoreau; m. chadwick; r. moore, _w._; w.o. sandwith; j. butler; h. millar; j. richardson; j. anthony, _w._; c. gorman; j. mill, _w._;--glynne; w. neilly; r. hudson; h. wilkinson; j. foulkes; t. campbell, _w._; h.b. wray; r. jones; hon. m. browne, _w._; d. m'donald; f. fort; g. hibbert; r. rudd. ensigns--h. helmsley; j.l. wall; w. clerke; g. atkinson; r. thornhill; j. murphy; w.j. m'carthy. paymaster--f.h. durand. adjutant--w. manning, lieutenant. surgeon--w. james. assistant surgeons--w. barry; g. scott. _ nd regiment foot_ (_royal highlanders_). lieutenant colonels--sir robert macara, _k._; r.h. dick, _w._; major--a. menzies, _w._ captains--j. campbell, lieutenant colonel; g. davidson, major, _w._; m. macpherson, _w._; d. m'donald, _w._; d. m'intosh, _w._; r. boyle, _w._; lieutenants--d. chisholm, _w._; d. stewart, _w._; d. m'kenzie, _w._; h.a. frazer, _w._; j. malcolm, _w._; a. dunbar, _w._; j. brander, _w._; r. gordon, _k._; r. stewart; j. robertson; k. m'dougall; d. m'kay; a. innes; j. grant; j. orr, _w._; g.g. munro, _w._ ensigns--g. gerard, _k._; w. fraser, _w._; a.l. fraser, _w._; a. brown; a. cumming. adjutant--j. young, _w._, quarter master--d. m'intosh, _w._; surgeon--s. m'leod. assistant surgeons--d. m'pherson; j. stewart. _ th regiment foot ( nd battalion)._ lieutenant colonel--j.m. hamerton, _w._ major--g. o'malley, lieutenant colonel. captains--a. brugh, _w._; d. power, _w._; w. burney, _w._; m. fane, _w._ lieutenants--r. russell, _w._; r.j. twinberrow; r. grier, _w._; w. tomkins, _k._; w.b. strong, _w._; j. campbell, _w._; n.t. kingsley; j. burke, _w._; h. martin; w.m. hern, _w._; a reddock. ensigns--christie, _w._; b. whitney, _w._; g. dunlevie; p. cooke, _k._; t. m'cann, _w._; j.c. webster, _w._; a. wilson, _w._ paymaster--j. williams. ensign and adjutant--t. m'cann, _w._; quarter master--h. jones. surgeon--o. halpin. assistant surgeons--j. collins; w. newton. _ st foot._ lieutenant colonel--h.h. mitchell, colonel. major--s. rice, lieutenant colonel. captains--j.t. keyt, major; j. campbell; w. thwaits, major; r. storer; j.h. phelps; james ross; j. ross; s. beardsley, _w._; e. frederick. lieutenants--t. brook; b.b. hawley; f. minchin; w. mahon; w.h. hare; o. ainsworth; h. read; f. kennedy; j. dyas; j.j. flaman, _k._; w.h. elliott; w.d. simpson; f. mainwaring; c.w. tyndall, _w._; h. martin; h.h. roberts; e. isaacson; e.j. taylor; t. troward; j. lintott. ensigns--g.f.b. st john; f. percy; w.k. krause; r.b. walton; w. johnstone; a. fraser; j. blair; h. lock. paymaster--j. gibbs. lieutenant and adjutant--w. jones. quarter master--t. askey. surgeon--r. webster. assistant surgeons--j.f. clarke; p. fitzpatrick. _ nd foot._ lieutenant colonel--sir john colborne, k.c.b., colonel. major--c. rowan, lieutenant colonel, _w._; captains--p. campbell, major; w. chalmers, major; w. rowan, major, _w._; j.f. love, major, _w._; c. earl of march, major; c. diggle, major, _w._; j. shedden; g. young; j. m'nair; e. langton; j. cross; c. yorke. lieutenants--c. dawson, _w._; m. anderson, _w._; c. kenny; g.h. love; w. ripley; j.c. barrett; w.h. clerke; g. hall; w.r. nixon; g. gawler; g. whichcote; w. ogilvy; e.r. northey; hon. w. browne; e. scoones; g. campbell, _w._; w. austin; j. snodgrass; j.s. cargill; w. hunter; w.c. yonge; t. cottingham, _w._; c. holman; g. moore; e. mitchell; c. shawe; j. hart; g.e. scott; h.t. oakes; j.r. griffith; j. burnett; r. steward; g. robson; f.w. love. ensigns--j. jackson; t. massie; w. nettles, _k._; j. macnab; j. montagu; j.f. may; e. monins; w. leeke. paymaster--j. clarke. lieutenant and adjutant--j. winterbottom, _w._ quarter master--b. sweeten. surgeon--j.b. gibson. assistant surgeons--p. jones; w. macartney. _ th regiment foot._ lieutenant colonel--j. earl waldegrave. majors--sir neil campbell, colonel; a. kelly. captains--t.c. kirby; r. blakeman; w. crofton, brigade major, _k._; j. leslie; g.j. tappenden; g. black, brigade major; t. chartres. lieutenants--g. fraser; g. bromhead; e.a. evanson; j. pillon; r. woodgate; w. claus; r. kelly; j. grey; p. mandilhon; j.h. potts; r. seacroft; f. taylor; e. marcon; j. reid; r. stacpoole; f. burgess; w. pilkington; w. persse; d. denham; f. hutchinson; m.s.h. lloyd. ensigns--e. nugent; t. fraser; c. hill; j. clark; c.w. thomas; a. mathewson; p. clarke. paymaster--h. irwin. adjutant--j. dowdell. quarter master--w. coates. surgeon--g. redmond. assistant surgeons--m.f. finan; g. leech. _ th regiment foot ( nd battalion)._ lieutenant colonel--h. austen. majors--f.w. hoysted, lieutenant colonel; c. douglas. captains--f. fuller; j. cockburn; a. pilkington; j.a. crawford; j. m'gregor; j. fawson. lieutenants--r. preedy; w.f. mayne; a. dent; j. cowper; h. brown; a. macpherson; e. duncan; n. chadwick; l. carmichael; h. hartford; p. o'hara; w. veall; w. pittman; w.h. hill; g. robinson; r. scott. ensigns--a.c. ross; h.k. bloomfield; r.f. hill; c. makepeace. paymaster--c. marr. adjutant--a. campbell, lieutenant. quarter master--w. baird. surgeon--j. hagan. assistant surgeons--p.k. lambe; a. calvin. _ th regiment foot ( nd battalion)._ colonel--c. morice, _k._; major--g. muttlebury, lieutenant colonel. captains--j.l. watson, major, _w._; h. lindsay, major, _w._; g.s. cotter; c. cuyler; b. hobhouse, _k._; h.w. curzon, _k._; r. blackwood, _k._; g.w. barlow. lieutenants--w. harrison; r. franklyn; s. parke; b. pigot, _w._; c. busteed, _w._; n. ray; c.w. ingle; j. hill; h. oldershaw, adjutant; c.l. dickson; e.m. wrightwick, _k._; h. anderson, _w._; j. stewart, _w._; ensigns--e. hodder, _w._; w. bartlett; c. seward; h.d. keith; g.s.h. ainslie; volunteer clarke, _w._; paymaster--p. vyvyan. quarter master--m. stevens. surgeon--c. bancks, m.d. assistant surgeon--j. bartlet. _ st light infantry_ (_glasgow highlanders_). lieutenant colonel--t. reynell, colonel, _w._; majors--a. jones, lieutenant colonel, _w._; l. walker. captains--s. reed; j.t. pidgeon; a. armstrong; d. campbell, _w._; e. l'estrange, major, _k._; w.a. grant, _w._; j. henderson, _w._; a.j. m'intyre; c. johnstone, major, _w._; a. grant. lieutenants--j. baraillier, _w._; l. richards; j.r. elwes, _k._; c. stewart; r. baldwin; w.c. hanson, _w._; r. lind, _w._; j. roberts, _w._; j. coates; j. fraser; e. gilborne; j. whitney; w. long; r. lawe, _w._; c.t. cox; c. lewin, _w._; w. woolcombe; w. torriano; g.w. horton; j. coote, _w._; c. moorhead; d. soutar; h. mamro; n. campbell. ensigns--a. moffit; w. smith; h.w. thompson; j. todd, _k._; j. barnett; a. m. henderson; j. spalding; j. impett; a. l'estrange. paymaster.--h. mackenzie. adjutant--w. anderson, lieutenant, _w._; quarter master--w. gavin. surgeon--a. stewart. assistant surgeons--j. winterscale; l. hill. _ rd regimen foot_ (_ nd battalion_). colonel--g. harris, _w._; major--a. j. maclean, _w._; captains--h. coane, _w._; a. robertson, _k._; w. wharton, _w._; j.m. kennedy, _k._; j. garland, _w._ lieutenants--r. leyne; j.w.h. strachan, _k._; j.r. m'connell, _w._; m. hollis, _k._; j. acres, _w._; j. dowling; t. reynolds, _w._; d. browne, _w._; j.y. lloyd, _w._; r. stewart. ensigns--r.g. hesilrige, _w._; w. macbean, _w._; t. deacon, _w._; c.b. eastwood, _w._; g.d. bridge, _w._; g. hughes; w.s. lowe, _k._; a. blennerhasset; c. page, _k._ adjutant--j. hay, _w._; paymaster--j. williams. surgeon--d. m'dearmid. assistant surgeons--j. riach; f.b. white. _ th regiment foot_ (_cameron highlanders_). lieutenant colonel--neil douglas, _w._; majors--a. brown, lieutenant colonel, _w._; d. cameron, lieutenant colonel, _w._; captains--t. mylne, major, _w._; p. innes; r. mackay, _k._; j. campbell, _w._; n. campbell, _w._; w. marshall, _w._; m. fraser, _w._; ---- m'kay, _k._; w. bruce, _w._; j. sinclair, _w._; lieutenants--a. cameron, _w._; d. cameron, _w._; t. brown, _w._; w. maddocks, _w._; w. leaper, _w._; j. fraser, _w._; d. m'pherson, _k._; d. m'phee, _w._; f. robertson; e. cameron, _w._; a. forbes, _w._; c. m'arthur, _w._; k.j. leslie; j. powling, _w._; j. cameron; e. kennedy, _k._; w.a. riach, _w._; j. thompson; g. harrison. ensigns--j. mackenzie; c.j. maclean; j. nash, _w._; j. robertson, _w._; a. cameron; a.s. crawford, _w._; j. campbell; volunteer cameron, _w._ adjutant--j. kynock, lieutenant, _k._; paymaster--j. m'arthur. quarter master--a. cameron. surgeon--g. ridesdale. assistant surgeons--w.g. burrell; d. perston. _ st regiment foot._ lieutenant colonel--sir w. douglas, k.c.b., colonel. captains--j. walsh, major; t.h. blair, major; w. steuart; a. campbell; d. campbell; j.c. murdoch; a.j. collender, major; a. campbell; r. anderson. lieutenants--j. campbell; j. russell; a. campbell; r. stewart; a. m'lochlan; c. egan; a. cathcart, _w._ ( th); j. m'dougall; j. hood; a. smith; t.l. hemmick; t. murray; r.s. knox; c. stuart; j. m'donald; e. brown; a. campbell; g. scott, adjutant; w. smith; j. black, _w._ ( th); a. sword. ensigns--n. lamont; w. trimmer; j. paton; d. ducat; a. smith; l. lind. paymaster--d. campbell. adjutant--g. scott, lieutenant. quarter master--j. stewart. surgeon--r. douglass. assistant surgeons--g. m'lachlan; w.h. young. _ nd regiment foot_ (_highlanders_). lieutenant colonel--j. cameron, _k._ majors--j. mitchell, lieutenant colonel, _w._; d. macdonald. captains--g.w. holmes, _w._; d. campbell, w.; p. wilkie, _w._; w.c. grant, _k._; w. little, _k._; a. ferrier, _w._; lieutenants--c. alexander, adjutant; j.j. chisholm, _k._; r. winchester, _w._; t. hobbs, _w._; t. macintosh, _w._; d. macdonald, _w._; a. will; j.k. ross, _w._; r. macdonald, _w._; t. gordon; h. innes, _w._; g. logan, _w._; e. campbell; r. m'donald; j. mackinlay, _w._; r. peat; g. mackie, _k._; a. m'pherson, _w._; e. ross, _w._; j. hope, _w._; ensigns--j. branwell, _w._; r. logan, _w._; j. clarke; a. m'donald, _w._; a. becher, k.; r. hewit; r. m'pherson, _k._; j.m. m'pherson. paymaster--j. gordon. adjutant--c. alexander, lieutenant. surgeon--g. hicks. assistant surgeon--j. stewart, _w._ _ th regiment_ (_rifle corps,-- st and nd battalions, and two companies rd battalion_). lieutenant colonel--sir a.f. barnard, k.c.b., colonel, _w._; majors--a.g. norcott, lieutenant colonel, _w._; g. wilkins, lieutenant colonel, _w._; j. ross, lieutenant colonel, _w._; a. cameron, lieutenant colonel, _w._; captains--j. leach, major; f. glasse; g. miller, major, _w._; c. beckwith, major; j. logan; c.g. gray; j. fullerton, major; h. lee; h.g. smith, major; e. chawner, _w._; w. johnston, _w._; t. m'namara; j.g. m'cullock, _w._; w. eeles, major; c. eaton; c. eeles, _k._; f. le blanc; j.r. budgen. first lieutenants--w. humbley, _w._; j.c. hope; t. cochrane; j. layton; j. molloy, _w._; t. smith, adjutant; j. cox; f. bennett; a. stewart; f. dixon; w. chapman; c. coxon, _w._; r.b. freer; j. gardiner, _w._; d. cameron, _w._; j. kincaid, adjutant; g. simmons, _w._; j. stilwell; r. cochran, _w._; j.a. ridgeway, _w._; j. fry, _w._; j.p. gardner, _w._; w. haggup; g. vickers; t.t. worsley, adjutant; j.g. fitzmaurice, _w._; g. drummond; e. madden; v. webb, _w._; g.h. shenley; c.c. urquhart; j. lynam, _w._; o. felix, _w._; g. drummond. second lieutenants--d. macfarlane; a. stewart; c. rochfort; w. wright; j. church; r. fowler; a. milligan; t.b. sheean; c. probart; w. shenley; r.c. eyre, _w._; j.p. walsh, _w._, paymasters--j. mackenzie; a. m'donald. adjutants--t. smith; j. kincaid. quarter masters--d. ross; j. bagshaw. surgeons--j. burke; f. scott. assistant surgeons--j. robson; r.h. hett; j. armstrong; t.p. m'cabe; r. scott. artillery. _staff._ colonel sir george a. wood, knight, commanding. lieutenant colonel sir augustus frazer, k.c.b., commanding british horse artillery. lieutenant colonel a. macdonald, commanding under sir augustus frazer. lieutenant colonel sir john may, k.c.b., assistant adjutant general. captain h. baynes, _w._, brigade major. lieutenants--j. bloomfield, g. coles, f. wells, staff adjutants to sir george wood. lieutenant w. bell, staff adjutant to sir augustus frazer. field officers commanding two batteries of foot artillery attached to each division of the army--lieutenant colonels--s. g. adye, c. gold, j.s. williamson, j. hawker. field officer commanding reserve artillery--major p. drummond. commanding battering train--lieutenant colonel sir alexander dickson, k.c.b. _troops of british horse artillery._ . major r. bull, _w._ captains--r. m. cairnes, major, _k._; m. louis. lieutenants--w. smith, _w._; j. townsend. (heavy - / inch howitzers). . lieutenant colonel webber smith. captains--e.y. walcott; d. crawford, _w._ lieutenants--d.j. edwards; h. foster, _w._ (light six pounders). . lieutenant colonel sir robert gardiner, k.c.b. captains--t. dyneley, major; r. harding. lieutenants--w. swabey; w.b. ingleby. (light six pounders). . captain e.c. whinyates, major, _w._; captains--c.c. dansey, _w._; a. wright. lieutenants--t. strangways, _w._; a. ward; r.h. ord. (light six pounders and rockets). . captain a.c. mercer; captain r. newland. lieutenants--h. m. leathers; j. hincks; j. breton. (nine pounders). . captain w.n. ramsay, major, _k._ captains--a. macdonald, major; w. brereton, _w._ lieutenants--p. sandilands; w. robe, _k._ (nine pounders). _troops in reserve._ lieutenant colonel sir hew d. ross, k.c.b. captains--j.b. parker, major, _w._; r. hardinge. lieutenants--j. day, _w._; f. warde; p.v. onslow. (nine pounders). captain g. beane, major, _k._; captains--w. webber, _w._; j.e. maunsell. lieutenants--j.r. bruce; m.t. cromie, _k._; (light six pounders). _batteries of british foot artillery._ captain c.f. sandham; captain w.h. stopford. lieutenants--g. foot; g.m. baynes; d. jago. (nine pounders). captain s. bolton, _k._; captain c. napier, _w._; lieutenants--g. pringle; w. anderson; c. spearman, _k._; w. sharpin; b. cuppage. (nine pounders). captain w.i. lloyd, major, _k._; captain s. rudyerd. lieutenants--s. phelps; w. harvey, _w._; (nine pounders). captain j. brome, major; captain j.j.g. parker. lieutenants--r. j. saunders; t.o. cater; a.o. molesworth. (nine pounders). captain g.w. unett; captain g. browne. lieutenants--d. lawson; w. montagu; c.g. kett. _battery in reserve._ captain j. sinclair; captain f. macbean. lieutenants--j.a. wilson; w.h. poole, _w._; r.b. burnaby. _subaltern officers present but unattached._ lieutenants--w. lemoine, e. trevor, e.w. wood, g.s. maule, t. watkis, g.t. hume. _attached to captain cleeves's foot battery, king's german legion._ lieutenant r. manners, _k._ royal engineers. _staff._ lieutenant colonel j. carmichael smyth, commanding engineer. major sir george hoste, bart., k.f.m., commanding engineer to first corps. major j. oldfield, major of brigade. lieutenant j. sperling, adjutant. captains--f. stanway, a. thomson, _w._; ( th). lieutenants--j.w. pringle, _w._; m.a. waters; f.b. head; f.y. gilbert; a.d. white. royal staff corps. lieutenant colonel w. nicolay, colonel. captains--t. wright, _w._; w. staveley; f. read. lieutenants--g.d. hall, _w._; b. jackson; a.c.g. brauns. ensigns--t.w. colleton; j.s. sedley; j. milliken. royal waggon train. lieutenant colonel--t. aird. captains--t. pardoe, b. jackson. lieutenants--w. aitkin, w. smith, j. m'dowall, h. o'neill, w. dean, r. parkinson, c. bott, r. kerr. cornets--t. glendening, j. fenn. surgeon--t. wynne. veterinary surgeon--f. cherry. medical staff. inspector--j.r. grant, m.d. deputy inspectors--w. taylor, j. gunning (_surgeon in chief_), s. woolriche, j.r. hume, m.d. physician--g. denecke, m.d. surgeons--h.g. emery, m.d.; m.a. burmeister, r. grant, j. maling, j.g. van millingen, s.b. bruce. assistant surgeons--j. dease, w. twining. apothecary--w. lyons. footnotes: [footnote : the names of those killed, wounded, or missing are marked _k_, _w_, and _m_, respectively.] xlii. _list of the officers of the king's german legion, killed, wounded, and missing, in the actions on the th, th, and th of june ._ killed. _staff._ captain c. von bobers, brigade major. (attached to seventh brigade of cavalry.) _artillery._ first lieutenant c. von schultzen. (attached to st battery of hanoverian artillery.) _ st dragoons._ captain f. peters. lieutenants, f.c. von levetzow, . kuhlmann. _ nd dragoons._ captain f. von bülow. cornet h. drangmeister. _ rd hussars._ lieutenant colonel f.l. meyer. captains, a. von kerssenbruch, g. janssen. lieutenant h. brüggemann. cornet w. deichmann. _ st light battalion._ captains, p. holtzermann, h. von marschalk, a.a. von goeben. lieutenant a. albert. _ nd light battalion._ major a. bösewiel. captains, f.m.w. schaumann, h. wiegmann (acting brigade major to first infantry brigade, king's german legion). ensign f. von robertson. _ st line battalion._ captains, c. von holle, a. von saffe. ensign h. von lücken. _ nd line battalion._ lieutenant colonel j.c. von schröder. captain g. tilee. _ rd line battalion._ captain f. didd. lieutenants, f. von jeinsen, f. leschen. _ th line battalion._ colonel g.c.a. du plat (commanding first infantry brigade, king's german legion). majors, g. chüden, g. lewis leue. captain g. heise. ensign e.t. von cronhelm. _ th line battalion._ colonel c. von ompteda (commanding second infantry brigade, king's german legion). captain e.c.c. von wurmb. lieutenant j.l. schuck. _ th line battalion._ captains, a.w. von voigt, t. von westernhagen. lieutenant w. von marenholtz. wounded. _staff._ brigade majors, captain g. von einem (attached to second infantry brigade, king's german legion); captain m. von cloudt (attached to third cavalry brigade). _artillery._ major a. sympher. second captains, w. braun, f. erythropel. first lieutenants, w. von goeben, h. hartmann. second lieutenant l. heise. _ st dragoons._ major general sir william von dörnberg. lieutenant colonel j. von bülow. major a. von reizenstein. captains, p. von sichart, g. von hattorf, b. von bothmer. lieutenants, w. mackenzie, w. fricke, . von hammerstein, h. bosse. comets, s.h. nanne, e. trittau. _ nd dragoons._ lieutenant colonels, c. de jonquières, c. von. maydell. captains, c.t. von harling, l. lüderitz. lieutenant h.h. rittor. cornet f. lorentz. _ st hussars._ lieutenant g. baring. _ rd hussars._ captains, q. von goeben, w. von schnehen. lieutenants, h. true, c. oehlkers. cornets, f. hoyer, c. von dassel, h. von hodenberg. _ st light battalion._ major hans von dem bussche. captains, f. von gilsa, c. wynecken. lieutenants, a. wahrendorff, c. heise, h. wollrabe, e.f. koester, h. leonhart, n. de miniussir, e. gibson. ensigns, g. best, a.a. von gentzkow, c. behne, a. heise. _ nd light battalion._ captain e.a. holtzermann. lieutenants, g. meyer, f.g.t. kessler, o. lindham, b. riefkugel, m.t.h. tobin, g. d. græme, w. timmann, t. carey. ensigns, g. frank, a. knop. _ st line battalion._ major w. von robertson. captain g. von schlütter. lieutenants, f. schnath, a. müller, d. von einem, h. wilding, jun. ensign c.a. von. der hellen. _ nd line battalion._ captain f. purgold. lieutenants, c. von der decken, c. fischer, f. la roche, a.f. ziel. _ rd line battalion._ major a. boden. lieutenants, a. kuckuck, h.e. kuckuck. _ th line batt._ capt. w. heydenreich. lieutenants, c. von both, a. von hartwig, w.l. de la farque, a. von langwerth. ensign a. appuhn. _ th line batt._ captain f. sander. lieutenants, c. berger, g. klingsöhr. _ th line battalion._ lieutenant g. klingsöhr. _ th line battalion._ captain c.e.w. rougemont. lieutenants, f. brinckmann, c. sattler. ensign w. von moreau. missing. _ nd light batt._ capt. e.a. holtzermann. lieutenant m.t.h. tobin. xliii. _list of the officers of the hanoverian troops, killed, wounded and missing in the actions of the th, th, and th of june ._ killed. _cumberland hussars._ captain f.s. von winterstedt. _field battalion bremen._ lieutenant colonel w.l. von langrehr. _field battalion duke of york._ captain r. von pawel. ensign a.c. müller. _field battalion lüneburg._ captains, f. bobart, c.t. korfes. ensign c.b. von plato. _field battalion grubenhagen._ lieutenant colonel f.l.a. von wurmb. _landwehr battalion bremervörde._ lieutenant c.c. löper. ensign t. von holt. _landwehr battalion osnabrück._ captain c.h. quentin. lieutenant g.f. uffel. ensign h. bergtroff. _landwehr battalion quackenbrück._ major c.w. von dem bussche hünefeldt. _landwehr battalion verden._ lieutenants, c.e. wegener, c.e. von hinüber. _landwehr battalion osterode._ lieutenant t. fenisch. ensign c.a. schanz. _landwehr battalion gifhorn._ major g. von hammerstein. lieutenant h.c. schmidt. wounded. _staff._ colonel von berger. lieutenant and aide de camp hanbury. _rifle corps._ captain von reden. lieutenants, grote, schutze. _field battalion bremen._ major müller. captains, bazoldo, von lepel. lieutenants, von quistorp i., von quistorp ii., welmer. ensigns, brüel, meyer. _field battalion verden._ major von schkopp. captain jacoby. lieutenants, gehrhard, brandis i., brandis ii., selig, suffenplan. _field battalion duke of york._ major von bülow. lieutenants, moll, von mahrenholz. ensign rabius. _field battalion lüneburg._ lieutenant colonel von klencke. lieutenants, völger, von plato. ensigns, sachse, von weyhe. _field battalion grubenhagen._ captain bauer. lieutenants, westphal, marwedel. ensigns, von bülow, ernst, stieppel. _landwehr battalion bremervörde._ lieutenants, warnecke, meyer. ensigns, hotthusen, wilken. _landwehr battalion osnabrück._ major count münster. captain gotthard. lieutenants, winkler, richers. ensigns, nichenke, meyer. _landwehr battalion salzgitter._ captain von hammerstein. lieutenant von spangenberg. _landwehr battalion verden._ captain von witzendorf. lieutenants, h. wynecken, hurtzig. ensign siegener. _landwehr battalion lüneburg._ captains, von reiche, von kemps. lieutenant von dassel. ensigns, dormauer, meyer. _landwehr battalion osterode._ major von reden. captains, von ingersleben, papet. lieutenants, greve, laubrecht. _landwehr battalion münden._ captain von hanstein. lieutenants, wrisberg, brenning, schwenke ii. ensigns, murray, oppermaun. _landwehr battalion hameln._ major von strube. captain blankhard. lieutenants, krable, kistner. _landwehr battalion gifhorn._ captain wiedenfeld. lieutenant and adjutant schwake. ensign brüggemann. _landwehr battalion hildesheim._ major von rheden. _landwehr battalion peine._ captain von bertrap. ensign köhler. missing. _field battalion lüneburg._ major von dachenhausen. _landwehr battalion bremervörde._ lieutenant ehlers. ensign ress. _landwehr battalion verden._ lieutenant von der horst. ensigns, plati, kotzebue. xliv. _list of officers of the brunswick troops, killed in the actions of the th and th of june ._ _ th of june._ his serene highness the reigning duke frederick william; major von cramm, commanding the regiment of hussars; captain von pawel, of the hussars; ensign hercher, of the st line battalion; major von strombeck, commanding nd line battalion; captain von bülow, of the nd line battalion. _ th of june._ lieutenant colonel von heinemann, of the staff; lieutenant lambrecht, of the hussars; lieutenant diedrich, of the horse artillery; ensigns, bruns and sensemann, of the nd line battalion; captain von praun, of the rd light battalion; ensign von vechelde, of the nd line battalion. xlvii. _list of the officers of the prussian army, killed, wounded, and missing, at the battle of waterloo._ killed. second corps. _ nd regiment of infantry_--first lieutenant von mirbach. fourth corps. thirteenth brigade. _ nd neumark landwehr_--first lieutenant von stoberts. _ rd neumark landwehr_--second lieutenant von norrmann. fourteenth brigade. _ th regiment of infantry_--major von aulok. second lieutenant von dewette. _ st pomeranian landwehr_--second lieutenants, von lindner, von kuhfass. fifteenth brigade. _ th regiment of infantry_--second lieutenants, von schlemmer, von wehlermann. _ rd silesian landwehr_--first lieutenants, von treutter, von teiminger, von becker. sixteenth brigade. _ th regiment of infantry_--captain von seidlitz. second lieutenant von quanstedt. _ st silesian landwehr_--major von seidlitz. captains, von wittich, von geisler. second lieutenants, von hildebrandt, von briesen, von gregor. _ nd silesian landwehr_--second lieutenant von zimmermann. reserve cavalry. colonel and brigadier count von schwerin. lieutenant colonel and brigadier von watzdorf. wounded. first corps. _brandenburg dragoons_--captain von puttkammer. _silesian rifle battalion_--lieutenant von hotten. _ th regiment of infantry_--captain von wenkstern. _ th regiment of infantry_--major von lowenklau. captain von blankenstein. lieutenants, von maller, von der golz, lampresch. second corps. _ nd regiment of infantry_--second lieutenant von stempel. _ rd elbe landwehr_--captain von bülzingslöwen. second lieutenant von scholmer. fourth corps. thirteenth brigade. colonel and brigadier von lettow. _ th regiment of infantry_--major von marsigli. first lieutenants, von doringkowski, von torzilowsky, von nordhausen. second lieutenants, von barth, von kretschmer, von marguardt, von witzleben, von bartke. _ nd neumark landwehr_--captain von solta. second lieutenant von liebich. _ rd neumark landwehr_--major von osten. captain von zamori. second lieutenants, von münchow, von szandahelly, von moritz, von alter, von achterberg. fourteenth brigade. _ th regiment of infantry_--captains, von niesemauschel, von kuensberg, von morgenstern. first lieutenant von aulock. second lieutenants, von biederstein, von ciriacy, von rahden, von podewil, von bentivigni, von egloffstein, von koepke, von bender, von walter. _ st pomeranian landwehr_--lieutenant colonel von brandenstein. majors, von nettelhorst, von toll. captains, von andrees, von spalding, von loeper, von wolter. second lieutenants, von zirkel, von nehring, von hoepfner, von doebke. _ nd pomeranian landwehr_--majors, von katt, von stojenthin. captains, von steinwehr, von pauly, von wedell. second lieutenants, von stricker, von preussendorf, von barth, von ewald, von dolist, von hagemann, von schmidt, von ludwig, von heinze. fifteenth brigade. _ th regiment of infantry_--captains, von pogursch, von gluschinsky. first lieutenants, von wedelstädt, von bursche, von elsner, von kurstein, von wallenroth, von taubenheim. second lieutenants, von arnim, von bath, von lutermann, von alberti, von koeppen, von bindemann, von wiedermauth, von broene, le blanc, von schömfeldt, von kerzieg. _ rd silesian landwehr_--major von zischwitz. captains, von austen, von loepell. first lieutenant von krause. second lieutenants, von pari, von lützow, von büttseher, von pietsch, von schreiber, von wende, von platius. _ th silesian landwehr_--captain von schirche. first lieutenant von stemler. second lieutenants, von wagner, von liebich, von schedelbach. sixteenth brigade. _ th regiment of infantry_--major von boek, commanding. captains, von jutrzenka, von bionstierna, von cawizinsky. first lieutenant von redeker. second lieutenants, von preuss (and adjutant), von nadler, von mousers, von hering, von frohreich, von hassenstein, von luck, von hülsen, von sinel, von lindenhöfer, von wittke, von fittscherini, von helm. _ st silesian landwehr_--captains, von maistre, von salisen, von schrötter. first lieutenants, von herzberg, von vogt, von laubak. second lieutenants, von louve, von bemda, von stürmer. _ nd silesian landwehr_--major von schwemmler. second lieutenants, von richter, von brandt, von krickmuth, von arnim, von beyer, von sack. reserve cavalry. _staff_--major von drigalsky. _ nd silesian hussars_--captain von wander. _west prussian uhlans_--lieutenant von knobelsdorf. _ th regiment of hussars_--captain von erichson. second lieutenants, von bauhöfen, von möllendorf, von plieth, von dieringsfeldt, von winterfeldt, von genny. _ nd neumark landwehr cavalry_--lieutenant colonel von hiller. captains, von goerz, von preussendorf. lieutenants, von braun, von oestreich. _ nd silesian landwehr cavalry_--lieutenant von schweinitz. _ rd silesian landwehr cavalry_--captain von altenstein. _horse artillery_--captains, von zinken, von pfeil. missing. fourth corps. _ st silesian landwehr_--second lieutenant von siegberg. _ th regiment of infantry_--captain von riesemenschel. second lieutenant von bieberstein. _ nd silesian landwehr_--second lieutenant von koeszegy. _ nd silesian hussars_--n---- r. xlviii. _despatch from the duke of wellington to earl bathurst._ waterloo, june , . my lord,--bonaparte having collected the first, second, third, fourth and sixth corps of the french army and the imperial guards, and nearly all the cavalry, on the sambre, and between that river and the meuse, between the th and th of the month, advanced on the th, and attacked the prussian posts at thuin and lobez, on the sambre, at daylight in the morning. i did not hear of these events till the evening of the th, and i immediately ordered the troops to prepare to march; and afterwards to march to their left, as soon as i had intelligence from other quarters, to prove that the enemy's movement upon charleroi was the real attack. the enemy drove the prussian posts from the sambre on that day; and general zieten, who commanded the corps which had been at charleroi, retired upon fleurus; and marshal prince blÜcher concentrated the prussian army upon sombref, holding the villages, in front of his position, of st amand and ligny. the enemy continued his march along the road from charleroi towards bruxelles, and on the same evening, the th, attacked a brigade of the army of the netherlands, under the prince de weimar, posted at frasne, and forced it back to the farm house on the same road, called les quatre bras. the prince of orange immediately reinforced this brigade with another of the same division, under general perponcher, and in the morning early regained part of the ground which had been lost, so as to have command of the communication leading from nivelles and bruxelles, with marshal blÜcher's position. in the mean time i had directed the whole army to march upon les quatre bras; and the fifth division, under lieutenant general sir thomas picton, arrived about half past two in the day, followed by the corps of troops under the duke of brunswick, and afterwards by the contingent of nassau. at this time the enemy commenced an attack upon prince blÜcher with his whole force; excepting the first and second corps, and a corps of cavalry under general kellermann, with which he attacked our posts at les quatre bras. the prussian army maintained their position with their usual gallantry and perseverance, against a great disparity of numbers, as the fourth corps of their army, under general bÜlow, had not yet joined, and i was not able to assist them as i wished, as i was attacked myself, and the troops, the cavalry in particular, which had a long distance to march, had not arrived. we maintained our position also, and completely defeated and repulsed all the enemy's attempts to get possession of it. the enemy repeatedly attacked us with a large body of infantry and cavalry, supported by a numerous and powerful artillery; he made several charges with the cavalry upon our infantry, but all were repulsed in the steadiest manner. in this affair his royal highness the prince of orange, the duke of brunswick, and lieutenant general sir thomas picton, and major general sir james kempt, and sir denis pack, who were engaged from the commencement of the enemy's attack, highly distinguished themselves, as well as lieutenant general charles baron alten, major general sir c. halkett, lieutenant general cooke, and major generals maitland and byng, as they successively arrived. the troops of the fifth division, and those of the brunswick corps were long and severely engaged, and conducted themselves with the utmost gallantry. i must particularly mention the th, nd, th, and nd regiments, and the battalions of hanoverians. our loss was great, as your lordship will perceive by the enclosed return; and i have particularly to regret his serene highness the duke of brunswick, who fell fighting gallantly at the head of his troops. although marshal blÜcher had maintained his position at sombref, he still found himself much weakened by the severity of the contest in which he had been engaged; and as the fourth corps had not arrived, he determined to fall back, and concentrate his army upon wavre; and he marched in the night after the action was over. this movement of the marshal's rendered necessary a corresponding one on my part; and i retired from the farm of quatre bras upon genappe, and thence upon waterloo the next morning, the th, at ten o'clock. the enemy made no effort to pursue marshal blÜcher. on the contrary, a patrol which i sent to sombref in the morning, found all quiet, and the enemy's videttes fell back as the patrol advanced. neither did he attempt to molest our march to the rear, although made in the middle of the day; excepting by following with a large body of cavalry, brought from his right, the cavalry under the earl of uxbridge. this gave lord uxbridge an opportunity of charging them with the st life guards, upon their debouch from the village of genappe; upon which occasion his lordship has declared himself to be well satisfied with that regiment. the position which i took up in the front of waterloo, crossed the high roads from charleroi and nivelle, and had its right thrown back to a ravine near merke braine, which was occupied; and its left extended to a height above the hamlet ter la haye, which was likewise occupied.--in front of the right centre, and near the nivelle road, we occupied the house and garden of hougomont, which covered the return of that flank; and in the front of the left centre we occupied the farm of la haye sainte. by our left we communicated with marshal prince blÜcher at wavre through ohaim; and the marshal had promised me, that in case we should be attacked he would support me with one or more corps, as might be necessary. the enemy collected his army, with the exception of the third corps, which had been sent to observe marshal blÜcher, on a range of heights in our front, in the course of the night of the th and yesterday morning: and at about ten o'clock he commenced a furious attack upon our post at hougomont. i had occupied that post with a detachment from general byng's brigade of guards, which was in position in its rear; and it was for some time under the command of lieutenant colonel macdonel, and afterwards of colonel home; and i am happy to add, that it was maintained throughout the day with the utmost gallantry by these brave troops, notwithstanding the repeated efforts of large bodies of the enemy to obtain possession of it. this attack upon the right of our centre was accompanied by a very heavy cannonade upon our whole line, which was destined to support the repeated attacks of cavalry and infantry occasionally mixed, but sometimes separate, which were made upon it. in one of these the enemy carried the farm house of la haye sainte; as the detachment of the light battalion of the legion which occupied it, had expended all its ammunition, and the enemy occupied the only communication there was with them. the enemy repeatedly charged our infantry with his cavalry, but these attacks were uniformly unsuccessful; and they afforded opportunities to our cavalry to charge, in one of which, lord e. somerset's brigade, consisting of the life guards, royal horse guards, and st dragoon guards, highly distinguished themselves, as did that of major general sir w. ponsonby, having taken many prisoners and an eagle. these attacks were repeated till about seven in the evening, when the enemy made a desperate effort with the cavalry and infantry, supported by the fire of the artillery, to force our left centre near the farm of la haye sainte, which after a severe contest was defeated: and having observed that the troops retired from this attack in great confusion, and that the march of general bÜlow's corps by euschermont upon planchenoit and la belle alliance had begun to take effect, and as i could perceive the fire of his cannon, and as marshal prince blÜcher had joined in person, with a corps of his army to the left of our line by ohaim; i determined to attack the enemy, and immediately advanced the whole line of infantry, supported by the cavalry and artillery. the attack succeeded in every point; the enemy was forced from his position on the heights, and fled in the utmost confusion; leaving behind him, as far as i could judge, one hundred and fifty pieces of cannon, with their ammunition, which fell into our hands. i continued the pursuit till long after dark, and then discontinued it only on account of the fatigue of our troops, who had been engaged during twelve hours, and because i found myself on the same road with marshal blÜcher, who assured me of his intention to follow the enemy throughout the night; he has sent me word this morning that he has taken sixty pieces of cannon belonging to the imperial guard, and several carriages, baggage, &c., belonging to buonaparte, in genappe. i propose to move, this morning, upon nivelles, and not to discontinue my operations. your lordship will observe, that such a desperate action could not be fought, and such advantages could not be gained, without great loss; and i am sorry to add that ours has been immense. in lieutenant general sir thomas picton, his majesty has sustained the loss of an officer who has frequently distinguished himself in his service, and he fell gloriously leading his division to a charge with bayonets, by which one of the most serious attacks made by the enemy on our position was defeated. the earl of uxbridge, after having successfully got through this arduous day, received a wound by almost the last shot fired; which will, i am afraid, deprive his majesty for some time of his services. his royal highness the prince of orange distinguished himself by his gallantry and conduct till he received a wound from a musket ball through the shoulder, which obliged him to quit the field. it gives me the greatest satisfaction to assure your lordship, that the army never, upon any occasion, conducted itself better. the division of guards, under lieutenant general cooke (who is severely wounded), major general maitland, and major general byng, set an example which was followed by all; and there is no officer nor description of troops, that did not behave well. i must, however, particularly mention, for his royal highness's approbation, lieutenant general sir h. clinton, major general adam, lieutenant general charles baron alten, severely wounded; major general sir colin halkett, severely wounded; colonel ompteda, colonel mitchell, commanding a brigade of the fourth division; major general sir james kempt and sir denis pack, major general lambert, major general lord e. somerset, major general sir w. ponsonby, major general sir c. grant, and major general sir h. vivian; major general sir o. vandeleur; major general count dÖrnberg. i am particularly indebted to general lord hill for his assistance and conduct upon this as upon all former occasions. the artillery and engineer departments were conducted much to my satisfaction by colonel sir g. wood and colonel smyth; and i had every reason to be satisfied with the conduct of the adjutant general major general barnes, who was wounded; and of the quartermaster general colonel delancy, who was killed by a cannon shot in the middle of the action. this officer is a serious loss to his majesty's service and to me at this moment. i was likewise much indebted to the assistance of lieutenant colonel lord fitzroy somerset, who was severely wounded; and of the officers composing my personal staff, who have suffered severely in this action. lieutenant colonel the hon. sir alexander gordon, who has died of his wounds, was a most promising officer, and is a serious loss to his majesty's service. general kruse of the nassau service, likewise conducted himself much to my satisfaction; as did general trip, commanding the heavy brigade of cavalry, and general vanhope, commanding a brigade of infantry of the king of the netherlands. general pozzo di borgo, general baron vincent, general mÜffling, and general alava, were in the field during the action, and rendered me every assistance in their power. baron vincent is wounded, but i hope not severely; and general pozzo di borgo received a contusion. i should not do justice to my feelings, or to marshal blÜcher and the prussian army, if i did not attribute the successful result of this arduous day to the cordial and timely assistance i received from them. the operation of general bÜlow upon the enemy's flank was a most decisive one; and even if i had not found myself in a situation to make the attack which produced the final result, it would have forced the enemy to retire, if his attacks should have failed; and would have prevented him from taking advantage of them, if they should unfortunately have succeeded. i send, with this despatch, two eagles taken by the troops in this action; which major percy will have the honour of laying at the feet of his royal highness. i have the honour, &c., wellington. the end. [transribers note: inconsistent spelling, including possible errors in names and places, has been retained.] advertisements rupert prince palatine. by eva scott. late scholar of somerville college, oxford. with photogravure frontispiece. _new and cheaper edition._ large crown vo, s. 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"mr. round has made a special study of english history during the eleventh and twelfth centuries, and his labour has been fruitful of some very valuable results. it is a very valuable contribution to the literature that deals with the history of that period, and it throws fresh and much needed light on many a dark historical problem of that age."--_the guardian._ spenser wilkinson's works. the nation's awakening. crown vo, s. contents:-- our past apathy. the aims of the great powers. the defence of british interests. the organisation of government. for the defence of british interests. the idea of the nation. "these essays show a wide knowledge of international politics."--_morning post._ lessons of the war. being comments from week to week to the relief of ladysmith. crown vo, s. d. the brain of an army. a popular account of the german general staff. crown vo, s. d. 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" ii. orography, hydrography, and oceanography. " iii. meteorology. " iv. botany. " v. zoology. " vi. ethnography and demography. " vii. general cosmography and terrestrial magnetism. the volumes may be purchased singly. price £ s. d. net. per volume. vol. iii., containing maps, is now ready; the other volumes will follow shortly. detailed prospectus on application. the romance of our ancient churches. by sarah wilson. with nearly illustrations by alexander ansted. crown vo, s. 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"one of the prettiest of current publications is 'leaves from the golden legend.' a small volume which is a miracle of good taste in the matters of type, paper, illustrations and binding."--_globe._ human immortality. by william james. professor of philosophy at harvard university. _fourth edition._ mo, s. d. "professor james is well-known as one of the most suggestive and original writers, and as certainly the most brilliant psychologist living. whatever, therefore, he has to say on this subject is worth listening to; for he thinks freely, and he knows all that the scientist knows, and more too."--_spectator._ ten shillings a head per week for housebooks. an indispensable manual for housekeepers. menus, recipes, hints and advice for the single handed cook. by mrs. c.s. peel. crown vo, s. d. 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"a delightful reprint. the price is lower than that of many inferior editions."--_athenæum._ "the excellence of the print and the convenient size of the volumes and the association of this edition with sir walter scott himself, should combine with so moderate a price to secure for this reprint a popularity as great as that which the original edition long and justly enjoyed."--_the times._ in volumes boswell's life of johnson. edited by augustine birrell. with frontispieces by alex. ansted, a reproduction of sir joshua reynolds' portrait. six volumes. foolscap vo. cloth, paper label, or cloth gilt, s. net. per volume. also in half morocco, s. net. per volume. sold in sets only. "far and away the best boswell, i should say, for the ordinary book-lover now on the market."--_illustrated london news._ "the volumes, which are light, and so well bound that they open easily anywhere, are exceedingly pleasant to handle and read."--_st. james's budget._ in volumes uniform with "boswell's life of johnson" boswell's tour to the hebrides with samuel johnson, ll.d. with notes by scott, croker, chambers, and others. foolscap vo. cloth, paper label, or cloth gilt, gilt top, s. net. per volume. also in half morocco s. net per volume. the eight volumes, comprising "the life," and "the tour," in a box, price s. net.; or in half leather, £ s. net. "we have good reason to be thankful for an edition of a very useful and attractive kind."--_the spectator._ constable's library of historical novels and romances. edited by g. laurence gomme, f.s.a. s. d. per volume. cloth. after a design by a.a. turbayne. volumes already issued:-- harold, the last of the saxons. --lord lytton. the camp of refuge. --charles macfarlane. westward ho! --charles kingsley. reading abbey. --charles macfarlane. "a good historical novel bears much the same relation to the study of history that a pleasure trip does to that of geography."--_glasgow herald._ "it is a noble edition simply given away at _s._ _d._"--_the sun._ "a marvel of cheap and excellent book-production."--_literature._ "this series deserves to be a success, and is wonderful value for the money."--_dundee advertiser._ "prefaced with an interesting and very serviceable introduction, which throws floods of light on the historical period."--_educational times._ "make an admirable history prize."--_educational review._ "may be described as an edition de luxe."--_catholic times._ the centenary edition of the stories of samuel lover. a complete uniform edition of the stories of samuel lover. edited, with an introduction and notes by j.t. o'donoghue. large crown vo, s. per volume. sold separately or in sets. order of volumes:-- vol. . handy andy. " . rory o'more. " . treasure trove; or, "he would be a gentleman." " . legends and stories of ireland. (first series.) " . legends and stories of ireland. (second series.) " . further stories of ireland. the last volume includes stories which have never been previously collected. "these books of lover's seem to us to reach almost an ideal for a library edition, so far as type and format are concerned, and are in the best traditions of this publishing house."--_literature._ "annotated with care and judgment and beautifully printed."--_pall mall gazette._ spenser's faerie queene. edited by kate m. warren. complete in six volumes. foolscap vo, s. d. net per volume. also art canvas gilt extra, with photogravure frontispiece, s. d. net per volume; complete in case, s. net. "the text of the present issue, which has been prepared with great care, is based on that of the editions of and . each volume is provided with an admirable glossary, and with notes, containing all that is necessary for an understanding of the text. the introductions are ably written, and show much critical power."--_spectator._ three instructive and beautiful historical books the king's story book. edited by g. laurence gomme. illustrated by harrison miller. being historical stories collected out of english romantic literature in illustration of the reigns of english monarchs from the conquest to king william iv. bound in red cloth. gilt. crown vo, s. uniform with the above the queen's story book. edited by g. laurence gomme. illustrated by w.h. robinson. bound in blue cloth gilt. crown vo, s. "mr. g. laurence gomme has edited as a supplement to 'the king's story book' of last year another excellent budget of stories. the stories are as good as the arrangement is ingenious, and the arrangement is a pageant of historic romance which it would be difficult to equal except in mr. gomme's own previous volume."--_pall mall gazette._ also the prince's story book. edited by g. laurence gomme. illustrated by h.s. banks. bound in green cloth gilt. crown vo, s. "the book is an ideal prize book for young people, as it is calculated to encourage in them a love of their country's history."--_daily chronicle._ plantation pageants. by joel chandler harris (uncle remus). fully illustrated by e. boyd smith. s. "a capital book."--_the guardian._ sister jane. by joel chandler harris (uncle remus). crown vo, s. "of all mr. harris's recent stories 'sister jane' is the best."--_academy._ fate the fiddler. by herbert c. macilwaine. crown vo, s. "places beyond question the right of mr. macilwaine to be considered the successor of henry kingsley as the novelist of australia. it does not require a knowledge of the country or a particularly enthusiastic imperialism to interest one in 'fate the fiddler.' whatever scene the author had chosen for his tale would have been illumined by his power of seizing the essential things in nature and in character."--_speaker._ "we have certainly never met with anything on australian life that can be classed with 'fate the fiddler.'"--_manchester guardian._ "every page is enriched with delightful descriptions of australian scenery."--_daily telegraph._ "it proclaims its author as a serious and promising literary artist who must be reckoned with, whose work must be watched book by book as it appears, whose achievement is already notable."--_academy._ by the same author. dinkinbar. crown vo, s. 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"miss mary johnston's former novel prepared the reader to welcome her name on a title-page, and 'by order of the company' will not disappoint such expectations, for it is quite as good reading as 'the old dominion.' the picture of the very earliest days of virginia is excellently painted, and the personages of the story are sympathetic and interesting."--_spectator._ "if 'the old dominion' had not previously attracted attention, her new story must have assured her reputation."--_manchester guardian._ "so exact in historical colour, so rich in glowing imagination and stirring adventure, so full of pictorial charm and poetic description, so charged with emotion and tender melancholy was 'the old dominion,' that it was with lively anticipations that i turned to 'by order of the company,' and i find no justification for disappointment."--_the echo._ "this admirable story is in every respect equal to the author's earlier work, 'the old dominion'.... we are sure every reader of her new book will pronounce it a brilliant success."--_the british weekly._ "'by order of the company' has more than fulfilled the promise of 'the old dominion'.... a tale of ingenious, exciting adventure, at once catching the attention, and holding it from first to last."--_the globe._ "will hold the reader enthralled from first to last."--_publishers' circular._ "there is not a dull page in the book."--_the sphere._ the taming of the jungle. by c.w. doyle. the cover specially designed by j.t. nettleship. s. d. "'the taming of the jungle' is one of the most striking books of indian life that we have seen since mr. kipling produced his 'plain tales from the hills,' and it does not suffer by comparison with the work that made mr. kipling famous."--_literature._ "one needs no previous knowledge of this folk of the terai, away there under the himalayas, to appreciate the insight and observation which characterise every stroke of the charming sketches. it would be altogether unfair to say that the author owes his inspiration to mr. kipling. he speaks from long and close experience; and, what is better still, his note is his own.... in a brilliant illustration by mr. nettleship, full of fire and movement, the beasts of the jungle are seen careering across the back of the book. the covers, in fact, have been drawn as well as any huntsman could do it."--_punch._ "the author has evidently lived among the people and closely studied their ways, so that, while the picture that he presents is engaging, it also conveys a sense of verisimilitude."--_morning post._ "i am impelled to say a word in warm praise of the extremely pleasant little book of indian stories, without caring a fig for the purely academic question as to whether they would have been put forth exactly as they stand had mr. kipling never lived. dr. doyle knows the folk of the terai intimately; he has the power of spinning a good story out of the good stuff with which his memory is stored."--t.p. o'connor in _m.a.p._ the shadow of quong lung. by the same author. crown vo, s. d. sunningwell. by f. warre cornish. _second edition._ crown vo, s. 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"for the gifts of miss fiona macleod, it is impossible to use the common words of gratitude. to people who live in a paved city, or a half-paved suburb, dimly conscious of sky and aware of the voice of the wind only when a gale sings in the telegraph wires, her writings are as the water of life. we know not, neither do we care, whether fiona macleod be man, woman, or spirit, though we suppose her treasure is hidden in an earthen vessel. enough for us that she hears, as only poets hear, the old authentic voices of the world."--_daily chronicle._ "of the extreme beauty and subtlety of miss fiona macleod's writing there is no need now to speak. she has caught the habit of the true gael; who sees an idea in a picture and expresses a thought in a metaphor."--_literature._ green fire. a story of the western islands. crown vo, s. "there are few in whose hands the pure threads have been so skilfully and delicately woven as they have in fiona macleod's."--_pall mall gazette._ the laughter of peterkin. a re-telling of old stories of the celtic wonder-world. illustrated by sunderland rollinson. crown vo, s. "the writing is full of beauty and passion."--_st. james gazette._ caleb west. by f. hopkinson smith. (_author of "tom grogan," etc._) _second edition._ crown vo, s. "it is a long time since we have met with so satisfactory a book as 'caleb west.' readers must go to the book for themselves, and enjoy its pathos, its humour, its rich character-drawing, and its thrilling adventures, as we must confess that we have done."--_speaker._ in the shadow of the crown. by m. bidder. with an introduction by maurice hewlett. _second edition._ crown vo, s. "a remarkable book and one of great promise."--_pall mall gazette._ _over , copies sold._ janice meredith. a story of the american revolution. by paul leicester ford. crown vo, s. "mr. ford who is already a distinguished american writer, is greatly to be congratulated on a very delightful novel, which, no less from its historical than for its literary merit, will considerably add to his reputation."--_the daily news._ "the story is an excellent and carefully executed romance of love and war."--_spectator._ "janice and her girl friends are delightful."--_literature._ "mr. ford has the right feeling for romance; he knows how to bring his reader into the thick of the excitement and give him the right thrill of personal participation in the struggle, and he keeps his grip on the reader's attention through a long and interesting book."--_the speaker._ by the same author. the story of an untold love. crown vo, s. "you must by all means read 'the story of an untold love.'"--_truth._ "the book may be commended to readers of all classes and tastes."--_athenæum._ by the same author. tattle tales of cupid. crown vo, s. "there is not one of them that is not dainty and entertaining."--_daily mail._ "a very attractive and highly entertaining book by the clever author of 'the story of an untold love.'"--_observer._ dracula. by bram stoker. _sixth edition._ crown vo, s. "in seeking a parallel to this weird, powerful and horrible story, our minds revert to such tales as 'the mysteries of adolpho,' 'frankenstein,' 'wuthering heights,' 'the fall of the house of usher,' and 'marjery of quelher.' but 'dracula' is even more appalling in its gloomy fascination than any one of these."--_daily mail._ "it is horrid and creepy to the last degree. it is also excellent, and one of the best things in the supernatural line that we have been lucky enough to hit upon."--_pall mall gazette._ the works of george meredith. _new uniform edition._ crown vo, bound in red cloth. with a frontispiece in photogravure to each volume after frederick sandys, leslie brooke, william hyde, rob sauber, bernard partridge and others. s. each. the ordeal of richard feverel. evan harrington. sandra belloni. vittoria. rhoda fleming. the adventures of harry richmond. beauchamp's career. the egoist. diana of the crossways. one of our conquerors. lord ormont and his aminta. the amazing marriage. the shaving of shagpat. the tragic comedians. short stories-- the tale of chloe--the house on the beach--farina--the case of general ople and lady camper. poems. volumes. uniform with the above, without frontispiece. an essay on comedy and the use of the comic spirit. _printed at the motley press, eldon st., e.c._ [frontispiece: the little countess takes arms for her defence.] the eagle of the empire a story of waterloo by cyrus townsend brady author of "the island of regeneration," "the island of the stairs," "britton of the seventh," etc. with frontispiece by the kinneys a. l. burt company publishers new york published by arrangements with george h. doran company copyright, , by george h. doran company dedication dedications have gone out of vogue save with the old fashioned. the ancient idea of an appeal to a patron has been eliminated from modern literature. if a man now inscribes a book to any one it is that he may associate with his work the names of friends he loves and delights to honor. there is always a certain amount of assurance in any such dedication, the assurance lying in the assumption that there is honor to the recipient in the association with the book. well, there is no mistaking the purpose anyway. one of my best friends, and that friendship has been proved in war and peace, at home and abroad, is a bank! the bank is like mercy in more ways than one, but particularly in that it is twice blessed; it is blessed in what it receives, i hope, and in what it gives, i know. from the standpoint of the depositor sometimes it is better to receive than to give. it has been so in my case and i have been able to persuade the bank to that way of thinking. therefore, in grateful acknowledgment of the very present help it has been to me in time of need and in public recognition of many courtesies from its officers and directors, and as some evidence of my deep appreciation of its many kindnesses to me, i dedicate this book to the mount vernon trust company of mount vernon, new york preface the battle of waterloo, which was fought just one hundred years ago and with which the story in this book ends, is popularly regarded as one of the decisive battles of the world, particularly with reference to the career of the greatest of all captains. personally some study has led me to believe that bautzen was really the decisive battle of the napoleonic wars. if the emperor had there won the overwhelming victory to which his combinations and the fortunes of war entitled him he would still have retained his empire. whether he would have been satisfied or not is another question; and anyway as i am practically alone among students and critics in my opinions about bautzen they can be dismissed. and that he lost that battle was his own fault anyway! however napoleon's genius cannot be denied any more than his failure. in this book i have sought to show him at his best and also almost at his worst. for sheer brilliance, military and mental, the campaigning in france in could not be surpassed. he is there with his raw recruits, his beardless boys, his old guard, his tactical and strategical ability, his furious energy, his headlong celerity and his marvelous power of inspiration; just as he was in italy when he revolutionized the art of war and electrified the world. many of these qualities are in evidence in the days before waterloo, but during the actual battle upon which his fate and the fate of the world turned, the tired, broken, ill man is drowsily nodding before a farmhouse by the road, while ney, whose superb and headlong courage was not accompanied by any corresponding military ability, wrecks the last grand army. and there is no more dramatic an incident in all history, i believe, than napoleon's advance on the fifth-of-the-line drawn up on the grenoble road on the return from elba. nor do the roman eagles themselves seem to have made such romantic appeal or to have won such undying devotion as the eagles of the empire. this story was written just before the outbreak of the present european war and is published while it is in full course. modern commanders wield forces beside which even the great army of the nations that invaded russia is scarcely more than a detachment, and battles last for days, weeks, even months--waterloo was decided in an afternoon!--yet war is the same. if there be any difference it simply grows more horrible. the old principles, however, are unchanged, and over the fields upon which napoleon marched and fought, armies are marching and fighting in practically the same way to-day. and great captains are still studying frederick, wellington and bonaparte as they have ever done. the author modestly hopes that this book may not only entertain by the love story, the tragic yet happily ended romance within its pages--for there is romance here aside from the great captain and his exploits--but that in a small way it may serve to set forth not so much the brilliance and splendor and glory of war as the horror of it. we are frightfully fascinated by war, even the most peaceable and peace-loving of us. may this story help to convey to the reader some of the other side of it; the hunger, the cold, the weariness, the suffering, the disaster, the despair of the soldier; as well as the love and the joy and the final happiness of the beautiful laure and the brave marteau to say nothing of redoubtable old bal-arrêt, the bullet-stopper--whose fates were determined on the battlefield amid the clash of arms. cyrus townsend brady. the hemlocks, edgecliff terrace, park-hill-on-hudson. yonkers, n. y. epiphany-tide, . contents prologue vive l'empereur book i: the emperor at bay chapter i. bearers of evil tidings ii. the emperor dreams iii. the army marches away iv. marteau and bal-arrÊt ride v. when the cossacks passed vi. marteau bargains for the woman vii. a rescue and a siege viii. a trial or allegiance ix. the emperor eats and rides x. how marteau won the cross xi. an emperor and a gentleman xii. an alliance declined xiii. the thunderbolt stroke xiv. the hammer of the war god book ii: the eagle's flight xv. the bridge at arcis xvi. the gate in the wall xvii. a veteran of the army of italy xviii. almost a gentleman xix. the great honor roll xx. when the violets bloom again xxi. like a thief in the night xxii. in the countess laure's bed-chamber xxiii. the marquis grants an interview xxiv. on the whole death may be better than life xxv. not even love can find a way xxvi. they meet a lion in the way xxvii. comrade! general! emperor! book iii: the last try xxviii. at the stamp of the emperor's foot xxix. waterloo--the final review xxx. waterloo--the charge of d'erlon xxxi. waterloo--the last of the guard xxxii. at last the eagle and the woman prologue vive l'empereur the weatherworn château d'aumenier stands in the midst of a noble park of trees forming part of an extensive domain not far to the northwest of the little town of sézanne, in the once famous county of champagne, in france. the principal room of the castle is a great hall in the oldest part of the venerable pile which dates back for eight hundred years, or to the tenth century and the times of the famous count eudes himself, for whom it was held by one of his greatest vassals. the vast apartment is filled with rare and interesting mementos of its distinguished owners, including spoils of war and trophies of the chase, acquired in one way or another in the long course of their history, and bespeaking the courage, the power, the ruthlessness, and, sometimes, the unscrupulousness of the hard-hearted, heavy-handed line. every country in europe and every age, apparently, has been levied upon to adorn this great hall, with its long mullioned windows, its enormous fireplace, its huge carved stone mantel, its dark oak paneled walls and beamed ceiling. but, the most interesting, the most precious of all the wonderful things therein has a place of honor to itself at the end farthest from the main entrance. fixed against this wall is a broken staff, or pole, surmounted by a small metallic figure. the staff is fastened to the wall by clamps of tempered steel which are further secured by delicate locks of skillful and intricate workmanship. the pole is topped by the gilded effigy of an eagle. in dimensions the eagle is eight inches high, from head to feet, and nine and a half inches wide, from wing tip to wing tip. heraldically, "_un aigle Éployé_" it would be called. that is, an eagle in the act of taking flight--in the vernacular, a "spread eagle." the eagle looks to the left, with its wings half expanded. in its talons it grasps a thunderbolt, as in the old roman standard. those who have ever wandered into the monastery of the certosa, at milan, have seen just such an eagle on one of the tombs of the great visconti family. for, in truth, this emblem has been modeled after that one. below the thunderbolt is a tablet of brass, three inches square, on which is a raised number. in this instance, the number is five. the copper of which the eagle is molded was originally gilded, but in its present battered condition much of the gilt has been worn off, or shot off, and the original material is plainly discernible. if it could be lifted its weight would be found to be about three and a half pounds. around the neck of the eagle hangs a wreath of pure gold. there is an inscription on the back of it, which says that the wreath was presented to the regiment by the loyal city of paris after the wonderful ulm campaign. one of the claws of the eagle has been shot away. the gold laurel wreath has also been struck by a bullet, and some of its leaves are gone. the tip of one wing is missing. the head of the eagle, originally proudly and defiantly erect, has been bent backward so that, instead of a level glance, it looks upward, and there is a deep dent in it, as from a blow. and right in the breast gapes a great ragged shot-hole, which pierces the heart of the proud emblem. the eagle has seen service. it has been in action. it bears its honorable wounds. no attempt has been made to repair it. the staff on which the eagle stands has been broken at about half its length, presumably by a bullet. the shattered, splintered end indicates that the staff is made of oak. it had been painted blue originally. the freshness of the paint has been marred. on one side, a huge slice has been cut out of it as if by a mighty sword stroke. the tough wood is gashed and scarred in various places, and there is a long, dark blur just above the broken part, which looks as if it might be a blood stain. below the eagle, and attached to the remainder of the staff for about three-fourths of its length, is what remains of a battle flag. the material of it was originally rich and heavy crimson silk, bordered with gold fringe. it is faded, tattered, shot-torn, bullet-ridden, wind-whipped; parts of it have disappeared. it has been carefully mounted, and is stretched out so as to present its face to the beholder. in dull, defaced letters of gold may be read inscriptions--the imagination piecing out the missing parts. here is a line that runs as follows: _napoleon, empereur des français, au e infanterie de la ligne._ and underneath, in smaller and brighter letters, as if a later addition: _grenadiers du garde imperiale._ there has been some sort of device in the middle, but most of it has disappeared. from what remains, one guesses that it was a facsimile of the eagle on the staff-head. there are little tarnished spots of gold here and there. a close observation discloses that they are golden bees. in the corners near the staff, the only ones that are left are golden wreaths in the center of which may be seen the letter "n". on the other side of the flag, hidden from the beholder, are a series of names. they have been transcribed upon a silver plate, which is affixed to the wall below the broken staff. they read as follows: "marengo; ulm; austerlitz; jena; berlin; eylau; friedland; madrid; eckmuhl; wagram; vienna; smolensk; moskowa; bautzen; leipsic; montmirail; arcis." beneath this list is a heavy dash and below all in larger letters, which unlike the rest have been filled with black enamel, is the last word, "waterloo." the eagle, the staff, and the flag are enclosed and protected from careless handling by a heavy glass case, the panes set in steel and silver, and the doors carefully locked to prevent its being stolen away. but its security is not entrusted to these inanimate materials alone. every hour of the day and night there keeps watch over it an old soldier. he is armed and equipped as if for battle, in the uniform of the old fifth regiment of the line, somehow temporarily incorporated in the imperial guard as a supplementary regiment of the grenadiers thereof. the black gaiters, the white trousers, the blue and scarlet coat, with its crossed belts and brilliant decorations, the lofty bearskin head-dress, are all strangely in keeping with the relic and its surroundings. sometimes the soldier--and there are five of them whose sole and only business it is to watch over the flag--paces steadily up and down in front of it, like a sentry on his post. sometimes he stands before it at parade rest. as to each individual's movements, he suits his fancy. these are old soldiers, indeed, highly privileged, veterans of twenty campaigns, fifty pitched battles, and smaller affairs without number. their weatherbeaten faces are lined and wrinkled, their mustaches are as white as snow. the guard is always relieved at the appointed intervals with military formality and precision. one soldier, older, taller than the rest, is in command of the other four. from his buttonhole dangles from a white ribbon a little cross of white enamel. though he shows no insignia of rank higher than that of a sergeant of the guard, he has won the proud distinction of the legion of honor. at one stated hour in the day, a tall, handsome, distinguished, middle-aged man, wearing for the occasion the uniform of a colonel in the imperial guard, a blood-stained, tarnished, battered, battle-worn uniform, be it observed, comes into the room. he is more often than not attended by a lovely lady of beauty and grace, in spite of her years, who leads with either hand a handsome youth and a beautiful maiden. the four soldiers are always present in full uniform under the command of their sergeant at this hour. as the officer enters they form line, come to attention, and present arms, a salute he gravely and punctiliously acknowledges. attendants follow, bearing decanters and glasses; wine for the officer and his family, something stronger for the soldiers. the glasses are filled. with her own fair hands, the lady hands them to the men. when all are ready the officer holds up his glass. the men, stacking arms, do the same. the eyes of all glance upward. above the eagle and the flag upon a shelf upon the wall stands a marble head, product of canova's marvelous chisel. it is napoleon. white it gleams against the dark stone of the old hall. at a nod the soldiers face about, and---- "_vive l'empereur_," says the officer quietly. "_vive l'empereur_," in deep and solemn tones repeats the old sergeant. "_vive l'empereur_," comes from the lips of the four soldiers, and even the woman and the young people join in that ancient acclaim. the great emperor is dead long since. he sleeps beneath the willows in the low valley in the lonely, far-off, wave-washed islet of st. helena. but to these men he will never die. it is their blood that is upon that eagle staff. it was in their hands that it received those wounds. while they carried it, flung to the breeze of battle, it was shot-torn and storm-riven. it is a priceless treasure to them all. as they followed it with the ardor and devotion of youth so they now guard it and respect it with the steadier but not less intense consecration of maturity and old age. the eagle of a vanished empire, the emblem of a fame that is past. it is as real to them as when into the hands of one of them it was given by the emperor himself on the champ de mars so long ago when he was lord of the world. and so long as they live they will love it, reverence it, guard it, salute it as in the past. book i the emperor at bay chapter i bearers of evil tidings the emperor walked nervously up and down the long, low-ceiled apartment, the common room of the public inn at nogent. grouped around a long table in the center of the room several secretaries were busy with orders, reports and dispatches. at one end stood a group of officers of high rank in rich uniforms whose brilliance was shrouded by heavy cloaks falling from their shoulders and gathered about them, for the air was raw and chill, despite a great fire burning in a huge open fireplace. their cloaks and hats were wet, their boots and trousers splashed with mud, and in general they were travel-stained and weary. they eyed the emperor, passing and repassing, in gloomy silence mixed with awe. in their bearing no less than in their faces was expressed a certain unwonted fierce resentment, which flamed up and became more evident when the emperor turned his back in his short, restless march to and fro, but which subsided as suddenly when he had them under observation. by the door was stationed a young officer in the uniform of the fifth regiment of the infantry of the line. he stood quietly at attention, and was evidently there on duty. from time to time officers, orderlies and couriers came into the room, bearing dispatches. these were handed to the young officer and by him passed over to the emperor. never since the days of job had any man perhaps been compelled to welcome such a succession of bearers of evil tidings as napoleon on that winter night. the emperor's face was pale always, but there was an ashy grayness about his pallor in that hour that marked a difference. his face was lined and seamed, not to say haggard. the mask of imperturbability he usually wore was down. he looked old, tired, discouraged. his usual iron self-control and calm had given place to an overwhelming nervousness and incertitude. he waved his hands, he muttered to himself, his mouth twitched awry from time to time as he walked. "well, messieurs," he began at last, in sharp, rather high-pitched notes--even his voice sounded differently--as he lifted his eyes from perusing the latest dispatch and faced the uneasy group by the fireplace, "you are doubtless anxious to know the news." the emperor stepped over to the table as he spoke, and gathered up a handful of dispatches and ran over them with his hands. "it is all set forth here: the germans and the english have shut up carnot in antwerp," he continued rapidly, throwing one paper down. "the bourbons have entered brussels,"--he threw another letter upon the table--"belgium, you see, is lost. bernadotte has taken denmark. macdonald is falling back on Épernay, his weak force growing weaker every hour. yorck, who failed us once before, is hard on his heels with twice, thrice, the number of his men. sacken is trying to head him off. the king of naples seeks to save the throne on which i established him by withdrawing from me now--the poor fool! the way to paris along the marne is open, and blücher is marching on the capital with eighty thousand russians, prussians and bavarians. schwarzenburg with many more is close at hand." something like a hollow groan broke from the breasts of the auditors as the fateful dispatches fell one by one from the emperor's hand. the secretaries stopped writing and stared. the young officer by the door clenched his hands. "sire----," said one of the officers, the rich trappings of whose dress indicated that he was a marshal of france. he began boldly but ended timidly. "before it is too late----" napoleon swung around and fixed his piercing eyes upon him, as his voice died away. the emperor could easily finish the uncompleted sentence. "what, you, mortier!" he exclaimed. "i, too, sire," said another marshal more boldly, apparently encouraged by the fact that his brother officer had broken the ice. "and you, marmont," cried the emperor, transfixing him in turn with a reproachful glance. both marshals stepped back abashed. "besides," said the emperor gloomily, "it is already too late. i have reserved the best for the last," he said with grim irony. "the courier who has just departed is from caulaincourt." he lifted the last dispatch, which he had torn open a moment or two since. he shook it in the air, crushed it in his hand, laughed, and those who heard him laugh shuddered. "what does the duke of vicenza say, sire?" chimed in another marshal. "it is you, berthier," said the emperor. "you, at least, do not advise surrender?" "not yet, sire." "but when?" asked napoleon quickly. without waiting for an answer to his question, he continued: "the allies now graciously offer us--think of it, gentlemen--the limits of ." "impossible!" cried a big red-headed marshal. "they demand it, prince of the moskowa," answered the emperor, addressing marshal ney. "but it's incredible, sire." "what!" burst out napoleon passionately. "shall we leave france less than we found her, after all these victories, after all these conquests, after all these submissions of kings and nations? shall we go back to the limits of the old monarchy? never!" "but, sire----" began marshal maret. "no more," said the emperor, turning upon the duc de bassano. "rather death than that. while we have arms we can at least die." he flashed an imperious look upon the assembly, but no one seemed to respond to his appeal. the emperor's glance slowly roved about the room. the young captain met his look. instantly and instinctively his hand went up in salute, his lips framed the familiar phrase: "_vive l'empereur_! yes, sire, we can still die for you," he added in a low respectful voice, but with tremendous emphasis nevertheless. he was a mere youth, apparently. napoleon looked at him approvingly, although some of the marshals, with clouded brows and indignant words of protest at such an outburst from so young a man, would have reproved him had not their great leader checked them with a gesture. "your name, sir," he said shortly to the young officer who had been guilty of such an amazing breach of military decorum. "marteau, sire. jean marteau, at the emperor's service," answered the young soldier nervously, realizing what impropriety he had committed. "it remains," said the emperor, looking back at the marshals and their aides, "for a beardless boy to set an example of devotion in which princes and dukes of the empire, marshals of france, heroes of fifty pitched battles, fail." "we will die for you, sire, for france, die with arms in our hands, if we had them, and on the field of battle," began impetuous ney. "if we don't starve first, sire," said cautious berthier gloomily. "starve!" exclaimed the emperor. "the army is without food," said marmont bluntly. "it is half naked and freezing," added victor. "ammunition fails us," joined in oudinot. "we have no arms," added mortier. "do you, then, advise that we abandon ourselves to the tender mercies of the allies?" asked napoleon bitterly. "messieurs, it is surely better to die hungry and naked and without arms for the emperor than to consent to his dishonor, which is the dishonor of france," suddenly burst forth the young man at the door. "how dare you," thundered the usually cool and collected berthier angrily, "a mere boy, monsieur, assume to speak in the presence of the emperor, to say nothing of these great captains?" "may my life be forfeit, _monsieur le duc_," said the young soldier more boldly, since napoleon had condoned his first remark, "if i have done wrong in assuring my emperor that we would still die for him." "of what regiment are you?" said napoleon, waving berthier of the frowning face into silence. "i belong to the fifth of the line, sire." "he is in my corps, sire," said ney. "i have brigaded that veteran regiment with the new recruits of the young guard." "but i have seen service before," said the young captain. "and i have seen you before," said napoleon, fixing upon him a penetrating glance. "yes, sire, at the end of the bridge over the elster at leipsic. you were watching the men streaming across when the bridge was blown up. i was among the last to cross the bridge." "go on," said the emperor, as the young man paused. "your majesty was pleased to say----" "i recall it all now. i saw you plunge into the river and bring back to shore an eagle--that of your regiment. you fell at my feet. you should have had the legion of honor for it. i promised it to you, did i not?" "yes, sire." "why did you not claim it?" "i was wounded and left for dead; when i got back to france and my regiment i could not add to your anxiety by----" "here," said the emperor, "i still have power to reward faithful servants and bold spirits." he took off his own cross, fastened it on the heaving breast of the amazed young soldier. "prince," continued the emperor, turning to ney. "sire?" "spare me this young man. i need him on my staff." "i can ill spare any officer from my weak corps of boys and old men, much less a veteran," the marshal laughed. "one campaign makes us veterans, it seems, nowadays, but you shall have him." "berthier," continued napoleon, "make out the transfer. give the young man a step up. let him be major." "very well, sire," said berthier, turning to one of the secretaries and giving him directions. "meanwhile, what's to be done?" continued napoleon. "tell caulaincourt to agree to anything," said maret bluntly. "i yet live," said napoleon proudly. "naked, starving, unarmed, though we may be, i and my soldiers have not forgot our trade. courage, messieurs. all is not yet lost while your emperor breathes. here at nogent, at montereau and farther back we still have seventy thousand men. with seventy thousand men and napoleon much may be accomplished. blücher, it is true, marches on paris. he counts on the army of schwarzenberg to contain us. he marches leisurely, with wide intervals between his divisions. what shall prevent us----" "your majesty," cried marmont, his eyes flashing as he divined the emperor's plan. he was the quickest witted and most brilliant of the marshals, but by no means the hardest fighter, or the most loyal and devoted subordinate. "i am worn out," said the emperor, smiling more kindly upon them. "i have scarcely been out of the saddle--i have scarcely had an hour of sleep since the bloody day of la rothière. i must have rest. let none disturb me for two hours. hold the messenger from the duke of vicenza. i will give an answer then." the emperor drooped, as he spoke, much of the animation went out of his face and figure. he looked grayer than ever, heavier than ever, older than ever. "in two hours awaken me," he said. he stepped toward the door that led to the room reserved for himself, but before he reached it two officers were admitted. napoleon stopped and looked at them. they saluted him, walked over to berthier, the chief of staff. "the soldiers are dying of hunger," said the first. "the commissary general has nothing to give them. he expected a convoy of provisions, but cossacks, who are reported at fontainebleau, have captured the train. what shall we do?" berthier threw up his hands, and turned to the other officer to hear his report. "ten thousand men are without arms, or with arms unserviceable and broken. the supply of powder is low. where shall we get any more?" the silence in the room was terrible. "sire," said berthier in a low voice, turning to napoleon, standing staring, "you hear?" he stretched out his hand in appealing gesture. the emperor turned on his heel, without deigning to look or speak. "watch the door for two hours," he said to the young officer, crashing to the door behind him. "awaken me then." "gentlemen," said berthier despairingly to the other officers, "we shall never persuade him. you had better repair to your commands. some of you must have something to eat. divide what you have with the less fortunate divisions. arm and equip the best men. there is a small supply at nogent, i am told. the others must wait." "if we could only get at these pigs of prussians, these dogs of russians," said ney, "we could take food and guns and powder from them." "doubtless," said berthier, not caring to argue that point. he bowed to the officers, as they saluted, and went out of the door muttering and arguing noisily and insubordinately, it must be admitted, and then turned to the table where the secretaries sat. one of them had laid his head down on his arms, stretched out on the table and was fast asleep. the marshal awoke him and dismissed him with most of the rest. from another berthier took a paper. he examined it, signed it, sealed it, and handed it to the young officer on guard at the door. "your commission, monsieur," he said. "once i was young and full of enthusiasm and hope and determination. it is well for france that some of her children still retain those things." "i thank the prince de wagram," said the young officer, bowing low, "and i beg his pardon for having spoken." "the emperor has forgiven," said berthier indifferently. "his absolution covers us all. at least if i fall behind you in those other qualities of youth i shall not fall behind you in devotion. come, maret," continued the grand marshal. the two worthies turned away and went out. the long room sank into silence. a soldier came in after a while and replenished the fire, saluted and passed out. the pen of the busy secretary, the only one left of the group, ceased scratching on the paper. he, too, sank back in his chair asleep. the short day faded into twilight and then into darkness. from outside beyond the courtyard of the inn came confused noises, indicating moving bodies of men, the rumble of artillery, the clatter of cavalry, faint words of command. a light snow began to fall. it was intensely raw and cold. the officer picked up his cloak, wrapped it around him, and resumed his immobile guard. chapter ii the emperor dreams within a mean room, which had hastily been prepared for his use, upon a camp bed, having cast himself down, fully clothed as he was, lay the worn-out, dispirited, embittered emperor. he sought sleep in vain. since leipsic, with its horrible disaster a few months before, one reverse of fortune had succeeded another. he who had entered every country a conqueror at the head of his armies, whose myriads of soldiers had overrun every land, eating it up with ruthless greed and rapacity, and spreading destruction far and wide, was now at bay. he who had dictated terms of peace in all the capitals of europe at the head of triumphant legions was now with a small, weak, ill-equipped, unfed army, striving to protect his own capital. france was receiving the pitiless treatment which she had accorded other lands. with what measure she had meted out, it was being measured back to her again. the cup of trembling, filled with bitterness, was being held to her shrinking lips, and she must perforce drain it to the dregs. after all napoleon's far-flung campaigns, after all his overwhelming victories, after the vast outpouring of blood and treasure, after all his glory and all his fame, the end was at hand. the prostrate emperor stared out through the low window into the gray sky with its drift of snow across the panes. he heard faintly the tumult outside. disaster, ruin, despair entered his heart. the young conscripts were disheartened by defeat, the steady old veterans were pitifully few in number, thousands of them were in foreign prisons, many more thousands of them were dead. disease was rife among the youthful recruits, unused to such hard campaigning, as he had summoned to the colors. without food and without arms, they were beginning to desert their eagles. the spirit of the marshals and great officers whom he had raised from the dust to affluence and power was waning. they were worn out with much fighting. they wanted peace, almost at any price. he remembered their eager questions when he had joined the army a month ago. "what reinforcements has your majesty brought?" "none," he had been compelled to answer. "what, then, shall we do?" queried one after the other. "we must try fortune with what we have," he had declared undauntedly. well, they had tried fortune. brienne, where he had been a boy at school, had been the scene of a brilliantly successful action. they had lost no glory at la rothière afterward--although they gained nothing else--where with thirty thousand men he had beaten back through one long bloody day and night thrice that number, only to have to retreat in the end for the salvation of those who had been left alive. and, to him who had been wont to spend them so indifferently, men had suddenly become precious, since he could get no more. every dead or wounded man was now unreplaceable, and each loss made his problem harder to solve. since those two first battles he had been forced back, step by step, mile by mile, league by league, everywhere; and all his lieutenants likewise. now schwarzenberg, with one hundred and thirty thousand men, confronted him on the seine and the aube, and blücher, with eighty thousand men, was marching on paris by way of the marne, with only macdonald and his beaten and dispirited men, not ten thousand in number, to hold the fiery old prussian field marshal in check. "how had it all come to this, and why?" the man asked himself, and, with all his greatness and clearness of vision, the reason did not occur to him. for he had only himself to blame for his misfortunes. he was not the man that he had been. for a moment his old spirit had flashed out in the common room of the inn two hours before, but the reaction left him heavy, weary, old, lonely. physically, he felt unequal to the strain. his human frame was almost worn out. mere men cannot long usurp the attributes of god. intoxicated with success, he had grasped at omnipotence, and for a time had seemed to enjoy it, only to fail. the mills of the gods do grind slowly, but they do grind immeasurably small in the end. what a long, bloody way he had traversed since toulon, since arcola, since the bridge at lodi, since marengo? into what far-off lands it had led him: italy, egypt, syria, spain, austria, prussia and the great, white, cold empire of the north. and all the long way paved with corpses--corpses he had regarded with indifference until to-day. it was cold in the room, in spite of the fire in the stove. it reminded him of that dreadful retreat. the emperor covered his face with his hand. no one was there. he could afford to give away. there rose before him in the darkness the face of the wife of his youth, only to be displaced by the nearer woman, the austrian wife and the little son whom he had so touchingly confided to the national guard a month ago when he left paris for the last try with fortune for his empire and his life. would the allies at last and finally beat him; would francis joseph, weak monarch whom he hated, take back his daughter, and with her napoleon's son, and bring him up in austria to hate the name of france and his father? the emperor groaned aloud. the darkness fell upon the world outside, upon the room within, upon the soul of the great captain approaching the nadir of his fortunes, his spirit almost at the breaking point. to him at last came berthier and maret. they had the right of entrance. the time for which he had asked had passed. young marteau admitted them without question. they entered the room slowly, not relishing their task, yet resolute to discharge their errand. the greater room outside was alight from fire and from lanterns. enough illumination came through the door into the bed-chamber for their purpose--more than enough for the emperor. he turned his head away, lest they should see what they should see. the two marshals bowed and stood silent. "well?" said the emperor at last, his voice unduly harsh, as if to cover emotion with its roughness, and they noticed that he did not look at them. "sire, the courier of the duke of vicenza waits for his answer," said maret. there was another long pause. "will not your majesty give way for the good of the people?" urged berthier. "give peace to france, sire. the army is hungry----" "am i god, messieurs, to feed thousands with a few loaves and fishes?" cried the emperor bitterly. "no, sire. therefore, authorize the duke to sign the treaty, and----" "what!" said napoleon fiercely, sitting up on the bed and facing them. "you would have me sign a treaty like that? trample under foot my coronation oath? unheard-of disaster may have snatched from me the promise to renounce my own conquests, but give up those before me, never! leave france smaller, weaker than i found her! god keep me from such a disgrace. reply to caulaincourt, since you wish it, but tell him i reject this treaty. we must have better terms. i prefer to run the uttermost risks of war." berthier opened his mouth to speak again, but napoleon silenced him with word and gesture. "no more," he said. "go." the two marshals bowed and left the room with downcast heads and resentful hearts. as they disappeared napoleon called after them. "send me that boy at the door. lights," he cried, as the young officer, not waiting for the order to be repeated, promptly entered the inner room and saluted. "the maps on the table, bring them here, and the table, too," commanded the emperor. even as the lights which were placed on the table dispelled the dusk of the room, so something had dispelled the gloom of the great man's soul. for a moment he looked almost young again. the gray pallor left his cheeks. fire sparkled in his eyes. "not yet--not yet," he muttered, spreading the maps upon the table. "we will have one more try with fortune. my star is low on the horizon, but it has not set yet." "nor shall it set, sire, while i and my comrades live," returned marteau. "you are right," said the emperor. "you stand to me for france. your spirit typifies the spirit of my soldiery, does it not?" "theirs is even greater than mine, sire," was the prompt answer. "that's well. do you know the country hereabouts?" "i was born at aumenier." "let me see," said the emperor, "the village lies beyond sézanne?" "yes, sire." "in an opening in the great woods beyond the marshes of st. gond," continued the other, studying the map, "there is a château there. are you by any chance of the ancient house of aumenier?" "my father was a warden on the estates of the last marquis." "good. do you know that country?" "i have hunted over every rod of it as a boy, sire." "i must have news," said the emperor, "information, definite tidings. i want to know where blücher is; where his several army corps are. can i trust so young a head as yours with great matters?" "tortures could not wring from me anything you may confide, your majesty," said the young man resolutely. "i believe you," said the emperor, looking at him keenly and reading him like a book. "look. before daybreak marmont marches to sézanne. the next day after i follow. i shall leave enough men behind the river here to hold back schwarzenberg, or at least to check him if he advances. with the rest i shall fall on blücher." the young man's eyes sparkled. he had been bending over the map. he drew himself up and saluted. "it is the emperor at his best," he said. "you have studied the art of war, young sir?" "i have read every one of your majesty's campaigns." "and you see what i would do?" "not altogether, but----" "fall upon the flank of the unsuspecting prussian, burst through his line, break his center, turn to the right or left, beat him in detail, drive him back, relieve paris, and then----" "and then, sire?" "come back and do the same thing with schwarzenberg!" "your majesty!" cried the young soldier, as the whole mighty plan was made clear to him. "ha! it brightens your eyes and flushes your cheek, does it not? so it will brighten the eyes and flush the cheeks of france. i will show them. in six weeks i will drive them across the rhine. in another month they shall sue for peace and the vistula shall be our boundary." "what does your majesty desire of me?" "that you go at once. take with you whomsoever you will. bring or send me reports. you are educated?" "i was a student at your majesty's military college," answered the young man. "did you finish there?" "i finished in your majesty's army last year." "how old are you?" "twenty-two, sire." "you belong to the foot, but you can ride?" "anything." "marshal berthier will give you horses. i shall be at sézanne the day after to-morrow night. you will have news for me then?" "or be dead, sire." "i have no use for dead men. don't get yourself taken. any fool can die, or be made prisoner. it is a wise man who can live for me and france." "i shall live," said the young man simply. "have you any further command, sire?" "none." the hand of marteau was raised in salute. "stop," said the emperor, as the soldier turned to the door. "sire?" "come back with news, and let us but escape from this tightening coil, and you shall be a lieutenant colonel in my guard." "i will do it for love of your majesty alone," cried the soldier, turning away. it was not nearly dawn before berthier and maret, who had been pondering over the dispatch to caulaincourt, who was fighting the envoys of the allies at the congress at chatillon, ventured to intrude upon the emperor. having come to his decision, as announced to the young soldier, who had got his horses and his comrade and gone, the emperor, with that supreme command of himself which few men possessed, had at last got a few hours of rest. he had dressed himself with the assistance of his faithful valet, constant, who had given him a bath and shaved him, and he now confronted the two astonished marshals with an air serene--even cheerful. "dispatches!" he said, as they approached him. "it is a question of a very different matter. tell caulaincourt to prolong the negotiations, but to concede nothing, to commit me to nothing. i am going to beat blücher. if i succeed, the state of affairs will entirely change, and we shall see what we shall see. tell marmont to give orders for his corps to march immediately after they get some breakfast. no, they may not wait till morning. fortune has given the prussians into my hands. write to my brother in paris; tell him that he may expect news from us of the most important character in forty-eight hours. let the parisians continue their misérérés and their forty-hour-long prayers for the present. we'll soon give them something else to think of." "but, sire----" feebly interposed berthier. "do as i tell you," said the emperor, good-humoredly, "and leave the rest to me." he was in a mood apparently that nothing could dash that morning. "and you will be as much surprised as the prussians, and i believe that nobody can be more amazed than they will be." chapter iii the army marches away gallantly on his errand rode young marteau. napoleon's order to berthier, by him transmitted down the line, had secured four of the best horses in the army for his messengers. for young marteau went not alone. with him rode a tall grenadier of the imperial guard, whose original name had been lost, or forgot, in a sobriquet which fitted him perfectly, and which he had richly earned in a long career as a soldier. they called him "bullet stopper," "balle-arrêtante," the curious compound ran in french, and the soldiers clipped it and condensed it into "bal-arrêt!" he used to boast that he had been wounded in every country in europe and in asia and africa as well. he had been hit more times than any soldier high or low in the army. he had distinguished himself by valor, and, but for his humble extraction and meager education, might have risen to a high command. as it was, he was personally known to the emperor, and was accounted as one of the favorite soldiers of the army. he, too, had been a dweller on the aumenier estates. it was his tales of adventure which had kindled the martial spirit in young marteau, whom he had known from his birth. a warm friendship subsisted between the young officer and the old soldier, which no difference in rank or station could ever impair. when the emperor had given him leave to take with him whomsoever he would, his thoughts had at once turned to old bullet stopper. the latter had gladly accepted the invitation. behold him now, his huge body astride of an enormous horse--for, although the grenadier was a foot-soldier, he could still ride after a fashion--plodding along through the mud and the wet and the cold on the mission which, if successful, would perhaps enable napoleon to save the army and france, to say nothing of his throne and his family. captain marteau, or major marteau, to give him his new title, had said nothing as to the nature of his mission, upon which they had been dispatched, to the humble comrade, the faithful follower who accompanied him. he had only told him that it was difficult, dangerous, and of vital importance, and he had explained to him that his familiarity with the country, as well as a warm-hearted admiration and respect for his shrewdness and skill and courage, had caused his selection. that was enough for the old soldier; dangers, difficulties, were as the breath of life to the veteran. and he was always happy to follow marteau, in whose career he took an interest almost fatherly. the weather was frightful. it had snowed and then thawed. the temperature was now just above the freezing point. the rough wind was raw, the fierce winter gale was laden with wet snow. the roads, like all country cross-roads in france, or anywhere else, for that matter, in that day, were a sea of mud. it was well that the pair had brought two extra horses. by changing mounts from time to time they were enabled to spare their beasts and make the greater speed. the emperor had impressed upon his young aide the necessity for getting the information to him at the earliest possible moment. haste was everything. so they pressed on. without waiting for their report, and presuming on his general knowledge of blücher's character and shrewdly deducing the exact state of affairs napoleon was already acting as if he possessed absolute and accurate information. the drums were beating the long roll as they rode through the still dark streets of the little town of nogent. horses were being harnessed to guns, baggage wagons were being loaded, ammunition caissons were being got ready. the troops were assembling out of houses and tents, and coming from around fires, where many of them had passed an unsheltered night. there was little of the joy, the gaiety, the _élan_ of the french soldier, to be seen in the faces of the men thus summoned to the eagles. they came, indeed, they answered the call, but with black looks and sullen faces and a manner almost despairing. they had fought and fought and fought. they had been beaten back and back and back, and when they had not been fighting they had been retreating. and always they were hungry. and always they were cold. the enormous armies of schwarzenberg had been extended on either side. they were constantly threatened with being outflanked. most of them were young soldiers, weary and dispirited, and many of them unarmed. every battle had reduced the stock of good muskets. many of those still in possession of the troops had been ruined by their unskillful handling. the supply of regimental officers was utterly inadequate to the demand. the bravest and the best are usually the first to fall; the boldest and most venturesome the most liable to capture. perhaps, if the emperor had broken up his guard and distributed the veterans among the raw troops, the effect might have been better, but in that case he would have destroyed his main reliance in his army. no, it was better to keep the guard together at all hazards. it had already been drawn heavily upon for officers for other corps. war was popularly supposed to be a thing of dashing adventure, of victory, and plunder. it had been all that before. experience had thrust them all unprepared face to face with the naked reality of defeat, disease, weary marches over awful roads in freezing cold, in drifting snow, or in sodden mire. they had no guns, they had little food, thank god, there was some clothing, such as it was, but even the best uniforms were not calculated to stand such strains as had been imposed upon these. only the old guard, staunch, stern, splendid, indomitable, a magnificent body of men, held the army together--they and the cavalry. murat, peerless horseman, was playing the traitor to save his wretched neapolitan throne. but grouchy, nansouty, sebastiani and others remained. conditions were bad in the cavalry, but they were not so bad as they were in the infantry. and druot of the artillery also kept it together in the retreat. guns, cannon, were more precious almost than men. now early that morning, while it was yet dark, they were called up from their broken sleep to undertake what to them was another purposeless march. even the eagles drooped in the hands of their bearers. the soldiers did not know, they could not see. the great high roads that led to paris were being abandoned; they were plunging into unfathomable morasses; they were being led through dark, gloomy, dreadful woods to the northward. where? for what purpose? the dumb, wrathful, insubordinate, despairful army indeed moved at the will of its master, but largely because it realized that it could not stay where it was, and largely because it was better to move on and die than to lie down and die. they were at least warmer on the march! the spirit of the guard and of the subordinate officers, say from the colonels down, was good enough, but the generals and the marshals were sick of fighting. they had had enough of it. they had gained all that they could gain in their world-wide campaigns, in fame, money, titles, estates. they had everything to lose and nothing to win. they wanted rest, an opportunity to enjoy. some of them were devoted to the emperor, in fact, all of them were, but their own comfort and self-interest bulked larger and larger before them. they saw nothing but defeat at the end of their endeavors, and they wanted to negotiate peace with such honor as could be had while they were still a force to be reckoned with. their unwillingness and mutinous spirit, however, had not yet reached its highest development. that came later, and brought treachery in its train. the awful will of the emperor still overruled them. wrathfully, insubordinately, protestingly, they still marched when he gave the word. the emperor had been working with that furious concentration which he alone of all men seemed to be able to bring about, and which was one of the secrets of his power. orders borne by couriers had streamed in all directions over the roads. napoleon was about to undertake the most daring and marvelous campaign of his whole history. the stimulus of despair, the certainty of ruin unless the advance of the allies could be stayed, had at last awakened his dormant energies, filled his veins with the fire of youth and spring. with that comprehensive eye which made him the master of battlefields and nations he had forseen everything. soldiers were coming from spain. he had given instructions to magnify their number and their strength. he shrewdly surmised that their appearance on the left flank would cause the cautious schwarzenberg to pause, to withdraw his flankers, to mass to meet them. there would be a halt in the advance. the allies still feared the emperor. although much of his prestige was gone, they never made little of napoleon. he intended to leave some of the best troops to confront schwarzenberg between nogent and montereau, under victor and oudinot, hard fighters both, with instructions not to engage in any decisive battle, not to allow themselves to be trapped into that, but to stand on the defensive, to hold the river seine, to retreat foot by foot, if pressed, to take advantage of every cover, to hold the enemy in check, to contest every foot of the way, to assume a strength which they did not have. he promised that so soon as he had fallen upon blücher he would send the news and see that it got to schwarzenberg and the allied monarchs who were with him. reverses which he hoped to inflict on the prussian field marshal would increase the austrian hesitation. the emperor believed that the pressure by oudinot and victor would be effective. they would draw in their columns and concentrate. after he had finished with blücher and his army, he intended to retrace his steps and do the same thing with schwarzenberg. of course, if he failed with blücher it was all over. he was the last hope of france--he and his army. if his magnificent dash at the prussians and russians was not successful, nothing could delay the end. napoleon was staking all on the throw, taking the gambler's chance, taking it recklessly, accepting the hazard, but neglecting no means to insure the winning of the game. the emperor flung a screen of cavalry in front of marmont, to patrol every village, to control every farmhouse, to see that no news of his advance came to the unsuspecting old prussian. and then he himself stayed back in nogent to see his own orders carried out. he personally inspected every division, as it marched to the front through the waning night, the cheerless dawn, the gray dark day. it cut him to the heart to see his soldiers go so silently and so sullenly. here and there a regiment did cry: "_vive l'empereur_"; here and there a voice sounded it, but in the main the men marched dumbly, doggedly. it was only the old guard that gave him the imperial salute in full voice in the old way. nothing indicated to the emperor more thoroughly the temper of the soldiers than that open indifference. why, even in russia, ere their stiffened lips froze into silence, they had breathed out the old acclaim. the emperor remembered that grenadier who, when told by the surgeon that he feared to probe for a ball that had pierced his breast because he did not know what he would find, "if you probe deep enough to reach my heart," said the soldier with his dying breath, "you will find the emperor." grave-faced and frowning, shivering from time to time in the fierce, raw cold, the emperor watched the troops march by. well, the day after to-morrow, if there were any left, they would acclaim him loud enough. the emperor was cold and cynical. he had never allowed the life of men to stand in the way of his desires, but even his iron nerve, his icy indifference had been shaken. he gave no outward evidence of it, but in his heart he realized more plainly than ever before that when these were gone there were no more. and so, perhaps, his shudder was not altogether due to the cold. whatever his emotions, he steeled his heart, he made his preparations for the last try with fortune, the last card to be played, the last die to be thrown. what would be the end of it? what would be the result of that final desperate game? the emperor was a master player--could even his finesse and skill and talent and genius make up for the poor hand that had been dealt him because the pack had been so drawn upon that the good cards had been exhausted, used up, long since? did the emperor realize that even he was not what he had been? did he comprehend that he was no longer the soldier, the man, of the past? did he realize that at last he had tried the patience of that fortune he had worshiped, beyond the limit; and that whatever favor might be vouchsafed him would only delay the end? the boys might march and fight, the old guard might sustain its ancient fame, the genius of the emperor might flash out in full effulgence once more--and it would make no difference. the stars on their courses fought against sisera. the doom sentence was written. postponement he might look forward to, but no final stay of judgment! a few thousand more lives he might throw away, but these late sacrifices would avail nothing. oh, no; the emperor's shudder was not altogether due to the cold that winter morning. chapter iv marteau and bal-arrÊt ride of this young marteau and old bullet stopper, plodding along at the best speed they could get from their horses, knew nothing. the old grenadier was laconic by nature, and his habit of silence had become intensified by his years of subordination and service. the young officer was wrapped in his own thoughts. knowing, as they did, every foot of the way, the two were able to find short cuts, take advantage of narrow paths over the hills and through the woods, which would have offered no passage to the army, even if they had been aware of it. they reached sézanne hours before marmont's advance, long before the cavalry even. baiting their horses, and getting a welcome meal at the inn--the town itself had as yet suffered nothing from the ravages of the cossacks, being too strong for raiding parties--and refusing to answer questions, and paying no attention to wondering looks of the inhabitants, they rode out again. their way through the marshes of st. gond was dreadful. if only the weather would change, the ground would freeze, how welcome would be the altered conditions. but the half snow, the half rain, still beat down upon them. their poor beasts were almost exhausted. they broke the ice of the grand morin river to get water for the horses and themselves, and, not daring to kindle a fire, for they were approaching the country occupied by blücher, they made a scanty meal from their haversacks. they had found the farmhouses and châteaux deserted, evidences of hasty flight and plunder on every side. the cossacks had swept through the land beyond the town. the people who could had fled to sézanne, or had gone westward hurriedly, to escape the raiders. in the ruined villages and farms they came across many dead bodies of old women, old men and children, with here and there a younger woman whose awful fate filled the old soldier and the young alike with grim and passionate rage. "yonder," said marteau, gloomily pointing westward through the darkness, "lies aumenier and my father's house." "and mine," added bullet-stopper. there was no need to express the thought further, to dilate upon it. it had been the emperor's maxim that war should support war. his armies had lived off the country. the enemy had taken a leaf out of his own book. even the stupid could not fight forever against napoleon without learning something. the allies ate up the land, ravaged it, turned it into a desert--_lex talionis_! marteau's father still lived, with his younger sister. old bullet-stopper was alone in the world but for his friends. what had happened in that little village yonder? what was going on in the great château, so long closed, now finally abandoned by the proud royalist family which had owned it and had owned marteau and old bullet-stopper, and all the rest of the villagers, for that matter, for eight hundred years, or until the revolution had set them free? plunged in those gloomy thoughts the young officer involuntarily took a step in the direction of that village. "on the emperor's service," said the grenadier sternly, catching his young comrade by the arm. "later," he continued, "we may go." "you're right," said marteau. "let us move on." whether it was because the roads really were in a worse condition because of that fact that they ran through marshy country, or whether it was because the men were worn out and their horses more so, they made the slowest progress of the day. they plodded on determinedly through the night. the two weaker horses of the four finally gave way under the strain. husbanding the remaining two with the greatest care, the two soldiers, passing through the deserted villages of st. prix, on the little morin, and baye, finally reached the great highroad which ran through champaubert, vauxchamps and montmirail, toward paris, and which, owing to a northward bend of the river, crossed the country some leagues to the southward of the marne. day was breaking as they reached the edge of the forest bordering the road, and from a rather high hill had a glimpse of a wide stretch of country before them. fortunately, while it was still raw and cold, the sun came out and gave them a fair view of a great expanse of rolling and open fields. a scene of great animation was disclosed to them. the road was covered with squadrons of green-coated russian cavalry, evidently just called to the saddle, and moving eastward at a walk or slow trot. they looked like the advance guard of some important division. there was a low, rolling volume of heavy sound coming from the far north, and in the rising sun they thought they could distinguish in that direction smoke, as from a battlefield. the sound itself was unmistakable to the veteran. "cannon!" he said. "fighting there." "yes," answered marteau. "the emperor said that the prussians and russians were pressing the duke of tarentum, marshal macdonald." "but what have we here?" asked old bal-arrêt, shading his eyes and peering at the array on the near road. a division of russians, coming from a defile to the right, had debouched upon a broad plateau or level upon the edge of which the little village of champaubert straggled forlornly. the cossack horsemen and the russian cavalry had cleaned out champaubert. there were no inhabitants left to welcome the russian division, except dead ones, who could offer no hospitality. the division was weary and travel-stained, covered with mud, horses dead beat; the cannon, huge, formless masses of clay, were dragged slowly and painfully forward. it was evident that the commander of the division had doubled his teams, but the heavy guns could scarcely be moved, even by twice the number of horses attached. the poor brutes had no rest, for, as fast as one gun arrived, both teams were unhitched and sent over the road to bring up another. a halt was made on the plateau. it was evident to the experienced eyes of the watchers that a camp was about to be pitched. the two men stared in keen interest, with eyes alight with hatred. what they had seen in the country they had just passed intensified that hatred, and to the natural racial antagonism, fostered by years of war, were now added bitter personal resentments. "that's one of old marshal forward's divisions," said the grenadier, referring to blücher by his already accepted name, "but what one?" "russians, by the look of them," answered marteau. "you say well. i have seen those green caps and green overcoats before. umph," answered bullet-stopper, making for him an extraordinarily long speech, "it was colder then than it is now, but we always beat them. at friedland, at eylau, at borodino, aye, even at the beresina. it was the cold and hunger that beat us. what wouldn't the guard give to be where we are now. look at them. they are so sure of themselves that they haven't thrown out a picket or sentries." in fact, neither blücher nor any of his commanders apprehended any danger whatsoever. that napoleon would dare to fall on them was unthinkable. that there could be a single french soldier in their vicinity save those under macdonald, being hard pressed by yorck, never entered anybody's head. "what russians are they, do you think?" asked marteau of his comrade. "how should i know?" growled the other. "all russians are alike to me, and----" marteau, however, had heard discussions during the time he had been on duty in napoleon's headquarters. "that will be sacken's corps, unless i am very much mistaken," he said. "and those up yonder toward Épernay, where the firing comes from?" asked the grenadier. marteau shook his head. "we must find out," was the answer. "yes, but how?" "i don't know." "there is only one way," continued bal-arrêt. "and that is?" "to go over there, and----" "in these uniforms?" observed the young officer. "we should be shot as soon as we should appear, and questioned afterward." "yes, if there was anything left to question," growled the grenadier. "the russians will do some scouting. perhaps some of them will come here. if so, we will knock them on the head and take their uniforms, wait until nightfall, slip through the lines, find out what we can, and go back and tell the emperor. it is very simple." "quite so," laughed the young officer; "if we can catch two russians, if their uniforms will fit us, if we can get through, if we can find out, if we can get back. do you speak russian, bal-arrêt?" "not a word." "prussian?" "enough to pass myself through i guess, and----" "hush," said the young man, as three russians suddenly appeared out of a little ravine on the edge of the wood. they had come on a foraging expedition, and had been successful, apparently, for, tied to a musket and carried between two of the men was a dead pig. how it had escaped the cossack raiders of the day before was a mystery. they were apparently coming farther into the forest for firewood with which to roast the animal. perhaps, as the pig was small, and, as they were doubtless hungry, they did not wish their capture to be widely known. at any rate, they came cautiously up a ravine and had not been noticed until their heads rose above it. they saw the two frenchmen just about as soon as they were seen. the third man, whose arms were free, immediately presented his piece and pulled the trigger. fortunately it missed fire. if it had gone off it might have attracted the attention of the russian outposts, investigations would have been instituted, and all chance of passing the lines there would have been over. at the same time he pulled the trigger he fell like a log. the grenadier, who had thrust into his belt a heavy knife, picked up from some murdered woodsman on the journey, had drawn it, seized it by the blade, and, with a skill born of olden peasant days, had hurled it at the russian. the blade struck the man fairly in the face, and the sharp weapon plunged into the man to the hilt. he threw up his hands, his gun dropped, he crashed down into the ravine stone dead. the next second the two frenchmen had seized the two russians. the latter were taken at a disadvantage. they had retained their clutch on the gun-sling carrying the pig, and, before they realized what was toward--they were slow thinkers both--a pair of hands was clasped around each throat. the russians were big men, and they struggled hard. a silent, terrible battle was waged under the trees, but, try as they would, the russians could not get release from the terrible grasp of the frenchmen. the breath left their bodies, their eyes protruded, their faces turned black. marteau suddenly released his prisoner, who dropped heavily to the ground. to bind him with his own breast and gun straps and belt was a work of a few moments. when he had finished he tore a piece of cloth from the coat of the soldier and thrust it into his mouth to gag him. the grenadier had a harder time with his enemy, who was the bigger of the two men, but he, too, mastered him, and presently both prisoners lay helpless, bound and gagged. the two frenchmen rose and stared at each other, a merry twinkle in the eyes of old bullet-stopper, a very puzzled expression in those of the young soldier. "well, here's our disguise," said the old soldier. "quite so," interposed the officer. "but what shall we do with these two?" "nothing simpler. knock them in the head after we have found out what we can from them, and----" but marteau shook his head. "i can't murder helpless prisoners," he said decisively. "if you had seen what they did to us in russia you wouldn't have any hesitation on that score," growled the grenadier. "i had comrades whom they stripped naked and turned loose in the snow. some of them they buried alive, some they gave to the wolves, some they burned to death. i have no more feeling for them than i have for reptiles or devils." "i can't do it," said the younger soldier stubbornly. "we must think of some other way." old bullet-stopper stood frowning, trying to think of some argument by which to overcome these foolish scruples, when an idea came to his friend. "about half a mile back we passed a deserted house. let's take them there and leave them. there will probably be ropes or straps. we can bind them. they will be sheltered and perhaps somebody may come along and release them." "yes, doubtless somebody will," said the grenadier gravely, thinking that if somebody proved to be a peasant their release would be an eternal one, and glad in the thought. "very well, you are in command. give your order." at marteau's direction the straps around the feet of the men were loosened, they were compelled to get up; they had been disarmed, of course, and by signs they were made to march in the required direction. casting a backward glance over the encampment, to see whether the absence of the three had been noticed, and, discerning no excitement of any sort, marteau followed the grenadier and the two prisoners. half a mile back in the woods stood the hut. it was a stoutly built structure, of logs and stone. a little clearing lay around it. for a wonder it had not been burned or broken down, although everything had been cleaned out of it by raiders. the door swung idly on its hinges. the two russians were forced to enter the hut. they were bound with ropes, of which there happened to be some hanging from a nail, the door was closed, huge sticks from a surrounding fence were driven into the ground against it, so that it could not be opened from the inside, and the men were left to their own devices. as neither frenchman spoke russian, and as the russians understood neither french nor prussian, conversation was impossible. everything had to be done by signs. "i wouldn't give much for their chance, shut up in that house in this wood," said the grenadier, as the two walked away. "nor i," answered marteau. "but at least we haven't killed them." the two frenchmen now presented a very different appearance. before they left the hut they had taken off their own great coats, the bearskin shako of the grenadier, and the high, flat-topped, bell-crowned cap of the line regiment of the officer. in place of these they wore the flat russian caps and the long russian overcoats. bal-arrêt might serve for a passable russian, but no one could mistake marteau for anything but a frenchman. still, it had to be chanced. the two retraced their steps and came to the ravine, where the dead russian lay. they had no interest in him, save the grenadier's desire to get his knife back. it had served him well, it might be useful again. but they had a great interest in the pig. their exhausted horses were now useless, and they had thought they would have to kill one to get something to eat. but the pig, albeit he was a lean one, was a treasure indeed. to advance upon the russian line in broad daylight would have been madness. darkness was their only hope. reaching down into the ravine, the grenadier hoisted the body of the poor pig to his comrade, and the two of them lugged it back far in the woods where it was safe to kindle a fire. with flint and steel and tinder, they soon had a blaze going in the sequestered hollow they had chosen, and the smell of savory roast presently delighted their fancy. they ate their fill for the first time in weeks be it remarked. if they only had a bottle of the famous wine of the country to wash it down they would have feasted like kings. "so far," said the grenadier, when he could eat no more, "our expedition has been successful. if those youngsters down at nogent could only smell this pig there would be no holding them." "i think it would be well to cook as much of it as we can carry with us. i don't know when we may get any more." "that is well thought on," agreed the old soldier. "always provide for the next meal when you can." "and, with what's left, as we can't be far from the hut, we'll give those two poor russians something to eat." "you're too tender-hearted, my lad," said bullet-stopper, his face clouded, "ever to be a great soldier, i am afraid." on an expedition of this kind rank was forgotten, and the humble subordinate again assumed the role of the advisor. marteau laughed. "rather than let them starve i would knock them in the head," he said. "that's what i wanted to do," growled the other savagely. when it came to the issue, however, he really did respect the rank of his young friend. accordingly, pieces of the roast pig were taken to the hut and placed in reach of the prisoners, who were found bound as before and looking very miserable. yet there was something suspicious in their attitude. the old grenadier turned one of them over and discovered that one had endeavored to free the other by gnawing at the ropes. not much progress had been made in the few hours that had elapsed, but still it was evident that the rope would eventually be bitten through and the men freed. he pointed this out to his officer. "better finish them now," he said. but marteau shook his head. "it will take them all day and night to get free at that rate; by that time we will be far away, and it will be too late." "but if they should tell what they have seen?" "what can they tell? only that two frenchmen fell upon them. no, let them be. set the food on the floor here. if they get hungry they can roll over toward it and eat it." the gags had been taken out of the mouths of the men. if they did give the alarm there would be none to hear them, save perhaps a french peasant passing that way, and at his hands they would meet short shrift. having stuffed their haversacks full of roast pig, they retraced their steps and reached the edge of the clearing. it was noon by this time, so much of the day had been spent in the various undertakings that have been described, but the russians were still there. evidently they intended to encamp for the day and rest. probably it was part of the program. these would move on, presumably on the morrow, and another division of the army would come up and take their places. the firing still continued on the horizon. marteau, who had a soldierly instinct, divined that the cavalry, which had long since disappeared to the westward, would try to outflank macdonald, perhaps get in his rear, and this russian division would move up and join yorck's attacking force. the whole proceeding was leisurely. there was no especial hurry. there was no use tiring out the men and fighting desperate battles when maneuvering would serve. the two made a more careful investigation and discovered that trees led across the road about half a mile to the left, and, although the roads were filled with galloping couriers and many straggling men and small commands, yet they decided that by going to the edge of the wood that touched the road and watching their opportunity they could get across unnoticed. while they stared deliberating a squadron of cavalry, not of cossacks, but of russian cuirassiers left the camp and moved off down the cross-road that led to the south and west--the road, indeed, that led to the château d'aumenier. the officer in command rode in front and with him were several civilians, at least, while they were covered with heavy fur cloaks, no uniform was visible, and among the civilians was one unmistakably a woman. a frenchman always had an eye for a woman. the party was too far away to distinguish features, but the two men noted the air of distinction about the party and the way the woman rode her horse, the deference that appeared to be paid to her, and they wasted no little time in wondering what might be toward. however, no explanation presenting itself to their minds, and, the matter being of no great importance after all, they turned their attention to the business in hand. working their way through the trees they reached a little coppice close to the road. they lay down on the ground back of the coppice, wormed their way into it, and waited. "here we part," said marteau. "there are but two of us. we must get all the information we can. i will find out what division this is in front of us, and i will go back along the road to the eastward and ascertain where the other divisions are, and by nightfall i will return to sézanne to report to the emperor." "and what am i to do?" asked the grenadier. "remain here?" "you will cross the road and proceed in the direction of the firing. find out, if you can, how the battle goes, what troops are there, what marshal macdonald is doing, and at nightfall retrace your steps and hasten back to sézanne." "where shall i meet you?" "let me think," answered marteau. "i shall first go east and then west, if i can get around that division ahead yonder. let us take the road to d'aumenier. i will meet you at the old château at ten o'clock, or not later than midnight. there is a by-road over the marsh and through the forest by the bank of the river to sézanne." "i know it." "very well, then. it is understood?" old bullet-stopper nodded. "the road is clear," he said. "good luck." the two men rose to their feet, shook hands. "we had better go separately," said marteau. "you have the longer distance. you first. i will follow." the officer watched the old grenadier anxiously. he passed the road safely, ran across the intervening space, and disappeared in a little clump of fruit trees surrounding a deserted farmhouse. the young man waited, listening intently for the sound of a shot or struggle, but he heard nothing. then he turned, stepped out into the road, saw it was empty for the moment, set his face eastward, and moved across it to see what he could find out beyond. chapter v when the cossacks passed for the first time in years the great hall of the château d'aumenier was brightly lighted. the ancient house stood in the midst of a wooded park adjacent to the village, overlooking one of the little lakes whose outlets flowed into the morin. in former days it had been the scene of much hospitality, and, even after the revolution in the period of the consulate and the early empire, representatives of the ancient house had resided there, albeit quietly and in greatly diminished style. the old marquis henri, as uncompromising a royalist soldier as ever lived, had fled to england and had remained there. his younger brother, robert, compromising his dignity and his principles alike, had finally made his submission to napoleon and received back the estates, or what had not been sequestrated. but he had lived there quietly, had sought no preferment of the government--even rejecting many offers--and had confined his recognition to as narrow limits as possible. he had married and there had been born to him a daughter, whom he had named after the ancient dames of his honorable house, laure. the count d'aumenier, living thus retired, had fallen into rather careless habits after the death of his wife, and the little demoiselle had been brought up indifferently indeed. dark, brown-eyed, black-haired, she had given promise of beauty to come. left to her own devices she had acquired accomplishments most unusual in that day and by no means feminine. she could ride, shoot, swim, run, fence, much better than she could dance the old courtly minuet, or the new and popular waltz, just beginning to make its appearance. a love of reading and an ancient library in which she had a free range had initiated her into many things which the well-brought-up french girl was not supposed to know, and which, indeed, many of them went to their graves without ever finding out. the count had a well-stored mind, and on occasion he gave the child the benefit of it, while leaving her mainly to her own devices. few of the ancient nobility had come back to the neighborhood. their original holdings had been portioned out among the new creations of the imperial wizard, and with them the count held little intercourse. laure d'aumenier had not reached the marriageable age, else some of the newly made gentry would undoubtedly have paid court to her. she found companions among the retainers of her father's estate. the devotion of some of them had survived the passionate hatreds of the revolution and, failing the marquis, who was the head of the house, they loyally served his brother, and with pride and admiration gave something like feudal worship and devotion to the little lady. the marquis, an old man now, had never forgiven his brother, the count, for his compromise with principle and for his recognition of the "usurper," as he was pleased to characterize napoleon. he had refused even to accept that portion of the greatly diminished revenue of the estate which the younger brother had regularly remitted to the marquis' bankers in london. the whole amount lay there untouched and accumulating, although, as were many other emigrés, the marquis frequently was hard pressed for the bare necessities of life. with every year, as bonaparte--for that was the only name by which he thought of him--seemed to be more and more thoroughly established on the throne, the resentment of the marquis had grown. latterly he had refused to hold any communication with his brother. the year before the battle of the nations, or just before napoleon set forth on his ill-fated russian adventure, count robert d'aumenier died. with an idea of amendment, which showed how his conscience had smitten him for his compromise, he left everything he possessed to his brother, the marquis, including his daughter, laure, who had just reached her sixteenth year. with the will was a letter, begging the marquis to take the young demoiselle under his charge, to complete that ill-begun and worse-conducted education, the deficiencies of which the father too late realized, in a manner befitting her station, and to provide for her marriage with a proper portion, as if she had been his own daughter. the marquis had never married himself, lacking the means to support his rank, and it was probable that he never would marry. the marquis was at first minded to refuse the bequest and to disregard the appeal, but an old retainer of the family, none other than jean marteau, the elder, complying with count robert's dying wish, had taken the young countess laure across the channel, and had quietly left her in her uncle's care, he himself coming back to act as steward or agent for the remaining acres of the shrunken aumenier domain; for the marquis, having chosen a course and walked in it for so many years, was not minded even for the sake of being once more the lord of aumenier to go back to france, since the return involved the recognition of the powers that were. old jean marteau lived in his modest house between the village and the château. and the château had been closed for the intervening time. young jean marteau, plodding along the familiar way, after a day full of striking adventure and fraught with important news, instantly noticed the light coming through the half moons in the shutters over the windows of the château, as he came around a brow of the hill and overlooked the village, the lake and the castle in the clearing. the village was as dark as the château was light. marteau was ineffably weary. he had been without sleep for thirty-six hours, he had ridden twenty leagues and walked--heaven only knew how many miles in addition. he had extricated himself from desperate situations only by his courage, daring, and, in one or two cases, by downright fighting, rendered necessary by his determination to acquire accurate information for the emperor. he had profited, not only by his instruction in the military school, but by his campaigning, and he now carried in his mind a disposition of the russian forces which would be of the utmost value to the emperor. the need of some rest, however, was absolute. marmont's troops, starting out at the same time he had taken his departure, would barely have reached sézanne by this time, so much more slowly did an army move than a single person. the emperor, who had intimated that he would remain at nogent until the next day, would scarcely undertake the march before morning. aumenier lay off to the northwest of sézanne, distant a few miles. if the young aide could find something to eat and get a few hours' sleep, he could be at sézanne before the emperor arrived and his information would be ready in the very nick of time. with that thought, after staring hard at the château in some little wonderment, he turned aside from the road that led to its entrance and made for the village. his mother had died the year before; his father and his sister, with one or two attendants, lived alone. there was no noble blood in marteau's veins, as noble blood is counted, but his family had been followers and dependents of the aumeniers for as many generations as that family had been domiciled in france. young jean marteau had not only been laure d'aumenier's playmate, but he had been her devoted slave as well. to what extent that devotion had possessed him he had not known until returning from the military school he had found her gone. the intercourse between the young people had been of the frankest and pleasantest character, but, in spite of the sturdy respectability of the family and the new principles of equality born of the revolution, young marteau realized--and if he had failed to do so his father had enlightened him--that there was no more chance of his becoming a suitor, a welcome suitor, that is, for the hand of laure d'aumenier than there was of his becoming a marshal of france. indeed, as in the case of many another soldier, that last was not an impossibility. men infinitely more humble than he in origin and with less natural ability and greatly inferior education had attained that high degree. if napoleon lived long enough and the wars continued and he had the opportunity, he, too, might achieve that coveted distinction. but not even that would make him acceptable to count robert, no matter what his career had been; and even if count robert could have been persuaded the old marquis henri would be doubly impossible. so, on the whole, jean marteau had been glad that laure d'aumenier had gone out of his life. he resolved to put her out of his heart in the same way, and he plunged with splendid energy into the german campaign of , with its singular alternations of success and failure, of victory and defeat, of glory and shame. he had been lucky enough to win his captain's commission, and now, as a major, with a position on the staff of the emperor, he could look forward to rapid advancement so long as the emperor lasted. with the bright optimism of youth, even though affairs were now so utterly hopeless that the wise old marshals despaired, marteau felt that his foot was on the first rung of the ladder of fame and prosperity, and, in spite of himself, as he had approached his native village, he had begun to dream again, almost to hope. there was something ominous, however, in the appearance of the village in that dark gray evening hour. there were no barking dogs, no clucking hens, no lowing cattle, no sounds of childish laughter, no sturdy-voiced men or softer-spoken women exchanging greetings. the stables and sheds were strangely silent. the village was a small one. he turned into it, entered the first house, stumbled over a corpse! the silence was of death. with a beating heart and with a strength he did not know he possessed, he turned aside and ran straight to his father's house. standing by itself it was a larger, better and more inviting house than the others. the gate of the surrounding stone wall was battered off the hinges, the front door of the house was open, the garden was trampled. the house had been half destroyed. a dead dog lay in front of the door. he could see all that in the half light. he ran down the path and burst into the wrecked and plundered living room. a few feeble embers still glowed in the broad hearth. from them he lighted a candle standing on the mantel shelf. the first sight that greeted him was the body of his sister, her torn clothing in frightful disarray, a look of agony and horror upon her white set face under its dishevelled hair. she was stone dead. he knelt down and touched her. she was stone cold, too. he stared at her, a groan bursting from his lips. the groan brought forth another sound. was it an echo? lifting the candle, he looked about him. in a far corner lay a huddled human body. he ran to it and bent over it. it was his father. knowing the house like a book, he ran and fetched some water. there were a few mouthfuls of spirits left in a flask of vodka he had found in the russian's overcoat. he bathed his father's face, forced a few drops of the strong spirit down his throat, and the old man opened his eyes. in the flickering light he caught sight of the green cap and coat. "curse you," he whispered. "my father!" cried the young officer. "it is i." "my son!" "what has happened?" "the cossacks--i fought for the honor of your sister. where----" the old man's voice faltered. "she is dead yonder," answered the son. "thank god," came the faint whisper from the father. "mademoiselle laure--she--the wagon-train--the castle----" his voice died away, his eyes closed. frantically the young man recalled his father to his senses again. "it's no use," whispered the old man, "a ball in the breast. i am going. what do you here?" "on the service of the emperor," answered the young officer. "father, speak to me!" "alas--poor--france," came the words slowly, one by one, and then--silence. marteau had seen death too many times not to know it now. he laid the old man's head gently down, he straightened his limbs, he went over to the form of the poor girl. to what horrors she had been subjected--like every other woman in the village--before she died! like his father, he thanked god that she was dead. he lifted her up tenderly and laid her down on a huge settle by the fireplace. he stood a moment, looking from one to the other. the irreligion of the age had not seized him. he knelt down and made a prayer. having discharged that duty, he lifted his hands to heaven and his lips moved. was he invoking a curse upon these enemies? he turned quickly and went out into the night, drawing the door behind him, fastening it as tight as he could. he forgot that he was hungry, that he was thirsty, that he was tired, that he was cold. for the moment he almost forgot his duty toward his emperor and france, as he walked rapidly through the trees toward the great house. but as he walked that stern obligation came back to him. his sister was dead, his father murdered. well, the first cossack he came upon should pay. meanwhile there was his duty. what had his father said? "the cossacks--the wagon-train--the countess laure." what did it mean? part of it was plain enough. the cossacks had raided the village, his father had been stricken down defending his daughter, his sister had died. that was easy, but the wagon-train, the castle, the countess laure? could she have come back? was that the occasion for the lights in the château? that body of cavalry that he had seen leaving sacken's men that morning with the civilians--was she that woman? the mystery would be solved at the château. and it was there he had arranged to meet his comrade, anyway. he stopped and looked back at the devastated village. already a light was blazing in one of the houses. it would soon be afire. he could do nothing then. the château called him. he broke into a run again, heavy-footed and tired out though he was. around the château in the courtyard were dozens of wagons. his experienced glance told him that they were army wagons, containing provisions, arms, ammunition. some of the covers had been raised to expose the contents. there was not a living man present, and scarcely a living horse. there had been some sort of a battle evidently, for the wagons were in all sorts of confusion and there were dead men and horses everywhere. he did not stop to examine them save to make sure that the dead men were french, proving that the convoy had come from paris. he threaded his way among the wagons and finally reached the steps that led to the broad terrace upon which rose the château. the main door was open. there were no soldiers about, which struck him as peculiar, almost terrifying. he went up the steps and across the terrace, and stopped before the building, almost stumbling over the bodies of two men whose uniforms were plainly russian! he inspected them briefly and stepped toward the door of the entrance hall. it was open but dimly lighted, and the light wavered fitfully. the faint illumination came into the hall from a big broad open door upon the right, giving entrance to what had been the great room. still keeping within the shadow, he moved carefully and noiselessly into the hall, until he could get a view of the room beyond. a huge fire was burning in the enormous fireplace. the many tables with which the room had been furnished had been pushed together in the center, several tall candles pulled from the candelabra and fastened there by their own melted wax stood upon these tables and added their illumination to the fire-light. several men in uniforms, two of them rough-coated cossacks, and two whose dress showed clearly that they belonged to the russian imperial guard, lay on the floor, bound and helpless. a stout, elderly man, in civilian garb, with a very red face and an angry look, his wig awry, was lashed to a chair. between two ruffianly looking men, who held her firmly, stood a woman. there were perhaps two dozen other men in the room, unkempt, savage, brutal, armed with all sorts of nondescript weapons from ancient pistols to fowling pieces, clubs and scythes. they were all in a state of great excitement, shouting and gesturing madly. the woman standing between the two soldiers was in the full light. so soon as he caught sight of her marteau recognized her. it was laure d'aumenier. she had grown taller and more beautiful than when he had seen her last as a young girl. she had been handled roughly, her clothes were torn, her hair partially unbound. her captors held her with an iron grasp upon her arms, but she did not flinch or murmur. she held herself as erect and looked as imperious as if she had been on a throne. chapter vi marteau bargains for the woman the sight of her predicament filled the young frenchman with rage and horror. drawing his pistol, he strode into the room. what he intended to do, or how he intended to do it was not clear even to him. there stood the woman he loved in the clutch of wretches whose very touch was pollution. he must help her. all duties and intentions gave way to that determination. a dead silence fell over the room as he entered and the people caught sight of him. he stood staring at the occupants and they returned his stare in good measure. finally the biggest ruffian, who seemed to be the leader, found his voice and burst out with a savage oath: "another russian! well, the more the merrier." he raised a huge horse pistol as he spoke. his words were greeted with jeers and yells from the band. with a flash of inspiration marteau, realizing into what he had been led, dropped his own weapon and instantly threw up his hands. "i am french, messieurs," he cried loudly as the pistol clattered on the floor at his feet. "what are you doing in that uniform, then?" roared the leader. marteau tore open the heavy green coat, disclosing beneath it his french uniform. he had a second to make up his mind how to answer that pertinent question. he was quite in the dark as to the meaning of the mysterious situation. he opened his mouth and spoke. "it is quite simple," he began, "i am----" what should he say? what was he? were these men for the emperor or for the king, or were they common blackguards for themselves? the latter was probably the true state of the case, but did it please them to pose as royalists? he took a long chance after a quick prayer because he wanted to live not so much for himself as for the woman. "i am deserting the emperor," he said. "i am for the king." "no king could have brought us to worse straits than we are now in," said the leader, lowering his pistol uncertainly, but still keeping the young man covered. "right, my friend," continued marteau exultantly, realizing that he had made the right choice. "bonaparte is beaten, blücher is marching on paris, schwarzenberg has the emperor surrounded. i thought i might as well save myself while i had the chance, so i stole this russian coat to keep myself from freezing to death, and here i am. i belong to aumenier." "you'll join us, then?" "with pleasure. who do you serve?" "ourselves," laughed the leader grimly. "we're from fére-champenoise way. we're all of the village and countryside that the cossacks and the prussians have left of our families. we're hungry, starving, naked. do you hear? we were hiding in the woods hard by to-day. there was a wagon-train. a regiment of cossacks surprised it, killed its defenders, brought it here. we saw it all." "and where are the cossacks gone?" asked the young man, coolly picking up his pistol from the floor and nonchalantly sitting upon the nearest table in a careless way which certainly belied the beating of his heart. he took careful notice of the men. they were ignorant fellows of the baser sort, half-mad, starving, ferocious peasants, little better than brute beasts, made so by the war. "an order came for them. they marched away, leaving a company of other soldiers like those yonder." he pointed to the men on the floor. "and what became of them?" "there was an attack from the woods at night--a little handful of french soldiers. they beat them off and followed them down the road. they have been gone half an hour. we heard the firing. we came out thinking to plunder the train. we opened wagon after wagon but found nothing but arms. we can't eat steel or powder. we killed two sentries, made prisoners of the officers. we'll set fire to the house and leave them presently. as for this man, we'll kill him, and as for this woman----" he laughed meaningly, basely, leering at the girl in hideous suggestiveness that made her shudder; and which his wretched companions found highly amusing. "you have done well," said the young officer quickly, although he was cold with rage at the ruffian's low insinuation. "i hope to have some interest with the king later. if you will give me your names i will see that you are rewarded." "never mind our names," growled the leader, still suspicious, evidently. "food and drink would reward us better now," shouted a second. "aye," yelled one of the others, seconding this happy thought. "we have eaten nothing since yesterday, and as for drink, it is a week since my lips have tasted a swallow of wine." "and what would you give me if i could procure you some of the fine wine of the country, my friends?" said marteau quietly, putting great restraint upon himself to continue trafficking with these scoundrels. "give? anything," answered several in chorus, their red eyes gleaming. "if you've got it we'll take it for nothing," said the brutal leader with ferocious cunning. "do i look as if i concealed wine and provisions on my person?" asked the officer boldly, confident now that he had found the way to master these men. "no," was the answer. "but where is it?" "and be quick about it," cried a second threateningly. "those russians may be back at any moment." "is this a jest?" asked a third with a menacing gesture. "it would be ill-done to joke with men as hungry as you are, i take it," answered marteau. "hurry, then," cried a fourth. "in good time, my friends. first, a word with you. what are you going to do with those two prisoners?" "knock the men in the head, i told you," answered the leader. "and the woman?" "we are trying to settle who should have her--first." "it's a pity there's only one, still----" began another. "i'll make a bargain with you, then," interrupted marteau quickly, fingering his weapon while he spoke. "food and drink in plenty for you, the woman for me." "and what do you want of the woman?" "before i was a soldier i lived in aumenier, i told you. i served these people. this woman is an aristocrat. i hate her." it was an old appeal and an old comment but it served. these were wild days like those of the revolution, the license and rapine and ravagings of which some of the older men present could very well recall. "she treated me like dirt under her feet," went on the officer. "now i want to have my turn." "marteau!" cried the woman for the first time, recognizing him as he turned a grim face toward her, upon which he had very successfully counterfeited a look of hatred. "is it indeed----" "silence," thundered the young soldier, stepping near to her and shaking his clenched fist in her face. "these worthy patriots will give you to me, and then----" there was a burst of wild laughter throughout the room. "it's these cursed aristocrats that have brought these hateful russians upon us," cried one. "give her to the lad and let us have food and drink," cried another. "he'll deal with her," cried a third. "you hear?" asked the chief. "i hear," answered marteau. "listen. my father kept this house for its owners. he is dead in the village yonder." "the wine, the wine," roared one, licking his lips. "food. i starve," cried another, baring his teeth. "wait. naturally, fleeing from the army, i came to him. my sister is dead too, outraged, murdered. you know?" "yes, yes, we know." "i want to get my revenge on someone and who better than she?" the young officer did not dare again to look at the young woman. he could feel the horror, the amazement, the contempt in her glance. was this one of the loyal marteaux? "make her suffer for us!" "our children!" "our mothers!" "our daughters!" cried one after the other, intoxicated with their wrongs, real or fancied, their faces black with rage, their clenched hands raised to heaven as if invoking vengeance. "have no fear," said marteau. "because of my father's position i know where the wine cellar is, and there is food there." "lead on," said the chief. "we've talked too much." "this way," replied the young captain, lifting the only candlestick from the table. "leave two men to watch the woman and give the alarm, the rest follow me." marteau knew the old castle like a book. he knew where the keys were kept. chatting carelessly and giving them every evidence of his familiarity, he found the keys, unlocked the doors, led them from room to room, from level to level, until finally they reached the wine cellar. it was separated from the cellar in which they stood by a heavy iron-bound oaken door. in spite of his easy bearing and manner, suspicions had been aroused in the uneasy minds of the rabble, but when marteau lifted the candle and bade them bring their own lights and see through an iron grating in the door what the chamber beyond contained and they recognized the casks and bottles, to say nothing of hams, smoked meats and other eatables, their suspicions vanished. they burst into uproarious acclamation. "hasten," cried the leader. "this is the last door." "have you the key?" "it is here." marteau lifted the key, thrust it in the lock and turned it slowly, as if by a great effort and, the door opening outward, he drew it back. "enter," he said. "help yourselves." with cries of joy like famished wolves the whole band poured into the wine cellar. all, that is, but marteau. as the last men entered he flung the door to and with astonishing quickness turned the key in the lock and turned away. the door had shut with a mighty crash, the noise had even stopped the rioting plunderers. the first man who had seized a bottle dropped it crashing to the floor. all eyes and faces turned toward the door. the last man threw himself against it frantically. it held as firmly as if it had been the rock wall. they were trapped. the leader was quicker than the rest. he still had his weapon. thrusting it through the iron bars of the grating in the door he pulled the trigger. there was a mighty roar, a cloud of smoke, but fortunately in the dim light his aim was bad. marteau laughed grimly. "enjoy yourselves, messieurs. the provisions are good and you may eat as much as you like. the wine is excellent. drink your fill!" the next instant he leaped up the stairs and retraced his steps. it was a long distance from the wine-cellar to the great room, but through the grating that gave entrance to the courtyard the sound of shots had penetrated. one of the ruffians, committing the woman to the care of the remaining man, started to follow his comrades. he had his pistol in his hand. he went noisily, muttering oaths, feeling that something was wrong but not being able to divine exactly what. marteau heard him coming. he put the candle down, concealed himself and, as the man came, struck him heavily over the head with the butt of his remaining pistol. he fell like a log. leaving the candle where it was, the young officer, dispossessing his victim of his pistols, entered the hall and, instead of entering the great room by the door by which he had left it, ran along the hall to the main entrance and thus took the remaining brigand in the rear. this man was one of those who had seized the countess laure. in spite of herself the girl started as the officer appeared in the doorway. the man felt her start, wheeled, his eyes recognized the officer. he had no pistol, but his fingers went to his belt and with the quickness of light itself he hurled a knife straight at marteau. the woman with equal speed caught the man's arm and disturbed his aim. her movement was purely instinctive. according to his own words she had even more to fear from marteau than from this ruffian. the young officer instantly dropped to his knees and as he did so presented his pistol and fired. the knife whistled harmlessly over his head and buried itself in the wood paneling of the door. the bullet sped straight to its mark. the unfortunate blackguard collapsed on the floor at the feet of the girl, who screamed and shrank back shuddering. "now, mademoiselle," said the young man, advancing into the room, "i have the happiness to inform you that you are free." chapter vii a rescue and a siege the woman stared at him in wild amazement. that she was free temporarily at least, could not be gainsaid. her captors had not seen fit to bind her and she now stood absolutely untouched by anyone. the shooting, the fighting, had confused her. she had only seen marteau as an accomplice and friend of her assailants, she had no clew to his apparent change of heart. she did not know whether she had merely exchanged masters or what had happened. smiling ironically at her bewilderment, which he somehow resented in his heart, marteau proceeded to further explanation. "you are free, mademoiselle," he repeated emphatically, bowing before her. "but i thought----" "did you think that i could be allied with such cowardly thieves and vagabonds as those?" "but you said----" "it was simply a ruse. could you imagine that one of my family, that i, should fail in respect and devotion to one of yours, to you? i determined to free you the instant i saw you." "and will you not complete your good work?" broke out the man tied to the chair in harsh and foreign but sufficiently comprehensible french, "by straightway releasing me, young sir?" "but who is this?" "this is sir gervaise yeovil," answered mademoiselle laure, "my attorney, an english officer-of-the-law, of lord castlereagh's suite, who came with me from chatillon to get certain papers and----" "why all this bother and explanation?" burst out sir gervaise. "tell him to cut these lashes and release me from this cursed bondage," he added in english. "that is quite another matter, sir," said marteau gravely. "i regret that you are an enemy and that i can not----" "but we are not enemies, monsieur," cried one of the officers, who had just succeeded in working a gag out of his mouth. "we are russian officers of the imperial guard and since you have deserted the cause of the corsican you will----" "deserted!" thundered marteau, his pale face flaming. "that was as much a ruse as the other." "what, then, do you mean by wearing a russian coat over your uniform and----" "he is a spy. he shall be hanged," said the other, also freeing himself of his gag. "indeed," laughed marteau. "and do you gentlemen ask me to release you in order that you may hang me?" "i won't hang you," burst out the englishman. "on the contrary, i'll give you fifty pounds if you'll cut these cords and----" marteau shook his head. "countess," bellowed yeovil angrily, "there's a knife on the table yonder, pray do you----" the young woman made a swift step in that direction, but the frenchman was too quick for her. "pardon me, mademoiselle, i beg that the first use you make of your new life be not to aid my enemies." "your enemies, marteau?" "the enemies of france, then." "not my uncle's france," said the girl. "but your father's, and i had hoped yours." "no, no." "in any event, these gentlemen must remain bound for the time being. no harm shall come to you from me," continued marteau, addressing the two officers. "but as for these hounds----" he stepped over to the two cossacks, who lay mute. he bent over them with such a look of rage, ruthless determination and evil purpose in his face as startled the woman into action. "monsieur!" she cried, stepping over to him and striving to interpose between him and the two men. "marteau, what would you do?" "my sister--dead in the cottage yonder after--after----" he choked out. he stopped, his fingers twitching. "my old father! if i served them right i would pitch them into yonder fireplace or torture them, the dogs, the cowards!" "my friend," said the young countess gently, laying her hand on his arm. marteau threw up his hands, that touch recalled him to his senses. "i will let them alone for the present," he said. "meanwhile----" he seized the dead man and dragged the body out of sight behind the tables. "will monsieur give a thought to me?" came another voice from the dim recesses of a far corner. "and who are you?" asked marteau, lifting the light and staring. "a frenchman, sir. they knocked me on the head and left me for dead, but if monsieur would assist me i----" marteau stepped over to him, bent down and lifted him up. he was a stout, hardy looking peasant boy, pale cheeked, with blood clotted around his forehead from a blow that he had received. feverish fire sparkled in his eyes. "if monsieur wishes help to put these brutes out of the way command me," he said passionately. "we will do nothing with them at present," answered marteau. "quick, laure, the knife," whispered the englishman. the frenchman heard him, however, and wheeled around. "mademoiselle," he cried, "on your honor i charge you not to abuse the liberty i have secured for you and that i allow you." "but, my friends----" "if you had depended on your friends you would even now be----" he paused--"as my sister," he added with terrific intensity. "your pleasure shall be mine," said the young woman. "if i could have a drink of wine!" said the young peasant, sinking down into a chair. "there is a flask which they did not get in the pocket of one of the officers yonder," said the young frenchwoman, looking sympathetically at the poor exhausted lad. marteau quickly recovered it, in spite of the protestations of the officer, who looked his indignation at this little betrayal by the woman. he gave some of it to the peasant and then offered it to mademoiselle and, upon her declining it, took a long drink himself. he was weak and trembling with all he had gone through. "now, what's to be our further course?" asked the countess. "i don't know yet. i----" but the answer was never finished. shots, cries, the sound of galloping horses came faintly through the open door. "my men returning!" cried the russian officer triumphantly. "our turn will come now, sir." two courses were open. to run or to fight. duty said go; love said stay. duty was stronger. after a moment's hesitation marteau dashed for the door. he was too late. the returning russian cavalry was already entering the courtyard. fate had decided against him. he could not go now. he thought with the swiftness of a veteran. he sprang back into the hall, threw the great iron-bound door into its place, turned the massive key in its lock, thanking god that key and lock were still intact, dropped the heavy bars at top and bottom that further secured it, just as the first horseman thundered upon the door. in his rapid passage through the house the young frenchman had noticed that all the windows were shuttered and barred, that only the front door appeared to have been opened. he was familiar with the château. he knew how carefully its openings had been secured and how often his father had inspected them, to keep out brigands, the waifs and strays, the wanderers, the low men of the countryside. for the moment he was safe with his prisoners, one man and a boy guarding a score of men and one woman, and holding a château against a hundred and fifty soldiers! fortunately, there would be no cannon with that troop of cavalry, there were no cannon in that wagon train, so that they could not batter down the château over his head. what his ultimate fate would be he could not tell. could he hold that castle indefinitely? if not, what? how he was to get away and reach napoleon with his vital news he could not see. there must be some way, however. well, whatever was to be would be, and meanwhile he could only wait developments and hold on. the troopers outside were very much astonished to find the heavy door closed and the two sentries dead on the terrace. they dismounted from their horses at the foot of the terrace and crowded about the door, upon which they beat with their pistols, at the same time shouting the names and titles of the officers within. inside the great hall marteau had once more taken command. in all this excitement laure d'aumenier had stood like a stone, apparently indifferent to the appeals of the four bound men on the floor and the englishman in the chair that she cut the ropes with which they were bound, while the french officer was busy at the door. perhaps that young peasant might have prevented her, but as a matter of fact, she made no attempt to answer their pleas. she stood waiting and watching. just as marteau reëntered the room the chief russian officer shouted out a command. from where he lay on the floor his voice did not carry well and there was too much tumult outside for anyone to hear. in a second marteau was over him. "if you open your mouth again, monsieur," he said fiercely, "i shall have to choose between gagging and killing you, and i incline to the latter. and these other gentlemen may take notice. you, what are you named?" "pierre lebois, sir," answered the peasant. "can you fire a gun?" "give me a chance," answered the young fellow. "i've got people dead, yonder, to avenge." the brigands had left the swords and pistols of the officers on chairs, tables and the floor. there were eight pistols. marteau gathered them up. the english baronet yielded one other, a huge, heavy, old-fashioned weapon. "there are loopholes in the shutters yonder," said the officer. "do you take that one, i will take the other. they will get away from the door in a moment and as soon as you can see them fire." "mademoiselle," said the russian officer desperately, "i shall have to report to the commander of the guard and he to the czar that you gave aid and comfort to our enemies." "but what can i do?" asked the young woman. "monsieur marteau could certainly shoot me if i attempted----" "assuredly," said marteau, smiling at her in a way anything but fierce. it was that implicit trust in her that restrained her and saved him. as a girl the young countess had been intensely fond of jean marteau. he certainly appeared well in his present role before her. in the revulsion of feeling in finding him not a bully, not a traitor, but a devoted friend and servitor, he advanced higher in her estimation than ever before. besides, the young woman was by no means so thoroughgoing a loyalist as her old uncle, for instance. "i can see them now, monsieur," said the young peasant from the peep-hole in the shutter. indeed, the men outside had broken away from the door, groups were running to and fro seeking lights and some other entrance. taking aim at the nearest marteau pulled the trigger and pierre followed his example. the noise of the explosions was succeeded by a scream of anguish, one man was severely wounded and another killed. something mysterious had happened while they had been off on the wild goose chase apparently, the russians decided. the château had been seized, their officers had been made way with, it was held by the enemy. "they can't be anything more than wandering peasants," cried an imperious voice in russian outside. "i thought you had made thorough work with them all, scoref," continued the speaker. "your cossacks must have failed to complete the job." "it will be the first time," answered scoref, the _hetman_ of the raiders. "look, the village burns!" "well, what's to be done now?" said the first voice. "i don't know, baron," was the answer. "besieging castles is more in your line than in mine." "shall we fire again, monsieur?" asked pierre within. "no," was the answer. "remember we've only got eight shots and we must wait." "let us have lights," cried the commander of the squadron. "here, take one of those wagons and----" in a few moments a bright fire was blazing in the courtyard. "the shots came from those windows," continued the russian. "keep out of the way and---- isn't that a window open up there?" "it is, it is!" came the answer from a dozen throats. all the talk being in russian was, of course, not understood by the two frenchmen. "one of you climb up there," continued the russian. "you see the spout, and the coping, that buttress? ten roubles to the man who does it." a soldier sprang forward. those within could hear his heavy body rub along the wall. they did not know what he was doing or what was toward. they were in entire ignorance that a shutter had become detached from its hinges in the room above the drawing-room and that they would soon have to face an attack from the rear. the man who climbed fancied himself perfectly secure, and indeed he was from those within. it was a hard climb, but presently he reached the window-ledge. his hands clasped it, he made a brave effort, drew himself up and on the instant from beyond the wagons came a pistol shot. the man shrieked, released his hold and fell crashing to the ground. the besiegers broke into wild outcries. some of them ran in the direction whence the shot had come. they thought they caught the glimpse of a figure running away in the darkness. pistols were fired and the vicinity was thoroughly searched, but they found nothing. the shot, the man's cry overhead, the body crashing down to the ground, enlightened marteau. he handed pierre two of the six remaining pistols, told him to run to the floor above and watch the window. the young peasant crossed himself and turned away. he found the room easily enough. it was impossible to barricade the window, but he drew back in the darkness and waited. having found no one in the grove beyond the baggage-wagons, the russians called for another volunteer and a second man offered. pierre heard him coming, permitted him to gain the ledge and then thrust the pistol in his face and pulled the trigger. at the same time a big cossack coming within easy range and standing outlined between the loophole and the fire, marteau gave him his second bullet, with fatal effect. there flashed into his mind that the shot which had come so opportunely from outside bespoke the arrival of his friend, the grenadier. he hoped the man would have sense enough to go immediately to sézanne and report the situation. if he could maintain the defense of the castle for two hours he might be rescued. he stepped to the hall and called up to pierre. receiving a cheery reply to the effect that all was well and that he would keep good watch, he came back into the great hall and resumed his ward. chapter viii a trial of allegiance mademoiselle d'aumenier had seated herself at a table and remained there in spite of the entreaties and black looks of the prisoners. marteau did not dare to leave his loophole, but the necessity for watching did not prevent him from talking. the men outside seemed to have decided that nothing more could be done for the present. they withdrew from out of range of the deadly fire of the defenders and, back of the wagons, kindled fires, and seemed to be preparing to make a night of it. the best officers of the detachment were prisoners in the château. the subordinate who had been entrusted with the pursuit was young and inexperienced; the cossack commander was a mere raider. they themselves belonged to the cavalry. they decided, after inspecting the whole building carefully as nearly as they dared in view of the constant threat of discharge, that they would have to wait until morning, unless something occurred to them or some chance favored them. they trusted that at daylight they would have no difficulty in effecting an entrance somewhere. a total of three men dead and one wounded, to say nothing of the sentries and officers, had a discouraging effect on night work. they did not dream that there was an enemy, a french soldier, that is, nearer than troyes. they supposed that the castle had been seized by some of the enraged country people who had escaped the cossacks and that they could easily deal with them in the morning. incidentally, the wine cellars in which the peasants had been shut had openings to the outer air, and through them came shouts and cries which added to the mystification of the besiegers and increased their prudence. the walls of the château were massive, the floors thick, the wine cellar far away, and no sound came from them to the inmates of the great hall. indeed, in the exciting adventure that had taken place, the raiders had been completely forgot by marteau and the others. the conversation in the hall was not animated. the countess laure, womanlike, at last began to ask questions. "monsieur marteau," she asked persuasively, "will you hear reason?" "i will hear anything, mademoiselle, from you," was the instant reply. "think of the unhappy state of france." "i have had reason enough to think of it to-night, mademoiselle. my father and my sister----" his voice faltered. "i know," said the girl sympathetically, and, indeed, she was deeply grieved for the misfortunes of the faithful and devoted old man and the young girl she had loved. she waited a moment and then continued. "the emperor is at last facing defeat. his cause is hopeless." "he yet lives," answered the soldier softly. "yes, of course," said the woman. "i do not understand the military situation, but my friends----" "will monsieur allow me the favor of a word?" interposed the chief russian officer courteously. "if it is not to summon assistance you may speak," replied marteau. "as a soldier you know the situation as well as i," continued the russian. "prince von schwarzenberg has napoleon in his grasp. he will hold him until he is ready to seize him, while field-marshal blücher takes paris." "the emperor yet lives," said marteau, repeating his former remark with more emphasis and smiling somewhat scornfully. "it is not wise to portion the lion's skin while it covers his beating heart," he added meaningly. "not even the genius of your emperor," persisted the russian more earnestly, "will avail now, monsieur. he is lost, his cause as well. why, this very convoy tells the story. we intercepted letters that told how pressing was its need. your army is without arms, without food, without clothes." "it still has its emperor." "death!" cried the russian impatiently. "must we kill him in order to teach you a lesson?" "you will not kill him while there is a soldier in france to interpose his body." "very heroic, doubtless," sneered the russian, beginning to get angry. "but you know your cause is lost." "and if it were?" "be reasonable. there are many frenchmen with the allied armies. your rank is----?" "i am a major on the emperor's staff if you are interested to know." "major marteau, i have no doubt that my interest with my emperor, the czar alexander, with whom i am remotely connected--i may say i am a favorite officer in his guard--would doubtless insure you a colonel's commission, perhaps even that of a general of brigade, with my gracious master, or in the army of king louis after we have replaced him on his throne if----" "if what?" "if you release us, restore us to our command. permit us to send for horses to take the place of those we have killed to take the wagons of the valuable convoy to our own army." "and you would have me abandon my emperor?" "for the good of france," urged the russian meaningly. "will you answer me a question, monsieur?" continued the young man after a moment's deep thought. "certainly, if it be not treason to my master." "oh, you have views on treason, then," said the frenchman adroitly and not giving the other time to answer he continued. "to what corps are you attached?" "count sacken's." "and whose division?" "general olsuvieff's." "monsieur," said the young frenchman calmly, "it is more than probable that before to-morrow your division will be annihilated and the next day the corps of general sacken may meet the same fate." the russian laughed scornfully at what seemed to him the wildest boasting. "are you mad?" "not so mad as you will be when it happens." the russian controlled himself with difficulty in the face of the irritating observations. "and who will do this?" he asked, at last. "the emperor." "does he command the lightning-flash that he could hurl the thunder-bolt from troyes?" "upon my word, i believe he does," laughed the frenchman. "this is foolish jesting, boy," broke out the englishman. "i am a man of consideration in my own country. the lady here will bear me out. i offered you fifty pounds. i will give you five hundred if you will release us and----" "and i offer you my--friendship," said the countess, making a long pause before the last word. how much of it she meant or how little no one could say. any ruse was fair in war like this. marteau looked at her. the color flamed to her cheek and died away. it had flamed into his cheek and died away also. "gentlemen," he said, "you offer me rank, money----" he paused--"friendship----" he shot a meaning glance at the young girl. he paused again. "well?" said the russian. "speak out," said the englishman. "your answer, lad?" "i refuse." "don't be a fool," roared sir gervaise bluntly. "i refuse, i repeat," said marteau. "while the emperor lives i am his man. not rank, not money, not friendship, not love itself even could move me. enough, gentlemen," he continued imperiously as the two russians and the englishman all began to speak at once. "no more. such propositions are insults." "there is another appeal which ought to be brought to your attention, young sir," said the second russian officer when he could be heard. "and what is that?" "your life. you know that as soon as day breaks the château will be seized. you are a self-confessed spy. you came here wearing a russian uniform. as soon as we are released we shall hang you as a spy. but if you release us now, on my word of honor you shall go free." "monsieur is a very brave man," said marteau smiling. "why?" "to threaten me with death while he is in my power. you are the only witnesses. i could make way with you all." "you forget the countess and the english gentleman." "although the countess is the enemy of france----" "nay, nay, the friend," interposed the girl. "be it so. although she is the enemy of the emperor then, i cannot believe that she could condemn to death by her testimony the man who has saved her from worse than death, and as for the english gentleman----" "damme if i'd say a word to hurt you, if only for what you have done for her, whether you release me or not," cried yeovil. "you see?" "monsieur jean," said the countess, "you put me under great obligations to you." "by saving your life, your honor, mademoiselle! i gladly----" "by giving me your confidence," interrupted the girl, who in her secret heart was delighted at the stand the young officer had taken. she would have despised him if he had succumbed to the temptation of which she herself was part. "i could do no less, mademoiselle," returned marteau. "i and my forbears have served your house and known it and loved it for eight hundred years." "i know it," answered the girl. "i value the association. i am proud of it." "and since you know it and recognize it perhaps you will tell me how you happen to be here." "willingly," answered mademoiselle laure. "the estates are to be sold. there are deeds and papers of value in the château without which transactions could not be completed. i alone knew where they were. with monsieur yeovil, my uncle's friend and the father of----" she hesitated and then went on, "so i came to france." "but with the invading armies----" "there was no other way. the czar alexander gave me a safe conduct. a company of his guards escorted us. sir gervaise yeovil was accredited to lord castlereagh, but with his permission he brought me here first. my uncle was too old to come. arrived here we found the cossacks, the wagon-train. there was a battle, a victory, pursuit. then those villains seized us. they stole upon us unsuspecting, having murdered the sentries, and then you came." "i see. and have you the papers?" "they are---- not yet, but i may take them?" "assuredly, so far as i am concerned," answered marteau, "although i regret to see the old estate pass out of the hands of the ancient family." "i regret it also, but i am powerless." "we played together here as children," said marteau. "my father has kept it well since. your father died and now mine is gone----" "and i am very sorry," answered the young woman softly. marteau turned away, peered out of the window and sank into gloomy silence. chapter ix the emperor eats and rides sézanne was a scene of the wildest confusion that night. it was congested with troops and more and more were arriving every minute. they entered the town in fearful condition. they had been weary and ragged and naked before. now they were in a state of extreme prostration; wet, cold, covered with mud. the roads were blocked with mired artillery, the guns were sunk into the mud to the hubs, the tired horses could no longer move them. the woods on either side were full of stragglers, many of whom had dropped down on the wet ground and slept the sleep of complete exhaustion. some, indeed, sick and helpless, died where they lay. everything eatable and drinkable in sézanne had vanished as a green field before a swarm of locusts when marmont's division had come through some hours before. the town boasted a little square or open space in the midst. a huge fire was burning in the center of this open space. a cordon of grenadiers kept the ground about the fire clear of stragglers. suddenly the emperor rode into the midst. he was followed by a wet, cold, mud-spattered, bedraggled staff, all of them unutterably weary. intense resolution blazed in the emperor's eyes. he had had nothing to eat or drink since morning, but that ancient bodily vigor, that wonderful power of endurance, which had stood him in such good stead in days gone by, seemed to have come back to him now. he was all fire and energy and determination. so soon as his presence was known, couriers reported to him. many of them he stopped with questions. "the convoy of arms, provisions, powder," he snapped out to an officer of marmont's division approaching him, "which was to meet us here. have you seen it?" "it has not appeared, sire." "has anything been heard of it?" "nothing yet, your majesty." "have you scouted for it, sent out parties to find it? where is the comte de grouchy?" "i come from him, sire. he is ahead of the duke of ragusa's corps." "has he come in touch with the enemy?" "not yet, sire." "the roads?" "worse than those we have passed over." "marshal marmont?" "i was ordered by general grouchy to report to him and then----" "well, sir?" "he sent me back here." "for what purpose?" "to find you, sire, and to say to you most respectfully from the marshal that the roads are absolutely impassable. he has put four teams to a gun and can scarcely move them. to advance is impossible. he but awaits your order to retrace his steps." "retrace his steps!" shouted napoleon, raising his voice. "never! he must go on. our only hope, our only chance, salvation lies in an instant advance. he knows that as well as i." "but the guns, sire?" "abandon the guns if necessary. we'll take what cannon we need from the enemy." and that admission evidenced the force with which the emperor held his convictions as to the present movement. great, indeed, was the necessity which would induce napoleon to order the abandonment of a single gun. "but, sire----" "monsieur," said napoleon severely, "you are a young officer, although you wear the insignia of a colonel. know that i am not accustomed to have my commands questioned by anyone. you will return to marshal marmont at once. exchange your tired horse for one of my own. i still have a fresh one, i believe. and spare him not. tell the duc de ragusa that he must advance at all hazards. advance with the guns if he can, if not then without them. stay, as for the guns---- where is the mayor of the town?" "here, sire," answered a plain, simple man in civilian's dress standing near. "are there any horses left in the countryside, monsieur?" "many, your majesty, wherever the russians have not passed." "i thought so. gentlemen," the emperor turned to his staff, "ride in every direction. take the mounted escort. bid them scatter. go to every village and farm. ask my good french people to bring their horses in, to lend them to the emperor. it is for france. i strike the last blow for them, their homes, their wives and children. fortune smiles upon us. the enemy is delivered into our hands. they shall be liberally rewarded." "the men are hungry," cried a voice from a dark group of officers in the background. "they are weary," exclaimed another, under cover of the darkness. "who spoke?" asked the emperor, but he did not wait for an answer, perhaps he did not care for one. "i, too, am hungry, i, your emperor, and i am weary. i have eaten nothing and have ridden the day long. there is bread, there are guns in the field-marshal's army. we shall take from blücher all that we need. then we can rest. you hear?" "we hear, sire." "good. whose division is yonder?" "mine, sire," answered marshal ney, riding up and saluting. "ah, prince," said napoleon, riding over toward him. "michael," he added familiarly as he drew nearer, "i am confident that the prussians have no idea that we are nearer than troyes to them. we must get forward with what we can at once and fall on them before they learn of our arrival and concentrate. we must move swiftly." "to-morrow," suggested ney. "to-night." "the conscripts of my young guard are in a state of great exhaustion and depression. if they could have the night to rest in----" napoleon shook his head. "advance with those who can march," he said decisively. "we must fall on blücher in the morning or we are lost." "impossible!" ejaculated ney. "i banished that word from my vocabulary when i first went into italy," said napoleon. "where are your troops?" "here, your majesty," answered ney, turning, pointing back to dark huddled ranks drooping over their muskets at parade rest. napoleon wheeled his horse and trotted over to them. the iron hand of ney had kept some sort of discipline and some sort of organization, but the distress and dismay of the conscripts was but too plainly evident. "my friends," said the emperor, raising his voice, "you are hungry----" a dull murmur of acquiescence came from the battalion--"you are weary and cold----" a louder murmur--"you are discouraged----" silence. "some of you have no arms. you would fain rest. well i, your emperor, am weary, i am hungry, i am old enough to be the father of most of you and i am wet and cold. but we must forget those things. you wonder why i have marched you all the day and most of the night through the cold and the wet and the mud. the prussians are in front of us. they are drawn out in long widely separated columns. they have no idea that we are near them. one more effort, one more march, and we shall fall upon them. we shall pierce their lines, cut them to pieces, beat them in detail; we shall seize their camps, their guns, their clothes, their food. we shall take back the plunder they have gathered as they have ravaged france. they have stolen and destroyed and murdered--you have seen it. one more march, one more battle for----" he hesitated a moment--"for me," he said with magnificent egotism and audacity. "i have not forgotten how to lead, nor you to follow. we will show them that at the great game of war we are still master players. come, if there be one too weary to walk, he shall have his emperor's horse and i will march afoot as i have often done for france." he spoke with all his old force and power. the tremendous personal magnetism of the man was never more apparent. the young men of ney's corps thrilled to the splendid appeal. there was something fascinating, alluring in the picture. they hated the prussians. they had seen the devastated fields, the dead men and women, the ruined farms. the light from the fire played mystically about the great emperor on his white horse. he seemed to them like a demi-god. there were a few old soldiers in the battalion. the habit of years was upon them. "_vive l'empereur_," one veteran shouted. another caught it up and finally the whole division roared out that frightful and thrilling battle cry in unison. "that's well," said the emperor, a little color coming into his face. "if the lads are of this mettle, what may i expect of the old soldiers of the guard?" "forward! forward!" shouted a beardless boy in one of the front ranks. "you hear, marshal ney?" said napoleon, turning to his fighting captain. "with such soldiers as these i can go anywhere and do anything." "your majesty," cried a staff officer, riding up at a gallop, "the peasants are bringing their horses in. there is a section of country to the eastward which has not yet been ridden over by the enemy." "good," said the emperor. "as fast as they come up dispatch them to marmont. you will find me there by the fire in the square for the next hour. meanwhile i want the next brigade of horse that reaches sézanne to be directed to scout in the direction of aumenier for that missing wagon-train for which we----" there was a sudden confusion on the edge of the line. the grenadiers forming a circle around the fire had caught a man wearing a russian greatcoat and were dragging him into the light. "what's this? _mon dieu_!" exclaimed napoleon, recognizing the green uniform which he had seen on many a battlefield. "a russian! here!" "a soldier of france, sire," came the astonishing answer in excellent french from the supposed prisoner. at this amazing remark in their own tongue the bewildered grenadiers on guard released him. he tore off the green cap and dashed it to the ground. "give me a shako. let me feel the bearskin of the guard again," he cried impetuously, as his hands ripped open his overcoat, disclosing his uniform. "i am a grenadier of the line, sire." napoleon peered down at him. "ah," he said, "i know you. you are called----" "bal-arrêt, your majesty." "exactly. have you stopped any more this time?" "there is one in my left arm. your guards hurt when they grasped it. but it is nothing. i didn't come here to speak of bullets, but of----" "what?" "the russians, the prussians." "where did you get that coat and cap?" "i rode with jean marteau," answered the grenadier, greatly excited. "what of him? is he alive?" "i think so." "did you leave him?" "i did, sire." "and why?" "to bring you news." "of marshal blücher's armies?" the grenadier nodded his head. "what of them? quick man, your tidings? have you been among them?" "all day long." "where are they?" "general yorck with his men is at Étampes." "and macdonald?" "fighting a rearguard action beyond château-thierry." "on what side of the marne?" "the north side, sire. right at la ferte-sous-jouarre." "what else?" "sacken's russians are advancing along the main road through montmirail toward paris. olusuvieff's russian division is at champaubert." "and where are blücher and wittgenstein and wrede?" "major marteau will have to tell you that, sire. he went that way." "you separated?" "yes, sire." "you were to meet somewhere?" "at the château d'aumenier." "did you go there?" "i did, sire." "and you found?" "the ground around the château filled with wagons." "a train?" "of arms, clothing, ammunition, everything the army lacks." "what was it doing there?" "there had been a battle. horses and men were slain; frenchmen, cossacks, russians. i pillaged one wagon," continued the grenadier. he drew forth from the pocket of the coat a bottle and a handful of hard bread, together with what remained of the roast pig. "will you share your meal with a brother soldier?" asked the emperor, who was ordinarily the most fastidious of mortals, but who could on occasion assume the manner of the rudest private soldier. "gladly," said the proud and delighted grenadier, handing the bottle, the bread and the meat to napoleon, who took them and drank and ate rapidly as he continued to question amid the approving murmurs of the soldiers, who were so delighted to see their emperor eat like a common man that they quite forgot their own hunger. "what were the wagons doing there unguarded?" "i think the men who captured the train were pursuing its guard. just as i approached the chateau they came riding back. i remained quiet, watching them ride up to the door of the house, which they found barred apparently, for i could hear them beat on it with the butts of their sabers and pistols. they built a fire and suddenly i heard shots. by the light i could see russians falling. it came into my mind that major marteau had seized the castle and was holding it." "alone?" "one soldier of yours, sire, ought to be able to hold his own against a thousand russians, especially inside a castle wall." "and what did you then?" "i made ready my pistol, sire, and when i saw a man climbing the wall to get in an open window i shot him." "and then?" "they ran after me, fired at me but i escaped in the darkness." "you ran?" "because i knew that you must have the news and as marteau was there it was necessary for me to bring it." "you have done well," said the emperor in great satisfaction. "i thank you for your tidings and your meal. i have never tasted a better. do you wish to go to the rear?" "for a scratch in the arm?" asked old bullet-stopper scornfully. "i, who have carried balls in my breast and have some there now?" "i like your spirit," said the emperor, "and i will----" at this instant a staff officer rode up. "general maurice's cavalry is just arriving, sire," he said. "good," said the emperor. "the brave light-horseman! my sword hand! i will ride with him myself. tell the comte de vivonne to lead his division toward aumenier, i will join him at once." he turned to those of his staff who remained in the square. "remain here, gentlemen. tell the arriving troops that at daybreak we shall beat the russians at champaubert. bid them hasten if they would take part in the victory and the plunder. the rest will be easy." "and you, sire?" "i ride with the cavalry brigade to aumenier. tell the men that the wagon-train has arrived. we shall seize it. food, arms, will be distributed in the morning. is that you, maurice?" he continued, as a gallant young general officer attended by a few aides rode up. "at your service, sire," answered a gay voice. "your cavalry?" "weary but ready to follow the emperor anywhere." "forward, then. there is food and drink at the end of our ride. it is but a few miles to aumenier." "may i have a horse and go with you, sire?" asked the old grenadier. "assuredly. see that he gets one and a cross of the legion of honor, too. come, gentlemen," continued the emperor, putting spurs to his tired horse. chapter x how marteau won the cross for a long time the besiegers had given little evidence of their presence. through the loop-holes in the shutters fires could be seen burning, figures coming and going. they were busy about something, but just what was not apparent. they had been unmolested by the defenders. marteau had but three pistols and therefore three shots left. pierre, upstairs, had but one. to kill one or two more russians would not have bettered their condition. the pistols should be saved for a final emergency. he had called up to pierre and had cautioned him. there was nothing to do but to wait. from time to time the silence was broken by snatches of conversation. as, for instance, the countess laure, observing that marteau wore upon his breast the grand cross of the legion of honor, thus began, "you wear a great decoration for a simple----" she stopped awkwardly. "for a simple peasant you were about to say, mademoiselle," answered marteau, smiling with a little touch of scorn. "in france to-day even a simple peasant may deserve and receive the favor of the emperor." "i am sure that you are worthy of whatever distinction you may have achieved, monsieur," said the countess gently, grieved at her lack of consideration and anxious to make amends. "and as one who takes pride in all associated with her ancient house will you tell me how you got that?" "it was at leipsic." "ah, we beat you there," said one russian meaningly. "yes," said marteau. "perhaps after having seen your backs so many times we could afford to turn ours upon you once." "i was there," said the other russian triumphantly. "were you also at friedland, at eylau, at borodino, at----" began marteau angrily. "gentlemen!" said the countess. "forgive, mademoiselle," said the frenchman quickly. "i, at least, will not fight our battles over in the presence of a woman." "but the cross?" "it was nothing. i saved an eagle. the emperor bestowed it on me." "tell me about it." "i was on the bridge at leipsic when it was blown up by that fatal mistake. the port-aigle was torn to pieces. the colonel seized the eagle as it fell from his hand. i was next to him--afoot. a storm of bullets swept over the river. as the colonel on his horse was pushed over the parapet by the flying fugitives a shot struck him. he had just strength enough to gasp out, 'save the eagle' as he was swept away. i was lucky enough to catch the staff--a bullet had broken it--i seized the upper half with the eagle and the flag which had almost been shot to pieces during the battle--the fifth-of-the-line had done its full duty that day--and i swam with it toward the bank. really, mademoiselle, any soldier would have done as well. i only happened to be there." "go on, monsieur, i wish to hear everything." "at your pleasure, then," said marteau reluctantly, continuing his story. "the river was filled with men and horses. marshal poniatowski was near me. he had been wounded, and guided his swimming horse with his left hand. the current was swift. we were swept down the stream. a cavalryman next to me was shot from his horse. he fell over upon me. i was forced under water a moment. another horse, swimming frantically, struck my shoulder with his hoof, fortunately it was the left one. my arm was broken. i seized the tatters of the flag in my teeth--you know i am an expert swimmer, mademoiselle?" "i know it," answered the girl, her eyes gleaming at the recital. "have you forgot the day when, disregarding your warnings, i fell into the river and was swept away and how you plunged in and brought me to the shore and never told my father?" "i have not forgot," said the young officer simply, "but it was not for me to remind you." "and i have not forgot, either. but continue the story," said the young countess, her eyes shining, her breath coming quicker, as she listened to the gallant tale so modestly set forth. "with my right arm i swam as best i could. there was a horse nearby which had lost his rider. i grasped the saddle horn. somehow i managed to reach the shore with the eagle. i clambered up the bank, slippery with water and with blood, mademoiselle. the russians were firing at us from the town. a bullet struck me." "where?" "i am ashamed to say, in the back," said the soldier, flushing at the recollection. "but if i had stood up and faced them the eagle would have been lost." the russian laughed scornfully. "in the back," he cried meaningly, "a fine place for a soldier!" "shame," said the countess quickly. "if i had faced them," returned the french soldier simply, "i should have been shot in the breast and killed, perhaps, but i should have lost the eagle. it was my business to save the eagle at all hazards, even though i should be branded with cowardice for having done so," he went on hotly. "i understand," said the countess. "i, who have known you from a child, know that you are a brave man, monsieur. proceed." "i staggered up the bank. fortune had brought me to the place where the emperor stood watching. there were staff officers about him. oh, very few. the slaughter had been dreadful, the confusion was inconceivable, mademoiselle. they made way for me. how well i remember the whole scene," continued the young frenchman. "the emperor stood a little apart, his face pale, his head bent. he was frowning and whistling." "whistling! damme," burst out sir gervaise yeovil, deeply interested in the unpretentious account of so heroic a deed. "what was he whistling?" "_malbrook-s'en-va-t'en-guerre_." "by gad," roared the englishman. "marlborough beat you. just wait until we come in touch with you." "there was no napoleon there," observed marteau simply, as if that were adequate answer. "napoleon or no napoleon, wait until wellington----" "we shall wait." "pardon, monsieur yeovil," said the countess, "will you not allow monsieur marteau to proceed?" "there is little more to tell, mademoiselle. the emperor saw me come up. i was wet, my arm hung useless, the bullet had gone through my body. there was blood on my uniform coat. i thought that i was dying, that my end was at hand. my strength was ebbing. i concentrated all my will and power. holding the eagle, i lifted it up in salute. 'what have we here?' cried the emperor, fixing his glance upon me. 'lieutenant marteau,' i answered. his voice came to me as in a dream and my own voice sounded far away. 'of what regiment?' 'the fifth-of-the-line, sire.' 'you have saved the eagle.' 'yes, sire,' i replied. and then consciousness left me. as i fell i heard the emperor say, 'see that he gets the legion of honor if he survives.' people caught me in their arms. when i woke up i was in france. here, at aumenier, in my father's house." young marteau did not add to his story that, as he fell, he heard the emperor, deeply moved, exclaim: "with such men what resources does not france possess?" "and did the emperor give you the cross?" eagerly asked the girl. "it was forgot until a few days since. when i recovered i rejoined the regiment. to take the duty of an officer suddenly ill i happened to be stationed on service near the emperor at nogent. when others were urging him to make terms, i, though a young soldier, ventured to express myself to the contrary." "and then?" "his majesty pardoned the liberty, recognized me, gave me his own cross, made me a major on his staff." "and the eagle?" "it is still carried at the head of what remains of the fifth-of-the-line," said the young man proudly. "when we have taken your emperor we will do away with those eagles, and after we restore her rightful king to france we shall give her back her ancient flag of golden lilies," said the russian. "precisely," said marteau sharply. "when you have taken the emperor you may do all that. the men who have made france so great under him will care little what you do, monsieur, under such circumstances." "and why will they be so indifferent, monsieur jean?" asked the countess curiously. "they will be dead, mademoiselle, and their emperor, too, unless god preserve his life for some future use." "happy," said the young girl, "is the man who can inspire such devotion, monsieur. although i have been trained differently i think that----" what the countess thought was never said for at that instant the door at the farther end of the great room was thrown open suddenly with a violent crash, and into the apartment came crowding the score of villains and scoundrels who had been imprisoned below stairs. they had managed to break out in some way and had returned to the great hall to seize again their captives and to wreak their vengeance upon their betrayer. they had got at the wine and were inflamed with drink as well as revenge and savage passion. they had realized, of course, that some enemies were outside but they had not clearly grasped the situation. all they thought of at the time were the people in the great hall. they came crowding through the big doorway, several of them handling pistols and all of them shouting savage and fearsome cries of revenge and triumph. instantly the pistols were presented, the triggers pressed and half a dozen bullets swept through the room. marteau had seen the first movement of the door. he had divined what had happened. before the pistols had been leveled he was by the side of the countess. the table at which she sat was a huge and heavy one. with one movement he hurled her, chair and all, to the floor, with the other he threw the table on its side in front of her. one of the bullets grazed his cheek, the others swept harmlessly through the room. he seized from another table two of his remaining pistols and discharged them squarely into the face of the crowding mass at the other end of the room at point-blank range. the sounds of the shots still echoed when he cried out: "the knife, countess. cut the bonds of the prisoners. we must fight here for our lives and your honor." the countess laure was quick to understand. "you are safe now. they have no more shots. hasten," he urged, reaching down a hand and assisting her to her feet. he clutched the barrels of his pistols thereafter and hurled them directly into the faces of the infuriated men. five of them were down and his prompt action had given the people in the room a little respite. "gentlemen," cried marteau, sweeping out his sword and stepping into the open space between the prisoners and the overturned table on one hand and the renegades on the other, "quick, take your swords for the honor of the countess and for your lives." the man who led the renegades had some idea of military tactics. he spoke a few sharp words and half a dozen of them backed out of the room, entered the outer hall and ran around to the door on the side of the apartment which gave access to the great hall. the little band of defenders retreated into a corner near the fireplace, which was raised a step or two above the floor of the room. meanwhile laure had cut the lashings of the russians, the cossacks, and the englishman. they staggered to their feet numb from their long bondage, but inspired by the frightful imminence of their peril they seized their swords and presented a bold front to the two-sided enemy. there was one pistol left charged. marteau handed that to the girl. "the last shot, mademoiselle," he said meaningly, "for yourself if----" "i understand." "if you could only get to the door," growled the russian commander, "my men outside would make short work of----" "it is impossible until we have dealt with these villains," said marteau. "on guard!" he cried as the marauders suddenly leaped forward. the big englishman, burly, tremendously powerful for all his advancing years, dropped his sword for a moment, picked up one of the heavy oak chairs and hurled it full into the face of the larger body at the further end of the room. one stumbled over it, two others fell. the next moment both parties were upon the little group. in their haste, in their drunken excitement, the marauders had not thought to recharge their pistols. with swords, scythes and clubs they fell on the six men. their numbers worked to their disadvantage. three of the men surrounding the woman, the frenchman and the two russian guardsmen, were accomplished swordsmen. the cossacks were not to be disdained in rough-and-tumble fighting and the englishman was a valiant ally. their racial antagonisms were forgot in their common danger and the deadly peril of the woman. the swords of the soldiers flashed as they thrust and parried. the cossacks, less skillful, strove to beat down the attackers by sweeping slashes--not the best method for such close fighting. one cossack was pierced through the breast by a thrust from a renegade and another was cut from his neck almost to his heart by a blow from a scythe. one of the russian officers was wounded, fell to his knees and was dispatched. the englishman was hit by a billet of wood and dazed. marteau and the other russian were still unharmed. but it was going hard with them. in fact, a fierce blow on his blade from a bludgeon shivered the weapon of the frenchman. a sword was aimed at his heart. there was a blinding flash, a detonation, and the man who held it staggered back. the countess, the last pistol almost touching the man's body, had pulled the trigger. marteau seized the sword of the man who had menaced him. the next instant the château was shaken by a terrific roar. the russians outside having constructed a rude bomb had blown up the door. for a second the combat ceased. the hall was full of smoke. from outside came shots, shrieks, cries, loud curses and groans, cheers, french and russian voices, the galloping of horses, words of command. the french were there. "to me," shouted marteau at the top of his voice. "france!" the first to heed the call was young pierre. he descended the hall, watched the conflict a moment and, having possessed himself of a club, battered down the man nearest him, unsuspecting an attack from the rear, then ranged himself by the side of the surviving russian and the frenchman. he did not come through scathless, however, for one of the renegades cut him fiercely as he passed. he stood erect by an effort of will but it was evident he could now add little to the defense. the russian took the pistol from his hand. the next second the great hall was filled with shouting figures of soldiers. into the smoke and confusion of the room came napoleon. chapter xi an emperor and a gentleman "the emperor!" cried marteau. the russian officer recognized napoleon as quickly as the other. the emperor advanced, the soldiers crowding after threw themselves upon the renegades immediately, while the emperor strode forward alone. the young russian noble was a quicker witted man than his countrymen ordinarily were. he saw a chance to end everything then and there, to do his country a great service, although his life would be forfeited instantly in the doing of it. "my chance," he shouted, raising pierre's pistol. the shot was an easy one. it was impossible to miss. marteau had stepped forward. the thrill in the tones of the man's voice attracted his attention. one glance and he saw all. he threw himself in front of the emperor just as the russian pressed the trigger. at the same moment the countess laure, who stood nearest him, struck up the russian's arm. the bullet buried itself in the ceiling above. "thank god!" cried marteau as the sound died away and he saw the emperor standing unharmed. napoleon's keen eye had seen everything. "it is this lady," said he gracefully, "to whom my safety is due. and i am not unmindful that you interposed your own body between the bullet and your emperor." "your majesty," cried marteau, now that his emperor was safe, fain to discharge his duty, "i have tidings of the utmost importance. i have held this château and detained this convoy the russians had captured. it contains powder, food, guns----" "i know," said the emperor. "it comes in the nick of time." "and i have to report, sire, that the corps of wittgenstein, wrede and of the field-marshal blücher, himself, are strung out at long intervals to the eastward of champaubert. they have no idea of your proximity." "are the divisions in supporting distance of one another?" "no, sire. olsuvieff's division lies isolated at champaubert. as to the divisions of sacken and yorck i think----" "i have already received information concerning them," said the emperor, "from your friend, bullet-stopper. he should be here." "i am here, your majesty," roared the grenadier, stepping forward, "and saving your imperial presence i am glad to see the lad. it was i," continued the grenadier, addressing marteau and presuming on the familiarity with which napoleon sometimes treated his men, "that fired the shot that brought the man down from the window." "and that shot saved us," said young marteau. "this young peasant here----" he bent over pierre--"he is not dead, sire, but sorely wounded--he kept them out up there while we held the room here." "but these?" asked napoleon, looking at the prisoners. "renegades who had taken advantage of the absence of the russians pursuing the escort to the wagon-train to seize the castle." "why did you not impress them for the defense thereof?" asked the emperor. "they were french undoubtedly----" "i found them fighting against us." rapidly and in few words marteau told the story of the night, touching lightly upon his own part, but the emperor was soldier enough to read between the words of the narration and reconstruct the scene instantly. he turned to one of his officers. "take those scoundrels out. put them up against the wall and shoot them out of hand. they disgrace the name of france. bid the surgeons of the command come here to look to the wounded." "they are past hope, except the french boy, your majesty," said yeovil, who having recovered his own consciousness speedily had been examining them meanwhile. "i have some skill in wounds. one cossack is already dead. it would be a mercy to put that other out of his misery with that horrible scythe slash." "the russian officer?" "gone, too." "and who are you?" "i am a barrister," answered the englishman in bad but comprehensible french. "a man of the law. you look it not," said the emperor, smiling faintly. "necessity makes us all resort to the sword," said sir gervaise, looking at his bloody blade, for he had fought valiantly with the rest and would have been killed but he had been knocked senseless with that billet of wood which had hit him on the head and felled him to the floor. "you are, by your language, an englishman." "i am, and proud of it." "the english," said napoleon slowly, "have been my bitterest enemies." "pardon, sire," said the russian bluntly, "we children of the white czar will dispute that honor with them." "and you sought to kill me?" said the emperor, turning upon the other. "you are a brave man," he added. "and i would have done so but for----" "bah!" interrupted napoleon contemptuously. "the bullet is not molded that is destined for me. my career is not to be cut short by the hand of any young boy who wears the uniform of the russian guard. silence, monsieur! take him prisoner. see that he be kept under close guard. when we have taken olsuvieff's division to-morrow and then sacken's there will be many of his comrades to bear him company to paris. did any of the men outside escape?" "no, sire," answered general maurice, entering the room just in time to hear the question. "the wood around the château was completely filled with my men. those we have not killed here we have taken prisoner. most of them were shot down as they strove to break through." "that is well," said the emperor. "and the convoy?" asked general maurice. "detach a regiment to escort it back to sézanne. let it be distributed to the regiments and divisions as they arrive." "and those who have gone on ahead?" "their arms, equipment and provisions are in the hands of the prussians. we shall march immediately. as for you, mademoiselle, what is your name?" "i am the comtesse laure d'aumenier." "h'm, the daughter of the comte robert d'aumenier, who made his submission to the empire and received back his estates, i believe?" "the same, sire." "where is he?" "dead, sire, these two years." "and you?" "i went to my uncle in england." "to the enemy!" exclaimed napoleon sharply. "to the enemy," answered the countess, looking at him courageously. "and you came back for what purpose?" "the estates are to be sold. there were certain papers of which i alone knew the hiding place. there was no way for me to reach them save by the courtesy of the czar alexander. he sent me to field-marshal blücher with instructions to provide me with an escort to this château. the field-marshal did so, and the rest you know." "and you propose to sell estates that have been in the hands of the family for so long a period? it seems to me that i visited them once when i was a military student at brienne. was not your uncle there at the time, an officer in command?" "i have heard him say so." "i remember him very well now." "and he you, your majesty." "and he intends now to sell the estates?" "he did, sire, but now that there is a possibility of the re--of the----" "the return of the bourbons," said napoleon, divining her thought as the countess paused in confusion, "there is no possibility of that, mademoiselle. in three weeks the armies opposing me will have been hurled back beyond the frontier. your family has forfeited its rights to any consideration at my hands. your uncle is an _emigré_ who has never made his submission. i find you, a frenchwoman, in the company of my enemies. your estates are forfeited. major marteau, i make you comte d'aumenier. the domains are yours." "i accept them, your majesty." "what! is it possible----" cried the countess laure, her face flaming. "silence, mademoiselle. by the laws of war i could have you shot. it would be a fine example. no frenchman, however high in rank and station, no frenchwoman, however young or beautiful, can fight against me and france with impunity. have you anything to say why i should not mete out to you this well-deserved punishment?" "nothing," said the young woman with proud disdain. "the revolution has taken the lives of many of my people. i am not better than they. you are the very spirit of the revolution incarnate, sire, and----" "your majesty," interposed general maurice. "well, sir?" said napoleon. general maurice, a famous light horseman, otherwise known as the count de vivonne, was an old friend and a devoted follower of the emperor. he had interfered before on occasion between napoleon and his victims. he knew the emperor thoroughly and loved him. he realized that it was his time to interpose, or someone's, and he had intuition enough to suspect that his interposition would be most welcome, that indeed napoleon was playing, as he sometimes loved to do, a little comedy. with a wave of his hand the general checked marteau, whom he knew slightly, who had sprung forward to protest to the emperor at the words of the woman he loved. "allow me a word, sire," asked the general with that exquisite mixture of courtesy, deference and resolution which characterized his intercourse with the emperor. "i am always glad to hear from you, my good maurice," said the emperor familiarly. "what have you to say?" "this young woman is no traitor to you or to france, sire, however strange her position." "how do you make that out?" asked the emperor, the flickering of a smile playing about his lips. "it was her hand that struck up the russian's pistol so that the bullet went there," the general of cavalry pointed upward a moment and then his hand fell until his index finger was trained upon the emperor's heart, "instead of there," he added meaningly. "very good," said the emperor graciously. "but had she not struck up that hand it was in marteau's heart that the bullet would have lodged, not in mine, if i remember rightly." "and if that gives me a claim, sire, to your consideration----" "have i not rewarded you enough," asked the emperor, "in adding the official stamp of a patent to the nobility of heart which is already yours and by giving you the forfeited lands of aumenier to boot?" "and i would give them all for the safety of the lady yonder, whose family mine have served for eight hundred years, with whom i played when a boy, and be content to follow your majesty as the simple soldier i have always been." "brave heart and true," said the emperor, touched. "mademoiselle, you cannot go back to blücher. within two days his army will be no more. i will give you a safe conduct. you can remain here for the night. couriers will be dispatched to troyes and to paris under escort in the morning. they will take you there. you have friends there, i presume?" "many." "you can remain there or, if opportunity arises, i will give orders to have you safely conducted so you can go back to england." "and me, sire?" growled out sir gervaise yeovil. the emperor laughed. "i am too good a soldier to fight with men of the law," he said. "you may go with your protégée and share her fortunes." "i thank your majesty," said the englishman, touched in his blunt nature by this extraordinary magnanimity. "i will report your consideration to my king and his people and----" "and say to them that i long for the moment when i can measure swords with the duke of wellington." "and may that moment come speedily," returned sir gervaise. "as for the rest," said the emperor, turning away in high good humor, "marteau, you have been continuously on service for two days and two nights and you are wounded----" "it is nothing." "remain here with old bullet-stopper, who, true to his name, has had another touch of the enemy's lead. general maurice, detail a score of the weakest of your command, those slightly wounded, to whom a night's rest would be useful. they shall remain here until the courier stops for the lady and her english friend, and then under marteau's command rejoin me in the morning." "very good, sire," said general maurice, turning away. "i thank your majesty," said marteau, "for all you have done for me, and for the comtesse d'aumenier." "and i thank the emperor also," said the young woman, smiling at him. "your majesty's generosity almost wins me to an imperial allegiance." napoleon laughed. "not even the emperor," he said proudly, "is as black as he is painted by traitors and the english, mademoiselle!" he bowed abruptly but not ungracefully. "come, gentlemen," he said, turning on his heel, "we must march." chapter xii an alliance declined as the emperor left the room, followed by the officers and men, a little silence fell over the three people remaining therein. "monsieur le comte d'aumenier!" exclaimed the countess laure, wonder, derision and disdain in her voice. "your château, your domain!" she looked about the great hall and laughed scornfully. young marteau turned crimson. he threw up his head proudly. "mademoiselle----" he began sternly, his voice full of indignant protest and resentment. "don't be too hard on the lad, countess," interposed the englishman, his interest aroused. "by gad, he saved your honor, your life, and----" "and, if i mistake not, i repaid the obligation by saving his life also, sir." "and i recognize it, and am grateful, mademoiselle." "i am ordered to report to you, sir," said a young man, coming into the room followed by a file of dismounted soldiers, and relieving a situation growing most tense. "very good," said marteau, devoutly thankful for the interruption. "you will dispose your men so as to guard the approaches of the château at every hand. you will keep a strict lookout, and you will awaken me at dawn. i think there is nothing to be apprehended from the enemy. the advance of the emperor will have cleared all this section of even wandering troops of cossacks by this time, but there are masterless men abroad." "i shall know how to deal with them," said the young officer, saluting. "you will also send men to remove these dead bodies and clear up this room. take this poor lad"--pointing to pierre--"and see that he is cared for. you will find a place for him upstairs. your regimental surgeon----" "is attending to the wounded. i will see that the boy gets every care, sir." "and bal-arrêt?" "his arm is dressed, and he is the admiration of the camp-fire." "i suppose so." "any other orders, major?" "none; you may go." "mademoiselle," said marteau, facing the countess as the officer turned away, his men taking the dead bodies and the wounded peasant with them, "you wrong me terribly." "by saving your life, pray?" she asked contemptuously. "by--by--your----" he faltered and stopped. "in what way, monsieur le comte?" interrupted the young woman, who knew very well what the young man meant. in her irritating use of his new-found title, and in the way in which it fell from her lips, she cut him like a whip-lash, and she did it deliberately, too--he, the count, forsooth! "call me marteau," he protested, stepping toward her, at which she fell back a little. "or, better still, as when i was a boy, your faithful follower, jean." "if the emperor has the power, he has made you a count; if he has not, you are not." "what the emperor makes me is of little consequence between us, mademoiselle. it is what i am that counts." "and you remain, then, just jean marteau, of the loyal marteaux?" "one does not wipe out the devotion of years in a moment. my father served yours, your grandfather, your uncle, your father. i am still"--he threw up his head proudly as he made the confession--"your man." "but the title----" "what is a title? your uncle is in england. he does not purpose to come back to france unless he whom he calls his rightful king again rules the land. should that come to be, my poor patent of nobility would not be worth the parchment upon which it was engrossed." "and the lands?" "in any case i would but hold them in trust for the marquis----" "my uncle is old, childless. i am the last of the long line." "then i will hold them for you, mademoiselle. they are yours. when this war is over, and france is at peace once more, i will take my father's place and keep them for you." "i could not accept such a sacrifice." "it would be no sacrifice." "i repeat, i cannot consent to be under such obligation, even to you." "there is a way----" began the young frenchman softly, shooting a meaning glance at the young woman. "i do not understand," she faltered. "i am peasant born," admitted marteau, "but, though no gentle blood flows through my veins, my family, i think, is as old as your own." "it is so," agreed the countess, trembling as she began to catch the meaning. "oh, monsieur, stop." "as there has never a d'aumenier failed to hold the château so there has never failed a marteau to follow him," went on the young man, unheeding her protest. "i care as little for distinctions of rank as any demoiselle of old france, perhaps, but----" "mademoiselle is right. as for myself, i am a republican at heart, although i follow the emperor. i, too, care little for the distinctions of rank, for titles, yet i have earned a title in the service of the emperor. through him, even humble men rise high and go far. will you----" "monsieur, you must not go on!" cried the girl, "thrusting out her hand, as if to check him. "pardon," said the young frenchman resolutely. "having gone thus far i must go further. humble as i am, obscure though i be, i have dared to raise my eyes to heaven--to you, mademoiselle. in my boyhood days you honored me with your friendship, your companionship. i have made something of myself. if mademoiselle would only deign to---- it is impossible that she should love me--it would be an ineffable condescension--but is there not some merit in the thought that the last survivors of the two lines should unite to----" "impossible!" cried the countess, her face flushing. "my uncle would never consent. in my veins is the oldest, the noblest blood of france. even i could not----" "be it so," said marteau, paling, but standing very erect. "it is, of course, impossible. there is not honor enough or merit enough in the world," he went on bitterly, "to obliterate the difference in station between us. the revolution, after all, changed little. keep the title, keep the estates, mademoiselle, i want them not," continued the young soldier bitterly. "having aspired to you, do you think these are compensations?" "you saved my life," said the girl falteringly. "it was nothing. you did as much for me." "and my honor," she added. "i ask no reward." "by gad!" said yeovil at this juncture, "i'm damned if i see how you can withstand him. he is a gallant lad. he has fought bravely and he has pleaded nobly. you may not win the countess--as a matter of fact she is pledged to my son--but you deserve her. i've never been able to understand any kind of women, much less frenchwomen, saving your presence, mademoiselle. base-born you may be, major marteau, but i know a gentleman when i see him, i flatter myself, and, damme, young man, here's my hand. i can understand your emperor better since he can inspire the devotion of men like you." the two men clasped hands. the countess looked on. she stepped softly nearer to them. she laid her hand on marteau's shoulder. "monsieur--jean," she said, and there was a long pause between the two words, "i would that i could grant your request, but it is--you see--you know i cannot. i am betrothed to captain yeovil, with my uncle's consent, of course. i am a very unhappy woman," she ended, although just what she meant by that last sentence she hardly knew. "and this captain yeovil, he is a soldier?" asked marteau. "under wellington," answered the father. "now may god grant that i may meet him!" "you'll find him a gallant officer," answered the sturdy old englishman proudly. "when i think of his father i know that to be true," was the polite rejoinder. the little countess sank down on the chair, buried her face in her hands and burst into tears. "well, of all the----" began the englishman, but the frenchman checked him. "mademoiselle," he said softly, "were every tear a diamond they could not make for me so precious a diadem as they do when i think that you weep for me. i wish you joy with your english captain. i am your humble servant ever." and laure d'aumenier felt very much comforted by those words. it was absurd, inconceivable, impossible, of course, and yet no handsomer, braver, truer, more considerate gentleman had ever crossed her horizon than this descendant of an ancient line of self-respecting, honorable yeomen. she contrasted him with captain yeovil, and the contrast was not to marteau's disadvantage! no, decidedly not! chapter xiii the thunderbolt stroke on the tenth of february, , for the first time in many days, the sun shone brightly. nevertheless there was little change in the temperature; the thaw still prevailed. the sun's heat was not great enough to dry the roads, nor was the weather sufficiently cold to freeze them. as the emperor wrote to his brother, with scarcely any exaggeration, there was still six feet of mud on highways and by-paths. napoleon, by rapid marching at the head of maurice's squadrons d'Élite, mounted grenadiers, chasseurs, hussars and dragoons, had easily attained a position in front of the van of the army commanded by marmont, which had rested a few hours at st. prix, where the road crossed the petit morin on a bridge. his requisition on the peasantry had been honored, and great numbers of fresh, vigorous draft horses had been brought in from all sides. there was not much speed to be got out of these farm animals, to be sure, but they were of prodigious strength. the ordinary gun teams were relieved, and numbers of these plow-horses attached to the limbers pulled the precious artillery steadily toward the enemy. scouts had discovered the fact that olsuvieff's division was preparing breakfast on the low plateau upon which was situated the village of champaubert, which had been observed by marteau and bal-arrêt. napoleon reconnoitered the place in person from the edge of the wood. nansouty's cavalry had earlier driven some russian skirmishers out of baye, but olsuvieff apparently had no conception of the fact that the whole french army was hard by, and he had contented himself with sending out a few scouts, who, unfortunately for him, scouted in the wrong direction. while waiting for the infantry under marmont to come up, napoleon sent nansouty's cavalry around to the left to head off olsuvieff's advance and interpose between him and the rear guard of sacken's division. even the noise of the little battle--for the skirmish was a hot one--a mile down the road, did not apprise the russian of his danger, and it was not until the long columns of the french came out of the wood and deployed and until the guns were hauled into the clearing and wheeled into action, that he awoke to the fact that an army was upon him and he would have to fight for his life. with his unerring genius napoleon had struck at the key position, the very center of blücher's long drawn-out line. with but thirty thousand men attacking eighty thousand he had so maneuvered as to be in overwhelming force at the point of contact! in other words, he had got there first with the most men. blücher's army was separated into detachments and stretched out over forty miles of roads. olsuvieff's division comprised five thousand men with twenty guns. at first napoleon could bring against him not many more than that number of men and guns, to which must be added nansouty's small cavalry division. and olsuvieff, with all the advantages of the position, made a magnificent defense. as a defensive fighter the stubborn russian took a back seat for no soldier in europe. but the most determined resistance, the most magnificent courage, could not avail against overwhelming numbers, especially directed and led by napoleon in person, for with every hour the numbers of the assailants were increased by the arrival of fresh troops, while with every hour the defense grew weaker through casualties. olsuvieff might have surrendered with honor at midday, but he was a stubborn soldier, and he realized, moreover, that it was his duty to hold napoleon as long as possible. even the most indifferent commander could not fail to see the danger to blücher's isolated corps. couriers broke through to the east to sacken and yorck, who together had over thirty-five thousand men under their command, and to the west to blücher, with as many more men, telling all these commanders of the extreme peril of the center and of the frightfully dangerous situation in which their carelessness and the ability of their great enemy had involved them. the noise of the firing, too, was carried far and wide over the broad open fields and cultivated farms of the rolling prairie of champagne. blücher, however, could not credit the intelligence. he believed it impossible for napoleon to have escaped from schwarzenberg. he could not conceive that napoleon would leave the austrians unopposed to march to paris if they would. he could not think that even napoleon would venture to attack eighty thousand men with thirty, and, if he did, he reasoned that sacken and yorck and olsuvieff, singly or in combination, were easily a match for him. the messengers must surely be mistaken. this could only be a raid, a desperate stroke of some corps or division. therefore, he halted and then drew back and concentrated on his rear guard waiting for further news. sacken and yorck were nearer the fighting. they could hear and see for themselves. they at once gave over the pursuit of macdonald and retraced their steps. olsuvieff made good his defense until nightfall, when the survivors gave up the battle. fifteen hundred men of his brave division had been killed on the plateau. as many more were wounded and captured, most of whom subsequently died, and there were about two thousand unhurt prisoners. their ammunition was exhausted. they were worn out. they were overwhelmed by massed charges at last. blücher's line was pierced, his center crushed, and one of the finest divisions of his army was eliminated. in the wagon train recaptured at aumenier had been found arms and provisions and ammunition. another prussian wagon train, blundering along the road, was seized by maurice's cavalry, which had been sent scouting to the eastward. from the russian camp the starving french had got food, more arms and clothing. the dead were quickly despoiled, even the living were forced to contribute to the comfort of their conquerors. it was night before the last french division got up from sézanne, but there was enough food and weapons for all. a new spirit had come over that army. what had seemed to them a purposeless, ghastly march through the mud was now realized to be one of the most brilliant manoeuvres napoleon had ever undertaken. the conscripts, the raw boys, the national guards, many of whom had been in action for the first time that day, were filled with incredible enthusiasm. they were ready for anything. but the army must have rest. it must be permitted to sleep the night. accordingly the divisions were disposed in the fields. those who had fought hardest were given quarters in the village; the next were placed in the captured russian camp; the others made themselves as comfortable as they could around huge fires. the poor prisoners had little or nothing. the ragged french were at least better clothed than they were in the morning. the defenseless had arms and the whole army had been fed. there was wine, too; the russian commissariat was a liberal one. there was much laughter and jovialness in the camps that night. of course, the guard and the other veterans expected nothing else, but to the youngsters the brilliant stroke of napoleon was a revelation. as the little emperor rode from division to division, sometimes dismounting and walking through the camps on foot, he was received with such acclaim as reminded him of the old days in italy. and, indeed, the brief campaign which he had so brilliantly inaugurated can be favorably compared to that famous italian adventure, or to any other short series of consecutive military exploits in the whole history of war. they said that the emperor had hesitated and lost his great opportunity at borodino. they said that he had frightfully miscalculated at moscow, that his judgment had been grievously at fault in the whole russian campaign. they said that he had sat idle during a long day when the fortunes of his empire might have been settled at bautzen. they said that, overcome by physical weariness, he had failed to grasp his great opportunity after the victory at dresden. they said that leipsic and the battles that preceded it showed that he had lost the ability to see things with a soldier's eye. they declared that he made pictures and presented them to himself as facts; that he thought as an emperor, not as a captain. they said that in this very campaign in france, the same imperial obsession had taken such hold upon him that in striving to retain everything from holland to the end of the italian peninsula he stood to lose everything. they said that, if he had concentrated all his armies, withdrawn them from outlying dependencies, he could have overwhelmed blücher and schwarzenberg, the czar alexander, the emperor francis and king william, and that, having hurled them beyond the rhine, these provinces in dispute would have fallen to his hand again. they said that his practical omnipotence had blinded his judgment. those things may be true. but, whether they be true or not, no man ever showed a finer strategic grasp of a situation, no man ever displayed more tactical ability on a given field, no man ever conducted a series of more brilliant enterprises, no man ever utilized a small, compact, well-handled force opposed to at least two and a half times its number, no man ever conducted a campaign which stood higher from a professional point of view than this one which began with the march from nogent and the destruction at champaubert. there was no rest for napoleon that night. undoubtedly he was not now the man he had been. paralyzing physical disabilities before and after interfered with his movements. the enormous strains to which he had subjected his body and brain sometimes resulted in periods of mental blindness and physical prostration. it was whispered that a strange malady--was it some form of epilepsy?--sometimes overcame the emperor so that his faculties and abilities were in abeyance for hours. no man had ever abused such wonderful mental and physical gifts as he originally had possessed by subjecting them to such absolutely impossible strains as he, and nature was having her revenge. but for that week in february and for a time thereafter there was a strange and marvelous return of the emperor's physical powers. he had sustained more fatigue than any man in the army, because to all of the personal sufferings of the march in the long day and the sleepless night and the conduct of the battle had been added responsibility, but he was as fresh as a boy. his pale cheek showed rare color; his eyes sparkled; his voice was clear and sharp. the nervous twitching of his mouth ceased. the gray look vanished. he was once more the boyish captain of the army of italy, at whom the huge grenadiers laughed and the gray-headed veterans marveled. the emperor's scouts had been hard at work during the day. they were constantly coming and going at his headquarters at champaubert with detailed accounts of the situation of the russians and the prussians. the emperor had a momentous decision to make. from the position he had gained it was equally as easy for him to strike east as to strike west. he decided at last to strike west, realizing that no captain, much less fiery old blücher, without an absolute forfeiture of his reputation as a soldier could afford to leave his van unsupported, but that the prussian field marshal must advance to its support. if the emperor's plans worked out, he could destroy that van, and then turn back and mete out the same fate to the main body coming to its rescue. just about ten miles away to the westward, on the main road to paris by way of la ferte-sous-jouarre, lay the village of montmirail. as many miles beyond montmirail, on the same paris road, sacken, with twenty thousand men, had been advancing. from montmirail a road led northward to château thierry and the crossing of the marne, behind which macdonald had been driven by yorck, with perhaps fifteen thousand more. the emperor decided to seize montmirail, throw out a corps to hold back yorck on the northern road, while he crushed sacken on the other with the remainder of the army, except one corps, which he would leave at champaubert to delay blücher's advance. these army corps were in reality nothing more than weak divisions, less than seven thousand strong. early in the afternoon marteau, with old bullet-stopper and the little squadron of maurice's cavalry, had rejoined the emperor. he had been greatly refreshed by his night's sleep. he had taken advantage of the early hours of the morning to bury his father and sister, saying such prayers as he could remember, in default of the parish priest, who had been murdered. the emperor having sent a courier with an escort back to nogent, the countess laure and her english friend had elected to go with them. they feared to be left alone in the château all day, in the disturbed state of the country, and it was easier, perhaps, to reach paris from nogent by way of the seine than by going direct from sézanne. marteau had approved of their decision. the parting between the young people had been as formal as possible. the englishman, on the contrary, with true british hospitality, had said that if peace ever came he would indeed be glad to welcome him at his home in england. marteau had sworn to hold the château and its land in trust for the countess, although she protested she would not hear of anything of the kind. and then he had bade her farewell. he had arrived in time to take part in the hard fighting at the close of the day, and had been busy during the early part of the night in carrying messages and resuming his duties at headquarters. at two o'clock in the morning napoleon threw himself down on a peasant's bed in a hut and slept until four. at that hour he awakened and summoned the officer on duty. marteau presented himself. the emperor, as refreshed by his two hours of sleep as if he had spent the night in a comfortable bed, addressed the young man familiarly. none could unbend better than he. "my good marteau," he began. "but stop--monsieur le comte d'aumenier"--he smiled--"i have not forgot. berthier has orders to send to paris to have your patent of nobility made out and to see that the confiscated aumenier lands are transferred to you." "i thank your majesty," said the young aide, deeming it wiser to say nothing of his ultimate intentions regarding the patent of nobility and the estates. "it would be a fine thing," said the emperor, "if you and that girl should come together. she is the last of her line, i understand, save her old uncle in england, who is unmarried and childless. is it not so?" "that is true, sire." "well, you couldn't do better. she is a woman of spirit and resolution. her prompt action in the château last night showed it. i commend her to your consideration. were i your age and in your station i should like nothing better." "your majesty anticipated my desire, my own proposition, in fact." "what? you struck while you had the opportunity? that was well." "but, unlike you, sire, i struck unavailingly." "the lady refused?" "positively. she is of the oldest family in france, while i----" "marteau," said the emperor sharply, "no more of that. if you cannot be a descendant, be an ancestor. look at me. my family began at montemotte, and to-day the mother of my son is a hapsburg!" "but she is engaged to the son of that englishman, sire." "bah, what of that? engagements can be broken, marriages even dissolved. the holy father at rome will refuse me nothing. when i have beaten the allies i will take your affair in hand. there are few powers in europe that will turn a deaf ear to the suggestions of the emperor of the french, believe me. the lady shall be yours." "your majesty's power," said the young officer dubiously, "does not extend to women's hearts." "does it not?" laughed the emperor grimly. "you shall see. my word shall be law again everywhere. with my favor you will go far. there are no patents of nobility that stand higher than mine, for mine are based on my recognition of merit alone, not on accident of birth. you served me well, and you shall see that i am not ungrateful. meanwhile, to you a new duty is assigned." "i welcome it gladly." napoleon took an order prepared the night before from a table. "this to general nansouty. i want him to march at once. read it. you will see," he continued, "that nansouty's cavalry is to hold sacken in check until i have seized montmirail. he has guns with him. let him deploy, attack vigorously. keep the enemy occupied and gradually fall back upon montmirail. ride with him yourself, and rejoin me at montmirail about ten in the morning. we should be up then. you understand?" said the emperor, ready to explain his orders more fully, believing that an order could be more intelligently delivered if the purport were explained verbally to the bearer, especially in the case of a skilled and trusted young soldier like marteau. "i understand, sire." "away, then. continue to merit my favor, for upon that favor rests"--he laughed, he was in high good spirits and humor that morning--"the lady." marteau saluted. in spite of himself a certain hope began to spring up in his heart. that emperor was almost a demi-god to his men. whatever he had essayed he had generally achieved in times past, and who could tell? certainly they were on the eve of great events. chapter xiv the hammer of the war god nansouty's brilliant cavalrymen were already awake and their general having divined to some extent the part he was to play in the glorious day, the eleventh of february, the trumpets were already calling his horsemen to arms when marteau delivered the order and took his place by the general as the emperor's representative, a high position and great responsibility for so young a soldier. they made a hasty breakfast and broke camp. indeed, there was little to break. the words are only used figuratively, since they had no tents. in half an hour after marteau had left the emperor's headquarters, the squadrons were formed. nansouty, attended by his staff and the young officer, galloped to the head of the column, gave the word of command and the gallant horsemen trotted down the road. they had been posted near fromentières, about two miles from champaubert, for the night. the roads were bad, but they took to the fields, and by six o'clock they had passed through the town of montmirail, easily driving out a few straggling battalions which occupied it. by eight o'clock they were in touch with the columns of sacken at vieux maisons. a bit of woodland covered their approach. it was not until they were almost upon them that sacken's advance came in touch with them. the french horse followed the russian outposts and advance guards at a gallop back to the main column, upon which they fell impetuously. batteries were also deployed in the woods and opened on the russians. sacken's men had started after breakfast in a rather leisurely way, and they had not progressed very far when nansouty surprised them. the french rode down the advance regiments, threw the heads of the columns into confusion, and then galloped back to the shelter of the wood. believing that he was about to be attacked in force, sacken deployed, wasting much valuable time before he discovered this was only a cavalry feint, whereupon he moved forward. it was ten o'clock before he reached a large farm called haute-Épine. by that time napoleon was ready for him. he had left marmont back at champaubert to hold back blücher. he threw mortier forward on the château-thierry road to check yorck. he put friant, the veteran and splendid fighter, in échelon along the la ferte road; withdrew nansouty's cavalry to cover his own right, and put ney and ricard in his main battle line between friant on the road and the river on the left. the guard, with maurice's cavalry d'élite, he posted on the edge of the woodland, north of montmirail, ready to throw to the northwestward to marmont, or to the west to the support of ney and friant, as events might determine. these dispositions were barely completed before the battle was joined by the russian advance. sacken, who really outnumbered the forces opposed to him by at least two thousand men, since mortier's corps, guarding the northwest road, was perforce inactive, and since six thousand men had been left at champaubert under marmont to retain blücher, attacked with the utmost stubbornness and gallantry. he could make no impression on friant, écheloned on the main road, and before the resolute resistance his advancing divisions slowly obliqued to the right toward another walled farmhouse, called Épine-aux-bois, in a stretch of lowland watered by a brook. napoleon, seeing the whole course of the battle clearly, laid a trap for him. he withdrew nansouty from the battle, and ordered ricard, in command of his extreme left, to retreat slowly, fighting as if defeated. sacken, as he saw the wavering on his right, threw his heaviest battalions and regiments upon that point, and attacked with headlong impetuosity. at the same time he had enough men left to keep friant busy and in check. napoleon, seeing the success of his ruse, suddenly brought up the guard. he threw it around the right flank of friant, and sacken's left immediately began to give way. ricard stopped his retreat suddenly and stood like a stone wall. his withdrawing eagles moved forward. the advance of the russian right stopped also, the muscovite officers and soldiers were greatly amazed by the sudden resistance of an enemy retreating a moment since. one division of the guard moved out to the support of friant, who also advanced. the other division joined mortier, who was in a hot fight with yorck's cavalry and light infantry. napoleon now turned to general maurice, who had ridden up in advance of his horsemen. "there"--he pointed down the hill toward the dark masses of the russian right--"there's your chance, general." the comte de vivonne needed but the word. turning in his saddle he raised his sword. his cavalry had been waiting with unconcealed impatience during the morning. eagerly they responded to the command. dashing down the hill they fell on the puzzled russian infantry around Épine-aux-bois. ricard's men opened to give them way. what had been a triumphant advance was turned into a retreat. the retreat bade fair to be a disaster, but the russians, as has been noted, were splendid defensive soldiers. they formed squares. although regiment after regiment had been ridden over and beaten to pieces, those who remained fought stubbornly. sacken perceived now that his only hope was to effect a junction with yorck. he withdrew his men under cover of his artillery to vieux-maisons, and began to lead them by the left flank, at the same time sending frantic messages to yorck, imploring him to hasten. but yorck's guns were mired. he had only the teams attached to them. he could get no other horses. he was unaccountably delayed. he had faced about at the sound of the firing, but the movements of his main body were slow, deliberate. nansouty, who had opened the battle, was now sent in by napoleon to deliver the _coup-de-grâce_. with characteristic gallantry he fell upon the russian columns. sacken was driven from the field. in killed, wounded, and prisoners he had lost half his force and all of his guns. his troops streamed westward through roads and woods in wild confusion. he would have been annihilated then and there but for the arrival of yorck. the prussian at last fell on mortier's weak corps and the guard on the northern road. mortier's men were outnumbered four to one. they made a desperate resistance, but it was not until napoleon ordered up the other division of the guard, which had only been lightly engaged, and maurice's cavalry, that yorck's advance was checked. the short day had drawn to a close. preparations were made to pass the night on the field and in the town. all of sacken's baggage train and provisions had fallen into napoleon's hands. montmirail had been a more decisive victory than champaubert. twenty thousand men had been eliminated from calculations for the time being. sending couriers to macdonald to move down the banks of the marne with all possible speed, to get in the rear of yorck, with whom he purposed to deal on the morrow, napoleon, in high spirits, made preparations for the next day's battle. the next morning, the thirteenth, leaving a heavy force to check any possible attack by sacken, who had, with incredible energy and labor, partially at least reorganized his shattered troops, but who was too weak to do anything more than lead them away from any possible touch with napoleon's troops, the emperor advanced toward the little village of château-thierry. yorck, by this time, had learned the full details of the disaster to sacken. indeed, several of sacken's brigades had joined him, considerably augmenting his force. but he was now no match for napoleon. to stay meant annihilation. he hastily made his disposition for a rear guard defense and a withdrawal. he made a stubborn rear guard battle of it during the day, and, although he lost heavily in men, guns and supplies, he finally succeeded in crossing the marne and breaking the bridges behind him. macdonald had moved tardily. if he had shown half the enterprise of the emperor he would have been at the crossing of the marne in good time and yorck would have been caught in a trap whence he could not have extricated himself. as it was, napoleon added largely to the number of prisoners taken and the number of enemies killed. altogether he had put twenty-five thousand men out of action, in killed, wounded and prisoners. he had taken one hundred and twenty guns--so many that he had to tumble them into the creeks and rivers, because he could not transport them all. he had rearmed and reclothed and provided for his gallant little army at the expense of the enemy. it was an exploit of which even he could be proud. on the other hand, in these operations the french had lost some four thousand men killed and wounded, and, as their army was so small, they could ill afford such a diminution of their forces. meantime, blücher, apprised of these disasters, and at last awakened to his peril, bravely marched westward. he had come in touch with marmont, and had driven him out of champaubert after a desperate resistance. the day after the elimination of yorck, the fourteenth, napoleon headed his tired but triumphant troops back over the road to champaubert, sending word to marmont to hold the prussians in check as long as possible, to dispute every rod of the way, but not to throw away his precious men or bring on a general engagement until the emperor arrived. the morning after that napoleon fell on blücher, who clearly outnumbered the french. but the allies were dismayed and disheartened. the name of the emperor whom they had defeated and driven across europe was again full of terror to them. the french were accordingly elated. they would not be denied. marmont's men, intoxicated with the news of the success of the other divisions of the army, just as soon as they were given the word, which was just as soon as napoleon could bring up their comrades, fell on blücher like a storm. they came in battle contact in the village of vauchamps. the fighting was of the most desperate character. the battle was harder than all of the others put together. bavarians, prussians, and russians, fighting under the eye of brave old blücher himself, who recklessly exposed his person on the field, were tenacious and courageous to the highest degree, but the tactics and dispositions of napoleon, the spirit of his men, his own equally reckless exposure of his person under fire, and a cavalry dash at the allied rear at janvilliers, finally turned the wavering tide of battle. the allies began to retreat, the french followed. the french pursued relentlessly, but with splendid skill and determination blücher himself in command of the rearguard fought them off. napoleon had foreseen this. he had massed all the cavalry under grouchy and had sent them on a long round-about march across country to get in blücher's rear. just beyond champaubert, in a dense wood in front of the village of Étoges, the retreating allies found the road barred by the cavalry. grouchy had been provided with sufficient artillery to enable him to hold the retreat in check; but the mud still prevailed, many horses had been shot and killed, the peasants' horses drawing the guns had been unable to keep pace with the necessarily rapid movements of the cavalry, and the batteries had not come up. nor was there any supporting infantry. indeed, the retreat of the prussians had been so sudden and so rapid that grouchy's horse had been hard put to it to intercept them. the regiments leading the allied retreat were formed in squares, and with musketry and cannon animated with the courage of despair, they forced a passage through the charging, barring masses of the french cavalry, not, however, without losing several of the squares in the process. it was their only possible way to safety. as it was, blücher himself narrowly escaped capture. napoleon's soldiers had fought five pitched battles in four days. as a preparation, they had marched thirty miles, night and day, over incredible roads. they were now utterly exhausted. they could do no more. they must have a good rest. blücher's forces had been scattered, eliminated, defeated in detail. there was now nothing for the field marshal to do but to retreat and rally his men. the success of the emperor had been brilliant in the extreme. the fighting was not over, however, for thirty miles to the southward lay the vast army of schwarzenberg. napoleon might have pursued blücher to the bitter end. military critics say he should have done so. to him, however, on the spot, it seemed proper to leave blücher for the time being and endeavor to repeat on schwarzenberg the marvelous tactics of the five days' fight. the next morning, the fifteenth, he started back to nogent whence he had come. victor and oudinot had been fighting hard with schwarzenberg, but the news of napoleon's victories had finally caused the cautious austrian to stop. he began the recall and concentration of his own scattered divisions. he, at least, would not be caught napping. as usual the enemy learned something, even in defeat. speed was still essential to napoleon. his men had had twenty-four hours of rest. his horses were comparatively fresh. the weather had changed, the roads were frozen, horribly rough, but still much more passable than before. once again the emperor resorted to the peasantry. they, too, had been intoxicated with the news of his victories, many of which they had witnessed and, in the plunder resulting, had shared. they brought their horses which they had hidden in ravines and forests when the country was overrun by the enemy. this time, instead of attaching them to the guns which their own teams--recruited from the captures--could draw on the hard roads, napoleon had them hitched to the big farm wagons. into the wagons he loaded his infantry. and at the highest speed of the horses the whole force made its way to the southward. to other victories--to defeats--to what? the emperor began once again to dream of an empire whose boundaries would be the vistula instead of the rhine. book ii the eagle's flight chapter xv the bridge at arcis the long journey was at last over. the last alp had been surmounted, the last pass traversed. behind them rose the snowy summit of mighty mont blanc itself. before them lay their wearying journey's end. it was cold even in sunny southern france on that morning in early spring. marteau, his uniform worn, frayed, travel-stained, and dusty, his close-wrapped precious parcel held to his breast under his shabby great coat, his face pale and haggard from hardship and heartbreak, his body weak and wasted from long illness and long captivity, stood on the top of a ridge of the hill called mont rachais, overlooking the walled town of grenoble, on the right bank of the isère. the fifth-of-the-line had been stationed there before in one of the infrequent periods of peace during the napoleonic era. he was familiar with the place and he knew exactly where to look for what he expected to see. more ragged and tattered, more travel-stained indeed, and with only the semblance of a uniform left, was the young lad who stood by the soldier's side. but the boy was in good health and looked strong and sturdy. "there," said the officer. "you see that square bulk of buildings against the wall beyond the cathedral church-tower and over the palais de justice?" "i see them, my officer," answered the other, shading his hand and staring over the roofs and walls and spires of the compact little town. "the barracks will be there unless the regiment has moved. that will be the end of our journey." "the building with the flag, you mean, monsieur?" asked pierre. "that one." alas! the flag was no longer the tricolor but the white flag of ancient royal france. marteau heaved a deep sigh as he stared at it with sad eyes and sadder face. the unexpected, that is, from the young soldier's point of view, had happened. the empire was no more. the allies had triumphed. the emperor has been beaten. he had abdicated and gone. he was practically a prisoner on the little island of elba, adjacent to that greater island of corsica, where he had been born. the great circle of his life had been completed. and all the achievements were to be comprehended between those two little islands in the blue mediterranean--from corsica to elba, the phrase ran. was that all? much water had flowed under the bridges of europe since that mad ride of the infantry in the farm wagons to face schwarzenberg after their smashing and successful attacks upon blücher, although the intervening time had been short. a year had scarcely elapsed, but that twelve months had been crowded with incident, excitement, and vivid interest almost unparalleled by any similar period in modern history. the emperor had, indeed, fought hard for his throne and against heavy odds. he had fought against indifference, against carelessness, against negligence, last of all against treachery. for in the end it was treachery that had undone him and france. still, it may be that even had marmont and mortier remained loyal the end would have been the same. the odds were too heavy, in fine. the emperor did not realize their preponderance until it was too late. if he had assembled every soldier, abandoning everything else but the defense of france, and if he had shown with such an army as he could have gathered under those conditions the same spirit of generalship which he had exhibited in that marvelous campaign against blücher, he might have saved france, his throne, his wife, his little son, his prestige, everything. as it was, he lost all. but not without fighting. stubborn, determined, magnificently defiant he had been to the last. marteau had often thrilled to the recollection during the long hours he spent in captivity in austria, and even in the delirium and fever of his long and wasting illness, begot of the foul prison, he had remembered it. in all the hard fighting and hard marching of those mournful if splendid days the young man had faithfully and well borne his important if humble part. there was a great dearth of officers, staff officers as well as the others. he had been very near to the emperor during those last days. he remembered the smashing attack upon the van of the allies at montereau. he could feel once more the thrill of the army, as the circumspect schwarzenberg stopped his advance, retired, concentrated his columns. he remembered the long, swift march back across the country, after further demonstrations to keep schwarzenberg in his cautious mood, against the rear of the reorganized and advancing army of blücher; the desperate, bloody, fruitless battles of laon and craonne, rendered necessary by treachery. he could recall again the furious rage of napoleon, the almost despair that filled the emperor's heart, when the news came of the cowardly surrender of the fort at soissons by its incapable commandant, which rendered useless napoleon's cunning plans, and all the hard marching and harder fighting of his heroic soldiery. he recalled the escape of hard-pressed blücher again, the return of the french to face the overwhelming main army of the allies, slowly but surely moving toward its goal whenever the withdrawal of the emperor left it free to advance, the detachment of marmont and mortier to defend paris, the fierce two-day battle at arcis-sur-aube, the dash of maurice's and sebastiani's gallant cavalry upon the whole austrian army, the deadly conflict before the bridge, the picture of the retreat that bade fair to become a rout. he could see again the emperor, riding down, sword in hand, into the midst of the fugitives crossing the bridge, and, amid a storm of bullets, ordering and beseeching and imploring the men to rally. he had been there on that mad march morning. he would never forget the sight of that figure, the words the emperor said. it reminded him of the dash of the "little corporal" with the flag on the bridge of lodi, of which old bullet-stopper had often told him and the other young men over the camp-fires. the fifth-of-the-line had immortalized itself that day, adding to the fame it had gained upon a hundred fields, an imperishable crown. napoleon saw that the battle was lost, that the whole austrian army had blundered upon that first french division and that, unless their steady advance could be checked, the division itself would be cut to pieces. men had grown more precious to the emperor every hour. what would he not have given for those he had spent so recklessly years before? and here was a whole division about to be annihilated, to say nothing of the cavalry, which had performed prodigies of valor. "what regiment is that?" he had asked marteau, who was riding at his heels in the midst of the fugitives, and doing his best to second the emperor's frantic efforts to restore order and bring the men to a stand. "the fifth-of-the-line, sire." "your old regiment?" "the same, sire." "it still stands." "and it will stand." "good! go to it. tell them that i, the emperor, devote them to death, for me and for the army. they must hold the austrians in check and cover the retreat." "farewell, sire," the young soldier had said, saluting. "what mean you?" "i shall not come back with the remainder." "adieu," said the emperor, acknowledging the salute and understanding all. how well marteau remembered that frightful conflict. the fifth-of-the-line had not waited to be attacked. it had gone forward. the colonel had been shot down. officer after officer had fallen. the advancing line had wavered, hesitated, halted. the eagle-bearer fell. eager hands caught the staff. the austrian fire was concentrated upon it. the color guard was shot to pieces. the eagle itself had the tip of its right wing shot away. mortal men could do no more. the regiment began to give back. it was marteau who sprang to the front, he and young pierre, who had attached himself to the officer in a sort of unofficial way. it was marteau who seized the eagle; it was he who rallied the line. the new men formed up like veterans, the old men settled in their places, cool and ready. they returned the austrian fire, they checked the austrian advance, they stood ready while the troops behind them ran for their lives. napoleon, whose eye nothing escaped, saw it all. he even recognized marteau carrying the eagle. the fifth-of-the-line made good that defense until the time came for the retreat. then it retired slowly, fighting every step of the way down the low hill to the bridge. the men dropped by scores. the austrians, seeing victory in reach, pressed closer. a charge at the last minute by the cuirassiers of the emperor francis' guard almost completed the annihilation of the first battalion of the regiment. the survivors sought to form a square, under a withering gun fire, to meet the uplifted sabers of the heavy cavalry. there were not enough of them left. they were ridden down. two hundred and fifty of the four hundred who went into that fight lay dead on that field. of the survivors scarce a handful got across the river. some of the unhurt men, disdaining quarter and unable to fly, fought until they fell. the wounded, of whom there were many, were all captured out of hand. marteau, with the eagle, had stood nearest the enemy. they had swarmed about him at last. he found himself alone, save for the boy, pierre. he could see the red-faced, excited, shouting, yelling, passion-animated austrian soldiers crowding upon him. his sword was broken, his pistols empty and gone. he was defenseless. retreat was cut off. the eagle staff had been shot away. the flag torn to pieces. hands were stretched out to seize it. he could not escape with it, yet it must not fall to the enemy. it was the tradition of the service that the eagles were to be preserved at all hazards--not the flag, that was a mere perishable adjunct to the eagle, but the eagle itself. the river ran but a few feet away. thrusting aside the nearest austrian with the stump of his blade, marteau cleared a path for a second, and into the swift deep waters he hurled the sacred emblem. he, at least, he thought swiftly, had a right to dispose of it thus, for out of the waters of the elster he had brought it, so into the waters of the aube he threw it. with cries of rage, for the eagle was the most precious spoil of war, and the regiment or the officer seizing it was distinguished above all others, the austrians would have cut him down where he stood with arms crossed, facing the enemy, but officers who had ridden up had seen the exploit and had interfered. he had been made a prisoner and pierre with him. he just had time to whisper to the boy to mark well the spot where the eagle had disappeared in the waters before they marched away. while under guard with other prisoners at salzburg he had heard the story of the end. how napoleon, trusting the defense of paris to marmont and mortier, had resolved on the bold move of cutting the communications of the allies with his little army, and how the allies had decided to disregard their rear and march on paris; how marmont and mortier had battled for the capital, how the emperor, hearing of their straits, had begun that mad march toward his beloved city; how he had ordered every soldier that could be reached to march in that direction; how he had stopped at a wayside inn one night for a few hours' rest, after a furious day's ride, only to be told that marmont and mortier had gone over to the enemy, that paris was lost! the prisoners had learned how the emperor, not yet despairing, had striven to quicken the spirits of his marshals and soldiers for a last try; how the marshals and great officers had failed him. they had all heard of those lonely hours at fontainebleau, of the farewell to the guard, of the kiss on the eagle, which he surrendered to general petit, of the abdication, of the exile to elba, of the restoration of king louis. it had made marteau ill, frightfully so, and but for the tender nursing and loving care of young pierre he had died. the lad had been devotion itself, but marteau missed more than anything else the companionship, the sage advice, the bon camaraderie of old bullet-stopper. he had never seen him or heard from him after that day at the bridge-head at arcis. where was he now? oh, yes, those days and their tidings would never be forgot. they all came back to the young officer, as with his humble but devoted companion he stood there on the heights above grenoble looking at the white flag. chapter xvi the gate in the wall the two travelers were stopped by the guard at the main gate in the walls that encircled the town. marteau had drawn his old cloak closely about him, so that it was not evident that he was in uniform. pierre's nondescript garments were so tattered and torn that neither would they betray the pair. the sentry was clad in the old uniform of the fifth-of-the-line, except that he sported a white cockade in his head-gear and every device that referred to the empire had been carefully eliminated. still he was the same soldier, and marteau recognized him at once as one of the veterans of the regiment. the recognition was not mutual. captivity, illness, privation had wrought many changes in the officer's face. the man looked at him curiously and wonderingly, however, as he challenged him. "my friend," asked the officer, "of what regiment are you, i pray?" "the fifth-of-the----" began the man instinctively, apparently, and then he stopped. "the regiment dauphiné," he answered, his face clouding. "and what battalion?" "the first, sir." "are there other troops in garrison?" "another regiment of infantry, that was the seventh. i don't know its new name. and some artillery to man the walls." "good. i should like---- who is in command of the town?" "there is a new one since yesterday. he has just come down from paris, the king sent----" at that instant the gruff voice of the subaltern in command of the detachment at the gate rang out. "turn out the guard for the commanding officer." "back, monsieur," cried the soldier, falling into line with his comrades, who came running from the guard-house and ranged themselves in order. marteau stepped back into the shadow of the gate, just as a carriage and four, carrying three people and attended by a brilliant cavalry escort, dashed through the narrow street of the town and passed out of the gate, the soldiers of the guard standing at attention in line and presenting arms as the carriage and its following went on into the country by the highroad. the horses had been moving at a fast trot. marteau had time for but one glance as the vehicle passed. one glance was enough. when the guard had been dismissed and the soldier on post turned again to look at the officer, he was astonished at the change that had come over him. marteau, pale as death, leaned against the wall, his hand on his heart. "what's the matter?" cried the soldier, staring at him curiously. "has monsieur seen a ghost?" asked young pierre, running toward him in great anxiety. "who--who was that?" asked marteau, who had received a dreadful shock apparently. "the governor of the town." "yes, yes, i know, but his name?" "i was about to tell you. the marquis de---- upon my word, i have forgot it." "was it by any chance the marquis d'aumenier?" "that's it," said the soldier. "and the man with him in the red coat?" the soldier spat into the dust to show his contempt. "an english milord." "and the lady?" "i don't know. they say, the wife of that englishman. things have come to a pretty pass," growled the soldier, turning away, "when our girls marry these english beef-eaters, and---- it was not so in the day of the em----" he stopped suddenly, wondering fearfully whether his garrulousness had betrayed him into an imprudence with this stranger. "no," said marteau reassuringly. "will you let me pass, comrade? i am an old soldier of--the empire." he had no hesitation in avowing himself under the circumstances. "see," he threw open his cloak, disclosing his uniform. "why, that is the uniform of this regiment!" exclaimed the amazed soldier. "yes." "and you are----" "i was captain marteau when with the regiment," returned the officer. "i thought i knew you, sir. yes, i remember it all now. you were cut down at the bridge at arcis." "yes." "i, too, was there. i was one of the few who managed to get away alive. but i did not run, monsieur. i did not go back until the order." "i believe it." "and this boy?" "he is a young comrade, a faithful companion of my own." "and you are come back----" "to rejoin the regiment. i have been months in an austrian prison, and afterward, ill." "pass freely, monsieur. you rallied us with the eagle. we saw it go into the river. the emperor himself commended us, those who were left. he said we should have another eagle, but alas, we never got it." "have patience," said marteau. "what is lost may be found." he touched the small, well-wrapped parcel, which even in his agitation he had not allowed to fall to the ground. the soldier looked at him wonderingly. "you mean----" "never mind. be silent. will you call your officer?" "corporal of the guard," shouted the sentry, and, when that official appeared, the lieutenant in command of the gate was soon summoned through the usual military channels. "monsieur," said marteau, walking up to him, "do you not know me?" "by heaven!" cried the officer, after a long stare, "is it--it is captain marteau!" "the same." "we thought you dead. your name is honored in the regiment. we knew how you rallied the line; how you took the eagle; how you threw it into the river rather than permit it to be taken. we thought you were killed." "my life was spared," was the solemn answer. "but why did you not rejoin the regiment?" "i was in prison at salzburg, and for some reason was overlooked, perhaps because it was thought i was dead, and then for some months i was helpless, ill of a horrible fever. it was only two months ago that i was set free, with this lad here, who stood beside me before the bridge at arcis. we learned through unofficial sources that the regiment was here. having nowhere else to go, i came back, and----" "they will be glad to see you," said the officer. "the regiment lost heavily. it was almost cut to pieces at arcis." "i know." "but many officers and men of the old regiment have come back, like you, from russia, from prussia and from austria, where they had been held prisoners. they will be glad to welcome you at the barracks yonder. you are permitted to pass. but stop. i must do my duty. what have you in that parcel?" marteau looked about him, moved a step away from the sentries and the corporal and sergeant of the guard, and whispered a word into the ear of the officer. he threw up his hands in astonishment. "mon dieu!" he exclaimed. "is it possible?" "the same," said marteau, "but say nothing about it until i have seen our comrades." "of course not." "and that carriage and four that just passed?" "the governor of the town, the marquis d'aumenier, the new commander of the regiment." "i see; and our old colonel?" "dead. the major commanding the first battalion has been in command until they sent this old noble down here yesterday." "and the lady?" "his niece." "you have met her?" "not i. they care nothing for such as we. he treats us as if we were of the scum of the earth, dogs. oh, if only----" "hush," said marteau. "it is dangerous." "i know. and he brought with him an englishman, one of the duke of wellington's officers." "is he married to the young lady?" "not yet, i believe, but betrothed." "and his name?" "he has a barbarous name. i can't pronounce it. he had us out inspecting us yesterday--he and that englishman. bah! to think of the fifth-of-the-line being inspected by such a young red-coated cockerel." the veteran spat in the dust as the soldier had done and swore roundly. he hated the red-coated english. he had fought them before, and he would like nothing better than to fight them again. "patience," said marteau. "do you wish to go to headquarters and report yourself? you were a major on the emperor's staff?" "a lieutenant-colonel, by personal appointment that day at arcis." "well, you will be lucky enough if they make you a subaltern. look at me. i am older than you. i am a veteran of italy and i am only a sub-lieutenant, i, who was captain when i was captured." "patience, my friend," said marteau again. "here," said the officer, hailing a cabriolet, which suddenly turned the corner. "i have no money," said marteau quickly. "the king pays ill enough," answered the officer, "but what i have is ever at the service of a good comrade." he assisted marteau into the cabriolet, allowed pierre to climb up beside him, paid the driver his fare, and bade him take the two to the headquarters in the barracks. chapter xvii a veteran of the army of italy it was noon when marteau presented himself before the house in which the major of the first battalion, an old veteran named lestoype, was quartered. "who shall i say wants to see him?" asked the orderly before the door. "a soldier of the empire," was the bold answer, and it proved an open sesame to the astonished orderly. lestoype was writing at a table, but he looked up when marteau came in. he stared at him a moment and then rose to his feet. "i report myself ready for duty, major," said the young officer, saluting. "good god, is it marteau!" exclaimed the major. "the same." "we thought you dead." rapidly the young officer explained the situation. "you see," he said in closing, "i survived the eagle." "ah, if we could only have got it back!" exclaimed the major. "it is back." "what do you mean?" "it is here." "i don't understand." "look," cried the officer, nervously tearing away the wrappings and holding up his precious burden. the major came to attention, his heels clicked together, his hand went up. he stared at the eagle. "_vive l'empereur_," he said. "_vive l'empereur_," answered the other, but both of them spoke in whispers, for there was no emperor, and a mention of the name was treason to the king. "it is the same?" asked the major, taking the precious emblem in his hand and pressing it to his heart. "the very same." "but how?" "the boy here and i marked the spot where it fell. we took bearings, as a sailor would say; we took them independently, and when we had a chance to compare them we found that we agreed exactly. when i was released from prison and discharged from the hospital as a convalescent, we went back to arcis, to the bridge, to the river side. the boy here is an expert swimmer. the river was low. he dove into the icy waters again and again until he found it. we were most circumspect in our movements. no one observed us. i wrapped it up, concealed it carefully, learned that the regiment was here, and i surrender it into your hands." "it is a shame," began lestoype gloomily at last, laying the eagle gently down on his desk. "what is a shame?" "the order." "what order?" "the eagles of all the regiments and ships are to be sent to paris to be destroyed." "impossible!" "nevertheless, it is true. they have taken them wherever they could lay hands on them. it has almost caused a revolt." "and are you going to send this eagle to paris?" asked marteau threateningly. "this eagle for which i fought, this eagle which i rescued from the elster and the aube, for which hundreds of brave men have died, this eagle which has been in the forefront of every battle in which the regiment took part since the emperor gave it into our keeping before ulm?" "what can i do?" "i will throw it into the isère first. i will destroy it myself before that happens," cried marteau, snatching it up and pressing it to his heart. "i have taken no oaths. i am still the emperor's man." "not so loud," said lestoype warningly. "the men of the regiment may not all be true. you may be overheard." "you and all the others have taken the oath of allegiance to the king?" "what else was there to do? soldiering is my trade. they offered us commissions; the empire was dead; the emperor banished. it was a living, at any rate." "but i am free, i am not bound." "you must, you will take the oath," urged lestoype. "how if he should come back?" "he will not come back." "will he not? it is whispered everywhere," said marteau. "i have not passed an old soldier who did not voice the hope. it's in the air. 'when the violets bloom,' they say. even the peasants whisper it. the imperial purple flower---- he will return." "god grant it may be so." "and we shall be ready for him, we who have not taken the oath, and who----" "i am afraid i shall be a forsworn man, in that case," said the veteran, smiling grimly. "should the emperor again set foot in france his presence would absolve us from all vows. i only serve under the king's colors because no others fly in france." "be it so." "and you will be with us again in the regiment?" "how can i?" "be advised," said the old soldier, laying his hand upon the arm of the younger, "we must keep together. we must keep our regimental organizations intact. the army must be ready for him. take the oath as well nigh every soldier high and low in france has done, and----" "well, i shall see. meanwhile, the eagle there. you won't give it up?" "give it up!" laughed lestoype. "i feel just as you do about it, but we must conceal it. the seventh, labédoyère's regiment, in garrison here, concealed their eagle. at least it has not been found. there was a terrible to do about it." "do you vouch for the officer at the main gate? i had to tell him in order to be passed. i know him but slightly." "the sub-lieutenant drehon." "he is safe?" "beyond doubt. meanwhile, you require----" "everything," said marteau simply. "the king's paymasters are a long time in coming. we are left to make shift as best we can. but i am not yet penniless," returned the old major. he threw a purse on the table. "you will be my guest. with these you can get proper clothes and uniform." "and the boy?" "i will turn him over to the men. they will be glad to welcome him. he should have the legion of honor for rescuing the eagle. but stop." "what is it?" "he won't talk?" "i have tested that lad. he will be as close-mouthed as the grave. you understand, pierre, you are not to say a word about the eagle until i give you leave," said marteau to his young comrade. "about our other adventures you can tell." "i understand. monsieur knows that i can be silent." "i know. good-by. i shall see you to-morrow. now," began marteau, as the orderly who had been summoned had taken pierre away with instructions to see that he was clothed and fed, "let me ask some questions. who was in command of the regiment?" "i was until yesterday." "and yesterday?" "the king sent down an old officer to take the command, a lieutenant-colonel." "and the colonel?" "monsieur d'artois." "so that----" "the lieutenant-colonel commands the regiment, which is now known as the regiment dauphiné, the comte d'artois' own," said the major, with fine scorn. "what a name to take the place of the fifth-of-the-line," he added. "and monsieur d'aumenier?" "oh, he seems harmless enough. he is a trained soldier, too, of royalist days before the empire. he even told me he had been at the school at brienne when the emperor was a student there." "and who is with him?" "his niece, the countess laure d'aumenier, engaged to that young english officer." "and what of him?" "well enough for an englishman, i suppose," was the careless answer. "we were paraded yesterday and the young englishman inspected us, the lady looking on. actually my gorge rose, as he handled our muskets, criticized our drill. i heard some of the old mustaches of the regiment say they would like to put a bayonet through him, and, to be frank, i should like it myself. i fought against these english in spain. there's no love lost between us." "did he disparage the regiment?" "oh, no, quite the contrary. he was more than complimentary, but i hate them. his father is here, too." "i see. when is the marriage to take place?" "how do i know? i was surprised when the old marquis volunteered any information to the likes of me." "i must see the marquis at once; with your permission, of course." "you have it," returned the other, smiling. "you are not yet reinstated in the regiment, and, so far as i am concerned, you are free to go and come as you will." "he is not here now, i believe?" "no. he turned over the command to me temporarily. he is driving out into the country, going out to the gap to reconnoiter for himself, i take it, but he will be back before nightfall, and meanwhile you have much to do. we want to get you well fed, to get some good french wine into you, to put the blood into your veins and color into your cheeks, to give you a bath, to get you clothing--everything," said the generous old veteran. chapter xviii almost a gentleman "will you tell the lieutenant-colonel, the marquis d'aumenier, that an officer returned from the wars desires to see him?" said marteau to the footman who answered the door at the governor's palace. "so many wandering officers want to see his excellency," said the servant superciliously, "that i have instructions to require further enlightenment before i admit any to his presence." "say to your master," replied the other, his face flushing at the insolence of the servant, "that one from the village of aumenier craves an audience on matters of great importance." "and even that will scarcely be sufficient," began the lackey. "enough!" thundered marteau. "carry my message to him instantly," he said fiercely, "or i shall throw you aside and carry it myself." the servant looked at him a moment, and not relishing what he saw, turned on his heel and disappeared. "his excellency will see you, sir," he said, in a manner considerably more respectful when he returned a few moments later. "this way, sir. his excellency is in the drawing-room, having finished his dinner. what name shall i announce?" he asked, his hand on the door. "announce no one," was the curt reply. "open the door. i will make myself known." the lackey threw open the door. marteau entered the room and closed the door behind him. the drawing-room of the governor's palace was brilliantly illuminated. the governor was receiving the officers of the garrison and the principal inhabitants of the city that night, but it was yet early in the evening, and none of them had arrived. the young officer had purposely planned his visit at that hour, in order that he might have a few moments' conversation with the marquis before the invited guests arrived. there were five people gathered about the fireplace, all engrossed in pleasant conversation apparently. it was the second of march, and the weather made the fire blazing on the hearth very welcome. four of the five people in the room were men; the fifth person was a woman. it was she whose attention was first aroused by the sound of the closing of the door. she faced about, her glance fell upon the newcomer, a cup which she held in her hand fell to the floor, the precious china splintering into a thousand fragments, her face turned as white as the lace of her low evening gown. "marteau!" she exclaimed in almost an agonized whisper. "mademoiselle," answered the soldier, bowing profoundly. he was beautifully dressed in the nearest approach to the latest fashion that the best tailor in grenoble could offer--thanks to the major's purse--and, although his most becoming attire was not a uniform, his every movement betrayed the soldier, as his every look bespoke the man. "and who have we here?" asked the oldest man of the group, the marquis d'aumenier himself, the attention of all being attracted to the newcomer by the crash of the broken china and the low exclamation of the young woman which none had made out clearly. "by gad!" bellowed out with tremendous voice a stout old man, whose red face and heavy body contrasted surprisingly with the pale face, the lean, thin figure of the old marquis, "i am damned if it isn't the young frenchman that held the château with us. lad," he cried, stepping forward and stretching out his hand, "i am glad to see you alive. i asked after you, as soon as i came back to france, but they told me you were dead." "on the contrary, as you see, sir, i am very much alive, and at sir gervaise yeovil's service as always," said marteau, meeting the englishman's hand with his own, touched by the other's hearty greeting, whose genuineness no one could doubt. "and this gentleman?" he went on, turning to a young replica of the older man, who had stepped to his father's side. "is my son, captain frank yeovil, of king george's fifty-second light infantry. by gad, i am glad to have him make your acquaintance. he is going to marry the marquis' niece here--your old friend--when they can settle on a day. you had thoughts in that direction yourself, i remember," he went on, in his bluff way, "but i suppose you have got bravely over them by now," he laughed. "i have resigned myself to the inevitable, monsieur," answered marteau with a calmness that he did not feel. he did not dare to look at the countess laure as he spoke. he could not have commanded himself if he had done so. his lips were compressed and his face was paler than before. the girl saw it. she had watched him, fascinated. the englishman, young, frank, sunny-haired, gallant, stepped up to him, shook him by his unwilling hand. "i am glad to know you," he said. "i have heard how you saved my betrothed's life and honor, and held the château. i have longed to meet you, to thank you." "and i you," said marteau. "you english are frank. i shall be likewise," he added. "it was not thus i wanted to meet you, monsieur, not in a drawing-room, in this peaceful dress, but--on the field." "i understand," said the englishman, sobered a little by the other's seriousness. "and if the war had continued perhaps we might have settled the--er"--his eyes sought those of his fiancée, but she was not looking at him--"our differences," he added, "in the old knightly way, but now----" "now it is impossible," assented marteau, "since my emperor and i are both defeated." "monsieur," broke in the high, rather sharp voice of the old marquis, "that is a title which is no longer current in france. as loyal subjects of, the king the word is banished--like the man." "i am but new to france, monsieur le marquis, and have not yet learned to avoid the ancient habit." "and yet you are a frenchman," commented the marquis dryly. "you said you came from aumenier. i did not catch your name, sir?" "marteau, at your service." "one of the loyal marteaux?" "the last one, sir." "and pray why are you new to france?" "i have but two months since been released from an austrian prison and an austrian hospital." "i made inquiry," said the countess suddenly, the tones of her voice bespeaking her deep agitation, "i caused the records to be searched. they said you were dead, that you had been killed at the bridge of arcis with the rest of your regiment." "i was unfortunate enough to survive my comrades as you see, mademoiselle," said marteau. "and i thank god for that," said the countess laure. "i have never forgot what you did for me, and----" "nor has the memory of your interposition which twice saved my life escaped from my mind for a single instant, mademoiselle." "yes, it was very fine, no doubt, on the part of both of you," said captain yeovil, a little impatiently, because he did not quite see the cause of all this perturbation on the part of his betrothed; "but you are quits now, and for my part----" "what i did for mademoiselle is nothing, monsieur. i shall always be in her debt," replied the frenchman. "monsieur st. laurent," said the marquis, turning to the other occupant of the room, "my new adjutant, monsieur marteau," he added in explanation, "was there not a marteau borne on the rolls of the regiment? i think i saw the name when i looked yesterday, and it attracted me because i knew it." "yes, your excellency," said st. laurent, "he was a captain when he was detached." "you were on service elsewhere, _monsieur mon capitaine_?" asked the marquis. "i was a lieutenant-colonel, your excellency." "and where and when?" "on the day at arcis. made so by"--he threw up his head--"by him who cannot be named." "ah! quite so," said the marquis, helping himself to a pinch of snuff from a jeweled box, quite after the fashion of the old régime. he shut the box and tapped it gently. "there is, i believe, a vacancy in the regiment, a captaincy. my gracious king, whom god and the saints preserve, leaves the appointment to me. it is at your service. i regret that i can offer you no higher rank. i shall be glad to have you in my command," he went on. "it is meet and right that you should be there. i and my house have been well served for generations by your house." "i regret that i cannot accept your offer." "why not?" asked the marquis haughtily. "it is not to every wandering officer that i would have made it." "i should have to swear allegiance to your king, monsieur, and that i----" "enough," said the marquis imperiously. "the offer is withdrawn. you may go, sir." "i have a duty to discharge before i avail myself of your courteous permission," said the young man firmly. "my uncle," said the girl, "you cannot dismiss monsieur jean marteau in that cavalier fashion. it is due to him that i am here." "no, curse me, marquis," burst out sir gervaise, wagging his big head at the tall, french noble, "you don't know how much you owe to that young man. why, even i would not have been here but for him." "i am deeply sensible to the obligations under which he has laid me, both through the comtesse laure, and through you, old friend. i have just endeavored to discharge them. if there be any other way---- monsieur is recently from prison--perhaps the state of his finances--if he would permit me----" continued the marquis, who was not without generous impulses, it seemed. "sir," interrupted marteau, "i thank you, but i came here to confer, not to receive, benefits." "to confer, monsieur?" "we marteaux have been accustomed to render service, as the marquis will recollect," he said proudly. he drew forth a soiled, worn packet of papers. because they had represented nothing of value to his captors they had not been taken. they had never left his person except during his long period of illness, when they had been preserved by a faithful official of the hospital and returned to him afterward. "allow me to return these to the marquis," he said, tendering them. "and what are these?" asked the old man. "the title deeds to the aumenier estates, monsieur." "the grant is waste paper," said the marquis contemptuously. "not so," was the quick answer. "i have learned that the acts of the late--of--those which were duly and properly registered before the--present king ascended the throne are valid. the estates are legally mine. you reject them. i----" he hesitated, he stepped over to the young woman--"i return them to you, mademoiselle. her dowry, monsieur," he added, facing the englishman, as he laid the packet down on the table by the side of the countess laure. "well, that's handsome of you," said the latter heartily. "i cannot take them," ejaculated the young woman, just a touch of contempt for her obtuse english lover in her voice. "i---- they are legally his. we shall have no need----" "nonsense," burst out the young english officer. "they are rightfully yours. they were taken from you by an usurper who----" "monsieur!" cried marteau sharply. "well, sir?" "he who cannot be named by order of the king is not to be slandered by order of----" "whose order?" "mine," said marteau. "indeed," answered the englishman, his face flushing as he laid his hand on his sword--he was wearing his uniform. "steady, steady," cried the old baronet, interposing between the two. "the lad's right. if we can't name bonaparte, it is only fair that we shouldn't abuse him. and the girl's right, too. you have no need of any such dowry. thank god i have got acres and pounds of my own for the two of you and all that may come after." "it strikes me, gentlemen," said the marquis coolly, "that the disposal of the affair is mine. marteau is right and i was wrong. perhaps he has some claim to the estate. but, however that may be, he does well to surrender it to its ancient overlord. i accept it as my due. i shall see that he does not suffer for his generosity." "and does monsieur think that he could compensate me if he should give me the whole of france for the loss of----" "good god!" said the keen witted, keen eyed old marquis, seeing marteau's glance toward the young woman. "are you still presuming to----" "as man looks toward the sun that gives him life," said the young frenchman, "so i look toward mademoiselle. but have no fear, monsieur," he went on to the english dragoon, "you have won her heart. i envy you but----" "marteau!" protested the countess, the anguish in her soul speaking in her voice again. how different the appearance of this slender, pale, delicate young frenchman from the coarser-grained english soldier to whom she had plighted her troth, but to whom she had not given her heart. there was no doubt in her mind as to where her affections pointed. some of the pride of race, of high birth and ancient lineage, had been blown away in the dust of the revolution. she had played too long with the plain people on the ancient estate. she had been left too much to herself. she had seen marteau in splendid and heroic roles. she saw him so now. she had been his companion and associate in her youth. but of all this none knew, and she was fain not to admit it even to herself. "have you anything more to communicate, marteau, or to surrender?" asked the marquis coldly. to do him justice, any service marteau might render him was quite in accord with the old noble's idea of what was proper and with the ancient feudal custom by which the one family had served the other for so long. "i have yet something else to give up." "another estate?" "a title." "ah, and what title, pray, and what interest have i in it?" asked the marquis sarcastically. "i have here," said the young frenchman, drawing forth another legal document, "a patent of nobility duly signed and attested. it was delivered to me by special courier the day after the battle of montereau." "and you were created what, sir?" "count d'aumenier, at your service, monsieur." "is this an insult?" exclaimed the marquis, his pale face reddening. "sir," said the young man proudly, "it was given me by a man who has made more men noble, and established them, than all the kings of france before him. no power on earth could better make me count or prince or king, even." "sir! sir!" protested the marquis furiously. "i value this gift but i do not need it now. i surrender it into your hands. you may destroy it. i shall formally and before a notary renounce it. it shall be as if it had not been." the marquis took the paper, unfolded it deliberately amid a breathless silence and glanced rapidly over it. "even so," he admitted. he looked up at the gallant, magnanimous young frenchman with more interest and more care than before; he noticed how pale and haggard and weak he appeared. he appreciated it for the first time. a little change came over the hard, stern face of the old noble. he, too, had suffered; he, too, had been hungry and weak and weary; he, too, had eaten his heart out longing for what seemed impossible. after all, they had been friends and more than friends, these ancient houses, the high born and the peasant born, for many generations. "st. laurent," he said sharply, "we have been remiss. monsieur is ill, a chair for him. laure, a glass of wine." indeed, the constraint that marteau had put upon himself had drawn heavily upon his scanty reserve of nervous force. st. laurent did not like the task, but there was that in the marquis's voice which warned him not to hesitate. he offered a chair, into which the young man sank. from a decanter on the table the girl, her hand trembling, poured out a glass of wine. swiftly she approached him, she bent over him, moved by a sudden impulse, she sank on her knees by his side and tendered him the glass. "on your knees, laure!" protested the young englishman. "it is not meet that----" "in gratitude to a man who has served me well and who has set us all a noble example of renunciation by his surrender of land and title here in this very room." "rise, mademoiselle," said marteau, taking the glass from her still trembling hand. "the honor is too great for me. i cannot remain seated unless----" "very pretty," said the marquis coolly as young captain yeovil helped his reluctant young betrothed to her feet. "your health, monsieur," he continued, taking up his own glass. "by all the saints, sir," he added as he drained his glass, "you have acted quite like a gentleman." "'quite,' my uncle?" quoted the young woman with deep emphasis on the word. "well, what more could i say to a marteau?" "what more indeed," said the young officer, smiling in proud disdain. "damme if i wouldn't have left the 'quite' out," muttered the elder yeovil. "i have your leave to withdraw now, monsieur?" asked the young officer. "you dismissed me a moment since." "now i ask you to stay. by the cross of st. louis," said the old marquis, fingering his order, "i am proud of you, young man. take the commission. i should like them to see what sort of men we breed in champagne and----" "i feel i shall be unequal to it. i must withdraw." "where are you staying?" asked the young woman eagerly. "with major lestoype, an old comrade." "and i shall see you once more?" "i cannot hope to see mademoiselle again. our ways lie apart." "enough," said the countess imperiously. "it rests with me and i will see you again. meanwhile, au revoir." she offered her hand to the young frenchman. he seized it eagerly. "monsieur allows the privilege to an old and faithful servitor?" he said to the young englishman, who stood jealously looking on, and then, not waiting for an answer, he bent low and pressed his lips upon it. did that hand tremble in his own? was there an upward movement as if to press it against his lips? he could not tell. he did not dare to speculate. the countess closed her eyes and when she opened them again he was gone. chapter xix the great honor roll at midnight, had there been anyone abroad in the garrison to observe them, a number of men, heavily cloaked, might have been seen drifting through the torrential rain that was falling, toward the quarters occupied by major lestoype. they were expected, evidently, for they were admitted without hesitation by the carefully selected old soldiers who kept the door. the usual servants had been dismissed to their quarters, and their places were taken by certain tried and trusted veterans of the regiment. in the quarters of major lestoype was a spacious and lofty hall. thither the new arrivals were conducted. there was an air of great secrecy about their movements. the occasion was evidently felt to be a solemn one by all. major lestoype was not yet present. as they threw off their cloaks it was seen that they were soldiers of the fifth regiment of the line, to continue to give it the familiar title. each one was arrayed in his best parade uniform. they were of every rank below that of major, and included among them were several non-commissioned officers and a few private soldiers of reputation and standing. the men were of all ages too, although the non-commissioned officers and privates were, in every instance, veterans. these last stood in a little group by themselves, although there was no attempt on the part of the officers to emphasize any difference in rank on such an occasion. there were, perhaps, a hundred men in the company when all had been assembled. they had been chosen with the utmost care. the list included all the officers, except certain new officers who had been assigned to the regiment from other regiments of whom major lestoype and the veteran captains were not sure. certain other young officers, sons or connections of influential royalists now in high favor with king louis xviii, who had also been assigned to the regiment were of course excluded. those who were there were known men, all tried and true. major lestoype himself had been a private when the fifth-of-the-line had followed the emperor, then but general bonaparte, into italy on that first and most marvelous of the campaigns of the great captain. he had seen service in egypt and had been present with the first consul at the decisive battle at marengo. into his hand as a non-commissioned officer thereafter the newly made emperor had delivered the eagle. naturally, he experienced toward it almost the feeling of a father for his child. every other man there was associated in some way with that imperial emblem, their regimental standard. as has been said, it was not the flag for which they cared; flags were of perishable silk or cloth; they could be and often were destroyed in battle. they could be replaced. some regiments stripped the colors from the poles before they went into action. it was the eagle that was precious and to be defended. it was the eagle that was in their hearts almost eternal. it was to receive their eagle again that these officers and men had been summoned. they did not know that definitely yet, but some whisper of it had been in the air. they were on the _qui vive_ for the developments of the evening and full of restless excitement. when the great door was at last thrown open and the senior captain caught sight of the tall, lean figure of his commander, he instantly came to attention and said sharply: "gentlemen, attention. the major commanding." to be sure, lestoype no longer occupied that position. his place had been taken by the marquis d'aumenier, but in the mind of the senior captain and of the others the old major still was supreme and he said the words quite naturally. the talking ceased at once, the well-drilled officers and men stood at attention, their hands raised in salute. major lestoype in full uniform, his breast bright with all his medals and orders--and it was observable that everybody else had adorned himself with every decoration he possessed, even those that had become illegal and valueless, forbidden even, after the fall of the empire--entered the room, acknowledged the salutes and bowed ceremoniously to the officers assembled. he was followed by a tall slender young man on this occasion dressed again in the uniform of the regiment. and yet there was a difference between this stranger and the other officers. while from the uniforms of the other officers had been carefully removed everything which in the least degree suggested the empire, no such deletion had taken place with the equipment of the young man. on the contrary, the buttons, the brasses, the braids, the tricolored cockade; in short, everything was just as it was before the restoration. the eyes of the soldiers gleamed as they immediately recognized the difference. they looked upon him with a certain envy, because he so boldly sported that of which they were deprived. at first they did not recognize the man who had the hardihood thus to display the insignia of napoleon in the kingdom of louis. it was not until he had advanced further in the room and stood in the full light of the chandelier and major lestoype turned toward him that one of the veterans recognized him. "by the living god," cried a deep voice, "marteau!" instantly the name was caught up. "marteau! marteau! marteau!" came from all parts of the room. "gentlemen, comrades," said lestoype, raising his hand, "i beseech you, silence. walls have ears. every man here is tried and true. we are trusting our lives and honor to one another, but what may be outside i know not. we must do nothing to attract any attention. therefore, restrain yourselves, i beg. captain marteau, for it is indeed he, gentlemen, has brought back to the regiment----" he paused a moment, with an instinctive feeling for the dramatic. perhaps the little scene had been prearranged. marteau had carried his hand behind his back. as lestoype stopped he brought his hand to the front of his body. there in the light of the candles, from the great chandelier above, the officers and soldiers saw the thing which they venerated next to god. for a moment they stared, almost aghast at the gilded emblem in marteau's hand. eyes sparkled in some faces, brimmed with tears in others, cheeks paled on one hand and flushed upon the other; breaths came quicker, a low murmur ran through the room--almost terrible in its meaning. "the eagle of the regiment, messieurs," said old lestoype solemnly, breaking the silence. "_vive l'empereur!_" suddenly exclaimed a veteran port-aigle, or standard bearer, in a low but tense voice, and the mighty battle-cry swept softly through the room from man to man, in low notes, in broken whispers like a great wavering sigh from a multitude of throbbing hearts. "is it the same?" asked one as the sound died away. "the very same," answered lestoype. "it was given into my hands years ago. i had someone write down the emperor's words then. i committed them to memory. i can hear him speak now." "and what were those words we ask you, we, who are young in the regiment," broke out a youth who was yet a veteran of the german campaign of . "the emperor, turning to marshal berthier, took the eagle from him, he held it up thus in his own hands." lestoype turned to marteau and suited the gesture to the word. he seized the eagle and advanced a step and those who watched him so keenly noticed how he trembled. it was to him as if the emperor were there again. some mystic aura of his mighty presence seemed to overhang the uplifted eagle. "gentlemen, we were paraded on the champ de mars with thousands of others. the eagles had been marched along the line with the ruffles of drums and blare of bugles. it was raining like tonight, there was no sun, but never saw i a brighter day. the emperor said: "_'soldiers of the fifth regiment of infantry of the line, i entrust to you the eagle of france. it is to serve to you ever as your rallying point. you swear to me never to abandon it but with life? you swear never to suffer an affront to it for the honor of france? you swear ever to prefer death to dishonor for it? you swear?'_" as the words of the old officer died away, moved by a common impulse, the hands of the men before him went to their swords. with sweeping gestures they dragged them out of their sheaths, up into the air they heaved the shining blades. "we swear," they said solemnly, instinctively repeating the ceremony of the past in which some of them had participated and of which all had heard. as their words died away the gruff voices of the non-commissioned officers and privates standing at salute repeated the acclaim, in accordance with the custom. "it was so when the eagle was given," said old lestoype, deeply gratified by the spontaneous tribute. "gentlemen and comrades, be seated, if you please. i have called you here for the honor of the regiment to consult as to what is to be done." "_mon commandant_," said an old veteran, stepping forward as those present sought seats where they could, "i was port-aigle of the regiment before dresden. may i not take in my hand again the 'cou-cou'?" that was the cant name which the soldiers gave to the standard, a term of affection, of familiarity, of comradeship which in no way indicated any lack of respect or any diminution of determination to die for it if necessary. "to you i gladly commit it until we have determined what is to be done with it," said lestoype, handing it to the old man. it seemed a perfectly natural and spontaneous act to the officers present when the port-aigle pressed his lips reverently upon the number plate below the feet of the eagle and then, disdaining to sit down, stood at attention, holding it before him. "will you not tell us, mon commandant," said another of the younger officers, "something more about the eagle before we discuss its disposition?" "i was a sub-lieutenant at austerlitz," said lestoype, only too anxious to comply. "we were under the command of marshal soult, club-footed soult we called him, upon the heights of pratzen. in the advance we were overwhelmed. the port-aigle was killed. i was close at hand. i seized the staff but a bullet got me in the shoulder, here. my arm has been stiff ever since. i fell--a russian--we were that closely intermingled and fighting hand to hand--seized the staff. i lapsed into unconsciousness. captain grenier--you were sergeant-major then--finish the story." "willingly, major lestoype. i cut down that russian, although wounded myself, and tore the staff from him as he fell. but i couldn't hold it. i fell with it at your feet. our men had been driven back. there was nobody beside us but the regimental dog." "mustache," said one of the other officers, and all eyes turned toward the stuffed skin of a mongrel poodle dog mounted in a glass case hung against the wall. hands went up in salute. some of the soldiers laughed grimly. "the brave mustache," continued grenier. "he leaped over my prostrate body. i was conscious still. i saw it all. i would have given worlds for strength, but i was helpless. still mustache was enough. he loved the port-aigle. he seemed to know the eagle was in danger. he snapped at the hands of the russian. the man drew back and cut at him with his sword. perhaps i should have received that blow. you see where the forepaw of the dog was sliced off? but he had the spirit of a french soldier, that brave dog, and he kept them off until the regiment rallied and came back and drove away the russians. marshal lannes had a collar made for mustache. you can see it there around his neck, young gentlemen," continued the old captain. "on one side the inscription reads: _'he lost a leg in the battle of austerlitz but he saved the eagle of his regiment.' on the other side: 'mustache, a dog of france, who will be everywhere respected and honored as a brave soldier.'_" "what became of the dog?" asked another. "he was carried on the roll of the regiment until he was killed by an english cannon ball at badajos. we took the skin and it is there, but we buried the brave heart and the rest of him on the rampart where he fell. the soldiers put up a stone above him. 'here lies the brave mustache,' it read. i think the english left it standing." "that eagle has been in every capital of europe, messieurs," remarked another veteran. "rome, berlin, vienna, madrid, moscow." "it charged with the guard at eylau," said drehon. "you remember, comrades, some of you at least, how we went forward in support of the battalions of the guard under general dorsenne?" "i remember, i remember," came from one and another. "_hein_," said a veteran, "he was a bold soldier." "and a handsome one. they called him '_le beau dorsenne_,'" continued drehon. "the guard advanced at arms-aport and so did we. our drums and theirs were rolling _la grenadière_. one of his staff said to him as we drew near the ranks of the russians, 'hadn't we better begin firing, my general?' 'no,' said the proud dorsenne haughtily. 'grenadiers keep your arms aport,' he continued as he saw some wavering. 'the old guard only fights at the point of the bayonet.'" "and what happened?" "the russians seemed to be paralyzed. they stood and watched us. when they finally did fire, in their excitement, they overshot us. the next instant we burst upon them. our bayonets came down to a charge. they couldn't stand before us, comrades. corbleu! the white snow was red with blood that day! a squadron of cavalry, the emperor's escort, struck them in the rear at the same time and between us we cut them to pieces. they were heavy, those big russians, to toss on the bayonet, but we did it." "was that when the emperor called us 'the terrible fifth'?" queried a voice. "that was the time." "tell us more," came from the excited assemblage. "they gave us the gold wreath, there in paris, after jena and eylau and friedland. they loved the eagle then, those parisians," said adjutant suraif, taking up the tale. "the women fell on our necks and kissed us when we came marching back. they threw us flowers. they opened their arms to us. they gave us wine. ah, that was fine." "at ratisbon," said the old major, "i commanded the regiment at the bridge-head. we fought the austrians off all day, giving the emperor time to make his dispositions. we captured four hundred prisoners, an austrian battle flag, and three other flags. the firing was terrible, our cou-cou lost some leaves of his wreath there. we were alone there and at nightfall our ammunition was all gone. the austrians were there in thousands. they charged and overwhelmed us." "but the eagle?" "ah, we had taken precaution," laughed the old major. "we wrapped the 'cou-cou' up in the austrian standard and in the battle flags and buried it in a cellar, so when they captured us they got nothing but the men and, of course, we didn't matter." "and how did you get it back?" came an excited question. "the emperor took the town the day after. they had kept us prisoners there and so we were free. i shall never forget the emperor on that day. he rode down to us where we had formed in ranks. he looked over us. his glance pierced every man's heart. 'soldiers of the fifth,' he said, 'when i heard of the attack on the bridge at ratisbon i said to my staff, "i am tranquil, the terrible fifth is there," and now i see you alive, many of you unharmed, and without your eagle. what have you done with it?' he thundered out his face black as midnight. 'sire,' said i, stepping forward and upon my word, comrades, it took more courage to face the emperor in that mood than to charge an austrian battery, 'we have not lost our eagle. we have buried it and having been but this instant released from captivity by your majesty, we await your permission to dig it up.' 'go and resurrect it,' he said sharply. 'i will wait.'" "and did he?" "most assuredly. we found it safe and brought it back with the austrian standard. the emperor saluted it and commended us. 'i knew i could trust you,' he said, smiling." "he loved his eagles," said another voice. "that did he," answered a veteran. "i have even seen him get out of his traveling-carriage and stand at attention as an eagle at the head of a regiment marched by." "i carried the eagle in marshal macdonald's column at wagram, messieurs," said the old eagle-bearer, stepping forward. "it was there the bullet struck the wing tip, here." he laid his hand tenderly upon it. "mon dieu, that was a march! twenty thousand men in solid columns going across the plain at steady step, with drums beating, the austrians pouring shot and shell into us. you could hear the bullets crash through the breasts of the division like glass. my arm was numb from the bullet which struck the eagle, but i changed hands and carried it forward. i can see the big marshal still. the emperor was looking on. it was terrible. it didn't seem that mortal man could make it, but we kept on, still, silent, until we came in touch with the austrians and then we cut them in two. it was magnificent." "i was with marshal mortier when we were caught in the pass of durrenstein," broke out one of the privates, an old eagle-guard. "we fought all day and all night in that trap against awful odds, waiting, hoping, until toward morning we heard the thunder of dupont's guns. we were so close together that we seized the throats of the russians, and they ours. we begged the marshal to use a boat we had found to cross over the danube and escape. 'no,' he said, 'certainly not! i will not desert my brave comrades! i will save them or die with them.' ah, he was a brave man that day." "and that such a man could betray the emperor!" exclaimed another. "i never could understand it," said one of the soldiers. "that was the day," said a third, "when our drums were shot to pieces and we had to beat the long roll on the iron cooking cans." "you remember it well, comrade." "i was a drummer there. i remember there were but two thousand of the six thousand in the division that answered roll call that day." "i carried that eagle into moscow," said a scarred, one-armed veteran. "i would have carried it back, but i was wounded at malojaroslavets and would have died but for you, my friend." "and i carried it across the niemen after that retreat was over," returned the other, acknowledging the generous tribute of his old fellow soldier. "sacre-bleu! how cold it was. not many of you can remember that march because so few survived it. the battalions in spain can thank god they escaped it," said another. "it was hot enough there, and those english gave us plenty of fighting," added one of the veterans who had fought against wellington. "aye, that they did, i'll warrant," continued the veteran of russia. "the emperor who marched on foot with the rest of us. before crossing the beresina--i shudder to think of the thousands drowned then. i dream about it sometimes at night--we were ordered to break up the eagles and throw them into the river." "and did you?" "not i. that is the only order i disobeyed. i carried it with me, wrapped in my own clothes. one night my fingers froze to it. see!" he lifted his maimed hands. "but i held on. i crossed the nieman before marshal ney. he threw away his musket, but i kept the eagle. he was the last man, i was just before him," said the man proudly. "it was marteau who saved it at leipsic," said lestoype, "and again after he had hurled it into the aube at arcis he found it and brought it back. and it is here." tears glistened in the eyes of the veterans and the youth alike. hearts beat more rapidly, breaths came quicker, as these brave and fragmentary reminiscences of the part the eagle had played in past glories were recited. "what shall we do with it now?" asked lestoype at last. chapter xx when the violets bloom again now there was not a man in the room who had not heard of the order to return the eagles to paris, where they were to be broken up and melted down, not a man in the army for that matter. nor was there a man who had not heard some account of the resistance of other regiments to the order, which had been nevertheless enforced wherever possible, although in cases not a few eagles had been hidden or disappeared mysteriously and had not been given up. there was scarcely a man in the regiment--unless some royalist officer or new recruit--who had not been glad that their own eagle had been lost honorably in battle and buried, as they believed, in the river. it was more fitting that it should meet that end than be turned back to paris to be broken up, melted down and cast into metal for ignoble use--and any other use would be ignoble in the estimation of the regiment. "i would rather throw it into the isère," growled old grenier, "than send it back." "and i, and i, and i," came from different voices. "perhaps," said lestoype, speaking slowly and with deep meaning, for he realized that his words were in the highest degree treasonable, "if we can preserve it by some means we may see it once again at the head of the regiment when----" he stopped. the silence was positively ghastly. he looked about him. the men thrilled to his glance. "----'when the violets bloom again,'" he said, using the mystic poetic phrase which had become so widely current. "god speed the day!" burst out some deep voiced veteran. "amen, amen!" "_vive l'empereur_!" "let us save the eagle!" the whole room was in tumult of nervous cries. "_vive le brave marteau_!" finally said drehon when he could get a hearing. "he has given us back our honor, our life." the emotions of the moment were too much. reckless of what might happen, the room instantly rang with loud acclaim in response to this appeal. the soldiers sprang to their feet, moved by irresistible emotion. swords were drawn again. the officers and men clustered around lestoype and marteau. the eagle was lifted high, blades were upheaved threateningly again. dangers were forgotten. intoxicated with enthusiasm they gave free course to their emotions. "_vive l'empereur_!" resounded through the hall, not whispered but shouted, not shouted but roared! in their mad frenzy of excitement they did not, any of them, notice that the door into the hall had been thrown open and that a young officer of the regiment stood there, his face pale with amazement, his mouth open, staring. he could not take in the whole purport of the scene but he saw the eagle, he heard the cries, the word "_vive_" came to him out of the tumult, coupled with the name of marteau and the emperor. "gentlemen!" he finally shouted, raising his voice to its highest pitch and as the sound penetrated to the tumultuous mass the noise died away almost as suddenly as it had arisen. men faced about and stared toward the entrance. there stood young st. laurent, one of the royalist officers, newly appointed to the regiment, who had been made aide to the governor and commander. "major lestoype," said the youth with great firmness, having recovered his presence of mind and realizing instantly the full purport and menace of the situation, "an order from the governor requests your presence at once. i was sent to deliver it. the soldiers at the door strove vainly to stop me but i forced my way past them. i am an unwelcome guest, i perceive, being a loyal servant of the king, but i am here. what is the meaning of this gathering, the worship of this discarded emblem, these treasonable cries?" "am i, a veteran of the army of italy, to be catechised and questioned by a boy?" growled lestoype in mingled rage and astonishment. "you forget yourself, monsieur. i regret to fail in any military duty or in respect to my seniors, but in this i represent the marquis d'aumenier, the governor, aye, even the king, my master. whence came this eagle?" there was a dead silence. "i brought it, monsieur, to my old comrades, to my old regiment," coolly said marteau, stepping forward. "traitor!" exclaimed st. laurent, confronting him boldly. "not so, for i have taken no oath to king louis." "ah, you still wear the insignia of the corsican, i see," continued the young aide, looking more closely. "but how about these gentlemen?" again the question was met by silence. "messieurs," said st. laurent, "you are old soldiers of the former emperor. i see. i understand. you love him as i and mine the king. it is as much as my life is worth, as much as my honor, to condone it. yet i would not be a tale-bearer, but this cannot pass unless----" "shall i cut him down where he stands, _mon commandant_?" growled the old port-aigle, presenting his weapon. "and add murder to treason!" exclaimed st. laurent, his face flushing a little but not giving back an inch before the threatening approach of the veteran. there was good stuff in him, evidently, and even those who foresaw terrible consequences to themselves in his unexpected presence could not but admire him. they were even proud that he was a frenchman, even though he served the king they hated. "by no means," said lestoype, motioning the color-bearer back. "you shall go as freely as you came." "and if you do as i suggest i shall go and forget all i have seen, messieurs." "impossible!" "upon my honor i shall do it but on one condition." "ah! and that is?" "that you give me the eagle." "give you the eagle!" exclaimed old captain grenier. "the eagle for which our brave comrades died," said drehon. "the eagle which has been carried in triumph in every capital in europe!" added suraif. the whole room was filled with cries again. "never! never!" the whole mass surged forward, including marteau. "was it to give it up to any servant of king louis that i brought it back?" the latter shouted threateningly. "gentlemen," said the young aide so soon as he could make himself heard in the tumult, "the choice is yours, not mine. i am a soldier of the king, aide-de-camp to the governor of this place, an officer under the marquis d'aumenier. you have your ideas of duty, i have mine. i have already stretched my conscience to the limit in offering to be silent about this under any conditions. i am doing wrong in concealing it but i do not wish to doom so many brave men to disgrace, to death. you, monsieur"--he pointed toward marteau--"refused a commission in this regiment. you wear the insignia of bonaparte. you have no place here. withdraw. your arrival has disturbed the orderly course of events. these gentlemen were doing their duty contentedly----" "no, by god, never," roared out a veteran. "contentedly! we will never be content until----" "until what, monsieur?" "until the violets bloom again," came the answer, accompanied by a burst of sardonic laughter. "your interest in the flowers of spring does not concern me, gentlemen," returned the young aide, affecting not to understand, and perhaps he did not. "if you will give me the eagle----" "and what will you do with it if we should do so?" "i will be silent as to this." "and how will you explain your possession of it?" "i will say that i got it from monsieur marteau, who has gone." "and what will you do with it?" "that shall be as the marquis d'aumenier directs." "and he?" "i think he will undoubtedly obey the orders of the minister of war and send it to paris to be broken up." "gentlemen," said major lestoype, endeavoring to quiet and repress the growls of antagonism that arose on every hand, "you hear the proposition of monsieur st. laurent. seeing his duty as he does, i am forced to admit," continued the veteran with great magnanimity, "that it does credit to his heart. what shall we do?" "purchase our freedom, purchase our rank, purchase our lives by giving up our eagle!" said old captain grenier. "never!" "i vote no to that proposition," said drehon. "and i, and i, and i," acclaimed the soldiers. "you hear, monsieur st. laurent?" said the major. "these gentlemen have signified their will unmistakably." "i hear," said the young aide. "major lestoype, forgive me if i have failed in respect or soldierly deference to my superior officer, but i, too, have my duty to perform. i warn you all that when i pass from this room i shall go directly to the marquis d'aumenier and report what i have seen." "when he passes," cried some of the soldiers of lower rank ominously, emphasizing the adverb and rudely thrusting themselves between st. laurent and the door. "pardon me, gentlemen," said the young aide quite coolly. "it seems that i spoke unadvisedly in one particular." "you retract?" said a voice. "never. i should have said 'if i pass.'" swords were still out, hands were clenched, arms were raised. "say the word and he dies where he stands," cried one. "gentlemen," said lestoype sternly, "back, all of you. free passage for monsieur st. laurent. back, i say. let him go unharmed, as he came." "my orders were to request your presence before the governor of the town immediately," said the aide. "i attend him at once, young gentleman," returned the old soldier, seizing his cloak and covering his head with his chapeau. "gentlemen," he added, turning to the rest, "i leave the eagle in your hands. before he departs let me say that monsieur st. laurent has borne himself like a brave man, a gallant officer, and a true gentleman. monsieur, you will not take amiss this heartfelt tribute from so old a soldier as i." "i thank you, sir, and you, gentlemen," said the young aide, surveying the men, their sudden temper abated, now looking at him with admiration, some of them with hands raised in salute. "the duty you have imposed upon me by your choice is the most painful i shall ever be called upon to perform." "this way, monsieur st. laurent," said old lestoype, stepping through the door with his head high, beckoning the young aide to follow him. the door had scarcely closed behind the two when the wild confusion broke out again. "what shall be done now?" cried captain grenier, the senior officer present, as soon as he could be heard. "messieurs," said marteau, striving to gain the attention of all, "let me speak a moment. i have a plan. be silent, i beg of you." "we will hear marteau." "what have you to suggest?" "speak!" "be quick." "this. i will take the eagle, i, who brought it." "you will throw it into the isère?" "no. i know this town like a book. the regiment was once stationed here for a few months. i had time on my hands. i explored many of the ancient buildings. i will---- but ask me nothing. trust the eagle to me. i have periled my life for it as have you all. trust it to me. it shall come to no dishonor in my hands. say to the governor that i came here, that i brought the eagle, that i was asked to surrender it, that i refused, that i took it away, that you know not where i concealed it, nor whither i am gone. let monsieur st. laurent make his report. you can simply tell the truth. nothing will be done." "it is well thought on," said captain grenier. "the danger is to you," said another. "what of that? i have looked danger in the face often since i have been in the army, like all the rest of you." "i like not to shift the responsibility upon this young man," said the old port-aigle dubiously. "he is saving our lives at the risk of his own if they should find him--which is likely." "messieurs," said marteau quickly, "i am not preserving your lives for yourselves." "why, then?" asked an officer. "that you may be ready," said the young man, throwing his cloak about his shoulders, seizing the eagle with his hands, "when the violets bloom again." as they stared at him he saluted, turned on his heel, opened the door and went out. chapter xxi like a thief in the night the reception was over. the last guest had departed. the house had been closed. sir gervaise yeovil and his son and the countess laure had bidden the old marquis good night and retired to their several apartments. there were wakeful hours ahead for the governor, who repaired to his cabinet and got to work. the tidings which had been brought him by the young baron st. laurent were sufficiently grave and perturbing to render sleep impossible, even if he had nothing to do. in great astonishment the marquis had questioned major lestoype closely and from him had received a frank and accurate version of the whole affair. the major would have died rather than betray a comrade, but in this instance the betrayal had already been effected and there was nothing whatever to be gained, from marteau's point of view or from anybody's point of view, by an attempt at concealment. the old marquis had acted with dazzling promptitude. his personal escort had consisted of a troop of loyalist cavalry from the king's household guard and it had not yet returned to paris. he could depend absolutely upon these men. they had none of them been soldiers of the grand armies of the emperor. they had been recruited in loyal and long-suffering vendée. he placed them under the command of st. laurent, of whose conduct he highly approved, being in ignorance of the offer of secrecy made by that young soldier, lestoype being too fine a man to attempt to better his case by bringing the lieutenant into disgrace. this detachment had searched the major's quarters thoroughly. they had found them, of course, deserted. captain grenier, being forthwith summoned to headquarters, had stated truthfully that marteau had taken the eagle and gone and thereafter the assembly had dispersed. he declared upon his word of honor that he had no knowledge where he had gone or what he had done with the eagle. the marquis had a complete description of marteau drawn up and sent to every gate in the walled town. the guard was ordered to permit nobody and nothing to pass without the severest scrutiny and the closest search or inspection. the governor made preparations for public proclamation on the morrow, offering a large reward for the fugitive's apprehension dead or alive, and also an additional reward for information that would lead to the discovery of the missing eagle. promising himself to deal with the matter even more thoroughly in the morning, he had at last dismissed his subordinates and retired. if marteau was within the city walls--and it was impossible to see how he could have got out of the town without a pass after twelve o'clock at night--he would find him if he had to search every house in the town. the spirit of the old man was high and aflame. to be so braved, to have his command the scene of such an outbreak of disloyalty and treason to the king was more than he could bear with equanimity. there was another regiment in the town that had formerly been known as the seventh-of-the-line, commanded by colonel labédoyère, and there were detachments of artillery. the eagle of the seventh had never been sent to the war office in paris. it, too, had disappeared. but that had been months before the marquis' time, and he had no responsibility for that. colonel labédoyère was more than suspected of lukewarmness, but as he was a young man of great influence, high social standing and much personal popularity no steps had as yet been taken against him. the marquis determined to have it out with him also at the first convenient season, and unless he could be assured of his absolute devotion to king louis, he would report to the minister of war the necessity of the colonel's removal. the old man was fully alive to the napoleonic sentiment among the soldiers, a sentiment which arose from a variety of motives. in the first place, war was the trade of most of the soldiers. they lived on it, thrived by it, delighted in it. the permanence of the monarchy meant peace. there would be little chance for advancement and none at all for plunder. self-interest predisposed every old soldier to continue an imperialist. in the second place, the finances of france were naturally in a most disordered condition. the pay of officers and men was greatly in arrears; promises made had not been kept, and there was much heart-felt dissatisfaction on that account. the pay of a soldier is in no sense an adequate compensation for the risks he runs, the perils to which he voluntarily and willingly subjects himself, but it is a universal experience that although his pay is in no degree commensurate, yet the soldier whose pay is withheld instantly becomes insubordinate and mutinous, however high or patriotic the motives back of his enlistment. again the officers had, most of them, been degraded in rank. many of them had been retired on pittances which were not paid. those who were lucky enough to be retained in active service were superseded by superannuated, often incompetent old officers of the old royal army before the revolution, or by young scions of nobility with no knowledge or fitness to command veterans, to whom the gross-bodied, uninspiring, gouty old king did not appeal. again, the regimental names and associations had been changed and the old territorial or royal and princely designations had been reëstablished; the napoleonic victories had been erased from the battle-flags; the eagles had been taken away. the plain people of france were more or less apathetic toward emperor or king. france had been drained of its best for so long that it craved rest and peace and time to recuperate above everything else. it had been sated with glory and was alike indifferent to victory or defeat. but the army was a seething mass of discontent. it had nothing to gain by the continuance of present conditions and everything to lose. it was a body of soldiers-of-fortune held in control temporarily by circumstances but ready to break the leash and respond instantly to the call of the greatest soldier-of-fortune of all. and while all this is true it must also be admitted that there were many officers and men like marteau who were profoundly humiliated and distressed over conditions in france and who, passionately wrapped up in and devoted to the emperor, had spurned commissions and dignities and preferments. if they were obscure men they remained in france unnoticed; if they were great men they had expatriated themselves and sought seclusion and safety in other countries, oftentimes at great personal sacrifice of property, ease and comfort. the king, who was by no means lacking in shrewdness and wit, and his chief advisers in paris, did not fail to realize something of this, but keen-sighted men like the marquis d'aumenier, away from the person of the monarch, realized it much more fully, although even he had not the least idea of the wide extent and depth of this feeling. but the old man knew instinctively that he must control things in grenoble at least with an iron hand and that no temporizing was possible. the return of marteau, who was a man of parts and power, he admitted--he recalled how well he had borne himself before the little group in the drawing-room!--followed by the midnight gathering, the joy of the veterans, their worship almost of the eagle, enlightened him. he would put down sedition with an iron hand, he swore to himself. the king had committed this important place to him. it was, in a certain sense, a frontier city if the impossible happened. well, the king should find that he had not reposed trust in the marquis for nothing. so the old man thought as he lay sleepless during the night. he was not the only one who lay sleepless during the night. laure d'aumenier sought rest and oblivion in vain. she had been more moved by marteau's conduct and bearing and presence in the old château d'aumenier, a year ago, than she had been willing to admit until she thought him dead. the marteaux had always been a good-looking, self-respecting people. madame marteau, his mother, had been an unusual woman who had, it was said, married beneath her when she became the wife of old jean marteau, although she never in her long married life thought of it in that way. the present jean marteau was as handsome and distinguished looking a man as there was in france. the delicacy and refinement of his bearing and appearance did not connote weakness either, as she could testify. the young woman owed her life and honor to the young soldier. but long before that chance meeting they had been companions in childhood, intimate companions, too. the boy had been her servitor, but he had been more. he had been her protector and friend. in her memory she could recall incident after incident when he had helped her, shielded her. never once had he failed to show anything but devotion absolute and unbounded toward her. the proposition of marriage he had made in the old hall, which she had laughed to scorn, had by no means escaped her memory. she had dwelt upon it, she had even speculated upon the possibility of an acceptance of his proposal. why not? she knew no man more gentle at heart, more gallant in soul, more noble in spirit than he. that, too, she had turned over and over in her mind. she admired frank yeovil. he was a likable man, frank by nature as well as name and brave, sunny in disposition and ardently devoted to her. when the betrothal had been made at her uncle's urgent insistence that she accept captain yeovil's suit, it had been a great match for her, for the d'aumeniers were impoverished exiles, while the yeovils were a rich family and of a line almost as long as her own. it had been easy enough to plight her troth to the young englishman at first, but since she had seen marteau, she realized that it would not be easy to keep that engagement. fortunately, captain yeovil had been on service in spain and the south of france with the duke of wellington's army, and only a few weeks before had he joined her uncle and herself in paris on leave of absence. he had pressed her to name the day but she had temporized and avoided the issue; not for any definite reason but because as the time drew near she became less and less willing to be the englishman's wife. marteau had been reported killed at arcis. perhaps that report had done more to enlighten her to the true state of her affections than anything else. her pride of birth, her rank and station would never have permitted her, it may be, to dwell upon a living marteau as a possible husband, but since he was dead there could be no harm in dreams of that kind; and in her grief she had indulged herself in them to the full. it had been a shock to her, of course, but not so great a shock as it would have been if an engagement had subsisted between the two, or she had permitted herself to think that she could ever look favorably on the proposition he had made to her. nevertheless, it had been a great sorrow. there were some alleviations to the situation, however. since it had become impossible, since she believed marteau dead, she could indulge her grief and her mind could dwell upon those attractions which had influenced her so powerfully. the period was one of intense anxiety and excitement. the old marquis had lived much alone. he was not versed in woman's ways. her agitation and grief passed unnoticed. by degrees she got control of herself. since it was not to be marteau it might as well be young yeovil. the whole episode with which the french officer was concerned she viewed from a point of detachment as a romantic dream. his arrival had rudely shattered that dream and awakened her to the reality of the situation. she loved him. for laure d'aumenier to marry marteau was impossible. the marquis would never consent. he was her legal guardian, the head of her race. marriage without his consent was unthinkable. loving marteau she would fain not marry yeovil; yet her troth being plighted in the most public manner and with her consent, the marquis would force her to keep her word. she knew exactly the pressure that would be brought to bear upon her. although she had lost some of the pride of her ancestors, she could see the situation from their point of view. there was a deadlock before her and there appeared to be no way of breaking it. it was a wild night outside. the rain beat upon the casement windows of the old castle. the tempest without seemed fit accompaniment to the tempest within, thought the woman. a long time she lay thinking, planning, hoping, praying; alike unavailingly. toward morning, utterly exhausted by the violence of her emotions, the scene she had gone through--and it had been a torture to stand and receive the townspeople after the departure of marteau--she fell at last into a troubled sleep. she was awakened by a slight sound, as of a light footstep. she enjoyed the faculty of awakening with full command of her senses at once. she parted the curtains of the bed. with her eyes wide open, holding her breath, she listened. she heard soft movements. there was someone in the room! laure d'aumenier, as has been said, had been trained to self-reliance. she could wield a sword expertly and was an accurate shot with a firearm. she could ride with any woman in england. she had, in full, the intrepidity and courage of her ancestors. her prowess, so strange and so unusual in that day in a woman, had been a subject of disapproval on the part of her uncle, but sir gervaise yeovil and his son had viewed it with delight. frank yeovil had brought her from spain a beautiful toledo blade and a pair of spanish dueling pistols, light, easily handled and of deadly accuracy. the blade hung from a peg in the wall by the head of her bed. the pistols lay in a case on the table upon which her lighted bedroom candle stood. they were charged and ready for use. throwing back the cover without a sound, presently she stepped through the hangings and out on the floor. a loose wrapper lay at the foot of the bed, which was a tall old four-poster, heavily curtained. whoever was in the room was on the other side of the bed, near the wall. the curtains hung between. she was as light as a bird in her movements. she drew the bed-gown nearer, thrust her feet into heelless slippers, placed convenient for her morning rising by her maid, opened the box of pistols, lifted one of them, examining it on the instant to see that it was ready for use, slipped on the wrapper, stepped toward the foot of the bed and waited. the beat of the rain, the shriek of the wind, the roar of the thunder filled the room with sound, but the woman had good ears and they were well trained. she could hear someone softly moving. sometimes, in lulls in the storm, she thought she could detect heavy breathing. the natural impulse of the ordinary woman would have been to scream or if not that, having gained the floor, to rush to the door, or if not that to pull the bell cord and summon help. but laure d'aumenier was not an ordinary woman. she knew that any sound would bring aid and rescue at once. there would be plenty of time to scream, to pull the bell or to do whatever was necessary later. and something, she could not tell what, something she could not recognize, impelled her to take the course she did; to wait, armed. but the wait began to tell on her sensibilities. the sound of somebody or something moving mysteriously to-and-fro behind the curtains over against the wall at the other end of the room began to work on her nerves. it takes an iron steadiness, a passive capacity for endurance which is quite different from woman's more or less emotional courage, to wait under circumstances like that. just when she had reached the limit of her endurance and was persuaded that she could stand no more, her attention was attracted by a slight click as of a lock or catch, a movement as of something heavy, as of a drawer or door, and then the footsteps turned and came toward the window. the moment of action had arrived and with it came the return of her wavering courage. to reach the window the intruder must pass by the foot of the bed where she stood. now the light was on the table at the head of the bed and the table was far enough from the bed to shine past her into the room. the moving figure suddenly came into view. it was a man, shrouded in a heavy cloak. he did not glance toward the bed. his eyes were fixed on the window. his astonishment, therefore, was overwhelming when he suddenly found himself looking into the barrel of a pistol and confronted by a woman. chapter xxii in the countess laure's bed-chamber that astonishment was so great when the man recognized the woman that he threw up his hands and stepped backward. as he did so his sodden cloak, which he had gathered closely around him, opened and fell. the next instant his hand tore his hat from his head and he stood revealed in the full light of the candle. "marteau!" exclaimed the woman in a surprise and dismay equal to that of the man she confronted. her arm that held the pistol dropped weakly to her side. with the other hand she drew the peignoir about her, a vivid crimson wave rushed over her whole body. to surprise a man, a thief, in her room at night, was one thing; to confront the man she loved in such a guise was another. her heart rose in her throat. for a moment she thought she would have fainted. "you! you!" she choked out brokenly. "mon dieu!" "mademoiselle," began the man desperately, his confusion and dismay growing with every flying moment, "i----" "what do you here," she went on impetuously, finding voice, "in my bedroom at night? i thought you----" "for god's sake hear me. i came to----" and then he stopped lamely and in agonized embarrassment. "for what did you come?" she insisted. "mademoiselle," he said, throwing his head up, "i cannot tell you. but when i was stationed here before this was the bedroom of the commanding-officer. i supposed it was so still. i had not the faintest idea that you--that it was----" "and what would you do in the bedroom of the commanding-officer?" asked the woman, forgetting for the moment the strangeness of the situation in her anxiety to solve the problem. "and that, i repeat, i cannot tell." "not even to me, who----" she stopped in turn. "yes, yes, go on," urged the young man, stepping nearer to her. "not even to you who----" "who espoused your cause in the hall this very night, who befriended you," she went on rather lamely and inadequately having checked herself in time. "oh," said the young officer in great disappointment, "that?" "yes." "you see, the governor----" "did you wish to kill him?" "mademoiselle!" he protested. "i swear to you that i would not harm him for the world but i----" "are you in need? he offered you money. i have a few resources." "for god's sake, mademoiselle," interposed the officer desperately, but she went resolutely on. "whatever i have is yours. see----" she stripped rings from her fingers and proffered them--"take them." "mademoiselle," said the young man sadly, "you wrong me." "well, if it was not for murder or for gain, for what cause did you take so frightful a risk?" "is there no other motive, mademoiselle, that makes men risk their lives than revenge or greed?" "what do you mean?" "love." "but you said you did not know this was my room!" the words came from her impetuously and before she thought she realized when it was too late. "ah, mademoiselle, love of woman is a great passion. i know it only too well, too sadly. but it is not the only love." "have you another in your heart?" asked the countess with a sinking in her own. "love of honor." "i don't understand." "and yet i know that you are the very soul of honor yourself." "i thank you, but----" "mademoiselle," said the young man, coming to a sudden resolution, "appearances are frightfully against me. that i should be here, in your room, at this hour of the night, under the circumstances, condemns me utterly in your opinion, especially as i have offered no adequate explanation. i am about to throw myself on your mercy, to trust to your honor." "you shall not trust in vain, monsieur." "i know that. i trusted to your honor in the château d'aumenier and you did not fail me then." "nor will i now." "will you give me your word not to reveal what i tell you, and not to make use of the knowledge i communicate, until i give you leave?" "does it concern the honor or the welfare of those i love?" "you mean that englishman?" "i do not love--i mean the marquis, my uncle." "it does not," said the young man, noting with throbbing heart the broken sentence. "then i give my promise. speak." "i came here to conceal something, mademoiselle." "what?" "an emblem." "yours?" "the emperor's." "you mean----" "the eagle of the fifth-regiment-of-the-line." "why here?" "it is a long story. i brought it back, having fished it out of the river aube, where it had lain since that day----" "when i thought you killed," said the young woman, her hand pressed to her heart. "and were you sorry?" "sorry? i---- but go on." "i showed it to the officers of the regiment tonight at major lestoype's quarters. we were discovered. the matter was reported to your uncle. rather than give up the eagle i said that i would hide it." "and why here?" "because being as i thought the quarters of the commanding-officer it would be the last place in grenoble where it would be sought." "and where did you hide it?" "back of one of the drawers in the cupboard yonder." "and how did you know of the place?" "i was stationed here when i first joined the regiment. the château was untenanted. i rambled all over it. i explored its nooks and corners. i discovered that secret hiding place by chance and now the eagle is there." "and there it shall remain until it is discovered or until you give me leave to produce it," said the girl firmly. "i have your promise?" "you know well that i shall keep it." "i thank you, mademoiselle. twice you have saved my life and now, what is more to me than life, the emblem of my faith as a soldier, the honor of my regiment." "but why keep it, this eagle, at all," asked the girl, "and run this risk?" "it may be needed again." "but by whom?" "the emperor." "the name is forbid." "but the man is not." "ah, you think he will return?" "i do." "and when?" "mademoiselle has all my secrets. i am in her power absolutely. why keep anything from her?" "why, indeed?" assented the woman, thrilling to the acknowledgment of her power over the man she loved as any woman would. "when the violets bloom again," said the young man, bowing. "now, mademoiselle, i am at your service," he resumed as she stared at him. "at my service? what do you mean?" "you have caught me here in your room. you have only to call out to summon assistance. i shall be removed from your pathway forever." "but the eagle?" "i shall find means before i die to tell someone where to look for it if it should be needed." "and i am to condemn you to death?" "why not?" said the young man. "i only lived to bring it back. i never dreamed that i was to have the happiness of seeing you again." "happiness? this anguish?" murmured the young woman in daring self-revelation. she had forgot the hour, her dress, the strangeness of the situation, the awful impropriety of it all, the possibility of discovery. she only saw the man she loved. she saw how he loved her. she hung upon his words, and would fain hear more--more! "my god!" he responded with a sort of fierce pride that was almost arrogant. "although i was born a peasant, mademoiselle, not the finest gentleman in france or england could love you as i do. yet it is impossible for you to love me now that the emperor is no longer here. your uncle would never consent. you, yourself, love that english gentleman. why give thought to marteau? summon assistance, deliver me up and remember me as one who loved you with all the fervor of his heart, or forget me, if you can." "i would not have you die," said the woman, shuddering. "god forbid." "it is best so. life holds nothing for me now." "but if the violets bloom again?" asked the other. "ah!" exclaimed the man, throwing up his hands and drawing a long breath. "then!" "how came you here, monsieur?" "by that window there. there is a ladder without. it reaches most of the way. i am a good climber. the ivy----" "go as you came. none shall be the wiser." "to you always the disposition of my life, mademoiselle," said marteau simply. "i obey your command. farewell. it is but a postponement, anyway," he added as he turned away. "i can never escape from grenoble. they will seize me sooner or later and----" "stay!" she cried. moved by an unaccountable impulse the girl took a step nearer to him. she loosened her clutch upon her garment and held out her hands to him. "if it is to be farewell," she said tenderly, "know that i do not love that english captain, no, and that. i----" he seized her hand and covered it with kisses. "i can die with better grace now," he said at last. not daring to trust himself further he turned to the window again. as he put his hand on the lock of the casement he heard shouts and cries outside, he saw torches. escape that way was barred. the whole castle seemed suddenly to awake. he realized it all in a moment. he had been traced there. in another minute he would be discovered in the countess's room at that hour of the morning. he turned swiftly to the dismayed girl. "they are there," he said. "escape is cut off." steps and voices resounded in the corridor. "quick," she said, "the closet yonder--you can hide." she understood the peril as well as he. "and bring disgrace upon you when they caught me? never!" "marteau, for god's sake, i love you," said the woman agonizingly. "i cannot----" she stretched out her hands to him again. very lovely she looked, the peignoir falling from her white shoulders, the soft candle-light illuminating and yet concealing in its vague shadows the beauty of face and figure. marteau did not dare to dwell upon that. he must act and instantly. he rushed toward the woman. he caught her by the hand. he even shook her a little. "shriek," he whispered in her ear. he picked up the pistol from the bed upon which she had thrown it and pointing it upward pulled the trigger. startled by his utterly unexpected action, the meaning of which she could not fathom, she did scream loudly. the next instant the door was thrown open and into the room half clad, sword in hand, burst the marquis. with him were sir gervaise yeovil and the young captain, and attending them were servants and guards bearing lights. the marquis stared from his niece back to the young officer. "my god!" he exclaimed. "is it you?" marteau could only bow. he had a few seconds to make up his mind, a few seconds to decide upon the role he must play. well, his life was certainly forfeit, his reputation he would also give for hers. any explanation that he could make would be disbelieved unless, of course, he produced the eagle, which was not to be thought of. failing the eagle the more he endeavored to account for his presence the more deeply would he involve the woman he loved. "i find you here, you that i treated almost like a gentleman, who, i thought, nearly measured up to the title, in my niece's room at this hour of the morning," continued the enraged old man. "laure, has he--has he harmed you?" "you came too quickly, monsieur," answered marteau, himself, giving the young woman time to recover herself. "you heard the pistol shot." he threw the weapon from him. "we were struggling. it went off and----" "you damned low-born coward," gritted out the english officer, stepping toward him furious with anger. "steady, frank. there is something strange about this," said sir gervaise gloomily, catching his son by the arm. "he is no coward. that i'll warrant." "but to seek entry into a woman's bed-chamber!" continued frank furiously. "if you were a gentleman i'd----" "that 'almost,'" said marteau, "saves me in this instance." "i feel this action almost as if it had been my own son, had god blessed me with one," said the old marquis, slowly recovering his self-command. "a loyal marteau, a thief, a despoiler of women! why, she knelt to you in the hall. she raised her voice in your defense, and now you--you----" his fingers twitched. "'the count d'aumenier,'" he added in bittery mockery. "you could not bear the title if it had been left in your hand. i shall have you branded as a thief in the morning and----" "my uncle," said the woman, "he----" "mademoiselle," interposed marteau sharply, resolved to protect her at all hazards, "is not my case black enough without further testimony from you? i beseech you to be silent." "speak, laure," said the old marquis. "if you have anything to say which will make his punishment surer and harder, i charge you to say it." "nothing, nothing," answered the poor young woman. "oh, if ever a woman's soul was tortured----" "you tortured her, did you?" cried the englishman, struggling in his father's arms. "i once thought of meeting you in the field--you--you! i would like to strangle you with my bare hands." "it is just. i honor monsieur for his rage. it is true, i love the woman, and----" "is this the way a gentleman shows his affection?" roared out the english captain. "monsieur forgets that i am almost, not quite, a gentleman." "and there is another score we have to settle with you," cried the marquis. "that cursed eagle--where is it?" "before i sought mademoiselle," said marteau, "i placed it in safety and in such keeping as will watch over it. you will never find it. it will only be produced when"--he stopped--"when the violets bloom again." "what is this damned nonsense about flowers i hear everywhere?" burst out sir gervaise. "well, monsieur," said the marquis, "it will be produced before that time, or when the violets do bloom they will find some red soil out of which to spring." "you mean----" "as i live i will have you court-martialed in the morning and shot for high treason. i stand for the king, for the ancient laws of france. i will have no paltering with traitors, and i am more inclined to deal swiftly and summarily with you since to treason you add theft and this attempt upon a woman. produce that eagle, or you die." "i must die, then," said the young man. "by heaven," said sir gervaise; looking keenly at the officer, "there is more in this than i can understand. give me leave, my lord," he turned to marteau. "i have liked you always. i would befriend you now. i do not believe in appearances always. can you not explain?" "sir," said marteau, "i am grateful to find one here who still believes----" he stopped. "the circumstances speak for themselves. i love mademoiselle. i was mad. i came here, i----" "gentlemen," said the marquis, "let us withdraw. it is scandalous that we should be here under such circumstances. you, sir," he turned to marteau, "this way." the poor countess had stood in agony and despair. marteau did not look at her. he bent his head low as he passed her. two soldiers of the guard grasped him by the arms, the rest closed about him. "go, gentlemen. i will see you presently," said the marquis. "one of you servants yonder send the countess's women here." "i thank god," said young yeovil, "that we got here in time. if he had harmed you, dearest laure, i would have killed him here where he stood." her lover attempted to take her hand, but she shrank away from him. as sir gervaise passed her she bent forward and seized the old baronet's hand and kissed it. he, at least, had seen that there was something beneath the surface. "now, my child," said the old marquis kindly, but with fearful sternness, as the door closed behind the others, "what have you to add to what has been told?" "what do you mean?" "i know men. i know that that young man did not come here to assault you, or for robbery. you cannot tell me that the blood of the marteaux runs in his veins for nothing. and i know you did not invite him here, either. you are a d'aumenier. what is the explanation of it all?" but the poor little countess made no answer. she slowly collapsed on the floor at the feet of the iron old man, who, to save her honor and reputation, had played his part, even as marteau, in her bedroom on that mad march morning. chapter xxiii the marquis grants an interview the old marquis was face to face with a terribly difficult problem. that the eagle had been brought back did not admit of doubt. st. laurent had seen it, and the officers who had been present at the midnight meeting in the major's rooms made no attempt whatever to deny it. marteau admitted it. but it had disappeared. he had not the faintest idea where it was. the most rigorous search had so far failed to discover it. marteau had been questioned, appealed to, threatened, with no results whatsoever. his lips were sealed and no pressure that could be brought to bear sufficed to open them. he did not deny that he knew where the eagle was. he simply remained silent, immutably silent, when he was asked where. from the few loyalist officers in the regiments and in the town a court had been convened and marteau had been put on trial. he had been found guilty--indeed, there was no other verdict possible, since he calmly admitted everything--of treason, disobedience of orders, a whole catalogue of crimes. the marquis acted on the old feudal idea that he possessed all the rights of the ancient nobility, the high and low, the middle justice. and, indeed, he represented the king with full powers. the court, completely under his influence, had condemned the young soldier to death. marteau might have appealed, he might have protested, but he did neither. he accepted the inevitable. what was the difference? no appeal would have been entertained, no protest would have availed. it all came to this, he would either have to give up the eagle or his life. well, life was not worth very much to him, as he had said. even though he realized from her desperate avowal of the night before that the interest of the countess in him was more than she would have admitted, had not the words been surprised and wrung from her by his deadly peril, he knew that there was absolutely nothing to be hoped for in that direction. even though his comrades, alarmed by the imminence of his danger, and aroused by the energetic determination of the old marquis, besought him to give up the eagle, he refused. he would have considered himself a forsworn man had he done so. the marquis had visited the prisoner and had condescended to make a personal appeal to him, imploring him by that old duty and friendship which had subsisted between the families, but his appeals had been as fruitless as his commands and his threats. the old noble was iron hard. he had no sympathy with the empire or its emperor, but the determination of the young officer did arouse a certain degree of admiration. he would fain have spared him if he could, but, as he had sacrificed everything he possessed for the king, and counted the sacrifice as nothing, his sympathies did not abate his determination to punish treason and contumacy one whit. the marquis was accustomed to having things his own way, and the long period of exile had not changed his natural bent of mind in that particular. he was angry, too, at the stubbornness which he nevertheless admired. in other directions the marquis was balked. he had seen through the little drama that had been played by marteau and the countess laure in her bedchamber. that was one reason why he would fain have saved him, because he had so gallantly allowed himself to occupy the hideous role which he had assumed, to save the girl's honor. the marquis had not the faintest suspicion that there was anything wrong in the situation, or even that his niece had actually given her heart to this man. such a thought could not be entertained at all. it was inconceivable, but he knew that, however innocent might have been that meeting, if it had been prearranged the world would consider the countess disgraced, unless the explanation which marteau had suggested was allowed to become current. he had summoned his niece before him, and had sought in every way to force her to tell him the whole truth, but she had partaken, in some degree, of marteau's stubbornness. all she would say was, that marteau was innocent of any crime or any wrong. but, when the bewildered marquis asked her if she had invited him there, and if he was there by her permission, she had indignantly repudiated the suggestion as an insult, which left him more puzzled than before. the idea that marteau had come there to hide the eagle had never entered the marquis' mind for all his acuteness. he had asked the girl whether marteau had brought anything into the room or taken anything from it, and she had answered truthfully that when she saw him he had been exactly as when they saw him. the testimony of the marquis and the two englishmen rendered it unnecessary for the countess to be present at the court-martial. there was nothing material she could add, and, indeed, it was not for attempted theft, or assault, that marteau had been condemned--the marquis had suppressed that as much as possible--but for his conduct with the eagle. it was the fifth of march, a warm and sunny day in the south of france, even amid the mountains and hills of ancient dauphiné. great things were toward, although the marquis did not yet know it. the execution of the condemned was set for the next day. at ten o'clock in the morning the regiment was to be paraded and marteau was to be shot. he had asked that he might be granted a soldier's death, and the marquis had seen fit to grant the request. there were very few troops in grenoble which could be counted as loyal to the king, but there were some. from them the marquis intended to draw his firing party, and with them he intended to over-awe the regiment if there should be any outbreak. he was too keen a judge of humanity, and too well able to read the characters of men not to realize the whole regiment was in a mutinous temper over the eagle episode, that they looked upon marteau as a martyr, and that there might be outbreaks and grave difficulties before he was shot. well, difficulties did not daunt the stout-hearted, inflexible old noble. he rather enjoyed them. he rather welcomed this occasion, too, because he intended to be master now, and, having once mastered the regiment, he felt he would have no difficulty in controlling it in any future emergency. to him, as he sat in his cabinet maturing his plans for the morrow, came a message from his niece, asking admittance. the privilege was, of course, instantly granted, and laure d'aumenier presently entered the room. "have you come, my child," began the old man, regarding her tenderly, for in the few years she had been with him he had learned to estimate the worth of her character and love her as she deserved, "to explain this mystery, to tell me why you declare that the presence of a man in the room of a woman of my house at three o'clock in the morning is innocent? i repeat," he went on reassuringly, "that i cannot conceive of or admit any wrong on your part, and that makes the situation more impossible of explanation." "my uncle," answered the countess, "i can only say that monsieur jean marteau is not guilty, as he seems." "and i can quite believe that," said the old marquis. "indeed, our english friend, who for all his bluntness is not without discrimination and good sense, has said as much to me. he declared with great emphasis that there was something in it all which he could not understand." "and you--what did you say?" "i asked him if that was meant for any reflection on the honor of my family, for if it were i should accord him the pleasure of crossing swords with me and in the end run him through." "and he said----" "he disclaimed absolutely the idea. he is as convinced of your sweetness, your innocence and purity, as i am." "and captain yeovil?" "he lacks his father's insight and finesse. he is young. he takes matters as he sees them, and fancies marteau the common, vulgar thief he appeared." "impossible!" cried the countess. "he is----" "no doubt he is not especially prepossessed in favor of monsieur marteau, who has presumed to love you, and perhaps that accounts for his willingness to believe anything derogatory of him." "he is blind, and i----" "but you are not declining his hand on that account!" "no, the marriage stands. i could wish that it did not," said the woman passionately. "i could be happier if he suspected me of anything, however base, and in his suspicion set me free." "hark ye, laure," said the marquis earnestly. "i am an old man, and the life i have led has not served to maintain my youth. what i am engaged in now does not conduce to that ease of body and peace of mind which promotes long life. to you i say what i have said to no one else. we are standing, as it were, on a volcano. the army is in no sense loyal to the king. i advised that it be disbanded absolutely, but i was overruled. it is seething with sedition. the envoys of the powers at vienna are playing, idling, debating endlessly, and while they play and idle and talk in their fools' paradise, the emperor, he who is so called by misguided france, will return. i should not be surprised at any moment to receive tidings that he has landed." "and that is what they mean when they speak about the violets blooming again?" "yes, that is it. and, do you know as i walked in the garden this morning i found this." he tossed the first tiny purple violet of the spring on the table before her. "but he will be dead before the emperor comes," murmured the woman, her hand upon her heart. "put that thought out of your mind, my child," said the old man. "think rather of captain yeovil." "i hate him," said the countess, which was most unjust, for he had done nothing at all to deserve such an expression on her part. "hate is the passion of old age," said the marquis slowly, "love that of youth. i told you that my race would soon be run. i am an old man. i have suffered much. i shall be content to die if i can serve my king here a little after all these years of weary waiting. the title-deeds that young man gave back do not cover much. the estate has been divided and granted to strangers. it is practically all gone but the old château. i have little or nothing to leave you beyond those small amounts which your father used to send me, which i never would touch because they came from a disloyal france. the yeovils are true and worthy people. the boy is a gallant lad, a brave soldier, even if not overly acute. sir gervaise is a man of consideration and of great wealth. you are portionless. he is most generous. i am very happy in the thought that you will be taken care of. i know what it is to be alone and poor." "i cannot bear----" "we have to bear a great many things that we do not wish to in this life. you owe me some consideration. i still retain my faith and confidence in you. i have not pressed you to the wall with hard questions about last night." "i know, i know, but----" "and, as the head of the house, i must have even from the children the obedience which is my due." "i do not wish to fail in my duty toward you, monsieur, but----" "and your word, the word of a d'aumenier, has been plighted. you entered into this engagement of your own free will. there was no constraint." "but there was pressure." "yes, certainly, i know what is best for you, but you were not forced in any way, and your troth, having been plighted, your word given"--the old man stopped, looked at her solemnly, his long fingers tapping lightly on the table--"it must be kept," he said, with that air of absolute finality which none could assume better than he. "it shall be, although it kills me." "if i live i shall see that it is; and if i die i have your promise?" "you have." "that is well. you will live to thank me and bless me. i have fancied, of late, that your heart had been allowed to decline a little to this marteau. oh, he is a brave man and true, i know. i take no stock in his confession of theft or assault upon you. why, i would have cut him down where he stood, or have him kill me if i believed that! but he is of another race, another blood. the eagle does not stoop to the barnyard fowl. the heart of a woman is a strange thing. it leads her in strange ways if she follows its impulses. thank god there are men who can and will direct and control those impulses. put him out of your mind. it is best. to-morrow he will be a dead man. at any rate, i am rather glad of that," said the marquis, half reflectively, knowing what trouble he might have made if he were to be allowed to live on. it was cold-blooded, but he could sacrifice marteau for his niece's happiness, and find abundant justification in the annals of his house, where he could read of many marteaux who had been sacrificed or had sacrificed themselves for the d'aumeniers. "i--i will promise," faltered the girl, "but on one condition." "i like it not when youth makes conditions with age. nevertheless, what is in your mind?" "i want to see marteau again." "impossible!" "wait," said the woman quickly. "is it not true, have i not heard that he is condemned outwardly because he brought an eagle here and it is gone?" "yes, that is true." "and has it not been said that if he produced the eagle his life could be spared and he could go?" "that is also true." "and would it not allay the dissatisfaction of the regiment and contribute to the establishment of your authority if he gave it up?" "my authority is established by the king." "the maintenance of it, then. would it not enable you to control and hold in check these people, if you could show that you had not been balked?" "that may be," said the marquis. "go on." "and, if he should produce the eagle----" "i would save his life, but he would be a discredited man among his comrades, if i know anything about it." "oh, not that, surely." "surely; and i may tell you that if i were in his place i would do exactly as he has done." the woman stepped nearer and put her hand to her head. "nevertheless, i must see him. have mercy!" she entreated piteously. "why? do you think you can persuade him to produce the eagle--to his discredit, be it remembered?" asked the old man, surveying her keenly, realizing at last the extraordinary interest she took in marteau. "but it is his life if he does not." "do you care so much for--his life?" "yes," answered the woman, looking the marquis straight in the eyes. he recognized a will as inflexible as his own. it aroused his admiration. he arose to his feet. he bowed before her. "mademoiselle," he said firmly, "you have the strength of our house. perhaps it might be well if he could be induced to produce the eagle and be thus discredited in the eyes of his comrades. it would tend to make my authority more secure. it would be to the advantage of the king." "yes, yes." "but what argument can you bring?" "i--i do not know." "alas, my child, you know more than you will tell. oh, i recognize that it is useless to appeal, and impossible to constrain. well, you give me your word of honor that whatever happens you will carry through the engagement with captain yeovil, and that we will together arrange a proper time and that you----" "i give it." "your hand," said the marquis. "without there!" he raised his voice. an orderly appeared. "send monsieur st. laurent to me." "monsieur," continued the old man, as the officer presented himself, "you will conduct the countess laure d'aumenier to the small drawing-room; you will leave her there; you will then go to the guard-house and bring thence the prisoner, marteau; you will conduct him to mademoiselle, my niece, and you will leave them together for half an hour; you will see that the prisoner is carefully guarded, that sentries are posted outside of the windows, and you, yourself, will remain with other escort, in front of the door." "but out of hearing," said the young woman quickly. "that, of course. and on your honor, on your duty, on your allegiance, you will say absolutely nothing about this to any one. do you understand?" "i understand, monsieur. i shall obey," said st. laurent, a youth of rare quality, as has been seen. "good. you have one half-hour, my child. god grant that you may serve france and induce this wretched prisoner to give up the eagle. your impulse of mercy does you credit," he said adroitly, making the best of the situation for st. laurent's benefit. "now you may go." "this way, mademoiselle," said st. laurent, bowing low before her at the open door. as the countess passed down the long corridor she almost ran into young pierre, the boy. he had been questioned with the rest, but had absolutely nothing to tell. of course, he knew about the recovery of the eagle, but that was all. he had known nothing about the midnight meeting. the countess laure had taken him into her service, her uncle being willing. and he had spent a miserable day when not with her, wondering and hoping and praying for marteau. with others in the regiments he had received important news in the last hour, and had made every effort to get it to marteau, as had been suggested to him, but he had hitherto failed. no sentry would pass him, and there was no way he could get speech with the prisoner. he was in despair when he saw the countess approaching, st. laurent marching ceremoniously ahead, as if to clear the way. "mademoiselle," he whispered, plucking her gown. "what is it?" asked the girl, naturally sinking her voice to the other's pitch. "you will see--him?" "yes." "a message." "what is it?" "give him this." the boy thrust into her hand two or three flowers like those her uncle had picked, the first purple blossoms of the virgin spring. "and the message?" "the violets have bloomed," said the boy, and he was gone. chapter xxiv on the whole death may be better than life marteau realized fully his position, and it would be idle to say that despite his depression he contemplated his fate without regret. normally he would have wanted to live as much as any man, even though in his more passionate moments he had said that life without laure d'aumenier held nothing for him. to be sure, life without her did not look very inviting, and there was nothing in it for which he particularly cared, especially since the emperor was gone, and marteau had become a stranger, as it were, in france. if the emperor had come back, or was coming back, it would be different. in spite of rumors, originating nowhere apparently and spread by what means no one could say, that the emperor was coming back, marteau, in the depressed condition of his mind, gave these statements but little credence. besides, even if they were true, even if laure d'aumenier loved him, even if he had everything on earth for which a man could ask or expect to live, he could not therewith purchase life; he could not even purchase love, at the expense of his honor. he could not give up the eagle for the kingdom. it was only a bit of gilded copper, battered and shattered, but it awakened in his nature the most powerful emotions which he was capable of entertaining. his love for laure d'aumenier was the great passion of his life. yet even his love for the woman, or hers for him, if she had returned his devotion with equal intensity and ardor, would not avail to persuade him to give up that battered standard. even if she had loved him! ah, what had she said in that moment of madness in her room that night? it was a moment of madness, of course, nothing else. marteau put it out of his mind, or strove to. it could not be. indeed, now that he was about to die, he would even admit that it should not be. but, if it were true, if that impulsive declaration indicated the true state of her regard--the possibility was thrilling, yet reflection convinced him it was better that he should die just the same, because there could be no mating between the two. he had crossed swords with the marquis. he had felt the hardness, the inflexibility and temper of the old man's steel. there would be no breaking him, no altering his will. he had made assurance doubly sure in some way, marteau was convinced. this marriage with this young englishman, whom the frenchman regarded with a tolerant, half-amused contemptuousness for his simplicity and bluntness, would have to be carried through. when marteau was dead the countess would presumably return to a saner frame of mind, and forget the mad attachment, if indeed she had entertained it. he took a certain melancholy satisfaction in the hope that he would at least become one of her sacred and cherished memories. but no memory can successfully dispute the claim of the living, as a rule. she would eventually marry this englishman; he would make her a good husband, and by and by she would be happy, and marteau would not be there to see. and for that he would be glad. if the emperor had been there, if the war god had come and summoned his men to arms again, marteau might have eased the fever in his brain and soul by deeds of prowess on fields of battle, but in peace he should only eat his heart out thinking of her in the other man's arms. there were things worse than death, and this was one. on the whole, he concluded it was just as well, or even better, that he should die. he was sufficiently versed in military and even civil law to see that his condemnation was irregular in the extreme, but he let it go. he was an obscure officer of a lost cause. there would not be any too rigorous an inquiry into what disposition the marquis made of him. nobody would care after it was all over. there remained nothing for him, therefore, but to die like a soldier, and--he smiled bitterly at the thought--almost a gentleman! he had been informed that any reasonable request he made would be granted. he would fain see a priest of his church, but later, and endeavor to make his peace with man after the time-honored custom of his religion, and thus insure his peace with god. meanwhile, a request for a brief interview with the woman he loved had trembled on his lips, but it had found no utterance. he was quite aware how he stood in that quarter. he had come to the conclusion that the marquis, at least, had seen through the little comedy--or, was it not a tragedy, after all?--which he had played in her bed-chamber, and he had convinced himself that the swiftness, the almost unseemly haste of his trial and condemnation and the nearness of his execution were largely due to a determination on the part of the old noble to get him out of the way before any scandal should arise. perhaps scandal was certain to come, and gossip to prevail, but it would be less harmful if the man were dead. to ask to see a woman whom he was supposed to have insulted so deeply and wronged so grievously would have served only to call attention to those things, to have given the whole game away, as it were. besides, what would be the good of it? she would leave him weaker in his resolution than before. if she had loved him--ah, god, how his heart throbbed--if that impulsive admission had been the truth of her heart! well, he told himself, he would have gone through the trial, accepted the verdict, received the bullets of the firing-squad in his heart, although it would have been harder. and yet--how he longed to see her. he had not expected to see her ever again during his long tramp from salzburg to grenoble. he had not entertained the least idea that she would be there. he had schooled himself to do without her, contemplate life absolutely sundered from her. but when he did see her his whole being had flamed with the passion he had so long repressed in vain. and the countess laure knew more of his heart than he fancied. during the morning she had had young pierre before her. she had questioned him, suggesting and even prompting his artless revelations. the boy needed no suggestions. he was quick-witted and keen-eyed. admiring marteau extravagantly and devotedly as he did, he could not conceive how any one could fail to share his feelings. he told the hungry-hearted woman the story of their lives since they had been captured together at arcis. reticent at first, marteau had finally made a confidant of the lad, who had shown himself sympathetic, discreet, adoring. he had to tell somebody, he had to ease his heart of his burden. and when he had once begun naturally he poured it all out before the boy. he could not have told a man, a woman, perhaps, had one been by sufficiently sympathetic and tender, but, failing that, it was the boy who received the confidences and who never once presumed on these revelations. indeed, he had a vein of romance in his peasant heart. he was a poet in his soul. perhaps that was one reason why the man could confide in him. and then, when marteau lay in the delirium of fever, the boy had shared their watches with the good sisters of charity. he alone had understood the burden of his ravings, for they were all about the woman. and, when she questioned him and gave him the opportunity, he poured forth in turn all the stored treasure of his memory. and the poor, distraught, unhappy young woman hung on his words with heaving breast and panting heart and tear-dimmed eyes and cheeks that flushed and paled. glad she was that he had so loved her; sad that it could make no difference. indeed, young pierre served his master well in that hour, and earned whatsoever reward, however great it might be, he should receive from him in the future. how strangely selfish even in its loves is humanity! although marteau was intensely fond of the lad, and deeply devoted to him, absorbed in his overwhelming affection for the woman he had forgot the boy until too late to send for him that day. well, he would remedy that omission on the morrow, he thought, as he abandoned himself once more to dreams of other days, to fruitless anticipations, to vain hopes of what might have been. to him suddenly came st. laurent. the young aide knew but vaguely of the scene in the countess's bed-chamber and, therefore, there was no prejudice in his mind against the officer. although he was a loyalist to the core, he could sympathize as a soldier with the other's point of view. his address toward him, therefore, was respectful, and even indicated some of that sympathy. "monsieur," he began most courteously, "i am sent by the governor to conduct you elsewhere." "shall i need my hat and cloak, monsieur?" asked the other, quite appreciative of the young man's treatment of him. "you will," was the answer. "am i leaving this room permanently?" "you will return to it in half an hour." "and whither----" "you will pardon me," was the firm reply, "i have orders to conduct you, not to answer questions." "your reproof," admitted marteau, smiling faintly, "is well deserved. i attend you at once, sir." escorted by st. laurent and two soldiers, he left the building, walked across the barrack yard, attracting instant attention from the soldiers off duty congregated there, and a few officers of the garrison who chanced to be passing. all of them saluted him with the utmost deference and the most profound respect. he punctiliously acknowledged their salutes with a melancholy grace and dignity. there was an air of great excitement everywhere, and he wondered vaguely what could be the cause of it. to his further wonderment also he found his steps directed to the governor's palace. entering, he was ushered through the halls and marched to the door of a room which he remembered was one of the smaller waiting-rooms of the palace. st. laurent stopped before the door, his hand upon the knob. "monsieur," he said, "to this room there is but this one door. i remain without with these soldiers. you can see by a glance through the windows that they also are closely guarded. escape is impossible. in half an hour i will knock upon the door, open it, and escort you back to your place of confinement. do you understand?" "perfectly." "enter." somewhat bewildered by the mysteriousness of the whole proceeding, and yet with a heart which in spite of himself did beat a little faster, marteau entered the room, st. laurent closing the heavy door behind him. chapter xxv not even love can find a way standing in the middle of the room, her closed hand resting upon a table upon which she leaned as if for support, was laure d'aumenier. the old marquis had not noticed it, nor did the young man; that is, the eye of neither took in the details, but both had been conscious of the general effect, for the young countess had dressed herself in her most becoming gown, one that had been newly made for her in paris before the journey to the south of france and that she had never worn before. she had spent a miserable night and day. when she had talked with her uncle a short time before, the effects of her sleeplessness and anguish had been plainly apparent. but there, within that room, her color coming to her face, her eyes shining with excitement and emotion, she looked as fresh and as beautiful as the springtime without. it was her right hand that rested on the table, and as marteau approached her left instinctively sought her heart. in his emotion he looked at her with steady, concentrated glance, so keen, so piercing, as if he sought to penetrate to the very depths of her heart, that she could scarcely sustain his gaze. he, too, had forgot cares and anxieties, anticipation, hopes, dreams; in his excitement and surprise everything had gone from him but her presence. here was the woman he loved, looking at him in such a way, with such an air and such a bearing, her hand upon her heart--was that heart beating for him? was she trying to still it, to control it, because---- his approach was slow, almost terribly deliberate, like the movement of the old guard under dorsenne--_le beau dorsenne_!--against the heights of pratzen on the glorious yet dreadful day of austerlitz. his advance was irresistible, but unhurried, as if there must be a tremendous clash of arms in a moment to which haste could lend nothing, from the dignity and splendor of which hurry would detract. at another time the woman might have shrunk back faltering, she might have voiced a protest, or temporized, but now, in the presence of death itself, as it were, she stood steady waiting for him. enjoying the luxury of looking upon him unrestrained, her heart going out to him as he drew nearer, nearer, nearer, she found herself tremblingly longing for his actual touch. now his arms went out to her, she felt them slowly fold around her, and then, like a whirlwind released, he crushed her against his breast, and, as she hung there, her throbbing heart making answer to the beating of his own, he kissed her again, again, again. her heart almost stopped its beating. beneath the fire of his lips her face burned. her head drooped at last, her tense body gave way, she leaned upon him heavily, glad for the support of his strong arms. "laure," he whispered, "my little laure, you love me. oh, my god, you love me. it was true, then. i did not dream it. my ears did not mock me." "yes, yes," said the woman at last. "whoever you are, whatever you are, wherever you go, i love you." "and was it to tell me this that you came?" "yes. but not for this alone." "what else?" "i would have you live." "for you?" "for me." "as your husband?" "and if that were possible would you----" "yes, yes, would i what?" "give up the eagle?" "my god!" said the man, loosening his clasp of her a little and holding her a little away that he might look at her. "does your love tempt me to dishonor?" "i do not know," said the woman piteously. "i am confused. i cannot think aright. oh, marteau, jean, with whom i played as a child, think of me. i cannot bear to see you dead outside there. i cannot look upon a soldier without thinking of it. the rattling of the carts in the streets sounds in my ear like shots. don't, don't die. you must not." "and, if i lived, would you love me?" "so long as the good god gives me the breath of life." "with the love of youth and the love of age?" "aye, for eternity." "and would you be my wife?" "your wife?" said the woman, her face changing. "it would be joy beyond all, but i could not." "why not?" "i--you know i am promised to another," she went on desperately, "and but that i might see you i repeated the promise. otherwise my uncle would never have permitted me this blessed privilege. i told him that i would marry anybody if he would only let me see you--alone--for a moment, even. what difference, so long as i could not be yours? i came to tell you that i loved you, and because of that to beg you to live, to give up that eagle. what is it, a mere casting of metal, valueless. don't look at me with that hard, set face. let me kiss the line of your lips into softness again. i cannot be your wife, but at least you will live. i will know that somewhere you think of me." "and would death make a difference? high in the highest heaven, should i be so fortunate as to achieve it, i would think of you; and, if i were to be sent to the lowest hell, i could forget it all in thinking of you." "yes, yes, i know how you love, because----" "because why?" "i won't hesitate now. it may be unmaidenly, but i know, because i, too----" "laure!" cried the man, sweeping her to him again. "i think i loved you when we were boy and girl together," said the woman, throwing everything to the winds in making her great confession. "i know i loved you that night in the château, although i would not admit it, and i treated you so cruelly. and when they told me you were dead, then, then, my heart broke. and when you came here and i saw you two men together--oh, i had made the contrast in my imagination--but last night i saw and now i see. oh, you will live, live. what is honor compared to a woman's heart? see, i am at your feet. you will not break me. you will live. something may happen. i am not married yet. the emperor may come back." "the boy, pierre, said last night that it was rumored----" "yes, he gave me a message. i almost forgot it." she held out the violet crushed in her fevered palm. "he said to tell you that the violet has bloomed." "does he mean----?" "i know not what he means." "it is but an assurance begot of hope," said marteau. "and if it were so?" "he comes too late. rise, my lady. it is not meet for you to kneel. let me lift you up, up to my heart. i cannot give up the eagle. that i have won your love is the most wonderful thing in all the world. it passes my understanding, the understanding of man, but i should forfeit it if i should permit myself this shame." "then i will do it, i will betray you," said the little countess desperately. "i alone know where that eagle is. i will get it. i will bargain with my uncle for your life. marteau, listen. do you wish to condemn me to death? i will not, i cannot, survive you. i will not be thrust into that other's arms. i did not know, i did not realize what it was--before. but since i have been here, since you have held me to your heart, since you have kissed me--no, i cannot. it would be desecration--horror. let me go. i will tell." "dearest laure," said the man, holding her tighter, "think, be calm, listen. it needs not that i assure you of my love. i have proved it. i lie here with the stigma of shame, the basest of accusations in the hearts of those who know of our meeting at night, to save you from suspicion even." "not my uncle, not the marquis. he says there is something back of it all. he knows you are not a thief." "it takes a d'aumenier to understand a marteau," said the young man proudly. "and i am a d'aumenier, too," said the woman. "then strive to comprehend my point of view." "i can, i will, but----" "what binds you to that englishman?" "my word, my uncle's word." "exactly. and what else binds you to keep my secret?" the woman stared at him. "oh, do not urge that against me," she pleaded. "i must tell all." "i have your word. that eagle must remain hidden there until the emperor comes back. then you must give it to him and say that i died that you might place it in his hand." "there must be a way, and there shall be a way," said the agonized woman. "i love you. i cannot have you die. i cannot, i cannot." her voice rose almost to a scream in mad and passionate protest. "why," said the man soothingly, "i am the more ready to die now that i know that you love me. few men have ever got so much out of life as that assurance gives me. that i, peasant-born, beneath you, should have won your heart, that i should have been permitted to hold you to my breast, to feel that heart beat against my own, to drink of the treasures of your lips, to kiss your eyes that shine upon me---- oh, my god, what have i done to deserve it all? and it is better, far better, having had thus much and being stopped from anything further, that i should go to my grave in this sweet recollection. could i live to think of you as his wife?" "if you will only live i will die myself." "and could i purchase life at that price? no. we have duties to perform--hard, harsh words in a woman's ear, common accustomed phrase to a soldier. i have to die for my honor and you have to marry for yours." "monsieur," broke in the sharp, somewhat high, thin voice of the old marquis standing by the door, "the court-martial brands you as a traitor. captain yeovil and those who were with me last night think you are a thief and worse. but, by st. louis," continued the old noble, fingering his cross, as was his wont in moments in which he was deeply moved, "i know that you are a soldier and a gentleman." "a soldier, yes; but a gentleman?--only 'almost,' my lord." "not almost but altogether. there is not another man in france who could withstand such a plea from such a woman." "you heard!" exclaimed marteau. "only the last words. i heard her beg you to live because she loved you." "and you did not hear----" "i heard nothing else," said the marquis firmly. "would i listen? i spoke almost as soon as i came in. laure, these marteaux have lived long enough by the side of the d'aumeniers to have become ennobled by the contact," he went on naïvely. "i now know the young man as i know myself. it is useless for you to plead longer. i come to take you away." "oh, not yet, not yet." "go," said the young officer. "indeed, i cannot endure this longer, and i must summon my fortitude for to-morrow." "as for that," said the marquis, "there must be a postponement of the execution." "i ask it not, monsieur. it is no favor to me for you to----" "thank god! thank god!" cried the woman. "every hour means----" "and i am not postponing it because of you," continued the marquis coolly. "but he who must not be named----" "the emperor." "so you call him--has landed." "yes, yes; for god's sake, tell me more." "i have no objection to telling you all. he is on the march toward grenoble. he will be here tomorrow night. troops have been sent for and will assemble here. he will be met in the gap on the road a few miles below the town. he will be taken. if he resists he will be shot." "yes, the violets have bloomed again." "and they shall draw red nourishment from the soil of france," was the prophetic answer. "the emperor!" cried the young man in an exultant dream, "in france again! the emperor!" "and so your execution will be deferred until we come back. the emperor may take warning from it when he witnesses it," continued the imperturbable old royalist. "i shall see him once more." "as a prisoner." marteau started to speak, checked himself. "for the last time," said the girl, "i beg----" "it is useless." "let me speak again. my uncle has a kind heart under that hard exterior. he----" "a kind heart, indeed," said the old man, smiling grimly, as marteau shook his head at the girl he loved so well. "and, to prove it, here." he extended a sealed paper. marteau made no effort to take it. he recognized it at once. for a moment there flashed into the woman's mind that it was a pardon. but the old man undeceived her. "do you give it to him, laure," he said. "it is that patent of nobility that he gave up. acting for my king, who will, i am sure, approve of what i have done, i return it to him. as he dies with the spirit and soul of a gentleman, so also shall he die with the title. _monsieur le comte d'aumenier_, i, the head of the house, welcome you into it. i salute you. farewell. and now," the old man drew out his snuff box, tendered it to the young man with all the grace of the ancient régime. "no?" he said, as marteau stared in bewilderment. "the young generation has forgot how, it seems. very well." he took a pinch himself gracefully, closed the box, tapped it gently with his long fingers, as was his wont. "monsieur will forgive my back," he said, turning abruptly and calling over his shoulder, "and in a moment we must go." ah, he could be, he was a gentleman of the ancient school, indeed. it seemed but a second to youth, although it was a long time to age, before he tore them apart and led the half-fainting girl away. chapter xxvi they meet a lion in the way morning in the springtime, the sixth of march, , bright and sunny, the air fresh. the parade-ground was filled with troops. there were the veterans of the old seventh-of-the-line, under the young colonel labédoyère. here were the close-ranked lines of the fifth regiment, major lestoype astride his big horse at the head of the first battalion. grenier, drehon, suraif and the other officers with their companies, the men in heavy marching order, their white cockades shining in the bright sunlight in their shakos. the artillery was drawn up on the walls, the little squadron of household cavalry was in attendance upon the marquis. his lean, spare figure looked well upon a horse. he rode with all the grace and ease of a boy. yes, there were the colors, too, the white flag of france with the golden lily in the place of the eagle on the staff, at the head of the column. with ruffling of drums and presenting of arms the flag had been escorted to its place, and from the little group of cavalry had come the words not heard till recently for so many years in france: "_vive le roi_!" the troops had assembled silently, somewhat sullenly. they stood undemonstrative now. what they would do no one could tell. the couriers who had dashed into the town yesterday night had told the story to the marquis. napoleon had landed five days before. he was within a day's march of grenoble. his following consisted of eleven hundred french infantry, eighty polish horsemen, and a few guns; troops of the line, and the grenadiers of the elba guard. the peasants had been apathetic. he had carefully avoided garrisoned towns, choosing the unfrequented and difficult route over the maritime alps of southern france. he was marching straight into the heart of the country, to conquer or to die with this little band. the messenger's news had been for the governor's ears alone, but it had got out. indeed, the tidings spread everywhere. every wind that swept over the mountains seemed to be laden with the story. the whole city knew that the foot of the idol was once more upon the soil of france. they saw no feet of clay to that idol, then. the news had reached paris via marseilles almost before it was known in grenoble. the terror-stricken government yet acted promptly. troops were put in motion, fast-riding expresses and couriers warned garrisons and transmitted orders to capture or kill without mercy. by a singular freak of fate most of these orders were perforce given to the old companions in arms of the emperor. most of these were openly disaffected toward the king, and eager to welcome napoleon. a few were indifferent or inimical to the prospective appeal of their former captain. still fewer swore to capture him, and one "to bring him back in an iron cage!" only here and there a royalist pure and simple held high command, as the marquis at grenoble. the old noble acted with great promptitude and decision. as the governor of dauphiné he had an extensive command. grenoble was the most important town in the southeast. within its walls was a great arsenal. it was strongly fortified, and adequately garrisoned. no better place to resist the emperor, if his initial force had grown sufficiently to make it formidable, could be found. rumor magnified that force immensely. the marquis gave the order for the concentration of all the troops in the province, to the number of six thousand. he sent out scouting detachments, and companies of engineers to break down bridges and block up roads--none of whom, by the way, obeyed his orders. in short, he did everything that experience, skill and devotion could suggest to stop the emperor and terminate the great adventure then and there. the ruffling of the drums in the square ceased. the old marquis detached himself from his staff and the cavalry and rode out between the regiments. he lifted his hand. there was an intensity of silence on every hand. even the people of the town had left their places of business and were crowded close to the lines to hear and see what was to be done. "bonaparte," said the marquis, that high, thin, somewhat cracked old voice carrying with astonishing clearness in every direction, "landed from elba in the gulf of juan a few days ago. this usurper, this bloody-minded tyrant, has broken every oath, disregarded every treaty. he is coming to grenoble. he will be here to-day. as loyal subjects of our gracious and most catholic majesty, king louis xviii, whom god preserve," continued the old man, taking off his hat, "it becomes our duty to seize, and if he resists, to kill this treacherous monster, who had plunged europe into a sea of blood and well-nigh ruined france." the old man did not mince words, it appeared! "you, gentlemen and comrades, have all sworn oaths before god and man to be faithful to the king whose bread you eat and whose uniform you wear. it has been said to me that there is disaffection among you. i cannot believe that a soldier of france can be false to his oaths and to his flag. the fifth regiment of the line will march with me to meet the corsican. the cavalry and my personal escort will keep the gates. if by any chance we should be beaten, which i cannot think possible with such brave men and gallant officers, the town must be held. colonel labédoyère, to you i commit the charge. have your men line the walls. dispose the troops which will soon be arriving advantageously. see that the guns are double-shotted. if by any chance i do not return, hold the place to the last. troops are marching to your aid from all over france. major lestoype, move your regiment. _vive le roi_!" ended the old man. again the cry was echoed, but not by many; the household cavalry, one or two of the newer companies of the brigade, some of the citizens. the marquis noticed it; everybody noticed it. well, what difference did it make to the old man? they might cry or they might not cry. fight they must, and fight they should. he had something of the old roman spirit in him, the marquis d'aumenier. upon him had devolved the conduct of the critical issue. if he could stop napoleon then and there his venture would be a mere escapade and a sorry one. if he could not, then god help france and the world. from the window of his prison, which overlooked the parade, marteau had seen and heard all. the emperor was coming and he would not be there to extend him a welcome. he forgot that if napoleon had been a day later it would have made no difference to marteau if he never came. he would have given years of his life, if it had been possible, to have marched with the column. orders had been published that morning postponing his execution until the return of the regiment. just what was in the marquis' mind no one could absolutely say, but he was shrewd enough to recognize the possibility of an outbreak or an attempted mutiny among the troops, when the sentence of execution was being carried out. he did not want any difficulties of that kind then. not because he feared them or felt unequal to them! oh, no. but because such an outbreak would make the regiment more difficult to control in the greater emergency, and he knew he needed all the influence and moral power and force he could exercise to keep it in line for the graver duty and more tremendous responsibility it must now face. and because he did not wish to leave it with marteau in grenoble, he took the regiment with him. if he could force it to do its duty and arrest napoleon, he could deal with marteau at his leisure. the emperor was the greater issue, and marteau benefited by that fact. so, with drums beating and flags flying, the fifth-of-the-line marched down the road. with the colonel and his staff rode sir gervaise yeovil and his son. they had asked permission and it had been accorded them. indeed, the staff was scanty. young st. laurent and an orderly, besides the two englishmen, alone accompanied the old man. realizing how critical the situation was, and how important it was that the town should be held, he had left every officer and man upon whom he could count with the cavalry, and with instructions to watch labédoyère particularly, and check any disloyalty, if possible. if the marquis alone could not effect his purpose with the regiment, no staff officer could aid him. he was a lonely old man and a hard that morning. the odds against him were tremendous, and his weapons were flawed and breaking in his hand. that only made him the more firmly resolute. he knew how sometimes one man could enforce his will on unwilling thousands. was he that man that day? he would see. some miles south of the town the winding road ran along the side of a high and rocky hill. on the side opposite to the hill was a deep morass. this place was known as the gap. the marquis, who had apparently thought of everything, had reconnoitered the country, and had decided upon the defensibleness of a place like this in the case of such an emergency as he was about to face, for along that hillside ran the main highway to the coast of france. the troops reached it about noon-time. the road was high up on the hillside. the marquis, riding in advance of his regiment, saw far down the long road and across a little river a moving column of men. above them floated the tricolor flag, the blue and the red vividly distinct in the bright sun, which seemed to be reflected, as it were, from a crown of glory at the top of the staff. there were perhaps twelve hundred soldiers on foot and a few score on horseback. they were coming steadily along the road. the distance was almost too great to distinguish men, but one rode a white horse at the head. the soldiers could see with their minds and hearts better than their eyes, and they recognized that gray-coated figure on that familiar white horse. they could hear the beating of drums faintly. the bridges had not been broken. the fords were not guarded. the advance parties had failed. presage of disaster! the marquis congratulated himself that he was in time to repair the disobedience of orders, which he promised himself to punish at the first opportunity. instantly he directed major lestoype to deploy the men from column into line, so that they filled the road, which was here very broad and spacious. on a sloping hillside he placed flanking companies. the command was given to load, and the ramrods soon rang in the gun-barrels. major lestoype's voice shook as he gave the commands, which were repeated hoarsely, brokenly, nervously, by the company and the platoon officers. the dispositions of the men were soon concluded. the place of the marquis was behind the line, but he rode to the right of it in a little depression cut out by the rains of winter in the side of the hill, underneath a great tree which was just beginning to show its leaves in the soft spring air and sunshine. from there he could command every part of the line with his glance, or move to the front or rear as the occasion might warrant. there he could see and be seen. he was always pale, his old face seamed and drawn, but to his friends, the englishmen, he seemed paler and older than ever, as he sat quietly calming his nervous horse. and sir gervaise yeovil was pale, too. not that he had any bodily fear, but the incident was so fraught with consequences which a man as experienced as he could so easily foresee, appreciate and dread, that its possibilities oppressed his heart. young frank yeovil was all excitement, however. napoleon had been buried in elba, but none mentioned his name in any country in europe without a thrill. few do it now without a thrill, for that matter. the young man, modestly in the background, as was proper, leaned forward in his saddle and stared at the approaching men and the figure to the fore. so this was the great bonaparte? he longed earnestly for a nearer view. "think you, my lord," whispered the baronet to the old marquis, his great anxiety showing in his voice, "that your men are to be depended upon? that they will----" the marquis shook his head, stared down the ranks at the men standing grim and tensely silent at parade-rest. "they look steady," he replied, shrugging his shoulders. "they have taken an oath to the king, and--god only knows." "what shall you do?" "the best i can with the means at hand," was the indomitable answer. "and if----" "there are no 'ifs,' monsieur," was the imperious way in which the marquis silenced the other. recognizing that he had said enough, and indeed pitying the old man so alone, the baronet drew back a little. "by heaven," whispered young frank yeovil to his father, "i wouldn't be elsewhere for a thousand pounds." "it may cost you that before you get away, and more," said the old man grimly. "it will cost england millions, unless----" "_monsieur le commandant_," said old major lestoype, riding up to the group and saluting respectfully. "major lestoype." "the command is formed and ready, sir." "very good. take your place and be prepared." "will _monsieur le marquis_ permit me?" asked the old soldier, who had acquired a genuine respect for the old noble. "permit you what?" "to return his advice," was the not unexpected reply. "the thought of me, which is evidently back of your words, sir, inclines me to overlook their meaning and its impropriety. know, sir, that i am always ready," was the grim comment of the ancient soldier. "indeed, sir--" began the other, but the marquis cut him short with an imperious gesture and a word. "retire." the major saluted, resumed his place in the line. no one spoke. the approaching soldiers were nearer now. they were coming. the fifth-of-the-line sensed rather than heard a command down the road. they saw the guns of that little army come from their shoulders to a slanting position across the breast--arms aport! it was the habit of the guard to go into action at arms aport. what had dorsenne, _le beau dorsenne_, said on that famous day? "the guard fights at the point of the bayonet!" would the guns come down to a charge? would they have to meet bayonet thrusts from these terrible soldiers? there was something ominous in the slow movements of the men, picked men they were, the grenadiers of the elba guard especially being of great size, their huge bearskins towering above them. they were marching in columns of fours, but the road was wide; another sharp command and the men with slow yet beautiful precision deployed into a close column of companies at half distance--the very formation for a charge in mass! the brass drums were rolling a famous march, "la grenadière," the grenadier's march. the hearts of the fifth-of-the-line were keeping time to the beating of those drums. ah, they were splendid soldiers, that regiment of infantry. even the youths got something from the veterans. they stood still, quiet, at parade-rest, staring. the distance was growing shorter, shorter and shorter. some of the officers looked toward the marquis. even his nervous horse seemed to have caught the spirit of the moment, for he was at last still. the old man sat there immobile, his lips pressed, his eyes fixed on the approaching troops and shining like sword-blades in the sunlight--horse and man carved, as it were, out of the rock of the mountains. presently that high, thin, sharp voice rang out. men heard it above the rolling of the drums. "attention!" he cried. the men straightened up, swung the heavy muskets to their sides. "carry arms." as one man the battalion lifted its weapons. "make ready!" with a little crash the guns were dropped into the outstretched hands. the approaching men were nearer now. still they came on with arms aport. still the drums ruffled and rolled at their head. they were not going to make any response apparently to the fire of the fifth-of-the-line. were they, indeed, to come to death's grapple at the bayonet's point with that irresistible guard? but no, there was a sudden movement, a change in the approaching ranks. "secure arms," cried old cambronne, and with their guns reversed and comfortably tucked under their arms, the old soldiers came on. the meaning was plain, the battle was to be a moral one, evidently! "aim!" cried the sharp voice of the marquis, and the guns came up to the shoulders of the long line, as they bent their heads and mechanically squinted along the barrels. the moment had come! out in the front had ridden the familiar figure on the white horse. they could see the details of his person now. his pale face was flushed under the familiar black, three-cornered cocked hat with its tricolor cockade, his gray redingote was buttoned across his breast. he suddenly raised his hand. the drums stopped beating, the moving grenadiers halted. ah, at last! the emperor sprang from his horse, not heavily, as of late, but with some of the alertness of a boy. he nodded to the ranks. old general cambronne, in command of the guard, stepped forward. he took from the colour-bearer the eagle. four grenadiers of the colour guard closed about him--one of them was called bullet-stopper, by the way. in rear and a little to the right of the emperor he moved, holding up the flag and the eagle. a deep breath, almost a sob, ran down the line of the regiment. protended guns wavered. napoleon stepped forward. he threw back his gray overcoat, disclosing the familiar green uniform of the chasseurs of the guard, which he affected. the cross of the legion of honor glittered on his breast, a shining mark at which to aim. the flush on his ivory face died as quickly as it had come. he was apparently as composed and as steady as if he had been cut out of granite. but tiny beads of sweat bedewed his brow, shaded by that familiar cocked hat. what would the next moment disclose? would he be a prisoner, the laughing stock, the jest of europe? or would he lie dead in the road, a french bullet in his heart? he had faced the guns of every people in europe, but he had never faced french guns before. would any finger in that line press a trigger? only god knew, but the emperor would soon find out. better death than exile without wife, child, friend, or france. on the hazard of the moment he staked all. yet he who could have looked into that broad breast could have seen that heart beating as never before. firmly he stepped on. chapter xxvii comrade! general! emperor! "behold the traitor," shouted the marquis, his emotion lending depth to that thin voice. "fire, soldiers!" no finger pressed a trigger. the silence was ghastly. ah! a thrill of hope in the breast of the greater captain, of despair in the heart of the lesser. "by god!" muttered yeovil, "he has lost them!" the marquis spurred his horse forward. "your oath! for france! the king! fire!" he shouted. and now a greater voice broke the silence. "comrades! do you not know me?" said the emperor. was there a tremble in his clear, magnificent voice? he paused, his speech stopped. "behold your general," he resumed. he waited a few seconds again and then finally, desperately, "let any one among you who wishes to kill his emperor fire--now." he raised his voice tremendously with that last word. it almost came with the force and clearness of a battle-cry. the marquis sat stupefied, his face ghastly pale. "there is yet time," he cried hoarsely at last. "is there none here faithful to his king? fire!" but the gun-barrels were coming down. "_comrade! general! emperor!_" who could be indifferent to that appeal? disregarding the old marquis absolutely, as if he were not on the earth, the emperor came nearer smiling. he was irresistible to these soldiers when he smiled. "well," he said, his hands outstretched and open, "soldiers of the fifth, who were with me in italy, how are you all? i am come back to see you again, _mes enfants_," he went on genially. "is there any one of you who wishes to kill me?" "no, no, sire. certainly not," came the cry. "escape," whispered the marquis to the englishman, "while there is yet time to take my niece away. to you i commit her. . . . st. laurent, to the town with the tidings!" "by god, no," growled yeovil, as st. laurent saluted and galloped rapidly down the road. "i am going to see the end of this. the damned cravens!" he muttered, looking at the soldiers. "and yet," continued napoleon to the troops, "you presented your guns at me." "sire," cried one of the veterans, dropping his musket and running his ramrod down the barrel, "it is not loaded. we only went through the motions." the emperor laughed. he was nearer. "lestoype," he said, "is it thou, old comrade, and grenier and drehon!" it was astonishing that he should remember them, but so he did. he went down the line, speaking to the men, inspecting them just as of old. the officers could not keep them in line. they crowded about their old leader. shouts of "_vive l'empereur!_" rent the air. men took off their caps, tore out the hated white cockades, trampled them under foot, and from pockets where they had concealed them for this very moment, they replaced them with the tricolor. in his movements the emperor at last confronted the marquis. "and who is this?" asked napoleon, staring up at him curiously. the marquis' heart was broken. it was not in the human power of any servant of the king to dominate that scene. a greater personality than his was there. the emperor had shown himself as of yore, and exhibited his mastery. but no greater ideal possessed any man than that in the heart of the old noble. he hated, he loathed, he abominated the man who looked up at him. he saw in the action of the soldiery a picture of the action of france, the downfall of the king. well, it flashed into his mind that he at least, and perhaps he alone, might put a stop to it. from his holster he whipped out a pistol and leveled it at the emperor. lestoype, riding near, struck up his hand, the bullet sped harmlessly, the emperor stood unharmed. a roar of rage burst from the soldiers who came running. dropping the weapon and reining his startled horse violently back, so as to give himself a certain present and temporary freedom of action, the marquis drew his other pistol. lestoype spurred his horse in front of the emperor, but napoleon was not menaced. "have no fear," said the marquis almost gently. "i have failed my king. the bullet goes into a truer heart--my own," he added proudly. before any one could stop him there was a flash, a muffled report, the spare figure reeled and fell forward on the saddle. he, at least, after the manner of his house, would not survive a failure which, although he could not prevent it, must inevitably be charged against him. "a brave man," said the emperor coolly, staring at him with his hard, bright, gray eyes. "see that his body is cared for in accordance with his rank and his courage. but who are these?" he asked, remounting his horse and facing the two englishmen, who had dismounted and received the body of the marquis, stone dead instantly. "as i live, it is the man of law," he said, his marvelous memory serving him well again, "who was at the château d'aumenier. it only needs marteau----" "he is alive, your majesty," interposed lestoype eagerly. "he brought back our eagle and is----" "where is it, and why is he not with you?" "the eagle is in hiding somewhere in grenoble, marteau in prison. he hid it, and because he would not tell where, the marquis yonder condemned him to death." "he has not yet been shot?" "not yet, sire. he waits the return of the regiment." "good," said the emperor. "we will surprise him. face the men about. we shall go on to grenoble and see what welcome awaits us there." he was in high spirits. in this first clash with the troops of king louis he found that he exercised the old influence over them and from the army, at least, he now realized that he had nothing to fear. one of the men who had stood nearest the emperor back of cambronne was an old grenadier. he had recognized the marquis d'aumenier, he had heard the emperor's conversation and the name of marteau, and a thrill went through the heart of old bal-arrêt when he learned that his beloved officer and friend was yet alive. the body of the old marquis--covered with his cloak, and over his heart the now discarded royal standard, for which nobody cared since he was dead--was placed on a farm wagon and escorted back to grenoble by some of the officers of the regiment and two companies, with reversed arms. he was watched over by the two englishmen, whom napoleon freely permitted to follow their own pleasure in their movements, being desirous of not adding fuel to any possible fire of animosity and of showing every respect to every frenchman, whatever his predilection. with the fifth-of-the-line in the lead, the army moved forward after a halt for noonday meal. the greatly relieved, happy and confident emperor, riding now with the old regiment of italy in the van, and now with the grenadiers in the rear, approached grenoble late in the afternoon. the short march day was drawing to a close when they came in sight of the heavily garrisoned walls of the town. labédoyère had obeyed orders in some particulars. the ramparts had been manned, the cannon were loaded, torches were blazing on the walls, and the town was awake and seething with excitement. he had declared for the emperor, and after a sharp little conflict had disarmed the royalist cavalry and himself held the gates. every regiment that had come in had cast its lot in with napoleon. as the soldiers in the town heard, in the twilight, the beating of the drums--"_la grenadière_" the old march again!--the colonel of the seventh, having seized the few royalists, opened the gates, marched out at the head of the troops to receive the emperor with arms, yes, but with open arms. amid the shouts of the citizens and the delirious joy of the soldiery, the emperor entered the city; in his train, first fruits of the war, was the body of the old servant of the unfortunate king. it was pierre who burst into the apartment of the little countess with the news. "the emperor is here, mademoiselle," he cried enthusiastically. "the soldiers are bringing him to the palace." "and marteau?" "he will be free." "thank god!" cried the girl, and then she remembered her uncle. "and the marquis?" she asked. "my dearest laure," said the kindly, sympathetic voice of captain frank yeovil, stepping out of the twilight of the hall into the bright light of the little drawing-room where last night she had bade farewell to marteau, "prepare yourself for some dreadful----" "yes, yes, i know," she interrupted. "the emperor is here." "the troops went over to him." "and my uncle?" "he----" "speak, monsieur. what has happened? did the emperor----" "no one harmed him. he could not survive the disgrace, mademoiselle. prepare yourself." "oh, for god's sake, delay not your tidings." "he died like a soldier of france on the field, by his own hand rather than survive what he wrongfully thought his shame." it was the policy of the emperor to be merciful; it was his wish to be clement. if possible, he wanted peace. if mercy and gentleness could get it he could have it. he gave free permission to sir gervaise yeovil and his son to return to england. he made no objection to their taking with them the countess laure, now the last of the line. he, himself, was present at the funeral of the marquis, who was buried with all the military honors of his rank and station. there were generous hearts among those frenchmen. as the representative of the king they had hated him, but when he had died so gallantly rather than survive what his nice sensibility believed to be his dishonor, his failure at any rate, they honored him. if he had been a marshal of france they could have done no more. marteau, restored to his rank and position as aide to the emperor, had but a few moments with the grief-stricken woman. "no," she said sadly, "it makes no difference. you know my heart. no words that i can utter could add anything more to the testimony i have given you. but i had promised my uncle, and now that he is dead, the promise is doubly sacred. i must go. thank your emperor for me for all he has done for me, his enemy, and for my friends, and for what he has done for you. tell him the story of the eagle, and the little part in it that i played and--you will not forget me as i will not forget you." "god grant," said the young soldier, "that i may die for france on some battlefield, my last thought of you." "ah, if that should befall you, i should envy you your rest. would to god i might look forward to such a quick and happy ending," said the grief-stricken woman, turning away. the next morning, with great ceremony and much rejoicing, the eagle was brought out, and the emperor once more presented it to the regiment. he did more than that. he signalized the action of the fifth-of-the-line, the news of which had been sent broadcast by couriers and which struck a keynote for the army to follow, by incorporating it as a supplementary fifth regiment of grenadiers of the guard. he promised them a new flag and new bearskins. he promoted lestoype to be a lieutenant-colonel, labédoyère to be a general, and promised every veteran officer his old rank or higher in the new army to be formed. the men were promised bounties and rewards, and, with high hopes and glorious anticipations, the march for paris was begun. so by the wayside and in the fields around this little army in that springtime, the violets bloomed again. book iii the last try chapter xxviii at the stamp of the emperor's foot the wonderful genius of napoleon, which had been so clearly manifested in so many ways during his varied career, was never exhibited to better advantage than in the three months after his return from elba. during that period he reorganized the government, recreated and reëquipped an army. the veterans flocked to his standards, and within the time mentioned he had actually two hundred and fifty thousand men under arms. with the better moiety of this force, the best armed, the best equipped, the best officered contingent, he took the field early in the month of june. the emperor did not want war any more than france did. he began his new reign with the most pacific of proclamations, which probably reflected absolutely the whole desire of his heart. but the patience of europe had been exhausted and the belief of rulers and peoples in the honesty of his professions, declarations or intentions, had been hopelessly shattered. his arrival effected an immediate resurrection of the almost moribund congress of vienna. the squabbling, arguing, trifling plenipotentiaries of the powers had burst into gigantic laughter--literally, actual merriment, albeit of a somewhat grim character!--when they received the news of napoleon's return. they were not laughing at napoleon but at themselves. they had been dividing the lion's skin in high-flown phrases, which meant nothing, endeavoring to incorporate the decalogue and the sermon on the mount in their protocols and treaties, when they suddenly discovered that the emperor was still to be reckoned with. differences were instantly laid aside and forgotten. russia, prussia and austria immediately agreed to put in the field two hundred and fifty thousand men each. the smaller powers, sweden, spain, the low countries, promised contingents. england once more assumed the familiar role of paymaster by immediately placing a vast subsidy at the disposal of the allies. she gave them also what was of more value than a subsidy, a soldier of the first rank to command the armies in the field. the duke of wellington had never crossed swords with the greatest captain of his day and perhaps of all time. but he had measured himself with the ablest and most famous of napoleon's marshals. with greatly inferior forces, through four years of desperate fighting, he had defeated the marshals and armies of france. the dashing and gallant junot had been routed at vimiero, victor had been overwhelmed at talavera. wily old massena with all his ability could look back to the disaster of the blood-stained hill of busaco, marmont, the dainty tactician, had been smashed at salamanca, stubborn jourdan had been at last decisively defeated at victoria. finally, the brilliant soult had been hurled out of the pyrenees and had met his master at toulouse. still, great as were these soldiers and highly trained as they had been in the best of schools, not one of them was a napoleon; all of them together were not, for that matter. would the luster of wellington's fame, which extended from the ganges to the ebro, be tarnished when he met the emperor? it was a foregone conclusion, of course, that schwarzenberg would command the austrians; blücher, the "hussar general," the hard-fighting, downright old "marshal vorwärts," the prussians; and the emperor alexander, with his veteran captains, the vast horde of russians. to assemble, arm, equip and move two hundred and fifty thousand men was a great task in those days even for a rich and populous country flushed with victory and in the enjoyment of an abundance of time and unlimited means. the organizing, it almost might be said the creative, ability of napoleon was not shared by his opponents. try as they would, june found their preparations still woefully incomplete. the austrians had scarcely moved at all. the slower russians, who were farther away and were to constitute the reserve army, could be discounted from any present calculation of the enemies of the empire. the english and their smaller allies from the low countries, and the prussians, whose hatred of france and the emperor was greater than that of any other nation, were quicker to move. two hundred and fifteen thousand men, half of them prussians, a third of the other moiety english, the remaining two-thirds belgians, hollanders, and other miscellaneous nationalities, had joined the colors on the northwestern frontier of france. one-half of this joint assembly was commanded by blücher and the other half by wellington. leaving the weaker half of his own great army to complete its equipment, and placing strong detachments in fortress and at strategetic points to oppose the austrians should they advance, the emperor, as has been said, with about one hundred and twenty-five thousand men took the field. naturally, inevitably, belgium, the immemorial battleground of the nations, and the great english-prussian army were his objectives. he saw clearly the dangers that encompassed him, the demands he must meet and the conditions over which he must triumph. it was by no means certain, even if he decisively defeated his enemies in belgium and occupied brussels, that his trouble would be over. there would still be left a possible five hundred thousand trained and disciplined men with whom he would have to deal, under rulers and generals the inveteracy of whose hatreds he could well understand. but at least his position would be greatly improved by a successful preliminary campaign, any success in short, to say nothing of so great a one. if he could show himself once more the inimitable captain, the thunderbolt of war, the organizer of victory, the napoleon of other days, the effect upon france, at least, would be electrical. and the world would again take notice. the emperor had to admit that, save in the army, there had not been much response from tired-out, exhausted france, to the appeals of its once irresistible and beloved leader. but the spirit of the army was that of devotion itself. there was a kind of a blind madness in it of which men spoke afterward as a phenomenon that could only be recognized, that could never be explained or understood. they could not account for it. yet it was a powerful factor, the most powerful, indeed, that enabled the emperor to accomplish so much, and fall short of complete triumph by so narrow a margin. the spirit of this new army was not that burning love of liberty which had animated the armies of the early republic and turned its tatterdemalion legions into paladins. it was not the heroic consecration of the veterans of later years to their native land. it was a strange, mysterious obsession, a personal attachment to napoleon, the individual--an unlimited, unbounded tribute to his fascination, to his own unique personality. it has not died out, and seems destined to live. even in death napoleon, after a century, exercises the same fascination over all sorts and conditions of men! wise and foolish alike acknowledge his spell. men hate, men loathe much of that for which the corsican adventurer and soldier of fortune stood; they see clearly and admit freely the thorough and entire selfishness of the colossal man, but they cannot resist his appeal, even after one hundred years! yet in the long run no personal attachment, however deep, however ardent, however complete, can take the place as the inspiration for heroic deeds of that deeper passion of love of country. nor can any personal devotion to a mere man produce such a steadfastness of character as is brought about by adherence to a great cause or a great land. a great passion like the love of a people for a great country and that for which it stands is eternal. usually the feet of clay upon which the idol stands have only to be recognized to dissipate the ardor and fervor of the worshipers. but napoleon was then an exception to all rules. though he slew men, wasted them, threw them away, they trusted him. we look at him through the vista of years and in some way understand his soldiers. reason to the contrary, we can experience in some degree, at least, even in the cold-blooded humanitarian materialism of the present, the old thrill and the old admiration. did his contemporaries love him because they believed he thought in terms of france, we wonder? so that this body of soldiery was probably the most formidable army in the quality of its units that had ever been mustered on the globe. there was not a man in it who was not a veteran. some of them were veterans of fifteen years of campaigning with napoleon. this that came was to be the sixtieth pitched battle in which some of them had participated. even the younger men had gone through more than one campaign and taken part in much hard fighting. back from the prisons where they had been confined and the great fortresses they had held until the emperor's abdication had come the veterans. the old guard had been reconstituted. as a reward for its action at grenoble, the fifth-of-the-line had been incorporated in it as a supplementary regiment, a second fifth regiment of grenadiers. the ranks of the guard had been most carefully culled, the unserviceable had been weeded out, their places taken by men well fitted by their record, their physical prowess and their personal appearance to belong to that famous corps. not the immortals of xerxes, the spartan band of leonidas, the companion cavalry of alexander, the carthaginians of hannibal, the tenth legion of caesar, the spanish infantry of parma, or the ironsides of cromwell, had surpassed the record of these pretorians of imperial france. the same weeding-out process had been carried out in the rest of the army. the flower of french cavalry, the matchless french artillery and the famous infantry which had trampled down the world were ranged under the eagles. other corps had been drained for equipment. but in some particulars the army differed from the imperial armies of the past. with two exceptions, the great marshals were not there. murat, king of horsemen and swordsmen, was a prisoner in his ignoble neapolitan realm awaiting trial and execution. marmont and mortier dared not present themselves before the emperor they had betrayed. wily massena, the wisest and ablest of them all, was old and in convenient retirement. macdonald, the incorruptible, was with the fat-bodied, fat-witted bourbon king in ghent. berthier, with his marvelous mastery of detail and his almost uncanny ability to translate the emperor's thoughts even into orders, had not rejoined the eagles--a terrible loss, indeed. there were but two of the marshals of old with napoleon. soult, in some respects the acutest strategist and finest tactician, was chief of staff. he tried his best to fill berthier's position and did it acceptably, if not with the success of that master. the other marshal was preëminently the battle-leader, red-headed michael ney, the fighter of fighters, a man whose personality was worth an army-corps, whose reputation and influence with the soldiers was of the very highest. the rest of the officers, while veterans, were younger and less-known men. drouet d'erlon commanded one of the corps; reille another; grouchy another; druot was the leader of the guard; kellerman, milhaud, gerard and maurice the cavalry. it was an army of veterans, officered by young men, commanded by the greatest of soldiers. but the army had not yet "found itself." it had no natural coherence and there had been no time to acquire any. it had not yet been welded together. officers, men, regiments, brigades, divisions were, more or less, new and strange to one another. there was a vast deal of suspicion in the ranks. the discipline was rather because of past habit than present practice. that army needed a few victories, and badly needed them. a welding process was required. given time and success to shake it together, and it might laugh at the world. would it get time and win victory? that was the question. and if it got neither, what then? how would it stand up under the strain? would the tie that bound hold in defeat? could the rest of the army live up to the guard, for instance? yes, that was the grave, the all-important question. there was an enormous disparity in numbers between the french army--or it would better be called napoleon's army--and that of the allies he purposed to attack. the allies were to the french in the ratio of about two to one. whatever else was lacking, napoleon had not lost his audacity, nor when his intentions are disclosed by a study of his plans, can it be argued that his strategic intention was lacking in brilliancy or daring. he determined with his smaller but compact and manageable army to thrust himself between the two wings of the somewhat loosely coherent enemy under its divided command; to hold off one while he smashed the other and then to concentrate upon the surviving half and mete out to it the same hard fortune. in other words, trusting to his ability, he deliberately placed his own army between two others, each of which practically equaled his own. he thrust himself within the jaws of a trap, to use a homely simile, intending to hold one arm of the trap open while he broke up the other. he intended to burst through the allied line and smash up each half in succession. of course there was always the danger that he could not burst through that line; or that he could not hold back one half while he fought the other, or that holding back one half he could not beat the other, or having beaten one half he would be too weak to fall on the other. there was always the danger that the trap would be sprung, that he would be caught in its jaws or, to change the metaphor, that he would be like the wheat between the upper and the nether millstone. still he did not think so, and he did not go into the undertaking blindly. as he had said, in his own case, "war was not a conjectural art," and he had most carefully counted the cost, estimated the probabilities. in short, he looked well before he leaped--yet a man may look well and leap wrong after all. on these considerations he based his grand strategy. the army of the prussians had approached the french frontier from the east; the army of the english and allies from the northwest. napoleon had a complete knowledge of one of the captains opposing him. he knew and accurately estimated blücher. he did not know and he did not accurately estimate wellington. he viewed the latter with contempt; the former with a certain amount of disdainful approbation, for while blücher was no strategist and less of a tactician, he was a fighter and a fighter is always dangerous and to be dreaded. gneisenau, a much more accomplished soldier, was blücher's second in command, but he was a negligible factor in the emperor's mind. the fact that wellington had beaten all of napoleon's marshals with whom he had come in contact had intensified the emperor's hatred. instead of begetting caution in dealing with him, napoleon's antagonism had blinded him as to wellington's ability. he also rated the prussians higher than the english as fighters, and when his officers, who had felt the power of the thin red line which had so often wrecked the french column, explained to him that there were no better defensive fighters on earth than the english, not even the russians, he had laughed them to scorn, attributing their warnings to the fact that they had been beaten in spain and had grown timid. the emperor did not purpose to be beaten in france or belgium by the stolid english. in more detail his first plan was to confuse wellington, who held the right of the allied line, then fall upon him before he had time to concentrate, and beat him or contain him with a detachment under ney, while the emperor in person thereafter put blücher to rout--and all of these things he came very near accomplishing completely. certainly, he carried out his plans successfully and to the letter until the final day of battle. he reasoned that if he could beat blücher and threaten his communications, what was left of the prussian army, which napoleon hoped would not be much, would immediately retreat eastward; and that when blücher had been thrown out of the game for the present, he could turn on wellington and his english and allies and make short work of him. it did not occur to him that even if he beat blücher and beat wellington, provided the defeats did not end in utter routs, and they both retreated, they might withdraw on parallel lines and effect a junction later when even after the double defeat they would still so greatly outnumber him that his chances of success would be faint indeed. the possibility of their pursuing any other course than that he had forecast for them never entered his mind. his own conception of their action was, in fact, an obsession with him. yet that which he thought they would do they did not; and that which he was confident they would not do they did! chapter xxix waterloo--the final review in a romance like this, in which campaigns and marches, maneuvers and battles, however decisive they may be in history, are only incidental to the careers of the characters herein presented to the reader, it is not necessary for the chronicler to turn himself into a military historian, much as he would like it. therefore, in great restraint, he presses on, promising hereafter only so much history as may serve to show forth the somber background. in this setting of the scene of the great drama to be played, young marteau has been necessarily somewhat lost sight of. he was very much in evidence during that hundred days of feverish and frantic activity. napoleon had distinguished him highly. he had given him the rank of a colonel of the guard, but he had still retained him on his staff. good and experienced staff-officers were rare, and the emperor needed all he could get; he could have used many more than were available. and as marteau was one of those who were attached to the emperor by the double motive of love of the man and love of his country, believing as he did that the destiny of the two could not be dissevered, he had served the emperor most efficiently, with that blind, passionate devotion to duty by which men give to a cause the best that is in them and which sometimes leads them to almost inconceivable heights of achievements. suffice it to say that the great strategic conception of napoleon was carried out with rather striking success in the first three days of the campaign. the emperor, crossing the sambre, interposed himself between wellington and blücher, completely deceived the englishman, who thought his extreme right was threatened, detached ney to seize the village of quatre bras, where wellington had at last decided to concentrate, and with eighty thousand men fell on the prussians at ligny. ney did not seize quatre bras; wellington got there ahead of him and stubbornly held the position. although ney had twice the number of troops at the beginning of the battle that the english field-marshal could muster, they were not well handled and no adequate use was made of the french preponderance. napoleon, on the far right of ney, at ligny, on the contrary, fought the prussians with his old-time skill and brilliance. the contending forces there were about equal, the prussians having the advantage in numbers, but victory finally declared for the emperor. it was the last victory, not the least brilliant and not the least desperately fought of his long career. the importance and quality of the battle has been lost sight of in the greater struggle of waterloo, which took place two days after, but it was a great battle, nevertheless. one of the crude ways in which to estimate a battle is by what is called the "butcher's bill" and eighteen thousand dead and wounded prussians and twelve thousand frenchmen tells its tale. but it was not the decisive battle that napoleon had planned to make it. the prussians retreated. they had to. but they retreated in good order. blücher having been unhorsed and temporarily incapacitated in a charge, the command and direction of the retreat devolved upon gneisenau. his chief claim to military distinction lies in the fact that he did not do what napoleon expected, and what blücher would have done. he retreated to the north instead of the east! a pursuit was launched, but it did not pursue the prussians. it went off, as it were, into thin air. it pursued napoleon's idea, his forecast, which owing to the accident to blücher was wrong! one reason why the victory of ligny and the drawn battle at quatre bras were not decisive was because of a strange lack of generalship and a strange confusion of orders for which napoleon and ney are both responsible. ney was constructively a victor at quatre bras, finally. that is, the english retreated at nightfall and abandoned the field to him; but they retreated not because they were beaten but because wellington, finding his position could be bettered by retirement and concentration, decided upon withdrawal. but ney could have been the victor in every sense, in spite of his indifferent tactics, if it had not been for the same blunder that the emperor committed. d'erlon, at the head of perhaps the finest corps in the army, numbering twenty thousand men, through the long hours of that hot june day marched from the vicinity of quatre bras to ligny, whence he could actually see the battle raging, only to be summoned back from ligny to quatre bras by orders from ney. retracing his course, therefore, he marched back over the route he had just traversed, arriving at quatre bras too late to be of any service to ney! like the famous king of france who with twenty thousand men marched up the hill and then marched down again, this splendid corps which, thrown into either battle, would have turned the prussian retreat into a rout on the one hand, or have utterly cut to pieces wellington on the other, did nothing. the principal fault was napoleon's. he saw d'erlon's corps approaching, but he sent no order and took no steps to put it into the battle. well, in spite of the fact that the energies of d'erlon had been spent in marching instead of fighting, the emperor was a happy man that night. he had got himself safely placed between the two armies and he had certainly severely if not decisively beaten one of them. strategically, his operations had been characterized by unusual brilliancy. if things went as he hoped, surmised and confidently expected, all would be well. he was absolutely sure that blücher was retiring to the east, toward namur. he dispatched grouchy with thirty-five thousand of his best men to pursue him in the direction which he supposed he had taken. napoleon's orders were positive, and he was accustomed to exact implicit obedience from his subordinates. he had a habit of discouraging independent action in the sternest of ways, and for the elimination of this great force from the subsequent battle the emperor himself must accept the larger responsibility. but all this does not excuse grouchy. he carried out his orders faithfully, to be sure, but a more enterprising and more independent commander would have sooner discovered that he was pursuing stragglers and would earlier have taken the right course to regain his touch with his chief and to harry the prussian field-marshal. he did turn to the north at last, but when the great battle was joined he was miles away and of no more use than if he had been in egypt. his attack on the prussian rear-guard at wavre, while it brought about a smart little battle with much hard and gallant fighting, really amounted to nothing and had absolutely no bearing on the settlement of the main issue elsewhere. he did not disobey orders, but many a man has gained immortality and fame by doing that very thing. grouchy had his chance and failed to improve it. he was a veteran and a successful soldier, too. comes the day of waterloo. blücher had retreated north to wavre and was within supporting distance of wellington. his army had been beaten but not crushed, its spirit was not abated. the old prussian marshal, badly bruised and shaken from being unhorsed and overridden in a cavalry charge in which he had joined like a common trooper, but himself again, promised in a famous interview between the two to come to the support of the younger english marshal, should he be attacked, with his whole army. wellington had retreated as far as he intended to. he established his headquarters on a hill called mont st. jean, back of a ridge near a village called waterloo, where his army commanded the junction point of the highroads to the south and west. he drew up his lines, his red-coated countrymen and his blue-coated allies on the long ridge in front of mont st. jean, facing south, overlooking a gently sloping valley which was bounded by other parallel ridges about a mile away. on the right center of wellington's lines, a short distance below the crest of the ridge, embowered in trees, lay a series of stone buildings, in extent and importance between a château and a farmhouse, called hougomont. these were surrounded by a stone wall and the place was impregnable against everything but artillery if it were properly manned and resolutely held. both those conditions were met that day. opposite the left center of the duke's line was another strong place, a farmhouse consisting of a series of stone buildings on three sides of a square, the fourth closed by a wall, called la haye sainte. these outposts were of the utmost value, rightly used. the duke had sixty-seven thousand men and one hundred and eighty guns. his right had been strengthened at the expense of his left, because he expected napoleon to attack the right and he counted on blücher's arrival to support his left. to meet him napoleon had seventy-five thousand men and two hundred and sixty guns. off to the northeast lay blücher at wavre with nearly eighty thousand more men and two hundred guns, and wandering around in the outer darkness was grouchy with thirty-five thousand. the valley was highly cultivated. the ripening grain still stood in the fallow fields separated by low hedges. broad roads ran through the valley in different directions. the weather was horrible. it rained torrents during the night and the earlier part of the morning. the fields were turned into quagmires, the roads into morasses. it was hot and close. the humidity was great. little air was stirring. throughout the day the mist hung heavy over the valley and the ridges which bordered it. but the rain ceased in the morning and napoleon made no attack until afternoon, waiting for the ground to dry out somewhat. it was more important to him that his soldiers should have good footing than to the english, for the offensive, the attack, the charge fell to him. wellington determined to fight strictly on the defensive. nevertheless, precious hours were wasted. every passing moment brought some accession to the allied army, and every passing hour brought blücher nearer. with all the impetuosity of his soul, the old man was urging his soldiers forward over the horrible roads. "boys," he said in his rough, homely way to some bitterly complaining artillerists stalled in the mud, "i promised. you would not have me break my word, would you?" grouchy meanwhile had at last determined that the prussians had gone the other way. he had learned that they were at wavre and he had swung about and was coming north. of course, he should have marched toward the sound of the cannon--generally the safest guide for a soldier!--but, at any rate, he was trying to get into touch with the enemy. no one can question his personal courage or his loyalty to his cause. napoleon, when he should have been on the alert, was very drowsy and dull that day at waterloo. he had shown himself a miracle of physical strength and endurance in that wonderful four days of campaigning and fighting, but the soldiers passing by the farmhouse of la belle alliance--singular name which referred so prophetically to the enemy--sometimes saw him sitting on a chair by a table outside the house, his feet resting on a bundle of straw to keep them from the wet ground, nodding, asleep! and no wonder. it is doubtful if he had enjoyed as much as eight hours of sleep since he crossed the sambre, and those not consecutive! still, if ever he should have kept awake, that eighteenth of june was the day of days! so far as one can discern his intention, his battle plan had been to feint at hougomont on the right center, cause the duke of wellington to weaken his line to support the château, and then to break through the left center and crush him by one of those massed attacks under artillery fire for which he had become famous. the line once broken, the end, of course, would be more or less certain. the difference in the temperaments of the two great captains was well illustrated before the battle was joined. the duke mainly concealed his men behind the ridge. all that the french saw when they came on the field were guns, officers and a few men. the english-belgian army was making no parade. what the british and flemish saw was very different. the emperor displayed his full hand. the french, who appeared not to have been disorganized at all by the hard fighting at ligny and quatre bras, came into view in most splendid style; bands playing, drums rolling, swords waving, bayonets shining even in the dull air of the wretched morning. they came on the field in solid columns, deployed and took their positions, out of cannon-shot range, of course, in the most deliberate manner. the uniforms of the army were brand-new, and it was the fashion to fight in one's best in those days. they presented a magnificent spectacle. presently the duke, his staff, the gunners and the others who were on the top of the ridge and watching, saw a body of horsemen gallop rapidly along the french lines. one gray-coated figure riding a white horse was in advance of the rest. the cheers, the almost delirious shouts and cries, told the watchers that it was the emperor. it was his last grand review, his last moment of triumph. it was after one o'clock before the actual battle began. more books have been written about that battle than any other that was ever fought. one is tempted to say, almost than all others that were ever fought. and the closest reasoners arrive at different conclusions and disagree as to many vital and important details. the duke of wellington himself left two accounts, one in his dispatches and one in notes written long afterward, which were irreconcilable, but some things are certain, upon some things all historians are agreed. the battle began with an attack on the hougomont château and the conflict actually raged around that château for over six hours, or until the french were in retreat. macdonell, home and saltoun, scotsmen all, with their regiments of the household guard, held that château, although it was assailed over and over again, finally, by the whole of reille's corps. they held that château, although it burned over their heads, although the french actually broke into it on occasion. they held it, although every other man in it was shot down and scarcely a survivor was without a wound. it was assaulted with a fury and a resolution which was only matched by the fury and resolution of its defense. why it was not battered to pieces with artillery no one knows. at any rate, it occupied practically the whole of reille's corps during the whole long afternoon of fighting. the space between hougomont and la haye sainte was about a thousand yards. la haye sainte was assaulted also but, to anticipate events, it held out until about five o'clock in the evening, when, after another wonderful defense, it was carried. the french established themselves in it eighty yards from wellington's line. chapter xxx waterloo--the charge of d'erlon meanwhile the french had not confined their efforts to the isolated forts, if they may be so called, on wellington's center and left center. after a tremendous artillery duel d'erlon's men had been formed up for that massed attack for which the emperor was famous, and with which it was expected the english line would be pierced and the issue decided. the emperor, as has been noted, had intended the attack on hougomont as a mere feint, hoping to induce the duke of wellington to reinforce his threatened right and thereby to weaken his left center. it was no part of the emperor's plan that an attempt to capture hougomont should become the main battle on his own left that it had, nor could he be sure that even the tremendous attack upon it had produced the effect at which he aimed. nevertheless, the movement of d'erlon had to be tried. it must be remembered that napoleon had never passed through the intermediate army grades. he had been jumped from a regimental officer to a general. he had never handled a regiment, a brigade, a division, a corps--only an army, or armies. perhaps that was one reason why he was accustomed to leaving details and the execution of his plans to subordinates. he was the greatest of strategists and the ablest of tacticians, but minor tactics did not interest him, and the arrangement of this great assault he left to the corps and its commander. giving orders to ney and d'erlon, therefore, the emperor at last launched his grand attack. one hundred and twenty guns were concentrated on that part of the english left beyond the westernmost of the two outlying positions, through which it was determined to force a way. under cover of the smoke, which all day hung thick and heavy in the valley and clung to the ridges, d'erlon's splendid corps, which had been so wasted between quatre bras and ligny, and which was burning to achieve something, was formed in four huge parallel close-ranked columns, slightly écheloned under donzelot, marcognet, durutte and allix. with greatly mistaken judgment, these four columns were crowded close together. the disposition was a very bad one. in the first place, their freedom of movement was so impaired by lack of proper distance as to render deployment almost impossible. unless the columns could preserve their solid formation until the very point of contact, the charge would be a fruitless one. in the second place, they made an enormous target impossible to miss. the attack was supported by light batteries of artillery and the cavalry in the flanks. other things being equal, the quality of soldiers being the same, the column is at an obvious disadvantage when attacking the line. it was so in this instance. although it was magnificently led by ney and d'erlon in person, and although it comprised troops of the highest order, the division commanders being men of superb courage and resolution, no valor, no determination could make up for these disadvantages. the tremendous artillery-fire of the french, which did great execution among the english, kept them down until the dark columns of infantry mounting the ridge got in the way of the french guns which, of course, ceased to fire. the drums were rolling madly, the frenchmen were cheering loudly when the ridge was suddenly covered with long red lines. there were not many blue-coated allies left. many of them had already laid down their lives; of the survivors more were exhausted by the fierce battling of the preceding days when the belgians had nobly sustained the fighting traditions of a race to which nearly two thousand years before caesar himself had borne testimony. as a matter of fact, most of the allies were moved to the rear. they did not leave the field. they were formed up again back of the battle line to constitute the reserve. the english did not intend to flee either. they were not accustomed to it and they saw no reason for doing it now. wellington moved the heavy cavalry over to support the threatened point of the line and bade his soldiers restrain their fire. there was something ominous in the silent, steady, rock-like red wall. it was much more threatening to the mercuric gallic spirit than the shouting of the french was to the unemotional english disposition. still, they came intrepidly on. meanwhile, renewed attacks were hurled against the château and the farmhouse. ney and d'erlon had determined to break the english line with the bayonet. suddenly, when the french came within point-blank range, the english awoke to action. the english guns hurled shot into the close-ranked masses, each discharge doing frightful execution. ney's horse was shot from under him at the first fire. but the unwounded marshal scrambled to his feet and, mounting another horse, pressed on. the slow-moving ranks were nearer. at point-blank range the english infantrymen now opened fire. shattering discharges were poured upon the french. the fronts of the divisions were obliterated. the men in advance who survived would have given back, but the pressure of the masses in their rear forced them to go on. the divisions actually broke into a run. again and again the british battalions spoke, the black muskets in the hands of the red coats were tipped with redder flame. it was not in human flesh and blood to sustain very long such a fire. it was a magnificent charge, gloriously delivered, and such was its momentum that it almost came in touch with the english line. it did not quite. that momentum was spent at last. the french deployed as well as they could in the crowded space and at half-pistol-shot distance began to return the english fire. the french guns joined in the infernal tumult. the advance had been stopped, but it had not been driven back. the french cavalry were now coming up. before they arrived that issue had to be decided. the critical moment was at hand, and wellington's superb judgment determined the action. he let loose on them the heavy cavalry, led by the scots grays on their big horses. as the ranks of the infantry opened to give them room, the men of the ninety-second highlanders, mad with the enthusiasm of the moment, caught the stirrup-straps of the horse and, half running, half dragged, joined in the charge. the splendid body of heavy cavalry fell on the flank of the halted columns. there was no time for the french to form a square. nay more, there was no room for them to form a square. in an instant, however, they faced about and delivered a volley which did great execution, but nothing could stop the maddened rush of the gigantic horsemen. back on the heights of rossomme napoleon, aroused from his lethargy at last, stared at the great attack. "_mon dieu!_" he exclaimed as he saw the tremendous onfall of the cavalrymen upon his helpless infantry, "how terrible are those gray horsemen!" yes, they were more terrible to the men at the point of contact than they were to those back of la belle alliance. no infantry that ever lived in the position in which the french found themselves could have stood up against such a charge as that. trampling, hacking, slashing, thrusting, the horses biting and fighting like the men, the heavy cavalry broke up two of the columns. the second and third began to retreat under an awful fire. but the dash of the british troopers was spent. they had become separated, disorganized. they had lost coherence. the french cavalry now arrived on the scene. admirably handled, they were thrown on the scattered english. there was nothing for the latter to do but retire. retire they did, having accomplished all that anyone could expect of cavalry, fighting every step of the way. just as soon as they opened the fronts of the regiments' in line, the infantry and artillery began again, and then the french cavalry got its punishment in its turn. it takes but moments to tell of this charge and, indeed, in the battlefield it seemed but a few moments. but the french did not give way until after long hard fighting. from the beginning of the preliminary artillery-duel to the repulse of the charge an hour and a half elapsed. indeed, they did not give way altogether either, for donzelot and allix, who commanded the left divisions, were the men who finally succeeded in capturing la haye sainte. and both sides suffered furiously before the french gave back. there was plenty of fight left in the french yet. ney, whatever his strategy and tactics, showed himself as of yore the bravest of the brave. it is quite safe to say that the hero of the retreat from russia, the last of the grand army, the star of many a hotly contested battle, surpassed even his own glorious record for personal courage on that day. maddened by the repulse, he gathered up all the cavalry, twelve thousand in number, and with kellerman, greatest of cavalrymen, to second him and with division leaders like milhaud and maurice, he hurled himself upon the english line between hougomont and la haye sainte. but the english made no tactical mistakes like that of ney and d'erlon. the artillerists stood to their guns until the torrent of french horsemen was about to break upon them, then they ran back to the safety of the nearest english square. the english had been put in such formation that the squares lay checkerwise. each side was four men deep. the front rank knelt, the second rank bent over at a charge bayonets, the third and the fourth ranks stood erect and fired. the french horsemen might have endured the tempest of bullets but they could not ride down the _chevaux de frise_, the fringe of steel. they tried it. no one could find fault with that army. it was doing its best; it was fighting and dying for its emperor. over and over they sought to break those stubborn british squares. one or two of them were actually penetrated, but unavailingly. men mad with battle-lust threw themselves and their horses upon the bayonets. the guns were captured and recaptured. the horsemen overran the ridge, they got behind the squares, they counter-charged over their own tracks, they rode until the breasts of the horses touched the guns. they fired pistols in the face of the english. one such charge is enough to immortalize its makers, and during that afternoon they made twelve! ney, raging over the field, had five horses killed under him. the british suffered horribly. if the horsemen did draw off to take breath, and reform for another effort, the french batteries, the english squares presenting easy targets, sent ball after ball through them. and nobody stopped fighting to watch the cavalry. far and wide the battle raged. toward the close of the day some of the english squares had become so torn to pieces that regiments, brigades and divisions had to be combined to keep from being overwhelmed. still the fight raged around hougomont. now, from a source of strength, la haye sainte had become a menace. there the english attacked and the french held. off to the northeast the country was black with advancing masses of men. no, it was not grouchy and his thirty-five thousand who, if they had been there at the beginning, might have decided the day. it was the prussians. they, at least, had marched to the sound of the cannon. grouchy was off at wavre. he at last got in touch with one of blücher's rear corps and he was fighting a smart little battle ten miles from the place where the main issue was to be decided. as a diversion, his efforts were negligible, for without that corps the allies outnumbered the french two to one. telling the troops that the oncoming soldiers were their comrades of grouchy's command who would decide the battle, napoleon detached the gallant lobau, who had stood like a stone wall at aspern, with the young guard to seize the village of planchenoit and to hold the prussians back, for if they broke in the end would be as certain as it was swift. and well did lobau with the young guard perform that task. bülow, commanding the leading corps, hurled himself again and again upon the french line. his heavy columns fared exactly as the french columns had fared when they assaulted the english. but it was not within the power of ten thousand men to hold off thirty thousand forever, and there were soon that number of prussians at the point of contact. frantic messages from lobau caused the emperor to send one of the divisions of the old guard, the last reserve, to his support. it was now after six o'clock, the declining sun was already low on the horizon, the long june day was drawing to a close. the main force of the prussians had not yet come up to the hill and ridge of mont st. jean. wellington, in great anxiety, was clinging desperately to the ridge with his shattered lines wondering how long he could hold them, whether he could sustain another of those awful attacks. his reserves, except two divisions of light cavalry, vivian's and vandeleur's, and maitland's and adams' brigades headed by colborne's famous fifty-second foot, among his troops the de luxe veterans of the peninsula, had all been expended. lobau was still holding back the prussians by the most prodigious and astounding efforts. if napoleon succeeded in his last titanic effort to break that english line, blücher would be too late. unless night or blücher came quickly, if napoleon made that attack and it was not driven back, victory in this struggle of the war gods would finally go to the french. hougomont still held out. the stubborn defense of it was wellington's salvation. while it stood his right was more or less protected. but la haye sainte offered a convenient point of attack upon him. if napoleon brought up his remaining troops behind it they would only have a short distance to go before they were at death's grapple hand to hand with the shattered, exhausted, but indomitable defenders of the ridge. chapter xxxi waterloo--the last of the guard long and earnestly, one from the heights of mont st. jean, the other from those of rossomme, the two great captains scanned the opposing line. napoleon seemed to have recovered from his indisposition. indeed, he had undergone frightful fatigues which would have been incredible if sustained by a younger man, and which would have been impossible to any other man than he. to add to his fatigue, he was ill. he could not sleep and the nature of his illness was such that it was agony for him to mount a horse. this condition had been aggravated by the awful exertion, physical and mental, he had made and the strain of that long afternoon of desperate fighting. nor had he eaten anything the livelong day. yet at about half after six that night he did get into the saddle again. conquering his anguish, he rode down to the fifteen battalions of the guard still held in reserve at la belle alliance, all that was left intact of that proud and gallant army. "my children," he said hoarsely in last appeal, "i must sleep in brussels to-night. there is the enemy. go and break the english line for me." cambronne, to whom nature and education alike had denied every attribute of grace or greatness except unbounded devotion and stubborn courage, mustered the guard. ney, _le terrible rougeaud_, the soldiers' idol, his torn uniform covered with dust, one of his epaulets slashed from his shoulder, his coat open, his shirt likewise, his bared breast black with powder, his face red-streaked with blood, for many bullets had grazed him, his hair matted with sweat--the weather had grown frightfully hot, the air was terribly humid--his eyes blazing, flecks of foam about his mouth, placed himself in the lead. every staff officer left joined the great marshal. with the brass drums beating "_la grenadière_," that famous grenadier quick-step, the great guard moved out. here, again, in the excitement of the conflict, an opportunity was overlooked. they could have gone up in rear of la haye sainte with practically no danger, but they went straight out into the open, between farm and château. up the road, over the fields of bloody grain, through the torn hedges, trampling over the bodies of their comrades, the last hope advanced to meet the enemy. all over the field the tide of battle ebbed and flowed. the armies came together for the last try. off to the right lobau still held his appointed station, but now the prussians in great masses were swarming on the field about planchenoit. division after division, avoiding lobau meanwhile, mounted the ridge to join the english line. it had almost been broken by d'erlon at la haye sainte. mouffling, wellington's prussian aide, had galloped over to ziethen in command of the advance with the news that unless the english were reinforced heavily at once their line would be pierced and they would be routed. on to the field opposite la haye sainte came the prussians. still raged the battle around hougomont and the english right, but the eyes of every spectator not engaged in fighting for his life were concentrated on the advance of the guard. napoleon had ridden down from rossomme to la belle alliance. he sat his horse within easy cannon-shot of the english as the devoted guard passed by in its last review. his physical pain was forgot in the great anxiety with which he watched them. the battle was practically lost. this was the last desperate throw of the gambler, the last stake he could place upon the board. he knew it, every officer knew it, perhaps even the more experienced grenadiers like old bullet-stopper of the guard knew it. that did not matter to them. they were his men and at his word, for him, they were going forward to conquer or die. tramp, tramp, tramp, keeping time to the long continuous rolling of the drums whose notes were heard even above the roar of the cannon and the tumult of the battle, the guard, from whose lips came one continuous cry of "_vive l'empereur_!" marched forward. covered as usual by the fire of one of those great batteries of concentrated guns so conspicuous in napoleonic tactics, through the smoke and the mist and the shadows of the evening, they passed on. napoleon himself with three battalions in reserve followed a little distance behind them. now they were mounting the hill, now they were abreast of la haye sainte; now the ridge in front of them was topped with english. away off could be heard the thunder of the oncoming prussian horsemen, the roar of the prussian guns. back of the ridge the brigades of light cavalry stood ready. the infantry reserve with brave colborne and the fifty-second, thirteen hundred strong, in the lead, were quivering with excitement. even the stolid british phlegm had vanished. this was the last supreme moment. throbbed wildly the usually steady hearts of the cool islanders. if they could stop this grand advance the battle would be gained. the hill would be held. could they do it? and if not----! out of the smoke and mist opposite the english soldiers of the royal guard came their imperial enemies. the waiting british saw the black bearskins of the tall guard, the imperial insignia on cross-belts and uniforms. they were so near that they could see the grim faces of the old soldiers, their mustaches working, their lips drawn back over their teeth, snarling, sputtering like savage beasts. here and there mouths were tight shut in a firm line. here and there men came silently, but mostly they were yelling. and they came up, arms aport, after the precept and example of dorsenne, _le beau dorsenne_, alas, no longer with them, to try conclusions for the last time with the soldiers' white weapon, the bayonet, cold steel! would the english wait for that? they would not. "fire!" cried an english voice just when the suspense had become unbearable. the heavens were shattered by the discharge. ney pitched from his horse, the sixth that day to be shot under him. he was up in a moment, his sword out. he advanced on foot at the head of the guard. it was his last charge. he was to face muskets again, but in paris, in the hands of a firing-squad, with his back to the wall. he was not given the coveted privilege of dying on that stricken field, though he sought for it wildly everywhere, but when he did die it was as he had lived, undaunted. now, his great voice uplifted, he led forward the devoted and immortal band. his sword was shot out of his hand. seizing a gun and a bayonet from a falling grenadier, he fought in the ranks as in russia. again, the tactics were faulty, as d'erlon's men the guard came in solid columns. right in front of the rapid-firing english, the muskets and cannon in one continuous roar now, they sought to deploy and return that terrible withering fire. the prussian infantry, panting like dogs, now gained the crest of the ridge and, animated by more than human hatred, fell into disorderly but determined lines and opened fire. harsh german oaths and exclamations mingled with hearty english curses and cheers. the guard was firing rapidly now, straight into the faces of the english. and still the columns came on. like a great wave which rushes forward at first swiftly and then goes slower and slower and slower as it rolls up the beach it advanced. by and by it stopped. the end was at hand. with bent heads the men stood and took the hail of lead and iron. "come!" said ney, frantic with battle fever. "come! see how a marshal of france can die." now was the crucial moment. the iron duke saw it. the two armies were face to face firing into each other. to which side would the victory incline? he spoke to maitland, to adams, to colborne. that gallant soldier threw his men on the exposed flank of the column which had obliqued, bent to the right. before they could face about out of the smoke came the yelling english! they found the men on the flank of the column the next morning just where it had stood lying in ordered ranks dead. still they did not give back. vivian and vandeleur, daring light horsemen, were now hurled on the devoted division. at it they ran. on it they fell. still it stood. it was incredible. it was almost surrounded now. the attack had failed. to advance was impossible, to retreat was dishonor. they would stand! their case was hopeless. appeals were made for the survivors to lay down their arms and surrender. into the faces of the assailants vulgar but heroic cambronne hurled a disgusting but graphic word. no, nobody said so, but the guard would not surrender. it would die. back of his guard, the emperor, having stopped not far from the château, watched them die. he was paler than ever, sweat poured from his face, his eyes and lips twitched nervously and spasms of physical pain added their torture to the mental agony of the moment. he muttered again and again: "_mon dieu! mais ils sont mêlés ensemble._" now the prussian horsemen, the death-head hussars, added their weight to vandeleur's and vivian's swordsmen and lancers. other regiments supplemented the withering fire of the advancing fifty-second and the reserve brigades. now, at last, the guard began to give back. slowly, reluctantly, clinging to their positions, fighting, firing, savage, mad--they began to give way. "_tout est perdu_," whispered napoleon. "the guard retreats!" cried someone near the emperor. "_la garde recule_!" rose here and there from the battlefield. "_la garde recule_!" men caught up the cry in wonder and despair. could it be true? yes. back they came out of the smoke. now was the supreme opportunity for the allies. the duke, recklessly exposing himself on the crest of the hill, bullets flying about him, as they flew about napoleon, yet leading apparently a charmed life, closed his field-glass and turned to the red line that had made good its defense. "up!" he cried, waving his hand and not finishing his sentence. they needed no other signal. their time to attack had come. down the hill they rushed, yelling, followed by belgians, netherlanders, and all the rest, pressing hard upon their heels. la haye sainte was recaptured in the twinkling of an eye. the shattered broken remains of the guard were driven in headlong rout. the assailers of hougomont were themselves assaulted. at last numbers had overwhelmed lobau. the survivors of an army of a hundred and thirty thousand flushed with victory fell on the survivors of an army of seventy thousand already defeated. at half-past seven the battle was lost. at eight the withdrawal became a retreat, the retreat a rout. at set of sun lost was the emperor, lost was the empire. ended was the age-long struggle which had begun with the fall of the bastile more than a score of years before. once again from france, with the downfall of napoleon, had been snatched the hegemony of the world. there was no reserve. there was nothing to cover a retreat. someone raised the wild cry not often heard on battlefields overlooked by napoleon, and it was echoed everywhere: "_sauve qui peut._" the army as an army was gone. thousands of men in mad terror fled in every direction. still, there were left a few battalions of the guard which had not been in action. they formed three squares to receive the english and prussians. into the nearest square napoleon, bewildered, overwhelmed, stricken by the catastrophe, was led on his horse. his sword was out. he would fain have died on that field. doubtless, many a bullet marked him, but none struck him. for a little while these squares of the guard, napoleon in the center one, another square on either side of the center one, stayed the british and prussian advance, but it was not to be. "the stars in their courses fought against sisera!" the emperor gave no order. bertrand and soult turned his horse about and the squares retreated. it was night. they were the sole organized body left. well, they upheld their ancient fame and glorious reputation and untarnished honor. through the calm and moonlit night pursuers and pursued could hear the rolling of the brass drums far and wide over the countryside as the guard marched away from that field back to stricken france, to that famous grenadier march, "_la grenadière._" again and again they stopped to beat off the furious attack of the cavalry. again and again the prussian pursuers hurled themselves unavailingly on quadrangles of steel, worked up to a terrible pitch of excitement by the possibility that they might seize the emperor at whose behest and for whose purpose fifty thousand men lay dead or wounded on that fatal hill, in that dreadful valley. happy the fate of those who were dead--horrible the condition of those who were wounded. english, prussians, germans, bavarians, hollanders, french, trampled together in indistinguishable masses. horses, guns, weapons, equipment--everything in hopeless confusion. every horror, every anguish, every agony was there--incense burned about the altar of one devouring ambition. chapter xxxii at last the eagle and the woman nearest the crest of the hill immortalized by the great conflict, in advance of but in touch with the regular dead lines of the guard, a little group, friend and foe, lay intermingled. there was a young officer of the fifty-second infantry, one of colborne's. he was conscious but suffering frightfully from mortal wounds. one side of his face where he had been thrown into the mud was covered with a red compound of earth and blood; his bright head was dabbled with the same hideous mixture. blood frothed out of his mouth as he breathed. he murmured from time to time a woman's name. "water," was sometimes the sputtering syllable that came from him. his left hand clutched uneasily at his breast, where his torn uniform showed a gaping wound. but his right hand was still. the arm was broken, paralyzed, but the fingers of his right hand were tightly closed around a broken blue staff and next to his cheek, the blood-stained one, and cold against it, was a french eagle. he had seized that staff in the heat of battle and in the article of death he held it. at the feet of the english officer lay a french officer wearing the insignia of a colonel of the guard. he was covered with wounds, bayonet thrusts, a saber-slash, and was delirious. although helpless, he was really in much better case than the young englishman. he, too, in his delirium muttered a woman's name. they spoke different tongues, these two. they were born in different lands. they were children of the same god, although one might have doubted it, but no one could mistake the woman's name. for there frank yeovil and jean marteau, incapable of doing each other any further harm, each thought of the same woman. did laure d'aumenier back in england waiting anxiously for news of battle, fearing for one of those men, hear those piteous, broken murmurs of a woman's name--her own? around these two were piled the dead. marteau had seized the eagle. yes, he and a few brave men had stayed on the field when the great ney, raging like a madman, and seeking in vain the happy fortune of a bullet or sword-thrust, had been swept away, and on him had fallen yeovil with another group of resolute english, and together they had fought their little battle for the eagle. and marteau had proved the englishman's master. he had beaten him down. he had shortened his sword to strike when he recognized him. well, the battle was over, the eagle was lost, the emperor was a fugitive, hope died with the retreating guard, the empire was ended. marteau might have killed him, but to what end? "for your wife's sake," he cried, lowering his sword, and the next minute he paid for his mercy, for the other english threw themselves upon him. but frank yeovil did not get off scot free. there was one lad who had followed marteau, who had marched with the guard, who had no compunctions of conscience whatever, and with his last pistol pierre gave the reeling englishman the fatal shot. yes, pierre paid too. they would certainly have spared him, since he was only a boy, but maddened by the death of their officer, half a dozen bayonets were plunged into his breast. thither the next day came sir gervaise yeovil, who had been with the duke at the duchess of richmond's famous ball in brussels. young frank had left that ball at four o'clock in the morning, according to order, only to find that later orders had directed the army to march at two and that his baggage had gone. he had fought that day in pumps and silk stockings which he had worn at the ball; dabbled, gory, muddy, they were now. sir gervaise yeovil was an old friend of the duke of wellington. the iron duke, as they called him, was nevertheless very tender-hearted that morning. he told the baronet that his son was somewhere on the field. colonel colborne of the fifty-second had marked him in the charge, but that was all. neither vivian nor vandeleur could throw any light on the situation. there were twenty thousand of the allied armies on that field and thirty thousand french. "my god," said sir gervaise, staring along the line of the french retreat, "what is so terrible as a defeat?" "nothing," said the duke gravely. then looking at the nearer hillside he added those tremendous words which epitomized war in a way in which no one save a great modern captain has ever epitomized it. "nothing," he said slowly, "unless it be a victory." they found the guard. that was easy. there they lay in lines where they had fallen; the tall bearskins on their heads, the muskets still clasped in their hands. there, too, they found young yeovil at last. they revived him. someone sought to take the eagle from him, but with a sudden accession of strength he protested against it. "father," he whispered to the old man bending over him, his red face pale and working, "mine." "true," said the duke. "he captured it. let him keep it." "o god!" broke out the baronet. "frank! can nothing be done?" "nothing. stop." his lips moved, his father bent nearer. "laure----" he whispered. "yes, yes, what of her?" "that frenchman she loved----" "marteau?" the young englishman closed his eyes in assent. "he could have killed me but spared--for her--he--is there," he faltered presently. "there is life in this frenchman yet," said one of the surgeons, looking up at the moment. "my lord!" said old sir gervaise yeovil, starting up, choking down a sob and endeavoring to keep his voice steady. "my boy yonder----" "yes," said the duke, "a brave lad." "he's---- it is all up with him. you will let me take him back to england, and--the frenchman and the eagle?" "certainly. i wish to god it had never happened, yeovil," went on the soldier. "but it had to be. bonaparte had to be put down, the world freed. and somebody had to pay." "i thank god," said the old man, "that my boy dies for his king and his country and for human liberty." "nor shall he die in vain," said the soldier. frank yeovil died on the vessel sir gervaise chartered to carry him and marteau and some other wounded officers of his acquaintance back to england. they did not bury him at sea. at his earnest request they took him back to his own land to be laid with his ancestors, none of whom had spent themselves more gloriously or for a greater cause than he. marteau, frightfully weak, heart-broken and helpless, by sir gervaise yeovil's command was taken to the baronet's own house. "i did my best," he said brokenly from the bed on which he lay as laure d'aumenier bent over him, sir gervaise standing grim and silent with folded arms in the background. "for france and the emperor," whispered the woman. "yes, that, but for your husband as well. he fell upon me. i was trying to rally the guard--the eagle--he was beaten down--but i recognized him. i would not have harmed him." "he told me," said the baronet, "what you said. 'for your wife's sake,'" he quoted in his deep voice, looking curiously at the girl. "sir gervaise," said the countess, looking up at him entreatingly, "i am alone in this world but for you. i was to have been your daughter. may i speak?" "i wish it." "marteau--jean," she said softly, "i was not his wife. perhaps now that he is dead it would have been better if i had been, but----" "and you are free?" again the countess looked at the englishman. simple and homely though he was, he showed the qualities of his birth and rank. "mademoiselle," he began gravely, almost tenderly. he looked a long time at her. "little laure," he continued at last, taking her slender hand in his own great one, "i had hoped that you might some day call me father but that hope is gone--since waterloo. if i were your real father now i should say----" "monsieur!" whispered the woman, her eyes brightening, her hand tightening in the clasp of the other. "and i think the old marquis would say that it is the will of god, now----" he bit his lip. it was all so different from what he imagined. "go on, if you please," whispered marteau. "i am ill. i cannot bear----" "if she be guided by me she will be your wife, young sir," said sir gervaise decisively. he dropped the woman's hand. he turned and walked heavily out of the room without a backward glance. he could do no more. "and will you stoop to me?" pleaded marteau. for answer the woman knelt by his bed and slipped her arm tenderly under his head. she bent and kissed him. "when you are stronger," she replied, "you shall raise me up to your own high level of courage and devotion and self-sacrifice, but meanwhile it is upon my bosom that your head must lie." "alas," said marteau, after a little, "the emperor is taken, the empire is lost, my poor france!" "i will go back with you and we will help to build it up again," said the woman. that was the best medicine that could be given to the young man. his recovery was slow but it was sure and it was the more rapid because of the gracious care of the woman he loved, who lavished upon him all the pent-up passion of her fond adoring heart. sir gervaise yeovil, whose interest at court was great, exerted himself to secure a reconfirmation of marteau's patent of nobility and to see that no difficulties were placed in the way of the young couple in obtaining repossession of their estates. so that once more there should be a d'aumenier and perhaps a renewal of the ancient house in the old château in champagne. this was easier since marteau had never taken oath to king louis and therefore had broken no faith. at the quiet wedding that took place as soon as marteau recovered his strength a little, sir gervaise continued to act the father's part to the poor woman. after the ceremony he delighted the heart of the soldier by giving to him what he loved after the woman, the eagle which had been frank yeovil's prize. "you will think of the lad, sometimes," said the old baronet to the girl. "he was not lucky enough to win you, but he loved you and he died with your name on his lips." "i shall remember him always," said the new-made wife. "his name shall be held in highest honor in my house as a brave soldier, a true lover and a most gallant gentleman," added the new-made husband. marteau would never forget the picture of the emperor sitting on his horse at la belle alliance that june evening, stern, terrific, almost sublime, watching the guard go by to death. he was glad he had not seen him in the retreat of which he afterward heard from old bal-arrêt. but that was not the last picture of the emperor that he had. although he was scarcely strong enough to be moved, he insisted on being taken to portsmouth with his young wife. sir gervaise went with him. he had no other object in life it seemed but to provide happiness for these young people. he could scarcely bear them out of his sight. one day, a bright and sunny morning late in july, they put the convalescing soldier into a boat with his wife and the old baronet and the three were rowed out into the harbor as near as the cordon of guard-boats allowed them to approach to a great english ship-of-the-line, across the stern of which in gold letters they read the name, "_bellerophon_." "bonaparte gener'ly comes out 'n the quarter-gal'ry of the ship, 'bout this hour in the mornin'," said one of the boatmen. "an' if he does we can see him quite plain from yere." there were other boats there whose occupants were moved by curiosity and various emotions, but when the figure of the little man with the three-cornered cocked hat on his head, still wearing the green uniform of the chasseurs of the guard stepped out on the quarter-gallery, his eyes, as it were instinctively, sought that particular boat. "help me up," said marteau brokenly. the boat was a large one and moving carefully they got the young officer to his feet. he was wearing his own battle-stained uniform. he lifted his trembling hand to his head in salute. the little emperor bent over the rail and stared hard at the trio. did he recognize marteau? ah, yes! he straightened up presently, his own hand returned the salute and then he took off that same cocked hat and bared his brow and bent his head low and, with a gesture of farewell, he turned and reëntered his cabin--prometheus on the way to his chains at st. helena! the end generously made available by the internet archive/canadian libraries.) waterloo [illustration] waterloo by hilaire belloc london stephen swift and co., ltd. king street, covent garden west central mcmxii contents page i. the political object and effect of the waterloo campaign ii. the preliminaries: napoleon's advance across the sambre iii. the decisive day: friday, the th of june-- ligny quatre-bras iv. the allied retreat and french advance upon waterloo and wavre v. the action waterloo i the political object and effect of the waterloo campaign it must continually be insisted upon in military history, that general actions, however decisive, are but the functions of campaigns; and that campaigns, in their turn, are but the functions of the political energies of the governments whose armies are engaged. the object of a campaign is invariably a political object, and all its military effort is, or should be, subsidiary to that political object. one human community desires to impose upon the future a political condition which another human community rejects; or each is attempting to impose upon the future, conditions irreconcilable one with the other. until we know what those conditions are, or what is the political objective of each opponent, we cannot decide upon the success of a campaign, nor give it its true position in history. thus, to take the simplest and crudest case, a nation or its government determines to annex the territory of a neighbour; that is, to subject a neighbouring community to the laws of the conqueror. that neighbouring community and its government, if they are so old-fashioned as to prefer freedom, will resist by force of arms, and there will follow what is called a "campaign" (a term derived from the french, and signifying a countryside: for countrysides are the theatres of wars). in this campaign the political object of the attempted conquest on the one hand, and of resistance to it on the other, are the issue. the military aspect of the campaign is subsidiary to its political objects, and we judge of its success or failure not in military but in political terms. the prime military object of a general is to "annihilate" the armed force of his opponents. he may do this by breaking up their organisation and dispersing them, or by compelling the surrender of their arms. he may achieve success in this purely military object in any degree. but if, as an end and consequence of his military success, the political object be not achieved--if, for instance, in the particular case we are considering, the neighbouring community does not in the future obey laws dictated to it by the conqueror, but remains autonomous--then the campaign has failed. such considerations are, i repeat, the very foundation of military history; and throughout this series they will be insisted upon as the light in which alone military history can be understood. it is further true that not only may a campaign be successful in the military sense, and yet in the largest historical sense be a failure, but, quite evidently, the actions in a campaign may each be successful and yet the campaign a failure; or each action may, on the whole, fail, and yet that campaign be a success. as the old formulæ go, "you can win every battle and lose your campaign." and, again, "a great general does not aim at winning battles, but at winning his campaign." an action results from the contact of the opposing forces, and from the necessity in which they find themselves, after such contact, of attempting the one to disorganise or to capture the other. and in the greater part actions are only "accepted," as the phrase goes, by either party, because each party regards the action as presenting opportunities for his own success. a campaign can perfectly well be conceived in which an opponent, consciously inferior in the field, will avoid action throughout, and by such a plan can actually win the campaign in the end. historical instances of this, though rare, exist. and there have even been campaigns where, after a great action disastrous to one side, that side has yet been able to keep up a broken resistance sufficiently lengthy and exhausting to baulk the conqueror of his political object in the end. in a word, it is the business of the serious student in military history to reverse the popular and dramatic conception of war, to neglect the brilliance and local interest of a battle for the larger view of the whole operations; and, again, to remember that these operations are not an end in themselves, but are only designed to serve the political plan of the government which has commanded them. * * * * * judged in this true light, we may establish the following conclusions with regard to the battle of waterloo. first, the battle of waterloo was a decisive action, the result of which was a complete military success for the allies in the campaign they had undertaken, and a complete military defeat for napoleon, who had opposed them. this complete military success of the allies' campaign was, again, equivalent to a success in their immediate political object, which was the overthrow of napoleon's personal power, the re-establishment of the bourbons upon the french throne, and the restoration of those traditions and ideals of government which had been common to europe before the outbreak of the french revolution twenty-four years before. had the effect of this battle and that campaign been permanent, one could speak of their success as complete; but when we discuss that largest issue of all, to wit, whether the short campaign which waterloo so decisively concluded really effected its object, considering that that object was the permanent destruction of the revolutionary effort and the permanent re-establishment of the old state of affairs in europe, we are compelled to arrive at a very different conclusion: a conclusion which will vary with the varying judgment of men, and one which cannot be final, because the drama is not yet played out; but a conclusion which, in the eyes of all, singularly modifies the effect of the campaign of waterloo. it is obvious, at the first glance we take of european history during, say, the lifetime of a man who should have been a boy in waterloo year, that the general political object of the revolutionary and napoleonic armies was not reversed at waterloo. it was ultimately established. the war had been successfully maintained during too long a period for the uprooting of the political conditions which the french had attempted to impose upon europe. again, those conditions were sufficiently sympathetic to the european mind at the time to develop generously, and to grow in spite of all attempted restriction. and we discover, as a fact, democratic institutions, democratic machinery at least, spreading rapidly again after their defeat at waterloo, and partially victorious, first in france and later elsewhere, within a very few years of that action. the same is true of certain secondary results of the prolonged revolutionary and napoleonic campaigns. nationality predominated over the old idea of a monarch governing his various "peoples," and the whole history of the nineteenth century was a gradual vindication of the principle of nationality. a similar fate awaited institutions bound up with the french revolutionary effort: a wide and continually expressed suffrage, the arming of whole nations in defence of their independence, the ordering of political life upon the new plan, down even to the details of the revolutionary weights and measures (the metre, the gramme, etc.)--these succeeded and in effect triumphed over the arrangements which that older society had fought to restore. on the other hand, the advance of all this was much slower, much more disturbed, much less complete, than it would have been had napoleon not failed in russia, suffered his decisive defeat at leipzig, and fallen for ever upon that famous field of waterloo; and one particular characteristic, namely, the imposition of all these things upon europe by the will of a government at paris, wholly disappeared. we may sum up, then, and say that the political effect of the battle of waterloo and its campaign was an immediate success for the allies: that their ultimate success the history of the nineteenth century has reversed; but that the victory of waterloo modified, retarded, and perhaps distorted in a permanent fashion the establishment of those conceptions of society and government which the revolution, and napoleon as its soldier, had set out to establish. * * * * * there is a side question attached to all this, with which i shall conclude, because it forms the best introduction to what is to follow: that question is,--"would napoleon have ultimately succeeded even if he had triumphed instead of fallen upon the th of june ?" in other words, was waterloo one of these battles the winning or losing of which by _either_ side, meant a corresponding decisive result to that side? had wellington's command broken at waterloo before the arrival of blucher, would napoleon's consequent victory have meant as much to _him_ as his defeat actually meant to the allies? the answer of history to this question is, no. even had napoleon won on that day he would have lost in the long run. the date to which we must affix the reverse of napoleon's effort is not the th of june , but the th of october , when the grand army began its retreat from moscow; and the political decision, his failure in which was the origin of his fall, was not the decision taken in june to advance against the allies in belgium, but the decision taken in may to advance into the vast spaces of russia. the decisive action which the largest view of history will record in centuries to come as the defeat which ruined napoleon took place, not south of brussels, but near the town of leipzig, two years before. from the last moment of that three days' battle (again the th of october, precisely a twelvemonth after the retreat from moscow had begun), napoleon and the french armies are continually falling back. upon the th of april in the following year napoleon abdicated; and exactly a month later, on the th of may, he was imprisoned, under the show of local sovereignty, in the island of elba. it was upon the st of march that, having escaped from that island, he landed upon the southern coast of france. there followed the doomed attempt to save somewhat of the revolution and the napoleonic scheme, which is known to history as the "hundred days." even that attempt would have been impossible had not the greater part of the commanders of units in the french army, that is, of the colonels of regiments, abandoned the bourbon government, which had been restored at paris, and decided to support napoleon. but even so, the experiment was hazardous in the extreme. had the surrounding governments which had witnessed and triumphed over his fall permitted him, as he desired, to govern france in peace, and france alone, this small part of the revolutionary plan might have been saved from the general wreck of its fortunes and of his. but such an hypothesis is fantastic. there could be and there was no chance that these great governments, now fully armed, and with all their organised hosts prepared and filled with the memory of recent victory, would permit the restoration of democratic government in that france which had been the centre and outset of the vast movement they had determined to destroy. further, though napoleon had behind him the majority, he had not the united mass of the french people. an ordered peace following upon victory would have given him such a support; after his recent crushing defeat it was lacking. it was especially true that the great chiefs of the army were doubtful. his own generals rejoined him, some with enthusiasm, more with doubt, while a few betrayed him early in the process of his attempted restoration. it is impossible to believe that under such circumstances napoleon could have successfully met europe in arms. the military resources of the french people, though not exhausted, were reaching their term. new levies of men yielded a material far inferior to the conscripts of earlier years; and when the emperor estimated , men as the force which he required for his effort, it was but the calculation of despair. eight hundred thousand men: even had they been the harvest of a long peace, the whole armed nation, vigorous in health and fresh for a prolonged contest, would not have been sufficient. the combined powers had actually under arms a number as great as that, and inexhaustible reserves upon which to draw. a quarter of a million stood ready in the netherlands, another quarter of a million could march from austria to cross the rhine. north italy had actually present against him , men; and russia, which had a similarly active and ready force of , , could increase that host almost indefinitely from her enormous body of population. but, so far from , men, napoleon found to his command not one quarter of that number armed and ready for war. though napoleon fell back upon that desperate resource of a starved army, the inclusion of militia; though he swept into his net the whole youth of that year, and accepted conscripts almost without regard to physical capacity; though he went so far as to put the sailors upon shore to help him in his effort, and counted in his effectives the police, the customs officials, and, as one may say, every uniformed man, he was compelled, even after two and a half months of effort, to consider his ready force as less than , , indeed only just over , . there was behind this, it is true, a reserve of irregulars such as i have described, but the spirit furnishing those irregulars was uncertain, and the yield of them patchy and heterogeneous. perhaps a quarter of the country responded readily to the appeal which was to call up a national militia. but even upon the eve of the waterloo campaign there were departments, such as the orne, which had not compelled five per cent. of those called to join the colours, such as the pas de calais and the gers, which had not furnished eight per cent., and at the very last moment, of every twenty-five men called, not fifteen had come. add to this that napoleon must strike at once or not at all, and it will readily be seen how desperate his situation was. his great chiefs of the higher command were not united in his service, the issue was doubtful, and to join napoleon was to be a rebel should he fail,--was to be a rebel, that is, in case of a very probable event. the marvel is that so many of the leading men who had anything to lose undertook the chances at all. finally, even of the total force available to him at that early moment when he was compelled to strike, napoleon could strike with but a fraction. less than half of the men available could he gather to deliver this decisive blow; and that blow, be it remembered, he could deliver at but one of the various hosts which were preparing to advance against him. he was thus handicapped by two things: first, the necessity under which he believed himself to be of leaving considerable numbers to watch the frontiers. secondly, and most important, the limitations imposed upon him by his lack of provision. with every effort, he could not fully arm and equip and munition a larger force than that which he gathered in early june for his last desperate throw; and the body upon the immediate and decisive success of which everything depended numbered but , men. with this force napoleon proceeded to attack the allies in the netherlands. _there_ was a belt of french-speaking population. _there_ was that body of the allies which lay nearest to his hand, and over which, if he were but victorious, his victory would have its fullest effect. _there_ were the troops under wellington, a defeat of which would mean the cutting off of england, the financier of the allies, from the continent. _there_ was present a population many elements of which sympathised with him and with the french revolutionary effort. finally, the allied force in belgium was the least homogeneous of the forces with which he would have to deal in the long succession of struggle from which even a success at this moment would not spare him. from all these causes combined, and for the further reason that paris was most immediately threatened from this neighbouring belgian frontier, it was upon that frontier that napoleon determined to cast his spear. it was upon the th of june that the first order was sent out for the concentration of this army for the invasion of belgium. in ten days the , men, with their guns, were massed upon the line between maubeuge and philippeville, immediately upon the frontier, and ready to cross it. the way in which the frontier was passed and the river sambre crossed before the first actions took place form between them the preliminaries of the campaign, and must be the subject of my next section. ii the preliminaries: napoleon's advance across the sambre to understand the battle of waterloo it is necessary, more perhaps than in the case of any other great decisive action, to read it strategically: that is, to regard the final struggle of sunday the th of june as only the climax of certain general movements, the first phase of which was the concentration of the french army of the north, and the second the passage of the sambre river and the attack. this second phase covered four days in time, and in space an advance of nearly forty miles. there is a sense, of course, in which it is true of every battle that its result is closely connected with the strategy which led up to its tactical features: how the opposing forces arrived upon the field, in what condition, and in what disposition and at what time, with what advantage or disadvantage, is always necessarily connected with the history of the campaign rather than of the individual action; but, as we saw in the case of blenheim, and as might be exemplified from a hundred other cases, the greater part of battles can be understood by following the tactical dispositions upon the field. they are won or lost, in the main, according to those dispositions. with waterloo it was not so. waterloo was lost by napoleon, won by the allies, _not_ mainly on account of tactical movements upon the field itself, but mainly on account of what had happened in the course of the advance of the french army to that field. in other words, the military character of that great decisive action is always missed by those who have read it isolated from the movements immediately preceding it. napoleon, determining to strike at belgium under the political circumstances we have already seen, was attacking forces about double his own. he was like one man coming up rapidly and almost unexpectedly to attack two: but hoping if possible to deal successively and singly with either opponent. his doubtful chance of success in such a hazard obviously lay in his being able to attack each enemy separately: that is, to engage first one before the second came to his aid; then the second; and thus to defeat each in turn. the chance of victory under such circumstances is slight. it presupposes the surprise of the two allied adversaries by their single opponent, and the defeat of one so quickly that the other cannot come to his aid till all is over. but no other avenue of victory is open to a man fighting enemies of double his numerical strength; at least under conditions where armament, material, and racial type are much the same upon either side. the possibility of dealing thus with his enemy napoleon thought possible, and thought it possible from two factors in the situation before him. the first factor was that the allied army, seeing its great numbers, the comparatively small accumulation of supplies which it could yet command, the great length of frontier which it had to watch, was spread out in a great number of cantonments, the whole stretch of which was no less than one hundred miles in length, from liège upon the east or left to tournay upon the west or right. the second factor which gave napoleon his chance was that this long line depended for its supply, its orders, its line of retreat upon two separate and opposite bases. the left or eastern half, formed mainly of prussian subjects, and acting under blucher, had arrived from the east, looked for safety in case of defeat to a retreat towards the rhine, obtained its supplies from that direction, and in general was fed from the _east_ along those communications, continual activity along which are as necessary to the life of an army as the uninterrupted working of the air-tube is necessary to the life of a diver. the western or right-hand part of the line, dutch, german, belgian, and british, acting under wellington, depended, upon the contrary, upon the north sea, and upon communication across that sea with england. that is, it drew its supplies and the necessaries of its existence from the _west_, the opposite and contrary direction from that to which the prussian half of the allies were looking for theirs. the effect of this upon the campaign is at once simple to perceive and of capital importance in napoleon's plan. wellington and blucher did not, under the circumstances, oppose to napoleon a single body drawing its life from one stream of communications. they did not in combination command a force defending one goal; they commanded two forces defending two goals. the thorough defeat of one would throw it back away from the other if the attack were delivered at the point where the two just joined hands; and the english[ ] or western half under wellington was bound to movements actually contrary to the prussian or eastern half under blucher in case either were defeated before the other could come to its aid. napoleon, then, in his rapid advance upon belgium, was a man conducting a column against a line. he was conducting that column against one special point, the point of junction between two disparate halves of an opposing line. he advanced therefore upon a narrow front perpendicular to, and aimed at the centre of, the long scattered cordon of his double enemy, which cordon it was his business if possible to divide just where the western end of one half touched the eastern end of the other. he designed to fight in detail the first portion he could engage, then to turn upon the other, and thus to defeat both singly and in turn. i will put this strategical position before the reader in the shape of an english parallel in order to make it the plainer, and i will then, by the aid of sketch maps, show how the allies actually lay upon the belgian frontier at the moment when napoleon delivered his attack upon it. imagine near a quarter million of men spread out in a line of separate cantonments from windsor at one extremity to bristol at the other; and suppose that the eastern half of this line from windsor to as far west as wallingford is depending for its supplies and its communications upon the river thames and its road system, and is prepared in case of defeat to fall back, down the valley of that stream towards london. on the other hand, imagine that the western half from swindon to bristol is receiving its supplies from the severn and the bristol channel, and must in case of defeat fall back westward upon that line. now, suppose an invading column rather more than , strong to be advancing from the south against this line, but prepared to strike up from almost any point on the channel. it strikes, as a fact, from southampton, and marches rapidly north by winchester and newbury. by the time it has reached newbury, the eastern half of the opposing line, that between wallingford and windsor, has concentrated to meet it, but is defeated in the neighbourhood of that town. such a battle at newbury would correspond to the battle at ligny (let it be fought upon a friday). meanwhile, the western half, hurrying up in aid, has failed to effect a junction before the eastern half was defeated, comes up too late above newbury, and finding it is too late, retires upon abingdon. the victorious invader pursues them, and at noon on the second day engages them in a long line which they hold in front of abingdon. if he has only to deal in front of abingdon with this second or western half, which hurried up too late to help the defeated eastern half, he has very fair chances of success. he is slightly superior numerically; he has, upon the whole, better troops and he has more guns. but the eastern half of the defending army, which has been beaten at newbury, though beaten, was neither destroyed nor dispersed, nor thrust very far back from the line of operations. it has retreated to wallingford, that is towards the north, parallel to the retreat of the western half; and a few hours after this western half is engaged in battle with the invader in front of abingdon, the eastern half appears upon that invader's right flank, joins forces with the line of the defenders at abingdon, and thus brings not only a crushing superiority of numbers upon the field against the invader, but also brings it up in such a manner that he is compelled to fight upon two fronts at once. he is, of course, destroyed by such a combination, and his army routed and dispersed. an action of this sort fought at abingdon would correspond to the action which was fought upon the field of waterloo, supposing, of course, for the purpose of this rough parallel, an open countryside without the obstacle of the river. the actual positions of the two combined commands, the command of blucher and the command of wellington, which between them held the long line between tournay and liège, will be grasped from the sketch map upon the next page. the reader who would grasp the campaign in the short compass of such an essay as this had best consider the numbers and the positions in a form not too detailed, and busy himself with a picture which, though accurate, shall be general. let him, then, consider the whole line between liège and tournay to consist of the two halves already presented: a western half, which we will call the duke of wellington's, and an eastern half, which we will call blucher's: of these two the duke of wellington was commander-in-chief. [illustration] next, note the numbers of each and their disposition. the mixed force under the duke of wellington was somewhat over , men, with just over guns.[ ] they consisted in two corps and a reserve. the first corps was under the prince of orange, and was mainly composed of men from the netherlands. its headquarters were at braine le comte. the second corps was under lord hill, and contained the mass of the british troops present. its headquarters were at ath. these two between them amounted to about half of wellington's command, and we find them scattered in cantonments at oudenarde, at ath, at enghien, at soignies, at nivelles, at roeulx, at braine le comte, at hal. a reserve corps under the duke's own command was stationed at brussels, and amounted to more than one-fifth, but less than one-quarter, of the whole force. the remaining quarter and a little more is accounted for by scattered cavalry (mainly in posts upon the river dender), by the learned arms, gunners and sappers, distributed throughout the army, and by troops which were occupying garrisons--in numbers amounting to rather more than ten per cent. of the force. the eastern prussian or left half of the line was, as is apparent in the preceding map, somewhat larger. it had a quarter more men and half as many guns again as that under the duke of wellington, and it was organised into four army corps, whose headquarters were respectively charleroi, namur, ciney, and liège. the whole line, therefore, which was waiting the advance of napoleon, was not quite two and a third hundred thousand men, with rather more than guns. of this grand total of the two halves, wellington's and blucher's combined, about eighteen per cent. came from the british islands, and of that eighteen per cent., again, a very large proportion--exactly how large it is impossible to determine--were irish. now let us turn to the army which napoleon was leading against this line of wellington and blucher. it was just under one hundred and a quarter thousand men strong, that is, just over half the total number of its opponents. it had, however, a heavier proportion of guns, which were two-thirds as numerous as those it had to meet. this "army of the north" was organised in seven great bodies, unequal in size, but each a unit averaging seventeen odd thousand men. these seven great bodies were the st, nd, rd, th army corps, the th army corps, the imperial guard, and the reserve cavalry under grouchy. the concentration of this army began, as i said in a previous section, upon the th of june, and was effected with a rapidity and order which are rightly regarded as a model by all writers upon military science. the french troops, when the order for concentration was given, stretched westward as far as lille, eastward as far as metz, southward as far as paris, in the neighbourhood of which town was the imperial guard. the actual marching of the various units occupied a week. napoleon was at the front on the night of the th of june; the whole army was upon the th drawn up upon a line stretched from maubeuge to philippeville, and the attack was ready to begin. the concentration had been effected with singular secrecy, as well as with the promptitude and accuracy we have noted; and though the common opinion of wellington and blucher, that napoleon had no intention of attacking, reposed upon sound general judgment--for the hazard napoleon was playing in this game of one against two was extreme,--nevertheless it is remarkable that both of these great commanders should have been so singularly ignorant of the impending blow. napoleon himself was actually over the frontier at the moment when wellington was writing at his ease that he intended to take the offensive at the end of the month, and blucher, a few days earlier, had expressed the opinion that he might be kept inactive for a whole year, since bonaparte had no intention of attacking. by the evening of wednesday, june the th, all was ready for the advance, which was ordered for the next morning. it would but confuse the general reader to attempt to carry with him through this short account the name and character of each commander, but it is essential to remember one at least--the name of _erlon_; and he should also remember that the corps which erlon commanded was the _first_ corps; for, as we shall see, upon erlon's wanderings with this first corps depended the unsatisfactory termination of ligny, and the subsequent intervention of the prussians at waterloo, which decided that action. it is also of little moment for the purpose of this to retain the names of the places which were the headquarters of each of these corps before the advance began. it is alone important to the reader that he should have a clear picture of the order in which this advance took place, for thus only will he understand both where it struck, and why, with all its rapidity, it suffered from certain shocks or jerks. napoleon's advance was upon three parallel lines and in three main bodies. the left or westernmost consisted of the first and second corps d'armée; the centre, of the imperial guard, together with the third and sixth corps. the third or right consisted of the fourth corps alone, with a division of cavalry. these three bodies, when the night of wednesday the th of june fell, lay, the first at sorle and leer; the second at beaumont, and upon the road that runs through it to charleroi; the third at philippeville. it is at this stage advisable to consider why napoleon had chosen the crossing of the sambre at charleroi and the sites immediately to the north on the left bank of that river as the point where he would strike at the long line of the allies. many considerations converged to impose this line of advance upon napoleon. in the first place, it was his task to cut the line of the allies in two at the point where the extremity of one army, the prussian, touched upon the extremity of the other, that of the duke of wellington. this point lay due north of the river-crossing he had chosen. again, the main road to brussels was barred by the fortress of mons, which, though not formidable, had been put in some sort of state of defence. again, as a glance at the accompanying map will show, the prussian half of the allied line was drawn somewhat in front of the other half; and if napoleon were to attack the enemy in detail, he must strike at the prussians first. finally, the line maubeuge-philippeville, upon which he concentrated his front, was, upon the whole, the most central position in the long line of his frontier troops, which stretched from metz to the neighbourhood of the straits of dover. being the most central point, not only with regard to these two extremities, but also with regard to distant paris, it was the point upon which his concentration could most rapidly be effected. [illustration] this, then, was the position upon the night of the th. the three great bodies of french troops (much the largest of which was that in the centre) to march at dawn, the light cavalry moving as early as half past two, ahead of the centre, the whole body of which was to march on charleroi. the left, that is the first and second corps, to cross the sambre at thuin, the abbaye d'aulne, and marchiennes. (there were bridges at all three places.) the right or fourth corps was also to march on charleroi.[ ] napoleon intended to be over the river with all his men by the afternoon of the th, but, as we shall see, this "bunching" of fully half the advance upon one crossing place caused, not a fatal, but a prejudicial delay. among other elements in this false calculation was an apparent error on the part of soult, who blundered in some way which kept the third corps with the centre instead of relieving the pressure by sending it over with the fourth to cross, under the revised instructions, by châtelet. [illustration: disposition of the four prussian corps on june th, .] at dawn, then, the whole front of the french army was moving. it was the dawn of thursday the th of june. by sunset of sunday all was to be decided. * * * * * at this point it is essential to grasp the general scheme of the operations which are about to follow. put in its simplest elements and graphically, the whole business began in some such form as is presented in the accompanying sketch map. [illustration] napoleon's advancing army x y z, marching on thursday, june th, strikes at o (which is charleroi), the centre of the hundred-mile-long line of cantonments a b c----d e f, which form the two armies of the allies, twice as numerous as his own, but thus dispersed. just behind charleroi (o) are a hamlet and a village, called respectively quatre bras (q) and ligny (p). napoleon succeeds in bringing the eastern or prussian half of this long line d e f to battle and defeating it at ligny (p) upon the next day, friday, june th, before the western half, or wellington's a b c, can come up in aid; and on the same day a portion of his forces, x, under his lieutenant, marshal ney, holds up that western half, just as it is attempting to effect its junction with the eastern half at quatre bras (q), a few miles off from ligny (p). the situation on the night of friday, june th, at the end of this second step, is that represented in this second sketch map. [illustration] believing the prussians (d e f) to be retreating from ligny towards their base eastward, and not northwards, napoleon more or less neglects them and concentrates his main body in order to follow up wellington's western half (a b c), and in the hope of defeating _that_ in its turn, as he has already defeated the eastern or prussian half (d e f) at ligny (p). with this object napoleon advances northward during all the third day, saturday, june th. wellington (a b c) retreats north before him during that same day, and then, on the morrow, the th, sunday, turns to give battle at waterloo (w). napoleon engages him with fair chances of success, and the situation as the battle begins at midday on the th is that sketched in this third map. [illustration] but unexpectedly, and against what napoleon had imagined possible, the prussians (d e f), when defeated at ligny (p), did not retreat upon their base, and have not so suffered from their defeat as to be incapable of further action. they have marched northward parallel to the retreat of wellington; and while napoleon (x y z) is at the hottest of his struggle with wellington (a b c) at waterloo (w), this eastern or prussian half (d e f) comes down upon his flank at (r) in the middle of the afternoon, and by the combined numbers and disposition of this double attack napoleon's army is crushed before darkness sets in. [illustration] such, in its briefest graphic elements, is the story of the four days. it will be observed from what we have said that the whole thing turns upon the incompleteness of napoleon's success at ligny, and the power of _retreating northward_ left to the prussians after that defeat. when we come to study the details of the story, we shall see that this, the prussian defeat at ligny, was thus incomplete because one of napoleon's subordinates, erlon, with the first french army corps, received contradictory orders and did not come up as he should have done to turn the battle of ligny into a decisive victory for napoleon. a part of napoleon's forces being thus neutralised and held useless during the fight at ligny, the prussian army escaped, still formed as a fighting force, and still capable of reappearing, as it did reappear, at the critical moment, two days later, upon the field of waterloo. the advance the rapidity of napoleon's stroke was marred at its very outset by certain misfortunes as well as certain miscalculations. his left, which was composed of the first and second corps d'armée, did indeed reach the river sambre in the morning, and had carried the bridge of marchiennes by noon, but the first corps, under erlon, were not across--that is, the whole left had not negotiated the river--until nearly five o'clock in the afternoon. next, the general in command of the leading division of the right-hand body--the fourth corps--gave the first example of that of which the whole napoleonic organisation was then in such terror, i mean the mistrust in the fortunes of the emperor, and the tendency to revert to the old social conditions, which for a moment the bourbons had brought back, and which so soon they might bring back again--he deserted. the order was thereupon given for the fourth corps or right wing to cross at châtelet, but it came late (as late as half-past three in the afternoon), and did but cause delay. at this eastern end of napoleon's front the last men were not over the river until the next day. as to the centre (the main body of the army), its cavalry reached charleroi before ten o'clock in the morning, but an unfortunate and exasperating accident befallen a messenger left the infantry immediately behind without instructions. the cavalry were impotent to force the bridge crossing the river sambre, which runs through the town, until the main body should appear, and it was not until past noon that the main body began crossing the sambre by the charleroi bridge. the emperor had probably intended to fight immediately after having crossed the river. gosselies, to the north, was strongly held; and had all his men been over the sambre in the early afternoon as he had intended, an action fought suddenly, by surprise as it were, against the advance bodies of the first prussian corps, would have given the first example of that destruction of the enemy in detail which napoleon intended. but the delays in the advance, rapid as it had been, now forbade any such good fortune. the end of the daylight was spent in pushing back the head of the first prussian corps (with a loss of somewhat over men), and when night fell upon that thursday evening, the th of june, the french held charleroi and all the crossings of the sambre, but were not yet in a position to attack in force. of the left, the first corps were but just over the sambre; on the right, that is, of the fourth corps, some units were still upon the other side of the river; while, of the centre, the _whole_ of the sixth corps, and a certain proportion of cavalry as well, had still to cross! napoleon had failed to bring the enemy to action; that enemy had fallen back upon fleurus, pretty nearly intact.[ ] all the real work had evidently to be put off, not only until the morrow, but until a fairly late hour upon the morrow, for it would take some time to get all the french forces on to the belgian side of the river. when this should have been accomplished, however, the task of the next day, the friday, was clear. it was napoleon's business to fall upon whatever prussian force might be concentrated before him and upon his right and to destroy it, meanwhile holding back, by a force sent up the brussels road to quatre bras, any attempt wellington and his western army might make to join the prussians and save them. that night the duke of wellington's army lay in its cantonments without concentration and without alarm, guessing nothing. the head of wellington's first corps, the young prince of orange, who commanded the netherlanders, had left his headquarters to go and dine with the duke in brussels. wellington, we may believe if we choose (the point is by no means certain), knew as early as three o'clock in the afternoon that the french had moved. it may have been as late as five, it may even have been six. but whatever the hour in which he received his information, it is quite certain that he had no conception of the gravity of the moment. as late as ten o'clock at night the duke issued certain after-orders. he had previously given general orders (which presupposed no immediate attack), commanding movements which would in the long-run have produced a concentration, but though these orders were ordered to be executed "with as little delay as possible," there was no hint of immediate duty required, nor do the posts indicated betray in any way the urgent need there was to push men south and east at the top of their speed, and relieve the prussians from the shock they were to receive on the morrow. these general orders given--orders that betray no grasp of the nearness of the issue--wellington went off to the duchess of richmond's ball in what the impartial historian cannot doubt to be ignorance of the great stroke which napoleon had so nearly brought off upon that very day, and would certainly attempt to bring off upon the next. in the midst of the ball, or rather during the supper, definite news came in that the french army had crossed the river sambre, and had even pushed its cavalry as far up the brussels road as quatre bras. the duke does not seem to have appreciated even then what that should mean in the way of danger to the prussians, and indeed of the breaking of the whole line. he left the dance at about two in the morning and went to bed. he was not long left in repose. in the bright morning sunlight, four hours afterwards, he was roused by a visitor from the frontier, and we have it upon his evidence that the duke at last understood what was before him, and said that the concentration of his forces must be at quatre bras. in other words, wellington knew or appreciated extremely tardily on that _friday_ morning about six that the blow was about to fall upon his prussian allies to the south and east, and that it was the business of his army upon the west to come up rapidly in succour. as will be seen in a moment, he failed; but it would be a very puerile judgment of this great man and superb defensive general to belittle his place in the history of war upon the basis of even such errors as these. true, the error and the delay were prodigious and, in a fashion, comic; and had napoleon delivered upon the _thursday_ afternoon, as he had intended, an attack which should have defeated the prussians before him, wellington's error and delay would have paid a very heavy price. as it was, napoleon's own delay in crossing the sambre made wellington's mistake and tardiness bear no disastrous fruit. the duke failed to succour the prussians. his troops, scattered all over western belgium, did not come up in time to prevent the defeat of his allies at ligny. but he held his own at quatre bras; and in the final battle, forty-eight hours later, the genius with which he handled his raw troops upon the ridge of mont st jean wiped out and negatived all his strategical misconceptions of the previous days. from this confusion, this partial delay and error upon napoleon's part, this ignorance upon wellington's of what was toward, both of which marked thursday the th, we must turn to a detailed description of that morrow, friday the th, which, though it is less remembered in history than the crowning day of waterloo, was, in every military sense, the decisive day of the campaign. we shall see that it was napoleon's failure upon that friday completely to defeat, or rather to destroy, the prussian force at ligny--a failure largely due to wellington's neighbouring resistance at quatre bras--which determined the emperor's final defeat upon the sunday at waterloo. iii the decisive day friday the th of june quatre bras and ligny we have seen what the th of june was in those four short days of which waterloo was to be the climax. that thursday was filled with an advance, rapid and unexpected, against the centre of the allied line, and therefore against that weak point where the two halves of the allied line joined, to wit, charleroi and the country immediately to the north of that town and bridge. we have further seen that while the unexpectedness of the blow was almost as thorough as napoleon could have wished, the rapidity of its delivery, though considerable, had been less than he had anticipated. he had got by the evening of the day not much more than three-quarters of his forces across the river sambre, and this passage, which was mapped out for completion before nightfall, straggled on through the whole morning of the morrow,--a tardiness the effects of which we shall clearly see in the next few pages. napoleon's intention, once the sambre was crossed, was to divide his army into two bodies: one, on the left, was to be entrusted to ney; one, on the right, to grouchy. a reserve, which the emperor would command in person, was to consist in the main of the imperial guard. the left-hand body, under ney, was to go straight north up the great brussels road. napoleon rightly estimated that he had surprised the foe, though he exaggerated the extent of that surprise. he thought it possible that this body to the left, under ney, might push on to brussels itself, and in any case could easily deal with the small and unprepared forces which it might meet upon the way. its function in any case, whether resistance proved slight or formidable, was to hold the forces of wellington back from effecting a junction with blucher and the prussians. meanwhile, the right-hand body, under grouchy, was to fall upon the extremity of the prussian line and overwhelm it. [illustration] such an action against the head of the long prussian cordon could lead, as the emperor thought, to but one of two results: either the great majority of the prussian force, coming up to retrieve this first disaster, would be defeated in detail as it came; or, more probably, finding itself cut off from all aid on the part of wellington's forces to the west and its head crushed, the long prussian line would roll up backwards upon its communications towards the east, whence it had come. in either case the prime object of napoleon's sudden move would have been achieved; and, with the body upon the left, under ney, pushing up the brussels road, the body upon the right, under grouchy, pushing back the head of the prussian line eastward, the two halves of the allies would be separated altogether, and could later be dealt with, each in turn. the capital disadvantage under which napoleon suffered--the fact that he had little more than half as many men as his combined enemies--would be neutralised, because he would, after the separation of those enemies into two bodies, be free to deal with either at his choice. their communications came from diametrically opposite directions,[ ] and, as the plan of each depended upon the co-operation of the other, their separation would leave them confused and without a scheme. napoleon in all this exaggerated the facility of the task before him; but before we go into that, it is essential that the reader should grasp a certain character in all military affairs, to misunderstand which is to misread the history of armies. _this characteristic is the necessary uncertainty under which every commander lies as to the disposition, the number, the order, and the information of his opponents._ it is a _necessary_ characteristic in all warfare, because it is a prime duty in the conduct of war to conceal from your enemy your numbers, your dispositions, and the extent of your information. it is a duty which every commander will always fulfil to his best ability. it is therefore a characteristic, be it noted, which no development of human science can conceivably destroy, for with every advance in our means of communicating information we advance also in our knowledge of the means whereby the new means of communication may be interrupted. an advantage over the enemy in the means one has of acquiring knowledge with regard to him must, of course, always be of supreme importance, and when those means are novel, one side or the other is often beforehand for some years with the new science of their use. when such is the case, science appears to uninstructed opinion to have changed this ancient and fixed characteristic which is in the very nature of war. but in fact there has been no such change. under the most primitive conditions an advantage of this type was of supreme importance; under conditions the most scientific and refined it is an advantage that may still be neutralised if the enemy has learnt means of screening himself as excellent as our means of discovering him. even the aeroplane, whose development in the modern french service has so vastly changed the character of information, and therefore of war, can never eliminate the factor of which i speak. a service possessed of a great superiority in this new arm will, of course, be the master of its foe; but when the use of the new arm is spread and equalised among all european forces so that two opposing forces are equally matched even in this new discovery, then the old element of move and countermove, feint, secrecy, and calculated confusion of an adversary, will reappear.[ ] in general, then, to point out the ignorance and the misconceptions of one commander is no criticism of a campaign until we have appreciated the corresponding ignorance and misconceptions of the other. we have already seen wellington taken almost wholly by surprise on the french advance; we shall see him, even when he appreciated its existence, imagining it to be directed principally against himself. we shall similarly see napoleon underestimating the prussian force in front of him, and underestimating even that tardy information which had reached wellington in time for him to send troops up the brussels road, and to check the french advance along it. but we must judge either of the two great opponents not by a single picture of his own misconceptions alone, but by the combined picture of the misconceptions of both, and especially by a consideration of the way in which each retrieved or attempted to retrieve the results of those misconceptions when a true idea of the enemy's dispositions was conveyed to him. * * * * * here, then, we have napoleon on the morning of friday the th of june prepared to deal with the prussians. it is his right-hand body, under grouchy, which is deputed to do this, while he sends up the left-hand body, under ney, northwards to brush aside, or, at the worst, at least to hold off whatever of the duke of wellington's command may be found upon the brussels road attempting to join the prussians. the general plan of what happened upon that decisive th is simple enough. the left-hand body, under ney, goes forward up the brussels road, finds more resistance than it expected, but on the whole performs its task and prevents any effective help being given by the western half of the allies--wellington's half--to the eastern half--the prussian half. but it only prevents that task with difficulty and at the expense of a tactical defeat. this action is called quatre bras. meanwhile, the right-hand body equally accomplishes the elements of its task, engages the head of the prussian line and defeats it, with extreme difficulty, just before dark. this action is called ligny. but the minor business conducted by the left, under ney, is only just successful, and successful only in the sense that it does, at vast expense, prevent a junction of wellington with blucher. the major business conducted on the right, by napoleon himself, in support of grouchy, is disappointing. the head of the prussian line is not destroyed; the prussian army, though beaten, is free to retreat in fair order, and almost in what direction it chooses. the ultimate result is that wellington and blucher do manage to effect their junction on the day after the morrow of ligny and quatre bras, and thus defeat napoleon at waterloo. now, why were both these operations, quatre bras and ligny, incompletely successful? partly because there was more resistance along the brussels road than napoleon had expected, and a far larger body of prussians in front of him than he had expected either; _but much more because a whole french army corps, which, had it been in action, could have added a third to the force of either the right or the left wing, was out of action all day; and wandered aimlessly over the empty zone which separated ney from grouchy, quatre bras from ligny, the left half of napoleon's divided army from its right half_. this it was which prevented what might have been possible--the thrusting back of wellington along the brussels road, and even perhaps the disorganisation of his forces. this it was which missed what was otherwise certainly possible--the total ruin of the prussian army. this army corps thus thrown away unused in hours of aimless marching and countermarching was the first army corps. its commander was erlon; and the enormous blunder or fatality which permitted erlon and his , to be as useless upon the th of june as though they had been wiped out in some defeat is what makes of the th of june the decisive day of the campaign. it was erlon's failure to be present _either_ with ney _or_ with grouchy, either upon the left or upon the right, either at quatre bras or at ligny, while each of those two actions were in doubt, which made it possible for wellington's troops to stand undefeated in the west, for the prussians to retire--not intact, but still an army--from the east, and for both to unite upon the day after the morrow, the sunday, and destroy the french army at waterloo. it is upon erlon's blunder or misfortune that the whole issue turns, and upon the friday, the th of june, in the empty fields between quatre-bras and ligny, much more than upon the famous sunday at waterloo, that the fate of napoleon's army was decided. in order to make this clear, let us first follow what happened in the operations of napoleon's right wing against the prussians opposed to it,--operations which bear in history the name of "the battle of ligny." ligny "_if they fight here they will be damnably mauled._" (wellington's words on seeing the defensive positions chosen by the prussians at ligny.) napoleon imagined that when he had crossed the sambre with the bulk of his force, the suddenness of his attack (for, though retarded as we have seen, and though leaving troops upon the wrong bank of the river, it was sudden) would find the prussian forces in the original positions wherein he knew them to have lain before he marched. he did not think that they would yet have had the time, still less the intention, to concentrate. those original positions the map upon p. makes plain. the , men and more, which lay under the supreme command of blucher, had been spread before the attack began along the whole extended line from liège to charleroi, and had been disposed regularly from left to right in four corps d'armée. the first of these had its headquarters in charleroi itself, its furthest outpost was but five miles east of the town, its three brigades had charleroi for their centre; its reserve cavalry was at sombreffe, its reserve artillery at gembloux. the second corps had its headquarters twenty miles away east, at namur, and occupied posts in the country as far off as hannut (thirty miles away from charleroi). the third corps had its headquarters at ciney in the ardennes, and was scattered in various posts throughout that forest, its furthest cantonment being no nearer than dinant, which, by the only good road available, was nearer forty than thirty miles from napoleon's point of attack. finally, the fourth corps was as far away as liège (nearer fifty than forty miles by road from the last cantonment of the first corps), and having its various units scattered round the neighbourhood of that town. napoleon, therefore, attacking charleroi suddenly, imagined that he would have to deal only with the first corps at charleroi and its neighbourhood. he did not think that the other three corps had information in time to enable them to come up westward towards the end of the line and meet him. the outposts of the first corps had, of course, fallen back before the advance of the emperor's great army; the mass of that first corps was, he knew, upon this morning of the th, some mile or two north and east of fleurus, astraddle of the great road which leads from charleroi to gembloux. at the very most, and supposing this first corps (which was of , men, under ziethen) had received reinforcements from the nearest posts of the second and the third corps, napoleon did not think that he could have in front of him more than some , men at the most. he was in error. it had been arranged among the prussian leaders that resistance to napoleon, when occasion might come for it, should be offered in the neighbourhood of the cross-roads where the route from charleroi to gembloux crosses that from nivelles to namur. in other words, they were prepared to stand and fight between sombreffe and the village of ligny. the plan had been prepared long beforehand. the whole of the first corps was in position with the morning, awaiting the emperor's attack. the second corps had been in motion for hours, and was marching up during all that morning. so was the third corps behind it. blucher himself had arrived upon the field of battle the day before (the th), and had written thence to his sovereign to say that he was fully prepared for action the next day. indeed, blucher on the th confidently expected victory, and the end of the campaign then and there. he had a right to do so, for napoleon's advance had been met by so rapid a concentration that, a little after noon on that friday the th, and before the first shots were fired, well over , men were drawn up to receive the shock of napoleon's right wing. but that right wing all told, even when the belated french troops beyond the sambre had finally crossed that river, and even when the emperor had brought up the guard and the reserve, numbered but , . supposing the french had been able to use every man, which they were not, they counted but seven to nine of their opponents. and the nine were upon the defensive; the seven had to undertake the task of an assault. it was late in the day before battle was joined. napoleon had reached fleurus at about ten o'clock in the morning, but it was four hours more before he had brought all his troops across the river, and by the time he had done so two things had happened. first, the duke of wellington (who, as we shall see later, had come to quatre bras that morning, and had written to blucher telling him of his arrival) rode off in person to the prussian positions and discussed affairs near the windmill of bussy with the prussian commander-in-chief. in this conversation, wellington undoubtedly promised to effect, if he could, a junction with the prussians in the course of the afternoon. even without that aid blucher felt fairly sure of victory; with it, he could be perfectly confident. [illustration: the prussian concentration before ligny, showing the junction of the first, second, and third corps on the morning of june th, and the inability of the fourth corps to come up in time.] as matters turned out, wellington found himself unable to effect his junction with blucher. ney, as we shall see later, found in front of him on the brussels road much heavier opposition than he had imagined, but wellington was also surprised to find to what strength the french force under ney was at quatre bras. wellington, as we shall see, held his own on that th of june, but was quite unable to come up in succour of blucher when the expected victory of that general turned to a defeat. the second thing that happened in those hours was napoleon's discovery that the prussian troops massing to oppose him before ligny were going to be much more than a single corps. it looked to him more like the whole prussian army. it was, indeed, three-quarters of that army, for it consisted of the first, the second, and the third corps. only the fourth, with its headquarters at distant liège, had not been able to arrive in time. this fourth corps would also have been present, and would probably have turned the scale in favour of the prussians, had the staff orders been sent out promptly and conveyed with sufficient rapidity. as it was, its most advanced units got no further west, during the course of the action, than about halfway between liège and the battlefield. napoleon was enabled to discover with some ease the great numbers which had concentrated to oppose him from the fact that these numbers had concentrated upon a defective position. wellington, the greatest defensive general of his time, at once discovered this weakness in blucher's chosen battlefield, and was provoked by the discovery to the exclamation which stands at the head of this section. the rolling land occupied by the prussian army lay exposed in a regular sweep downwards towards the heights upon which lay the french, and the prussian army as it deployed came wholly under the view of its enemy. nothing was hidden; and a further effect was that, as napoleon himself remarked, all the artillery work of the french side went home. if a round missed the foremost positions of the prussian army, it would necessarily fall within the ranks behind them. this discovery, that there lay before him not one corps but a whole army, seemed to napoleon, upon one condition, an advantage. the new development would, upon that one condition, give him, if his troops were of the quality he estimated them to be, a complete victory over the united prussian force, and might well terminate the campaign on that afternoon and in that place. that one condition was the possibility of getting ney upon the left, or some part at least of ney's force, to leave the task of holding off wellington, to come down upon the flank of the prussians from the north and west, to envelop them, and thus, in company with the troops of napoleon himself, to destroy the three prussian army corps altogether. had that condition been fulfilled, the campaign would indeed have come to an end decisively in napoleon's favour, and, as he put it in a famous phrase, "not a gun" of the army opposing him "should escape." unfortunately for the emperor, that one condition was not fulfilled. the , frenchmen of the right wing, under napoleon, did indeed defeat and drive off the , men opposed to them. but that opposing army was not destroyed; it was not contained; it remained organised for further fighting, and it survived to decide waterloo. in order to appreciate napoleon's idea and how it might have succeeded, let the reader consider the dispositions of the battle of ligny. the battlefield named in history after the village of ligny consists of a number of communes, of which that village is the central one. the prussian army held the villages marked on the map by the names of tongrinelle and tongrinne, to the east of ligny; it held brye, st amand, and wagnelée to the east. it held also the heights behind upon the great road leading from nivelles to namur. when napoleon had at last got his latest troops over from beyond the sambre on to the field of battle, which was not until just on two o'clock in the afternoon, the plan he formed was to hold the prussian left and centre by a vigorous attack, that is, to pin the prussians down to tongrinne, tongrinelle, and ligny, while, on the other front, the east and south front of the prussians, another vigorous attack should be driving them back out of wagnelée and st amand. [illustration] the plan can be further elucidated by considering the elements of the battle as they are sketched in the map over leaf. napoleon's troops at c c c were to hold the prussian left at h, to attack the prussian right at d, with the guard at e left in reserve for the final effort. by thus holding the prussians at h and pushing them in at d, he would here begin to pen them back, and it needed but the arrival on the field of a fresh french force attacking the prussians along a b to destroy the force so contained and hemmed in. for that fresh force napoleon depended upon new and changed instructions which he despatched to ney when he saw the size of the prussian force before him. during napoleon's main attack, some portion of ney's force, and if possible the whole of it, should appear unexpectedly from the north and west, marching down across the fields between wagnelée and the nivelles-namur road, and coming on the north of the enemy at a b, so as to attack him not only in the flank but in the rear. he would then be unable to retreat in the direction of _wavre_ (w)--a broken remnant might escape towards namur (n). but it was more likely that the whole force would be held and destroyed. [illustration: elements of ligny.] supposing that napoleon's , showed themselves capable of holding, let alone partially driving in, the , in front of them, the sudden and unexpected appearance of a new force in the height of the action, adding another twenty or thirty thousand to the french troops already engaged, coming upon the flank and spreading to the rear of the prussian host, would inevitably have destroyed that host, and, to repeat napoleon's famous exclamation, "not a gun would have escaped." the reader may ask: "if this plan of victory be so obvious, why did napoleon send ney off with a separate left wing of forty to fifty thousand men towards quatre bras?" the answer is: that when, upon the day before, the thursday, napoleon had made this disposition, and given it as the general orders for that friday, he had imagined only one corps of prussians to be before him. the right wing, with which the emperor himself stayed, numbering, as we have seen, about , men, would have been quite enough to deal with that one prussian corps; and he had sent so large a force, under ney, up the brussels road, not because he believed it would meet with serious opposition, but because this was to be the line of his principal advance, and it was his intention to occupy the town of brussels at the very first opportunity. having dealt with the single prussian corps, as he had first believed it would be, in front of fleurus, he meant that same evening to come back in person to the brussels road and, in company with ney, to conduct decisive operations against wellington's half of the allies, which would then, of course, be hopelessly outnumbered. but when napoleon saw, a little after midday of the friday, that he had to deal with nearly the whole of the prussian army, he perceived that the great force under ney would be wasted out there on the west--supposing it to be meeting with little opposition--and had far better be used in deciding a crushing victory over the prussians. to secure such a victory would, without bothering about the duke of wellington's forces to the westward, be quite enough to determine the campaign in favour of the french. as early as two o'clock a note was sent to ney urging him, when he had brushed aside such slight resistance as the emperor expected him to find upon the brussels road, to return and help to envelop the prussian forces, which the emperor was about to attack. at that hour it was not yet quite clear to napoleon how large the prussian force really was. this first note to ney, therefore, was unfortunately not as vigorous as it might have been; though, even if it had been as vigorous as possible, ney, who had found unexpected resistance upon the brussels road, could certainly not have come up to help napoleon with his whole force. he might, however, have spared a portion of it, and that portion, as we shall see later, would have been most obviously erlon's corps--the first. rather more than an hour later, at about a quarter-past three, when napoleon had just joined battle with the prussians, he got a note from ney informing him that the left wing was meeting with considerable resistance, and could hardly abandon the place where it was engaged before quatre bras to come up against the prussian flank at ligny. napoleon sent a note back to say that, none the less, an effort must be made at all costs to send ney's forces to come over to him to attack the prussian flank, for such an attack would mean the winning of a great decisive battle. the distance over which these notes had to be carried to and fro, from napoleon to ney, was not quite five miles. the emperor might therefore fairly expect after his last message that in the late middle of the afternoon--say half-past five or six--troops would appear upon his north-west horizon and march down to his aid. in good time such troops did appear; how inconclusively it will be my business to record. meanwhile, napoleon had begun the fight at ligny with his usual signal of three cannonshots, and between three and four o'clock the front of the whole army was engaged. it was for many hours mere hammer-and-tongs fighting, the french making little impression upon their right against ligny or the villages to the east of it, but fighting desperately for st amand and for wagnelée. such a course was part of napoleon's plan, for he had decided, as i have said, only to hold the prussian left, to strike hardest at their right, and, when his reinforcement should come from ney, to turn that right, envelop it, and so destroy the whole prussian army. these villages upon the prussian right were taken and retaken in a series of furious attacks and counter-attacks, which it would be as tedious to detail as it must have been intolerable to endure. all this indecisive but furious struggle for the line of villages (not one of which was as yet carried and held permanently by the french) lasted over two hours. it was well after five o'clock when there appeared, far off, under the westering sun, a new and large body of troops advancing eastward as though to reach that point between wagnelée and st amand where the left of the french force was struggling for mastery with the right of the prussians. for a moment there was no certitude as to what this distant advancing force might be. but soon, and just when fortune appeared for a moment to be favouring blucher's superior numbers and the french line was losing ground, the emperor learned that it was his first army corps, under the command of erlon which was thus approaching. at that moment--in the neighbourhood of six o'clock in the evening--napoleon must have believed that his new and rapidly formed plan of that afternoon, with its urgent notes to quatre bras and its appeal for reinforcement, had borne fruit; a portion at least of ney's command had been detached, as it seemed, to deliver that final and unexpected attack upon the prussian flank which was the keystone of the whole scheme. coincidently with the news that those distant advancing thousands were his own men and would turn this doubtful struggle into a decisive victory for the emperor came the news--unexplained, inexplicable--that erlon's troops would advance no further! that huge distant body of men, isolated in the empty fields to the westward; that reinforcement upon which the fate of napoleon and of the french army hung, drew no nearer. watched from such a distance, they might seem for a short time to be only halted. soon it was apparent that they were actually retiring. they passed back again, retracing their steps beyond the western horizon, and were lost to the great struggle against the prussians. why this amazing countermarch, with all its catastrophic consequences was made will be discussed later. it is sufficient to note that it rendered impossible that decisive victory which napoleon had held for a moment within his grasp. his resource under such a disappointment singularly illustrates the nature of his mind. already the emperor had determined, before any sign of advancing aid had appeared, that if he were left alone to complete the decision, if he was not to be allowed by fate to surround and destroy the prussian force, he might at least drive it from the field with heavy loss, and, as far as possible, demoralised. in the long struggle of the afternoon he had meant but to press the prussian line, while awaiting forces that should complete its envelopment; these forces being now denied him, he determined to change his plan, to use his reserves, the guard, and to drive the best fighting material he had, like a spearhead, at the centre of the prussian positions. since he could not capture, he would try and break. as the hope of aid from erlon's first corps gradually disappeared, he decided upon this course. it was insufficient. he could not hope by it to destroy his enemy wholly. but he could drive him from the field and perhaps demoralise him, or so weaken him with loss as to leave him crippled. just at the time when napoleon had determined thus to strike at the centre of the prussian fine, blucher, full of his recent successes upon his right and the partial recapture of the village of st amand, had withdrawn troops from that centre to pursue his advantage. it was the wrong moment. while blucher was thus off with the bulk of his men towards st amand, the old guard, with the heavy cavalry of the guard, and milhaud's cavalry as well--all napoleon's reserve--drew up opposite ligny village for a final assault. nearly all the guns of the guard and all those of the fourth corps crashed against the village to prepare the assault, and at this crisis of the battle, as though to emphasise its character, a heavy thunderstorm broke over the combatants, and at that late hour (it was near seven) darkened the evening sky. it was to the noise and downpour of that storm that the assault was delivered, the prussian centre forced, and ligny taken. when the clouds cleared, a little before sunset, this strongest veteran corps of napoleon's army had done the business. ligny was carried and held. the prussian formation, from a convex line, was now a line bent inwards at its centre and all but broken. blucher had rapidly returned from the right to meet the peril. he charged at the head of his uhlans. the head of the french column of guards reserved their fire until the horse was almost upon them; then, in volley after volley at a stone's-throw range, they broke that cavalry, which, in their turn, the french cuirassiers charged as it fled and destroyed it. blucher's own horse was shot under him, the colonel of the uhlans captured, the whole of the prussian centre fell into disorder and was crushed confusedly back towards the nivelles-namur road. darkness fell, and nothing more could be accomplished. the field was won, indeed, but the prussian army was still an organisation and a power. it had lost heavily in surrenders, flight, and fallen, but its main part was still organised. it was driven to retreat in the darkness, but remained ready, when time should serve, to reappear. it kept its order against the end of the french pressure throughout the last glimmer of twilight; and when darkness fell, the troops of blucher, though in retreat, were in a retreat compact and orderly, and the bulk of his command was saved from the enemy and available for further action. thus ended the battle of ligny, glorious for the emperor, who had achieved so much success against great odds and after the hottest combat; but a failure of his full plan, for the host before him was still in existence: it was free to retreat in what direction, east or north, it might choose. the choice was made with immediate and conquering decision: the order passed in the darkness, "by tilly on wavre." the prussian staff had not lost its head under the blow of its defeat. it preserved a clear view of the campaign, with its remaining chances, and the then beaten army corps were concentrated upon a movement northwards. word was sent to the fresh and unused fourth corps to join the other three at _wavre_, and the march was begun which permitted blucher, forty hours later, to come up on the flank of the french at waterloo and destroy them. quatre bras such had been the result of the long afternoon's work upon the right-hand or eastern battlefield, that of ligny, where napoleon had been in personal command. in spite of his appeals, no one had reached him from the western field, and the first corps had only appeared in napoleon's neighbourhood to disappear again. what had been happening on that western battlefield, three to four miles away, which had thus prevented some part at least of ney's army coming up upon the flank of the prussians at ligny, towards the end of the day, and inflicting upon blucher a complete disaster? what had happened was the slow, confused action known to history as the battle of quatre bras. it will be remembered that ney had been entrusted by napoleon with the absolute and independent command of something less than half of his whole army.[ ] he had put at his disposal the first and the second army corps, under erlon and reille respectively--nearly , men; and to these he had added, by an afterthought, eight regiments of heavy cavalry, commanded by kellerman. the rôle of this force, in napoleon's intention, was simply to advance up the brussels road, brushing before it towards the left or west, away from the prussians, as it went, the outposts of that western half of the allied army, which wellington commanded. we have seen that napoleon, who had certainly arrived quickly and half-unexpectedly at the point of junction between wellington's scattered forces and those of the prussians, when he crossed the sambre at charleroi, overestimated his success. he thought his enemy had even less notice of his advance than that enemy really had; he thought that enemy had had less time to concentrate than he had really had. napoleon therefore necessarily concluded that his enemy had concentrated to a less extent than he actually had. that mistake had the effect, in the case of the army of the right, which he himself commanded, of bringing him up against not one prussian army corps but three. this accident had not disconcerted him, for he hoped to turn it into a general disaster for the prussians, and to take advantage of their unexpected concentration to accomplish their total ruin. but such a plan was dependent upon the left-hand or western army, that upon the brussels road under ney, not finding anything serious in front of it. ney could spare men less easily if the emperor's calculation of the resistance likely to be found on the brussels road should be wrong. it was wrong. that resistance was not slight but considerable, and ney was not free to come to napoleon's aid. tardy as had been the information conveyed to the duke of wellington, and grievously as the duke of wellington had misunderstood its importance, there was more in front of ney upon the brussels road than the emperor had expected. what there was, however, might have been pushed back--after fairly heavy fighting it is true, but without any risk of failure--but for another factor in the situation, which was ney's own misjudgment and inertia. napoleon himself said later that his marshal was no longer the same man since the disasters of two years before; but even if ney had been as alert as ever, misjudgment quite as much as lack of will must have entered into what he did. he had thought, as the emperor had, that there would be hardly anything in front of him upon the brussels road. but there was this difference between the two errors: ney was on the spot, and could have found out with his cavalry scouts quite early on the morning of friday the th what he really had to face. he preferred to take matters for granted, and he paid a heavy price. he thought that there was plenty of time for him to advance at his leisure; and, thinking this, he must have further concluded that to linger upon that part of the brussels road which was nearest the emperor's forthcoming action to the east by ligny would be good policy in case the emperor should have need of him there. on the night of the th ney himself was at frasnes, while the furthest of his detachments was no nearer than the bridge of thuin over the sambre, sixteen miles away. the rough sketch printed opposite will show how very long that line was, considering the nearness of the strategical point quatre bras, which it was his next business to occupy. the second army corps under reille was indeed fairly well moved up, and all in the neighbourhood of gosselies by the night between thursday th and friday th of june. but the other half of the force, the first army corps under erlon, was strung out over miles of road behind. to concentrate all those , men, half of them spread out over so much space, meant a day's ordinary marching; and one would have thought that ney should have begun to concentrate before night fell upon the th. he remembered, however, that the men were fatigued, he thought he had plenty of time before him, and he did not effect their concentration. the mass of the second army corps (reille's) was, as i have said, near gosselies on the friday dawn; but erlon, with the first army corps, was not in disposition to bring the bulk of it up by the same time. he could not expect to be near quatre bras till noon or one o'clock. but even to this element of delay, due to his lack of precision, ney added further delay, due to slackness in orders. [illustration] it was eleven o'clock on the morning of that friday the th before ney sent a definite order to reille to march; it was _twelve_ before the head of that second army corps set out up the great road to cover the four or five miles that separated them from ney's headquarters at frasnes. erlon, lying next behind reille, could not advance until reille's last division had taken the road. so erlon, with the first army corps, was not in column and beginning his advance with his head troops until after one o'clock. at about half-past one, then, we have the first troops of reille's army corps reaching ney at frasnes, its tail-end some little way out of gosselies; while at the same hour we have erlon's first army corps marching in column through gosselies. it would have been perfectly possible, at the expense of a little fatigue to the men, to have had the second army corps right up at frasnes and in front of it and deployed for action by nine o'clock, while erlon's army corps, the first, coming behind it as a reserve, an equal body in numbers, excellence, and order, would have taken the morning to come up. in other words, ney could have had more than , men ready for the attack on quatre bras by mid-morning, with as many men an hour or two behind them, and ready on their arrival to act as a reserve. as a matter of fact, he waited with his single battalion and a few horsemen at his headquarters at frasnes, only giving the orders we have seen, which did not bring reille's head columns up to him till as late as half-past one. it was well after two o'clock before reille's troops had deployed in front of frasnes and this second army corps were ready to attack the position at quatre bras, which ney still believed to be very feebly held. the other half of ney's command, the first army corps, under erlon, was still far away down the road. this said, it behoves us to consider the strategical value of the quatre bras position, and later to see how far ney was right in thinking that it was still quite insufficiently furnished with defenders, even at that late hour in the day. armies must march by roads. at any rate, the army marching by road has a vast advantage over one attempting an advance across country; and the better kept-up the road the greater advantage, other things being equal, has the army using it over another army debarred from its use. quatre bras is the cross-way of two great roads. the first road is that main road from north to south, leading from the frontier and charleroi to brussels; along this road, it was napoleon's ultimate intention to sweep, and up this road he was on that morning of the th sending ney to clear the way for him. the second road is the great road east and west from nivelles to namur, which was in june the main line of communication along which the two halves of the allies could effect their junction. the invader, then, when he held quatre bras, could hold up troops coming against him from the north, troops coming against him from the east, or troops coming against him from the west. he could prevent, or rather delay, their junction. he would have stepped in between. but quatre bras has advantages greater than this plain and elementary strategical advantage. in the first place, it dominates the whole countryside. a patch or knoll, feet above the sea, the culminating point of the plateau, is within a few yards of the cross-roads. standing there, a few steps to the west of the highway, you look in every direction over a rolling plain, of which you occupy the highest point for some miles around. now, this position of the "quatre bras" or "cross roads" can be easily defended against a foe coming from the south, as were the two corps under ney. in its defence was easier still. a large patch of undergrowth, cut in rotation, called the wood of bossu, ran along the high road from frasnes and charleroi, flanking that road to the west, and forming cover for troops that might wish to forbid access along it. the ground falls somewhat rapidly in front of the cross-roads to a little stream, and just where the stream crosses the road is the walled farm of gemioncourt, which can be held as an advanced position, while in front of the fields where the wood of bossu once stood is the group of farm buildings called pierrepont. finally, that arm of the cross-roads which overlooks the slope down to gemioncourt ran partly on an embankment which could be used for defence as a ready-made earthwork. now, let us see what troops were actually present that friday morning upon the allied side to defend this position against ney's advance, and what others were near enough in the neighbourhood to come up in defence of the position during the struggle. there was but one division of the allies actually on the spot. this was the netherlands division, commanded by perponcher; and the whole of it, including gunners and sappers (it had hardly any cavalry[ ] with it), was less than strong. it was a very small number to hold the extended position which the division at once proceeded to occupy. they had to cover a front of over yards, not far short of two miles. they did not know, indeed, what ney was bringing up against them; wellington himself, later on, greatly underestimated the french forces on that day. now even if ney had had far less men than he had, it was none the less a very risky thing to disperse the division as perponcher did, especially with no more than fourteen guns to support him,[ ] but under the circumstances it turned out to be a wise risk to have taken. ney had hesitated already, and was in a mood to be surprised at any serious resistance. the more extended the veil that was drawn before him, the better for the allies and their card of delay. for everything depended upon time. ney, as will be seen, had thrown away his chance of victory by his extreme dilatoriness, and during the day the allies were to bring up unit after unit, until by nightfall nearly , men not only held quatre bras successfully, but pushed the french back from their attack upon it. perponcher, then, put a battalion and five guns in front of gemioncourt, another battalion inside the walls of the farm, four battalions and a mounted battery before the wood of bossu and the farm of pierrepont. most of his battalions were thus stretched in front of the position of quatre bras, the actual cross roads where he left only two as a reserve. against the dutchmen, thus extended, the french order to advance was given, and somewhere between half-past two and a quarter to three the french attack began. it was delivered upon gemioncourt and the fields to the right or east of the brussels road. the action that followed is one simple enough to understand by description, but difficult to express upon a map. it is difficult to express upon a map because it consisted in the repeated attack of one fixed number of men against an increasing number of men. ney was hammering all that afternoon with a french force which soon reached its maximum. the position against which he was hammering, though held at first by a force greatly inferior to his own, began immediately afterwards to receive reinforcement after reinforcement, until at the close of the action the defenders were vastly superior in numbers to the attackers. i have attempted in the rough pen sketch opposite this page to express this state of affairs on the allied side during the battle by marking in successive degrees of shading the bodies of the defence in the order in which they came up, but the reader must remember the factor of time, and how all day long wellington's command at quatre bras kept on swelling and swelling by driblets, as the units marched in at a hurried summons from various points behind the battlefield. this gradual reinforcement of the defence gives all its character to the action. [illustration] the french, then, began the assault by an advance to the right or east of the brussels road. they cleared out the defenders from gemioncourt; they occupied that walled position; they poured across the stream, and were beginning to take the rise up to quatre bras when, at about three o'clock, wellington, who had been over at ligny discussing the position with blucher, rode up and saw how critical the moment was. in a few minutes the first french division might be up to the cross-roads at q. bossu wood, with the four battalions holding it, had not yet been attacked by the french, because their second division of reille's second corps (under napoleon's brother jerome), had not yet come up; erlon's first corps was still far off, down the road. the men in the bossu wood came out to try and stop the french advance. they were thrown back by french cavalry, and even as this was proceeding jerome's division arrived, attacked the south of bossu wood, and brought up the whole of ney's forces to some , or , men. the french advance, so continued, would now undoubtedly have succeeded against the dutch at this moment of three o'clock (and wellington's judgment that the situation was critical at that same moment was only too sound) had there not arrived precisely at that moment the first of his reinforcements. a brigade of dutch cavalry came up from the west along the nivelles road, and three brigades of infantry appeared marching hurriedly in from the north, along the brussels road; two of these brigades were british, under the command of kemp and of pack, and they formed picton's division. the third were a brigade of hanoverians, under best. the british and the hanoverians formed along the namur road at m n, protected by its embankment, kneeling in the high wheat, and ready to fire when the enemy's attacking line should come within close range of their muskets. the newly arrived dutch cavalry, on the other side of the road, charged the advancing french, but were charged themselves in turn by french cavalry, overthrown, and in their stampede carried wellington and his staff in a surge past the cross-roads; but the french cavalry, in its turn, was compelled to retire by the infantry fire it met when it had ridden too far. immediately afterwards the french infantry as they reached the namur road came unexpectedly upon the just-arrived british and hanoverians, and were driven back in disorder by heavy volleying at close range from the embankment and the deep cover beyond. the cavalry charge and countercharge (jerome beginning to clear the south of the bossu wood), the check received by the french on the right from picton's brigade and the hanoverians occupied nearly an hour. it was not far short of four o'clock when ney received that first urgent dispatch from napoleon which told him to despatch the enemy's resistance at quatre bras, and then to come over eastward to ligny and help against the prussians. ney could not obey. he had wasted the whole of a precious morning, and by now, close on four o'clock in the afternoon, yet another unit came up to increase the power of the defence, and to make his chance of carrying the quatre bras cross-roads, of pushing back wellington's command, of finding himself free to send men to napoleon increasingly doubtful. the new unit which had come up was the corps under the duke of brunswick, and when this arrived wellington had for the first time a superiority of numbers over ney's single corps (there was still no sign of erlon) though he was still slightly inferior in guns. however, the french advance was vigorously conducted. nearly the whole of the wood of bossu was cleared. the brunswickers, who had been sent forward along the road between quatre bras and gemioncourt, were pushed back as to their infantry; their cavalry broke itself against a french battalion. it was in this doubly unsuccessful effort that the duke of brunswick, son of the famous general of the earlier revolutionary wars, fell, shot in the stomach. he died that night in the village. the check to this general advance of the french all along the line was again given by the english troops along the namur road. picton seized the moment, ordered a bayonet charge, and drove the french right down the valley. his men were in turn driven back by the time they had cleared the slope, but the check was given and the french never recovered it. two fierce cavalry charges by the french failed to break the english line, though the highlanders upon pack's extreme right, close against quatre bras itself, were caught before they could form square, and the second phase of the battle ended in a draw. ney had missed the opportunity when the enemy in front of him were in numbers less than half his own; he had failed to pierce their line when reinforcements had brought up their numbers to a superiority over his own. he must now set about a far more serious business, for there was every prospect, as the afternoon advanced, that wellington would be still further reinforced, while ney had nothing but his original , --half his command; of erlon's coming there was not a sign! yet another hour had been consumed in the general french advance and its repulse, which i have just described. it was five o'clock. i beg the reader to concentrate his attention upon this point of the action--the few minutes before and after the hour of five. a number of critical things occurred in that short space of time, all of which must be kept in mind. the first was this: a couple of brigades came in at that moment to reinforce wellington. they gave him a per cent. superiority in men, and an appreciable superiority in guns as well. in the second place, ney was keeping the action at a standstill, waiting until his own forces should be doubled by the arrival of erlon's force. ney had been fighting all this while, as i have said, with only half his command--the second army corps of reille. erlon's first army corps formed the second half, and when it came up--as ney confidently expected it to do immediately--it would double his numbers, and raise them from , to , men. with this superiority he could be sure of success, even if, as was probable, further reinforcements should reach the enemy's line. it is to be noted that it was due to ney's own tardiness in giving orders that erlon was coming up so late, but by now, five o'clock, the head of his columns might at any moment be seen debouching from frasnes. in the third place, while ney was thus anxiously waiting for erlon, and seeing the forces in front of him swelling to be more and more superior to his own, there came yet another message from napoleon telling ney how matters stood in the great action that was proceeding five miles away, urging him again with the utmost energy to have done at quatre bras, to come back over eastward upon the flank of the prussians at ligny, and so to destroy their army utterly and "to save france." to have done with the action of quatre bras! but there were already superior forces before ney! and they were increasing! if he dreamt of turning, it would be annihilation for his troops, or at the least the catching of his army's and napoleon's between two fires. he _might_ just manage when erlon came up--and surely erlon must appear from one moment to another--he _might_ just manage to overthrow the enemy in front of him so rapidly as to have time to turn and appear at ligny before darkness should fall, from three to four hours later. it all hung on erlon:--he _might_! and at that precise moment, with his impatience strained to breaking-point, and all his expectation turned on frasnes, whence the head of erlon's column should appear, there rode up to ney a general officer, delcambre by name. he came with a message. it was from erlon.... erlon had abandoned the road to quatre bras; had understood that he was not to join ney after all, but to go east and help napoleon! he had turned off eastward to the right two and a half miles back, and was by this time far off in the direction which would lead him to take part in the battle of ligny! under the staggering blow of this news ney broke into a fury. it meant possibly the annihilation of his body, certainly its defeat. he did two things, both unwise from the point of view of his own battle, and one fatal from the point of view of the whole campaign. first, he launched his reserve cavalry, grossly insufficient in numbers for such a mad attempt, right at the english line, in a despairing effort to pierce such superior numbers by one desperate charge. secondly, he sent delcambre back--not calculating distance or time--with peremptory orders to erlon, as his subordinate, to come back at once to the battlefield of quatre bras. there was, as commander to lead that cavalry charge, kellerman. he had but one brigade of cuirassiers: two regiments of horse against , men! it was an amazing ride, but it could accomplish nothing of purport. it thundered down the slope, breaking through the advancing english troops (confused by a mistaken order, and not yet formed in square), cut to pieces the gunners of a battery, broke a regiment of brunswickers near the top of the hill, and reached at last the cross-roads of quatre bras. five hundred men still sat their horses as the summit of the slope was reached. the brigade had cut a lane right through the mass of the defence; it had not pierced it altogether. some have imagined that if at that moment the cavalry of the guard, which was still in reserve, had followed this first charge by a second, ney might have effected his object and broken wellington's line. it is extremely doubtful, the numbers were so wholly out of proportion to such a task. at any rate, the order for the second charge, when it came, came somewhat late. the five hundred as they reined up on the summit of the hill were met and broken by a furious cross-fire from the namur road upon the right, from the head of bossu wood upon the left, while yet another unit, come up in this long succession to reinforce the defence--a battery of the king's german legion--opened upon them with grape. the poor remnant of kellerman's horse turned and galloped back in confusion. the second cavalry charge attempted by the french reserve, coming just too late, necessarily failed, and at the same moment yet another reinforcement--the first british division of the guards, and a body of nassauers, with a number of guns--came up to increase the now overwhelming superiority of wellington's line.[ ] there was even an attempt at advance upon the part of wellington. as the evening turned to sunset, and the sunset to night, that advance was made very slowly and with increasing difficulty--and all the while ney's embarrassed force, now confronted by something like double its own numbers, and contesting the ground yard by yard as it yielded, received no word of erlon. the clearing of the wood of bossu by the right wing of wellington's army, reinforced by the newly arrived guards, took more than an hour. it took as long to push the french centre back to gemioncourt, and all through the last of the sunlight the walls of the farm were desperately held. on the left, pierrepont was similarly held for close upon an hour. the sun had already set when the guards debouched from the wood of bossu, only to be met and checked by a violent artillery fire from pierrepont, while at the same time the remnant of the cuirassiers charged again, and broke a belgian battalion at the edge of the wood. by nine o'clock it was dark and the action ceased. just as it ceased, and while, in the last glimmerings of the light, the major objects of the landscape, groups of wood and distant villages, could still be faintly distinguished against the background of the gloom, one such object seemed slowly to approach and move. it was first guessed and then perceived to be a body of men: the head of a column began to debouch from frasnes. it was erlon and his , returned an hour too late. all that critical day had passed with the first corps out of action. it had _neither_ come up to napoleon to wipe out the prussians at ligny, _nor_ come back in its countermarch in time to save ney and drive back wellington at quatre bras. it might as well not have existed so far as the fortunes of the french were concerned, and its absence from either field upon that day made defeat certain in the future, as the rest of these pages will show. * * * * * two things impress themselves upon us as we consider the total result of that critical day, the th of june, which saw ney fail to hold the brussels road at quatre bras, and there to push away from the advance on brussels wellington's opposing force, and which also saw the successful escape of the prussians from ligny, an escape which was to permit them to join wellington forty-eight hours later and to decide waterloo. the first is the capital importance, disastrous to the french fortunes, of erlon's having been kept out of both fights by his useless march and countermarch. [illustration: the elements of quatre bras.] the second is the extraordinary way in which wellington's command came up haphazard, dribbling in by units all day long, and how that command owed to ney's caution and tardiness, much more than to its own general's arrangements, the superiority in numbers which it began to enjoy from an early phase in the battle. i will deal with these two points in their order. * * * * * as to the first:-- the whole of the four days of , and the issue of waterloo itself, turned upon erlon's disastrous counter-marching between quatre bras and ligny upon this friday, the th of june, which was the decisive day of the war. what actually _happened_ has been sufficiently described. the useless advance of erlon's corps d'armée towards napoleon and the right--useless because it was not completed; the useless turning back of that corps d'armée towards ney and the left--useless because it could not reach ney in time,--these were the determining factors of that critical moment in the campaign. in other words, erlon's zigzag kept the , of the first corps out of action all day. had they been with ney, the allies under wellington at quatre bras would have suffered a disaster. had they been with napoleon, the prussians at ligny would have been destroyed. as it was, the first army corps managed to appear on _neither_ field. wellington more than held his own; the prussians at ligny escaped, to fight two days later at waterloo. such are the facts, and they explain all that followed (see map, next page). but it has rightly proved of considerable interest to historians to attempt to discover the human motives and the personal accidents of temperament and misunderstanding which led to so extraordinary a blunder as the utter waste of a whole army corps during a whole day, within an area not five miles by four. it is for the purpose of considering these human motives and personal accidents that i offer these pages; for if we can comprehend erlon's error, we shall fill the only remaining historical gap in the story of waterloo, and determine the true causes of that action's result. [illustration] there are two ways of appreciating historical evidence. the first is the lawyer's way: to establish the pieces of evidence as a series of disconnected units, to docket them, and then to see that they are mechanically pieced together; admitting, the while, only such evidence as would pass the strict and fossil rules of our particular procedure in the courts. this way, as might be inferred from its forensic origin, is particularly adapted to arriving at a foregone conclusion. it is useless or worse in an attempt to establish a doubtful truth. the second way is that by which we continually judge all real evidence upon matters that are of importance to us in our ordinary lives: the way in which we invest money, defend our reputation, and judge of personal risk or personal advantage in every grave case. this fashion consists in admitting every kind of evidence, first hand, second hand, third hand, documentary, verbal, traditional, and judging the general effect of the whole, not according to set legal categories, but according to our general experience of life, and in particular of human psychology. we chiefly depend upon the way in which we know that men conduct themselves under the influence of such and such emotions, of the kind of truth and untruth which we know they will tell; and to this we add a consideration of physical circumstance, of the laws of nature, and hence of the degrees of probability attaching to the events which all this mass of evidence relates. it is only by this second method, which is the method of common-sense, that anything can be made of a doubtful historical point. the legal method would make of history what it makes of justice. which god forbid! historical points are doubtful precisely because there is conflict of evidence; and conflict of evidence is only properly resolved by a consideration of the psychology of witnesses, coupled with a consideration of the physical circumstances which limited the matter of their testimony. judged by these standards, the fatal march and countermarch of erlon become plain enough. his failure to help either ney or napoleon was not treason, simply because the man was not a traitor. it proceeded solely from obedience to orders; but these orders were fatal because ney made an error of judgment both as to the real state of the double struggle--quatre bras, ligny--and as to the time required for the countermarch. this i shall now show. briefly, then:-- erlon, as he was leading his army corps up to help ney, his immediate superior, turned it off the road before he reached ney and led it away towards napoleon. why did he do this? it was because he had received, not indeed from his immediate superior, ney himself, _but through a command of napoleon's, which he knew to be addressed to ney_, the order to do so. when erlon had almost reached napoleon he turned his army corps right about face and led it off back again towards ney. why did he do that? it was because he had received at that moment _a further peremptory order from ney, his direct superior, to act in this fashion_. such is the simple and common-sense explanation of the motives under which this fatal move and countermove, with its futile going and coming, with its apparent indecision, with its real strictness of military discipline, was conducted. as far as erlon is concerned, it was no more than the continual obedience of orders, or supposed orders, to which a soldier is bound. with ney's responsibility i shall deal in a moment. let me first make the matter plainer, if i can, by an illustration. fire breaks out in a rick near a farmer's house and at the same time in a barn half a mile away. the farmer sends ten men with water-buckets and an engine to put out the fire at the barn, while he himself, with another ten men, but without an engine, attends to the rick. he gives to his foreman, who is looking after the barn fire, the task of giving orders to the engine, and the man at the engine is told to look to the foreman and no one else for his orders. the foreman is known to be of the greatest authority with his master. hardly has the farmer given all these instructions when he finds that the fire in the rick has spread to his house. he lets the barn go hang, and sends a messenger to the foreman with an urgent note to send back the engine at once to the house and rick. the messenger finds the man with the engine on his way to the barn, intercepts him, and tells him that the farmer has sent orders to the foreman that the engine is to go back at once to the house. the fellow turns round with his engine and is making his way towards the house when another messenger comes posthaste _from the foreman direct_, telling him at all costs to bring the engine back to the barn. the man with the engine turns once more, abandons the house, but cannot reach the barn in time to save it. the result of the shilly-shally is that the barn is burnt down, and the fire at the farmer's house only put out after it has done grave damage. the farmer is napoleon. his rick and house are ligny. the foreman is ney, and the barn is quatre bras. the man with the engine is erlon, and the engine is erlon's command--the first corps d'armée. there was no question of _contradictory_ orders in erlon's mind, as many historians seem to imagine; there was simply, from erlon's standpoint, a _countermanded_ order. he had received, indeed, an order coming from the emperor, but he had received it only as the subordinate of ney, and only, as he presumed, with ney's knowledge and consent, either given or about to be given. in the midst of executing this order, he got another order countermanding it, and proceeding directly from his direct superior. he obeyed this second order as exactly as he had obeyed the first. such is, undoubtedly, the explanation of the thing, and ney's is the mind, the person, historically responsible for the whole business. let us consider the difficulties in the way of accepting this conclusion. the first difficulty is that ney would not have taken it upon himself to countermand an order of napoleon's. those who argue thus neither know the character of ney nor the nature of the struggle at quatre bras; and they certainly underestimate both the confusion and the elasticity of warfare. ney, a man of violent temperament (as, indeed, one might expect with such courage), was in the heat of the desperate struggle at quatre bras when he received napoleon's order to abandon his own business (a course which was, so late in the action, physically impossible). almost at the same moment ney heard most tardily from a messenger whom erlon had sent (a colonel delcambre) that erlon, with his , men--erlon, who had distinctly been placed under his orders--was gone off at a tangent, and was leaving him with a grossly insufficient force to meet the rapidly swelling numbers of wellington. we have ample evidence of the rage into which he flew, and of the fact that he sent back delcambre with the absolutely positive order to erlon that he should turn round and come back to quatre bras. of course, if war were clockwork, if there were no human character in a commander, if no latitude of judgment were understood in the very nature of a great independent command such as ney's was upon that day, if there were always present before every independent commander's mental vision an exact map of the operations, and, _at the same time_, a plan of the exact position of all the troops upon it at any given moment--if all these armchair conceptions of war were true, then ney's order would have been as undisciplined in character and as foolish in intention as it was disastrous in effect. but such conceptions are not true. great generals entrusted with separate forces, and told off to engage in a great action at a distance from the supreme command, have, by the very nature of their mission, the widest latitude of judgment left to them. they are perfectly free to decide, in some desperate circumstance, that if their superior knew of that circumstance, he would understand why an afterorder of his was not obeyed, or was even directly countermanded. that ney should have sent this furious counterorder, therefore, to erlon, telling him to come back instantly, in spite of napoleon's first note, though it was a grievous error, is one perfectly explicable, and parallel to many other similar incidents that diversify the history of war. in effect, ney said to himself: "the emperor has no idea of the grave crisis at _my_ end of the struggle or he wouldn't have sent that order. he is winning, anyhow; i am actually in danger of defeat; and if i am defeated, wellington's troops will pour through and come up on the emperor's army from the rear and destroy it. i have a right, therefore, to summon erlon back." such was the rationale of ney's decision. his passionate mood did the rest. a second and graver difficulty is this: by the time erlon got the message to come back, it was so late that he could not possibly bring his , up in time to be of any use to ney at quatre bras. they could only arrive on the field, as they did in fact arrive, when darkness had already set in. it is argued that a general in ney's position would have rapidly calculated the distance involved, and would have seen that it was useless to send for his subordinate at such an hour. the answer to this suggestion is twofold. in the first place, a man under hot fire is capable of making mistakes; and ney was, at the moment when he gave that order, under the hottest fire of the whole action. in the second place, he could not have any very exact idea of where in all those four miles of open fields behind him the head of erlon's column might be, still less where exactly delcambre would find it by the time he had ridden back. a mile either way would have made all the difference; if erlon was anywhere fairly close; if delcambre knew exactly where to find him, and galloped by the shortest route--if this and if that, it might still be that erlon would turn up just before darkness and decide the field in ney's favour.[ ] considerable discussion has turned on whether, as the best authorities believe, erlon did or did not receive a pencilled note written personally to him by the emperor, telling him to turn at once and come to his, napoleon's, aid, and by his unexpected advent upon its flank destroy the prussian army. as an explanation of the false move of erlon back and forth, the existence of this note is immaterial. the weight of evidence is in its favour, and men will believe or disbelieve it according to the way in which they judge human character and motive. for the purposes of a dramatic story the incident of a little pencilled note to erlon is very valuable, but as an elucidation of the historical problem it has no importance, for, even if he got such a note, erlon only got it in connection with general orders, which, he knew, were on their way to _ney_, his superior. the point for military history is that-- (_a_) erlon, with the first corps, on his way up to quatre bras that afternoon, was intercepted by a messenger, who told him that the emperor wanted him to turn off eastward and go to ligny, and not to quatre bras; while-- (_b_) he also knew that that message was intended also to be delivered, and either had been or was about to be delivered, to his superior officer, ney. therefore he went eastward as he had been told, believing that ney knew all about it; and therefore, also, on receiving a further direct order from ney to turn back again westward, he did turn back. if we proceed to apportion the blame for that disastrous episode, which, by permitting blucher to escape, was the plain cause of napoleon's subsequent defeat at waterloo, it is obvious that the blame must fall upon ney, who could not believe, in the heat of the violent action in which he was involved, that napoleon's contemporary action against ligny could be more decisive or more important than his own. it was a question of exercising judgment, and of deciding whether napoleon had justly judged the proportion between his chances of a great victory and ney's chances; and further, whether a great victory at ligny would have been of more effect than a great victory or the prevention of a bad defeat at quatre bras. napoleon was right and ney was wrong. i have heard or read the further suggestion that napoleon, on seeing erlon, or having him reported, not two miles away, should have sent him further peremptory orders to continue his march and to come on to ligny. this is bad history. erlon, as it was, was heading a trifle too much to the south, so that napoleon, who thought the whole of ney's command to be somewhat further up the brussels road northward than it was, did not guess at first what the new troops coming up might be, and even feared they might be a detachment of wellington's, who might have defeated ney, and now be coming in from the west to attack _him_. he sent an orderly to find out what the newcomers were. the orderly returned to report that the troops were erlon's, but that they had turned back. had napoleon sent again, after this, to find erlon, and to make him for a third time change his direction, it would have been altogether too late to have used erlon's corps d'armée at ligny by the time it should have come up. napoleon had, therefore, no course before him but to do as he did, namely, give up all hope of help from the west, and defeat the prussians at ligny before him, if not decisively, at least to the best of his ability, with the troops immediately to his hand. * * * * * so much for erlon. now for the second point: the way in which the units of wellington's forces dribbled in all day haphazard upon the position of quatre bras. wellington, as we saw on an earlier page, was both misinformed and confused as to the nature and rapidity of the french advance into belgium. he did not appreciate, until too late, the importance of the position of quatre bras, nor the intention of the french to march along the great northern road. even upon the field of waterloo itself he was haunted by the odd misconception that napoleon's army would try and get across his communications with the sea, and he left, while waterloo was actually being fought, a considerable force useless, far off upon his right, on that same account. the extent of wellington's misjudgment we can easily perceive and understand. every general must, in the nature of war, misjudge to some extent the nature of his opponent's movements, but the shocking errors into which bad staff work led him in this his last campaign are quite exceptional. wellington wrote to blucher, on his arrival at the field of quatre bras, at about half-past ten in the morning, a note which distinctly left blucher to understand that he might expect english aid during his forthcoming battle with napoleon at ligny. he did not say so in so many words, but he said: "my forces are at such and such places," equivalent, that is, to saying, "my forces can come up quite easily, for they are close by you," adding: "i do not see any large force of the enemy in front of us; and i await news from your highness, and the arrival of troops, in order to determine my operations for the day." in this letter, moreover, he said in so many words that his reserve, the large body upon which he mainly depended, would be within three miles of him by noon, the british cavalry within seven miles of him at the same hour. then he rode over to see blucher on the field of ligny before napoleon's attack on that general had begun. he got there at about one o'clock. an acrimonious discussion has arisen as to whether he promised to come up and help blucher shortly afterwards or not, but it is a discussion beside the mark, for, in the first place, wellington quite certainly _intended_ to come up and help the prussians; and in the second place, he was quite as certainly _unable_ to do so, for the french opposition under ney which he had under-estimated, turned out to be a serious thing. but his letter, and his undoubted intention to come up and help blucher, depended upon his belief that the units of his army were all fairly close, and that by, say, half-past one he would have the whole lot occupying the heights of quatre bras. now, as a fact, the units of wellington's command were scattered all over the place, and it is astonishing to note the discrepancy between his idea of their position and their real position on the morning of the day when quatre bras was fought. when one appreciates what that discrepancy was, one has a measure of the bad staff work that was being done under wellington at the moment. [illustration] the plan (p. )[ ] distinguishes between the real positions of wellington's command on the morning of the th when he was writing his letter to blucher and the positions which wellington, in that letter, erroneously ascribes to them. it will show the reader the wide difference there was between wellington's idea of where his troops were and their actual position on that morning. it needs no comment. it is sufficient in itself to explain why the action at quatre bras consisted not in a set army meeting and repelling the french (it could have destroyed them as things turned out, seeing erlon's absence), but in the perpetual arrival of separate and hurried units, which went on from midday almost until nightfall. iv the allied retreat and french advance upon waterloo and wavre when the prussians had concentrated to meet napoleon at ligny they had managed to collect, in time for the battle, three out of their four army corps. these three army corps were the first, the second, and the third, and, as we have just seen, they were defeated. but, as we have also seen, they were not thoroughly defeated. they were not disorganised, still less were the bulk of them captured and disarmed. most important of all, they were free to retreat by any road that did not bring them against their victorious enemy. in other words, they were free to retreat to the north as well as to the east. the full importance of this choice will, after the constant reiteration of it in the preceding pages, be clear to the reader. a retreat towards the east, and upon the line of communications which fed the prussian army, would have had these two effects: first, it would have involved in the retirement that fresh fourth army corps under bulow which had not yet come into action, and which numbered no less than , men. for it lay to the east of the battlefield. in other words, that army corps would have been wasted, and the whole of the prussian forces would have been forced out of the remainder of the campaign. secondly, it would have finally separated blucher and his prussians from wellington's command. the duke, with his western half of the allied forces, would have had to stand up alone to the mass of napoleon's army, which would, after the defeat of the prussians at ligny, naturally turn to the task of defeating the english general. now the fact of capital importance upon which the reader must concentrate if he is to grasp the issue of the campaign is the fact that the french staff fell into an error as to the true direction of the prussian retreat. napoleon, soult, and all the heads of the french army were convinced that the prussian retreat _was_ being made by that eastern road. as a fact, the prussians, under the cover of darkness, had retired _not_ east but north. the defeated army corps, the first, second, and third, did not fall back upon the fresh and unused fourth corps; they left it unhampered to march northward also; and all during the darkness the prussian forces, as a whole, were marching in roughly parallel columns upon wavre and its neighbourhood. it was this escape to the north instead of the east that made it possible for the prussians to effect their junction with wellington upon the day of waterloo; but it must not be imagined that this supremely fortunate decision to abandon the field of their defeat at ligny in a northerly rather than an easterly direction was at first deliberately conceived by the prussians with the particular object of effecting a junction with wellington later on. in the first place, the prussians had no idea what line wellington's retreat would take. they knew that he was particularly anxious about his communications with the sea, and quite as likely to move westward as northward when napoleon should come against him. the full historical truth, accurately stated, cannot be put into the formula, "the prussians retreated northward in order to be able to join wellington two days later at waterloo." to state it so would be to read history backwards, and to presuppose in the prussian staff a knowledge of the future. the true formula is rather as follows:--"the prussians retired northward, and not eastward, because the incompleteness of their defeat permitted them to do so, and thus at once to avoid the waste of their fourth army corps and to gain positions where they would be able, if necessity arose, to get news of what had happened to wellington." in other words, to retreat northwards, though the decision to do so depended only upon considerations of the most general kind, was wise strategy, and the opportunity for that piece of strategy was seized; but the retreat northwards was not undertaken with the specific object of at once rejoining wellington. it must further be pointed out that this retreat northwards, though it abandoned the fixed line of communications leading through namur and liège to aix la chapelle, would pick up in a very few miles another line of communications through louvain, maestricht, and cologne. the prussian commanders, in determining upon this northward march, were in no way risking their supply nor hazarding the existence of their army upon a great chance. they were taking advantage of one of two courses left open to them, and that one the wiser of the two. this retreat upon wavre was conducted with a precision and an endurance most remarkable when we consider the fact that it took place just after a severe, though not a decisive, defeat. of the eighty odd thousand prussians engaged at ligny, probably , had fallen, killed or wounded. when the prussian centre broke, many units became totally disorganised; and, counting the prisoners and runaways who failed to rejoin the colours, we must accept as certainly not exaggerated the prussian official report of a loss of , .[ ] in spite, i say, of this severe defeat, the order of the retreat was well maintained, and was rewarded by an exceptional rapidity. the first corps marched along the westerly route that lay directly before them by tilly and mont st guibert. they marched past wavre itself, and bivouacked about midday of saturday the th, round about the village of bierges, on the other side of the river dyle. the second corps followed the first, and ended its march on the southern side of wavre, round about the village of st anne. the third corps did not complete the retreat until the end of daylight upon the th, and then marched through wavre, across the river to the north, and bivouacked around la bavette. finally, still later on the same evening, the fourth corps, that of bulow, which had come to ligny too late for the action, marching by the eastward lanes, through sart and corry, lay round dion le mont. by nightfall, therefore, on saturday the th of june, we have the mass of the prussian army safe round wavre, and duly disposed all round that town in perfect order. with the exception of a rearguard, which did not come up until the morning of the sunday, all had been safely withdrawn in the twenty-four hours that followed the defeat at ligny. it may be asked why this great movement had been permitted to take place without molestation from the victors. [illustration] napoleon would naturally, of course, after his defeat of the prussians, withdraw to the west the greater part of the forces he had used against blucher at ligny and direct them towards the brussels road in order to use them next against wellington. but napoleon had left behind him grouchy in supreme command over a great body of troops, some , in all, whose business it was to follow up the prussians, to find out what road they had taken; at the least to watch their movements, and at the best to cut off any isolated bodies or to give battle to any disjointed parts which the retreat might have separated from support. in general, grouchy was to see to it that the prussians did not return. in this task grouchy failed. true, he was not given his final instructions by the emperor until nearly midday of the th, but a man up to his work would have discovered the line of the prussian retreat and have hung on to it. grouchy failed, partly because he was insufficiently provided with cavalry, partly because he was a man excellent only in a sudden tactical dilemma, incompetent in large strategical problems, partly because he mistrusted his subordinates, and they him; but most of all because of an original prepossession (under which, it is but fair to him to add, all the french leaders lay) that the prussian retreat had taken the form of a flight towards namur, along the eastern line of communications, while, as a fact, it had taken the form of a disciplined retreat upon wavre and the north. at ten o'clock in the evening of saturday the th, twenty-four hours after the battle of ligny, and at the moment when the whole body of the prussian forces was already reunited in an orderly circle round wavre, grouchy, twelve miles to the south of them, was beginning--but only beginning--to discover the truth. he wrote at that hour to the emperor that "the prussians had retired in several directions," one body towards namur, another with blucher the commander-in-chief towards liège, _and a third body apparently towards wavre_. he even added that he was going to find out whether it might not be the larger of the three bodies which had gone towards wavre, and he appreciated that whoever had gone towards wavre intended keeping in touch with the rest of the allies under wellington. but all that grouchy did after writing this letter proves how little he, as yet, really believed that any great body of the enemy had marched on wavre. he anxiously sent out, not northward, but eastward and north-eastward, to feel for what he believed to be the main body of the retreating foe. during the night he did become finally convinced by the mass of evidence brought in by his scouts that round wavre was the whole prussian force, and the conclusion that he came to was singular! he took it for granted that through wavre the prussians certainly intended a full retreat on brussels. he wrote at daybreak of the th of june that he was about to pursue them. that blucher could dream of taking a short cut westward, thus effecting an immediate junction with wellington, never entered grouchy's head. he did not put his army in motion until after having written this letter. he advanced his troops in a decent and leisurely manner up the wavre road through the mid hours of the day, and himself, just before noon, wrote a dispatch to the emperor; he wrote it from sart, a point ten miles south of wavre. in that letter he announced "his intention to be massed at wavre _that night_," and begging for "orders as to how he should begin his attack of the _next day_." the next day! monday! already, hours before--by midnight of saturday--blucher had sent his message to wellington assuring him that the prussians would come to his assistance upon sunday, the morrow. even as grouchy was writing, the prussian corps were streaming westward across country to appear upon napoleon's flank four hours later and decide the campaign. having written his letter, grouchy sat down to lunch. as he sat there at meat, far off, the first shots of the battle of waterloo were fired. * * * * * so far, we have followed the retreat of the prussians northwards from their defeat at ligny. with the exception of the rearguard, they were all disposed by the evening of saturday the th in an orderly fashion round the little town of wavre. we have also followed the methodical but tardy and ill-conceived pursuit in which grouchy felt out with his cavalry to discover the line of the prussian retreat, and continued to be in doubt of its nature at least until midnight, and probably until even later than midnight, in that night between saturday the th, evening, and sunday the th of june. we have further seen that during the morning of sunday the th of june he was taking no dispositions for a rapid pursuit, but, being now convinced that the prussians merely intended a general retreat upon brussels, proposed to follow them in order to watch that retreat, and, if possible, to shepherd them eastwards. he wrote, as we have just said, to the emperor in the course of that morning of the sunday, announcing that he meant to mass his troops at wavre by nightfall, and asking for orders for the next day. what the prussians were doing during that sunday morning when grouchy was so quietly and soberly taking for granted that they could not or would not rejoin wellington, and was so quietly shielding his own responsibility behind the emperor's orders, we shall see when we come to talk of the action itself--the battle of waterloo. meanwhile we must return to the second half of the great strategic move, and watch the retreat of the duke of wellington during that same saturday, and the stand which he made on the ridge called "the mont st jean" by the nightfall of that day, in order to accept battle on the sunday morning. an observer watching the whole business of that saturday from some height in the air above the valley of the sambre, and looking northwards, would have seen on the landscape below, to his right, the prussians streaming in great parallel columns upon wavre from the battlefield of ligny. he would have seen, scattered upon the roads, small groups of mounted men, here in touch with the last files of a prussian column, there lost and wandering forward into empty spaces where no soldiers were. these were the cavalry scouts of grouchy. south of these, and far behind the prussian rear, separated from them by a gap of ten miles, a dense body of infantry, drawn up in heavy columns of route, was the corps commanded by grouchy. what would such an observer have seen upon the landscape below and before him to his left? he would have seen an interminable line of men streaming northward also, all afternoon, up the brussels road from quatre bras; and behind them, treading upon their heels, another column, miles in length, pressing the pursuit. the retreating column, as it hurried off, he would see screened on its rear by a mass of cavalry, that from time to time charged and checked the pursuers, and sometimes put guns in line to hold them back. the pursuers, after each such check, would still press on. the first, the thousands in retreat, were wellington's command retiring from quatre bras; the second, the pursuers, were a body some , strong formed by the junction of ney and napoleon, and pressing forward to bring wellington to battle. * * * * * at quatre bras, wellington had not been able, as he had hoped, to join the prussians and save them from defeat. the french, under ney, had held him up. he would even have suffered a reverse had ney attacked promptly and strongly earlier in the day of friday the th, but ney had not acted promptly and strongly. all day long reinforcements had come in one after the other, much later than the duke intended, but in a sufficient measure to meet the tardy and too cautious development of ney's attack. finally, the real peril under which the duke lay (though he did not know it)--the junction of erlon and his forces with ney--had not taken place until darkness fell, and erlon's , had been wasted in the futile fashion which has been described and analysed. the upshot, therefore, of the whole business at quatre bras was, that during the night between friday and saturday the th and the th the english and the french lay upon their positions, neither seriously incommoding the other. during that night further reinforcements reached wellington where his troops had bivouacked upon the positions they had held so well. lord uxbridge, in command of the british cavalry, and ompteda's brigade both came up with the morning, as did also clinton's division and colville's division, and so did the reserve artillery. in spite of all these reinforcements, in spite even of the great mass of horse which uxbridge had brought up, and of the new guns, wellington's position upon that morning of saturday the th of june was, though he did not yet know it, very perilous. he still believed that the prussians were holding on to ligny, and that they had kept their positions during the night, which night he had himself spent at genappe, to the rear of the battlefield of quatre bras.[ ] when wellington awoke on the morning of saturday in genappe, there were rumours in the place that the prussians had been defeated the day before at ligny. the duke went at once to quatre bras; sent colonel gordon off eastward with a detachment of the tenth hussars to find out what had happened, and that officer, finding the road from ligny in the hands of the french, had the sense to scout up northwards, came upon the tail of the prussian retreat, and returned to wellington at quatre bras by half-past seven with the whole story: the prussians had indeed been beaten; they were in full retreat; but a chance of retreat had lain open towards the north, and that was the road they had taken. wellington knew, therefore, before eight o'clock on that saturday morning, that his whole left or eastern flank was exposed, and it was common-sense to expect that napoleon, with the main body of the french, having defeated the prussians at ligny, would now march against himself, come up upon that exposed flank (while ney held the front), and so outnumber the anglo-dutch under the duke's command. at the worst that command would be destroyed; at the best it could only hope, if it gave time for napoleon to come up, to have to retreat westward, and to lose touch, for good, with the prussians. in such a plight it was wellington's business to retreat towards the north, so as to remain in touch with his prussian allies, while yet that line of retreat was open to him, and before napoleon should have forced a battle. [illustration: sketch showing the situation in which wellington was at quatre bras on the morning of the th.] the duke was in no hurry to undertake this movement, for as yet there was no sign of napoleon's arrival. the men breakfasted, and it was not until ten o'clock that the retreat began. he sent word back up the road to stop the reinforcements that were still upon their way to join him at quatre bras, and to turn them round again up the brussels road, the way they had come, until they should reach the ridge of the mont st jean, just in front of the village of waterloo, where he had determined to stand. this done, he made his dispositions for retirement, and a little after ten o'clock the retreat upon waterloo began. his english infantry led the retreat, the netherland troops following, then the brunswickers, and the last files of that whole great body of men were marching up the brussels road northward before noon. meanwhile, lord uxbridge, with his very considerable force of cavalry and the guns necessary to support it, deployed to cover the retreat, and watched the enemy. that enemy was motionless. ney did not propose to attack until napoleon should come up. napoleon and his troops, arriving from the battlefield of ligny, were not visible until within the neighbourhood of two o'clock. as he came near the emperor was perceived, his memorable form distinguished in the midst of a small escorting body, urging the march; and the english guns, during one of those rare moments in which war discovers something of drama, fired upon the man who was the incarnation of all that furious generation of arms. in a military study, this moment, valuable to civilian history, may be neglected. the flood of french troops arriving made it hard for uxbridge, in spite of his very numerous cavalry and supporting guns, to cover wellington's retreat. the task was, however, not only successfully but nobly accomplished. just as the french came up the sky had darkened and a furious storm had broken from the north-west upon the opposing forces. it was in the midst of a rain so violent that friend could be hardly distinguished from foe at thirty yards distance that the pursuit began, and to the noise of limbers galloped furiously to avoid capture, and of all those squadrons pursuing and pursued, was joined an incessant thunder. things are accomplished in war which do not fit into the framework of its largest stories, and tend, therefore, to be lost. overshadowed by the great story of waterloo, the work which lord uxbridge and his horse did on that afternoon of saturday the th of june is too often forgotten. the ability and the energy displayed were equal. the first deployment to meet the french advance, the watching of the retirement of wellington's main body, the continual appreciation of ground during a rapid and dangerous movement and in the worst of weather, the choice of occasional artillery positions--all these showed mastery, and secured the complete order of wellington's retreat.[ ] the pursuit was checked at its most important point (where the french had to cross the river dyle at genappe) by a rapid deployment of the cavalry upon the slope beyond the stream, a rapid unlimbering of the batteries in retreat, and a double charge, first of the seventh hussars, next of the first life guards. these charges were successful, they checked the french, and during the remainder of the afternoon the pursuit to the north of the dyle slackened off until, before darkness, it ceased altogether. indeed, there was by that time no further use in it. the mass of wellington's army had reached, and had deployed upon, that ridge of the mont st jean where he intended to turn and give battle. they were in a position to receive any immediate attack, and the purposes of mere pursuit were at an end. facing that ridge of the mont st jean, where, at the end of the afternoon and through the evening, wellington's troops were already taking up their positions, was another ridge, best remembered by the name of a farm upon its crest, the "belle alliance." this ridge formed the natural halting-place of the pursuers. from the height above genappe to the ridge of the belle alliance was but yards; and if a further reason be quoted for the cessation of the pursuit and the ranging into battle array of either force, the weather will provide that reason. the soil of all these fields is of a peculiar black and consistent sort, almost impassable after a drenching rain. the great paved high road which traverses it was occupied and encumbered by the wheeled vehicles and by the artillery. a rapid advance of infantry bodies thrown out to the right and left of the road, and so securing speed by parallel advance, was made impossible by mud, and the line grew longer and longer down the main road, forbidding rapid movement. from mud, that "fifth element in war" (as napoleon himself called it), wellington's troops--the mass of them at least--had been fairly free. they had reached their positions before the downpour. only the cavalry of the rearguard and its batteries had felt the full force of the storm. dry straw of the tall standing crops had been cut on the ridge of the mont st jean, and the men of wellington's command bivouacked as well as might be under such weather. with the french it was otherwise. their belated units kept straggling in until long after nightfall. the army was drawn up only at great expense of time and floundering effort, mainly in the dark, drenched, sodden with mud, along the ridge of the belle alliance. it was with difficulty that the wood of the bivouac fires could be got to burn at all. they were perpetually going out; and all that darkness was passed in a misery which the private soldier must silently expect as part of his trade, and which is relieved only by those vague corporate intuitions of a common peril, and perhaps a common glory, which, down below all the physical business, form the soul of an army. napoleon, when he had inspected all this and assured himself that wellington was standing ranged upon the opposite ridge, returned to sleep an hour or two at the farm called le caillou, a mile behind the line of bivouacs. wellington took up his quarters in the village of waterloo, about a mile and a half behind the bivouacs of his troops upon the mont st jean. in such a disposition the two commanders and their forces waited for the day. * * * * * there must, lastly, be considered, before the description of action is entered on, the nature of the field upon which it was about to be contested. that field had been studied by wellington the year before. he, incomparably the greatest tactical defensive commander of his time, and one of the greatest of all time, had chosen it for its capacities of defence. they were formidable. relying upon them, and confident of the prussians coming to his aid when the battle was joined, he rightly counted upon success. * * * * * let us begin by noting that of no battle is it more important to seize the exact nature of the terrain, that is, of the ground over which it was fought, than of waterloo. to the eye the structure of the battlefield is simple, consisting essentially of two slight and rounded ridges, separated by a very shallow undulation of land. but this general formation is complicated by certain features which can only be grasped with the aid of contours, and these contours, again, are not very easy to follow at first sight for those who have not seen the battlefield. in the map which forms the frontispiece of this volume, and to which i will beg the reader to turn, i have indicated the undulations of land in pale green lines underlying the other features of the battle, which are in black, red, and blue. the contours are drawn at five metres (that is feet inches) distance; no contours are given below that of metres above the sea. the valley floors below that level are shaded. up to the -metre line the contours are indicated by continuous lines of increasing thickness. above the -metre line they are indicated by faint dotted or dashed lines. i hope in this manner, though the task is a difficult one, to give a general impression of the field. the whole field, both slight ridges and the intervening depression, lies upon a large swell of land many square miles in extent, while it slopes away gradually to the east on one side and the west on the other. the highest and hardly distinguishable knolls of it stand about feet above the sea. the site of the battle lies actually on the highest part, the water-parting; and the floors of the valleys, down which the streams run to the east and to the west, are from to feet lower than this confused lift of land between. to one, however, standing upon any part of the battlefield, this feature of height is not very apparent. true, one sees lower levels falling away left and right, and the view seems oddly wide, but the eye gathers the impression of little more than a rolling plain. this is because, in comparison with the scale of the landscape as a whole, the elevations and depressions are slight. upon this rolling mass of high land there stand out, as i have said, those two slight ridges, and these ridges lie, roughly speaking, east and west--perpendicular to the great brussels road, which cuts them from south to north. it was upon this great brussels road that both wellington and napoleon took up, at distances less than a mile apart, their respective centres of position for the struggle. though this line of the road did not precisely bisect the two lines of the opposing armies, the point where it crossed each line marked the tactical centre of that line: both wellington and napoleon remained in person upon that road. now it must not be imagined that the shallow depression between the ridges stretches of even depth between the two positions taken up by wellington and napoleon, with the road cutting its middle; on the contrary, it is bridged, a little to the west of the road, by a "saddle," a belt of fields very nearly flat, and very nearly as high as each ridge. the eastern half of the depression therefore rises continually, and gets shallower and shallower as it approaches the road from east westward, and the road only cuts off the last dip of it. then, just west of the road there is the saddle; and as you proceed still further westward along the line midway between the french and english positions you find a second shallow valley falling away. this second valley does not precisely continue the direction of the first, but turns rather more to the north. in the first slight decline of this second valley, and a few hundred yards west of the road, lies the country-house called hougomont, and just behind it lay the western end of wellington's line. the whole position, therefore, if it were cut out as a model in section from a block of wood, might appear as does the accompanying plan. [illustration] in such a model the northern ridge p--q some two miles in length is that held by wellington. the southern one m--n is that held by napoleon. napoleon commanded from the point a, wellington from the point b, and the dark band running from one to the other represents the great brussels high road. the subsidiary ridge o--o is that on which napoleon, as we shall see, planted his great battery preparatory to the assault. the enclosure h is hougomont, the enclosure s is la haye sainte. of the two ridges, that held by napoleon needs less careful study for the comprehension of the battle than that held by wellington. the latter is known as the ridge of the mont st jean, from a farm lying a little below its highest point and a little behind its central axis. this ridge wellington had carefully studied the year before, and that great master of defence had noted and admired the excellence of its defensive character. not only does the land rise towards the ridge through the whole length of the couple of miles his troops occupied, not only is it almost free of "dead"[ ] ground, but there lie before it two walled enclosures, the small one of la haye sainte, the large one of hougomont, which, properly prepared and loopholed as they were, were equivalent to a couple of forts standing out to break the attack. there is, again, behind the whole line of the ridge, lower ground upon which the duke could and did conceal troops, and along which he could and did move them safely during the course of the action. anyone acquainted with wellington's various actions and their terrains will recognise a common quality in them: they were all chosen by an eye unequalled for seizing, even in where an immediate decision was necessary, all the capabilities of a defensive position. that taken up on the th of june , in the duke's last battle, had been chosen, not under the exigencies of immediate combat, but with full leisure and after a complete study. it is little wonder, then, that it is the best example of all. of all the defensive positions which the genius of wellington has made famous in europe, none excels that of waterloo. v the action in approaching this famous action, it is essential to recapitulate the strategical conditions which determined its result. i have mentioned them at the outset and again in the middle of this study; i must repeat them here. the only chance napoleon had when he set forward in early june to attack the allies in belgium, the vanguard of his enemies (who were all europe), was a chance of surprising that vanguard, of striking in suddenly between its two halves, of thoroughly defeating one or the other, and then turning to defeat as thoroughly its colleague. other chances than this desperate chance he had none; for he was fighting against odds of very nearly two to one even in his attack upon this mere vanguard of the armed kings; their total forces were, of course, overwhelmingly superior. he did succeed, as we have seen, in striking suddenly in between the two halves of the allied army in belgium. he was not as quick as he had intended to be. there were faults and delays, but he managed, mainly through the malinformation and misjudgment of wellington, to deal with the prussians unsupported by wellington's western wing. he attacked those prussians with the bulk of his forces; and although he was outnumbered even upon that field, he defeated the prussians at ligny. but the defeat was not complete. the prussians were free to retire northward, and so ultimately to rejoin wellington. they took that opportunity, and from the moment they had taken it napoleon was doomed. we have further seen that grouchy, who had been sent after the prussian retreat, might, if he had seen all the possibilities of that retreat, and had seen them in time, have stepped in between the prussians and wellington, and have prevented the appearance of the former upon the field of waterloo. had grouchy done so, waterloo would not have been the crushing defeat it was for napoleon. it would very probably have been a tactical success for napoleon. but, on the other hand, we have no ground for thinking that it would have been a final and determining success for the emperor. for if wellington had not known quite early in the action that he could count upon the arrival of the prussians, he would not have accepted battle. if, as a fact, he had found the prussians intercepted, he could have broken contact and retreated before it was too late. had he done so, it would simply have meant that he would later have effected a junction with his allies, and that in the long-run napoleon would still have had to fight an allied army immensely superior to his own. all this is as much as to say once more what has been insisted upon throughout these pages; waterloo was lost, not upon sunday, june th, but two days before, when the , of napoleon broke and drove back the , of blucher but failed to contain them, failed to drive them eastward, away from wellington, or to cause a general surrender, and failed because the first french army corps, under erlon, a matter of , men, failed to come up in flank at the critical moment. we have seen what the effect of that failure was; we have discussed its causes, and we must repeat the main fact for military history of all those four days: the breakdown of napoleon's last desperate venture turned upon erlon's useless marching and countermarching between quatre bras and ligny, two days before the final action of waterloo was fought. this being so, the battle of waterloo must resolve itself into two main phases: the first, the beginning of the struggle with wellington before the prussians come up; the second, the main and decisive part of the action, in which both prussians and english are combined against the french army. this second phase develops continually as the numbers of the arriving prussians increase, until it is clinched by the appearance of ziethen's corps at the very end of the day, and the break-up of the french army; this second part is therefore itself capable of considerable subdivision. but in any large and general view of the whole action, we must regard it as divided into these two great chapters, during the first of which is engaged the doubtful struggle between napoleon and wellington; during the second of which the struggle, no longer doubtful, is determined by the arrival of the prussians in flank upon the field. [illustration: elements of waterloo.] the first part of the action _before the arrival of the prussians_ the action was to take the form of an assault by napoleon's forces against this defensive position held by wellington. it was the business of wellington, although his total force was slightly inferior to the enemy in numbers,[ ] and considerably inferior in guns, to hold that defensive position until the prussians should come up in flank. this he had had word would take place at latest by one or two o'clock. it was the business of napoleon to capture the strong outworks, hougomont and la haye sainte; and, that done, to hammer the enemy's line until he broke it. that delay in beginning this hammering would be fatal; that the prussians were present upon his flank, could arrive in the midst of the battle, and were both confidently and necessarily expected by his enemy; that his simple single battle would turn into two increasingly complex ones, napoleon could have no idea. napoleon could see no need for haste. a long daylight was before him. it was necessary to let the ground dry somewhat after the terrible rain of the day before if artillery was to be used effectively; nor did he press his columns, which were moving into position all through the morning, and which had not completely deployed even by eleven o'clock. it was a little after that hour that he dictated to soult the order of battle. its first and effective phrases run as follows:-- "once the whole army is deployed, that is, at about half-past one, at the moment when the emperor shall send the order to marshal ney, the attack is to be delivered. it will have for its object the capture of the village of mont st jean and the cross-roads...." the remainder of the order sets out forces to be engaged in this first attack. the french forces consisted in the iind army corps deployed to the left or west of the road, the ist to the right or east of it, and behind napoleon, in the centre and in reserve, the vith corps and the guard. the plan in the emperor's mind was perfectly simple. there was to be no turning of the right nor of the left flank of the enemy, which would only have the effect of throwing back that enemy east or west. his line was to be pierced, the village of mont st jean which lay on the ridge of wellington's position and which overlooks the plateau on every side was to be carried, and this done napoleon would be free to decide upon his next action, according to the nature and extent of the disorder into which he had thrown the enemy's broken line. as a fact, napoleon made a movement before that hour of half-past one which he had set down in his order for the beginning of the assault. that movement was a movement against the advanced and fortified position of hougomont. he sent orders to his left, to the body on the east of the high road, the second army corps, under reille, to send troops to occupy the outer gardens, wood, and orchards of the country-house, and at twenty-five minutes to twelve the first gun fired in support of that movement was also the first cannonshot of waterloo. after a brief artillery duel and exchange of cannonshots between the height on the french left, which overlooks hougomont, and the corresponding height upon the english right, the french infantry began to march down the slope to occupy the little wood which stands to the south of the chateau. these four regiments were commanded by the emperor's brother jerome, who was--as we have seen at quatre bras--under the orders of reille. the clearing of the wood was no very desperate affair, but it was a difficult one, and it took an hour. the germans of nassau and hanover, who were charged with the defence of hougomont and its approaches, stubbornly contested the standing trees and the cut-clearing which lay between them and the garden wall of the chateau. it must be clearly seized, at this early and even premature point in the action, that napoleon's object in making this attack upon hougomont was only to weaken wellington's centre. hougomont lay upon wellington's right. wellington had always been nervous of his right, and feared the turning of his line there, because, should he have to retreat, his communications would ultimately lie in that direction. it was for this reason that he had set right off at braine l'alleud, nearly a mile to the west of his line, the dutch-belgian division of chassé and sixteen guns, which force he connected with a reserve body at hal, much further to the west. napoleon judged that an attack on hougomont before the action proper was begun, coming thus upon wellington's right, would make him attempt to reinforce the place and degarnish his centre, where the emperor intended the brunt of the attack to fall. napoleon had no other intention that history can discover in pressing the attack against hougomont so early. it was almost in the nature of a "feint." but when, towards half-past twelve, his brother's division had cleared the wood and come up against the high garden wall of the farm, for some reason which cannot be determined, whether the eagerness of the troops, the impulsiveness of jerome himself, or whatever cause, instead of being contented with holding the wood according to orders, the french furiously attacked the loopholed and defended wall. they attempted to break in the great door, which was recessed, and therefore protected by a murderous cross-fire. they were beaten back into the wood, leaving a heap of dead. at this point reille, according to his own account (which may well enough be accurate), sent orders for the division to remain in the wood, and not to waste itself against so strong an outpost. but jerome and his men were not to be denied. they marched round the chateau, under a heavy artillery fire from the english batteries above, and attempted to carry the north wall. as they were so doing, four companies of the coldstreams, the sole reinforcement which wellington could be tempted to part with from his main line, came in reinforcement to the defence, and, after a sharp struggle, the french were thrust back once more. it was by that time past one o'clock, and this first furious attempt upon hougomont, unintended by the emperor, and a sheer waste, had doubly failed. it had failed in itself--the house and garden still remained untaken, the post was still held. it had failed in its object, which had been to draw wellington, and to get him to send numerous troops from his centre to his right in defence of the threatened place. meanwhile the emperor, for whom this diversion of a few regiments against hougomont was but a small matter, had prepared and was about to deliver his main attack. the reader will see upon the contours of the coloured map a definite spur of land marked with a broad green band in front of the french order of battle, and further marked by the green letter "b" in the very centre of the map. it was along this spur and at about one o'clock that the emperor drew up a great battery of eighty pieces in order to prepare the assault upon the opposing ridge, which was to be delivered the moment their fire had ceased. napoleon at that moment was watching his army and its approaching engagement from that summit upon the great road marked "a" in green upon my coloured map, whence the whole landscape to the north and west lies open.[ ] there he received the report of ney that the guns were ready, and only waiting for the order. a little while before the guns were ready and ney had reported to that effect, napoleon had received grouchy's letter, in which it was announced that the mass of the prussian army had retreated on wavre. he had replied to it with instructions to grouchy so to act that no prussian corps at wavre could come and join wellington. hardly had the emperor dictated this reply when, looking northward and then eastward over the great view, he saw, somewhat over four miles away, a shadow, or a movement, or a stain upon the bare uplands towards wavre; he thought that appearance to be companies of men. a few moments later a sergeant of silesian hussars, taken prisoner by certain cavalry detachments far out to the east, was brought in. he had upon him a letter sent from bulow to wellington announcing that the prussians were at hand, and the prisoner further told the emperor that the troops just perceived were the vanguard of the prussian reinforcement. thus informed, the emperor caused a postscript to be added to his dictated letter, and bade grouchy march at once towards this prussian column, fall upon it while it was still upon the march and defenceless and destroy it. such an order presupposed grouchy's ability to act upon it; napoleon took that ability for granted. but grouchy, as a fact, could not act upon it in time. hard riding could not get napoleon's note to grouchy's quarters within much less than an hour and a half. when it got there grouchy himself must be found, and that done his , must be got together in order to take the new direction. further, the emperor could not know in what state grouchy's forces might be, nor what direction they might already have taken. it should be mentioned, however, to explain napoleon's evident hope at the moment of things going well, that _the prisoner had told the emperor it was commonly believed in the prussian lines that grouchy was actually marching to join him, napoleon, at that moment_. napoleon sent some cavalry off eastward to watch the advent of the prussians; he ordered his remnant of one army corps, the sixth, which he had kept in reserve behind his line,[ ] to march down the hill to the village of plancenoit and stand ready to meet the prussian attack; and having done all this, he made ready for the assault upon the ridge which wellington's troops held. that assault was to be preceded, as i have said, by artillery preparation from the great battery of eighty guns which lay along the spur to the north and in front of the french line. for half an hour those guns filled the shallow valley with their smoke; at half-past one they ceased, and erlon's first corps d'armée, fresh to the combat, because it had so unfortunately missed both ligny and quatre bras, began to descend from its position, to cross the bottom, and to climb the opposite slope, while over the heads of the assaulting columns the french and english cannon answered each other from height to height. the advance across the valley, as will be apparent from the map, had upon its right the village of papelotte, upon its left the farm of la haye sainte, and for its objective that highway which runs along the top of the ridge, and of which the most part was in those days a sunken road, as effective for defence as a regular trench. following a practice which he never abandoned, which he had found universally successful, and upon which he ever relied, the duke of wellington had kept his british troops, the nucleus of his defensive plan, for the last and worst of the action. he had stationed to take the first brunt those troops upon which he least relied, and these were the first dutch-belgian brigade under bijlandt. this body was stationed in front of the sunken road (at the point marked a in red upon the map). behind it he had put pack's brigade and kemp's, both british; to the left of it, but also behind the road, best's hanoverian brigade. papelotte village he held with perponcher's belgians. it will be seen that the crushing fire of the french eighty guns maintained for half an hour had fallen full upon the dutch-belgians, standing exposed upon the forward slope at a range of not more than yards.[ ] at the french charge, though that was delivered through high standing crops and over drenched and slippery soil up the slope, bijlandt's brigade broke. it is doubtful indeed whether any other troops would not have broken under such circumstances. unfortunately the incident has been made the subject of repeated and most ungenerous accusation. a body purposely set forward before the whole line to stand such fearful pounding and to shelter the rest; one, moreover, which in two days of fighting certainly lost one-fourth of its number in killed and wounded, and probably lost more than one-third, is deserving of a much more chivalrous judgment than that shown by most historians in its regard. anyhow, kemp's brigade quickly filled the gap left by the failure of the netherlanders, and began to press back the french charge. meanwhile the french right, which had captured papelotte, was compelled to retreat upon seeing the centre thus driven back, while the french left had failed to carry the farm of la haye sainte. indeed upon this side, that is, in the neighbourhood of the great road, the check and reverse to the french assault had been more complete than elsewhere. an attempt to drive its first success home with a cavalry charge had been met by a countercharge, deservedly famous, in which, among other regiments, the first and second lifeguards, the blues, the king's dragoons, had broken the french horse and followed up the french retirement down the slope. the centre of that retirement was similarly charged by the scots greys; and in the end of the whole affair the english horsemen rode up to the spur where the great battery stood, sabred the gunners, and then, being thus advanced so uselessly and so dangerously from their line, were in their turn driven back to the english positions with bad loss. when this opening chapter of the battle closed, the net result was that the initial charge of the first corps under erlon had failed. it had left behind it many prisoners; certain guns which had advanced with it had been put out of action; it had lost two colours. save for the furious inconsequent and almost purposeless fighting that was still raging far off to the left round hougomont, the battle ceased. the valley between the opposing forces was strewn with the dead and dying, but no formed groups stood or moved among the fallen men. the swept slopes had all the appearance during that strange halt of a field already lost or won. the hour was between three and half-past in the afternoon, and so ended the first phase of the battle of waterloo. it had lasted rather over two hours. the second part of the action the second and decisive phase of the battle of waterloo differed from the first in this: in the first phase napoleon was attacking wellington's command alone. it was line against line. by hammering at the line opposed to him on the ridge of the mont st jean, napoleon confidently expected to break it before the day should close. his first hammer blow, which was the charge of the first army corps under erlon, had failed, and failed badly. the cavalry in support of that infantry charge had failed as well as their comrades, and the british in their turn had charged the retiring french, got right into their line, sabred their gunners, only to be broken in their turn by the counter-effort of further french horse. this first phase had ended in a sort of halt or faint in the battle, as i have described. the second phase was a very different matter. it developed into what were essentially two battles. it found napoleon fighting not only against wellington in front of him, but against blucher to his right and almost behind him. it was no longer a simple business of hammering with the whole force of the french army at the british and their allies upon the ridge in front, but of desperately attempting to break the anglo-dutch line against time, with diminishing and perpetually reduced forces; with forces perpetually reduced by the necessity of sending more and more men off to the right to resist, if it were possible, the increasing pressure of the accumulating prussian forces upon the right flank of the french. this second phase of the action at waterloo began in the neighbourhood of four o'clock. it is true that the arriving prussians had not yet debouched from the screen of wood that hid them two and a half miles away to the east, but at that hour (four o'clock) the heads of their columns were all ready to debouch, and the delay between their actual appearance upon the field and the beginning of the second half of the battle was not material to the result. that second half of the action began with a series of great cavalry charges which the emperor had not designed, and which, even as he watched them, he believed would be fatal to him. as spectacles, these famous rides presented the most awful and memorable pageant in the history of modern war; as tactics they were erroneous, and grievously erroneous. before this second phase of the battle was entered it was easily open to napoleon, recognising the prussians advancing and catching no sight of grouchy, to change his plan, to abandon the offensive, to stand upon the defensive along the height which he commanded, there to await grouchy, and, if grouchy still delayed, to maintain the chances of an issue which might at least be negative, if he could prevent its being decisively disastrous. but even if such a conception had passed through the emperor's mind, military science was against it. if ever those opposed to him had full time to concentrate their forces he would, even with the reinforcement of grouchy, be fighting very nearly two to one. his obvious, one might say his necessary, plan was to break wellington's line, if still it could be broken, before the full pressure of the arriving prussians should be felt. short of that, there could be nothing but immediate or ultimate disaster. we shall see how, much later in the action, yet another opportunity for breaking away, and for standing upon the defensive, or for retreating, was, in the opinion of some critics, offered to the emperor by fate. but we shall see how, upon that second and later occasion in the day, his advantage in so doing was even less than it was now between this hour of half-past three and four o'clock, when he determined to renew the combat. he first sent orders to ney to make certain of la haye sainte, to clear the enemy from that stronghold, which checked a direct assault upon the centre, and then to renew the general attack. la haye sainte was not taken at this first attempt. the french were repelled; the skirmishers, who were helping the direct attack by mounting the slope upon its right, were thrown back as well, and after this unsuccessful beginning of the movement the guns were called upon to prepare a further and more vigorous assault upon a larger scale. not only the first great battery of eighty guns, but many of the batteries to the west of the brussels road (which had hitherto been turned upon hougomont and the english guns behind that position) were now directed upon the centre of the english line, and there broke out a cannonade even more furious than the one which had opened the action at one o'clock. men trained in a generation's experience of war called it the most furious artillery effort of their time; and never, perhaps, even in the career of the gunner who was now in the last extremity of his fate, had guns better served him. under the battering of that discharge the front of wellington's command was partially withdrawn behind the cover of the ridge. a stream of wounded, mixed with not a few men broken and flying, began to swell northward up the brussels road; and ney, imagining from such a sight that the enemy's line wavered, committed his capital error, and called upon the cavalry to charge. wellington's line was not wavering. for the mass of the french cavalry to charge at such a moment was to waste irreparably a form of energy whose high potential upon the battlefield corresponds to a very rapid exhaustion, and which, invaluable against a front shaken and doubtful, is useless against a front still solid. it was not and could not have been the emperor who ordered that false step. it is even uncertain whether the whole body of horsemen that moved had been summoned by ney, or whether the rearmost did not simply follow the advance of their fellows. at any rate, the great group of mounted men[ ] which lay in reserve behind the first army corps, and to the west of the road, passed in its entirety through the infantry, and began to advance at the trot down the valley for the assault upon the opposite slope. i repeat, it is not certain whether ney called upon all this mass of cavalry and deliberately risked the waste of it in one blow. it is more probable that there was some misunderstanding; that desnoettes' command, which was drawn up behind milhaud's, followed milhaud's, under the impression that a general order had been given to both; that ney, seeing this extra body of horse following, imagined napoleon to have given it orders. at any rate, napoleon never gave such orders, and, from the height upon which he stood, could not have seen the first execution of them, for the first advance of that cavalry was hidden from him by a slight lift of land. there were mounted men drawn up in the hollow to the west of the brussels road for the charge. it was not until they began to climb the slope that napoleon saw what numbers were being risked, and perceived the full gravity of ney's error. to charge unshaken infantry in this fashion, and to charge it without immediate infantry support, was a thing which that master of war would never have commanded, and which, when he saw it developing under the command of his lieutenant, filled him with a sense of peril. but it was too late to hesitate or to change the disposition of this sudden move. the climbed at a slow and difficult trot through the standing crops and the thick mud of the rising ground, suffered--with a moment's wavering--the last discharge of the british guns, and then, on reaching the edge of the plateau, spurred to the gallop and charged. it was futile. they passed the line of guns (the gunners had orders to abandon their pieces and to retire within the infantry squares); they developed, in too short a start, too slight an impetus; they seethed, as the famous metaphor of that field goes, "like angry waves round rocks"; they lashed against every side of the squares into which the allied infantry had formed. the squares stood. wellington had had but a poor opinion of his command. it contained, indeed, elements more diverse and raw material in larger proportion than ever he, or perhaps any other general of the great wars, had had to deal with, but it was infantry hitherto unshaken; and the whole conception of that false movement, the whole error of that cavalry action, lay in the idea that the allied line had suffered in a fashion which it had been very far from suffering. nothing was done against the squares; and the firmest of them, the nucleus of the whole resistance, were the squares of british infantry, three deep, against which the furious close-sabring, spurring, and fencing of sword with bayonet proved utterly vain. upon this mass of horsemen moving tumultuous and ineffectual round the islands of foot resisting their every effort, uxbridge, gathering all his cavalry, charged, and fresh horse fell upon the french lancers and cuirassiers, already shredded and lessened by grape at fifty yards and musket fire at ten. this countercharge of uxbridge's cleared the plateau. the french horsemen turned bridle, fled to the hollow of the valley again, and the english gunners returned to their pieces. the whole fury of the thing had failed. but it had failed only for a moment. what remained of the french horse reformed and once again attempted to charge. once again, for all their gravely diminished numbers, they climbed the slope; once again the squares were formed, and the torment of horsemen round about them struck once more. seen from the point where napoleon stood to the rear of his line, the high place that overlooked the battlefield, it seemed to eyes of less genius than his own that this second attempt had succeeded. indeed, its fierce audacity seemed to other than the french observers at that distance to promise success. the drivers of the reserve batteries in the rear of wellington's line were warned for retreat, and napoleon, reluctant, but pressed by necessity, seeing one chance at last of victory by mere shock, himself sent forward a reserve of horse to support the distant cuirassiers and lancers. he called upon kellerman, commanding the cavalry of the guard, to follow up the charge. he knew how doubtful was the success of this last reinforcement, for he knew how ill-judged had been ney's first launching of that great mass of horse at an unbroken enemy; but, now that the thing was done, lest, unsupported, it should turn to a panic which might gain the whole army, he risked almost the last mounted troops he had and sent them forward, acting thus like a man throwing good money after bad for fear that all may be lost. a better reason still decided napoleon so to risk a very desperate chance, and to hurl kellerman upon the heels of milhaud. that reason was the advent, now accomplished, of the prussians upon his right, and the necessity, imperative and agonised, of breaking wellington's line before the whole strength of the newcomers should be felt upon the french flank and rear. let us turn, then, and see how far and with what rapidity the prussians at this moment--nearly half-past five o'clock--had accomplished their purpose. * * * * * of the four prussian corps d'armée bivouacked in a circle round wavre, and unmolested, as we have seen, by grouchy, it was the fourth, that of bulow, which was given the task of marching first upon the sunday morning to effect the junction with wellington. it lay, indeed, the furthest to the east of all the prussian army,[ ] but it was fresh to the fight, for it had come up too late to be engaged at ligny. it was complete; it was well commanded. the road it had to traverse was not only long, but difficult. the passage of the river lasne had to be effected across so steep a ravine and by so impassable a set of ways that the modern observer, following that march as the present writer has followed it, after rain and over those same fields and roads, is led to marvel that it was done in the time which blucher's energy and the traditional discipline of the prussian soldiers found possible. at any rate, the heads of the columns were on the waterloo edge of the wood of fischermont[ ] (or paris) before four o'clock, and ready to debouch. wellington had expected them upon the field by two o'clock at latest. they disappointed him by two hours, and nearly three, but the miracle is that they arrived when they did; and it is well here to consider in detail this feat which the fourth prussian army corps had accomplished, for it is a matter upon which our historians of waterloo are often silent, and which has been most unfortunately neglected in this country. the fourth prussian army corps, under bulow, lay as far east as liège when, on the th of june, napoleon was preparing to cross the sambre. its various units were all in the close neighbourhood of the town, so none of them were spared much of the considerable march which all were about to undertake to the west; even its most westward detachment was no more than three miles from liège city. bulow should have received the order to march westward at half-past ten on the morning of the th. the order, as we have seen in speaking of ligny, was not delivered till the evening of that day. the fourth army corps was told to concentrate in the neighbourhood of hannut and a little east of that distant point. the corps, as a whole, did not arrive until the early afternoon of friday the th. it is from this point--hannut--that the great effort begins. bulow, it must be remembered, commanded no less than , men. the fatigues and difficulties attendant upon the progress of such a body, most of it tied to one road, will easily be appreciated. during the afternoon of the th, while ligny was being fought, he advanced the whole of this body to points immediately north and east of gembloux. not a man, therefore, of his great command had marched less than twenty miles, many must have marched over twenty-five, upon that friday afternoon. then followed the night during which the other three defeated corps fell back upon wavre. that night was full of their confused but unmolested retreat. with the early morning of the saturday bulow's , fell back along a line parallel to the general retirement, and all that day they were making their way by the cross-country route through welhain and corroy to dion le mont. this task was accomplished through pouring rain, by unpaved lanes and through intolerable mud, over a distance of close on seventeen miles for the hardest pushed of the troops, and not less than thirteen for those whom the accident of position had most spared. the greater part of the fourth corps had spent the first night in the open; all of it had spent the second night upon the drenched ground. upon the _third_ day, the sunday of waterloo, this force, though it lies furthest from the field of waterloo of all the prussian forces, is picked out to march first to the aid of wellington, because it as yet has had no fighting and is supposed to be "fresh." on the daybreak, therefore, after bivouacking in that dreadful weather, bulow's force is again upon the move. it does not get through wavre until something like eight o'clock, and the abominable conditions of the march may be guessed from the fact that its centre did not reach st lambert until one o'clock, nor did the last brigade pass through that spot until three o'clock. down the steep ravine of the lasne and up on the westward side of it was so hard a business that, as we have seen, the brigades did not begin to debouch from the woods at the summit until after four o'clock. it was not until after five o'clock that the last brigade, the th, had come up in line with the rest upon the field of waterloo, having moved, under such abominable conditions of slow, drenched marching, another fifteen miles. in about forty-eight hours, therefore, this magnificent piece of work had been accomplished. it was a total movement of over fifty miles for the average of the corps--certainly more than sixty for those who had marched furthest--broken only by two short nights, and those nights spent in the open, one under drenching rain. the whole thing was accomplished without appreciable loss of men, guns, or baggage, and at the end of it these men put up a fight which was the chief factor in deciding waterloo. such was the supreme effort of the fourth prussian army corps which decided waterloo. there are not many examples of endurance so tenacious and organisation so excellent in the moving so large a body under such conditions in the whole history of war. * * * * * when the fourth prussian corps debouched from the wood of fischermont and began its two-mile approach towards his flank, napoleon, who had already had it watched by a body of cavalry, ordered lobau with the sixth french army corps, or rather with what he had kept with him of the sixth army corps, to go forward and check it. it could only be a question of delay. lobau had but , against the , which bulow could ultimately bring against him when all his brigades had come up; but delay was the essential of the moment to napoleon. to ward off the advancing prussian pressure just so long as would permit him to carry the mont st jean was his most desperate need. lobau met the enemy, three to two, in the hollow of plancenoit,[ ] was turned by such superior numbers, and driven from the village. all this while, during the prussian success which brought that enemy's reinforcement nearer and nearer to the rear of the french army and to the emperor's own standpoint, the wasted though magnificent action of the french cavalry was continuing against wellington's right centre, west of the brussels road. kellerman had charged for the third time; the plateau was occupied, the british guns abandoned, the squares formed. for the third time that furious seething of horse against foot was seen from the distant height of the belle alliance. for the third time the sight carried with it a deceptive appearance of victory. for the third time the cavalry charge broke back again, spent, into the valley below. ney, wild as he had been wild at quatre bras, failing in judgment as he had failed then, shouted for the last reserve of horse, and forgot to call for that untouched infantry, the bulk of reille's second corps, which watched from the height of the french ridge the futile efforts of their mounted comrades. folly as it was to have charged unbroken infantry with horse alone, the charges had been so repeated and so tenacious that, _immediately_ supported by infantry, they might have succeeded. if those men of reille's, the mass of the second army corps, which stood to arms unused upon the ridge to the west of the brussels road, had been ordered to follow hard upon the last cavalry charge, napoleon might yet have snatched victory from such a desperate double strain as no general yet in military history has escaped. he might conceivably have broken wellington's line before that gathering flood of prussians to the right and behind him should have completed his destruction. but the moment was missed. reille's infantry was not ordered forward until the defending line had had ample time to prepare its defence; until the english gunners were back again at their pieces, and the english squares once more deployed and holding the whole line of their height. it is easy to note such errors as we measure hours and distances upon a map. it is a wonderment to some that such capital errors appear at all in the history of armies. those who have experience of active service will tell us what the intoxication of the cavalry charges meant, of what blood ney's brain was full, and why that order for the infantry came too late. of the infantry which attempted so belated a charge, a quarter was broken before the british line was reached, and that assault, in its turn, failed. at this point in the battle, somewhat after six o'clock, two successes on the part of the french gave them an opportunity for their last disastrous effort, and introduced the close of the tragedy. the first was the capture of la haye sainte, the second was the recapture of plancenoit. la haye sainte, standing still untaken before the very front of wellington's line, must be captured if yet a further effort was to be attempted by napoleon. major baring had held it with his small body of germans all day long. twice had he thrust back a general assault, and throughout more than five hours he had resisted partial and equally unsuccessful attacks. now ney, ordered to carry it at whatever cost, brought up against it a division, and more than a division. the french climbed upon their heaped dead, broke the doors, shot from the walls, and, at the end of the butchery, baring with forty-two men--all that was left him out of nine companies--cut his way back through to the main line, and the farm was taken. hougomont, on the left, round which so meaningless a struggle had raged all day long, was never wholly cleared of its defenders, but the main body of it was in flames, and with the capture of la haye sainte the whole front was free for a final attack at the moment which napoleon should decide. meanwhile, at plancenoit, further french reinforcements had recaptured the village and again lost it. the sixth corps had given way before the prussian advance, as we have seen. the next french reinforcements, though they had at first thrust the prussians back, in turn gave way as the last units of the enemy arrived, and the prussian batteries were dropping shot right on to the fields which bordered the brussels road. napoleon took eleven battalions of the guard (the imperial guard was his reserve, and had not yet come into action[ ]) and drew them up upon his flank to defend the brussels road; with two more battalions he reinforced the wavering troops in plancenoit. they cleared the enemy out of the village with the bayonet, and for the moment checked that pressure upon the flank and rear which could not but ultimately return. it was somewhat past seven by the time all this was accomplished. napoleon surveyed a field over which it was still just possible (in his judgment at least) to strike a blow that might save him. he saw, far upon the left, hougomont in flames; in the centre, la haye sainte captured; on the right, the skirmishers advancing upon the slope before the english line; his eastern flank for the moment free of the prussians, who had retired before the sudden charge of the guard. he heard far off a cannonade which might be that of grouchy. but even as he looked upon his opportunity he saw one further thing that goaded him to an immediate hazard. upon the north-eastern corner of his strained and bent-back line of battle, against the far, perilous, exposed angle of it, he saw new, quite unexpected hordes of men advancing. it was ziethen debouching with the head of his first prussian army corps at this latest hour--and napoleon saw those most distant of his troops ready to yield to the new torrent. the sun, now within an hour of setting, had shone out again. its light came level down the shallow valley, but all that hollow was so filled with the smoke of recent discharges that the last stroke which napoleon was now preparing was in part hidden from the allies upon the hill. that final stake, the only venture left, was to be use of his last reserve and the charge of the guard. no combat in history, perhaps, had seen a situation so desperate maintained without the order for retreat. wellington's front, which the french were attacking, was still held unbroken; upon the french flank and rear, though the fourth prussian army corps were for the moment held, they must inevitably return; more remained to come: they were in the act of pressing upon the only line open to the french for retreat, and now here came ziethen with his new masses upon the top of all. if, at this hour, just after seven, upon that fatal day, retreat had been possible or advisable to napoleon, every rule of military art demanded it. he was now quite outnumbered; his exhausted troops were strained up to and beyond the breaking point. to carry such strains too far means in all things, not only in war, an irretrievable catastrophe. but retreat was hardly possible as a military action; it was impossible as a political one. napoleon could hardly retreat at that hour, although he was already defeated, because the fury and the exhaustion of the combat, its increasing confusion, and the increasing dispersion of its units, made any rapid concentration and organisation for the purposes of a sudden retirement hazardous in the extreme. the doomed body, held closer and closer upon its right flank, menaced more and more on its right rear, now suddenly threatened on its exposed salient angle, would fight on. though napoleon had withdrawn from the combat an hour before, when bülow's , had struck at his right flank and made his destruction certain; though he had then, while yet he could, organised a retirement, abandoned the furious struggle for la haye sainte before it was successful, and covered with his best troops an immediate retreat, that retreat would not have availed his cause. the appearance of the prussians on his right proved glaringly the nature of his doom. grouchy--a quarter of his forces--was cut off from him altogether. the enemy, whom he believed to be beyond grouchy, and pursued by grouchy, had appeared, upon the contrary, between grouchy and himself. now ziethen too was here. did napoleon retire, he would retire before forces half as large again as his own, and destined to grow to double his own within a few hours. his retirement would leave grouchy to certain disaster. politically, retreat was still more hopeless. he himself would re-enter france defeated, with, at the most, half the strength that had crossed the frontier three days before. he would so re-enter france--the wealthier classes of which watched his power, nearly all of them with jealousy, most with active hate--surrounded by general officers not ten of whom, perhaps, he could sincerely trust, and by a whole society which supported him only upon the doubtful condition of victory. such a retirement was ruin. it was more impossible morally even than it was impossible physically, under the conditions of the field. therefore it was that, under conditions so desperate, with his battle lost if ever battle was, the emperor yet attempted one ultimate throw, and in this half-hour before the sunset sent forward the guard. in those solemn moments, wherein the imperial guard formed for their descent into that hollow whose further slope was to see their last feat of arms, ziethen, with the first prussian corps, pressed on into the far corner the field of battle. at the far end of the long ridge of the mont st jean, more than a mile away, this last great body and newest reinforcement of the emperor's foes had emerged from the walls and thickets of smohain and, new to the fighting, was already pushing in the weary french line that had stood the carnage of six hours. it was not enough that the fourth prussian corps should have determined the day already with its , come up from the east against him; now the foremost battalions of the first coming up from the north were appearing to clinch the matter altogether. it was under such conditions of irretrievable disaster that napoleon played for miracle, and himself riding slowly down the valley at the head of his comrades and veterans, gave them over to ney for the final attack against wellington's line which still held the opposing slope. it was then, at the moment when ziethen and the men of the first prussian army corps began to press upon the north-eastern angle of the fight, and were ready to determine it altogether, that the guard began its ponderous thrust up between hougomont and la haye sainte, to the west of the brussels road. up that fatal hill, which had seen the four great cavalry charges, and more recently the breaking of the second corps, the tall men, taller for the bearskins and the shouldered musket, the inheritors of twenty-two victorious and now immortal years, leant forward, advancing. to the hanging smoke of the cannon in the vale was added the rising mist of evening; and when the furious cannonade which was to support their attack had ceased with their approach to the enemy's line, a sort of silence fell upon the spectators of that great event. the event was brief. it was preceded by a strange sight: a single horseman galloped unharmed from the french to the english line (a captain); he announced to the enemy the approaching movement of the guard. he was a hater of the flag and of the revolution, and of its soldier: he was for the old kings. there was no need for this dramatic aid. the lull in the action, napoleon's necessity for a last stroke, possibly through the mist and smoke the actual movement of the guard, were apparent. the infantry whom wellington had retired behind the ridge during the worst of the artillery preparation was now set forward again. it was the strongest and the most trusted of his troops whom wellington posted to receive the shock--adams' brigade and the brigade of guards. three batteries of the reserve were brought forward, with orders not to reply to the french cannon, but to fire at the advancing columns of the charge. as the guard went upward, the whole french front to the right moved forward and supported the attack. but upon the left, the second army corps, reille's recently broken , could not yet move. they came far behind and to the west of the brussels road; the guard went up the slope alone. at two hundred yards from the english line the grape began to mow through them. they closed up after each discharge. their advance continued unchecked. of the four columns,[ ] that nearest to the brussels road reached, touched, and broke the line of the defenders. its strength was one battalion, yet it took the two english batteries, and, in charging halkett's brigade, threw the th and the rd into confusion. it might have been imagined for one moment that the line had here been pierced, but this first and greatest chance of success was defeated, and with it all chances, for it is the head of a charge that tells. the reader will have seen upon the map, far off to the west or left, at braine l'alleud, a body of reserve, belgian, which wellington had put so far off in the mistaken notion that the french would try to turn him in that direction. this force of men with sixteen guns wellington had recalled in the last phases of the battle. it was their action, and especially that of their artillery, that broke this first success of the guard. the netherlanders charged with the bayonet to drive home the effect of their cannon, and the westernmost column of the french attack was ruined. as the four columns were not all abreast, but the head of the first a little more forward than that of the second, the head of the second than that of the third, and so forth, the shock of the french guard upon the british came in four separate blows, each delivered a few moments later than the last. we have seen how the dutch broke the first column. the second column, which attacked the right of halkett's brigade, failed also. the rd and th wavered indeed, but recovered, and their recovery was largely due to the personal courage of their chief. the next column, again, the third, came upon the british guards; and the guards, reserving their fire until the enemy were at a stone's-throw, fired point-blank and threw the french into confusion. during that confusion the brigade of guards charged, pursued the enemy part of the way down the slope, were closed upon by the enemy and driven back again to the ridge. the fourth column of the french was now all but striking the extremity of the british line. here adams' brigade, a battalion of the th, the st, and the nd regiments, awaited the blow. the nd was the inmost of the three. it stood just where the confusion of the guards as they were thrown back up the hill joined the still unbroken ranks of adams' extremity of the british line. the nd determined the crisis of that day. and it was then precisely that the battle of waterloo was decided, or, to be more accurate, this was the moment when the inevitable breaking-point appeared. colborne was its commander. instead of waiting in the line, he determined to run the very grave risk of leaving it upon his own initiative, and of playing a tremendous hazard; he took it upon himself to bring the nd out, forward in advance of and perpendicular to the defending line, and so to bring a flank fire upon the last french charge. [illustration] the peril was very great indeed. it left a gap in the english line; the possibility, even the chance, of a french advance to the left against that gap and behind the nd meant ruin. it was the sort of thing which, when men do it and fail, is quite the end of them. colborne did it and succeeded. no french effort was made to the left of the nd. it had therefore but its front to consider; it wheeled round, left that dangerous gap in the english line, and poured its fire in flank upon the last charge of the fourth french column. that fire was successful. the assault halted, wavered, and began to break. the french line to the right, advancing in support of the efforts of the guard, saw that backward movement, and even as they saw it there came the news of ziethen's unchecked and overwhelming pressure upon the north-east of the field, a pressure which there also had at last broken the french formation. the two things were so nearly simultaneous that no historical search or argument will now determine the right of either to priority. as the french west of the brussels road gave way, the whole english line moved together and began to advance. as the remnants of the first french army corps to the east of the brussels road were struck by ziethen _they_ also broke. at which point the first flexion occurred will never be determined. the host of napoleon, stretched to the last limit, and beyond, snapped with the more violence, and in those last moments of daylight a complete confusion seized upon all but two of its numerous and scattered units. those two were, first, certain remnants of the guard itself, and secondly, lobau's troops, still stubbornly holding the eastern flank. squares of the old guard, standing firm but isolated in the flood of the panic, checked the pursuit only as islands check a torrent. the pursuit still held. all the world knows the story of the challenge shouted to these veterans, and of cambronne's disputed reply just before the musket ball broke his face and he fell for dead. lobau also, as i have said, held his troops together. but the flood of the prussian advance, perpetually increasing, carried plancenoit; the rear ranks of the sixth army corps, thrust into the great river of fugitives that was now pouring southward in panic down the brussels road, were swept away by it and were lost; and at last, as darkness fell, the first ranks also were mixed into the mass of panic, and the imperial army had ceased to exist. there was a moon that night; and hour after hour the prussian cavalry, to whom the task had been entrusted, followed, sabring, pressing, urging the rout. mile after mile, past the field of quatre bras itself, where the corpses, stripped by the peasantry, still lay stark after those two days, the rush of the breakdown ran. exhaustion had weakened the pursuers before fear had given way to fatigue with the pursued; and when the remnants of napoleon's army were past the sambre again, not , disjointed, unorganised, dispersed, and broken men had survived the disaster.[ ] finis printed by neill and co., ltd., edinburgh. _some books published by stephen swift & co., ltd., at king street, covent garden, london_ belles lettres prince azreel. by arthur lynch, m.a., m.p. crown vo. s. net. the cry for something new in literature, the indefinable, the unexpected, has been answered. more peers. verses by hilaire belloc. pictures by b.t.b. price s. d. net. 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"essays among the most subtle and substantial that i know."--maurice maeterlinck. la vie et les hommes. by francis grierson. s. d. net. "j'ai trouvé ces méditations pleines d'aperçus profonds et sagaces. j'ai été frappé de l'originalité puissante de la pensée de l'auteur."--sully prudhomme (de l'académie française). footnotes: [ ] i use the word "english" here to emphasise the character of wellington's command; for though even this second half of the allied line was not in its majority of british origin, yet it contained a large proportion of british troops; the commander was an englishman, the duke of wellington, and the best elements in the force were from these islands. [ ] rather more than , ; guns . [ ] surely an error in judgment, for thus the whole mass of the army, all of it except the first and second corps, would be crossing the sambre at that one place, with all the delay such a plan would involve. as a fact, the fourth corps, or right wing of the advance, was at last sent over the river by châtelet, but it would have been better to have given such orders at the beginning. [ ] there were some five hundred prussian prisoners. [ ] see _ante_, pp. and . [ ] a lengthy digression might here be admitted upon the question of how defence against aerial scouting will develop. that it will develop none can doubt. every such advantage upon the part of one combatant has at last been neutralised by the spread of a common knowledge and a common method to all. [ ] to be accurate, not quite five-twelfths. [ ] it is worth remarking that perponcher had been told by wellington, when he first heard of napoleon's approach, to remain some miles off to the west at nivelles. wellington laboured, right up to the battle of waterloo, under the fantastic impression that the french, or a considerable body of them, were, for some extraordinary reason, going to leave the brussels road, go round westward and attack his _right_. he was, as might be expected of a defensive genius, nervous for his communications. luckily for wellington, perponcher simply disobeyed these orders, left nivelles before dawn, was at quatre bras before sunrise, and proceeded to act as we shall see above. [ ] or at the most sixteen. [ ] this first division of the guards consisted of the two brigades of maitland and of byng. [ ] let it be remembered, for instance, that ziethen's corps, which helped to turn the scale at waterloo, two days later, only arrived, on the field of battle _less than half an hour before sunset_. [ ] i have in this map numbered separate corps and units from one to ten, without giving them names. the units include the english cavalry and dornberg's brigade, with the cumberland hussars, the first, second, third, and fifth infantry divisions, the corps of brunswick, the nassauers, and the second and third netherlands divisions. all of these ultimately reached quatre bras with the exception of the second infantry division. [ ] in which , , as accurate statistics are totally lacking, and the whole thing is a matter of rough estimate, we may assign what proportion we will to killed, to wounded, and to prisoners respectively. [ ] the reason he was thus ignorant of what had really happened to the prussians was, that the officer who had been sent by the chief of the prussian staff to the duke after nightfall to inform him of the prussian defeat had never arrived. that officer had been severely wounded on the way, and the message was not delivered. [ ] there has arisen a discussion as to the whole nature of this retreat between the french authorities, who insist upon the close pursuit by their troops and the precipitate flight of the english rearguard, and the english authorities, who point out how slight were the losses of that rearguard, and how just was wellington's comment that the retreat, as a whole, was unmolested. this dispute is solved, as are many disputes, by the consideration that each narrator is right from his point of view. the french pursuit was most vigorous, the english rearguard was very hard pressed indeed; but that rearguard was so well handled that it continually held its own, gave back as good as it got, and efficiently protected the unmolested retreat of the mass of the army. [ ] "dead" ground means ground in front of a position sheltered _by its very steepness_ from the fire of the defence upon the summit. the ideal front for a defence conducted with firearms is not a very steep slope, but a long, slight, open and _even_ one. [ ] almost exactly ten per cent. [ ] it is from thirty to fifty feet above the spur on which he had just ranged his guns in front of the army, some twenty-five feet higher than the crest occupied a mile off by the allied army, and a few feet higher than the bare land somewhat more than four miles off, upon which napoleon first discerned the arriving prussians. [ ] see map opposite title-page. [ ] there is conflict of evidence as to how long the brigade was exposed to this terrible ordeal. it was slightly withdrawn at some moment, but what moment is doubtful. [ ] the group marked "c" upon the coloured map. it was for the most part under the command of milhaud, but the rear of it was under the command of desnoettes. [ ] see sketch opposite page . [ ] this is the wood upon the extreme right hand of the coloured map. [ ] in the model on p. plancenoit is not shown. it would be out of the model, nearer the spectator, behind napoleon's position at a, and between a and n. [ ] the guard as a whole had lain behind the french line in reserve all day upon the point marked d upon the coloured map. [ ] virtually, this advance in echelon had turned into four columns. [ ] we may allow certainly prisoners and , killed and wounded, but that is a minimum. it is quite possible that another should be added to the prisoners and other to those who fell. the estimates differ so widely because the numerous desertions after the fall of the empire make it very difficult to compare the remnant of the army with its original strength. transcriber's notes: passages in italics are indicated by _underscore_. the following misprints have been corrected: "prople" corrected to "people" (page ) "quartre" corrected to "quatre" (page ) "brussells" corrected to "brussels" (page ) other than the corrections listed above, printer's inconsistencies in spelling and hyphenation usage have been retained. proofreading team one of the th a tale of waterloo by g. a. henty author of _bonnie prince charlie_, _with clive in india_, _the dragon and the raven_, _the young carthaginian_, _the lion of the north_ illustrated a.l. burt company publishers, new york preface although in the present story a boy plays the principal part, and encounters many adventures by land and sea, a woman is the real heroine, and the part she played demanded an amount of nerve and courage fully equal to that necessary for those who take part in active warfare. boys are rather apt to think, mistakenly, that their sex has a monopoly of courage, but i believe that in moments of great peril women are to the full as brave and as collected as men. indeed, my own somewhat extensive experience leads me to go even further, and to assert that among a civil population, untrained to arms, the average woman is cooler and more courageous than the average man. women are nervous about little matters; they may be frightened at a mouse or at a spider; but in the presence of real danger, when shells are bursting in the streets, and rifle bullets flying thickly, i have seen them standing kitting at their doors and talking to their friends across the street when not a single man was to be seen. there is no greater mistake than to think women cowards because they are sometimes nervous over trifles. were it necessary, innumerable cases could be quoted from history to prove that women can, upon occasion, fight as courageously as men. cæsar found that the women of the german tribes could fight bravely side by side with the men, and the amazons of the king of dahomey are more feared by the neighboring tribes than are his male soldiers. almost every siege has its female heroines, and in the dutch war of independence the female companies at sluys and haarlem proved themselves a match for the best soldiers of spain. above all, in patient endurance of pain and suffering, women are immeasurably superior to men. i emphasize this point because i know that many boys, simply because they are stronger than girls, are apt to regard them with a sort of contempt, and to fancy themselves without the least justification, not only stronger but braver and more courageous--in fact superior beings in every way. g. a. henty contents. chapter i. unexpected news chapter ii. a country visit chapter iii. run down chapter iv. the privateer's rendezvous chapter v. the british cruisers chapter vi. home again chapter vii. a commission chapter viii. startling news chapter ix. mr. tallboys' visitor chapter x. on detachment chapter xi. still-hunting chapter xii. the cave among the rocks chapter xiii. more startling news chapter xiv. the new housemaid chapter xv. in belgium chapter xvi. found at last chapter xvii. quatre bras chapter xviii. waterloo chapter xix. the rout chapter i. unexpected news. "i have written to ask ralph conway to come and stay for a time with me." the announcement was a simple one, but it fell like a bombshell in the midst of the party at breakfast at penfold hall. the party consisted only of the speaker, herbert penfold, and his two sisters. the latter both exclaimed "herbert!" in a tone of shocked surprise. mr. penfold was evidently prepared for disapprobation; he had spoken in a somewhat nervous tone, but with a decision quite unusual to him. he had finished his last piece of toast and emptied his last cup of tea before making the announcement, and he now pushed back his chair, rose to his feet, and said: "yes; i have been thinking of having him here for some time, and i suppose that as master of this house i am at liberty to ask whom i like; at any rate i would rather have no discussion on the subject." so saying, without giving his sisters time to reply, he walked hastily to the door and went out. miss penfold and miss eleanor penfold gazed at each other in speechless astonishment. so accustomed were they to settle everything that took place at penfold hall, that this sudden assumption of authority on the part of their brother fairly staggered them. miss penfold was the first to speak: "this is terrible, eleanor! to think that after all these years herbert's thoughts should still be turning toward that woman. but it is only what might be expected. the ingratitude of men is terrible. here we have for the last twenty years been devoting our lives to him--not only keeping his house for him, but seeing that he did not fall a victim to any of the designing women who would have insinuated themselves into his good graces, and preventing him from indulging in all sorts of foolish tastes and bringing himself to ruin; and now you see he turns again to that artful woman, and, without saying a word to us, invites her son to come here. it is monstrous, sister!" "it is monstrous," miss eleanor penfold repeated, with tears in her eyes. "it is like flying in the face of providence, sister." "it is flying in our faces," miss penfold replied sharply; "and just at the present moment that is of more importance. to think that that man must have been brooding over this, and making up his mind to act in this way for weeks perhaps, and never to say a word to us upon the subject. i wonder he didn't ask the woman herself down!" "he never could have done such a shameless thing, charlotte," her sister said much shocked. "of course, we must have left the house instantly." "i should not have left the house," miss penfold said firmly. "if the woman comes--and now he has asked the boy it is quite possible that he may ask the mother--our duty will be to remain here. you know we have been uneasy ever since her husband died. herbert's infatuation concerning her has been pitiable, and we have always believed it has been that alone which has caused him to refuse so obstinately to enter into our plans, or to pay even decent courtesy to the various excellent young women we have from time to time asked down here, and who were in every way suitable for the position of mistress of this house--women full of sense, and who, with right guidance, would have made him perfectly happy. and now he flies in our faces and asks the boy down. i have had an idea for some little time that he has had something on his mind; he has been more nervous and fidgety than usual, and several times he has seemed to be on the point of saying something, and then changed his mind. of course, one can understand it all now. no wonder he was ashamed to look us in the face when he was meditating such a step as this. the duplicity of man is something shocking!" it was not surprising that herbert penfold's sudden assertion of his will was a shock to his sisters. these ladies had so long been accustomed to rule absolutely at penfold hall that mr. penfold's assertion of his right to act as he pleased in his own house came upon them like an act of absolute rebellion. at their father's death they were women of twenty-seven and twenty-six years old respectively. herbert was a lad of sixteen. he was of a gentle and yielding disposition; and as their father for some years previous to his death had been a confirmed invalid, and they had had the complete management of the house, it was but natural that at his death they should continue in the same position. owing to weak health, herbert had not been sent to school, but had been educated under the care of a tutor. he had wished when he reached the age of nineteen to enter one of the universities; but his sisters had been so opposed to the idea, and had represented so strongly to him his unfitness to take part in the rough sports of the young men, and how completely he would feel out of place in such companionship, that he had abandoned the idea, and had traveled on the continent for three years with his tutor, his sisters being for most of the time of the party. soon after his return he had fallen in love with the daughter of colonel vernon, an officer living on half-pay at poole, which was the nearest town to penfold hall. the announcement of his engagement came like a thunder-clap upon his sisters, who had agreed that it would be in all respects desirable that herbert should not marry for some years. they had, however, been wise enough not to offer any open opposition to the match. three months later the engagement was broken off. how it came about no one exactly knew. unpleasant reports were set on foot; there were misunderstandings which should easily have been cleared up, but which grew until they gave rise to serious quarrels. letters which might have set matters straight somehow failed to come to hand; and so at last things went from bad to worse until there was a final quarrel, a return of letters and presents on both sides, and a final breaking off of the engagement. a year later mary vernon married mr. conway, an architect, resident in london. mr. penfold had before this become convinced that mary vernon had not been to blame in the matter, and that he had in some way or other taken an altogether mistaken view of the subject. he knew by the comments of such friends as were intimate enough to speak, and the coolness of many others, that he was considered to have behaved very badly toward her. and this thought was a most distressing one, for he was deeply attached to mary; and had he not been convinced that from some reason or other she herself had ceased to care for him, and was anxious to break off the engagement, he would have gone any length towards healing the breach. when it was too late he bitterly regretted his own weakness in submitting to the domination of his sisters, and felt a deep though silent resentment against them for the share that he was convinced they had taken in causing the breach between himself and mary vernon; but although he resented, he had neither the will nor firmness to free himself from their domination. at times he struggled feebly against it; and on two or three occasions had suddenly gone up to town, and thence on to the continent, and had traveled there for weeks. on one of these occasions he had written to them saying that he thought it would be for the happiness of them all if they were to leave penfold hall and set up an establishment of their own. but upon his return he found things going on exactly as before, and miss penfold had spoken somewhat severely of the silly letter he had written to them, a letter displaying at once such ingratitude and folly that it had been beneath them to notice it. as herbert penfold was in a way really fond of his sisters, who spared no effort in making his home comfortable for him, and who allowed him to have his own way in all minor matters, he could not bring himself to repeat when face to face with them the opinion he had expressed in writing; and so things had gone on for years. the miss penfolds were really anxious to see their brother married. provided only that it was to a lady who would be, in their estimation, fitted for him, and who would also have a feeling of gratitude towards themselves for their share in installing her as mistress of the hall, they were quite prepared to abdicate in her favor, and to retire to some pretty house near a pleasant watering-place, paying visits once or twice a year to the hall. the listless life their brother led was a source of grief to them; for they were really attached to him, and believed that they had in every way been working for his happiness. they had no shadow of regret for the part they had played in breaking off his engagement with mary vernon. having once convinced themselves that she was a frivolous girl, quite unsuited for the position of mistress of penfold hall, they had regarded it as an absolute duty to protect herbert from the consequences of what they considered his infatuation. consequently, for years they were in the habit of inviting for long visits young ladies whom they considered in every way eligible as their successor, and had been much grieved at their want of success, and at the absolute indifference with which herbert regarded the presence of these young women. when, four years after his marriage to mary vernon, mr. conway had died suddenly they had been seized with a vague disquiet; for they believed that the remembrance of his first love was the real cause of herbert's indifference to others, and considered it probable he might still be sufficiently infatuated with her to attempt to undo the past. to their gratification herbert never alluded to the subject, never, so far as they knew, made the slightest effort to renew her acquaintance. in fact, herbert penfold was a diffident as well as a weak man. once convinced that he had acted badly toward mary vernon, he was equally convinced that she must despise him and that he was utterly unworthy of her. had it been otherwise he would have again entered the lists and tried to recover the love he had thrown away. although he occasionally yielded to the entreaties of his sisters and showed himself with them at county gatherings, gave stately dinner-parties at regular intervals, and accepted the invitations of his neighbors, he lived the life almost of a recluse. his sole companion and friend was the rector of the parish, who had been his tutor during his continental tour, and whom he had presented with the living which was in his gift, to the secret dissatisfaction of his sisters, who had always considered that herbert's tutor had endeavored to set him against them. this had to some extent been the case, in so far, at least, that mr. withers, who had left college only a short time before starting with herbert, had endeavored to give him habits of self-reliance and independence of thought, and had quietly striven against the influence that his sisters had upon his mind. it was not until after the mary vernon episode that the living had fallen vacant; had it been otherwise things might have turned out differently, for herbert would certainly have sought his friend's advice in his troubles. after that it was too late for his interference. mr. withers had watched the state of matters at the hall, and his young wife had often urged him to try to induce herbert penfold to rouse himself and assert himself against his sisters, but the vicar remained neutral. he saw that though at times herbert was a little impatient at the domination of his sisters, and a chance word showed that he nourished a feeling of resentment toward them, he was actually incapable of nerving himself to the necessary effort required to shake off their influence altogether, and to request them to leave the hall. nothing short of this would suffice to establish his independence; for after a mere temporary assertion of authority he would, if they remained there, assuredly speedily allow affairs to lapse into their present state, and the vicar thought that harm rather than good would be caused by his interference, and that, as his influence would be sure to be suspected, there would be a breach between the hall and the rectory. as it was the connection was an intimate one. herbert was always glad to see him when he came in for a talk in the course of his rounds, or when he and his wife would come up to dine quietly. the miss penfolds were always ready with their purses to aid him to carry out his schemes for the good of the parish, and to sympathize with his young wife in her troubles; for of these she had a large share--all her children, save one girl, having been carried off in their infancy. mabel withers was as much at home at the hall as at the rectory. she was chief pet and favorite with mr. penfold; and although his sisters considered that the rector allowed her to run wild, and that under such license she was growing up a sad tomboy, they could not withstand the influence of the child's happy and fearless disposition, and were in their way very kind to her. such was the state of things at penfold hall when its owner's sudden announcement that he had invited young ralph conway to come to stay there had fallen like a bombshell upon his sisters. the invitation had caused almost as much surprise to mrs. conway as to the miss penfolds. her father had died a few months after her marriage, and at the death of her husband she found herself left with an income of about a hundred a year--the interest of the sum for which he had insured his life. to her surprise she had a month or two later received an intimation from the lawyer who managed her business that a friend had arranged to pay the sum of a hundred pounds every quarter to her account, on condition only that no inquiry whatever should be made as to his or her identity. mary conway had thankfully accepted the gift, which had, however, caused her intense wonderment and curiosity. so far as she knew neither her father nor her husband had any relations who could have afforded so handsome a gift. she knew that colonel vernon had been most popular with his regiment, and the supposition at which she finally arrived was that some young officer whom he had befriended in difficulties had, on coming into a large property, determined similarly to befriend the daughter of his former colonel. had she been alone in the world she would have declined to accept this aid from an unknown benefactor, but for her son's sake she felt that it would be wrong to do so. the idea that the money might come from herbert penfold had once or twice occurred to her, only to be at once dismissed, for had she really believed that it came from him she could not, even for ralph's sake, have accepted it. he had, as she believed, quarreled with her altogether without cause, her letters had been unanswered, and she considered the quarrel to have been simply a pretext upon the part of herbert to break off an engagement of which he was tired. words dropped, apparently by accident, by herbert's sisters had, before the misunderstanding commenced, favored this idea, and although she had really loved him her disposition was too spirited to allow her to take the steps she otherwise might have done to set herself right with him. at any rate she had no ground whatever for believing that herbert, after the breach of the engagement, entertained any such feelings toward her as would have led him to come forward to assist her in any way after she had become the wife of another; and so for twelve years she had continued to receive her quarterly income. she had established herself in a pretty little house near dover, where several old friends of her father resided, and where she had plenty of pleasant society among the officers of the regiments stationed there. although far from rivaling portsmouth or plymouth in life and bustle, dover was a busy town during the time of the great war. the garrison was a large one, the channel cruisers often anchored under the guns of the castle, and from the top of the hills upon a clear day for months a keen lookout was kept for the appearance from the port of boulogne of the expedition napoleon had gathered there for the invasion of england. the white sails of the english cruisers as they sailed up or down the channel were clearly visible, and occasionally a privateer could be seen making its way westward with a prize it had picked up off texel. military and naval matters were the sole topics of conversation, and by the time he was fifteen ralph had fully determined to follow in his grandfather's footsteps and to become a soldier. having passed almost all her life among military men mrs. conway had offered no objections to his wishes, and as several of her father's old friends had promised to use their influence on his behalf, there was little doubt that he would be enabled to procure a commission as soon as he reached the regulation age. it was not often that the postman called at mrs. conway's with letters; for postage was expensive, and the people in those days only wrote when they had something particular to say. mrs. conway had just made breakfast when ralph came in with a letter in his hand. "here is a letter for you, mother; but please don't open it until you have given me my breakfast. i am very late now, and shall barely have time to get through with it and be there before the gates close." "your porridge is quite ready for you, ralph; so if you are late it will be your own fault not mine. the eggs will be in before you have eaten it. however, i won't open the letter until you have gone, because you will only waste time by asking questions about it." ralph began his bread and milk, and mrs. conway, stretching out her hand, took the letter he had laid beside his plate, and turning it over glanced at the direction to ascertain from which of her few correspondents it came. for a moment she looked puzzled, then, with a little start, she laid it down by the side of her plate. she had recognized the handwriting once so familiar to her. "what is it, mother? you look quite startled. who is it from?" "it is from no one you know, ralph. i think it is from a person i have not heard from for some years. at any rate it will keep until you are off to school." "it's nothing unpleasant, i hope, mother. your color has quite gone, and you look downright pale." "what should be the matter, you silly boy?" mrs. conway said, with an attempt to smile. "what could there be unpleasant in a letter from a person i have not heard from for years? there, go on with your breakfast. i expect you will hear some news when you get down into the town, for the guns in the castle have been firing, and i suppose there is news of a victory. they said yesterday that a great battle was expected to be fought against napoleon somewhere near leipzig." "yes; i heard the guns, mother, and i expect there has been a victory. i hope not." "why do you hope not, ralph?" "why, of course, mother, i don't want the french to be beaten--not regularly beaten, till i am old enough to have a share in it. just fancy what a nuisance it would be if peace was made just as i get my commission." "there will be plenty of time for you, ralph," his mother said smiling. "peace has been patched up once or twice, but it never lasts long; and after fighting for the last twenty years it is hardly probable that the world is going to grow peaceful all at once. but there, it is time for you to be off; it only wants ten minutes to nine and you will have to run fast all the way to be in time." when mrs. conway was alone she took up the letter, and turned it over several times before opening it. what could herbert penfold have written about after all these years? mrs. conway was but thirty-six years old now, and was still a pretty woman, and a sudden thought sent a flush of color to her face. "never!" she said decidedly. "after the way in which he treated me he cannot suppose that now--" and then she stopped. "i know i did love him once, dearly, and it nearly broke my heart; but that was years and years ago. well, let us see what he says for himself," and she broke open the letter. she glanced through it quickly, and then read it again more carefully. she was very pale now, and her lips trembled as she laid down the letter. "so," she said to herself in a low tone, "it is to him after all i owe all this," and she looked round her pretty room; "and i never once really suspected it. i am glad now," she went on after a pause, "that i did not; for, of course, it would have been impossible to have taken it, and how different the last twelve years of my life would have been. poor herbert! and so he really suffered too, and he has thought of me all this time." for fully half an hour she sat without moving, her thoughts busy with the past, then she again took up the letter and reread it several times. its contents were as follows: "dear mrs. conway: you will be doubtless surprised at seeing my handwriting, and your first impulse will naturally be to put this letter into the fire. i am not writing to ask you to forgive my conduct in the old days. i am but too well aware how completely i have forfeited all right to your esteem or consideration. believe me that i have suffered for my fault, and that my life has been a ruined one. i attempt to make no excuses. i am conscious that while others were to blame i was most of all, and that it is to my own weakness of will and lack of energy that the breach between us was due. however, all this is of the past and can now interest you but little. you have had your own sorrows and trials, at which, believe me, i sincerely grieved. and now to my object in writing to you. although still comparatively a young man, i have not many years to live. when last in london i consulted two of the first physicians, and they agreed that, as i had already suspected, i was suffering from heart disease, or rather, perhaps, from an enfeebled state of my heart, which may at any moment cease to do its work. "naturally then, i have turned my thoughts as to whom i should leave my property. my sisters are amply provided for. i have no other near relatives, and therefore consider myself free to leave it as i choose. i have long fixed my thoughts upon the daughter of a dear friend, the rector of bilston; she is now thirteen years old, and half my property is left her. i have left the other half to your son. the whole subject to an annuity to yourself; which you will not, i trust, refuse to accept. i have never thought of any woman but you, and i hope that you will not allow your just resentment against me to deprive me of the poor satisfaction of making what atonement lies in my power for the cruel wrong i formerly did you. "were i strong and in health i can well imagine that you would indignantly refuse to receive any benefits from my hands, but knowing your kindness of heart, i feel sure that you will not sadden the last days of a doomed man by the knowledge that even after his death his hopes of insuring the comfort of the one woman on earth he cared for are to be disappointed. "i should like to know your son. would it be too much to ask you to spare him for a while from time to time so long as i live? i have a double motive, i say frankly, in thus asking him to come here. i wish him and my little pet, mabel withers, to come to like each other. i wish to divide my property between them, and yet i should be glad if the whole estate could remain intact. "i should not be so foolish as to make a proviso that two persons who are as yet so young, and who may not in any way be suitable to each other, should marry, but nothing would please me so much as that they should take a fancy to each other; and thrown together as they would be here, for mabel is constantly at the house, it is just possible that one of those boy and girl affections, which do sometimes, although perhaps rarely, culminate in marriage, might spring up between them. whether that may be so in the present case i must leave to fate, but i should at any rate like to pave the way for such an arrangement by bringing the young people together. i need not say that it will be best that neither of them should have the slightest idea of what is in my mind, for this would be almost certain to defeat my object. "if the proposal is agreeable to you, i hope that you will let ralph come to me at the beginning of his holidays; which must, i fancy, be now near at hand. i think it will be as well that he should not know of my intention as to the disposal of my property, for it is better he should think that he will have to work for his living; but at the same time there would be no harm in his knowing that it is probable i shall help him on in life. this will make him bear better what would otherwise be a dull visit. but i leave this matter entirely in your hands. you know the boy and i do not, and you can therefore better judge what will be best for him to know. and now, dear mary, if you will pardon my once again calling you so, "i remain, "your affectionate friend, "herbert penfold." it was characteristic of mrs. conway that at the first reading of this letter she thought rather of the writer than of the bright prospects which his offer opened to her son. she thought rather of herbert penfold, her first love, now ill, if not dying, of the days of their engagement and its rupture, than of the fact that her son was to inherit half the penfold estates. she had been sorely hurt at the time; and even after all these years it was a pleasure to her to know that the quarrel was not as she had often thought at the time, a mere pretext for breaking off the engagement, but that herbert had really loved her, had cared for her all these years, and had been the mysterious friend whose kindness had so lightened her cares. "i did not throw away my love after all," she said to herself, as with her eyes full of tears she stood at the window and looked out towards the sea. "he cared for me enough to be faithful all this time and to think of me constantly, while i had almost forgotten the past. i ought to have known all the time that he was acting under the influence of others--those sisters of his, of course. i was always certain they hated me--hated the thought of my becoming mistress of penfold hall. i knew the influence they had over him. herbert had no will of his own--it was the only fault i ever saw in him--and they could twist him round their little fingers. and now he is going to make ralph his heir, or at least his heir with the girl he speaks of. it is a grand thing for ralph; for the estates were worth, he told papa, eight thousand a year, and if herbert's little romance comes off ralph will have all." then she thought over the years he had been befriending her, and wondered what she should do about that. finally, being a sensible woman, she decided to do nothing. had she known it before, or learned the truth by other means, she would have refused absolutely to touch herbert penfold's money; but it would be indeed a poor return for his kindness were she now, when he was ill and feeble, and was about to bestow still further benefits upon her, to refuse to permit him any longer to aid her. she wished, as she read the letter over again, that he had expressed some desire to see her. she should have liked to have thanked him in person, to have told him how grateful she felt for his care and kindness, to have taken his hand again if but for a minute. but he had expressed no wish for a meeting, had never all these years made an effort to see her. she could read in the wording of the letter that he had been principally deterred from making any attempt to see her by the feeling that he had entirely forfeited her regard, and had offended her beyond chance of forgiveness. and had she been asked the day before she would doubtless have replied that she had no wish whatever ever again to meet herbert penfold; whereas now she felt almost aggrieved that he should express no wish to meet her, should have stayed away so long without making one effort to bring about reconciliation. "of all faults that a man can have," she said pettishly, "i do not think there's one so detestable as that of self-distrust. why could he not have said ten years ago, 'i behaved badly, mary; i treated you abominably; but forgive me and forget. i was not wholly to blame, except that i allowed others to come between us?' if he had come and said that, we could at least have been good friends. i have no patience with men who cannot stand up for themselves. now, how much shall i tell ralph?" and she again read the letter through. "ralph," she said when he came in to dinner, "you remember that letter i had this morning?" "yes, i know, mother; the one that made you turn so white. you said it was from an old friend, though why a letter from an old friend should upset any one i can't make out. what was it about, mother?" "well, my boy, it contains a pleasant piece of news. mr. penfold, that is the name of the writer, was a friend of my family. he knew me long ago when we were young people, and at one time it seemed likely that we should be married. however, as you know, that never took place. however, it seems, as he says by his letter, that he has never altogether forgotten me, and he intends to help you on in life if you turn out as he would like to see you. he wishes you to go down to stay with him when your holidays begin." "that sounds nice," ralph said; "and if he has got any boys about my own age it will be pleasant." "he has no children, ralph. he is what you may call an old bachelor, and lives with his sisters--or, rather, they live with him." "that does not sound very cheerful, mother. an old gentleman with two old ladies alone in the house can't make much fun." "he is not an old gentleman, ralph," mrs. conway said almost angrily. "i told you we were young people together. still it may not be very lively for you, but you must put up with that. he evidently means to be very kind to you, and it will be of great advantage to you going down to stay with him." "but what are you going to do with yourself, mother, all alone here? i think he might have asked you as well as me." "i shall do very well, ralph. i have plenty of friends here." "where does mr. penfold live, mother?" "down in dorsetshire. it is a very nice place, and only about a mile from the sea. but, as i say, i do not expect you will find it lively; but that you mustn't mind. it will be a very good thing for you, and will be well worth your while putting up with a little dullness for a time. mr. penfold is one of the kindest of men, but i do not think you will like his sisters much. certainly you will not unless they are a good deal changed from what they were as i remember them. still you must try to get on with them as well as you can, and i dare say you will find some pleasant companions in the neighborhood. i am sure you will do your best when i tell you that i am most anxious for many reasons that mr. penfold should like you." "of course i will do my best, mother, though i must say that the lookout is not, according to your description, a very cheerful one, and i would a deal rather stop at home with you." "we can't always do exactly as we like, ralph; though that is a lesson you have as yet to learn. what day did you say your holidays began?" "next monday week, mother. but i do hope i may have two or three days' sailing with joe knight the fisherman before i go." "mr. penfold says he will be glad to see you as soon as your holidays begin, ralph; still i suppose a day or two will make no difference, so we will settle that you shall go on friday. as you go down to school this afternoon you had better tell rogerson the tailor to come up this evening to measure you for a suit of clothes. you must look decent when you go down; and you know except your sunday suit, you have got nothing fit to wear in such a house as that." "i am afraid it's going to be a horrible nuisance altogether," ralph said ruefully. "however, i suppose it's got to be done as you say so, mother; though it's hard breaking in on my holidays like that. he might just as well have asked me in school-time. one could have put up with it ever so much better if it took one out of old harper's clutches for a bit. how long am i to stay there?" "i expect the greater part of your holidays, ralph. i think he wants to get to know all about you." ralph groaned loudly. "he may intend very kindly," he said; "but i wish he would keep his good intentions to himself." "you think so now," mrs. conway said with a smile. "you won't think so when you are in the army, but will find a little extra allowance or a tip now and then very welcome." "i dare say i shall, mother," ralph said, brightening. "anyhow, if the old gentleman--that is to say, the gentleman--takes it into his head to make me an allowance, it will take me off your hands, and i shall not be always feeling that i am an awful expense to you. all right, mother. i think i can promise that i will be on my best behavior, and will try hard to get on even with his sisters. i wish he had asked phil landrey to go down with me. two fellows can get on anywhere." "i should have very little hope of your making a good impression if you went there with your friend phil," mrs. conway said, smiling. "i can believe in your good conduct while you are alone, but i should have no hopes whatever of you if you and he were together." "but how am i to go, mother? it seems such a tremendous way from here down into dorsetshire." "i have not thought anything about it yet, ralph; but probably mr. penfold will give some instructions as to your journey when he hears from me that you are coming." chapter ii. a country visit. when ralph had gone off to school again mrs. conway sat down to answer the letter--by no means an easy task--and she sat with the paper before her for a long time before she began. at last, with an air of desperation, she dipped her pen into the ink and began: "my dear herbert penfold: it is difficult to answer such a letter as yours--to say all one feels without saying too much; to express the gratitude with which one is full, but of which one feels that you do not desire the expression. first, a word as to the past. now that it is irreparable, why should i not speak freely? we were the victims of a mistake! you were misled respecting me. i foolishly resented the line you took, failed to make sufficient allowances for your surroundings, and even doubted a love that seemed to me to be so easily shaken. thus my pride was, perhaps, as much responsible for what happened as your too easy credence of tales to my disadvantage. at any rate, believe me that i have cherished no such feelings as those with which you credit me toward you. now that i know the truth, i can only regret that your life has been, as you say, spoiled, by what can but be called a fatal misunderstanding. "next, i must thank you, although you make no allusion to it in your letter, for your kindness during past years. of these, believe me, i never suspected that you were the author; and i need hardly say how deeply i have been touched at finding that the hand to which i and my boy owe so much is that of herbert penfold. of this i will say no more. i leave you to picture my feelings and my gratitude. also, most warmly i thank you for your intentions regarding my boy. he will be ready to come to you on friday week. i suppose his best way will be to go by coach to london and then down to you, or he could take passage perhaps in a coaster. he is very fond of the sea. "we had settled that he should enter the army; but of course i consider that nothing will be decided on this or any other point as to his future until i know your wishes on the matter. lastly, dear herbert, believe me that the news that you have given me concerning your state of health has caused me deep sorrow, and i earnestly hope and trust that the doctors may be mistaken in your case, that you may have a long life before you, and that life may be happier in the future than it has been in the past. "i remain, "your grateful and affectionate "mary conway." a fortnight later ralph conway took his place on the outside of the coach for london. as to the visit to this unknown friend of his mother, he anticipated no pleasure from it whatever; but at the same time the journey itself was delightful to him. he had never during his remembrance been further away from dover than canterbury; and the trip before him was in those days a more important one than a journey half over europe would be at the present time. in his pocket he carried a piece of paper, on which his mother had carefully written down the instructions contained in the letter she had received in answer to her own from herbert penfold. sewn up in the lining of his waistcoat were five guineas, so that in case the coach was stopped by highwaymen, or any other misfortune happened, he would still be provided with funds for continuing his journey. under the seat was a small basket filled with sandwiches, and his head ought to have been equally well filled with the advice his mother had given him as to his behavior at penfold hall. as his place had been booked some days before, he had the advantage of an outside seat. next to him was a fat woman, who was going up to town, as she speedily informed her fellow-passengers, to meet her husband, who was captain of a whaler. "i see in the _gazette_ of to-day," she said, "as his ship was signaled off deal yesterday, and with this ere wind he will be up at the docks to-morrow; so off i goes. he's been away nigh eighteen months; and i know what men is. why, bless you, if i wasn't there to meet him when he steps ashore, as likely as not he would meet with friends and go on the spree, and i shouldn't hear of him for a week; and a nice hole that would make in his earnings. young man, you are scrouging me dreadful! can't you get a little further along." "it seems to me, ma'am, that it is you who are scrouging me," ralph replied. "this rail is almost cutting into my side now." "well, we must live and let live!" the woman said philosophically. "you may thank your stars nature hasn't made you as big as i am. little people have their advantages. but we can't have everything our own way. that's what i tells my jim; he is always a-wanting to have his own way. that comes from being a captain; but, as i tells him, it's only reasonable as he is captain on board his ship i should be captain in my house. i suppose you are going to school?" "no, i am not. my school is just over." "going all the way up to london?" "yes." "that's a mercy," the woman said. "i was afraid you might be only going as far as canterbury, and then i might have got some big chap up here who would squeeze me as flat as a pancake. men is so unthoughtful, and seems to think as women can stow themselves away anywheres. i wish you would feel and get your hand in my pocket, young man. i can't do it nohow, and i ain't sure that i have got my keys with me; and that girl eliza will be getting at the bottles and a-having men in, and then there will be a nice to-do with the lodgers. can't you find it? it is in the folds somewhere." with much difficulty ralph found the pocket-hole, and thrusting his hand in was able to reassure his neighbor by feeling among a mass of odds and ends a bunch of keys. "that's a comfort," the woman said. "if one's mind isn't at ease one can't enjoy traveling." "i wish my body was at ease," ralph said. "don't you think you could squeeze them a little on the other side and give me an inch or two more room?" "i will try," the woman said; "as you seem a civil sort of boy." whereupon she gave two or three heaves, which relieved ralph greatly, but involved her in an altercation with her neighbor on the other side, which lasted till the towers of canterbury came in sight. here they changed horses at the fountain inn. "look here, my boy," the woman said to ralph. "if you feel underneath my feet you will find a basket, and at the top there is an empty bottle. there will be just time for you to jump down and get it filled for me. a shilling's worth of brandy, and filled up with water. that girl eliza flustered me so much with her worritting and questions before i started that i had not time to fill it." ralph jumped down and procured the desired refreshment, and was just in time to clamber up to his seat again when the coach started. he enjoyed the rapid motion and changing scene much, but he was not sorry when--as evening was coming on--he saw ahead of him a dull mist, which his fellow-passenger told him was the smoke of london. it was nine in the evening when the coach drove into the courtyard of the bull inn. the guard, who had received instructions from mrs. conway, at once gave ralph and his box into the charge of one of the porters awaiting the arrival of the coach, and told him to take the box to the inn from which the coach for weymouth started in the morning. cramped by his fourteen hours' journey ralph had at first some difficulty in following his conductor through the crowded street, but the stiffness soon wore off, and after ten minutes walking he arrived at the inn. the guard had already paid the porter, having received the money for that purpose from mrs. conway; and the latter setting down the box in the passage at once went off. ralph felt a little forlorn, and wondered what he was to do next. but a minute later the landlady came out from the bar. "do you want a bed?" she asked. "the porter should have rung the bell. i am afraid we are full, unless it has been taken beforehand. however, i will see if i can make shift somehow." "i should be very much obliged if you can," ralph said; "for i don't know anything about london, and am going on by the weymouth coach in the morning." "oh, might your name be conway?" "yes, that is my name," ralph said, surprised. "ah, then there is a bedroom taken for you. a gentleman came three days ago and took it, saying it was for a young gent who is going through to weymouth. tom," she called, "take this box up to number . supper is ready for you, sir. i dare say you would like a wash first?" "that i should," ralph replied, following the boots upstairs. in a few minutes he returned, and a waiter directed him to the coffee-room. in a short time a supper consisting of fish, a steak, and tea was placed before him. ralph fell to vigorously, and the care that had been bestowed by mr. penfold in securing a bedroom and ordering supper for him greatly raised him in the boy's estimation; and he looked forward with warmer anticipations than he had hitherto done to his visit to him. as goon as he had finished he went off to bed, and in a few minutes was sound asleep. at half-past six he was called, and after a hearty breakfast took his seat on the outside of the weymouth coach. sitting beside him were four sailors, belonging, as he soon learned, to a privateer lying at weymouth. they had had a long trip, and had been some months at sea; and as their ship was to lie for a fortnight at weymouth while some repairs were being done to her, they had obtained a week's leave and had ran up to london for a spree. weymouth during the war did a brisk trade, and was a favorite rendezvous of privateers, who preferred it greatly to portsmouth or plymouth, where the risk of their men being pressed to make up the quota of some man-of-war just fitted out was very great. the sailors were rather silent and sulky, at first at the cruise on land being nearly over, but after getting off the coach where it changed horses they recovered their spirits, and amused ralph greatly with their talk about the various prizes they had taken, and one or two sharp brashes with french privateers. toward evening they became rather hilarious, but for the last two hours dozed quietly; the man sitting next to ralph lurching against him heavily in his sleep, and swearing loudly when the boy stuck his elbow into his ribs to relieve himself of the weight. ralph was not sorry, therefore, when at ten o'clock at night the coach arrived at weymouth. the landlord and servants came out with lanterns to help the passengers to alight, and the former, as ralph climbed down the side into the circle of light, asked: "are you master conway?" "that's my name," ralph replied. "a bed has been taken for you, sir, and a trap will be over here at nine o'clock in the morning to take you to penfold hall." supper was already prepared for such passengers as were going to sleep in the hotel; but ralph was too sleepy to want to eat, and had made a good meal when the coach stopped at six o'clock for twenty minutes to allow the passengers time for refreshments. at eight o'clock next morning he breakfasted. when he had finished the waiter told him that the trap had arrived a few minutes before, and that the horse had been taken out to have a feed, but would be ready to start by nine. ralph took a stroll for half an hour by the sea and then returned. the trap was at the door, and his trunk had already been placed in it. the driver, a man of twenty-three or twenty-four, was, as he presently told ralph, stable-helper at penfold hall. "i generally drive this trap when it is wanted," he said. "the coachman is pretty old now. he has been in the family well-nigh fifty years. he is all right behind the carriage-horses, he says, but he does not like trusting himself in a pair-wheel trap." "how far is it?" "a matter of fifteen miles. it would be a lot shorter if you had got off last night at the nearest point the coach goes to; but the master told the coachman that he thought it would be pleasanter for you to come on here than to arrive there tired and sleepy after dark." "yes, it will much more pleasant," ralph said. "the road was very dirty, and i should not like to arrive at a strange house with my clothes all covered with dust, and so sleepy that i could hardly keep my eyes open, especially as i hear that mr. penfold's sisters are rather particular." "rather isn't the word," the driver said; "they are particular, and no mistake. i don't believe as the master would notice whether the carriage was dirty or clean; but if there is a speck of dirt about they are sure to spot it. not that they are bad mistresses; but they look about all right, i can tell you, pretty sharp. i don't say that it ain't as well as they do, for the master never seems to care one way or the other, and lets things go anyhow. a nice gentleman he is, but i don't see much of him; and he don't drive in the carriage not once a month, and only then when he is going to the board of magistrates. he just walks about the garden morning and evening, and all the rest of the time he is shut up in the library with his books. it's a pity he don't go out more." "are there any families about with boys?" ralph asked. "not as i knows of. none of then that ever comes to the hall, anyhow. it's a pity there ain't some young ones there; it would wake the place up and make it lively. it would give us a lot more work to do, i don't doubt; but we shouldn't mind that. i have heard it used to be different in the old squire's time, but it has always been so as long as i can remember. i don't live at the house, but down at the village. jones he lives over the stables; and there ain't no occasion to have more than one there, for there's only the two carriage-horses and this." "how far is the sea from the house?" "it's about half a mile to the top of the cliff, and a precious long climb down to the water; but going round by swanage--which is about three miles--you can drive down close to the sea, for there are no cliffs there." there was little more said during the drive. from time to time the man pointed out the various villages and country seats, and ralph wondered to himself how he should manage to pass the next three weeks. it seemed that there would be nothing to do and no one to talk to. he had always been accustomed to the companionship of lots of boys of his own age, and during the holidays there was plenty of sailing and fishing, so that time had never hung on his hands; the present prospect therefore almost appalled him. however, he had promised his mother that he would try to make the best of things; and he tried to assure himself that after all three weeks or a month would be over at last. after an hour and a half's drive they passed through a lodge gate into a park, and in a few minutes drew up at the entrance to penfold hall. an old servant came out. "will you come with me into the library, sir? mr. penfold is expecting you. your box will be taken up into your room." ralph felt extremely uncomfortable as he followed his conductor across a noble hall, floored with dark polished oak, and paneled with the same material. a door opened, and a servant announced "master conway." a gentleman rose from his chair and held out his hand. "i am glad to see you, ralph conway; and i hope your journey has been a pretty comfortable one. it is very good of you to come such a long distance to pay me a visit." "mother wanted me to, sir," ralph said honestly. "i don't think--" and he stopped. "you don't think you would have come of your own accord, ralph? no, that is natural enough, my boy. at your age i am sure i should not have cared to give up my holidays and spend them in a quiet house among strangers. however, i wanted to see you, and i am very glad you have come. i am an old friend of your mother's, you know, and so desired to make the acquaintance of her son. i think you are like her," he said, putting his hand on ralph's shoulder and taking him to the window and looking steadily at him. "other people have said so, sir; but i am sure i can't see how i can be like her a bit. mother is so pretty, and i am sure i am not the least bit in the world; and i don't think it's nice for a boy to be like a woman." this was rather a sore point with ralph, who had a smooth soft face with large eyes and long eyelashes, and who had, in consequence, been nicknamed "sally" by his schoolfellows. the name had stuck to him in spite of several desperate fights, and the fact that in point of strength and activity he was fully a match for any boy of his own age; but as there was nothing like derision conveyed by it, and it was indeed a term of affection rather, than of contempt, ralph had at last ceased to struggle against it. but he longed for the time when the sprouting of whiskers would obliterate the obnoxious smoothness of his face. mr. penfold had smiled at his remark. "i do not like girlish boys, ralph; but a boy can have a girlish face and yet be a true boy all over. i fancy that's your case. "i hope so, sir. i think i can swim or run or fight any of the chaps of my own age in the school; but i know i do look girlish about the face. i have done everything i could to make my face rough. i have sat in the sun, and wetted it with sea-water every five minutes, but it's no use." "i should not trouble about it. your face will get manly enough in time, you may be sure; and i like you all the better for it, my boy, because you are certainly very like your mother. and now, ralph, i want you to enjoy yourself as much as you can while you are here. the house itself is dull, but i suppose you will be a good deal out of doors. i have hired a pony, which will be here to-day from poole, and i have arranged with watson, a fisherman at swanage, that you can go out with him in his fishing-boat whenever you are disposed. it is three miles from here, but you can ride over on your pony and leave it at the little inn there till you come back. i am sorry to say i do not know any boys about here; but mabel withers, the daughter of my neighbor and friend the clergyman of bilston, the village just outside the lodge, has a pony, and is a capital rider, and i am sure she will show you over the country. i suppose you have not had much to do with girls?" he added with a smile at seeing a slight expression of dismay on ralph's face, which had expressed unmixed satisfaction at the first items of the programme. "no, sir; not much," ralph said. "of course some of my schoolfellows have sisters, but one does not see much of them." "i think you will get on very well together. she is a year or two younger than you are, and i am afraid she is considered rather a tomboy. she has been caught at the top of a tall tree examining the eggs in a nest, and in many similar ungirl-like positions; so you won't find her a dull companion. she is a great pet of mine, and though she may not be as good a companion as a boy would be for you, i am sure when you once get to know her you will find her a very good substitute. you see, not having had much to do with boys, i am not very good at devising amusement for you. i can only say that if there is anything you would like to do while you are here you have only to tell me, and if it be possible i will put you in the way of it." "thank you very much, sir. you are extremely kind," ralph said heartily; for with a pony and a boat it did seem that his visit would not be nearly so dull as he had anticipated. "i am sure i shall get on capitally." just at his moment there was a knock at the door. it opened, and a girl entered. "you have just come at the right moment, mabel," mr. penfold said as she came in. "this is ralph conway, of whom i was speaking to you. ralph, this is mabel withers. i asked her to come in early this morning so as to act as your guide round the place." the boy and girl shook hands with each other. she was the first to speak. "so you are ralph. i have been wondering what you would be like. uncle has been telling me you were coming. i like your looks, and i think you are nice." ralph was taken rather aback. this was not the way in which his schoolfellows' sisters had generally addressed him. "i think you look jolly," he said; "and that's better than looking nice." "i think they mean the same thing," she replied; "except that a girl says 'nice' and a boy says 'jolly.' i like the word 'jolly' best, only i get scolded when i use it. shall we go into the garden?" altogether ralph conway had a very much pleasanter time than he had anticipated. except at meals he saw little of the miss penfolds. his opinion as to these ladies, expressed confidentially to mabel withers, was the reverse of flattering. "i think," he said, "that they are the two most disagreeable old cats i have ever met. they hardly ever open their lips, and when they do it is only to answer some question of their brother. i remember in a fairy story there was a girl who whenever she spoke let fall pearls and diamonds from her lips; whenever those women open their mouths i expect icicles and daggers to drop out." "they are not so bad as that," mabel laughed. "i generally get on with them very well, and they are very kind in the parish; and altogether they are really not bad." "then their looks belie them horribly," ralph said. "i suppose they don't like me; and that would be all well enough if i had done anything to offend them, but it was just as bad the first day i came. i am sure mr. penfold does not like it. i can see him fidget on his chair; and he talks away with me pretty well all the time we are at table, so as to make it less awkward, i suppose. well, i am stopping with him, and not with them, that's one thing; and it doesn't make much difference to me if they do choose to be disagreeable. i like him immensely. he is wonderfully kind; but it would be awfully stupid work if it weren't for you, mabel. i don't think i could stand it if it were not for our rides together." the young people had indeed got on capitally from the first. every day they took long rides together, generally alone, although sometimes mr. penfold rode with them. ralph had already confided to the latter, upon his asking him how he liked mabel, that she was the jolliest girl that he had ever met. "she has no nonsensical girl's ways about her, mr. penfold; but is almost as good as a boy to be with. the girls i have seen before have been quite different from that. some of them always giggle when you speak to them, others have not got a word to say for themselves; and it is awfully hard work talking to them even for a single dance. still, i like them better than the giggling ones." "you see, ralph, girls brought up in a town are naturally different to one like mabel. they go to school, and are taught to sit upright and to behave discreetly, and to be general unnatural. mabel has been brought up at home and allowed to do as she liked, and she has consequently grown up what nature intended her to be. perhaps some day all girls will be allowed the same chance of being natural that boys have, and backboards and other contrivances for stiffening them and turning them into little wooden figures will be unknown. it will be a good thing, in my opinion, when that time arrives." ralph was often down at the rectory, where he was always made welcome, mr. withers and his wife being anxious to learn as much of his disposition as they could. they were well satisfied with the result. "i fancy i know what is in penfold's mind," the rector had said to his wife a few days after ralph came down. "i believe he has already quite settled it in his mind that some day mabel and this lad shall make a match of it." "how absurd, john. why, mabel is only a child." "quite so, my dear; but in another three or four years she will be a young woman. i don't mean that penfold has any idea that they are going to take a fancy to each other at present--only that they will do so in the future. you know he has said that he intends to leave a slice of his fortune to her, and i have no doubt that this lad will get the main bulk of his property. i have often told you about his engagement to the lad's mother, and how the breaking it off has affected his whole life. it is natural that a lonely man as _he_ is should plan for others. he has no future of his own to look forward to, so he looks forward to some one else's. he has had no interest in life for a great many years, and i think he is making a new one for himself in the future of our girl and this lad. "as far as i have seen of the boy i like him. he is evidently a straightforward, manly lad. i don't mean to say that he has any exceptional amount of brains, or is likely to set the thames on fire; but if he comes into the penfold property that will not be of much importance. he seems bright, good-tempered, and a gentleman. that is quite good enough to begin with. at any rate, there is nothing for us to trouble about. if some day the young people get to like each other the prospect is a good one for the child; if not, there's no harm done. at present there can be no objection to our yielding to penfold's request and letting them ride about the country together. mabel is, as you say, little more than a child, and it is evident that the lad regards her rather in the light of a boy companion than as a girl. "she is a bit of a tomboy, you know, mary, and has very few girlish notions or ideas. they evidently get on capitally together, and we need not trouble our heads about them but let things go their own way with a clear conscience." at the end of the time agreed upon ralph returned home. "and so, ralph, you have found it better than you expected?" his mother said to him at the conclusion of his first meal at home. "much better, mother. mr. penfold is awfully kind, and lets one do just what one likes. his sisters are hateful women, and if i had not been staying in the house i should certainly have played them some trick or other just to pay them out. i wonder why they disliked me so much. i could see it directly i arrived; but, after all, it didn't matter much, except just at meals and in the evening. but though mr. penfold was so kind, it would have been very stupid if it had not been for mabel withers. we used to ride out or go for walks together every day. she was a capital walker, and very jolly--almost as good as a boy. she said several times that she wished she had been a boy, and i wished so too. still, of course, mother, i am very glad i am back. there is no place like home, you know; and then there are the fellows at school, and the games, and the sea, and all sorts of things; and it's a horrid nuisance to think that i have got to go down there regularly for my holidays. still, of course, as you wish it, i will do so; and now that i know what it is like it won't be so bad another time. anyhow, i am glad i have got another ten days before school begins." the following morning ralph went down to the beach. "why, master conway," an old fisherman said, "you are a downright stranger. i have missed you rarely." "i told you i was going away, joe, and that i shouldn't get back until the holidays were nearly over." "i know you did," the fisherman replied. "still it does seem strange without you. every time as i goes out i says to bill, 'if master conway was at home he would be with us to-day, bill. it don't seem no ways natural without him.' and there's been good fishing, too, this season, first rate; and the weather has been just what it should be." "well, i am back now, joe, anyhow; and i have got ten days before school begins again, and i mean to make the most of it. are you going out to-day?" "at four o'clock," the fisherman said. "daylight fishing ain't much good just now; we take twice as many at night." "no trouble with the frenchies?" "lord bless you i ain't seen a french sail for months. our cruisers are too sharp for them; though they say a good many privateers run in and out of their ports in spite of all we can do, and a lot of our ships get snapped up. but we don't trouble about them. why, bless your heart, if one of them was to run across us they would only just take our fish, and as likely as not pay us for them with a cask or two of spirits. fish is a treat to them frenchies; for their fishing boats have to keep so close over to their own shores that they can't take much. besides, all their best fishermen are away in the privateers, and the lads have to go to fight boney's battles with the austrians or russians, or spanish or our chaps, or else to go on board their ships of war and spend all their time cooped up in harbor, for they scarce show now beyond the range of the guns in their forts. well, will you come this evening?" "yes, i think so, joe. my mother doesn't much care about my being out at night, you know; but as i have been away all this time to please her, i expect she will let me do what i like for the rest of the holidays." "don't you come if your mother don't like it, master conway; there is never no good comes of boys vexing their mothers. i have known misfortune to follow it over and over again. boys think as they know best what's good for them; but they don't, and sooner or later they are sure to own it to themselves." "i shouldn't do it if i knew she really didn't like it, joe; but i don't think she does mind my going out with you at any time. she knows she can trust you. beside, what harm could come of it? you never go out in very rough weather." "pretty roughish sometimes, master conway." "oh, yes, pretty rough; but not in a gale, you know. beside, the heartsease could stand a goodish gale. she is not very fast, you know, but she is as safe as a house." "she is fast enough," the old fisherman said in an injured tone. "but you young gentlemen is never content unless a boat is heeling over, gunnel under, and passing everything she comes across. what's the good of that ere to a fisherman? he goes out to catch fish, not to strain his craft all over by running races against another. now an hour faster or slower makes no difference, and the heartsease is fast enough for me, anyhow." "no, she isn't, joe. i have heard you use bad language enough when anything overhauls and passes her on the way back to port." "ay, that may be," the fisherman admitted; "and on the way home i grant you that a little more speed might be an advantage, for the first comer is sure to get the best market. no, the heartsease ain't very fast, i own up to that; but she is safe and steady, and she has plenty of storage room and a good roomy cabin as you can stand upright in, and needn't break your back by stooping as you have to do on board some craft i could name." "that's true enough, joe," the boy said. "but what's more, she's a lucky boat; for it's seldom that she goes out without getting a good catch." "i think that's more judgment than luck, joe; though there may be some luck in it too." "i don't know about that, master conway. of course one wants a sharp eye to see where the shoals are moving; but i believes in luck. well, sir, shall i see you again before the afternoon?" "i don't much expect so, joe. i have got to call at some other places, and i don't suppose i shall have time to get down before. if i am coming i shall be sure to be punctual; so if i am not here by four, go off without me." mrs. conway made no objection when ralph proffered his request. he had sacrificed the greater part of his holidays to carrying out her wishes, and paying a visit to mr. penfold; and although she did not like his being out all night fishing, she could not refuse his request; and, indeed, as she knew that joe knight was a steady man and not fond of the bottle, there was no good reason why she should object. she, therefore, cheerfully assented, saying at the same time, "i will pack a basket for you before you start, ralph. there is a nice piece of cold meat in the house, and i will have that and a loaf of bread and some cheese put up for you. i know what these fishing excursions are; you intend to be back at a certain time, and then the wind falls, or the tide turns, or something of that sort, and you can't make the harbor. you know what a fright you gave me the very first time you went out fishing with joe knight. you were to have been back at five o'clock in the afternoon, and you did not get in until three o'clock the next morning." "i remember, mother; and there you were on the quay when we came in. i was awfully sorry about it." "well, i have learned better since, ralph; and i know now that there is not necessarily any danger, even if you don't come back by the time i expect you. and of course each time i have fidgeted and you have come back safe, i have learned a certain amount of sea-knowledge, and have come to know that sailors and fishermen are not accountable for time; and that if the wind drops or tide turns they are helpless in the matter, and have only to wait till a breeze comes up again." "i think, mother, you ought to like my going out at night better than in the daytime." "why, ralph?" "because, mother, if i go out in the daytime and don't get back until after dark, you worry yourself, and having no one to talk to, sit here wondering and wondering until you fancy all sorts of things. now, if i go out in the evening, and i don't come back in the morning at the hour you expect, you see that it is fine and bright, and that there is nothing to make you uneasy; or if you do feel fidgety, you can walk down to the beach and talk to the boatmen and fishermen, and of course they can tell you at once that there's nothing to worry about, and very likely point the boat out to you in the distance." "well, ralph, perhaps that is so, although i own i never looked at it in that light before." chapter iii. run down. "there's a nice breeze," ralph said as he joined the fisherman at the appointed hour. "yes, it's just right; neither too light nor too heavy. it's rather thick, and i shouldn't be surprised if we get it thicker; but that again don't matter." for in those days not one ship plowed the waters of our coast for every fifty that now make their way along it. there were no steamers, and the fear of collision was not ever in the minds of those at sea. "where's bill, joe?" "the young scamp!" the fisherman said angrily. "nothing will do for him but to go a-climbing up the cliffs this morning; and just after you left us, news comes that the young varmint had fallen down and twisted his foot, and doctor says it will be a fortnight afore he can put a boot on. then the old woman began a-crying over him; while, as i told her, if any one ought to cry it would be me, who's got to hire another boy in his place to do his work. a touch of the strap would be the best thing for him, the young rascal!" "you are not going to take another boy out to-night are you, joe?" "no, master conway, i knows you like a-doing things. you have been out enough with me to know as much about it as bill, and after all there ain't a very great deal to do. the trawl ain't a heavy one, and as i am accustomed to work it with bill i can do it with you." the heartsease was a good-sized half-decked boat of some twenty-six feet long and eight feet beam. she was very deep, and carried three tons of stone ballast in her bottom. she drew about six feet of water. she had a lot of freeboard, and carried two lug-sails and a small mizzen. they got in the small boat and rowed off to her. "there was no call for you to bring that basket, master conway. i know you are fond of a fish fried just when it is taken out of the water; and i have got bread and a keg of beer, to say nothing of a mouthful of spirits in case we get wet. not that it looks likely we shall, for i doubts if there will be any rain to-night i think there will be more wind perhaps, and that it will get thicker; that's my view of the weather." they sailed straight out to sea. joe had fitted his boat to be worked with the aid of a boy only. he had a handy winch, by which he hoisted his heavy lug-sails, and when the weather was rough hauled up his trawls. of these he carried two, each fourteen feet long, and fished with them one out on each quarter. when he reached the fishing ground six miles out, joe lowered the mizzen lug and reefed the main, for there was plenty of wind to keep the boat going at the pace required for trawling under the reduced sail. then the trawls were got overboard, each being fastened to the end of a stout spar lashed across the deck, and projecting some eight feet on either side, by which arrangement the trawls were kept well apart. they were hauled alternately once an hour, two hours being allowed after they were put down before the first was examined. by the time the first net came up the sun had set. the wind had freshened a bit since they had started, but there was no sea to speak of. the night had set in thick, and the stars could only occasionally be seen. joe had picked out two or three fine fish from the first haul, and these he took down and soon had frizzling in a frying-pan over the fire, which he had lighted as soon as the boat was under sail. "these are for you, master conway," he said. "with your permission i shall stick to that ere piece of beef your mother was good enough to send. fish ain't no treat to me, and i don't often get meat. keep your eye lifting while i am down below. there ain't many craft about in these days, still we might tumble against one." "i should not see a light far in this mist, joe." "no, you couldn't; and what's worse, many of them don't carry no lights at all." "it would be a good thing, joe, if there was a law to make all vessels carry lights." "ay, ay, lad; but you see in war times it ain't always convenient. a peaceful merchantman don't want to show her lights to any privateers that may happen to be cruising about, and you may be sure that the privateer don't want to attract the attention of peaceful traders until she is close upon them, or to come under the eye of any of our cruisers. no, no; there ain't many lights shown now, not in these waters. folks prefer to risk the chance of running into each other rather than that of being caught by a french privateer." now that the trawls were out there was no occasion for any one to attend to the helm, consequently when joe announced that the fish were ready ralph went down and joined him in the cabin. the first hours of the night passed quietly. once an hour a trawl was hauled in and got on board, and as the catches were satisfactory joe was in capital spirit. "you have brought good luck, master conway; and i notices i generally do well when you are out with me. i am getting more fish to-night than i have any night for weeks, and if it goes on like this till morning i shall make a good thing of it. i wants it bad enough, for i am in arrears a bit with my rent. the war has made everything so terrible dear that it is as much as a poor man can do to keep his head above water. "what time is it now, joe, do you think?" "about two o'clock, i reckon. it will begin to get light in a couple of hours, and at five we will up nets and make our way back." he had scarcely spoken when he shouted "ship ahoy! look out for yourself, lad!" startled by the suddenness of the cry ralph looked round. he saw a crest of white foam a few yards away in the darkness. a moment later something dark passed over his head and a rope brushed his cheek, and as it did so a black mass struck the boat. there was a crash, a shock, and the heartsease, after first heeling deeply over under the pressure, suddenly sank down like a stone. ralph had staggered under the force of the collision, and would have fallen back as the boat heeled over, but instinctively he threw up his arms and his hand came in contact with the rope that had an instant before touched his cheek. he seized it with both hands, and threw his legs round it as the boat went down from under his feet, the whole thing being so sudden that it was nearly a minute before he could realize what had happened. then he heard voices talking close by and, as it seemed, above him. "hullo!" he shouted. "help!" a few seconds later the light of a lantern was flashed down upon him. then a figure crawled out on the spar projecting above his head, seized him by the collar, and lifted him from the bobstay to which he was clinging on to the bowsprit. a minute later he was standing on the deck. "thank you!" he exclaimed. "have you seen anything of the man who was with me? there were two of us on board. if not, please look for him at once." "i am afraid it's no use," one of the men said, with a strong foreign accent; "he has gone down and will never come up again. you come along with me to the captain." an uneasy feeling seized ralph as he listened. he could see nothing, for the lantern had been placed in a bucket the moment that he touched the deck. at this moment a hail came from the stern of the vessel, and ralph's fears were at once realized, for it was in french. the reply was in the same tongue, and he was led aft. "take him down below, jacques, and let's see what he is like. we have suffered no damage, i hope?" "not as far as i could see by the light of the lantern, but the carpenter has gone below to see if she is making water." the captain led the way down into the cabin. this was comfortably furnished and lighted by a swinging lamp. "do you come, down jacques, i shall want you to interpret." the captain was surprised when he saw by the light of the lamp that the person they had rescued was a lad, well dressed, and evidently above the condition of fishermen. "now, young sir, who are you," he asked, "and what have you to say for yourself?" the question was translated by jacques. "i like that," the lad said indignantly. "what have i to say for myself! i think it's what have you to say for yourselves? we were quietly fishing when you ran over us and sank the boat and drowned my friend joe, and haven't even stopped for a moment to see if you could pick him up. i call it shameful and inhuman!" the french captain laughed as jacques translated the speech, the purport of which he had, indeed, made out for himself, for although he did not speak english he understood it to some extent. "tell him it was his fault as much as ours. we did not see him till we struck him. and as for his companion, what chance was there of finding him on such a dark night as this? why, by the time we had hove round and got back again we might not have hit it within a quarter of a mile. besides, if he had been alive he would have shouted." ralph saw, when he understood what the captain said, that there was truth in his words, and that the chances of discovering joe would indeed have been slight even had the vessel headed round. "may i ask," he said, "what ship this is, and what you are going to do with me?" "the ship is la belle marie of dunkirk; as to what we are going to do with you it is not so easy to say. of course you can jump overboard again if you like, but if not you can stay on board until we have an opportunity of putting you ashore somewhere. how did you come to be on board a fishing smack? for i suppose it was a smack that we run down." "i live at dover," ralph replied, "and had only come out for a night's fishing." "well, you are out of luck," the captain said. "that will do, jacques. take him forward and sling a hammock for him. hang up his clothes in the cook's galley, they will be dry by the time he wakes." ralph asked no questions, as he was taken forward, as to the character of la belle marie. six guns were ranged along on each side of her decks, and this, and the appearance of the captain's cabin, was sufficient to inform him that he had fallen into the hands of a french privateer. the craft had, indeed, left dunkirk soon after nightfall, and was making her way down channel with every sail set when she had run down the unfortunate fishing boat. jacques, as he hung up the hammock, explained to the sailors who crowded round the character of the passenger who had so unexpectedly come on board. "poor lad," one of the sailors said good-naturedly, "he will be some time before he sees his mother again. he hasn't got a very bright lookout before him--a long voyage, and then a prison. i will go and see if the cook has got some water hot. a glass of spirits will do him good." a few minutes later ralph was wrapped up in a blanket and the warm glow produced by that and the glass of strong grog soon sufficed to send him soundly to sleep, in spite of the painful uncertainty of his position and of his sorrowful thought of his mother, who would in the morning be inquiring for him in vain. it was nearly midday before he woke. looking round he saw that he had the forecastle to himself. his clothes were lying on a chest close by, and in a few minutes he was on deck. a sense of disappointment stole over him. he had, while he was dressing, entertained the hope that on going on deck he should see an english cruiser in pursuit; but the wind had dropped and it was still thick, and his vision was confined to a circle a quarter of a mile in diameter. jacques nodded to him good-temperedly, for all on board the privateer were in high spirits. their voyage had begun propitiously; the darkness of the preceding night had enabled them to run the gantlet of the british cruisers in the narrow part of the channel, they were now well down the coast of france, and the fog reduced their chances of being seen by an enemy to a minimum. "where about are we?" ralph asked. "we are somewhere off the mouth of the seine, and i guess some fifteen miles from land." "oh, we are working down the channel then," ralph said. "and where are we going to?" "ah! that question is for the captain to answer if he chooses," jacques said. "are we going to touch at the next french port?" ralph asked anxiously. "not that i know of, unless we have the luck to pick up one of your merchantmen, and we might then escort her into port. but unless we do that we do not touch anywhere, luckily for you; because, after all, it is a good deal pleasanter cruising in the belle marie than kicking your heels inside a prison. i know pretty well, for i was for four years a prisoner in your english town of dorchester. that is how i came to speak your language. it was a weary time of it; though we were not badly treated, not half so bad as i have heard that the men in some other prisons were. so i owe you english no ill-will on that account, and from what i have heard some of our prisons are worse than any of yours. i used to knit stockings and wraps for the neck. my old mother taught me when i was a boy. and as we were allowed to sell the things we made i got on pretty comfortable. beside, what's the use of making yourself unhappy? i had neither wife nor children to be fretting about me at home, so i kept up my spirits." "how did you get back?" ralph asked. "were you exchanged?" "no," jacques answered. "i might have waited long enough before that. i can't make out myself why the two governments don't agree to exchange prisoners more quickly. i suppose they take about an equal number. your men-of-war ships capture more prisoners than ours, but we make up for it by the numbers our privateers bring in. at any rate they might exchange as many as they can, say once in six months. one would have thought they would be glad to do so so as to save themselves the trouble and expense of looking after and feeding such a number of useless mouths. governments always have curious ways." "but how did you get away from prison?" ralph asked. "it was a woman," the man replied. "it is always women who help men out of scrapes. it was the wife of one of the jailers. she used to bring her husband's dinner sometimes when we were exercising in the yard. when i first went there she had a child in her arms--a little thing about a year old. i was always fond of children; for we had a lot at home, brothers and sisters, and i was the eldest. she saw me look at it one day, and i suppose she guessed it reminded me of home. so she stopped and let me pat its cheek and talk to it. then i knitted it some socks and a little jacket and other things, and that made a sort of friendship between us. you can always win a woman's heart by taking notice of her child. then she got to letting me carry it about on my shoulder while she took her husband's dinner in to him, if he did not happen to be in the yard. and when the little thing was able to totter it would hold on to my finger, and was always content to stay with me while she was away. so it went on till the child was four years old. "one day it was running across the court to its mother as she came out from the prison. two of the men were what you call skylarking, and running one way while the child was running the other. one of them knocked it down heavily. it was an accident, and if he had picked it up and been sorry, there would have been an end of it; but instead of that the brute burst into a loud laugh. by this time i was as fond of the child as if it had been my own, and i rushed furiously at him and knocked him down. as he sprang to his feet he drew a knife he used in wood-carving and came at me. i caught the blow on my arm and closed with him, and we fell together. the guard in the yard rushed up and pulled us apart, and we both got a fortnight's close confinement for fighting. "the first time i came into the yard again and met the woman with her child, the little one ran to me; but the woman, a little to my surprise, said nothing. as she passed i lifted the child up, and after giving me a hug and a kiss she said: 'mammy gave me this to give to you;' and she put a little note into my hand. i took the first opportunity to read it in a quiet corner. it was as follows: 'dear jacques--i saw how nobly you stood up for my carrie the other day, and how you got wounded in protecting her. you have always been good to her. i have often thought i might help you to escape, but was afraid to try. now i will do so. it will not be easy, but i will manage it. do not be impatient; the child will give you another note when i have quite arranged things. i shall not talk much to you in future, or else when you have got away i may be suspected; so do not be surprised at my seeming cold.' "after that the woman only brought her child once a week or so to the prison, and only gave me a nod as she passed through the yard. upon the third visit of the child it gave me a little packet containing two or three small steel saws and a little bottle of oil. on the paper which held them was written, 'for the bars. you shall have a rope next time.' sure enough next time the child had hidden in its frock a hank of very thin cord, which i managed as i was playing with her to slip unobserved into my breast. 'mammy says more next time.' and next time another hank came. there was a third, and a note, 'twist the three ropes together and they will be strong enough to bear you. on the third night from this, saw through the bars and lower yourself into court. there will be no moon. go to the right-hand corner of the court in the rear of the prison. fasten a knife to one end of the cord and throw it over the wall. i shall be waiting there with a friend. directly you feel the cord jerked climb up to the top of the wall. if you can find something to fasten your end of the rope to you can slide down it. if not, you must jump. there will be a boat ready to take you away.' "it all turned out well. it was a pitch dark night, raining and blowing, and the sentries kept inside their boxes. i got up to the top of the wall all right, and was able to fasten the rope on to the spikes and slide down on the other side. the woman was there with a man, whom she told me was her brother. they took me to a creek two miles away and there put me on board a boat, and i was rowed out to a smuggling craft which at once set sail, and two days later was landed at cherbourg. so that's how i came to learn english." "did you ever hear whether the woman who helped you was suspected?" "i saw her brother two months afterward on one of the trips that the craft he belonged to made. he said that of course there were a great many inquiries made, and his sister had been questioned closely. she swore that she had hardly spoken to me for the last two months and that she had given me nothing; which in a way was true enough, for she had not handed them to me herself. the prisoners bore her out about her not coming near me, for it had been noticed that she was not as friendly as she had been. some had thought her ungrateful, while others had fancied that she was angry at my interfering and making a tumult about the child. anyhow, whatever suspicions they might have had they could prove nothing. they forbade her entering the prison in future; but she didn't mind that so long as her husband, who had been employed a good many years there, did not lose his situation. he had been kept by her in entire ignorance of the whole affair, and was very indignant at her having been suspected. i sent her a letter of thanks by her brother, and a little present for her and one for the child. the brother was to give them to her as if from himself, so that the husband should not smell a rat, but of course to make her understand who they came from." "well, i only hope, jacques," ralph said, "that when i get shut up in one of your prisons i shall find some french woman to aid me to escape, just as you found an english woman to help you; only i hope it won't be four years coming about." "i think we look sharper after our prisoners than you do; still it may be. but it will be some time before you are in prison; and if you play your cards well and learn to speak our language, and make yourself useful, i do not think the captain is likely to hand you over to the authorities when we get back to a french port again." "i am quite ready to do my best to learn the language and to make myself useful," ralph said. "it is always a good thing to know french, especially as i am going into the army some day; that is if i get back again in time." "oh, i think you will do so," the man said. "you keep up your spirits well, and that is the great thing. there are many boys that would sit down and cry if they found themselves in such a scrape as you have got into." "cry!" ralph repeated indignantly. "you don't suppose a boy of my age is going to cry like a girl! an english boy would be ashamed to cry, especially when frenchmen were looking on." jacques laughed good-temperedly. "there would be nothing to be ashamed of. we are not like you cold english! a frenchman laughs and sings when he is pleased, and cries when he is sorry. why shouldn't he?" "oh, i can't tell you why," ralph replied, "only we don't do it. i don't say i shouldn't halloo out if i were hurt very much, though i should try my best not to; but i feel sure i shouldn't cry like a great baby. why, what would be the good of it?" jacques shrugged his shoulders. "people are different," he said. "a man is not a coward because he cries. i have seen two boys fighting and pulling each other's hair and crying all the time, but they fought on. they did not cry because they were afraid." "pulling each other's hair!" ralph repeated contemptuously. "they ought to have been ashamed of themselves, both of them. i don't call that fighting at all. i should call it disgusting. why, in england even girls would hardly pull each other's hair. i have seen two or three fights between fishwomen in dover, and even they did not go on like that. if that's the way french boys fight, no wonder our soldiers and sailors--" but here it struck ralph that the remark he was about to make would be altogether out of place under present circumstances. he was therefore seized with an opportune fit of coughing, and then turned the conversation by asking jacques at what rate he thought the vessel was slipping through the water. a few minutes later the first mate came up and told jacques to inform ralph that the captain had ordered him to be supplied with clothes similar to those worn by the rest of the crew, and that he was to be told off to take his post regularly as a boy in the starboard watch. ralph was well pleased at the news. he felt that his best chance was to make himself useful on board, and to become one of the crew as soon as possible, so that in case an english merchantman was met with and captured he should not be sent with her crew as a prisoner to a french port. as long as he was on board various opportunities of escape might present themselves. he might slip away in port, or the brig might be captured by an english cruiser or privateer; whereas, once lodged in a french prison, the chances of such good fortune as had befallen jacques were slight indeed. he therefore at once turned to with alacrity. that he would have a hard time of it for a bit he felt sure; for although in jacques he had evidently found a friend, he saw by the scowling glances of several of the men as he passed near them that the national feeling told heavily against him. nor was it surprising that it should be so. the animosity between the two nations had lasted so long that it had extended to individuals. englishmen despised as well as disliked frenchmen. they were ready to admit that they might be brave, but considered them as altogether wanting in personal strength. the popular belief was that they were half-starved, and existed chiefly upon frogs and hot water with a few bits of bread and scraps of vegetables in it which they called soup, and that upon the sea especially they were almost contemptible. certainly the long succession of naval victories that our fleets had won afforded some justification for our sailors' opinion of the enemy. but in fights between detached vessels the french showed many times that in point of courage they were in no way inferior to our own men; and indeed our victories were mainly due to two causes. in the first place, the superior physique and stamina of our men, the result partly of race and partly of feeding; they were consequently able to work their guns faster and longer than could their adversaries. in the second place the british sailor went into battle with an absolute conviction that he was going to be victorious; while the frenchman, on the other hand, although determined to do his best to win, had from the first doubts whether the british would not be as usual victorious. it is probable that the french sailors hated us far more than our men did them. we had lowered their national prestige, had defeated them whenever we met them, had blockaded their ports, ruined their trade, inflicted immense damage upon their fisheries, and subsidized other nations against them, and were the heart and center of the coalition against which france was struggling to maintain herself. it was not therefore surprising that among the hundred and ten men on board la belle marie there were many who viewed ralph with hostile eyes and who only refrained from personal violence owing to the strict order the captain had given that he should be well treated. toward midday the fog lifted suddenly and the wind freshened, and lookouts were stationed in the tops. there was little hope indeed of any english merchantmen having come over so far toward the french coast, but british cruisers might be anywhere. a few distant sails could be seen far out on the horizon proceeding up or down channel; but the captain of la belle marie had no idea of commencing operations until very much further away from the shores of england. all day the vessel ran down the french coast; and although he was a captive, and every mile reeled off the log took him further from home, ralph could not help admiring the speed at which the brig slipped through the water, cutting the waves with her sharp bow and leaving scarcely a ripple behind her, so fine and clean was her run. very different was this smooth, gliding motion from the quick plunge and shock of the bluff-bowed fishing boat to which he was accustomed. the sails had been scrubbed until there was not a speck upon them. the masts were lofty and tapering, the rigging neat and trim, and every stay as taut as iron. we could fight our ships better than the french, but as far as building and rigging went they were vastly our superiors; and la belle marie looked to ralph almost like a gentleman's yacht in its cleanness and order, and in these respects vied with the men-of-war that he had so often watched from the heights of dover. he had, however, but little time for admiration; for he was kept at work rubbing and polishing the guns and brass-work, and was not idle for a minute from the time he came on deck dressed as a cabin-boy on the morning after he was picked up until sunset. there were two french boys about his own age forward, and as soon as his work was done and the evening watch set they began to torment him; for, acting as they did as servants to the officers, they did not take share in the watch. fortunately jacques had gone below at the same time as ralph; and when the boys, finding that their taunts had no effect whatever upon ralph, began to get bolder, and one of them snatched off his cap, jacques interfered at once. "look here, youngsters," he said, "this young english boy is at present one of the crew of this brig, and he has just the same right to fair treatment as any one else, so i warn you if you interfere with him you will have to fight him fairly. i know enough of these english boys to know that with your hands you would not have the least chance with him. he could thrash you both at once; for even little english boys do not wrestle, tear, and kick, but hit straight out just as the men do. "with swords it would be different, but in a row between you and him it would be just the naked hands. so i advise you to leave him alone, for if you make him fight i will see fair play. all the time i was a prisoner in england i was well treated by his people, and just as i was treated myself and saw other french prisoners treated so i will see him treated. before this voyage is over it is not impossible the tables will be turned, and that you may find yourselves prisoners in the hands of the english; so i recommend you to behave to him in the same way you would like to be treated yourselves if you were taken prisoners. i can see the lad is good-tempered and willing. he is a stranger here among us all, he can't speak a word of our language, and he has a right to fair treatment. when he gets to know our language he will be able to shift for himself; but until he does i mean to look after him, and any one who plays tricks on him has got to talk to me." as jacques clery was one of the most powerful and active men on board the brig, this assertion was sufficient to put a stop to practical joking with ralph, and the lad had a much easier time of it than he expected. the men, finding him willing to work and anxious to oblige in every way, soon took to him; and by paying attention to their talk, and asking the french name of every object on board the ship, it was not many days before ralph found himself able so far to understand that he could obey orders, and pull and haul on any sheet that needed handling. upon the second day, the wind having dropped again, more sail was set, and when the word was given to go aloft he went up with the rest; and although he was of little practical use in loosing the gaskets, he soon shook off his first feelings of discomfort and nervousness on seeing how carelessly and unconcernedly the men on each side of him did their work, and before he had been many days at sea was as quick and active aloft as any of the hands on board the brig. after running down nearly as far as bordeaux the vessel's head was pointed west, and by nightfall the french coast was out of sight. a vigilant lookout was now kept, one man being constantly stationed aloft, and by the increased animation of the crew ralph judged that they would soon arrive at a point where they should be on the course of homeward bound merchantmen. he had quite made up his mind that, although ready in all other matters to do his duty as one of the crew of la belle marie, nothing should induce him to take part in a fight against his own countrymen. as soon as night fell sail was reduced, and in the morning when at eight bells ralph came on deck with his watch he found that the whole of the upper sails had been taken off her and the topsails lowered on the cap, and the brig was only moving through the water at the rate of two or three knots an hour. he guessed that she must be just upon the track of ships, and that her object in thus taking off sail was to catch sight of vessels in the distance while she herself would be unobserved by them. during the course of the day several sail were seen passing, but all at a considerable distance. either the captain did not think that it was safe to commence operations at present, or he did not like the look of some of the passing vessels; but at any rate he made no movement to close with any of them, and it was not until nightfall that sail was again hoisted and the brig proceeded on her course. ralph noticed that she carried no light, and that even the binnacle was carefully shaded so that its light could not be seen except by the helmsman. at midnight his watch went on deck, and ralph perceived that while he had been below the sail had again been greatly reduced, and noticed that from time to time the officer on watch swept the horizon with his night-glass. he apparently observed nothing until about two o'clock, when he stood for some time gazing intently astern. then he turned, gave an order to a sailor, who went below, and two or three minutes later the captain came on deck. after speaking to the officer he too gazed intently astern. then the ship's course was suddenly changed, the sheets eased off, and for half an hour she ran at a sharp angle to the course she had before been following, then she was brought up into the eye of the wind and laid to. although ralph strained his eyes in the direction in which the captain had been looking, he could see nothing; but he had no doubt a sail had been seen coming up astern, and that the object of the change of course was to let her pass them without their being seen. he rather wondered that, instead of running off the wind, the captain had not put her about so as to take her position to windward instead of to leeward of the vessel behind; but he soon arrived at the object of the maneuver. there were no stars to be seen, and the bank of clouds overhead stretched away to the east, and the horizon there was entirely obscured; but to the west the sky was lighter, and a vessel would be clearly visible to the eye. the brig, therefore, in the position she had taken up could not be seen, while she herself would obtain a full view of the other as she passed her. in an hour the other ship came along. she was a large ship, full rigged, and the french sailors, who had all come on deck, now clustered against the bulwarks and eagerly discussed her. she was about two miles to windward, and opinions differed as to whether she was a man-of-war or an indiaman. ralph rather wondered that the privateer had not tried to get alongside in the darkness and take the vessel by surprise, but he understood now that there was a strong probability that the belle marie might have caught a tartar and have suddenly run herself under the guns of a british frigate. as soon as the vessel had passed, the braces were manned and the yards swung round, and the brig continued her course. she was brought up almost to the wind's-eye and sailed as closely as possible, so that when morning broke she should have recovered the leeway she had made and should be to windward of the vessel she was pursuing, no matter how much astern. chapter iv. the privateer's rendezvous. when morning broke the vessel that the privateer had been watching in the night was seen to be three miles directly ahead. she was a large vessel, and for some time opinions differed as to whether she was a frigate or an indiaman; but when it became quite light a patch or two in the canvas showed that she could not be a man-of-war, and all sail was at once crowded on to the privateer. the other ship at once shook out more canvas, but half an hour sufficed to show that the privateer was much the faster vessel. the stranger took in the extra canvas she had set, and continued her course as if altogether regardless of the privateer. "they have made up their minds to fight," jacques said to ralph. "now he finds that he can't outsail us he has got on to easy working canvas. she is a big ship, and i expect carries heavier metal than we do. it may be that she has troops on board." the brig kept eating out to windward until she gained a position about a mile upon the starboard quarter of the indiaman, then the long pivot-gun was leveled and the first shot fired. the crew had by this time all taken their places by the guns, and ralph and the other boys brought up powder and shot from the magazine. it was not without a struggle that ralph brought himself to do this; but he saw that a refusal would probably cost him his life, and as some one else would bring up the cartridges in his place his refusal would not benefit his countrymen. he had just come on deck when the gun was fired, and saw the water thrown up just under the ship's stern, and the shot was dancing away to leeward. the next shot struck the merchantman on the quarter. a moment later the vessel was brought up into the wind and a broadside of eight guns fired. two of them struck the hull of the privateer, another wounded the mainmast, while the rest cut holes through the sails and struck the water a quarter of a mile to windward. with an oath the captain of the privateer brought his vessel up into the wind, and then payed off on the other tack. the merchantman carried much heavier metal than he had given her credit for. as she came round too, some redcoats were seen on her deck. apparently well satisfied with the display she had made of her strength, the ship bore off again and went quietly, on her way, while the privateer was hove to and preventer stays put to the mainmast. ralph remained below for some time; he heard the men savagely cursing, and thought it was best for him not to attract attention at present. the sails were lowered and the brig drifted quietly all day; but about ten o'clock ralph heard a creaking of blocks, and knew that the sails had been hoisted again. half an hour later the watch below was ordered to come quietly on deck. ralph went up with the rest. for a quarter of an hour he could see nothing, and then he made out a dark mass a few hundred yards to leeward; immediately afterward the helm was put up, and the brig run down toward the stranger. two minutes later there was a sharp hail, followed instantly by shouts and the sound of feet; but before the crew could gain the deck and prepare for defence the brig was alongside, and a moment later her crew sprang upon the decks of the stranger. a few blows were given; but the resistance offered was slight, and in a very short time the crew were disarmed or driven below, and the vessel in the possession of the privateer. she proved to be a small bark on her way out to the mediterranean. she carried only twenty hands and four small guns, and was laden with hardware. the privateer's crew at once set to work upon her. at first ralph could not understand what they were about, but he was not long in discovering. the wedges round the mainmast were knocked out, the topmast lowered to the deck, the shrouds and stays slacked off, and then the mast was lifted and carried on board the brig. as soon as this was done, the second mate of the brig with eight sailors went on board as a prize crew. everything was made taut and trim for them by the brig's crew. the english prisoners had already been disarmed and battened down in the hold, and the prize crew then hoisted sail and prepared to take her under mizzen and foremast only to a french port. this, if she had luck, she would reach in safety, but if on the way she fell in with a british privateer or cruiser she would of course fall an easy prey. no sooner was the bark on her way than the privateersmen set to work to lift out their injured mainmast, and to replace it with that they had brought on board from the bark. when daylight broke anxious glances were cast round the horizon; but although a few distant sails were seen, none of these were following a course that would bring them near the brig, and the latter without sail and with her foremast alone standing would not be likely to be noticed. ralph could not help admiring the energy with which the crew worked. ordinarily they were by no means a smart crew, and did their work in a slow and slovenly manner; but each man now felt the importance of getting everything into order before an enemy appeared, and so well did they work that by midday the new mast was in its place, and before sunset the topmast with all its yards and gear was up and the sails ready for hoisting. ralph had been in a state of anxiety in the early part of the night lest he should be sent on board the bark and carried as a prisoner to france. but no one seemed to give a thought to him, and it was not until far on in the morning that the captain happened to notice him hard at work with the rest. "ah, are you there?" he said. "if i had thought of it i should have sent you into best in the bark." ralph did not understand the words but he guessed at the meaning, and said, smiling, "i am quite content to remain where i am." "tell him, jacques clery, that i have noticed that he works willingly, and as long as he behaves well he shall have the same treatment as if he belonged really to the crew; but warn him that if he is caught at any time making a signal, or doing anything to warn a vessel we may be approaching, his brains will be blown out at once." jacques translated the warning. "that's all right," ralph said. "of course i should expect nothing else." as soon as the repairs were completed the sails were hoisted and the brig proceeded on her way. in the days that followed it seemed to ralph that the tactics of the privateer had changed, and that there was no longer any idea of making prizes. a sharp lookout was indeed kept for any english cruisers, but no attention was paid to any sail in the distance as soon as it was determined that these were not ships of war. four days later, instead of there being as before five or six sail in sight at one point or other of the horizon, the sea was absolutely deserted. he remarked upon this to his friend jacques. the latter laughed. "we are out of their course now, my lad. we passed the latitude of cape st. vincent yesterday evening, and we are now pretty well off the coast of africa. nine out of ten of the ships we have seen were either bound to the mediterranean or on their way home. now that we have passed the mouth of the strait we shall not run across many sail." "where are we going to, then?" ralph said. "well, i don't think there is any harm in telling you now, that we are bound south, but how far is more than i know. i expect first we shall go west and try and pick up some prizes among the islands, and after that perhaps go round the cape and lie in wait for indiamen on their way home. you see, one of those ships is worth a dozen of these mediterranean traders, and one is not bothered down there as one is between the strait and the channel with your cruisers and privateers; they swarm so there that one can hardly fire a gun without bringing them down on us. i don't suppose the captain would have meddled with that indiaman if it hadn't been that he thought the owners would be pleased by a prize being sent in so soon. as to the bark, we were obliged to take her to get a new mast. it would never have done to have started on a long cruise with a badly-injured spar." "but i should think it would be difficult to send home prizes from the west indies," ralph said. "well, you see, although you have taken most of our islands, there are still two or three ports we can take prizes into. beside, we can take the best goods out, and if the ship isn't worth the risk of sending to france burn her. then, too, one can spare hands for prizes better there; because one can always ship a few fresh hands--spaniards, mulattos, or blacks--in their place." "but you can't do that in the case of the indiamen." "no; but a single laden indiaman is enough to pay us well for all our trouble. we can put a crew of thirty hands on board her and send her home. there is little risk of a recapture till we get near france. we have only to hoist the english flag if we do happen to meet anything." ralph was glad to hear that the ship was bound for the west indies, as he thought opportunities for escape would be likely to present themselves among the islands. madeira was sighted three days later, and after running south for another four or five hundred miles, the brig bore away for the west. by dint of getting jacques clery to translate sentences into french, and of hearing nothing but that language spoken round him, ralph had by this time begun to make considerable progress in the language. not only was he anxious to learn it for the sake of passing away the time and making himself understood, but his efforts were greatly stimulated by the fact that if any of the crew addressed him in french a cuff on the head was generally the penalty of a failure to comprehend him. the consequence was that when six weeks after sailing the cry of land was shouted by the lookout in the tops, ralph was able to understand almost everything that was said, and to reply in french with some fluency. as the brig sailed along the wooded shores of the first island they fell in with, ralph was leaning against the bulwarks watching with deep interest the objects they were passing. "i can guess what you are thinking about," jacques clery said, taking his place quietly by his side. "i have been through it all myself and i can guess your feelings. you are thinking how you can escape. now, you take my advice and don't you hurry about it. you are doing well where you are. now you begin to talk french and understand orders it's a good deal easier for you than it was, and the men are beginning to regard you as one of themselves; but you may be sure that you will be watched for a time. you see, they daren't let you go. if you were to get to one of the english ports here we should have five or six of your men-of-war after us in no time. "if it was not for that i don't suppose the captain would object to put you ashore. he has evidently taken a fancy to you, and is pleased with the way in which you have taken things and with your smartness and willingness. beside, i don't think he considers you altogether as a prisoner. running you down in the way we did in the channel wasn't like capturing you in a prize, and i think if the captain could see his way to letting you go without risk to himself he would do it. as he can't do that he will have a sharp watch kept on you, and i advise you not to be in any hurry to try to escape. you must remember if you were caught trying it they would shoot you to a certainty." "i should be in no hurry at all, jacques, if it were not that the brig is hunting for english vessels. you know what you would feel yourself if you were on board a ship that was capturing french craft." "yes, that is hard, no doubt," jacques agreed; "and i don't say to you don't escape when you get a chance, i only say wait until the chance is a good one. just at present we are not specially on the lookout for prizes. we are going to join two other vessels belonging to the same owners. they have been out here some time and have got a snug hiding-place somewhere, though i don't think any one on board except the captain knows where." for three weeks the brig cruised among the islands. they had picked up no prizes in that time, as the captain did not wish to commence operations until he had joined his consorts and obtained information from them as to the british men-of-war on the station. they had overhauled one or two native craft, purchased fish and fruit, and cautiously asked questions as to the cruisers. the answers were not satisfactory. they learned that owing to the numbers of vessels that had been captured by the privateers a very vigilant lookout was being kept; that two or three french craft that had been captured by the cruisers had been bought into the service, and were constantly in search of the headquarters of the privateers. this was bad news; for although the brig with her great spread of canvas could in light winds run away from any of the ships of war, it was by no means certain she would be able to do so from the converted privateers. one morning two vessels--a schooner and a brig--were seen coming round a headland. the captain and officers examined them with their telescopes, and a flag was run up to the masthead. almost immediately two answering flags were hoisted by the strangers, and an exclamation of satisfaction broke from the captain: "we are in luck," he said. "if we had not run across them we might have had to search for the rendezvous. i have got the spot marked down on the chart, but they told me before sailing that they understood it was very difficult to find the entrance, and we might pass by within a hundred yards without noticing it." in half an hour the ships closed up together, and the captains of the other crafts came on board in their boats. a hearty greeting was exchanged between them and the captain of la belle marie, and the three then descended to the cabin. after a time they reappeared, and the visitors returned to their respective ships. five minutes later the schooner got under way, and la belle marie followed her, leaving the other brig to continue her cruise alone. toward evening the schooner ran in toward a precipitous cliff, the brig keeping close in her wake. ralph had no doubt that they were now close to the spot the privateers used as their rendezvous, but he could detect no opening into the cliff ahead, and it looked as if the schooner was leading the way to destruction. not until within a cable's length of the shore could any opening be discovered by the keenest eye. then when the schooner was within her own length of the cliff her helm was put about. she came round, and in a moment later disappeared. an exclamation of surprise broke from all on board the brig, for they now saw that instead of the cliff stretching in an unbroken line it projected out at one point, and the precipitous headway concealed an extremely narrow passage behind it. a moment later the brig imitated the maneuver of the schooner and passed in between two lofty cliffs, so close that there were but a few yards to spare on either side of her. fifty yards ahead the channel made a sharp turn again, and they entered a basin of tranquil water three or four hundred yards across. at the further end the shore sloped gradually up, and here several large storehouses had been erected, and ways laid down for the convenience of hauling up and repairing the vessels. "what do you think of that, youngster?" jacques said exultantly. "a grand hiding-place is it not?" "it is indeed," ralph replied. "why, they might cruise outside for weeks looking for the place and they wouldn't find it, unless a boat happened to row along at the foot of the cliffs." as soon as the anchor was down the crew were at once given leave to go ashore, and ramble about to stretch their legs after their two months' confinement on board. ralph was proceeding to take his place in one of the boats when the captain's eye fell upon him. "come below with me, young fellow," he said in french. "jacques clery, i shall want you too." "i do not think there is much need of interpreting, captain," the sailor said, as he followed the others into the cabin. "the lad can get on very fairly in french now, and will certainly understand the sense of anything you may say to him." "look here, my lad," the captain began, "you have been fairly treated since you came on board this brig." "i have been very kindly treated," ralph said. "i have nothing whatever to complain of." "and we saved your life did we not?" "yes, sir, after first nearly taking it," ralph said with a smile. "ah, that was just as much your fault as ours. little fish ought to get out of the way of great ones, and i don't consider we were in any way to blame in that matter. still there is the fact in the first place we saved your life, and in the second we treated you kindly." "i acknowledge that, sir," ralph said earnestly; "and i feel very grateful. you might have sent me with the crew of that bark to prison had you chosen, and i am thankful to you that you kept me on board and have treated me as one of the crew." "now, what i have to say to you is this lad: i know that you are comfortable enough on board, and i have noticed that jacques here has taken you specially under his wing. you work willingly and well and have the makings of a first-class seaman in you; still i can understand that you would much rather be with your own people, and would be rather aiding them in capturing us than in aiding us to capture them. consequently you will if you see an opportunity probably try to escape. i shall take as good care as i can to prevent you from doing so, and shall shoot you without hesitation if i catch you at it. still you may escape, and i cannot run the risk of having this place discovered and our trade knocked on the head. i therefore offer you an alternative. you will either give me your solemn oath not in any case to reveal the existence of this place, or i will put you on shore in charge of the party who remain here, and you will stop with them a prisoner till we sail away from this cruising ground, which may be in three months or may be in a year. what do you say? don't answer me hastily, and do not take the oath unless you are convinced you can keep it however great the temptation held out to you to betray us." ralph needed but a minute to consider the proposal. the oath did not bind him in any way to abstain from making an attempt to escape, but simply to guard the secret of the privateer rendezvous. if he remained here on shore he would have no chance whatever of escape, and might moreover meet with very rough treatment from those left in charge of him. "i am quite ready to take the oath not to reveal the secret of this place, captain," he said. "i do not think that in any case after having been so kindly treated by you i should have been inclined to betray you. however as you offer me the alternative i am ready to take any oath you like of silence, and that oath i will assuredly keep whatever pressure may be laid upon me, it being understood of course that the oath in no way prevents my taking any opportunity that may present itself of making my escape." "that is quite understood," the captain said. "that is a mere matter of business. you try to escape if you can; i shoot you if i catch you at it. but i do not think you are likely to succeed. but in justice to my employers and friends i should not be justified in running even that slight risk unless convinced that if you succeed you will keep silence as to this. now, what oath will you take?" "no oath can be more binding to me than my promise, sir; but at the same time i swear upon my word of honor that i will never give any information or hint that will lead any one to the discovery of this harbor." "that will do," the captain said. "i have liked your face from the moment you came on board, and feel that i can trust your word." "i am sure you can do that, captain," jacques put in; "from what i have seen of the boy i am certain he will keep the promise he has made." "very well then," the captain said; "that is settled. you can go on shore in the next boat, and i shall advise you to take the opportunity, for i warn you that you will not get the chance of rambling on shore again until we return here next time. you need not come on board before to-morrow morning." half an hour later ralph went ashore with the last batch of sailors. he soon found that a general license had been granted. a barrel of rum and several casks of wine had been broached, and the men were evidently bent upon making up for the spell of severe discipline that they had lately gone through. jacques clery had gone ashore in the same boat with ralph. "what are you going to do, lad?" "i am going for a walk," ralph said. "in the first place everything is new to me and i want to see the vegetation; and in the second place i can see that in a very short time most of the hands will be drunk, and i dare say quarrelsome, and i don't want either to drink or quarrel. i think i am better away from them." "you are right boy, and i don't care if i go too. we will take a drink of wine before we start and fill up our pockets with those biscuits. i will get the storekeeper to give us a bottle of wine to take with us, and then we shall be set up for the day. this is my first voyage in these parts; but i have heard from others of their doings, and don't care about getting a stab with a knife in a drunken brawl. i can do my share of fighting when fighting has got to be done, but i do not care for rows of this sort. still i know the men look forward to what you call a spree on shore, and the captain might find it difficult to preserve discipline if he did not let them have their fling occasionally." ralph and the sailor each took a biscuit and a draught of wine, and soon afterward started on their ramble provided with food as arranged. both were delighted with the luxuriant vegetation, and wandered for hours through the woods admiring the flowers and fruits, abstaining, however, from tasting the latter, as for aught they knew some of the species might be poisonous. presently, however, they came upon some bananas. neither of them had ever seen this fruit before, but ralph had read descriptions of it in books, jacques had heard of it from sailors who had visited the west indies before. they therefore cut some bunches. "now we will bring ourselves to an anchor and dine. time must be getting on, and my appetite tells me that it must have struck eight bells." jacques sat down on the ground, and was about to throw himself full length when ralph observed a movement among the dead leaves; an instant later the head of a snake was raised threateningly within striking distance of jacques clery's neck as he sank backward. ralph gave a short cry--too late, however, to arrest the sailor's movements--and at the same moment sprang forward and came down with both feet upon the snake. "what on earth are you doing?" jacques asked as he scrambled to his feet. no answer was made to his question, but he saw at once that ralph was stamping upon the writhing folds of a snake. in a minute the motion ceased. "that was a close shave, jacques," ralph said smiling, though his face was pale with the sudden excitement. "i did not see it until too late to give you warning. it was just the fraction of a second, and even as i jumped i thought he would strike your neck before my boot came on him." "you saved my life, lad," the other said huskily, trembling from head to foot, as he saw how narrowly indeed he had escaped from death. "i have been in some hard fights in my time, but i don't know that ever i felt as i feel now. i feel cold from head to foot, and i believe that a child could knock me down. give me your hand, lad. it was splendidly done. if you had stopped for half a moment to think i should have been a dead man. good heavens! what an escape i had." "i am glad to have been of service for once. you have been so kind to me since i came aboard the brig that it is fair that i should do you a good turn for once. i am not surprised you are shaken, for i feel so myself. we had better both have a drink of wine, and then we can see about our meal." "no more lying down on the ground for me," the sailor said. "once is enough of such a thing as that. however, hand me the bottle. i shall feel better after that." ralph looked about and presently discovered an open space, free from fallen leaves or any other shelter for a lurking snake, and persuaded jacques to sit down and eat his biscuit and bananas in comfort. the sailor did so, but the manner in which his glances kept wandering round him in search of snakes showed that he had not yet recovered his equanimity. when they had finished their meal ralph proposed that they should climb up to the highest point of ground they could find, and take a view over the island. two hours' walking took them to the top of a lofty hill. from the summit they were enabled to obtain a distant view. the island was, they judged, some seven or eight miles across, and fully twice that length. several small islands lay within a few miles distant, and high land rose twenty miles off. "this must be a large island," ralph said. "do you know where we are, jacques?" "i have no idea whatever," the sailor said; "and i don't suppose any one on board, except the officers, has, any more than me. the charts are all in the captain's cabin; and i know no more of the geography of these islands than i do of the south seas, and that's nothing. it's quite right to keep it dark; because, though i don't suppose many fellows on board any of the three craft would split upon us if he were captured, because, you see, we each have a share in the profits of the voyage as well as our regular pay, and, of course, we should lose that if those storehouses, which are pretty well choked up with goods, were to get taken, there's never any saying what some mean scamp might do if he were offered a handsome reward. so the fewer as knows the secret the better." "look jacques! look at that full-rigged ship that has just come out from behind that island. she looks to me like a frigate." "and that she is," the sailor replied. "carries forty guns, i should say, by her size. english, no doubt. well, we had better go down again, lad. i must report to the captain that this craft is cruising in these waters. it will be dark before we are back, and i don't want to be in the woods after dark; there's no saying what one might tread on. i thought that we would stretch ourselves out under the trees for to-night and go aboard in the morning, but i feel different now. bless you, i should never close an eye. so i propose as we goes down so as not to be noticed by them chaps up at the store, and then gets hold of a boat and rows on board quiet." "i am quite willing to do that jacques. i don't think i should get much sleep either in the woods." "no, i guess not, lad. come along; the sun is halfway down already, and i would not be left in these woods after dark, not for six months' pay. the thought of that snake makes me crawl all over. who would have thought now, when i lugged you in over the bowsprit of la belle marie that night in the channel, that you were going to save my life some day. well, i don't suppose, lad, i shall ever get quits with you, but if there is a chance you can count upon me. you come to me any night and say i am going to escape, jacques, and i will help you to do it, even if they riddle me with bullets five minutes afterward." "i shall never ask that of you, jacques," ralph said warmly. "i consider we are quits now, though you may not. indeed, i can tell you that i don't consider that two months of kindness are wiped out by just taking a jump on to the back of a snake." there were loud sounds of shouting, singing, and quarreling as they passed near the great fires that were blazing near the storehouse. they reached the waterside without notice, and taking a boat rowed off to the brig. the captain looked over the side: "who is that?" "jacques clery and the english lad, captain." "you got tired of the noise on shore, i suppose?" the captain said. "not exactly that, captain, for we have not been near the others at all. we took a long walk through the woods up to the top of the hill in the middle of the island and we came back for two reasons. the first because i have been so badly scared by a snake, who would have bit me had not this young fellow leaped on to its back just as he was about to strike me in the neck, that i would not have slept on the ground for anything; and, in the second place, we came to tell you that from the top of the hill we saw a large frigate--english, i should say, from the cut of her sails--five or six miles off on the other side of the island, and i thought you ought to know about her at once." "thank you, jacques; that is important. i was going to sail in the morning, but we must not stir as long as she is in the neighborhood. so this young fellow saved your life, did he?" "that he did, captain; and it was the quickest thing you ever saw. i was just lying down at full length when he caught sight of the snake. there was no time to stop me; no time even to cry out. he just jumped on a sudden and came down on the brute as it was on the point of striking. had he stopped for one quarter of a second i should have been a dead man hours ago." "that was a near escape indeed, jacques. are they pretty quiet there on shore? i heard them shouting several times." "they seem quarreling a bit, captain; but they are sure to do that with all that liquor on hand." "they won't come to much harm," the captain said. "i gave the strictest orders that all weapons should be left behind before they landed, and that any man carrying even a knife would have his leave stopped during the rest of the cruise. beside, the first mate is there to look after them. i will go ashore myself at daybreak and take a look round from the top of that hill. if that frigate is still cruising about near the island it must be because they have got some sort of an idea of the whereabouts of our hiding place. we must wait till she moves away. it won't do to risk anything." upon the following morning the captain and jacques, accompanied by ralph, landed. they passed close by the storehouse, and saw the men still asleep round the extinguished fires. the captain called out the storekeeper: "you can serve out one pannikin of wine to each man," he said, "but no more. they will want that to pull them together. tell the first mate to get them on board as soon as possible, and set them to work to tidy up the ship and get everything ready for setting sail at a moment's notice. tell him an english frigate is reported as close to the island. i am going up to look after her." two hours' steady walking took them to the top of the hill. there were no signs of any vessel as far as they could see. the captain, who had brought his glass with him, carefully examined every island in sight. presently he uttered an exclamation: "there are three boats rowing together close under the cliffs there," he said, pointing to the nearest island. "no doubt the frigate is lying behind it. they must be searching for some concealed harbor like ours. _peste!_ this is awkward. what do you think, jacques?" "i should say you were right in what you said last night, captain. they must have got an idea that our rendezvous is somewhere hereabouts, though they don't know for certain where, and they are searching all the island round. if they come along here like that we shall be caught in a trap. a vessel might sail close by without suspecting there was an entrance here, however hard they might be looking for it; but if they send boats rowing along the shore they couldn't help finding it. still, there is nothing to prevent our sailing away now, as the island is between us and them." "that is so," the captain said. "but if they come while we are away, in the first place they would capture all the booty in the stores, and in the second place they might lie quiet in the harbor and would sink the other ships when they returned. i will go down to the port again, jacques, and will send up two of the men from the storehouse to keep watch here, turn and turn about. do you remain here until you are relieved. i will leave my glass with you. if there is anything fresh, leave the boy on watch and come down with the news yourself. i must talk this matter over with the mates. we have no direct interest in the stores, but we must do the best we can for our owners." jacques and ralph watched the distant boats through the glass until they disappeared round the end of the island, then turned the glass seaward. jacques was using it at the time. "see!" he exclaimed, "there are three sails together there." "i can see them plainly enough," ralph said. "what do you make them out to be?" "a schooner, a brig, and a three-masted vessel. they are lying close together, and i fancy boats are passing between them. however, i couldn't swear to that. they must be fifteen miles away. i expect they are our consorts, and a merchantman they have captured." "can they see them from the other side of that island?" ralph asked excitedly. "i should say they could," jacques replied after pausing to calculate the line of sight. "it depends how far round the frigate is lying, and how close in shore. but if they have sent any one up on the hill there, of course they can make them out as plainly as we can." jacques handed the glass to ralph. "yes, i think i can make out boats, jacques. what do you suppose they are doing?" "most likely they are transferring the valuable part of her cargo on board." "what will they do with her then?" "i expect they will let her go; but of course that depends whether she is a new ship and worth taking the risk of carrying her to france." "they don't burn or sink her, then?" "no; there would be no good in that; for they wouldn't know what to do with the crew. of course they don't want the bother of prisoners here, and they wouldn't want to turn them adrift in the boats. they might land on some island near and see us going and coming here, and carry the news to some of your cruisers. no, i expect they will take what is valuable and let them go--that is if the ship isn't worth sending home. i suppose that is so in this case; for if they were going to put a prize crew on board and send it to france, they would not be transferring the cargo. well, we shall see in another half hour." chapter v. the british cruisers. an hour passed. during this time the watchers on the hill saw that the brig had been lying alongside the three-masted vessel, and felt sure that the cargo was being transferred, then the merchantman's sails were hoisted, and she slowly sailed away. for another hour the other two crafts lay motionless, then they hoisted sail and headed for the island. there was a brisk, steady wind blowing, and they came along fast through the water. "we shall soon see now whether your frigate has made them out," jacques said; "but i will not wait any longer but will go and tell the captain what is going on. in another hour the others will be up here to relieve you, then you can bring down the latest news." left alone, ralph watched anxiously the progress of the distant vessels, turning the glass frequently toward the other island, beyond the end of which he momentarily expected to see the white sails of the frigate appear. an hour passed. the schooner and the brig were now within about four miles of the nearest point of the island, and still there were no signs of the english ship. presently he heard voices behind him, and two french sailors came up. ralph was now free to return, but he thought he had better wait until the brig and schooner reached a point where they would be hidden by the island from the sight of any-one who might be watching on the hill six miles away. in another half-hour they had reached this point. no signs had been seen of the frigate, and ralph felt sure that she must have been anchored in some bay whose headland prevented her seeing the approaching craft; for had she noticed them she would assuredly have set out to intercept them before they reached the island, which lay almost dead to windward of them. he was just turning to go when one of the men gave a sudden exclamation. he turned round again and saw the frigate just appearing from behind the other island. she was close-hauled, and it was soon evident by her course that she was beating up for the point round which the other two ships had disappeared. ralph was puzzled at this; for if she had made out the brig and schooner, her natural course would have been to have made for the other end of the island, so as to cut them off as they sailed past it; whereas they would now, when they gained the extremity of the island, find themselves five or six miles astern of the other two craft. the french sailors were equally puzzled, and there was a hot argument between them; but they finally concluded that her appearance at that moment must be accidental, and she could not have made out the privateers. they had just told ralph to run down with the news to the harbor when a light was thrown upon the mystery; for from the other end of the island from which the frigate had emerged a large schooner appeared. every sail was set, and her course was directed toward this other end of the island upon which the watchers were standing. the two french sailors burst out into a torrent of oaths, expressive of surprise and alarm; for it was evident that from the course the schooner was taking she intended to intercept the two privateers, and engage them until the frigate came to her assistance. "run, boy! run for your life!" one of them exclaimed, "and tell the captain. but no; wait a moment," and he directed the glass upon the schooner. "a thousand curses!" he exclaimed. "it is the cerf schooner the english captured from us six months ago. she is the fastest craft in these waters. tell the captain that i am coming after you, but your legs will beat mine." ralph dashed off at full speed, but as soon as he had fairly distanced the french sailor he began to run more slowly. for the moment he had so entered into the feelings of his companions that he had identified himself with them, but now he had time to think, his sympathies swung round to the english ship. he did not particularly want la belle marie to be captured; for he had been so well treated on board her that he felt no ill-will toward her. but her capture meant his deliverance. he thought over the matter as he ran, and wondered first why the frigate did not take the line to cut the privateers off, instead of going round by the other end of the island. he could only suppose that it was because the schooner was the fastest vessel, and was more likely to arrive in time at the point. beside, if she showed there before the privateers reached the point they might double back again, and the frigate would make the other end of the island before they were halfway back. it might be, too, that the captain has suspected the truth, knowing that the privateers had a rendezvous somewhere in that neighborhood, and that his object in remaining so long behind the island was to give them time to enter their port in ignorance of his being in the neighborhood. at any rate, the great thing was, that the schooner and brig should enter the little harbor before knowing that they were pursued. once in, it would be impossible for them to get out again and beat off shore with the wind blowing dead on the land, before both the schooner and frigate had rounded their respective ends of the island. therefore, although ralph ran fast enough to keep well ahead of the sailor, he made no effort to keep up a greater rate of speed than was necessary for this. as soon as he reached the shore a boat rowed off from the brig to fetch him. he saw with satisfaction that although the men were all on board, no preparations were made for getting under way at once; and, indeed, the captain would have no anxiety for his own ship, as he would know that the privateers, if they saw the frigate coming out to meet them, would sail right away from the island, and the frigate would be sure to pursue until out of sight of land. "what news, boy?" the captain asked as the boat came close alongside. "is the frigate in chase of the others?" "yes, sir," ralph replied; "the frigate and a schooner are both in chase." "which way are they bearing?" "the privateers do not know they are chased sir. the frigate did not show round the island over there until the schooner and brig were hidden behind the end of this island. she made toward the western end, and the schooner is making for the eastern end. the sailors who came up told me to tell you that the schooner is the cerf, one of the fastest vessels out here." the captain uttered an exclamation of dismay, which was echoed by those standing round him. "row out through the entrance," he shouted to the coxswain of the boat, "and warn the others of the danger! tell them to make straight out. if they come in here, we shall all be caught in a trap together!" the oars dipped in the water, but before the boat was fairly in motion there was an exclamation, for the head sail of the schooner glided in past the projecting cliff. a moment later the whole vessel came into view. "bring the boat back alongside!" the captain shouted. "i will go on board her at once. she may get out in time yet!" as the schooner rounded up her sails came down, and she headed straight toward the brig. the captain of the belle marie stood up in the stern-sheet of the boat, shouting and waving his hands and gesticulating to them to get up sail again. those on board the schooner looked on in surprise, unable to guess his meaning. "there are two english cruisers, one coming round each end of the island!" he shouted as he approached the schooner. "get out again if you can, otherwise they must catch us all in here!" the captain in the schooner at once saw the emergency, and roared out orders. the boats were all lowered at once, and the men tumbled on board. hawsers were lowered from the bows, and they began at once to tow her head round, for there was not a breath of wind in the land-locked harbor. "how much time have we got?" the captain asked as the schooner's head came slowly round. "i don't know," the other captain replied. "it's a question of minutes, anyhow. ah, here is the brig!" and the boat dashed forward and he gave similar orders to those that had been given to the schooner. "get them both round!" the captain shouted. "i will row out through the entrance and give you warning if these accursed cruisers are in sight." the boat dashed through the narrow entrance, and at once felt the full force of the breeze. "dead on shore," the captain muttered bitterly. "they will have to work right out into the arms of one or other of them." they rowed a hundred yards out, when, beyond the furthermost point they could see to the east, the sails of the schooner were perceived. "take her round," the captain said sharply. "it's too late now, we have got to fight for it." they rowed back through the entrance. the schooner slowly towed by her boats was approaching. "it is no use," the captain said, "you are too late. the schooner has rounded the end of the island, and with this breeze will be here in half an hour. you never can work out in time. beside, they would see you come out; and even if you got away, which you couldn't do, they would come back and capture the depot. we have got to fight for it, that's evident; and the boats of a fleet could hardly make their way in here. we had best get the three craft moored with their broadsides to the entrance. we will blow the boats to tinder if they try to come in, and then we can load up with all the most valuable goods and slip out at night-time. that is our only chance." the captain of the schooner jumped into the boat, and they again rowed out into the entrance. he saw at once that the other's advice was the only one to be followed. it would be impossible to beat off the shore before the schooner came up and while they were talking the frigate appeared round the other end of the island. they therefore returned into the harbor. the belle marie's anchor was raised, and the three vessels moored head and stern across the harbor, a hundred yards from the entrance. as soon as this was done strong parties were sent ashore from each of the vessels, and six heavy ship's guns that had been landed from some captured vessel were dragged from their place near the storehouse and planted on the heights, so as to sweep the narrow channel. it was late in the evening before this was finished, and an earthwork thrown up to shelter the men working the guns from musketry fire. in the meantime the two ships of war had met outside, and again separating cruised several times from end to end of the rocky wall, evidently searching for the entrance through which the privateers they had been pursuing had so suddenly disappeared. in the morning the french sailors were at work early, and two or three strong chains were fastened across the mouth of the passage. "now," the captain of the belle marie said exultantly, as he regained the deck of his ship, "we are ready to give them a warm reception. the boats of all the british cruisers on the station would never force their way through that gap." ralph had not been called upon to assist in the work of preparation, he and jacques having done their day's work on the journey to the top of the hill and back. he saw from the exultation in the faces of the frenchmen that they considered their position was impregnable, and he shuddered at the thought of the terrible carnage that would ensue if the boats of the english vessels should try to force an entrance. the following morning a lookout on the cliffs reported that two boats had left the ships and were rowing toward the shore. on reaching the foot of the cliffs they rowed along abreast at a distance of thirty or forty yards of the shores. they stopped rowing at the mouth of the entrance, and were suddenly hailed by the captain of the schooner, who was standing on the cliff above. "if you try to enter," he said, "you will be destroyed at once. we don't want to harm you if you will leave us alone; but we have guns enough to blow a whole fleet out of water, and will use them if we are driven to it." "thank you for your warning," a voice shouted back from the boats, and then an order was given, and they rowed back to the ships. "well, have you found the place, lieutenant pearson?" the captain of the frigate asked as the young lieutenant stepped on deck. "yes, sir, we have found it. it is just where the boat turned and came out again." "i can see no signs of it now," the captain said, examining the shore with his telescope. "no, sir; you wouldn't until you were within a hundred yards of it. but rowing close in as we were we saw it some time before we got there. the rocks overlap each other, and there is a narrow channel some fifty yards long between them. apparently this makes a sharp turn at the other end and opens out. we saw nothing of the vessels we were chasing yesterday, but on high ground facing the channel there is a battery of six guns planted so as to rake anything coming in. there are some chains across the end. while we were lying on our oars there we were hailed." and he then repeated the warning that had been given. "nasty place to get into--eh?" the captain said thoughtfully. "very nasty, sir. you see, the guns would play right down into the channel; then there are the chains to break down, and perhaps more batteries, and certainly the ships to tackle when we get inside." "is there width for the frigate to enter?" the captain asked. "just width, i should say, and no more, sir. we should certainly have to get the yards braced fore and aft, but the ship herself would go through with something to spare, i should say." "what depth of water is there close in shore?" "plenty of depth sir, right up to the foot of the cliffs; but of course i can say nothing as to the depth in the channel." "no, of course not," the captain said. "well, it's something that we have run these pests to earth at last, but i see it is going to be no easy matter to get at them." the captain now signaled to the captain of the schooner to come on board, and when he did so the two officers retired to the cabin together and had a long consultation. the young officer on coming on deck got into his boat, and taking lieutenant pearson with him rowed for the cliffs, a few hundred yards to the west of the inlet. here they could obtain a view of the channel and its surroundings. not a man was to be seen. the muzzles of the six guns pointed menacingly down into the passage, and the chains could be seen just above the water's edge. "i think we will go back now, mr. pearson. i really think we ought to be very much obliged to those fellows for not sinking us. i wonder what was their motive in letting us off so easily?" "i suppose they feel pretty confident that our report is not likely to encourage an attack, and they think that if they were to blow us to pieces it would only make captain wilson the more determined to destroy them. at least that is the conclusion i came to as i rowed back last time." "yes, i should think that is it," the young captain said. "it is certainly as awkward a looking place to attack in boats as i ever saw. of course were it not for the chains my vessel could get in, and i dare say she has been in there many a time before we captured her, but it would be a very risky thing to take the frigate in without knowing anything of the depth of water either in the channel or inside." both returned to the frigate. "mr. pearson's report is fully borne out, captain wilson. it would be a most desperate enterprise to attack with our boats. half of them would be sunk before they got to the chains; and even if they got past them, which i doubt, there is no saying what difficulties and obstacles may be inside." "and now about the frigate, captain chambers." "well, sir, that is for you to decide. i am quite ready to take the schooner in; though with the plunging power of that battery raking her fore and aft i say fairly that it would be a desperate enterprise, and if she had not sufficient way upon her to carry away the chains nothing could save her. as to the frigate, it seems to me that she would run an equal risk with the schooner, with the additional danger that there may not be water enough for her." "well, it certainly doesn't seem to be an easy nut to crack," captain wilson said. "as we agreed before you started, we should not be justified in risking both our vessels in assaulting a place which is certainly extremely formidable, and where there may not be water enough for the frigate to float. still the question remains, what is to be done? it is no use anchoring here and trying to starve them out; they may have provisions enough to last them for years, for anything we know. if the weather were to turn bad we should have to make off at once; it would never do to be caught in a hurricane with such a coast as that on our lee. i might send you to port royal with a letter to the admiral, asking him to send us two or three more ships; but i don't like doing that when it is a mere question of capturing two rascally privateers." "i think the admiral would be glad to send them," the younger captain said; "for these two vessels have done a tremendous lot of damage during the last year. i believe that upward of twenty ships have reported being boarded and stripped by them." "but if they came what could they do?" captain wilson asked. "you see we consider it is not worth the risk of throwing away two ships two force this passage, still less would it be to risk four." "that is so, no doubt," captain chambers agreed. "i should suggest that however many of us there may be we should all draw off and keep a watch at a distance. of course it would be necessary to approach at night, and to lie behind the island somewhere in the daytime just as we did yesterday, for from the top of that hill they can see any distance round." "yes, and as soon as it is dusk they will have two or three hours to get away before we can come round here. beside, with their night-glasses from the top of the cliffs they will be sure to be able to make us out. there is only one other way that i can see of getting at them, that is to find a landing-place and attack them from on shore." "ah! that's much more hopeful business. as far as i saw yesterday there are cliffs all round the island; but it is hard indeed if we cannot find some place where we can manage to effect a landing. "this is the plan we must follow out. this afternoon an hour before it gets dark you get up sail and make away as if you were bound for port royal. i shall keep my station here. they will think you have gone off to get some more ships. as soon as it is thoroughly dark bear round and come back to the island; bring the schooner in close to the cliffs on the other side and get into a bay if you can find one. you will then be out of sight altogether unless somebody happens to look down from the edge of the cliffs above you. "then search the whole of the back of the island with boats, keeping at oar's length from the cliffs. there must be some places where a man can climb up, probably gulleys worn by streams. then to-morrow night sail round and join us again. i will be waiting for you about two miles off the land, and will show a light to seaward so that you will know where to find me. then we can talk matters over, and you can get back to the other side again before morning." while the captains of the two english vessels were holding consultations a similar talk was going on between the three captains of the privateers, and the conclusion they arrived at was precisely similar to that of the english officers. it was agreed that no attack was likely to be made by the ships, as they would almost certainly be sunk by the plunging fire of the battery as they came along the channel; while an assault by the boats would be sheer madness. "we have only to wait and tire them out," the captain of the schooner said, rubbing his hands. "the first gale from the north they must run for shelter, and before they can come back to their station again we shall be gone. of course we will load well up beforehand with all that is really worth taking away, and can let them have the pleasure of destroying the rest after we have gone." "they will know all that as well as we do," the captain of la belle marie said. "they will never be fools enough to try and starve us out, but you are quite mistaken if you think we are out of danger." "why, what danger can there be?" the others asked. "we have agreed they cannot attack us by the channel." "no, they cannot attack us from the channel, but they can attack us from somewhere else now they know we are here. they will find some place where they can land and take us in rear." an exclamation of dismay broke from the other captains. "_sapriste!_ i never thought of that. of course they can. i have never examined the coast on the other side, but there must be places where they could land." "no doubt there are; and you may be quite sure that is the course they will adopt. these english are slow, but they are not fools; and i will bet ten to one that is the next move they will be up to. if you like i will take a score of my men and cross the island this afternoon, and to-morrow will examine the whole line of shore. if there are only one or two places they can land at we may be able to defend them; but if there are four or five places far apart our force won't be sufficient to hold them all, for they could land two hundred and fifty men from those two ships, perhaps a hundred more." "that is the best thing to be done, vipon. of course you will send us word across directly you see how the land lies. if we find that they can land in a good many places, there will be nothing for us to do but try and make a bolt for it. keeping close in under the cliffs at night we may manage to give them the slip, or in any case one if not two of us may get away. better that than to run the risk of being all caught like rats in a trap here." an hour afterward the captain of the belle marie started for the other side of the island with twenty picked men, carrying with them their arms, axes, and two days' provisions. the rest of the crews were employed during the day in filling up the three vessels with the most valuable portion of the booty in the storehouses, care being taken not to fill the vessels so deeply as would interfere seriously with their sailing powers. an arrangement had been made between the captains that the belle marie should transfer her cargo to the first vessel worth sending to france that she captured, receiving as her share one-third of its value if it reached port safely. the captain of the belle marie was well content with this arrangement, for the storehouses contained the spoils of upward of twenty ships, and his share would therefore be a considerable one, and he would only have to carry the cargo till he fell in with an english merchantman. all speculation as to the british schooner's whereabouts was put an end to the next morning, by a message from captain vipon saying she had been discovered lying close in under the cliffs at the back of the island, and that her boats were already examining the shore. an hour later the captain himself arrived. "it is as i feared," he said when he joined the other captains; "there are three bays about two miles apart and at all of these a landing could be easily effected. the land slopes gradually down to the edge of the sea. they might land at any of them, and of course the guns of the schooner would cover the landing if we opposed it." "still we might beat them back," one of the others said. "we can muster about three hundred men between us, and they are not likely to land more than that." "i don't think that would be a good plan," captain vipon said. "to begin with, we can't tell which of the three places they may choose for landing at. we certainly cannot hurry through the woods anything like so fast as they can row along the shore, so that would place us at a disadvantage. in the second place, you know very well that we can't rely upon our men defeating an equal number of these john bulls; and in the last place, we should not gain much if we did. we should lose a tremendous lot of our men, and the schooner would go off and fetch two or three more ships of war here, so that in the end they must beat us. i think that there is no question that it will be better for us to take our chances of escape now." "either the schooner will come back to-night and tow the boats of the frigate round the other side of the island, or she will send a boat with the news that she has found a landing-place, and then the frigate will send all her boats. i don't think the attack will take place to-night; but it may be made. it certainly won't if the schooner comes round, for the wind is very light. she will not leave her anchorage until it is quite dark; and by the time she has got round to the frigate, and the boat's crews are ready to start, and they all get to the back of the island, it will be morning. if they send a boat it would reach the frigate after three hours' rowing; give them an hour to get ready and start, and three hours to row back, so that brings it to nearly the same thing. beside, i don't suppose in any case they would land before morning, for they would run the risk of losing their way in the woods. so my proposal is that at about two o'clock in the morning we make a start, separate as soon as we get out of the harbor, and each shift for himself. the frigate will have more than half her crew away, and being so short-handed will not be so smart with her sails, and will not be able to work half her guns; so that at the outside two out of the three of us ought to get safely off." "but suppose that the schooner happens to be round here, and they make up their minds to wait a day before attacking, we should have two of them after us then; and that schooner sails like a witch." "i have thought of that," captain vipon said. "my idea is to put a man on the top of the cliff just above where the schooner is anchored. if she is lying there he is to light a fire a short distance back from the edge of the cliff. there should be another man on the top of the hill. when he sees the fire he shall show a lantern three times. we will return the signal to let him know that we see it. if the schooner goes away early in the evening the lookout is not to light the fire until he sees her returning, at whatever hour it may be. the moment we see the light we will set sail." "but how about the two signallers?" one of the other captains said. "they would be left behind and might not get the chance of rejoining us again." "i have thought of that too," captain vipon, said. "i have an english lad on board whom i picked up in the channel. he is a smart lad, and has been working as one of the crew. he would of course be glad to stay behind, because it will give him the chance of rejoining his friends." "that would do capitally. but how about the other man? you see, if he showed himself he would be made prisoner and sent to england; if he didn't show himself he might be on this island for years before he got a chance of joining a french ship. it would need a high bribe to induce anybody to run such a risk as that." this was so evident that there was silence for two or three minutes, then captain vipon spoke again. "i have a man who would be more likely to do it than any one else i think, because he has taken a strong fancy to this young english boy. he is a good hand, and i don't like losing him; still the thing is so important that i should not hesitate at that. still we must offer him something good to run the risk, or rather the certainty of imprisonment. i propose that his name shall be put down on the books of all three ships, so that if he ever gets back to france again he will have a fair certainty of a good lot of prize money, for it will be hard luck if two out of the three of us do not manage to get back safely." the other captains agreed to this. "he will be here in half an hour," captain vipon said. "the men were sitting down to a meal when i came away, and i ordered them to make their way back as soon as they had done. if he refuses, the only other way i can see will be for all the men to cast lots, when, of course, whoever stays would get his three shares as we agreed." half an hour later the twenty men arrived from the other side of the island. as soon as they came on board captain vipon called jacques into the cabin and told him that it would be necessary to leave two men behind, explaining the duties they would have to perform. "now jacques," he said when he had finished, "i thought that perhaps you would be more likely than any other man on board the three ships to volunteer for this work." "i volunteer!" jacques said in astonishment. "what should make you think of such a thing, captain?" "for this reason, jacques: i have settled to leave the english lad here as one of the signallers. of course he will gladly undertake the job, as it will enable him to join his friends when they land; and as you like him and he likes you, he might be able to make things easy for you. in the second place we have determined that the name of whoever stops shall be borne on the ship books of all three vessels to the end of their cruise, so that there would be a good bit of money coming even if only one out of the three ships gets back, and enough to set you up for life if all three get back safely. of course you may have a spell of imprisonment; but it is likely that one at least of the ships may be caught going out to-night, and if it happened to be ours you would get the prison without the prize-money." "that is so," jacques agreed. "if you give me half an hour to think it over i will give you an answer. it's come upon me sudden-like. i will talk it over with the boy. i suppose i can tell him, captain?" on regaining the deck jacques looked about for ralph. "come and sit along with me out on the bowsprit, lad, i want to have a private talk with you." somewhat surprised ralph followed his friend out on to the bowsprit. "now, boy," he said, "i have got a bit of news to tell you that will be pleasant to you. that's the first thing; and the next is, i want your advice. you are a sensible young chap, you are, although you are but a lad, and i should like to know what you think about it." "well, what's the good news, jacques?" "the good news is this; you are likely, before this time to-morrow, to be with your friends." ralph gave such a start of delight that he nearly slipped off the bowsprit. "how is that jacques? it seems too good to be true." "this is the way of it," jacques said. "the three vessels are all going to cut and run to-night. that schooner of yours is round the other side of the island, and we want to be sure she is stopping there, then there will only be the frigate to deal with, and in these light winds and dark nights we ought to be able to give her the slip; but the only way to be sure the schooner keeps the other side is to watch her. so one man is to be placed on the cliff above her, and at two o'clock in the morning, if she is still there, he is to light a fire well back from the cliff, so that the light will not be seen by her. another man is to be on the top of the hill, where we were together with a lantern. you see, we can just see the top of the hill from here. when he sees the fire he is to show a light three times. if he sees it answered here he will know it's all right, and his work is done; if not, of course he shows the lights again until it's answered. now, they are going to leave you as one of the two signallers, and of course all you will have to do will be to wait for a bit, and then come down and join your friends." "that is capital," ralph said. "nothing could be better. now, what is the other matter that you want my advice about, jacques?" "well, you see, it will be awkward for the other man, for he will either have the choice of coming down and giving himself up and being carried off as a prisoner, or of stopping on this island perhaps for years till a french ship happens to come along; for once off the marie will continue her cruise to the indian seas, and the other two will make straight for france. of course there is another course which might be taken. a boat might be hidden away for him, and he might go for a cruise on his own account and take the chance of being picked up. "well, they have offered to the man as stops to put his name down on the books of all the three craft. that means, of course, that he will get a share in the prize-money of all three ships if they get back. that's a pretty good offer, you know. you see, a fellow on board may get captured or killed in battle or wrecked, and in that case there would not be a penny of prize-money. the man who stops here is sure of prize-money if only one of the three craft get back to france. now, they ask me if i will undertake it. i should be better off than the others; because in the first place i shall have you to talk with till i get to prison, and in the next place as i can talk english i can get on a good deal better in prison than other fellows would do. now, what's your advice, lad?" "i should say certainly accept the offer, jacques. you see, i can tell them all what a good friend you have been to me, and it maybe they will let you go free; but even if they don't i could make it pleasant for you with the men, and you may be sure that if they take you to an english prison i will do all i can to get you out of it. you see, when you get back to france you would have really a good sum coming to you from these three ships. the two that have been out here have collected a tremendous lot of valuable plunder, and the bell marie is likely to get quite as much if, as you say, she is going to spend two years out in the indian seas. so i really think you would be wise to take the offer. another thing, if you like i will not show myself at all, but will stop here with you, and we will take a boat together and make for some port, where we can give out that we are shipwrecked sailors." "no, lad, that wouldn't do; though i thank you for your offer. you might get a ship back to england, but i should have very little chance of getting one for france." "no; but we might get one together for america, and from there you might get to france easily enough." jacques thought for some minutes. "no, lad; i will give myself up with you. we might get lost in a boat, seeing that neither of us know the geography of these seas; we might get short of water, or caught in a hurricane. no, i will give myself up. i know the worst that way, anyhow. another spell in an english prison; but from that i may either get exchanged, or escape, or the war come to an end. so that's the best thing for me to do." chapter vi. home again. having decided to stay as one of the signallers, jacques proceeded at once to the captain's cabin. "i am glad you have decided so, jacques. it would have been a troublesome business to cast lots, and some of the men might have absolutely refused doing so; so i am glad it's settled. i have arranged with the other captains that you shall have an advance of twenty napoleons. you had best hide them about you; you may find them come in useful. the boy is to have ten. of course he is glad of the chance; but at the same time he is doing us good service, and he has worked well since he came on board. it will help him to get a passage home." "thank you, captain. that twenty napoleons may help me to get out of an english prison. i will manage a hiding place for them. and now i think, captain, we will be off at once--at least as soon as we have had our dinner. it's a good long way across the island to where that schooner was lying, and i shall have to choose a place for my fire so that it can be seen from the top of the hill." at dinner jacques told his comrades that he was going to remain behind and act as signalman for them. a good deal of regret was expressed by his shipmates, many of whom came like himself from dunkirk, and had known him from a boy. before starting he went to the sailmaker and got him to open the soles of his shoes; he then inserted ten napoleons in each, and the sailmaker sewed them up again. then making his clothes into a kit and getting a couple of bottles of wine from the steward, he shook hands with his messmates, and was with ralph rowed ashore. on landing they cut two sticks and hung their kits upon these, ralph taking charge of the lantern, while both were provided with tinder and steel. they walked for half a mile together, and then jacques said: "here our paths separate, lad; you can't miss your way to the top of the hill. i go almost the other way, for the schooner lies but a short distance from the end of the island. if i were you i should lie up for a sleep as soon as i get there. remember you will not see my fire till two o'clock. if you do not see it then you must keep watch till morning, for there's no saying when it may be lit. as soon as you see it you show a light three times in the direction of the creek. if you see it answered you will have nothing more to do; if not you must keep on showing the light till you do get an answer. in the morning you wait till the sun has been up an hour, then come to this spot and wait for me. i shall start at daybreak, but i have a lot further to walk than you have, so i shan't be there before you. if we find your people haven't come into the harbor we will wait till they do so; then when they find that there is no one there we can show ourselves quietly; but if we got there first they might begin to shoot directly they saw us without stopping to ask any questions." ralph made his way up to the top of the hill, threw himself down under some trees near the summit, and was soon fast asleep. when he awoke it was already dark. he lit his lantern, covered it up in his jacket, and took his station at the highest point. he had plenty to think about. another twelve hours and he would be with friends! he had no reason to complain of the treatment he had received on board the privateer, but had he remained with her he might not have returned to france for a couple of years, and would then have had difficulty in crossing to england; beside, it was painful to him to be with men fighting against his country, and each prize taken instead of causing delight to him as to his comrades, would have been a source of pain. but most of all he thought of his mother, of how she must have grieved for him as dead, and of the joy there would be at their reunion. the hours therefore passed quickly, and he could scarcely believe it to be two o'clock when he suddenly saw the light of a fire far way toward the end of the island. a glance at the stars showed him that the time was correct. he rose to his feet, and taking the lantern held it aloft, then he lowered it behind a bush and twice raised it again. he knew exactly the direction in which the harbor lay, and no sooner had he put down the lantern for the third time than three flashes of light followed in close succession. he knew that everything would be prepared in the afternoon for the start. orders had been issued before he left that the oars of the boats were to be muffled, that the chains at the entrance of the channel were to be removed, and the ships got in a position, with shortened cables, for a start. he could picture to himself, as he stood there gazing into the darkness, that the men would be already in the boats awaiting his signal, and as soon as it was seen they would begin to tow the vessels out of the harbor. during the daytime the frigate cruised backward and forward under easy sail some two miles off the entrance; but the sailors believed that at night she came very much closer to the shore, the lookout with night-glasses having reported that she had been seen once or twice within a quarter of a mile of the entrance to the channel. half an hour passed without any sign that the frigate was aware that the ships were leaving the harbor; then ralph heard the sound of a distant musket-shot, followed by several others, and had no doubt that one of the frigate's boats on watch near the channel had discovered them. a few minutes later there was a flash some distance out at sea, followed after an interval by the deep boom of a gun; then came a broadside, followed by a steady fire of heavy guns. these were evidently fired on board the frigate, no answering sounds from the french ships meeting his ear. he could see by the direction of the flashes that the frigate was under way. the firing continued for two hours, becoming more and more distant, and then it ceased altogether. when the sun rose he saw the frigate some twenty miles away. there was a smaller craft two or three miles further off, and two others were visible ten or twelve miles further away to the west. two of the privateers had evidently made their escape, and the third seemed to be leaving her pursuer behind, for the wind was exceedingly light. some miles nearer to the island than the frigate a schooner was visible. she was heading for the two vessels that had gone toward the west, but as these were fully fifteen miles to windward her chance of overtaking them appeared to be slight. ralph waited an hour, and then proceeded at a leisurely pace toward the spot where he was to meet jacques. he was but five minutes at the spot agreed upon when he saw him coming through the trees. "i heard nothing of the landing-parties," he said as the french sailor approached. "the reason is not far to search for," he replied. "they did not land at all, and i did not much expect that they would. the boats from the frigate arrived a few minutes before i lighted my fire. i was lying down at the edge of the cliff, looking right down upon her deck. they came up in a body, rowing with muffled oars. i could just hear the sound of their talking when they came on deck. as soon as i had the fire fairly alight i saw your signal and then went back to watch them. everything was quiet till i heard the boom of the first gun; then i heard 'silence!' ordered on the schooner. i suppose some one had said that he heard a gun, and other's didn't. of course the sound did not come to them under the shelter of the cliff as it did to me. then came the sound of another gun, and then three or four close together; then orders were given sharply, the capstan was manned and the anchor run up, and they were not a minute getting her sails set. but under the shelter of the cliff there was not enough wind to fill them, and so the boats were manned, and she went gliding away until i could no longer make her out. they guessed, of course, that our craft were making off, and went to help the frigate." "they were too late to be of any use, jacques." "ah! you have seen them from the top of the hill. i did not think of that. what is the news?" "the frigate was in chase of one of them. it was too far for me to see which. i should say he was two or three miles ahead, certainly well out of gunshot, and as far as i could see during the hour i was watching them, was increasing her lead. unless the wind freshens i think she is safe. the other two were on the opposite tack, ten or twelve miles away to the west. the schooner was heading after them, but was at least fifteen miles from them." "she is very fast in a light wind like this, they say." "well, if she should catch them, they ought to be able to beat her off, jacques, as they are two to one. so far i think your chance of getting your three shares is a good one." "maybe, lad. i have not had much luck so far. i began on the sea when i was eleven. at twenty-one i had to go into the navy, and it was seven years later when i got back to dunkirk after that spell in the prison. i did not report myself, for i had no wish to do any more man-of-wars' work; and now i have had six years privateers' work, and have not made much by it. if i get back this time and get those three shares i will buy a fine fishing smack for myself and a snug little house on shore. there is some one i promised--if the voyage turned out well--she should have a nice little house of her own, and she promised to wait for me. after that, no more long voyages for me. i suppose we may as well go down to the harbor now, lad. they are sure to come back sooner or later, whether they catch any of the privateers or not." "oh, yes! we shall be all safe now. we will be on the beach when they come in. when they see that we are alone and unarmed there's no chance of their firing. we can go up occasionally to the cliffs and watch for them." it was not until the following evening that the frigate was seen approaching the island. "she will take another four or five hours to work in," jacques said, "and they are not likely to try to land till to-morrow morning. all their boats and half their men are away in the schooner. i should think she would be back to-morrow morning. either she caught them before it got dark last night--which i don't think likely--or they will have given her the slip in the night. in that case she might look about for another day and then make sail to rejoin." as jacques predicted the schooner was seen by daylight eight or ten miles away. "we may as well hoist a white flag, jacques. the captain of the frigate will be savage that all the privateers have escaped him, but it may put him into a good temper if he takes possession here before the schooner arrives." ralph ran down to the storehouse, got hold of a sheet and an oar, and a white flag was soon hoisted on the top of the cliff. five minutes later two gigs were seen rowing off from the frigate. ralph and jacques took their places on the battery. when the boats reached the mouth of the narrow entrance the order was given for the men to lay on their oars. ralph shouted at the top of his voice: "you can come on, sir! we are the only two here!" the order was given to row on, and ralph and his companion at once went down to meet them at the end of the harbor. the captain himself was in the stern of his own gig, while a young lieutenant held the lines in the other boat. "who are you? the captain asked, as he stepped ashore on the little wharf. you are english by your speech." "i am english, sir. i was on board a fishing boat in the channel when we were run down by one of those privateers in the dark. i believe the fisherman with me was drowned, but i clung to the bobstay and was got on board. she was on her way out here and had no opportunity of landing me. she only arrived here two days before you came up." "you are not a fisherman?" the captain said abruptly. "no, sir; my mother is living at dover, and i was at school there. i lost my father, who was an architect, some years ago." "and who is this who is with you?" "he is a sailor in the brig i came out in, and has been extremely kind to me during the voyage, and kept the others from persecuting me." "how is it he is left behind?" the captain asked. "he was round the other side of the island watching the schooner," ralph replied, "and the others sailed away without him;" for ralph had agreed with jacques that it was better to say nothing about the signalling. "have you done any fighting since you were on board the privateer?" the captain asked sternly. "no, sir. we have only exchanged shots with one ship since we sailed. she fired one broadside and the privateer drew off a good deal damaged. another was surprised by night, but i took no part in it. i don't know what she was laden with or what was her name." "well, lad, your story sounds truthful, and will, of course, be inquired into when we get to england. as to this man, he is of course a prisoner." "i hope not, sir," ralph pleaded. "he has not been taken with arms in his hands, and is, in fact, a castaway mariner." the captain's face relaxed into a smile. "i see you are a sort of sea lawyer. well, we shall see about it. what is there in these storehouses?" "a quantity of things, sir. they took away a great many with them, but there must be ten times as much left. i heard them say they had the cargoes of more than twenty ships here." "that is satisfactory at any rate," the captain said. "mr. wylde, will you just take a look round these storehouses and see what there is worth taking away. you had better take my boat's crew as well as your own to help you to turn things over. are you quite sure, lad, that there is no one beside yourselves on the island?" "i can't say that, sir. the orders were for all hands to embark last night, and so far as i know none of them were left behind except jacques clery. we have been here for two days now and have seen no one, so i do not think any one else can have been left." "how did you get on on board the brig?" the captain asked. "i suppose you cannot speak french?" "i couldn't speak any french when i first was got on board, sir, but i picked up a great deal on the voyage out. jacques speaks english very well. he was a prisoner in england for three years, and learned it there, and it was that which caused him to speak to me directly he had got me on board, for no one else understood me. so he set to work at once to help me in my french, so that i could get along. the captain was very kind too. he said that as i had been picked up in that way he should not treat me as a prisoner; but he expected me to make myself useful, and, of course, i did so. it was the only way of having a comfortable life." "is this the only place the privateers had on shore here?" the captain asked, looking round. "i only see one or two huts." "the storekeepers lived in them, sir. they stopped behind to look after things when the privateers were away. the men slept on board their vessels, only landing to disembark the cargoes they had captured, and for a drunken spree when they first returned. i am sure they have no other place." "so your brig only arrived here four days ago? i was puzzled in the morning when i saw there were two brigs and a schooner when we had only expected one brig. of course your arrival accounts for that. what was her name, and how many guns and men did she carry?" "she was la belle marie of dunkirk," ralph replied. "she carried fourteen guns, mostly eighteen-pounders, and a thirty-two-pounder on a pivot. she had eighty hands at first, but eight of them went away in the prize." "do you know whether she has gone off straight for france or whether she is going to remain here?" "from what i gathered from the men, sir, i believe the other two privateers are going straight home. they loaded up from the storehouses, taking, of course, the most valuable stuff. there was a great deal of copper, but what the rest was i do not know. our brig was loaded up too, but i believe her intention was to transfer her cargo into the first prize she took and send it to france. i do not know whether she was going to cruise about here for a time, but i should rather think that now that her consorts have gone and this place been discovered she will not stay here, for she never intended to cruise in these waters long. i know that her destination was the indian ocean, and she intended to capture indiamen on their way out or home." "in that case our expedition has been more satisfactory than i expected," the captain said. "we shall have discovered and destroyed their depot here, captured anyhow some valuable stuff, and caused the two privateers that we have been hunting for so long to leave the islands, to say nothing of this brig of yours, of which we had not heard. well, mr. wylde, what is your report?" "it will take a long time to go through the whole sir, but i should say that we have taken a most valuable prize. part of the goods consist of produce of these parts--puncheons of rum and hogsheads of sugar in any number. then i see they have left a good many tons of copper behind them; overlooked them, i suppose, in the hurry of loading. a considerable portion of the stores consist of home produce--cottons, cloths, silks, furniture, musical instruments, mirrors, and, in fact, goods of all kinds." "that is most satisfactory, mr. wylde, and we sha'n't have had our trouble for nothing. ah! here come the other boats." as he spoke the pinnaces, long-boats, and cutters of the two ships of war dashed into the harbor, and in a minute or two reached the landing-place. "so they gave you the slip as well as me, chambers?" captain wilson said. "confound them, yes. i was within about four miles of them at sunset, but they both gave me the slip in the dark." "mine fairly outsailed me," captain wilson said. "i am afraid we have made rather a mess of the affair; though we acted for the best, and i don't see how we could have done otherwise. however. i have learned that the brig and the schooner we have been chasing so long have made straight for france, so that we shall have no more trouble with them. the other brig, which only arrived two days before we chased the others in here, has, it is believed, also gone off. so we shan't have done so badly; for we can report that we have found out and destroyed their nest here, and i fancy from what my lieutenant says we have made a very valuable capture, enough to give us all a round sum in prize-money." "that will be some consolation," the other laughed; "but i would give my share of it if i could but have come up with and engaged those rascally craft i have been hunting all over the islands for these last two years. whom have we got here--two prisoners?" "well, i hardly know whether they can be called prisoners. one is an english lad who was in a boat they run down in the channel, and who, i dare say, they were glad to get rid of. it seems that he is a gentleman's son, and his story is clear enough. the other belongs to the brig i chased, which it seems only arrived here two days ago. the young fellow says that he has been particularly kind to him, and has begged me to regard him in the light of a castaway sailor, seeing that he was found here unarmed and away from his ship. i think there is something in his plea; and as there is no credit or glory to be obtained from handing over one prisoner, i consider that under the circumstances we shall be justified in letting him go ashore quietly and in saying nothing about it. at one time the man was a prisoner of war in england and has picked up our language, so i dare say he will be able to manage to find his way home without difficulty." "what are you thinking of doing with all this stuff?" captain chambers asked, pointing to the storehouses. "i think we had better take it away with us. i don't like turning the alert into a storeship; but it would be better to do that than to have the expense of chartering two or three ships to come here to fetch it away. beside, if i did that, you would have to stop here until it is all carried away, and to burn the storehouses afterward." "then by all means let us load up," captain chambers said. "i certainly have no wish to be kept here for six weeks or a couple of months. i will go out and bring the seagull in at once." "the sooner the better, chambers. i will set a couple of boats at work at once to take soundings here and in the channel. if i can get the alert in i will; it would save a lot of trouble and time." it was found that the channel and the harbor inside contained an abundance of water for the frigate. the width between the rocks was, however, only just sufficient to let her through; and, therefore, while the schooner sailed boldly in, the frigate was towed in by her boats. the next morning the work of shipping the contents of the storehouses commenced, but so large was the quantity of goods stored up that it took six days of hard work before all was safely on board. the sailors, however, did not grudge the trouble, for they knew that every box and bale meant so much prize-money. "i hope we shall meet nothing we ought to chase on our way to port royal," captain wilson said, looking with some disgust at the two vessels. "it has brought the alert nearly two feet lower in the water; while as to the seagull she is laden down like a collier." "yes, her wings are clipped for the present," captain chambers replied. "of course those rascals carried off the pick of their booty with them; but we may be well content with what they left behind. it will be the best haul that we have made for some years. as a rule, the most we have to hope for is the money fetched by the sale of any privateer we may catch, and they generally go for next to nothing. i retract what i said--that i would give my share of the prize-money to come up with the privateers. i certainly never calculated on such a haul as this. i suppose they intend to have gone on storing away their booty till the war came to an end, and then to have chartered a dozen ships to carry it away." captain wilson had introduced ralph to the midshipmen, telling them he would be in their mess till he reached port. he was soon at home among them, and his clothes were replaced by some they lent him. jacques made himself equally at home among the crew. captain wilson had intimated to the first lieutenant that the man was not to be considered as a prisoner, but as a castaway, picked up on the island; and from his cheery temper, his willingness to lend a hand and make himself useful in any way, and his knowledge of their language, he was soon a favorite with them. when all the goods were on board fire was applied to the storehouses and huts. the two vessels were then towed out of the harbor, and hoisting sail made for port royal. the winds were light, and it was six days before they entered the harbor. a signal was at once hoisted from the flagship there for the captain to come on board. "i have no doubt he is in a towering rage at our appearance," captain wilson said to the first lieutenant; "but i fancy he will change his tone pretty quickly when he learns what we have got on board. his share of the prize money will come to a pretty penny." the next morning a number of lighters came alongside the ships, and the work of discharging the cargo commenced. after breakfast ralph and jacques were rowed ashore. "you will want some money to pay for your passage, young gentleman." captain wilson said to ralph before leaving the ship. "i will authorize you to tell an agent that i will be security for the payment of your passage-money." "i am very much obliged to you, sir," ralph replied; "but i shall work my way home if i can. i have learned to be pretty handy on board the privateer, and i would as lief be working forward as dawdling about aft all the way home. beside, i don't want to inconvenience my mother by her being called upon suddenly to pay thirty or forty pounds directly i get home. i have caused her trouble enough as it is." "that's, right, my lad," the captain said. "i like your spirit. have you money enough to pay for your hotel expenses while you are waiting for a ship?" "yes, thank you, sir. the french captain said i had fairly earned wages, and gave me ten napoleons when he started." "he must have been a good sort of fellow," the captain said; "though i wish we had caught him for all that. well, good-by, and a pleasant voyage home." ralph put up at a quiet boarding-house, kept by a mulatto woman. he and jacques got a fresh rig-out of clothes at once, and went down to the port to inquire about ships. ralph was greatly amused at the aspect of the streets crowded with chattering negroes and negresses, in gaudy colors. the outlay of a few pence purchased an almost unlimited supply of fruit, and ralph and his companion sat down on a log of wood by the wharves and enjoyed a feast of pine apples, bananas, and custard apples. then they set about their work. in an hour both were suited. jacques clery shipped as a foremast hand on board an american trading schooner, which was about to return to new york; while ralph obtained a berth before the mast in a fine bark that would sail for england in a few days. next morning they said good-by to each other, for jacques had to go on board after breakfast. they made many promises to see each other again when the war came to an end. "i shall never forget your kindness, jacques; and if i am still at dover when peace is proclaimed i will run over to dunkirk by the very first vessel that sails." "as for the kindness, it is nothing," jacques replied; "and beside that, you saved my life from that snake. i dream sometimes of the beast still. and it was really owing to you that i am here now, and that i shall get a round sum coming to me when i return home. if it hadn't been for you i should not have been chosen to stop behind and get three shares instead of one of the prize money. and in the next place it is your doing that i am free to start at once, and to make my way back as soon as i can, instead of spending four or five years, it may be, in an english prison. why, my louise will be ready to jump for joy when she sees me arrive, instead of having to wait another two years for me, with the chance of my never coming back at all; and she will hardly believe me when i tell her that i shall be able to afford to buy that fishing boat and set up in a house of our own at once; and she will be most surprised of all when i tell her that it is all owing to an english boy i fished on board on a dark night in the channel." "well, jacques, we won't dispute as to which owes the other most. anyhow, except for my mother, i am not sorry i have made the trip in the belle maire. i have seen a lot of life, and have had a rare adventure; and i have learned so much of sailor's work, that if i am ever driven to it i can work my way anywhere before the mast in future." ralph went on board his own ship as soon as he had seen jacques off, and was soon hard at work assisting to hoist on board hogsheads of sugar and other produce. he was startled by the sound of a heavy gun. it was answered presently by all the ships of war in the harbor and by the forts on shore, and for five minutes the heavy cannonade continued. the captain, who had been on shore, crossed the gangway on to the ship as the crew were gazing in surprise at the cannonade, exchanging guesses as to its cause. "i have great news, lads," he said. "peace is proclaimed, and napoleon has surrendered, and is to be shut up in the isle of elba in the mediterranean. no more fear of privateers or french prisons." the crew burst into a hearty cheer. this was indeed surprising news. it was known that wellington was gradually driving back the french marshals in the south of france, and that the allies were marching toward paris. but napoleon had been so long regarded as invincible, that no one had really believed that his downfall was imminent. four days later the cargo was all on board, and the fanny sailed for england. the voyage was accomplished without adventure. as soon as the vessel entered dock and the crew were discharged ralph landed, and having purchased a suit of landsman clothes, presented his kit to a lad of about his own age, who had been his special chum on board the fanny, and then made his way to the inn from which the coaches for dover started. having secured a place for next day, dined, and ordered a bed, he passed the evening strolling about the streets of london, and next morning at six o'clock took his place on the coach. "going back from school, i suppose, young gentleman?" a military-looking man seated next to him on the coach remarked as soon as they had left the streets behind them, and were rattling along the old kent road. "no, i am not going home from school," ralph said with a smile. "at least not from the sort of school you mean; though i have been learning a good deal too. i arrived yesterday from the west indies." "indeed!" the gentleman said, scrutinizing him closely. "i see you look sunburned and weather-beaten now that i look at you; but somehow i should not have put you down as a sailor." "well, i am not exactly a sailor; though i may say i have worked as one before the mast both out and home. that was my first experience; and i suppose one takes longer than that to get the regular nautical manner." "before the mast, were you? then i suppose you have been getting into some scrape at home, young sir, and run away; for, from your appearance, you would hardly have been before the mast otherwise. boys never know what is good for them. but i suppose after your experience you will be inclined to put up with any disagreeables you may have at home rather than try running away again?" "you are mistaken!" ralph said with a laugh. "i did not run away. i was run away with!" "kidnapped!" the gentleman said in surprise. "i know that merchantmen have often difficulty in getting hands owing to the need of men for the navy, but i did not know that they had taken to press-gangs on their own account." "no, i don't know that they have come to that," ralph replied. "the fact is, sir, i was out fishing a few miles off dover, when the smack i was in was run down in the dark by a french privateer. i was hauled on board, and as she was bound for the west indies i had to make the voyage whether i liked it or not." "how long ago is it that you were run down?" "about five months," ralph replied. "why, you are not the son of mrs. conway of dover, are you?" "yes, i am, sir. do you know her, and can you tell me how she is?" ralph asked eagerly. "i believe that she is well, although of course she must have suffered very greatly at your disappearance. i haven't the pleasure of knowing her personally, but several friends of mine are acquainted with her. i heard the matter talked about at the time the boat was missing. some portions of her were picked up by other fishing boats, and by the shattered state of some of the planks they said that she had been run down; beside, there had been no wind about the time she disappeared, so that there was little doubt some vessel or other had cut her down. i happened to hear of it from colonel bryant, who is a friend of your mother." "yes, i know him," ralph put in. "i have heard colonel bryant say that she has not altogether abandoned hope, and still clings to the idea that you may have been run down by some outward-bound ship and that you had been saved and carried away, and that she declares that she shall not give up all hope until ample time has elapsed for a ship to make the voyage to india and return." "i am very glad of that," ralph said. "it has been a great trouble to me that she would be thinking all this time that i was dead. i should not have minded having been carried away so much if i had had a chance of writing to her to tell her about it; but i never did have a chance, for i came home by the very first ship that left port royal after i arrived there." "but how did you get away from the french privateer--was she captured?" "well, it is rather a long story, sir," ralph said modestly. "all the better," the gentleman replied. "we have got fourteen hours journey before us, and your story will help pass the time; so don't try to cut it short, but let me have it in full." ralph thereupon told the story, which lasted until the coach reached tunbridge, where it stopped for the passengers to dine. "well, that is an adventure worth going through," the officer, who had already mentioned that his name was major barlow, said; "and it was well for you, lad, that you possessed good spirits and courage. a man who is cheerful and willing under difficulties will always make his way in the world, while one who repines and kicks against his fate only makes it harder for him. i have no doubt that if, instead of taking matters coolly when you found yourself on board the privateer you had fretted and grumbled, you would have been made a drudge and kicked and cuffed by everyone on board. you would not have had a chance of landing at that island or of being chosen to make the signal when they went away, and you would now be leading the life of a dog on board that brig. cheerful and willing are two of the great watchwords of success in life, and certainly you have found it so." it was eight o'clock when the coach rattled up the streets of dover. major barlow had already offered ralph to take him to colonel bryant's quarters, and to ask the colonel to go with him to call on mrs. conway and prepare her for ralph's coming. chapter vii. a commission. colonel bryant was just rising from dinner at the mess when major barlow and ralph arrived at the barracks, and after congratulating the lad on his return he willingly agreed to accompany them to mrs. conway. a quarter of an hour's walk took them to her house. ralph remained outside when the two officers entered. colonel bryant lost no time in opening the subject. "i have brought my friend major barlow to introduce to you, mrs. conway, because he has happened to hear some news that may, i think, bear upon the subject that you have most at heart." "ralph!" mrs. conway exclaimed, clasping her hands. "we think it may refer to your son, mrs. conway," major barlow said. "i have just returned from town, and happened to hear that a vessel had been spoken with that reported having picked up a lad from a smack run down in the channel some five months ago, which corresponds pretty well, i think, with the time your son was missing." "just the time," mrs. conway said. "did they not say the name?" "well, yes. the name, as far as i heard it, for as i had not the pleasure of knowing you i was not of course so interested in the matter, was the same as yours." "i think that there is no doubt about it, mrs. conway," colonel bryant said kindly. "i consider you may quite set your mind at ease, for i have no doubt whatever it is your son who has been picked up." mrs. conway was so much overcome that she sank into a chair and sat for a short time with her face in her hand, crying happy tears and thanking god for his mercy. then with a great effort she aroused herself. "you will excuse my emotion, gentlemen, and i am sure you can understand my feelings. i am thankful indeed for the news you have brought me. i have never ceased for a moment to hope that my boy would be restored to me; but the knowledge that it is so, and that god has spared him to me, is for the moment overpowering. and where was the ship met with, major barlow, and where was she bound for? how long do you think it is likely to be before ralph comes home?" "well, mrs. conway," major barlow said, hesitating a little, "the ship was bound for india; but i understood from what was said that the vessel, that is the vessel that brought the news, had also brought home the lad who had been carried away." "then, in that case," mrs. conway cried, "he may be home in a day or two. perhaps--perhaps--and she paused and looked from one to the other. "perhaps he is here already," colonel bryant said gently. "yes, mrs. conway, if you feel equal to it you may see him at once." no word was needed. major barlow opened the door, went through the hall, and called ralph, and in another moment the lad was clasped in his mother's arms, and the two officers without another word went quietly out and left them to themselves. it was some time before a coherent word could be spoken by mother or son, and it was not until they had knelt down together and returned thanks to god for ralph's restoration that they were able to talk quietly of what had passed. then mrs. conway poured out question after question, but ralph refused to enter upon a narrative of his adventures. "it's a long story, mother, and will keep very well till to-morrow. it is past nine o'clock now, and i am sure that you want a night's rest after this excitement; and after fourteen hours on a coach, i sha'n't be sorry to be in bed myself. beside, i want you to tell me first how you have been getting on while i have been away, and all the news about everyone; but even that will keep. i think, mother, a cup of tea first and then bed will be best for us both." the next morning ralph related all his adventures to his mother, who was surprised indeed at his story. "i suppose poor old joe was never heard of, mother?" "no, ralph. his son has been up here a good many times to inquire if we had any news of you. he has gone into another fishing boat now, and his sister has gone out to service. their mother died years ago, you know." "i was afraid that he had gone straight down, mother. nobody on board the brig heard any cry or shout for help. he must have been injured in the collision." "i must write to-day to mr. penfold. he has written to me several times, and has been most kind. he has all along said that he believed you would turn up one of these days, for as the weather was fine and the sea fairly calm when you were run down, the probabilities in favor of your being picked up were great, especially as you were such a good swimmer. i am sure he will be delighted to hear of your return." "i hope he will not be wanting me to go straight off down there again," ralph said ruefully. "i was only back with you one day, mother, after my visit to them, and now i have been five months away it will be very hard if i am to be dragged off again." "i am sure mr. penfold will not be so unreasonable as to want to take you away from me," mrs. conway said. "and am i to go back to school again, mother?" "not now, certainly, ralph. the holidays will be beginning in a fortnight again; beside, you know, we were talking anyhow of your leaving at the end of this half year." "that's right, mother. it's high time i was doing something for myself. beside, after doing a man's work for the last five months i shouldn't like to settle down to lessons again." "well, we must think about it, ralph, you know i consented greatly against my will to your choosing the army for your profession, and i am not going to draw back from that. you are just sixteen now, and although that is rather young i believe that a good many lads do get their commissions somewhere about that age. in one of his letters mr. penfold said that as soon as you came back he would take the matter in hand, and though i have good interest in other quarters and could probably manage it, mr. penfold has a great deal more than i have, and as he has expressed his willingness to arrange it i shall be grateful to him for doing so." "that will be first rate, mother," ralph said in delight. "i thought in another year i might get my commission; but of course it would be ever so much better to get it a year earlier." for the next few days ralph was a hero among his boy friends, and had to tell his story so often that at last he told his mother that if it wasn't for leaving her so soon he should be quite ready to go off again for another visit to mr. penfold. "you won't be called upon to do that," she said smiling; "for this letter that i have just opened is from him, and he tells me he is coming here at once to see you, for he thinks it would be too hard to ask me to spare you again so soon." "you don't mean to say that he is coming all that way?" ralph said in surprise. "well, i am very glad." "he asks me in his letter," mrs. conway said with a passing smile of amusement, "if i can take in a young friend of his, miss mabel withers. he says she has never been from home before, and that it would be a treat for her to get away and see a little of the world. he is going to stop a few days in london, and show her the sights on his way back." "that will be very jolly, mother. you know i told you what a nice sort of girl she was, and how well we got on together. i don't know how i should have got through my visit there if it hadn't been for her. her father and mother were very kind too, and i was often over at their house." mr. penfold had not succeeded in inducing mr. and mrs. withers to allow mabel to accompany him without much argument. "you know what i have set my mind on, mrs. withers," he said. "but of course such an idea doesn't enter the young people's heads, it would be very undesirable that it should do. but now ralph has returned he will be wanting to get his commission at once, and then he may be away on foreign service for years, and i do think it would be a good thing for the young people to see as much of each other as possible before he goes. if anything happens to me before he comes back, and you know how probable it is that this will be the case, they would meet almost as strangers, and i do want to see my pet scheme at least on the way to be carried out before i go. it would be a treat for mabel, and i am sure that mrs. conway will look after her well." "how long are you thinking of stopping there, mr. penfold?" "oh, ten days or a fortnight. i shall be a day or two in town as i go through, for i want to arrange about ralph's commission. then, perhaps, i shall persuade mrs. conway to come up with ralph to town with us, and to go about with the young people to see the sights. now, if you and mrs. withers would join us there, that would complete my happiness." the clergyman and his wife both said that this was impossible. but mr. penfold urged his request with so much earnestness, that at last they agreed to come up to town and stay with him at a hotel. and, indeed, when they recovered from the first surprise at the proposal, both of them thought that the trip would be an extremely pleasant one; for in those days it was quite an event in the lives of people residing at a distance from a town to pay a visit to the metropolis. "then everything is arranged delightfully," mr. penfold said. "this will be a holiday indeed for me; and however much you may all enjoy yourselves i shall enjoy myself a great deal more. now, i suppose i may tell mabel of our arrangement?" "but you don't know that mrs. conway will take her in yet. surely you are going to wait to hear from her?" "indeed i am not, mrs. withers. i am as impatient as a schoolboy to be off. and i am perfectly certain that mrs. conway will be very glad to receive her. she knows mabel, for i have given her an idea of my fancy about that matter; and of course she will be glad to learn something of your girl." "but she may not have a spare room," mrs. withers urged feebly. "it is not likely," mr. penfold said decisively; "and if there should be any difficulty on that score it will be very easily managed, as ralph can give up his room to mabel, and come and stay at the hotel with me." mr. withers laughed. "i see that it is of no use raising objections, penfold; you are armed at all points. i scarcely know you, and have certainly never seen you possessed of such a spirit of determination." mr. penfold smiled. "it would have been better for me, perhaps, if i had always been so determined, withers. at any rate i mean to have my own way in this matter. i have not had a real holiday for years." so mr. penfold had his own way, and carried off mabel wild with delight and excitement upon the day after he had received mrs. conway's letter. there was no shade of embarrassment in the meeting between mrs. conway and the man who had once been her lover. it was like two old and dear friends who had long been separated and now come together again. mr. penfold's first words after introducing mabel had reference to ralph. "your boy has grown quite a man, mary, in the last six months. i scarcely recognized the bronzed young fellow who met vis at the coach office as the lad who was down with me in the summer. don't you see the change, mabel?" "yes, he is quite different," the girl said. "why, the first time i saw him he was as shy as shy could be. it was quite hard work getting on with him. now he seems quite a man." "nothing like that yet, mabel," ralph protested. "not a man!" mr. penfold exclaimed. "what! after wandering about as a pirate, capturing ships, and cutting men's throats for anything i know, and taking part in all sorts of atrocities? i think he's entitled to think himself very much a man." ralph laughed. "not as bad as that, mr. penfold. they did take one ship, but i had nothing to do with it; and there were no throats cut. i simply made a voyage out and back as a boy before the mast; and, as far as i have been concerned, the ship might have been a peaceful trader instead of a french privateer." "well, mary, you have not changed much all these years," mr. penfold said turning to mrs. conway, while the two young people began to talk to each other. "i had thought you would be much more changed; but time has treated you much more kindly than it has me. you are thirty-seven, if i remember right, and you don't look thirty. i am forty, and look at the very least ten years older." mrs. conway did not contradict him, for she could not have done so with truth. "you are changed, herbert; a great deal changed," she said sadly, "although i should have know you anywhere. you are so much thinner than when i saw you last; but your eyes have not changed, nor your smile. of course your hair having got gray makes a difference, and--and--" and she stopped. "i am changed altogether, mary. i was a headstrong, impetuous young fellow then. i am a fragile and broken man now. but i am happy to meet you again. very happy in the thought that i can benefit your son. i have an interest in life now that i wanted before; and in spite of my being anxious about ralph while he was away, have been happier for the last six months than i have been for seventeen years past." mrs. conway turned away to conceal the tears that stood in her eyes, and a moment later said: "i am a most forgetful hostess, mabel. i have not even asked you to take off your things. please come along and let me show you your room. supper will be ready in a minute or two, and here are we stopping and forgetting that you and mr. penfold must be almost famished." as soon as they had sat down to supper, mr. penfold said, "by the way, ralph, i have a piece of news for you. we stopped a couple of days, you know, in town, and i saw my friend at the horse guards, and had a chat about you. he seemed to think that you would be better if you were a few months older; but as he acknowledged that many commissions had been given to lads under sixteen, and as you had just arrived at that age, and as i told him you have had no end of experience with pirates and buccaneers, and all that sort of thing, he was silenced, and your commission will appear in the next _gazette_." "oh, mr. penfold!" ralph exclaimed as he leaped from his seat in delight. "i am obliged to you. that is glorious. i hardly even hoped i could get a commission for some months to come. don't look sad, mother," he said, running round and kissing her. "i shan't be going out of england yet, you know; and now the war is over you need have no fear of my getting killed, and a few months sooner or later cannot make much difference." "i shall bear it in time, ralph," his mother said, trying to smile through her tears. "but it comes as a shock just at first." the sight of his mother's tears sobered ralph for a time, and during supper the conversation was chiefly supported by mr. penfold, who joked ralph about his coming back in a few years a general without arms or legs; and was, indeed, so cheerful and lively that mabel could scarcely believe her ears, so wholly unlike was he to the quiet friend she had known as long as she could remember. the next fortnight was a delightful one to mabel, and indeed to all the party. every day they went driving-excursions through the country round. ramsgate and deal and folkestone were visited, and they drove over to canterbury and spent a night there visiting the grand cathedral and the old walls. the weather was too cold for the water, for christmas was close at hand; but everything that could be done was done to make the time pass happily. mrs. conway exerted herself to lay aside her regrets at ralph's approaching departure, and to enter into the happiness which mr. penfold so evidently felt. the day before their departure for town an official letter arrived for ralph, announcing that he was gazetted into his majesty's th regiment of foot, and that he was in one month's date from that of his appointment to join his regiment at cork. "now, miss mabel," mr. penfold said gayly, after the first talk over the commission was concluded, "you will have for the future to treat mr. ralph conway with the respect due to an officer in his majesty's service." "i don't see any change in him at present," the girl said, examining ralph gravely. the boy burst into a laugh. "wait till you see him in uniform, mabel," mr. penfold went on. "i am afraid that respect is one of the moral qualities in which you are deficient. still i think that when you see ralph in his uniform, you will be struck with awe." "i don't think so," mabel said, shaking her head. "i don't think he will frighten me, and i feel almost sure that he won't frighten the frenchmen." "my dear child," mr. penfold said gravely, "you don't know what ralph is going to turn out yet. when you see him come back from the wars seven or eight inches taller than he is now, with great whiskers, and perhaps three or four ornamental scars on his face, you will be quite shocked when you reflect that you once treated this warrior as a playfellow." upon the following day the party went up to london, and were joined next morning by mr. and mrs. withers. mabel declared that she did not think any people ever could have enjoyed themselves so much as they all did. they went to exeter 'change to see the animals and to the theater at drury lane, to the tower and ranelagh gardens, to westminster abbey and st. paul's, and they went down by coach to hampton court and to greenwich, and they saw his majesty the king review the guards in hyde park. altogether it was a glorious fortnight. mr. penfold was the life and soul of the party, and had he had his way they would have seen far more than they did. but mr. and mrs. withers and mrs. conway all said that they wanted to enjoy themselves and not to be worn out, and several times they stayed at home when mr. penfold and the two young people went to see sights, or to wander about the streets and look at the shops, which was as great a treat as any thing. mr. penfold went with ralph to a military tailor and ordered his outfit, and to other shops, where he purchased such a stock of other garments that mrs. conway declared ralph would require nothing for years. on the last day of the fortnight the uniforms and trunks and clothes all arrived at the hotel, and of course ralph had to dress up and buckle on his sword for the first time. mrs. conway shed a few tears, and would have shed more had not mr. penfold made every one laugh so; and mabel was seized with a fit of shyness for the first time in her life when mr. penfold insisted that the ladies should all kiss the young officer in honor of the occasion. and the next morning the whole party went down to the wharf below london bridge to see ralph on board the packet for cork. before leaving the hotel mr. penfold slipped an envelope with ten crisp five pound notes in it into ralph's hand. "i have paid in, my boy, two hundred pounds to the regimental agents, and in future shall make you an allowance of the same amount every year. you will see what other officers spend. my advice to you is: do not spend more than others, and do not spend less. money will keep very well, you know, and a little reserve may always come in useful. when you once go on foreign service you will not find much occasion for money. i want you just to hold your own with others. i consider that it is quite as unfortunate for a young man to spend more than those around him as it is for him to be unable to spend as much. no, i don't want any thanks at all. i told your mother i should look after you, and i am going to, and it has given a vast pleasure to me to have such an interest. write to me occasionally, my boy; your letters will give me great pleasure. and should you get into any scrape, tell me frankly all about it." the evening before mrs. conway had had a long talk with ralph. "i do not think i need to give you much advice, my boy. you have already been out in the world on your own account, and have shown that you can make your way. you are going into a life, ralph, that has many temptations. do not give way to them, my boy. above all, set your face against what is the curse of our times: over-indulgence in wine. it is the ruin of thousands. do not think it is manly to be vicious because you see others are. always live, if you can, so that if you kept a true diary you could hand it to me to read without a blush on your cheek; and always bear in mind, that though i shall not be there to see you, a higher and purer eye will be upon you. you will try; won't you, ralph?" "i will indeed, mother." mr. penfold did his best to keep up the spirits of all of the party when they parted on board the packet; but mrs. conway quite broke down at last. mabel cried unrestrainedly, and his own eyes had a suspicious moisture in them as he shook hands with ralph. fortunately they had arrived a little late at the wharf, and the partings were consequently cut short. the bell rang, and all the visitors were hurried ashore; then the hawsers were thrown off and the sails hoisted. as long as the party remained in sight ralph stood on the stern waving his handkerchief to them; then, having removed the traces of tears from his cheeks, he turned to look at what was going on around him. the packet was a brig of about two hundred tons, and she carried about twenty passengers, of whom fully half ralph judged by their appearance to be military men. before they had reached the mouth of the river he found that one among them captain o'connor, belonged to his own regiment, as did another young fellow about his own age named stapleton, who had been gazetted on the same day as himself. captain o'connor, who was a cheery irishman, full of life and spirits, at once took ralph in hand, and was not long in drawing from him the story of his adventures with the privateers. "you will do, my lad. i can see you have got the roughness rubbed off you already, and will get on capitally with the regiment. i can't say as much for that young fellow stapleton. he seems to be completely puffed up with the sense of his own importance, and to be an unlicked sort of cub altogether. however, i have known more unlikely subjects than he is turn out decent fellows after a course of instruction from the boys; but he will have rather a rough time of it at first i expect. you will be doing him a kindness if you take an opportunity to tell him that a newly-joined ensign is not regarded in the same light as a commander-in-chief. it is like a new boy going to school, you know. if fellows find out he is a decent sort of boy, they soon let him alone; but if he is an ass, especially a conceited ass, he has rather a rough time of it. as you are in the same cabin with him, and have had the advantage of having knocked about the world a bit, you might gently hint this to him." "i have been chatting with him a bit," ralph said. "he has never been to school, but has been brought up at home, and i think from what he said he is the heir to an estate. he seemed rather to look down upon schools." "so much the worse for him," captain o'connor said. "there is nothing like a school for bringing a fellow to his level, unless it is a regiment; and the earlier in life the process takes place the less painful it is." "i don't think he will turn out a bad sort of fellow," ralph said. "he is, as you say, rather an ass at present. i will do what i can to give him a hint; but as i should say he is at least a year older than i am, i do not suppose it will be of much use." the voyage was a pleasant one, and ralph was quite sorry when they entered the cove of cork and dropped anchor. the next morning the ship sailed up the river, and the following day the party disembarked. captain o'connor's servant came on board as soon as the vessel reached the quay, and his master charged him to pick out his luggage and that of the two young officers; he then at once proceeded with them to the barracks. ralph felt extremely pleased that captain o'connor was with them, as he felt none of the shyness and unpleasantness he would otherwise have experienced in joining a set of entire strangers. captain o'connor was evidently a favorite in the regiment, for his arrival was heartily greeted. he at once introduced the two lads to their future comrades, took them to the colonel, looked after their quarters, and made them at home. in their absence he spoke warmly in favor of ralph. "you will find conway a first-rate young fellow. he has seen something of the world, has been carried out to the west indies by a french privateersman, and has gone through a lot of adventures. he is a bright, pleasant, good-tempered fellow. the other is as green as grass, and has never been away from his mother's apron-string. however, i do not think you will find him a bad sort of fellow when he has got rid of his rawness. don't be too hard upon him, you boys. remember easy does it, and don't be pushing your jokes too far. he is not a fool and will come round in time." chapter viii. startling news. three weeks after ralph's departure to join his regiment mrs. conway received a letter which gave her a great shook. it was from mrs. withers, and was as follows: "my dear mrs. conway: i have very sad news to tell you. an event has happened which will, i know, be as afflicting to you as it has been to us. our dear friend mr. penfold, who but three weeks ago was so bright and happy with us in london, has passed away suddenly. up to the day before yesterday he seemed in his usual health; but yesterday morning he did not appear at breakfast, and the servant on going up to his room, found him sitting in a chair by his bedside dead. the bed had not been slept in, and it appears as if before commencing to undress he had been seized with a sudden faintness and had sunk into the chair and died without being able to summon assistance. "his death is a terrible shock to us, as it will be to you. my husband and myself have long been aware that our dear friend suffered from disease of the heart, and that the doctor he consulted in london had told him that his death might take place at any moment. at the same time, he had been so bright and cheerful in london, as indeed with us he was at all times, that his death comes almost with as great a surprise to us as if we had not known that he was in danger. mr. tallboys, the solicitor of weymouth who managed mr. penfold's affairs, called here last night. the funeral is to take place on thursday, and had ralph been in england he said that he should have written to him to come down to it, which he could have done in time had he started immediately he received the letter announcing the event; but as he is over in ireland, of course nothing can be done. "he said that had ralph come he should have suggested that you also should be present at the reading of the will, but that as matters stand he did not think there was any occasion to trouble you. i should tell you that mr. tallboys appeared a good deal worried, and one of his reasons for calling was to ask my husband whether he knew where mr. penfold was in the habit of keeping his papers. it seems that upon the day after his return from london mr. penfold called upon him and took away his will, saying that he wanted to look over it, as he had two or three slight alterations that he wanted to make, and he would bring it back in the course of a day or two and get him to make the changes required. from that time mr. penfold had not been in weymouth, and, indeed, had scarcely left the house except to come down here; for, as he said to my husband, he did not feel quite himself, and supposed it was a reaction after his late dissipations. "mr. tallboys, who is one of the executors named in the will, had searched for it in the afternoon among mr. penfold's papers; but found that it and several other documents--leases and so on--of importance were all missing. he had asked miss penfold if she knew where her brother was in the habit of keeping important papers; but she replied shortly that she knew nothing whatever of her brother's business matters. he had, therefore, driven over to ask my husband, knowing how intimate he had been with poor herbert. he knew, it seems, that mr. penfold had some secure place for such papers, because he had one day spoken to him upon the subject, saying it would be more prudent for him to leave the leases in the strong-box in his office at weymouth. but herbert replied that they were stowed away in a far safer place, and that he had not the least fear in the world of their being stolen. "now, this is just what my husband knew also. once when they were chatting together herbert mentioned that the house like many other old mansions contained a secret chamber. he said: 'i can't tell you where it is, withers; for although it is never likely to be used again, the knowledge of this hiding-place has been passed down from generation to generation as a family secret. i gave a solemn promise never to reveal it when i was first informed of its existence; and although in these days there is no occasion to hide priests or conspirators, i do not consider myself released from the promise i gave. possibly some day the hiding-place may prove of value again. there may be a price set on the head of a penfold, who can tell? anyhow it is likely to remain a secret as long as the old house stands; and in the meantime i find it a useful place for keeping things that i do not want lying about.' mr. tallboys appeared very vexed at hearing what my husband said. "'it is very strange.' he said, 'that sensible men will do such foolish things. it is probable enough that herbert penfold has placed this will in the hiding-place you speak of, and in that case i foresee that we shall have no end of trouble. i know you are both aware of the nature of mr. penfold's will, and you may be sure that if those sisters of his also know of it--whether they do or not i can't say--they will bitterly resent it. i know enough of the family history to know that. it was evident by miss penfold's answer to me to-day that either she does not know the secret of this hiding-place--which is of course possible--or that if she does know she does not mean to say. i should imagine myself that she does know. "'had herbert penfold been of age when his father died it is likely enough that he only as head of the family would have been told by his father of its existence; but you see he was but a lad at that time, while the miss penfolds were women, and were therefore probably informed of the secret. it is very awkward, extremely awkward. of course the will may turn up between this and the funeral; but if not i hardly know what steps had best be taken. if those penfold women have made up their minds that this will shall not see the light they are likely to carry it through to the end. my husband quite agreed with mr. tallboys about that, and so do i. i have never been able to abide them, though, as my husband says, they are good women in many respects, and always ready to help in parish matters. still i can't abide them, nor i am sure have you any reason to do so; for when i and my husband first came here we learned a good deal of the part they had played in a certain matter, and that of course set me altogether against them. "of course, my dear mrs. conway, i do not wish to alarm you about the will; still you ought to know how things stand, and my husband this morning asked me to tell you all there was to tell. i hope in a few days to be able to write and give you better news. things may not be as they fear." mrs. conway sat for a long time with this letter before her. she had not read it straight through, but after glancing at the first few lines that told of the death of herbert penfold she had laid it aside, and it was a long time before she took it up again. he had been the love of her youth; and although he had seemingly gone for so many years out of her life, she knew that when she had found how he had all this time watched over her and so delicately aided her, and that for her sake he was going to make ralph his heir, her old feeling had been revived. not that she had any thought that the past would ever return. his letters indeed had shown that he regarded his life as approaching its end; but since the receipt of that letter she had always thought of him with a tender affection as one who might have been her husband had not either evil fate or malice stepped in to prevent it. the fortnight they had spent in london had brought them very close together. he had assumed the footing of a brother, but she had felt that pleasant and kind as he was to all the rest of the party it was for her sake alone that this festivity had been arranged. they had had but one talk together alone, and she had then said that she hoped the expressions he had used in his letter to her with reference to his health were not altogether justified, for he seemed so bright and well. he had shaken his head quietly and said: "it is just as well that you should know, mary. i have seen my physician since i came up to town, and i don't think it will last much longer. a little time ago i did not wish it to last, now i should be glad to go on until i can see my little scheme realized; but i am quite sure that it is not to be. anyhow i am ready to go when i am summoned, and am happy in the thought that the few people i care for are all in a fair way to be happy. don't cry, dear. i don't want a single cloud to hang over our memories of this time. i am happier than i have ever been in my life, and i want you and all of them to be very happy too. i have set my mind upon that, and if i see a cloud on your face it will spoil it all." still in spite of this she had hoped the doctor might have taken too gloomy a view of the case, and that herbert penfold's death might yet be a distant event. and now it was all over. herbert penfold was dead. the heart that had beat so kindly for her was silenced forever. it was then a long time before mrs. conway recovered sufficiently from her emotion to take up the letter again. she did so with an air almost of indifference. she had learned the news, and doubtless all this long epistle contained many details of comparatively little interest. but as she read her air of languid grief gave way to an expression of keen interest, and she skimmed through the last page or two with anxious haste. then she reread it more slowly and carefully, and then throwing it on the table stood up and walked up and down the little room. so these women, who had as she believed ruined her life and herbert's, were now going to attack her son and rob him of his rights. they should not do it if she could help it. never! mary vernon had been a high-spirited girl, and, although those who had only known her through her widowhood would have taken her for a gentle and quiet woman, whose thoughts were entirely wrapped up in her boy, the old spirit was alive yet, as with head thrown back, and an angry flush on her cheeks, she declared to herself that she would defend ralph's rights to the last. how or in what manner she did not ask; she only knew that those who would defraud him were her old enemies. had it been otherwise the fact that they were herbert's sisters would have softened her toward them; now that fact only added to the hostility she bore them. they, his nearest relations of blood, had ruined his life; now they would defeat his dying wishes. it should not be if she could help it. she would fight against it to the last day of her life. there was of course nothing to be done yet. nothing until she heard again. nothing until she knew that the discovery of the will was given up as hopeless. then it would be time for her to do something. the thought barely occurred to her that the loss of this will might make material difference in her own circumstances, and that the allowance herbert penfold had made her, and which he had doubtless intended she should continue to receive, would cease. that was so secondary a consideration that it at present gave her no trouble. it was of ralph she thought. of ralph and herbert. were the plans that the latter had made--the plans that had given happiness to the last year of the life of him who had known so little happiness--to be shattered? this to her mind was even more than the loss that ralph would suffer. "they may have destroyed the will," she said at last; "but if not i will find it, if it takes me all my life to do so." a week later two letters arrived. the one was from mrs. withers. the will had not been found. mr. tallboys had searched in vain. every cabinet and drawer in the house had been ransacked. no signs whatever had been found of the will. "mr. tallboys is perfectly convinced that it must be hidden in some altogether exceptional place. the will was not a bulky document, and might have been stowed away in a comparatively small hiding-place, such as a secret drawer in a cabinet; but the leases that are also missing are bulky, and would take up so large a space that he is convinced that had a secret hiding-place sufficiently large to hold them existed in any of the articles of furniture he has searched he should have discovered it. "of course, my dear mrs. conway, we feel this matter personally, as our mabel was as you know made joint-heiress with your ralph of herbert's property. we cannot but feel, however, that the loss is greater in your case than in ours. mabel was never informed of herbert's intentions toward her, and although we should of course have been glad to know that our child had such brilliant prospects, the loss of them will not we may hope in any way affect her happiness. in the case of your son it is different, and his prospects in life will of course be seriously affected by the loss, and my husband begs me to express to you his very deep regret at this. "we have talked over your letter together, and while fully sharing your indignation at the conduct of the misses penfold, hardly see that anything can be done to discover the will. however, should you be able to point out any manner in which a search for it can be carried on, we shall be happy to do what we can to aid in the matter, as it is clearly our duty to endeavor to obtain for mabel the fortune herbert penfold willed to her. mr. tallboys tells us that it is clear the misses penfold have quite determined upon their line of conduct. whatever they may know they have declined altogether to aid him in his search for the will, miss penfold saying, in reply to his request that they would do so, that they had every reason to believe from what their brother had let fall that the will was an unjust and iniquitous one; that if providence intended it should see the light it would see it; but they at least would do nothing in the matter. "he asked them plainly if they were aware of the existence of any place in which it was likely that their brother had placed it. to this miss penfold, who is, as she has always been, the spokesman of the two sisters, said shortly, that she had never seen the will, that she didn't want to see it, and that she did not know where her brother had placed it; indeed, for aught she knew, he might have torn it up. as to hiding-places, she knew of no hiding-place whose existence she could, in accordance with the dictates of her conscience divulge. so that is where we are at present, mrs. conway. i believe that mr. tallboys is going to try and get a copy of the will that he has in his possession admitted under the circumstances as proof of herbert penfold's intentions. but he owned to us that he thought it was very doubtful whether he should be able to do so, especially as herbert had stated to him that he intended to make alterations; and it would be quite possible that a court might take the view that in the first place the alterations might have been so extensive as to affect the whole purport of the will, and in the second place that he might have come to the conclusion that it would be easier to make the whole will afresh, and so had destroyed the one he had by him." mrs. conway laid down the letter, and after thinking for a time opened the other, which was in a handwriting unknown to her. it began: "dear madam: mrs. withers tells me that she has informed you of the singular disappearance of the will of my late client, mr. herbert penfold. i beg to inform you that we shall not let this matter rest, but shall apply to the court to allow the copy of the will to be put in for probate; if that is refused, for authorization to make a closer search of the hall than we have hitherto been able to do, supporting our demand with affidavits made by the rev. mr. withers and ourselves of our knowledge that, the late mr. penfold was accustomed to keep documents in some secret receptacle. in the second place, we are glad to inform you that the annual sum paid by us into the kentish bank to your credit will not be affected by the loss of the will; for at the time when that payment first commenced, mr. penfold signed a deed making this payment a first charge on the rents of two of his farms during your lifetime. this assignment was of a binding character, and of course continues to hold good. we shall consider it our duty to acquaint you from time to time with the course of proceedings in the matter of the late mr. penfold's will." little as mrs. conway had thought of herself from the time when she first heard that the will was missing, the news that her income would remain unchanged delighted her. she had formed no plans for herself, but had vaguely contemplated the necessity of giving up her house as soon as it was decided that the will could not be found, selling her furniture, and for the present taking a small lodging. she was glad that there would be no occasion for this; but very much more glad that she should be able now to make ralph an allowance of seventy or eighty pounds a year, which would make all the difference between his living comfortably and being obliged to pinch himself in every way to subsist upon his pay. it would also enable her to carry out without difficulty any plans she might determine upon. upon the receipt of the letter announcing mr. penfold's death, she had written to ralph telling him of it, but saying nothing about mr. tallboys' visit to the withers, or his report that he was unable to find the will. she now wrote to him relating the whole circumstances. he had not previously known mr. penfold's intention to make him his heir, being only told that he intended to push his way in life, and had considered that the promise was carried out by his obtaining him a commission and arranging some allowance. his mother was glad of this now. "of course the loss of mr. penfold's will, my boy, will make a difference to you, as there can be no doubt that he had made some provisions in it for the regular payment of the allowance he had so kindly promised you. this, unless the will is found, you will of course lose. having been a soldier's daughter, i know that to live comfortably in the army it is necessary to have something beyond your pay; but fortunately i can assist you a little. i have now one less to feed and clothe, and no schooling expenses; and i have been calculating things up, and find that i can allow you seventy-five pounds a year without making any difference in the manner of my living. you will be able to see that for yourself. you need, therefore, feel no hesitation in accepting this allowance. "it is not a large one; but i know it will make a very great difference in your comfort, and it will be a great pleasure to me to know that you will be able to enter into what amusements are going on and not to look at every penny. it makes all the difference in the world whether one has four and sixpence or nine shillings a day to live upon. you wrote and told me of the handsome present mr. penfold made you at parting. this, my boy, i should keep if i were you as a reserve, only to be touched in case of unexpected difficulties or needs. no one can ever say when such needs may occur. i hope you will not pain me by writing to say you don't want this allowance, because nothing you can say will alter my determination to pay that allowance regularly every quarter into your agent's hands; and it will be, of course, very much more pleasant to me to know that it is as much a pleasure to you to be helped by me as it is to me to help you. i have heard several times from mrs. withers; they are all well, and she asked me to send their remembrances to you when i write. i do not give up all hope that the will may be found one of these days, but it is just as well that we should not build in the slightest upon it." ralph's reply came in due time, that is in about a fortnight afterward; for mrs. conway's letter had first to go by coach to london, and then a two days' journey by the mail to liverpool, then by the sailing packet across to dublin, and then down to cork by coach. he had already written expressing his regret at the news of mr. penfold's death. "my dear mother," he began. "it is awfully good of you to talk about making an allowance to me. after what you say, of course i cannot think of refusing it, though i would do so if i thought the payment would in the slightest way inconvenience you. but as you say that now i am away it will make something like that sum difference in your expenses, i must of course let you do as you like, and can only thank you very heartily for it. but i could really have got on very well without it. i fancy that a good many men in the regiment have nothing but their pay, and as they manage very well there is no reason i could not manage too. "of course in war times things are not kept up so expensively as they were before, and lots of men get commissions who would not have done so when the army was only half its present size, and was considered as a gentlemanly profession instead of a real fighting machine. however, as you say, it is a great deal more pleasant having nine shilling a day to live on instead of four and sixpence. "i am getting on capitally here. of course there is a lot of drill, and it is as much as i can do not to laugh sometimes, the sergeant, who is a fierce little man, gets into such wild rages over our blunders. "i say our blunders, for of course stapleton and i are drilled with the recruits. however, i think that in another week i shall be over that, and shall then begin to learn my work as an officer. they are a jolly set of fellows here, always up to some fun or other. i always thought when fellows got to be men they were rather serious, but it seems to me that there is ever so much more fun here among them than there was at school. of course newcomers get worried a little just as they do at school. i got off very well; because, you see, what with school and the privateer i have learned to take things good temperedly, and when fellows see that you are as ready for fun as they are they soon give up bothering you. "stapleton has had a lot more trouble; because, you see, he will look at things seriously. i think he is getting a little better now; but he used to get quite mad at first, and of course that made fellows ever so much worse. he would find his door screwed up when he went back after mess; and as soon as they found that he was awfully particular about his boots, they filled them all full of water one night. then some one got a ladder and threw a lot of crackers into his bedroom in the middle of the night, and stapleton came rushing down in his night-shirt with his sword drawn, swearing he would kill somebody. "of course i have done all i can to get them to leave him alone, for he is really a good fellow, and explained to them that he had never been to school, or had a chance of learning to keep his temper. but he is getting on now, and will, i think, soon be left alone. this has been an awfully long letter, and there is only just enough candle left for me to get into bed by. anyhow mother, i am not a bit upset about losing mr. penfold's allowance; so don't you worry yourself at all about that." some weeks passed on. mr. tallboys wrote that he had failed to induce the court to accept the copy of the will, the admission he was forced to make that mr. penfold had intended to make an alteration in it being fatal. he had, however, obtained an order authorizing him thoroughly to search the house, and to take down any wainscotting, and to pull up any floors that might appear likely to conceal a hiding-place. a fortnight later he wrote again to announce his failure. "the miss penfolds," he said, "were so indignant that they left the house altogether, and you may believe that we ransacked it from top to bottom. i had four carpenters and two masons with me, and i think we tapped every square foot of wall in the house, took down the wainscotting wherever there was the slightest hollow sound, lifted lots of the flooring, and even wrenched up several of the hearthstones, but could find nothing whatever, except that there was a staircase leading from behind the wainscotting in mr. penfold's room to a door covered with ivy, and concealed from view by bushes to the left of the house; but the ivy had evidently been undisturbed for fifty years or so, this passage, even if known to mr. penfold, had certainly not been used in his time. "i truly regret, my dear madam, that the search should have been so unsuccessful, and can only say, that all that could be done has been done. that the will is concealed somewhere i have not a shadow of doubt, unless, of course, it has been torn up before this. as to that i give no opinion; and, indeed, as it is a matter in which women are concerned, your judgment as to the probabilities is much more likely to be correct than mine. as i expected, my business connection with the family has come to an end. the miss penfolds have appointed another agent, who has written to me requesting me to hand over all papers connected with the property. this, of course, i shall do. i need hardly say that in no case could i have consented to act for those whom i consider to be unlawful possessors of the property. in conclusion, i can only say that my services will at all times be at your disposal." mrs. conway was scarcely disappointed at the receipt of this letter, for she had quite made up her mind that the will would not be found. these women had clearly made up their minds to deprive ralph and mabel of their rights, and unless they had felt perfectly satisfied that no search would discover the hiding-place of the will, they would not improbably have taken it, and either destroyed it or concealed it in some fresh place where the searchers would never be likely to look for it. she did not think it likely, therefore, that the hiding-place would be discovered, and she felt assured that were it discovered it would be found empty. "very well," she said, in a quiet, determined voice, as she laid down the letter. "mr. tallboys has failed. now, i shall take up the matter. i dare say you think that you have won, miss penfold; that you are now mistress beyond dispute of herbert's property. you will see the battle has only just begun. it will last, i can tell you, all your lives or mine." a week later an altogether unexpected event took place. when mr. and mrs. withers were at breakfast a letter arrived from mr. littleton, now solicitor to the miss penfolds. upon opening it it was found to contain an offer upon the part of the miss penfolds to settle the sum of a hundred a year for life upon mabel, upon the condition only that the allowance would be stopped upon her marriage, unless that marriage received the approval, in writing, of the miss penfolds. the letter was addressed to mr. withers, and after reading it through he passed it to his wife without a word. she was too surprised to say anything for a moment, especially as mabel was in the room, and she laid the letter beside her until breakfast was over and mabel had gone out. "well, james, what do you think of it?" she asked. "what do you think of it yourself?" he replied. mrs. withers hesitated, and then said: "well, james, it is a sort of thing that requires so much thinking about that i have scarcely had time to turn it over in my mind yet, especially with mabel there eating her breakfast opposite, and having no idea that this letter contained anything of such importance to her. i would really rather hear what you think about it." mr. withers remained silent, and she went on: "of course it would be a very nice thing for mabel to have such a provision for life." a slight smile passed across mr. withers' face, and his wife saw that that was not at all the way in which he looked at it. "that is just like you men, james," she said a little pettishly. "you ask us what we think about things when you have perfectly made up your minds what you mean to do, whether we agree with you or not." "i don't think that's often the case with us. still i did want to see whether the matter would have struck you at once in the same light in which i see it, and i perceive that it has not." "well, james, let me hear your view of the matter. i dare say i shall agree with you when you tell me what it is." "well, then, amy," mr. withers said seriously, "it appears to me that we cannot accept this offer for mabel." mrs. withers looked a little blank. the living was not a rich one, and assured as they had been by mr. penfold that he intended to provide for mabel, they had not endeavored to lay by anything for her, and had freely dispensed their surplus income among the sick and needy of the parish. the disappearance of the will had disappointed their hopes, and raised many anxious thoughts in mrs. withers' mind respecting mabel's future, and the offer contained in the letter had therefore filled her with pleasure. but she greatly valued her husband's judgment, and therefore only replied: "why, dear?" "well, you see, wife, we are both thoroughly agreed that these ladies are depriving mabel of the fortune herbert penfold left her. they are concealing or have destroyed his will, and are at present in what we may call fraudulent possession of his property. now, i do not think that under these circumstances we can accept a favor at their hands. to do so would be practically to acquiesce in what we consider the robbery of our child, and the acceptance would of course involve a renewal of friendly relations with them; a thing which, believing as we do that they are acting wickedly would be distasteful in the extreme, not to say impossible." "of course you are right, dear," mrs. withers said, rising from her seat and going over and kissing her husband tenderly. "i had not thought of it in that light at all. in fact i had hardly thought about it at all, except that it would be nice to see mabel provided for." "it would be nice, my dear. but we surely need not be anxious about her. we may hope that she will make a happy marriage. we may hope too that we may be spared long enough to make some provision for her, for, of course, we must now curtail our expenses and lay by as much as we can for her. lastly, dear, we need not be anxious; because we trust that god will provide for her should we not be enabled to do so. but even were i sure that we should both be taken together, i would rather leave her in his hands than accept money wrongfully obtained and condone an abominable action. there is, too, another point from which the matter should be looked at. you see this curious condition that they propose, that the annuity shall be forfeited unless she marry with their sanction. why should they propose such a condition?" "i am sure i don't know, james; for of course, we should never give our sanction to her marriage unless we approved of her choice, and surely the miss penfolds would not disapprove of a choice that we approved of?" "well, they might, my dear. you know how bitterly they disliked ralph conway, and how they resented his being at the hall. it is quite possible they may have had some idea of herbert's views about him and mabel, and are determined that he shall not benefit through mabel by one penny of their brother's property; and this clause is specially designed so that in case the two young people ever should come together they may be able if not to stop it--at any rate to stop the annuity. that is the only interpretation i can give to this condition." "very likely that is so james. really these women seem to get more detestable every day." mr. withers smiled at his wife's vehemence. "there is still another reason why we cannot take the money. ralph conway has been as much defrauded as mabel, and his mother, as you see by her letters, is determined not to sit down quietly under the wrong. what she means to do i have not the slightest idea, nor do i think that there is the most remote probability she will ever succeed in finding the will. tallboys appears to have made a most thorough search of the house, and do what she will she cannot have any opportunity of searching as he has done. still she clearly has something on her mind. she intends to make some attempt or other to discover the will, which, if found, will benefit mabel equally with her son. therefore we cannot but regard her as our friend and ally. now, were we to accept the money for mabel we should in fact be acquiescing, not only in the wrong done to her but in that done to ralph. we should, in fact, be going over to the enemy. we could not take their money and even tacitly connive in her efforts to find the will." "i agree with you entirely, james. it would be impossible; only i do wish you had said all this before letting me be so foolish as to say that i thought we ought to take it." "you didn't say so, dear," mr. withers said smiling. "you only gave expression to the first natural thought of a mother that it would be a nice thing for mabel. you had given the matter no further consideration than that, and i was quite sure that as soon as you thought the matter over you would see it in the same light that i do. but i think that before we send off our reply we should put the matter before mabel herself. i have no doubt whatever what her answer will be, but at the same time she ought to know of the offer which has been made to her." chapter ix. mr. tallboys' visitor. mr. withers was fully justified in his conviction that there need be no doubt as to the view mabel would take of the miss penfold's offer. the girl had hitherto been in entire ignorance both as to the will being missing, and of the interest she had in it. she was now called in from the garden, and was much surprised when her father told her to sit down, as he and her mother wished to have a serious talk with her. "do you know, my little mabel," he began, "that you have had a narrow escape of being an heiress?" "an heiress, papa! do you mean of having a lot of money?" "yes, of coming in some day to a fortune. mr. penfold some time ago confided to your mother and me his intention of dividing his property equally between ralph conway and yourself." "what! all the penfold estates, papa, and the house and everything?" "yes, my dear. everything, including the large sum of money that has accumulated during the years mr. penfold has not been spending a third of his income." "then if he meant that, papa, how is it that i am not going to be an heiress?" "simply, my dear, because the will by which mr. penfold left the property to you and ralph is missing." mr. withers then told the whole story of the loss of the will, the search that had been made for it, and the strong grounds there were for believing in the existence of some secret place in the hall, and that this place of concealment was known to mr. penfold's sisters. "but they surely could never be so wicked as that, papa. they have always seemed to like me--not very much, you know, because they thought i wasn't quiet and ladylike enough. still i don't think they really disliked me." "no, i think in their way they liked you, mabel; and perhaps if mr. penfold had half left his property to you, divided the other half between them the will would have been found. but they certainly did not like ralph conway. they disliked him partly no doubt for himself, but principally on account of a wrong which i believe they once did to his mother. now, it is in human nature, mabel, that you may forgive a wrong done to you, but it is very hard to forgive a person you have wronged. anyhow, i am convinced that it was more to prevent mrs. conway's son from getting this money than to get it themselves that they have concealed this will, or rather that they refuse to point out its place of concealment." "but it does seem hard, papa, that mr. penfold should have left everything to ralph and me and nothing to his sisters." "the miss penfolds have a very comfortable income of their own, mabel, and their brother might very well have thought there was no occasion for them to have more; beside, although they lived in his house, and indeed managed it and him, mr. penfold had, i know, strong reason to believe that they had ruined his life. but this is a matter into which we need not go. well, mabel, the miss penfolds have just given a proof that they do not dislike you. now i will read you this letter, because i think you ought to know it has been written, and i will then tell you the reasons why your mother and i think that the offer cannot be accepted." mabel listened in silence until her father had finished the arguments he had used with his wife, with the exception only of that relating to the miss penfolds' motives in putting in the condition concerning mabel's marriage. when he ceased speaking she exclaimed indignantly, "of course, papa, we could not take the money, not if it were ten times as much! why, we could not look mrs. conway and ralph in the face again! beside, how could we speak to people one believes to have done such a wicked thing?" "very well, mabel. i was quite sure that you would agree with us, but at the same time i thought it was right before we refused the offer you should know that it was made. whatever our sentiments on the subject might be, we should not have been justified in refusing without your knowledge an offer that might, from a worldly point of view, be your interest to accept." "why, papa," mabel said, "i would rather go out and weed turnips or watch sheep, like some of the girls in the village, than touch a penny of the miss penfolds' money." a short time after this mr. tallboys' clerk brought a letter into his private office. "a lady asked me to give you this, sir." the solicitor opened it. it contained only a card. "show the lady in. how are you, madam? i am glad to have the pleasure of making your acquaintance. i suppose you are staying with mr. withers?" "no, mr. tallboys, i am at the hotel here. i only arrived an hour since by the packet from dover." "dear me. i am afraid you have had a very unpleasant voyage." "it has not been pleasant," mrs. conway said quietly. "but i preferred it to the long journey by coach up to london, and down here again. we were five days on the way, as the vessel put in at so many ports. still that was quite a minor question with me. i wanted to see you and have a talk with you personally. there is no saying into whose hands letters may fall, and one talk face to face does more good than a score of letters." mr. tallboys looked rather surprised, and the idea flashed across his mind that the only business mrs. conway could want to see him about must be some proposal for raising money upon the security of her annuity. "i presume, mr. tallboys, from what i hear, that you are as thoroughly convinced as i am myself that this will of mr. penfold's is in existence, and is hidden somewhere about the hall?" "yes, i think so, mrs. conway. that is, supposing it has not been destroyed." "do you think it likely that it has been destroyed, mr. tallboys?" "well, that i cannot say," the solicitor said gravely. "i have, of course, thought much over this matter. it is one that naturally vexed me much for several reasons. in the first place, mr. withers and you yourself had been good enough to place the matter in my hands, and to authorize me to act for you, and it is always a sort of vexation to a professional man when his clients lose their cause, especially when he is convinced that they are in the right. in the second place, i am much disturbed that the wishes of my late client, mr. penfold, should not have been carried out. thirdly, i feel now that i myself am somewhat to blame in the matter, in that i did not represent to mr. penfold the imprudence of his placing valuable papers in a place where, should anything happen to him suddenly, they might not be found. of course i could not have anticipated this hostile action on the part of the miss penfolds. still, i blame myself that i did not warn mr. penfold of the possibility of what has in fact happened taking place. lastly," and he smiled, "i have a personal feeling in the matter. i have lost a business that added somewhat considerably to my income." "i don't think any of us have thought of blaming you in the matter, mr. tallboys. i am sure that i have not. you could not possibly have foreseen that mr. penfold's sisters were likely to turn out thieves." "well, that is rather a strong expression, mrs. conway; though natural enough i must admit in your position as mr. ralph conway's mother. you see, there is a difference between concealing and not disclosing. mr. penfold himself concealed the will. the miss penfolds simply refuse to assist us in our search for it." "and as the nearest heirs take possession of the property." "quite so, mrs. conway. i am not defending their conduct, which morally is dishonest in the extreme, but i doubt whether any court of law would find it to be a punishable offense." "well, now, mr. tallboys, i want you to let me know whether you suspect that they have destroyed the will; which, i suppose, would be a punishable offense." "certainly the destruction of the will, in order that those who destroyed might get possession of property, would be criminal. well, i don't know; i have thought it over in every sense, and think the balance of probability is against their having destroyed it. in the first place the miss penfolds doubtless consider that the will is so securely hidden there is little, if any, chance of its being discovered. that this is so we know, from the fact that although i ransacked the house from top to bottom, pulled down wainscoting, lifted floors, and tried every imaginable point which either i or the men who were working with me suspected to be a likely spot for a hiding-place, we did not succeed in finding it. "now, i have noticed that ladies have at times somewhat peculiar ideas as to morality, and are apt to steer very close to the wind. the miss penfolds may consider themselves perfectly justified in declining to give us any assistance in finding the will, soothing their consciences by the reflection that by such refusal they are committing no offense of which the law takes cognizance; but while doing this they might shrink from the absolutely criminal offense of destroying the will. i do not say that now they have entered upon the path they have that they would not destroy the will if they thought there was a chance of its being discovered. i only say that, thinking it to be absolutely safe, they are unlikely to perform an act which, if discovered, would bring them under the power of the law. "they may consider themselves free to believe, or if not actually to believe, to try and convince themselves, that for aught they know their brother may have destroyed the will, and that it is not for them to prove whether he did so or not. upon these grounds, therefore, it seems to me probable that the will is still in existence; but i acknowledge that so far as its utility is concerned it might as well have been destroyed by mr. penfold himself or by his sisters." "well, mr. tallboys, no doubt you are thinking that you might as well have expressed this opinion to me on paper, and that i have troubled myself very unnecessarily in making this journey to have it from your own lips." "well, yes, mrs. conway, i do not deny that this was in my mind." "it would have been useless for me to make the journey had this been all, mr. tallboys. i am very glad to have heard your opinion, which agrees exactly with that which i myself have formed, but it was scarcely with the object of eliciting it that i have made this journey. we will now proceed to that part of the subject. we agree that the will is probably still in existence, and that it is hidden somewhere about the hall. the next question is, how is it to be found?" "ah! that is a very difficult question indeed, mrs. conway." "yes, it is difficult, but not, i think, impossible. you have done your best, mr. tallboys, and have failed. you have no further suggestion to offer, no plan that occurs to you by which you might discover it?" "none whatever," mr. tallboys said decidedly. "i have done all that i could do; and have, in fact, dismissed the question altogether from my mind. i had the authority of the court to search, and i have searched very fully, and have reported my failure to the court. the power to search would certainly not be renewed unless upon some very strong grounds indeed." "i suppose not, mr. tallboys; that is what i expected. well, it seems to me that you having done all in your power for us, your clients, and having now relinquished your search, it is time for us, or some of us, to take the matter in hand."' mr. tallboys looked surprised. "i do not quite understand, mrs. conway, how you can take it in hand." "no? well, i can tell you, mr. tallboys, that i am going to do so. i am not going to sit down quietly and see my son robbed of his inheritance. i have quite made up my mind to devote my life to this matter, and i have come, not to ask your advice--for i dare say you would try to dissuade me, and my resolution is unalterable--but to ask you to give me what aid you can in the matter." "i shall be glad to give you aid in any way, mrs. conway, if you will point out to me the direction in which my assistance can be of use. i suppose you have formed some sort of plan, for i own that i can see no direction whatever in which you can set about the matter." "my intention is, mr. tallboys, to search for this hiding-place myself." mr. tallboys raised his eyebrows in surprise. "to search yourself, mrs. conway! but how do you propose to gain admittance to the hall, and how, even supposing that you gain admittance, do you propose to do more than we have done, or even so much; because any fresh disturbance of the fabric of the house would be out of the question?" "that i quite admit. still we know there is the hiding-place, and it is morally certain that that hiding-place is opened or approached by the touching of some secret spring. it is not by pulling down wainscoting or by pulling up floors, or by force used in any way, that it is to be found. mr. penfold, it would seem, used it habitually as a depository for papers of value. he certainly, therefore, had not to break down or to pull up anything. he opened it as he would open any other cabinet or cupboard, by means of a key or by touching a spring. you agree with me so far, mr. tallboys?" "certainly, mrs. conway. there can be no doubt in my mind that this hiding-place, whether a chamber or a small closet, is opened in the way you speak of." "very well then; all that has to be looked for is a spring. no force is requisite; all that is to be done is to find the spring." "yes, but how is it to be found? i believe we tried every square foot of the building." "i have no doubt you did, but it will be necessary to try every square inch, i will not say of the whole building, but of certain rooms and passages. i think we may assume that it is not in the upper rooms or servants' quarters. such a hiding-place would be contrived where it could be used by the owners of the house without observation from their dependants, and would therefore be either in the drawing-room, dining-room, the principal bed-chambers, or the passages, corridors, or stairs between or adjoining these." "i quite follow you in your reasoning, mrs. conway, and agree with you. doubtless, the place is so situated as to be what i may call handy to the owners of the hall, but i still do not see how you are going to set about finding it." "i am going to set about it by going to live at the hall." "going to live at the hall, mrs. conway! but how is that possible under the circumstances? you are, i should say, the last person whom the miss penfolds would at present invite to take up her residence there." "i agree with you, if they had any idea of my identity; but that is just what i intend they shall not have. my plan is to go there in the capacity of a servant. once there i shall examine, as i say, every square inch of the rooms and places where this hiding-place is likely to exist. every knob, knot, or inequality of any kind in the wood-work and stone-work shall be pressed, pulled, and twisted, until i find it. i am aware that the task may occupy months or even years, for, of course, my opportunities will be limited. still, whether months or years, i intend to undertake it and to carry it through, if my life is spared until i have had time thoroughly and completely to carry it out." mr. tallboys was silent from sheer astonishment. "do you realty mean that you think of going there as a servant, mrs. conway?" "certainly i do," she replied calmly. "i suppose the work will be no harder for me than for other women; and whereas they do it for some ten or twelve pounds a year i shall do it for a fortune. i see not the slightest difficulty or objection in that part of the business. i shall, of course, let my house at dover, making arrangements for my son's letters there being forwarded, and for my letters to him being posted in dover. i shall have the satisfaction that while engaged upon this work my income will be accumulating for his benefit. i own that i can see no difficulty whatever in my plan being carried out. "now, as to the assistance that i wish you to give me. it could, perhaps, have been more readily given by mr. withers, for naturally he would know personally most of the servants of the hall, as the majority of them doubtless belong to the village. but mr. withers, as a clergyman, might have conscientious scruples against taking any part in a scheme which, however righteous its ends, must be conducted by what he would consider underground methods, and involving a certain amount of deceit. at any rate, i think it better that neither he nor mrs. withers should have any complicity whatever in my plans. i therefore come to you. what i want, in the first place, is to find out when a vacancy is likely to be caused by some servant leaving; secondly, if no such vacancy is likely to occur, for a vacancy to be manufactured by inducing some servant to leave--a present of a year's wages would probably accomplish that; thirdly, the vacancy must occur in the case of some servant whose work would naturally lie in the part of the building i have to examine; finally, it must be arranged that i can be so recommended as to insure my getting the place." mr. tallboys was silent for some time. "certainly your plan does appear feasible, mrs. conway," he said at length. "it does seem to me that if once installed in the way you propose at the hall, and prepared to spend, as you say, months or even years in the search, it is possible and even probable that in the end you may light upon the spring that will open this mystery. you must be prepared to face much unpleasantness. you will have for all this time to associate with servants, to do menial work, to relinquish all the luxuries and appliances to which you have all your life been accustomed, and possibly to fail at last. still, if you are prepared to face all this, there does appear to me to be a possibility of your enterprise being crowned with success." "i have thought it all over, mr. tallboys, and am quite prepared to submit to all the sacrifices you mention, which, however, will scarcely be felt by me to be sacrifices, working, as i shall be, for the future of my son. and now, can i rely upon your assistance?" "you shall have any assistance i can give, assuredly, mrs. conway. the matter is by no means a simple one, still i can see no reason why it should not be successfully carried out." "it must take time, that i quite anticipate, mr. tallboys. time, fortunately, is of no consequence." "well, mrs. conway," mr. tallboys said, after sitting for some minutes in thought, "it is a matter that will require careful thinking over. how long do you intend staying here?" "just as long as it is necessary," mrs. conway said, "a day or a month. i have not given my own name at the 'george,' but shall be known there as mrs. brown. as you saw, i sent my card in in an envelope, so that even your clerk should not be aware that mrs. conway was in weymouth." "but," the solicitor said suddenly, "surely the miss penfolds knew you in the old time?" "certainly, they did. but, to begin with, that is nearly twenty years ago; and, of course, i have changed very much since then." "not very much, mrs. conway," the lawyer said; "for i once had the pleasure of seeing you when i went to the hall to see mr. penfold on business. i do not say that i should have known you anywhere, but having had your card i remembered you at once when you came into the room; and, indeed, if you will excuse my saying so, you might pass anywhere as thirty." "so much the better for my purpose at present," mrs. conway replied. "thirty will do very well for the age of a housemaid at the hall. i should imagine the miss penfolds would prefer a woman of that age to a young girl; beside, you see, i must be an upper housemaid in order to have charge of the part of the house i want to examine. as to knowing me, in the first place the miss penfolds will not have the advantage of receiving my card, and, in the second place, it is not very difficult for a woman to alter her appearance so as to be unrecognizable by another who has not seen her for twenty years. my hair is a good deal darker now than it was then, and i wore it altogether differently. a little black dye on that and my eyebrows, a servant's cap and gown, will so alter me that you who see me now would hardly know me; certainly they will not do so. you need not trouble about that, mr. tallboys; i will answer for it that they shall not know me. it is possible, just possible, that mr. and mrs. withers might know me if they saw me in church; but i shall, without letting them know my plans, guard against any indiscretion. now, as we have quite settled the matter, mr. tallboys, i shall go back to the inn, and when you have thought the matter over and decided upon the best plan for carrying out my wishes, you will send a note to mrs. brown at the 'george,' making an appointment for me to meet you here." mr. tallboys sat for some time in thought after mrs. conway had left him. it was certainly a daring scheme, requiring no little courage, resolution, and self-possession to carry out, but his client evidently possessed all these qualities. she had a clear head, and seemed to have grasped every point in the matter. there was really no reason why she should not succeed. there must be a spring somewhere, and if she was as patient as she declared herself to be, she would surely find it sooner or later; that is, if she could carry out her search without exciting suspicion. the first difficulty was to get her settled at the hall. what was the best way to set about that? it certainly was not as easy as she seemed to think, still there must be some way of managing it. at any rate he must act cautiously in the matter, and must not appear in it in any way personally. and so he sat thinking, until at last the clerk, who had been a good deal surprised at receiving no instruction from him as to several matters he had in hand, knocked at the door, and came in with a number of papers, and mr. tallboys was obliged to dismiss the matter from his mind for a time, and to attend to present business. the very next morning mrs. conway received the note, and again went to the office. "do you know, mrs. conway," he began, as soon as his client entered, "the more i think over the matter, the more i feel that it is extremely difficult to manage it from here. i should have to engage some one to go over in the first place. he would have to stay in the village some time before he could make the acquaintance of the servants at the hall. he would have to get very intimate with them before he could venture to broach such a thing for if he made a mistake, and the woman told her mistress that some one had been trying to persuade her to leave in order to introduce another into the place, their suspicions would be so aroused that the scheme would become hopeless." "yes, i see the difficulty, mr. tallboys; for i thought it over in every way before i came to you. beside i don't like the thought of this intermediate. no doubt you would choose a trustworthy man. still i don't like the thought of any one knowing the secret, especially as the plan may take so long working out." "what i have been thinking, mrs. conway is this. no doubt the servants at the hall have taken sides on this matter. of course from our searches there they know that mr. penfold's will is missing, and that it is because it is missing that the miss penfolds are now mistresses there. without knowing anything myself about the feelings of the servants there, beyond what would probably be the case from the difference of character between mr. penfold and his sisters, i should imagine that they were fond of him, for he was the kindest and most easy-going of masters, and not very fond of his sisters, who are, as i have always observed in the course of my professional visits there, the reverse of agreeable. "if this is the case, not improbably there may be one or other of these women with whom you might open direct negotiations. what has struck me is this. the men who were over there with me of course slept and took their meals in the village; still, going about as they did in the house, no doubt they talked with the servants. the miss penfolds were away, and i dare say the women had plenty of time to gossip; and it is probable the men gathered from their talk something of their sentiments toward the miss penfolds and their brother, and which side they would be likely to go with. i might ask the foreman about it." "i think the idea is a capital one, mr. tallboys; but there is one detail i think might be improved. i imagine that if instead of asking the foreman you choose the youngest and best-looking of the men, provided he is unmarried, you are more likely to get at the women's sentiments." mr. tallboys laughed. "no doubt you are right, mrs. conway. that shall be done. i must get the foreman first, though, for i don't know the names or addresses of the other men. i shall tell him frankly that i want to find out the opinions of the servants at the hall about the missing will, ask him which of his men was the most given to gossip with them, and tell him to send him here to me at ten o'clock to-morrow morning; then when you see him and hear what he has to say, you can judge for yourself how far you care to trust him in the matter, or whether to trust him at all. perhaps you will come here a few minutes before ten, and then i can tell you what the foreman has said first." accordingly at a quarter to ten the next day mrs. conway was again at the office. "i think, mrs. conway, that things are going even better than we hoped. the foreman said that from what little talk he had with the servants, he thought they had all been attached to mr. penfold, and that his sisters were by no means popular among them. he said very often one or other of them would come into the room where they were working and make suggestions, and hunt about themselves to see if they could find anything. but the best part of it is that one of the carpenters, a steady fellow of twenty-five, took up, as he calls it, with the upper housemaid, and he believes there is a talk about their being married some day. if this is so it would be the very thing for you. you could help him to get married, and the girl could help you to get her place." "the very thing," mrs. conway said. "nothing could have turned out better." in a few minutes the young carpenter arrived. he was a pleasant-looking young fellow, and mrs. conway was not surprised at the impression he had made upon the housemaid at the hall. "sit down, johnson," mr. tallboys began. "you know what i asked you to come here for?" "mr. peters told me that it was something to do with that job we had at the miss penfolds', sir." "yes, that is it, johnson. you know we were looking for a missing will there?" "yes, sir; so i understood." "now, what we wanted to ask you specially, johnson, was whether you can tell us what the servants at the hall thought about it?" the young carpenter turned rather red in the face, and twisted his cap about in his fingers. "well, sir, i don't know that i can say much about that. i don't think most of them was overfond of the miss penfolds, and wouldn't have been sorry if the will had been found that would have given them another master or mistress." "just so, johnson, that is what i thought was likely. now, the point i want to know, johnson, and this lady here is, i may tell you, interested in the matter of this will being found, is as to whether there is in your opinion any one of the maids at the hall who could be trusted to aid us in this business? of course we should make it worth her while to do so." again the young carpenter colored, and fidgeted on his chair, examining his cap intently. "i suppose it would depend on what you wanted her to do," he said at last. "the hall is a good service, though they don't like the mistresses, and of course none of them would like to do anything that might risk their place." "that's natural enough, johnson. but, you see, we could perhaps more than make up to her for that risk." "well, i don't know, sir," the man said after another pause. "it isn't only the place; but, you see, a young woman wouldn't like to risk getting into a row like and being turned away in disgrace, or perhaps even worse. i don't know what you want, you see, sir?" mr. tallboys looked at mrs. conway, and his eyes expressed the question, how far shall we go? she replied by taking the matter in her own hands. "we can trust you, can't we, whether you agree to help us or not?" "yes, ma'am," he said more decidedly than he had hitherto spoken. "you can trust me. if you tell me what you want, i will tell you straight whether i can do anything. if i don't like it, the matter shan't go beyond me." "very well, then, i will tell you exactly what we want. we believe that the will is still there, and we believe that if some one in the house were to make a thorough search it might be found. it is right that it should be found, and that the property should go to those to whom mr. penfold left it, and who are now being kept out of it by the miss penfolds. i am very much interested in the matter, because it is my son who is being cheated out of his rights; and i have made up my mind to find the will. now, what i want to know is, do you think that one of the housemaids would be willing to give up her place and introduce me as her successor, if i gave her twenty-five pounds? that would be a nice little sum, you know, to begin housekeeping with." mrs. conway saw at once by the expression of the young carpenter's face that she had secured him as an ally. "i think that might be managed, ma'am," he said in a tone that showed her he was endeavoring to hide his gladness. "yes, i think that could be managed. there is certainly a young woman at the hall--" and he stopped. mrs. conway helped him. "i may tell you, mr. johnson, that the foreman hinted to mr. tallboys that he thought you and the upper housemaid were likely one of these days to come together, and that is principally why we spoke to you instead of to one of the others who were there. we thought, you see, that she might probably be leaving her place one of these days, and that perhaps this twenty-five pounds might enable you and her to marry earlier than you otherwise would have done. in that case, you see, it would suit us all. you and she would, moreover, have the satisfaction of knowing that you were aiding to right a great wrong, and to restore to those who have been defrauded the property mr. penfold intended for them. what do you say?" "well, ma'am, i think that, as you say, it would be doing the right thing; and i don't deny that martha and i have agreed to wait a year or two, till we could save up enough between us for me to start on my own account; for as long as i am a journeyman, and liable to lose my work any day, i would not ask her to come to me. but what with what we have laid by, and this money you offer, i think we might very well venture," and his radiant face showed the happiness the prospect caused him. "very well, then. we may consider that as settled," mrs. conway said. "what i want is for you to tell your martha that she is to give notice to leave at once, and that if she has an opportunity she is to mention to miss penfold that she has a friend who is out of place at present, and whom she is sure will suit. of course as she will say that she is going to leave to be married, miss penfold cannot be vexed with her, as she might be otherwise, and may take her friend on her recommendation." "but suppose she shouldn't, ma'am," and the young carpenter's face fell considerably at the thought, "where would martha be then?" "i shall pay the money, of course," mrs. conway said, "whether i get the place through her or not. i should think that miss penfold will very likely be glad to be saved the trouble of looking for another servant. but, if not, i must try some other way to get the place." "what name am i to say her friend has?" "let me think. ann sibthorpe." "but suppose she asks about where her friend has been in service, ma'am, and about her character?" "we will settle that afterward. the first thing to do is for you to go over and see her, and ask her if she is willing to leave and do this." "i think i can answer for that, ma'am," the young carpenter said with a quiet smile. "very well. still, we had better have it settled. will you go over to-day and see her? and then by to-morrow mr. tallboys and i will have talked the matter over and settled about the other points. of course you will tell her not to give notice until she has heard from you as to what she is to say about me." "very well, ma'am. i will start at once." "i can arrange about the character," mr. tallboys said when they were alone. "i have a cousin in london, to whom i shall write and explain the matter, and who will, i am sure, oblige me by writing to say that ann sibthorpe is all that can be desired as a servant: steady, quiet, industrious and capable. well, i really congratulate you, mrs. conway. at first i thought your project a hopeless one; now i think you have every chance of success." chapter x. on detachment. ralph was soon at home in the regiment. he found his comrades a cheery and pleasant set of men, ready to assist the newly-joined young officers as far as they could. a few rough practical jokes were played; but ralph took them with such perfect good temper that they were soon abandoned. he applied himself very earnestly to mastering the mystery of drill, and it was not long before he was pronounced to be efficient, and he was then at captain o'connor's request appointed to his company, in which there happened to be a vacancy for an ensign. he had had the good luck to have an excellent servant assigned to him. denis mulligan was a thoroughly handy fellow, could turn his hand to anything, and was always good tempered and cheery. "the fellow is rather free and easy in his ways," captain o'connor told ralph when he allotted the man to him; "but you will get accustomed to that. keep your whisky locked up, and i think you will be safe in all other respects with him. he was servant to captain daly, who was killed at toulouse, and i know daly wouldn't have parted with him on any account. his master's death almost broke denis' heart, and i have no doubt he will get just as much attached to you in time. these fellows have their faults, and want a little humoring; but, take them as a whole, i would rather have an irish soldier servant than one of any other nationality, provided always that he is not too fond of the bottle. about once in three months i consider reasonable, and i don't think you will find mulligan break out more frequently than that." ralph never regretted the choice o'connor had made for him, and found denis an excellent servant; and his eccentricities and the opinions which he freely expressed afforded him a constant source of amusement. a few days later captain o'connor came into his room. "pack up your kit. the company is ordered on detached duty, and there is an end to your dancing and flirting." "i don't know about flirting," ralph laughed. "as far as i can see you do enough for the whole company in that way. but where are we going to?" "we are ordered to ballyporrit. an out of the way hole as a man could wish to be buried in. it seems that there are a lot of stills at work in the neighborhood. the gauger has applied for military aid. a nice job we have got before us. i have had my turn at it before, and know what it means. starting at nightfall, tramping ten or fifteen miles over the hills and through bogs, and arriving at last at some wretched hut only to find a wretched old woman sitting by a peat fire, and divil a sign of still or mash tubs or anything else. we start the first thing to-morrow morning; so you had better get your kit packed and your flask filled to-night. we have nineteen miles march before us, and a pretty bad road to travel. i have just been in to desmond's quarters, and he is tearing his hair at the thought of having to leave the gayeties of cork." "i think it is a nice change," ralph said, "and shall be very glad to have done with all these parties and balls. ballyporrit is near the sea, isn't it?" "yes. about a mile away, i believe. nearly forty miles from here." the detachment marched next morning. ralph enjoyed the novelty of the march, but was not sorry when at the end of the second day's tramp they reached the village. the men were quartered in the houses of the villagers, and the officers took rooms at the inn. except when engaged in expeditions to capture stills--of which they succeeded in finding nearly a score--there was not much to do at ballyporrit. all the gentry resident within a wide circle called upon them, and invitations to dinners and dances flowed in rapidly. as one officer was obliged to remain always in the village with the detachment, ralph seldom availed himself of these invitations. o'connor and lieutenant desmond were both fond of society; and, as ralph very much preferred staying quietly in his quarters, he was always ready to volunteer to take duty upon these occasions. ballyporrit lay within a mile of the sea, and ralph, when he had nothing else to do, frequently walked to the edge of the cliffs, and sat there hour after hour watching the sea breaking among the rocks three or four hundred feet below him, and the sea-birds flying here and there over the water, and occasionally dashing down to its surface. a few fishing boats could be seen, but it was seldom that a distant sail was visible across the water; for not one vessel in those days sailed for the west to every fifty that now cross the atlantic. the rocks upon which he sat rose in most places almost sheer up from the edge of the sea; but occasionally they fell away, and a good climber could make his way over the rough rocks and bowlders down to the water's edge. as, however, there was nothing to be gained by it, ralph never made the attempt. looking back over the land the view was a dreary one. there was not a human habitation within sight, the hills were covered with brown heather, while in the bottoms lay bogs, deep and treacherous to those who knew not the way across. it was rarely that a human figure was visible. once or twice a day a revenue man came along the edge of the cliff, and would generally stop for a talk with ralph. "there was," he said, "a good deal of smuggling carried on along that part of the coast during the war; but there is not so much of it now, though no doubt a cargo is run now and then. it does not pay as it did when the french ports were all closed, and there was not a drop of brandy to be had save that which was run by the smugglers. now that trade is open again there is only the duty to save, and i fancy a good many of the boats have gone out of the business. you see, the revenue has got its agents in the french ports, and gets news from them what craft are over there loading, and what part of the coast they come from. along the english coast there is still a good deal of it. there lace pays well; but there is not much sale for lace in ireland, and not much sale for brandy either, excepting in the towns. the peasants and farmers would not thank you for it when they can get home-made whisky for next to nothing." "i suppose that there is a good deal of that going on." "any amount of it, sir. for every still that is captured i reckon there must be a hundred at work that no one dreams of, and will be as long as barley grows and there are bogs and hills all over the country, and safe hiding-places where no one not in the secret would dream of searching. the boys know that we are not in their line of business, and mind our own affairs. if it were not for that, i can tell you, i wouldn't go along these cliffs at night for any pay the king would give me; for i know that before a week would be out my body would be found some morning down there on the rocks, and the coroner's jury would bring in a verdict of tumbled over by accident, although there wouldn't be a man of them but would know better." "well, i am sure i don't want to find out anything about them. i belong to the detachment in ballyporrit, and of course if the gauger calls upon us we must march out and aid him in seizing a still. but beyond that it's no affair of ours." and yet although he so seldom saw any one to speak to, ralph had sometimes a sort of uncomfortable feeling that he was being watched. once or twice he had caught a glimpse of what he thought was a man's head among some rocks; but on walking carelessly to the spot he could see no signs of any one. another time, looking suddenly round, he saw a boy standing at the edge of some boggy ground where the land dipped suddenly away some two hundred yards from the edge of the cliff; but directly he saw that he was observed he took to his heels, and speedily disappeared down the valley. ralph did not trouble himself about these matters, nor did he see any reason why any one should interest himself in his movements. had he wandered about among the hills inland he might be taken for a spy trying to find out some of the hidden stills; but sitting here at the edge of the cliff watching the sea, surely no such absurd suspicion could fall upon him. had he been there at night the smugglers might have suspected him of keeping watch for them; but smugglers never attempted to run their cargoes in broad daylight, and he never came down there after dark. one day a peasant came strolling along. he was a powerful-looking man and carried a heavy stick. ralph was lying on his back looking up at the clouds and did not hear the man approach till he was close to him, then with a quick movement he sprang to his feet. "i did not hear you coming," he said. "you have given me quite a start." "it's a fine day, yer honor, for sleeping on the turf here," the man said civilly. "i was not asleep," ralph said; "though i own that i was getting on for it." "is yer honor expecting to meet any one here?" the man asked. "sure, it's a mighty lonesome sort of place." "no, i am not expecting any one. i have only come out for a look at the sea. i am never tired of looking at that." "it's a big lot of water, surely," the man replied, looking over the sea with an air of interest as if the sight were altogether novel to him. "a powerful lot of water. and i have heard them say that you often come out here?" "yes, i often come out," ralph assented. "don't you think now it is dangerous so near the edge of the cliff, yer honor? just one step and over you would go, and it would be ten chances to one that the next tide would drift your body away, and divil a one know what had become of you." "but i don't mean to take a false step," ralph said. "sure, there is many a one takes a false step when he isn't dreaming about it; and if ye didn't tumble over by yourself, just a push would do it." "yes, but there is no one to give one a push," ralph said. "maybe and maybe not," the man replied. "i don't say if i was a gentleman, and could spind me time as i liked, that i would be sitting here on the edge of these cliffs, where you might come to harm any minute." "i have no fear of coming to harm," ralph answered; "and i should be sorry for any one who tried. i always carry a pistol. not that i think there is any chance of having to use it but it's always as well to be prepared." "it is that, yer honor, always as well; but i don't think i should be always coming out here if i was you." "why not, my good fellow? i harm no one, and interfere with no one. surely it is open to me to come here and look at the sea without any one taking offense at it." "that's as it may be, yer honor. anyhow i have told you what i think of it. good-morning to you." "i wonder what that fellow meant," ralph said, looking after him. "he meant something, i feel certain, though what it is i can't imagine. i thought it was as well to let him know that i had a pistol handy, though he didn't look as if he intended mischief. i suppose after this i had better not come here so often, though i have not the remotest idea in the world why i should annoy any one more by standing here than if i was standing on the cliff in front of dover castle. however, it certainly is a lonely place, and i should have precious little chance if two or three men took it into their heads to attack me here." "they are queer people these irish peasants of yours, o'connor," ralph said as they sat at dinner that evening. "what's the matter with them now, conway?" "one can't even go and look at the sea from their cliffs without their taking it amiss," and ralph related the conversation he had had with the peasant, adding that he was convinced he had been watched whenever he went there. "it is curious, certainly," the captain said when he had finished. "no doubt they think you are spying after something; but that would not trouble them unless there was something they were afraid of your finding out. either there has been something going on, or there is some hiding-place down there on the face of the cliff, where maybe they have a still at work. anyhow, i don't think i should neglect the warning, conway. you might be killed and thrown over the cliff, and no one be the wiser for it. i should certainly advise you to give up mooning about." "but there is nothing to do in this wretched village," ralph said discontentedly. "not if you stop in the village, i grant; but you might do as desmond and i do when we are off duty; go over and take lunch at the ryans', or burkes', or any of the other families where we have a standing invitation. they are always glad to see one, and there's plenty of fun to be had." "that's all very well for you, o'connor. you are a captain and a single man, and one of their countrymen, with lots to say for yourself; but it is a different thing with me altogether. i can't drop in and make myself at home as you do." "why, you are not shy, conway?" o'connor said in affected horror. "surely such a disgrace has not fallen on his majesty's twenty-eighth regiment that one of its officers is shy? such a thing is not recorded in its annals." "i am afraid it will have to be recorded now," laughed ralph. "for i own that i am shy; if you call shy, feeling awkward and uncomfortable with a lot of strange people, especially ladies." "do not let it be whispered outside," o'connor said, "or the reputation of the regiment is gone forever among irish girls. desmond, this is a sad business. what are we to do with this man? you and i must consult together how this thing is to be cured." "no, no, o'connor," ralph said earnestly, knowing how fond o'connor was of practical jokes, and dreading that he and the lieutenant would be putting him in some ridiculous position or other. "you will never cure me if you set about it. i shall get over it in time; but it's the sort of thing that becomes ten times worse if you attempt to cure it." "we must think it over, my lad," o'connor said seriously. "this is a serious defect in your character; and as your commanding officer i consider it my bounden duty, both for your sake and that of the regiment, to take it into serious consideration and see what is to be done. you may never have such a chance again of being cured as you have here; for if a man goes away from ireland without being cured of shyness his case is an absolutely hopeless one. desmond, you must turn this matter seriously over in your mind, and i will do the same. and now it is time for us to be starting for the dance at the regans'. i am sorry you can't go with us, desmond, as you are on duty." "i shall be very glad to take your duty, desmond," ralph said eagerly. "i told you so this morning, and i thought you agreed." "as your commanding officer," o'connor said gravely, "i cannot permit the exchange to be made, mr. conway. you have your duty to perform to the regiment as well as mr. desmond, and your duty clearly is to go out and make yourself agreeable. i am surprised after what i have just been saying that you should think of staying at home." "well, of course, if you want me to go i will go," ralph said reluctantly. "but i don't know the regans, and don't want to." "that is very ungracious, conway. mr. regan is a retired pork merchant of cork. he has given up his business and bought an estate here, and settled down as a country gentleman. they say his father was a pig-driver in waterford. that's why he has bought a place on this side of the county. but people have been rather shy of them; because, though he could buy three-fourths of them up, his money smells of pork. still, as the election is coming on, they have relaxed a bit. he's got the militia band, and there will be lashings of everything; and his girls are nice girls, whether their father sold pork or not. and it would be nothing short of cruel if we, the representatives of his majesty's army, did not put in an appearance; especially as we have doubtless eaten many a barrel of his salt pork at sea. so put on your number one coatee and let's be off." with a sign ralph rose to carry out his orders, and he would have been still more reluctant to go had he observed the sly wink that passed between his captain and lieutenant. "he is quite refreshing, that boy," o'connor said as the door closed behind ralph. "that adventure in the west indies showed he has plenty of pluck and presence of mind; but he is as shy as a girl. though i don't know why i should say that, for it's mighty few of them have any shyness about them. he will grow out of it. i was just the same myself when i was his age." lieutenant desmond burst into a roar of laughter. "i should have liked to have known you then, o'connor." o'connor joined in the laugh. "it's true though, desmond. i was brought up by two maiden aunts in the town of dundalk, and they were always bothering me about my manners; so that though i could hold my own in a slanging match down by the riverside, i was as awkward as a young bear when in genteel company. they used to have what they called tea-parties--and a fearful infliction they were--and i was expected to hand round the tea and cakes, and make myself useful. i think i might have managed well enough if the old women would have let me alone; but they were always expecting me to do something wrong, and i was conscious that whatever they were doing they had an eye upon me. "it's trying, you know, when you hear exclamations like this: 'the saints presarve us! if he hasn't nearly poked his elbow into mrs. fitzgerald's eye!' or, 'see now, if he isn't standing on miss macrae's train!' one day i let a cup of coffee fall on to old mrs. o'toole's new crimson silk dress. it was the first she had had for nine years to my knowledge, and would have lasted her for the rest of her natural life. and if you could have heard the squall she made, and the exclamations of my aunts, and the general excitement over that wretched cup of coffee, you would never have forgotten it. "it had one good result, i was never asked to hand things round again and was indeed never expected to put in an appearance until the tea-things were taken away. i suffered for months for that silk dress. my aunts got two yards of material and presented them to mrs. o'toole; and for weeks and weeks i got short allowance of butter to my bread and no sugar in my tea, and had to hear remarks as to the necessity for being economical. as for mrs. o'toole she never forgave me, and was always saying spiteful things. but i got even with her once. one evening the doctor, who was her partner at whist, was called out, and i was ordered to take his place. now, i played a pretty good game at whist, better than the doctor did by a long chalk i flattered myself; but i didn't often play at home unless i was wanted to make up a table, and very glad i was to get out of it, for the ill-temper of those old harridans when they lost was something fearful. "it was only penny points, but if they had been playing for five pounds they couldn't have taken it more to heart; and of course if i had the misfortune of being their partner they put it down entirely to my bad play. well, we held good cards, and at last we only wanted the odd trick to win. i held the last trump. mrs. o'toole was beaming as she led the best spade, and felt that the game was won. i could not resist the temptation, but put my trump on her spade, led my small card, and the game was lost. mrs. o'toole gave a scream and sank back in her chair almost fainting, and when she recovered her breath and her voice went on like a maniac, and had a desperate quarrel with my aunts. i made my escape, and three days later, to my huge delight, was sent off to dublin and entered the university. i only stayed there about six months, when a friend of my father's got me a commission; but that six months cured me of my shyness." "i am not surprised," desmond laughed; "it can only have been skin deep, i fancy, o'connor." "i will give conway his first lesson to-night," the captain said. dancing had already begun when captain o'connor and ralph drove up in a dog-cart to the regans', who lived some four miles from ballyporrit. o'connor introduced ralph to his host, and then hurried away. in a short time he was deep in conversation with miss tabitha regan, who was some years younger than her brother, and still believed herself to be quite a girl. she was gorgeously arrayed with a plume of nodding feathers in her headdress. "you are looking splendid to-night, miss regan," o'connor said in a tone of deep admiration. "you do not give your nieces a chance." "ah! you are flattering me, captain o'connor." "not at all, miss regan; it's quite a sensation you make. my young friend conway was tremendously struck with your appearance, and asked me who that splendid woman was." which was true enough, except for the word "splendid;" for as they had walked through the room ralph's eyes had fallen upon her, and he had exclaimed in astonishment, "who on earth is that woman, o'connor?" "he is dying to be introduced to you. he is a little young, you know; but of good family, and may come into a lot of money one of these days. only son, and all that. may i introduce him?" "how you do go on, captain o'connor," miss tabitha said, much flattered. "by all means introduce him." o'connor made his way back to ralph. "come along, ralph; i will introduce you to our host's sister, miss regan. charming creature, and lots of money. awfully struck with your appearance. come on, man; don't be foolish," and, hooking his arm in ralph's, he led him across the room to the lady ralph had before noticed. "miss regan, this is my brother-officer, mr. conway, ralph, this is miss regan, our host's sister, although you would take her for his daughter. miss regan, mr. conway is most anxious to have the pleasure of the next dance with you if you are not engaged." ralph murmured something in confirmation, and miss regan at once stood up and placed her hand in his arm. ralph gave a reproachful glance at his captain as he moved away. fortunately, he was not called upon to say much, for miss regan burst out: "it is too bad of you not having been here before, mr. conway--quite rude of you. captain o'connor has spoken of you frequently, and we girls have been quite curious to see you. there is the music striking up. i think we had better take our places. i suppose as i am at the head of my brother's house we had better take the place at the top." ralph never forgot that dance. miss regan danced with amazing sprightliness, performing wonderful steps. her ostrich plumes seemed to whirl round and round him, he had a painful feeling that every one was grinning, and a mad desire to rush out of the house and make straight for his quarters. "your aunt is going it," captain o'connor remarked to one of the daughters of the house with whom he was dancing. "she sets quite an example to us young people." the girl laughed. "she is very peculiar, captain o'connor; but it is cruel of you to laugh at her. i do wish she wouldn't wear such wonderful headdresses; but she once went to court a good many years ago at dublin, and somebody told her that her headdress became her, and she has worn plumes ever since." "i am not laughing at her, miss regan," o'connor said gravely; "i am admiring her. conway is doing nobly too." "i think he looks almost bewildered," the girl laughed. "it's a shame, captain o'connor. i was standing quite close by when you introduced him, and i could see by your face that you were playing a joke upon him." "i was performing a kindly action, miss regan. the lad's young and a little bashful, and i ventured to insinuate to your aunt that he admired her." "well, you shall introduce him to me next," the girl said. "i like his looks." "shall i tell him that, miss regan?" "if you do i will never speak to you again." as soon as the dance was over captain o'connor strolled up with his partner to the spot where miss tabitha was fanning herself violently, ralph standing helplessly alongside. "that was a charming dance, miss regan. you surpassed yourself. let me recommend a slight refreshment; will you allow me to offer you my arm? miss regan, allow me to introduce my brother-officer, mr. conway." ralph, who had not caught the name, bowed to the girl thus left suddenly beside him and offered her his arm. "why, you look warm already, mr. conway," she began. "warm is no word for it," ralph said bluntly. "did you see that wonderful old lady i have been dancing with?" "that is my aunt, mr. conway; but she is rather wonderful all the same." ralph had thought before that he was as hot as it was possible for a man to be; but he found now that he was mistaken. "i beg your pardon," he stammered. "i did not catch your name; but of course i oughtn't to have said anything." "i wonder you didn't see the likeness," the girl said demurely. "my aunt considers there is a great likeness between us." "i am sure i cannot see it the least bit in the world," ralph said emphatically; "not the smallest. but i hope you forgive me for that unfortunate remark; but the fact is, i felt a little bewildered at the time. i am not much of a dancer, and your aunt is really so energetic that i had to exert myself to the utmost to keep up with her." "i think you did admirably, mr. conway. we quite admired you both. there," she said laughing at ralph's confusion, "you need not be afraid about my not forgiving you for the remark. everyone knows that aunt tabitha and we girls never get on very well together; and she does make herself dreadfully ridiculous, and i think it was too bad of captain o'connor putting you up with her." "thank you, miss regan," ralph said earnestly. "the fact is i haven't joined long, and i don't care much for parties. you see, i have only left school a few months, and haven't got accustomed to talk to ladies yet; and o'connor--who is always up to some fun or other--did it just to cure what he calls my shyness. however, i can quite forgive him now." "i don't think you are so very shy, mr. conway," miss regan said with a smile. "that last sentence was very pretty, and if i had not hold of your arm i should make you a courtesy." "no, please don't do that," ralph said, coloring hotly. "i didn't mean anything, you know." "now, don't spoil it. you meant i suppose, what was quite proper you should mean, that captain o'connor by introducing me to you had made up for his last delinquency." "yes, that is what i did mean," ralph agreed. "captain o'connor tells me that you have been through all sorts of adventures, mr. conway--been carried off by a french privateer, and taken to a pirate island, and done all sorts of things." "the 'all sorts of things' did not amount to much, miss regan. i made myself as useful as i could, and picked up french; and at last when the privateer sailed away i walked down to the shore and met our sailors when they landed. there was, i can assure you, nothing in any way heroic about the part i had to play." "still it was an adventure." "oh! yes, it was that; and upon the whole i think i liked it, except when there was a chance of having a fight with our own people." "that would have been dreadful. what would you have done?" "well, i certainly wouldn't have fought; but what i should have done would, i suppose, have depended upon circumstances. i suppose i should have jumped overboard if i had the chance." "and is it true what captain o'connor was saying, that you had to do like the other pirates on the island?" "i don't know that there was anything particular they did, except to get drunk, and i didn't do that." "he hinted that the rule was that each man had to take a wife from the people they captured." "what nonsense!" ralph exclaimed indignantly. "the idea of my taking a wife. you mustn't believe what captain o'connor says, miss regan; except, of course," he added slyly, "when he is saying pretty things to you." "i think you will do, mr. conway," the girl laughed, "six months in ireland and you will be able to give captain o'connor points if you go on as well as you are doing. you have paid two very nicely-turned compliments in ten minutes. but there, our dance is finished." "may i have another later on, miss regan?" "yes. let me see; i am engaged for the next five. you can have the sixth if you like, if you haven't secured my aunt for that." "you are getting on, conway," captain o'connor said as they drove away from the regans. "i have had my eye upon you. three dances with polly regan, beside taking her down to supper." "it was too bad of you putting me on to her aunt in that way." o'connor laughed. "it was a capital thing for you, youngster, and paved the way for you with polly; who, by the way, is not such a respectful niece as she might be. but she is a very nice little girl. i had thought of making up in that quarter myself, but i see it's no use now." "none at all," ralph said seriously. "we are not actually engaged, you, know, but i think we understand each other." "what!" captain o'connor exclaimed in a changed voice. "you are not such a young ass as to get engaged before you have joined three months?" ralph burst into a laugh. "that's good," he said. "it is not often i get a rise out of you, o'connor." "well, you did there fairly," the captain admitted, joining in the laugh. "i thought for a moment you were serious." "no," ralph said. "i may make a fool of myself in other directions; but i don't think i am likely to in that sort of way." "prior attachment--eh?" captain o'connor asked quizzically. "ah, that's a secret, o'connor," ralph laughed. "i am not going to lay my heart bare to such a mocker as you are." when they reached the village they found a body of twenty men drawn up opposite their quarters. "is that you, o'connor?" the lieutenant asked as the trap stopped. "just after you had gone the gauger came in and requested that a party might accompany him at three o'clock this morning to hunt up a still among the hills. i am glad you are back in time, as i did not like going away without there being any one in charge here. it's a nuisance; for it is just beginning to rain. however, it can't be helped." "i will go if you like desmond," ralph said, jumping down. "i should like a good tramp this morning after that hot room." "are you quite sure you would like it?" the lieutenant asked. "quite sure. beside, it's my turn for duty this morning; so that really it's my place to go with them, if captain o'connor has no objection." "not the least in the world, conway. i don't suppose desmond has any fancy for tramping among the hills, and if you have, there is no reason in the world why you should not go." a couple of minutes sufficed to exchange the full-dress regimentals for undress uniform, covered by military greatcoat, then ralph hurried out just as the excise officer came up. "we are going to have a damp march of it, mr. fitzgibbon," ralph said. "all the better, sir. there will be a thick mist on the hills that will hide us better even than night. there is a moon at present, and as likely as not they will have a boy on watch. are you ready, sir?" "quite ready. attention! form fours! march!" and the little party started. "how far are we going?" ralph asked the revenue officer. "about seven miles, sir. it's about half-past three now; we shall be there somewhere about six. it does not begin to be light until seven, so there is no particular hurry." "i hope you know the way, mr. fitzgibbon? it is so dark here i can scarcely see my hand. and if we get into the fog you talk about it will be as black as ink." "oh, i know the way," the officer said confidently. "we keep along the road for two miles, then turn up a track leading up a valley, follow that for three miles; then branch to the right, cross over one or two slight rises, and then follow another slight depression till we are within a hundred yards of the place. i could find my way there with my eyes shut." "that sounds easy enough," ralph said; "but i know how difficult it is finding one's way in a fog. however, we must hope we shall get there all right. sergeant, have the men got anything in their haversacks?" "yes, sir. captain o'connor ordered them to take their breakfast ration of bread, and he told me to see that their water bottles were filled; and--" (and here he moved closer up to ralph, so that he should not be heard by the men) "he gave me a couple of bottles of whisky to mix with the water, and told me to fill the bottles myself, so that the men shouldn't know what was in them till they had their breakfast; otherwise there would be none left by the time they wanted to eat their bread. he is always thoughtful the captain is." "that's a very good plan, sergeant. i shall bear it in mind myself for the future. they will want something before they get back after a fourteen-mile march." the fine mist continued steadily as they tramped along; but the night seemed to grow darker and darker. they turned off from the road; and as they began to ascend the track along the valley the cloud seemed to settle round them. the excise officer walked ahead, keeping upon the path. ralph followed as closely as he could in his footsteps; but although almost touching him he could not make out his figure in the darkness. "tell the men to follow in single file, sergeant," he said; "keeping touch with each other. as long as we are on the beaten track we know we are right, but there may be bowlders or anything else close by on one side or the other." marching as closely as they could to each other the party proceeded. "how on earth are you going to find the place where we turn off, mr. fitzgibbon?" ralph asked. "we shall find it easy enough sir. the path regularly forks, and there is a pile of stones at the junction, which makes as good a guide as you can want on a dark night. we can't miss that even on a night like this." ralph had struck a light with his flint and steel, and looked at his watch at the point where they turned off from the road, and he did the same thing two or three times as they went along. "it's an hour and twenty minutes since we turned off, mr. fitzgibbon. even allowing for our stoppages when we have got off the path, we ought to be near the turning now." "yes, i fancy we are not far off now, sir. i can feel that we are rising more sharply, and there is a rise in the last hundred yards or so before we reach the place where the road forks. we had better go a little more slowly now, sir." another five minutes there was a stumble and a fall in front of ralph. "halt!" he exclaimed sharply. "what is it, mr. fitzgibbon?" "i have fallen over the pile of stones," the officer said, "and hurt myself confoundedly." "don't you think we had better halt till daylight?" "i think we can keep on, sir. the nearer we get there the better; and if we should miss the path we can halt then and wait till daybreak." "well, we can do that," ralph agreed. "i will go on ahead, sir, twenty or thirty yards at a time and then speak, and you can bring the men on to me, then i will go on again. it will be slow work, but i can keep the path better if i go at my own pace." ralph agreed, and they proceeded in this manner for some time. "i don't think we are on the track now," ralph said at last. "oh, yes, we are," the officer replied confidently. ralph stooped and felt the ground. "the grass is very short," he observed, "but it is grass." the officer followed his example. "oh, it is only a track now," he said. "just a footpath, and the grass is not worn off. i am convinced we are right." "well," ralph said, "just go a little way to the right and left, and see if the grass gets longer. it seems to me all the same." the officer did so, and was obliged to own that he could not perceive any difference. ralph now spread his men out in a line and directed them to feel on the ground to see if they could discover the track. they failed to do so, and ralph then ordered them together again. "we will halt here, sergeant, till daylight. it's no use groping about in the dark. for anything we know we may be going exactly in the wrong direction. the men can of course sit down if they like; and they may as well eat a piece of bread and try their water-bottles. but tell them not to eat more than half their ration. we may be longer before we get out of this than we expect." the order was given, the men piled their arms and seated themselves on the short turf. presently ralph heard a sudden exclamation of surprise and satisfaction as one of the men tasted the contents of his water-bottle, and in a minute there was a buzz of talk. before scarce a word had been spoken; the men had been marching in a sort of sulky silence, disgusted at being taken from their beds for work they disliked, and at their long march through the damp night air; but their satisfaction at this unexpected comfort loosened their tongues. pipes were produced and lighted, and the discomfort of the situation altogether forgotten. desmond had handed to ralph the flask and packet of sandwiches he had prepared for himself, and he, too, felt less strongly the chilling effects of the damp and darkness after partaking of them. the excise officer had also made his preparations. "we should be more certain as to our whereabouts if we had stopped at that heap of stones as i proposed, mr. fitzgibbon." "i don't deny, sir, you were right as it has turned out; only i wouldn't have believed that i could have missed the path, and i did want to get close to the place before we were observed. i knew that we couldn't actually surprise them till morning; for the hut lies some distance in a bog, and there would be no crossing it unless we could see. still if we could have got to the edge without the alarm being given, they would not have time to hide the things before we reached them. i have ridden across this place many a time after dark, and never missed my way." "that was the sagacity of your horse more than your own, i expect," ralph said. "a horse can find his way along a path he has once traveled better than any man can do. in the first place, i think he can see better in the night; and in the second, he has some sort of instinct to guide him. however, i don't suppose it much matters; we shall find the path easily enough in the morning. and, as you said, the mist will hide our movements quite as effectually as the darkness would do." at last the morning began to break in a dim misty light, and as it grew stronger they were able to perceive how dense was the fog that surrounded them. at three paces distant they were invisible to each other. "it does not seem to me that we are much better off than we were before, so far as finding the path lies. what do you think?" "it looks bad, certainly," the officer admitted reluctantly. "i am awfully sorry i have led you into this mess." "it can't be helped," ralph said. "we must make the best of matters. at any rate it's better than it was, and the mist is not nearly as heavy as when we were marching up that valley." chapter xi. still-hunting. "now, sergeant, the men may as well fall in," ralph said cheerfully, "and then we will set about finding this path. on which side do you think it is most likely to lie, mr. fitzgibbon?" "i really can't give an opinion, sir. you see there is not a breath of wind to help us, and in this sort of light there is no telling where the sun is, so i don't know at the present moment which way we are facing." "well, we will try to the right first, sergeant," ralph said. "i will lead the way. let the men follow at a distance of about ten paces apart. i will keep on speaking. do you stand at the left of the file, and when the last man has gone ten paces from you pass the word along. by that time i shall be about two hundred yards away. if i have not found the path then we will come back to you and do the same thing on the left. if we don't light upon the path itself we may come upon some rise or bog or something that will enable mr. fitzgibbon to form an idea as to where we are." this was done, but beyond finding that the ground on the right was higher than that on the left no index as to their position was discovered. "you see, mr. fitzgibbon, we are on sloping ground rising to the right. now, does that help you at all?" "not much sir. the country here is all undulating." "very well, then, we must try a march forward. now, sergeant, place the men five paces apart. do you put yourself in the center. i will move on three yards ahead of you. i shall go as straight forward as i can, but if you think i am inclining either to the right or left you say so. the fact that the ground is sloping ought to be a help to us to keep straight. i wish it sloped a little more, then one would be able to tell directly whether one was keeping straight. let the men speak to each other every few paces so as to keep the right distances apart." mr. fitzgibbon placed himself by ralph's side, and they started. for half an hour they kept on, then ralph cried, "halt. i am certain i am going downhill, it may be because i have changed my direction, or it may be because there is a change in the lay of the ground. what do you think?" "it's impossible to say," mr. fitzgibbon replied. "it seems to me that we have been going straight, but when one can't see a yard before one one may have turned any direction." "how long do you think that this rascally fog is likely to last?" "it may clear up as the sun gets high, sir, but i must acknowledge that it may last for days. there is never any saying among these hills." "well, at any rate you must give up all idea of making a raid on this still, mr. fitzgibbon. that has become a secondary object altogether now. what we have to do is to find our way out of this. hitherto i have tried what we could do in silence. now i shall give that up. now, sergeant, get the men together again. i will go ahead, and shall, if i can, keep on descending. if one does that one must get out of these hills at last. when i get about fifty yards i will shout. then you send a man on to me. when he reaches me i will shout again and go on another fifty yards. when i shout send another man forward. when he gets to the first man the first man is to shout and then come on to me, and you send off another. in that way we shall make a regular line fifty yards apart, and i don't think any one can get lost. should any one get confused and stray, which he can't do if he keeps his head, he must shout till he hears his shouts answered. after a time if he doesn't hear any answer he must fire his gun, and we must answer till he rejoins us. but if my orders are observed i do not see how any one can miss their way, as there will be posts stationed every fifty yards. you remain till the last and see them all before you. you quite understand? when each man comes up to the one in front of him he is to stop until the next man joins him, and then move on to the man ahead." "i understand, sir." "they must not be in a hurry, sergeant; because moving ahead as i shall, i shall have to move to the right or left sometimes so as to make as sure as i can that i am still going down. now, mr. fitzgibbon, if you keep with me, between us we ought to find the road." the plan seemed a good one, but it was difficult to follow. the fall of the ground was so slight that ralph and the officer often differed as to whether they were going up or down, and it was only by separating and taking short runs right and left, forward or backward, that they arrived at any conclusion, and even then often doubted whether they were right. the shouting as the long line proceeded was prodigious, and must have astonished any stray animals that might have been grazing among the hills. so bewildering was the fog that the men sometimes went back to the men behind them instead of forward to the men in front, and long pauses were necessitated before they got right again. ralph, finding the cause of the delays, passed the word down for the first man to keep on shouting "number one," the second "number two," and so on, and this facilitated matters. the line of shouting men had at least the advantage that it enabled ralph to keep a fairly straight course, as the sound of voices told him if he was deviating much to the right or left. "we may not be going right," he said to his companion, "but at least we have the satisfaction of knowing that we are not moving in a circle." after some hours' marching ralph, to his great delight, came upon a hill rill of water. "thank goodness," he said, "we have got a guide at last. if we follow this we must get somewhere. we need not go on in this tedious way, but will halt here till all the men come up." it was half an hour before the sergeant arrived. "we have got a guide now, sergeant, and can push on. i suppose you have no idea what stream this is, mr. fitzgibbon?" "not at present," the officer admitted. "there are scores of these little rills about. they make their way down from the bogs at the top of the hills, and there is nothing to distinguish one from the other." they now tramped on briskly, keeping close to the little stream. sometimes the ground became soft and marshy, and it was difficult to follow its course; but they went straight on and after three more hours' marching came upon a road that crossed the stream over a little culvert. there was a cheer from the tired men as they stood on hard ground again. "now, the question is shall we turn to the right or the left, for we have not the faintest idea as to the points of the compass. what do you say, mr. fitzgibbon?" "i should say that it is an even chance; but at any rate whichever way we go we are sure to come in time upon a hut or village, and be able to find out where we are." "very well, then; we will take the right," ralph said. "form fours, sergeant. we shall get on better by keeping in step. now, sergeant, if any of the men can sing let him strike up a tune with a chorus. that will help us along." there was a little hesitation, and then one of the men struck up a song, and with renewed life and energy they all marched along. it was nearly an hour before they heard the welcome sound of voices close by. ralph halted his men and proceeded toward this sound, and then discovered what the fog had prevented them from seeing before, that they were passing through a village, the voices being those of some women who were brought to their doors by the sound of music, and who were somewhat puzzled at the, to them, mysterious sounds. "what place is this?" ralph asked. "it is kilmaknocket." "bless me!" mr. fitzgibbon exclaimed, "we are twenty miles away from ballyporrit if we are an inch." "then it's evident we can't get there to-day," ralph said. "we must have come more than that distance since we halted in the night. now, my good woman, i have a party of twenty men here, and we have lost our way in the hills, and must stop here for the night. how many houses are there in the village?" "there are ten or twelve, sir." "that is all right, then. we must quarter two men on each. i will pay every one for the trouble it will give, and for something to eat, which we want badly enough, for we have come at least twenty-five or twenty-six miles, and probably ten more than that, and have had nothing but a bit of bread since we started." "it's heartily welcome you will be, sir," the woman said, "and we will all do the best we can for you." the men were now ordered to fall out. the sergeant proceeded with them through the village, quartering two men on each house, while ralph went round to see what provisions were obtainable. potatoes and black bread were to be had everywhere, and he also was able to buy a good-sized pig, which, in a very few minutes, was killed and cut up. "we have reason to consider ourselves lucky indeed," ralph said, as he sat down with the excise officer half an hour later to a meal of boiled potatoes and pork chops roasted over a peat fire. "it's half-past four now, and will be pitch dark in another half-hour. if we had not struck upon that stream we should have had another night out among the hills." ralph's first measure after seeing his men quartered in the village was to inquire for a boy who would carry a message to ballyporrit, and the offer of half a crown produced four or five lads willing to undertake it. ralph chose one of them, an active-looking lad of about fifteen, tore out a leaf from his pocketbook, and wrote an account of what had happened, and said that the detachment would be in by two o'clock on the following day. then directing it to captain o'connor or lieutenant desmond, whichever might be in the village, he gave it to the lad, who at once started at a trot along the road in the direction from which they had come. "he will be there in four hours," mr. fitzgibbon said. "it's a regular road all the way, and he can't miss it even in the dark. it's lucky we turned the way we did, for although it was taking us further from home it was but two miles along the road here, while, if we had gone the right way, it would have been six or seven before we arrived at the next village." "i think we are lucky all round," ralph said. "an hour ago if any one told us we were going to sit down at half-past four to a hot dinner of pork and potatoes we should have slain him as a scoffer. it would have seemed altogether too good to be true." ralph had no difficulty in purchasing whisky, and he ordered the sergeant to serve out a tot to each man with his dinner and another half an hour later, and by seven o'clock there was scarcely one of the tired men who was not already asleep. the next morning they started at eight o'clock, having had a breakfast of potatoes before they fell in. ralph rewarded the peasants generously for their hospitality, and the men set off in high spirits for their tramp, and reached ballyporrit at half-past two in the afternoon. "you gave us a nice scare yesterday, conway," was captain o'connor's greeting as they marched in. "when twelve o'clock came and you didn't come back i began to think you must have lost yourselves; and a nice time we had of it till your messenger arrived at eight. it was no use sending out to look for you on the hills. but i went out with a party, with two or three men to guide us, to the end of a valley, up which a path went; beyond that there was no going, for one couldn't see one's hand. i stayed there an hour, firing off guns once a minute, and as there was no reply was sure that you must be a good distance off, wherever you were; so there was nothing to do but to come back and hope you had found shelter somewhere. come in, lad; i have got some hot lunch waiting for you. come in, mr. fitzgibbon. it's lucky i didn't catch you yesterday, or i should have considered it my duty to have hung you forthwith for decoying his majesty's troops among the hills." "well, conway, you didn't bargain for all this when you offered to change places with me," lieutenant desmond said when they were seated at table. "no; but now it's all over i am glad i did change, in spite of the tramp we had. it has been an adventure, and beside, it was a good thing to learn how best to get out of a fog." "how did you manage, conway?" captain o'connor asked; "for once lost in such a fog as that on those hills there really does not seem anything to be done." ralph related the various steps he had taken, and how, eventually, they had come upon running water and followed it down to a road. "well, i really think you have done remarkably well, youngster. i shouldn't be surprised if we have some more tramps before us, for i had a letter this morning from the colonel saying that the fellow known as the red captain, a notorious scoundrel who has been with his gang committing all sorts of atrocities in galway, has made the place too hot for him at last, and is reported to have made his way down to the south coast, somewhere in this direction; and we are ordered to keep a sharp lookout for him. he is an unmitigated ruffian, and a desperate one. he has shot several constables who have tried to capture him, and as he has three or four men with him nearly as bad as himself i expect we shall have some trouble with him. there has been a reward of a hundred pounds for his capture for a long time, but so far without success. one man, whom he suspected rightly or wrongly of intending to betray him, he killed by fastening the door of his cottage and then setting the thatch alight; and the man, his wife, and four children were burned to death." that evening, just as dinner was over, the sergeant came in and said that a woman wished to speak to the captain. "what does she want, sergeant?" "she won't say what she wants, sir; only that she wishes to speak to you privately." "show her in then, sergeant." the sergeant brought in the woman and then retired. as soon as the door closed behind him the woman threw back the shawl which had hitherto almost covered her face. she was about twenty-five years old, and strikingly pretty. "what can i do for you?" captain o'connor asked. "the sergeant says you wish to speak to me on some particular business." "yes, sir; sure, and it is very particular business." "you don't wish to speak to me quite alone, i suppose?" o'connor asked, seeing that she hesitated. "no, your honor; seeing that these gentlemen are all officers there is no reason in life why they should not hear what i have to say. but, sure, sir, it's little my life would be worth if it were known outside these walls that i had been here. my name is bridget moore, sir, and i belong to county galway. well, your honor, there was a desperate villain, they call the red captain, there. he was hiding in the hills for some time near the little farm my husband holds. we did not know who he was--how should we? but thought he was hiding because the revenue officers were after him on account of a bit of a still or something of that kind; but we found out one day, when he had been taking too much of the cratur and was talking big like, that he was the red captain. "my denis was troubled in his mind over it. av coorse he was not one to inform, but he had heard so much of the red captain and his doings that he was onaisy at the thought of having him as a neighbor. he wasn't one to pretind to be frindly when he wasn't, and the captain noticed it and took offince, and there were mighty high words between them. one night, your honor, he and his gang came down and broke in the door, and tould denis he was a black-hearted informer, denis said it was a lie, and they were nigh shooting him, but at last they said he should have the choice either of joining them or of being shot; and denis, being druv to it, and seeing no other way to save his life, was forced to agree. then the villains made him kneel down and take a great oath to be faithful and secret. "i was away off; for i had caught up the child and run out by the back door when they came in, but i crept round to a broken window there was, so that i could hear what was said. when they took him away wid them and went off, i followed at a distance, for i wasn't sure whether after all they didn't mean to murther him. but they went up to the hut where they lived at the edge of the bog, and as they seemed more friendly like i went back to see after the child, who was left all alone. the next morning i took it over to a neighbor and asked her to keep it till i came back. then i went up to the hut again and found it was empty. "a day or two after that i found out from a man who run a still, and knew the red captain well, that he had made up his mind to lave galway and come down south, where he had some friends; so i just shut up the house and walked down here. now you know, your honor, that i don't come here for the sake of the reward. not a penny of it would i touch if i were dying of hunger, and sooner than be pointed at as an informer i would throw myself over them big rocks. but they have got denis, and either they will make him as bad as themselves--which i don't think--or they will shoot him; and if they don't shoot him he will be shot one of these days by the soldiers. what i want you to promise, your honor, is, that if i point out where you can lay your hands on the villains, you won't say who tould you, and that you will tell your soldiers not to shoot denis. "you will know him aisy enough, your honor, for he is a dacent-looking boy; and when the time comes you will find he will do what he can to help you. i found out who the people were that the red captain had come down to, and i watched and watched their place, till one day i saw him come there. then i followed him and found out whereabout they were hiding. i kept about till, that evening, i had a chance of spaking to denis for a minute. he is broken-hearted, your honor, but he daren't lave them. he said they had sworn if he ever tried to run away they would hunt him down; and the red captain said that he would send information to the poliss that it was denis who helped him fire the hut when those poor cratures were burned, and would say, he had been in the thick of it all along; and how could he prove the differ? so he daren't for the life of him move, your honor; and tould me to keep away and go home, for i could do him no good, and if they caught me spaking to him they would kill the two of us." "i promise you willingly," captain o'connor said, "i will not say who pointed out their hiding-place, and if your husband does not join in the resistance he certainly shall receive no hurt. if he is caught with them i am afraid that i shall be exceeding my duty in letting him go; but surely he would have no difficulty in proving that he had only accompanied them in consequence of their threats." "that's what he couldn't prove, sir. that's just what they tould him: if they were caught themselves they knew there was no chance for them, and they would all swear together that he had been with them all along; and how could the boy prove that he wasn't?" "well, mrs. moore, i will try and strain a point," captain o'connor said. "you see, people sometimes escape after they are taken, and i think we shall be able to manage somehow that denis shan't appear at the bar with the others; and if it should turn out that cannot be managed i will engage to make such representations to the authorities that your husband shall get off free." "very well, sir; then i will tell you where they are to be found. i can't take you there, your honor, but i can tell you whereabout it is. there is a footpath turns oft from the road at the end of the village, and goes straight down to the top of them big rocks that come out of the sea. well, sir, a few hundred yards to the right of that there is a sort of break in the rocks, and there is a track goes down there. you won't see it onless you look close for it, and it gets lost a little way down, becase the rocks are all broken about and heaped on each other. it's down there they go. there's always a man on watch not far from the top; and there is generally a gossoon from their friends here somewhere at the edge of the bog behind, who would run forward and tell the man on watch if he saw any soldiers coming from here. so you will have to be mighty careful; but they are down there, sure enough, somewhere. "denis tould me there was no chance of their being taken, for they have got a little boat hid away down among the rocks by the water, and if the alarm was given they would make off in that. i can't tell you any more than that, you honor; but i should think that may be enough to help you to find them." "i should think so too, mrs. moore. and what do you propose doing yourself?" "i shall go off, sir, at once. folk have been wondering at me, and asking where i came from and what i was doing here, and i want to get away. if it came to the red captain's ears there was a woman about he might guess it was me, and if he did he would like enough shoot denis and make away. i can't see as i can do any good by stopping, and i may do harm; so i will go over to dunmanway and stop there till i hear what your honor has done. if i find denis has got hurted i shall come back, if not i shall go home to the farm. maybe your honor will tell him i shall be expecting him there." captain o'connor accompanied her outside to see that no one spoke to her, and when he saw her disappear in the darkness he returned to the room. "i think you have had a lucky escape, conway," he said as he entered. "the matter is explained now about your being watched and questioned, and it is very lucky that they did not quite make up their minds you were a spy; for if they had you may be sure they would have had no more hesitation in putting an ounce of lead into you, and throwing you over the cliff, than they would in shooting a sparrow. well, this is an important piece of news. the authorities have for a long time been trying to lay their hands on this scoundrel and his gang, and if we can catch him it will be a feather in our caps, for he has defied all their efforts for the last three years. now, we must arrange the line of battle, how it is to come off, and when. "in the first place we must arrange with the coast-guard to have a well-manned boat somewhere along the coast to cut the scoundrels off if they try to escape by sea. the attack must be made by daylight, that is evident, for half the men would break either their legs or their necks if they tried to get down in the dark. i think it will be best to place half the company along the top of the cliffs, posting two or three men at every point where it looks possible that they may ascend, then with the other half we will go down on this track she speaks of and search the whole place thoroughly. if they are there we must find them sooner or later; and find them we will, if the search takes us a week." "who is this red captain?" "i believe his real name is dan egan. he was mixed up in some brutal outrage on an inoffensive farmer, had to leave the county, went to dublin, and enlisted. he went out to spain with his regiment, was flogged twice for thieving, then he shot an officer who came upon him when he was ill-treating a portuguese peasant; he got away at the time, and it was months before he was heard of again. it was thought that he had deserted to the french, but i suppose he got down to a port somewhere in disguise and shipped on board a vessel for england. the next thing heard of him was that he was back again at his native place. the police here were of course ignorant as to what had become of him from the time he disappeared; but the fellow made no secret of what he had been doing, and boasted of having shot the officer. "the regiment was communicated with, and by a comparison of the date of enlistment and the personal description there was no doubt that the man who had enlisted as mark kelly was dan egan. of course every effort was made to capture him, but in vain. i believe the peasants would have informed against him, for he was hated for his violence and overbearing way, but he soon established a sort of terror in the district. he was joined by three or four of the greatest ruffians in county galway, and unless the whole of these had been captured at one swoop, vengeance would be sure to fall upon whoever had betrayed him. "he has killed four or five police officers at various times, and i should say twice as many peasants who have ventured to offend him. he and his band levied a sort of blackmail in the district, and woe betide the small farmer who refused to send in a sheep or a bag of meal once a month. their cattle were killed and their ricks set on fire; and so in a short time he had the whole neighborhood under his thumb. whenever a party went in pursuit of him he was sure to obtain early information. not from love, but from fear; for it was a well understood thing that any one seeing a body of police and failing to send instant word would suffer for it. "just as we left i heard that a company of foot and a troop of cavalry were to be sent from galway to search every hut and hiding-place in the district, and i suppose that it was this that drove him down here. he has red hair and beard; and it is this partly, and partly no doubt the fellow's murderous character, that has gained him the name of the red captain. he is a prize worth taking, and if we can lay hands on him and his band together we shall have done better work than if we had unearthed a hundred illicit stills. at any rate we will lose no time. i will write a letter at once to the revenue officer at the coast-guard station. i shall mention no names, but say that we hope to make an important capture to-morrow morning on the cliffs here, and asking him to send a well-armed boat at daylight, with instructions to stop and arrest any boat that may put out from the shore. if the revenue cutter happens to be lying off his station, or within reach of a messenger, i will tell him to have her off the shore if possible." captain o'connor at once wrote the letter. "sergeant morris," he said, when the non-commissioned officer came in, "i want you to take this letter yourself to lieutenant adcock at the coast-guard station in the cove three miles along to the east. it is of the highest importance. i want you to see the officer yourself and obtain an answer from him. take a man with you, and carry your side-arms. don't go along the cliff, but keep to the road till you come to the lane that leads direct to the village in the cove. just tell the landlord to come here, will you?" "landlord," he said, when the host appeared, "i want you to lend a couple of long greatcoats and two hats or caps of any kind. i am sending two of my men off on a mission, and i don't want them to be noticed. it does not matter how old the coats are so that they are long." "i will get them your honor. i have one that will do, and will borrow the other for you in no time." "you see, sergeant, i don't want your presence in the village to be noticed. you know how these fellows hang together. the sight of two soldiers in uniform there would be sure to attract attention. choose a man you can rely on to play his part cleverly. i tell you to take your side-arms, because i happen to know that there are men about who, if they suspected your mission, would not have the least hesitation in knocking you on the head. this is no question of finding a still, sergeant, but of making the capture of one of the most desperate bands in the country; and it is well worth taking the utmost pains and precaution to insure everything going well." "i understand, sir. i will take pat hogan with me; he has plenty of the brogue, and can talk the language too. so if any one should speak to us as we go along he can do the talking, and no one will suspect that we are not a couple of countrymen." "that will do very well, sergeant. it is just seven o'clock now. if lieutenant adcock is in when you get there you ought to be back, well, before ten. it's about four miles by road. i would borrow a couple of heavy sticks if i were you. i don't think it at all likely there will be any occasion to use them, but it is just as well to be prepared. if, when you get near the village, or on your way back, you come across any one who questions you inquisitively, and seems to you to be a suspicious character, i authorize you to make him prisoner and bring him over with you. knock him down if he attempt resistance. you may as well take a pair of handcuffs with you and a short coil of rope. the object of the rope is, that if you capture any one on your way to the village you had better handcuff him, gag him, and tie him up securely to a tree or some other object at a distance from the road, and pick him up as you come back. i need hardly say that you are not to go into any house in the village, not to speak to any one beyond what is absolutely necessary." "i understand, sir, and you can rely upon me to carry out your orders." "you had better fetch hogan in here, sergeant. tell him what he has to do before you bring him in, then we can see the disguises on you both; and it's better for you to start from an inn, where people are going in and out, than from one of the houses where you are quartered." the landlord returned with the disguises almost immediately after the sergeant had gone out, and in a few minutes the latter came in with hogan. the greatcoats were put on, the hats substituted for military caps, and with the collars of the coats turned up and the addition of two heavy sticks, the disguise was complete, and the two smart soldiers would pass anywhere as peasants. "you had better take your gaiters off, sergeant. you look too neat about the feet; although that would not be noticed unless you went into the light. here is the letter, put it carefully inside your jacket. there, now, i think you will do." it was nearly ten when the two soldiers returned. "here's a letter sir, from the revenue officer. he quite understands what is wanted, and will have a boat off the cliffs at daybreak with a well-armed crew. he does not know where the cutter is at present. she touched there two days ago, sailing west." "you met no suspicious characters, sergeant?" "no, sir. we spoke to no one until we got to the village, beyond asking a woman which was the turning from the main road. there didn't seem to be a soul about in the village, and we had to wait about some time before i could get hold of a boy to tell me which was the revenue officer's cottage. i left hogan outside when i went in; but he saw no one, nor did any one speak to us on our return beyond one or two men we met passing the time of night, which hogan answered." "all the better, sergeant. the great object is secrecy. now, leave these things here and put on your caps again. if you go to the bar the landlord has orders to give you a glass of grog each. don't say a word as to where you have been, hogan, but get back to your quarters. when you have had your grog, sergeant, look in again before you go." when the men had gone out captain o'connor opened the letter, which merely confirmed what the sergeant said. when sergeant morris returned captain o'connor told him that the company were to parade an hour before daylight. "don't give the order to-night, sergeant; but go round from house to house yourself in the morning, rouse the men, and tell them to fall in quietly without beat of drum. "everything is going on well, boys," he said when the sergeant had left, "and i think we have a good chance of laying these scoundrels by the heels to-morrow. however, we must insure that word is not sent from the village, when the troops begin to get up. a stir an hour before the usual time is sure to excite remark, and as it is certain these fellows will have arranged with some one in the village for early news of any unusual movement, we must take steps to prevent a messenger passing. i propose that you two shall be astir half an hour before the troops; and that you shall, before any one else is moving, go along the path leading to the cliffs, stop a couple of hundred yards beyond the village, and arrest any one who may come along." "yes, i think that will be a very good plan," lieutenant desmond said. "no one shall pass us, i warrant." "don't forget to take your pistols; it is likely enough you may have to use them before the day is over. these scoundrels know they fight with ropes round their necks, and are almost sure to resist desperately. now we will have one glass more, and then be off to bed. the day will begin to break about seven, and i will impress upon the landlord the urgent necessity of calling you both by five." "i suppose we are to stay where we take up our station till you come along with the company, o'connor, whether we take any prisoners or not?" "yes, that will be the best way, desmond. if you have caught any one i will send them back with a guard to the village. no, it would not do for you to move before we come up, for there is no saying what time a messenger will go along. they may not take the alarm until just as we are starting, or even until they see which road we are taking. by the way, you may as well take that pair of handcuffs the sergeant has left on the table with you, otherwise if you do get a prisoner you would have to keep your hands on his collar, or he might make a bolt any moment. there is nothing like being on the safe side. "you had better take up your post at some place where your figures will not be seen by any one coming along the road till he is close to you, or instead of coming straight along he might make a bolt round; and some of these fellows can run like hares. we must not let the smallest chance escape us. if we succeed in the affair we shall get no end of credit, beside the satisfaction of freeing the country of as desperate a band of ruffians as any that infest it, and that's saying a good deal. now, here's success to our work to-morrow." o'connor drained his glass and placed it on the table, and then rising and taking up his sword made his way to his room, his companions at once following his example. chapter xii. the cave among the rocks. at five o'clock on the following morning ralph was roused by the landlord, who brought him a candle; he lost no time in dressing, buckled on his sword, looked to the priming of the double-barreled pistols mr. penfold had given him, and placed them in his belt. then he went downstairs and put the handcuffs into the pocket of his great coat. he then went to the bar, where the landlord was kindling a fire. "i want a bottle of whisky, landlord, a loaf of bread, and a big lump of cheese." as he was waiting for these, lieutenant desmond joined him. "that's right, conway, there is nothing like laying in a stock of creature comforts when you have the chance. look here, landlord, get an empty bottle and put half the whisky in, and then fill them both up with water. cut that loaf of bread in halves; in that way we can get it in our pockets. that's right; now do the same with the cheese. you and i may not be together, conway, so it's just as well to divide the commissariat; to say nothing of the convenience of carriage. now, have you got the handcuffs? that's right, we will be off at once." the landlord went to the door with them and looked after them, somewhat surprised at seeing no soldiers about. "what can they be up to by themselves at this hour of the morning?" he said to himself. "well, they are two nice young fellows anyway, and i hope that they are not going to get into mischief. now i will just make up the fire, and then sit down for an hour's snooze in my arm-chair. the captain said he was to be called at six. i suppose they are going out still-hunting somewhere. well, i wish them luck; for when the boys can get their whisky for next to nothing they don't care about coming here, and small blame to them, for i shouldn't myself." not a soul was astir in the village as the two young officers passed along. they turned off at the lane leading to the sea, and after proceeding a quarter of a mile came to a point where the roadway ended, the path beyond this being merely a track. here there was a gate across the lane, and a wall running right and left. "we can't find a better spot than this, conway," lieutenant desmond said. "if we sit down one on each side against the wall, a hundred men might pass along without noticing us." "which side shall we sit, desmond?" "we will sit this side," the lieutenant replied. "if we were the other side a man might possibly wrench himself way from our grasp, and might outrun us, but on this side of the gate he couldn't do so; for even if he did break away he would have to run back toward the village, the gate would stop his going the other way." accordingly the young officers took their posts against the wall, one on either side of the gate, and with their swords drawn awaited the coming of a messenger to the red captain. "there is no chance of any one being here for another twenty minutes," desmond said. "the sergeant will not rouse the men up till a quarter to six, therefore no one is likely to come along until within a few minutes of the hour. it's precious cold here, though the wall does shelter us from the wind a bit; still it's not a lively job having to wait here half an hour, with the thermometer somewhere below freezing point." the time passed slowly. occasionally they exchanged a few words in low tones, but as the time approached when they knew that the sergeant would be going his rounds to call the men they spoke less. "it must be nearly six o'clock now," desmond said at last. "the men would be called at a quarter to, so if any one is coming he will most likely be here in a few minutes. hush! i think i can hear footsteps." a few seconds later they dimly saw a figure running toward them at full speed. as it dashed up to the gate they sprang out and seized it. there was a sharp frightened cry. "don't make a noise," desmond said sternly, "or it will be the worse for you. where were you going?" it was a girl of about twelve years old whom they had captured. she was silent a moment. "sure, your honor," she said in a whimper, "i was doing no harm. i was only running to tell mike brenan that his ould mother is taken bad with the cramps, and wanted to see him bad." "where do you expect to go to, you little liar?" desmond asked. "we know what you are up to. you were running to tell some one that the soldiers were getting up. now, if you are quiet and keep still no harm will come to you; but if you try to scream or to get away we shall hand you over to the police, and there's no saying whether they may not make it a hanging matter for aiding the king's enemies." "i suppose we needn't fasten her?" ralph said. "not fasten her! why, she is as slippery as a young eel, and if you take your hand off her for a moment she would be off like a hare. no, no, we must make her safe. beside," he whispered in ralph's ear, "she would scream to a certainty if she saw any one else coming, then they might strike off and get round us. no, no, we can't run any risks; there is too much depends on it. now just sit down there, young woman, by the wall. we are not going to hurt you, but you have got to keep quiet. now put your feet together." desmond took out his pocket handkerchief and folded it, and tied the girl's ankles firmly together. "now then, ralph, do the same with her wrists. that's right now. wrap that shawl of hers three or four times tightly round her mouth. that's it; let her breathe through her nose. now you keep a sharp watch over her, and see she doesn't wriggle out of these things. if you see any one coming clap your hand over her mouth, and see she doesn't make a sound. when he comes up you can let go and help me if necessary; it won't matter her giving a bit of a scream then." "now," he went on, this time speaking aloud, "if that girl makes the least noise, run her through with your sword at once. don't hesitate a moment." "very well," ralph said in the same tones. "i will silence her, never fear." ralph sat down close to the girl and watched her sharply. they had fixed the shawl as well as they could, but he felt sure that by a sudden effort she could free her mouth sufficiently to scream. she sat perfectly still; but in about three minutes he saw her suddenly throw her head back, and in an instant he clapped his hand over her mouth. she struggled violently in spite of her bonds, and tried to bite; but with the other arm he held her head firmly, and succeeded in preventing the slightest sound escaping her. then he glanced up the path. as he had expected the girl's quick ear had heard approaching footsteps that were inaudible to him. a figure was bounding rapidly toward them. as it reached the gate desmond sprang upon it. there was a sharp scuffle for a moment. "all right, conway. i have got him." it was a lad of some fifteen years old this time. he struggled furiously till desmond placed a pistol against his head, and told him that he would blow his brains out if he was not quiet, and taking out the handcuffs fastened them on to his ankles. "there is no fear of his doing any running now. just come and sit down by this wall, my lad, and remember if you make the slightest sound i will run my sword through your body." the lad shuffled to the wall and sat down. ralph released his grasp of the girl. "this is a regular young wildcat, desmond. she very nearly got my hand in her mouth, and if she had she would have bitten a piece out. well, i shouldn't think there will be any more of them." "no, i should think not. they would scarcely send off more than two messengers. however, we must still keep a sharp lookout." but no one else came along, and in a quarter of an hour they heard the deep tramp of a body of men approaching, and captain o'connor soon came up at the head of the company. "well, any news, gentlemen?" he asked as the two young officers stepped out. "yes, captain o'connor. we have two prisoners--a girl and a boy. they came along about ten minutes apart, both running at full speed and evidently going with messages. we put the handcuffs on the boy's ankles, and tied the girl's with our handkerchiefs." "sergeant, tell off two men and let them take these prisoners back to the village, and guard them carefully till we return. they may as well keep the handcuffs on the boy's ankles, and untie the girl's; but let one of them keep a tight hold of her arm, and be sure that she doesn't slip away." two men were told off for the duty, and the march was then resumed. daylight was faintly breaking when they reached the edge of the cliff. ralph, with ten men, was posted at the spot where a slight track was visible going down into a sort of gulley. captain o'connor then proceeded with half the company to the right, desmond taking the remainder to the left; each posting men at intervals along the edge of the cliff, and placing parties of four at every point where there appeared the smallest probability of an ascent being practicable. all were ordered to load at once. they were to make prisoner any one coming up the cliff, and in case of resistance to fire without hesitation. the two officers then returned to the spot where they had left ralph. it was now nearly broad daylight. leaving the soldiers they went a short distance to a point where the rocks fell away precipitately, and from here had a clear view of the face of the cliffs. "we had better wait here for a time," the captain said. "the chances are that before long one of them will look out from their hiding-place, and perhaps make his way up to the top to look round. if he does, that will give us an index as to the direction at any rate of their hiding-place. now, i will take the ground in front; do you watch to the left, conway, and you to the right, desmond. we had better lie down, or on this jutting point we may catch the eye of any one down there before we can see him. keep a sharp lookout lads; it will save us a world of trouble if we can see one of them." for half an hour they lay quiet, then desmond suddenly exclaimed: "there is a man among those fallen rocks halfway up the side. there! he is gone. perhaps we shall see him again in a moment." for five minutes they lay with their eyes fixed on the rocks that desmond pointed out, but there were no signs of life. "are you sure you were not mistaken, desmond?" o'connor asked. "quite certain. he suddenly appeared by the side of that gray bowlder, stood there for a moment, and sunk down again. i expect he must have got a view of one of the men somewhere along the top." "we will wait another ten minutes," o'connor said, "and then we will take a party to the spot and search it thoroughly. there is the coast-guard boat, so there is no fear of their getting away by water." another quarter of an hour passed. "it is no use waiting any longer. go along the line, one each way, and bring ten men from points where they can be spared. we will leave them at the top of the path and take the party there down with us. there are only four or five of them, and ten men beside ourselves are ample for the business." the arrangements were soon made. before starting on the descent o'connor said to the men: "we wish to take the fellows who are hiding down there alive if possible. they are the gang of the fellow known as the 'red captain,' and have committed a score of murders; but if it is absolutely necessary you will of course fire. there is one man among them who is there on compulsion, and is less guilty than the rest. he is a fair-haired man, and i should think you would notice the difference between him and the rest. whatever resistance they make it is not probable that he will join in it. at any rate, do not fire at him unless it is absolutely necessary to save life. now see to your priming before we start, and fix bayonets. mind how you climb over these rocks, because if any of you fall your muskets may go off and shoot some one in front of you. wherever it is possible scatter out abreast of each other, so as to prevent the possibility of accident. now, then, march!" leading the way, captain o'connor descended the little track. it extended but a short distance. beyond that a chaos of fallen rocks--the remains of a landslip many years previously--stretched away to the shore. "there is no working along these sideways, desmond," captain o'connor said after they had climbed along for some little distance. "we had better make straight down to the shore, follow that for a bit, and then mount again to the spot where you saw the man." it was difficult work, but at last the party reached the shore. lieutenant adcock, who was himself in command of the boat, had watched the party making their way down the rocks, and now rowed in to within a few yards. "good-morning, lieutenant," captain o'connor said. "i think we have got them fairly trapped; but doubtless they would have made off if they hadn't seen you on the watch outside. it's that notorious scoundrel the red captain of galway who is, i hear, hiding here with his gang." "indeed!" the revenue officer said; "that will be a capture worth making. shall i come ashore with four of my men? i expect they are more accustomed to climbing about among the rocks than yours are, and i should like to lend a hand." "do, by all means," captain o'connor replied. "i see you have got ten, and six will be quite enough in the boat, even if they do manage to get down and embark, which i don't think they will. your men are all armed, i suppose?" "yes; they have all carbines and cutlasses. now, coxswain, i leave you in charge. row out a quarter of a mile, and if any boat pushes off you are to stop it and arrest all on board. they will almost certainly resist, and in that case you must use your arms. now, the four bow oars get out and step ashore." when the lieutenant and his four men had landed, the boat again pushed off, and the party on shore made their way along over the rocks at the edge of the water until they were opposite the rock where lieutenant desmond had seen the man appear. then the ascent was commenced. the four officers went first, the men following in a line. "bear a little to the left," captain o'connor said; "it is likely to lie somewhere in that direction. the man we saw would have been making toward the path and not from it. keep a sharp lookout between these great rocks; there is no saying where the entrance to their hiding-place may be." almost as he spoke there was a sharp crack of a rifle, and the bullet struck the rock on which he was standing. "come on, lads!" he shouted, "the sooner we are there the less time they have got to fire;" and with a cheer the men hurried forward, scrambling recklessly over the rocks. again and again puffs of smoke darted out from the rocks in front; and one of the soldiers fell, shot through the heart. "don't stop to fire!" captain o'connor shouted as a yell of rage broke from the men; "you will do no good, and it will only give them more time." a dozen more shots were fired. one of the coast-guard men was shot through the shoulder; but this was the only casualty, for the quick movements of the men as they scrambled over the bowlders disconcerted the aim of those above. breathless and panting the four officers gained the spot from which the shots had been fired, the men close up behind them; but not a soul was to be seen. "wait a moment till you get breath, lads," their leader said. "they can't be far from here. we will find their hiding-place presently, never fear." as they stood panting there was a shout from above. the soldiers were standing along the edge of the cliff, looking down upon the fight. sergeant morris waved his arm. "they have made away to your left, sir!" he shouted at the top of his voice. "we have just caught sight of them among the rocks!" in two or three minutes captain o'connor led the way in that direction. "keep your eyes sharply about, lads. no doubt the place is cunningly hidden. search among every clump of bushes between the rocks." presently the sergeant shouted down again from above: "i think you are far enough now, sir! we did not catch sight of them beyond that!" for an hour the search continued, but without avail. "they must be here somewhere, lads!" captain o'connor said. "we will find them if we have to stop here a week, and have provisions brought down from the village. it's pretty evident there is no opening between the great rocks or we must have found it. we must examine the smaller bowlders. they may have one so placed that it can be dropped down over the entrance. that flat slab is a likely-looking place, for instance. three or four of you get hold of it and heave it up." the men gathered round to lift it. ralph stooped down and peeped under as they did so. "hurrah!" he shouted, "there is an opening here." several of the others now got hold of the stone. it was up-ended and thrown backward, and the entrance to a passage some three feet high and two feet wide was revealed. "i can smell a peat fire!" one of the men exclaimed. "this is the entrance, no doubt," captain o'connor said. "see, the bottom is evidently worn by feet. the passage must have been used for a long time; but it's an awkward place to follow desperate men into." "it is, indeed," lieutenant adcock agreed. "they could shoot us down one after one as we go in. they would see us against the light, while we should be able to make out nothing." "surrender in there!" captain o'connor shouted. "you can't get away; and i promise you all a fair trial." his summons was followed by a taunting laugh; and a moment later there was a sharp sound within, and a rifle bullet struck the side of the entrance and flew out. "it would be throwing away one's life to go in there," captain o'connor said. "at any rate we have got them secure, and they must come out in time. but it would be madness to crawl in there on one's hands and feet to be picked off by those scoundrels at their ease. now, lads, two of you stand by this entrance. keep out of the line of fire, and be ready with your bayonets to run any one through who comes out. let the rest scatter and search round this place. they may have another entrance. if so, we must find it. in the first place, it may be easier of entry; in the second they might escape from it after dark." again the search began. "do you think it is likely to be higher up or lower down, o'connor?" lieutenant desmond asked. "there is no saying, desmond; the passage seems to go straight in. i should fancy above rather than below." for a long time they searched without success; then ralph, who had gone higher up the rocks than the rest, came upon a clump of low bushes growing between some large bowlders. there was nothing suspicious about them, and he was just turning away when he perceived a slight odor of peat smoke. silently he made his way down to the captain. "i have found another entrance," he said. "at any rate i think so; for i certainly smelled smoke. if we go quietly we may take them unawares." captain o'connor passed the word along for the men to gather silently, and ralph then led the way up to the clump of bushes. "yes, i can smell the peat plainly enough. now, conway, do you search among the bushes. carefully, lad, we don't know what the place is like." cautiously ralph pushed the bushes aside. he saw at once that these had been carefully trained to cover a large hole. this was about three feet wide; and descended at a sharp angle, forming a sloping passage of sufficient height for a man to stand upright. captain o'connor knelt down and looked in. "this looks more possible," he said; "but it's very steep. i should say it is not used by them, but acts as a sort of chimney to ventilate the cavern and let the smoke out. at any rate we will try it; but we must take our boots off so as to get a better hold on the rocks, beside we shall make less noise. blunt and jervis, do you go down to the other entrance again. it is likely enough that they may try to make a bolt that way if they hear us coming. keep a sharp lookout down there, and be sure no one escapes." "don't you think, captain o'connor, that it will be a good thing to enter from there also the moment a row is heard going on within. their attention will be taken up with your attack, and we may get in without being noticed." "that's a very good idea, conway; and you shall carry it out. take two more men with you, and make your way in as soon as you hear us engaged. but remember that it is quite possible we may not be able to get down. this passage may get almost perpendicular presently; and though i mean to go if possible, even if i have a straight drop for it, it may close up and be altogether impracticable. so don't you try to enter till you are quite sure they are engaged with us, otherwise you will be only throwing away your life." "i understand, sir," ralph said as he turned to go off. "if you get in you can reckon on our assistance immediately; if not, we shall make no move." ralph now took up his station at the mouth of the cavern with his six men, and lay down just in front of the opening listening attentively. he could hear a continued murmur as of many voices. "get ready, lads, to follow me the instant you see me dive in," he said. "i am sure by the sound there are more than four men in there, and captain o'connor may want help badly." grasping a pistol in his left hand, and his sword in his right, ralph listened attentively. suddenly he heard a shout, followed by a volley of imprecations, and then the discharge of a gun or a pistol. in an instant he threw himself forward along the low narrow passage. he had not gone more than three or four yards when he found that it heightened, and he was able to stand upright. he rushed on, keeping his head low in case the roof should lower again, and after a few paces entered a large cabin. it was dimly illuminated by two torches stuck against the wall. in a moment a number of figures rushed toward him with loud shouts; but before they reached him two of the soldiers stood by his side. "fire!" he shouted as he discharged his pistol, and at the same moment the soldiers beside him discharged their muskets. a moment later he was engaged in a fierce hand-to-hand conflict. several firearms had flashed off almost in his face. one of the soldiers fell with a sharp cry, but those who were following rushed forward. ralph narrowly escaped having his brains dashed out by a clubbed rifle, but springing back just in time he ran his opponent through before he could recover his guard. just at this moment a big man with a shock of red hair and a huge beard leveled a blunderbuss at him. it flashed across him that his last moment had come, when a man behind leaped suddenly upon the ruffian's back and they fell to the ground together, the blunderbuss going off in the fall and riddling a soldier standing next to ralph with slugs. for two or three minutes a desperate struggle went on between ralph and his six men and those who attempted to break through them. sturdily as the soldiers fought they had been driven back toward the entrance by the assailants, armed with pikes and clubbed guns. there was no sound of conflict at the other end of the cave, and ralph felt that the attack there had for some reason failed. "shoulder to shoulder, lads!" he shouted. "we shall have help in a minute or two." he had emptied both his double-barrelled pistols. his sword had just broken short in his hand while guarding his head from a heavy blow. he himself had been almost struck to the ground, when there was a rush of men from behind, and the rest of the soldiers poured in. "give them a volley, lads!" he shouted; "and then charge them with the bayonets!" the muskets rang out, and then there was a shout of "we surrender! we surrender!" a minute later the men were disarmed. there was still a desperate struggle going on on the ground. "here, lads," ralph said to two of his men. "secure this red fellow, he is their leader. one of you bring a torch here." the light was brought. it was seen that the man who had sprung upon the red captain's back had pinioned his arms to his sides, and held them there in spite of the efforts of the ruffian to free himself. two of the soldiers took off their belts and fastened them together, passed them between the back of the man and his captor, and then strapped his arms firmly to his side. the man who held them then released his grip. "stand over him with fixed bayonets, and if he moves run him through. now, where's captain o'connor?" "i don't know, sir. he and mr. desmond and the naval officer went down the hole in front of us. we were following when the naval officer shouted up to us to run round to this entrance and make our way in there, for he could go no further." "i am here, conway," a faint voice said from the other end of the cabin; "but i have broken my leg i think, and desmond has knocked all the wind out of my body." ralph hastened to the spot whence the voice came and found captain o'connor lying on the ground, and lieutenant desmond insensible beside him. "what has happened?" ralph exclaimed. "have they shot you?" "no. hold the torch up and you will see the way we came." the soldier did so, and ralph looking up saw a hole in the top of the cave twenty feet above. "you don't mean to say you came through there, o'connor?" "i did, worse luck to it!" o'connor said. "the passage got steeper and steeper, and at last my foot slipped, and i shot down and came plump into the middle of a peat fire; and a moment later desmond shot down on to the top of me. we scattered the fire all over the place, as you can imagine; but i burned my hands and face, and i believe the leg of my breeches is on fire--something is hurting me confoundedly." "yes, it is all smoldering!" ralph exclaimed, putting it out with his hands. "have you got them all?" captain o'connor asked. "everyone; not one has made his escape. it would have fared badly with us, though, if lieutenant adcock had not sent down the men to our assistance. where is your leg broken, o'connor?" "above the knee," the captain said. "here is some whisky and water," ralph said, handing him his bottle. "now, i will see what has happened to desmond," and he stooped over the insensible officer. "he has got a nasty gash on his forehead, and i think his right arm is broken," he said. "i will pour a little spirits between his lips, and then he had better be carried out into the air." this was done; and then ralph went outside, and shouted to sergeant morris to bring down another twenty men. "if you please, sir," one of the coast-guard men said, touching his hat, "i don't see any signs of our officer. have you seen him?" "no," ralph said. "perhaps he is still in that passage. you had better run up to the top and see." two minutes later the man returned: "he's down there, sir; but he says he can't get up or down." "you had better run down to the boat at once," ralph said. "i see she is close inshore. bring a couple more of your men up with you and a rope. if you tie that round your body you can go down and bring him up." ralph then returned to the cavern, where the men were still guarding the prisoners. "you can march them outside now," he said. "then make them sit down, and stand over them with fixed bayonets till sergeant morris arrives. now let us look to the wounded." an examination showed that two of the soldiers were dead, and three others badly wounded. seven of the party in the cave lay on the ground. one only was alive; the rest had fallen either from bullet or bayonet wounds. seeing that nothing could be done here ralph looked round the cavern. he soon saw that just where captain o'connor had fallen there was an entrance into another cave. he reloaded his pistols before he entered this, but found it deserted. it contained two large stills, with mash tubs and every appliance, two or three hundred kegs of whisky, and some thirty sacks of barley. this at once accounted for the cave being known, and for the number of men found in it; for in addition to the seven that had fallen six prisoners had been taken. the walls of the cave were deeply smoke-stained, showing that it had been used as a distillery for a great number of years. "that is satisfactory," captain o'connor said when ralph reported to him the discovery he had made. "that place where i came down is of course the chimney. peat does not give much smoke, and making its way out through that screen of bushes it would be so light that it would not be noticed by any one on the cliffs. well, it's been a good morning's work--a band of notorious scoundrels captured and an illicit still discovered in full work. it was a cleverly contrived place. of course it is a natural cavern, and was likely enough known before the fall of rocks from above so completely concealed the entrance. i wish those fellows would come, though, for my leg is hurting me amazingly, and these burns on my hands and face are smarting horribly. shout out to them on the cliff, conway, and tell them to send at once to fetch dr. doran from the village. the wounded ought to be seen to as soon as possible, and it is likely enough that some of them cannot be taken up over the rocks to the top of the cliff. i dread the business myself." in a quarter of an hour sergeant morris arrived with his party. by this time lieutenant desmond had recovered consciousness, and although in great pain from his broken arm was consoled upon hearing of the complete success of the expedition. the soldiers were furious on hearing that three of their comrades had been killed, and two of their officers badly injured. "sergeant," ralph said, "bring four of your men into the cave with me. now," he continued when they entered, "there is a pile of blankets in that corner; take one of them and fasten it across two of the men's muskets, so as to make a litter. then we must lift captain o'connor carefully and put him on it and get him outside. it will be a difficult business getting him through the narrow entrance, but we must manage it as well as we can. but first let us thoroughly examine the caves; there may be another entrance somewhere." searching carefully they found a passage behind the stack of kegs. it was some eight feet high and as much wide. they followed it for a short distance, and then saw daylight. their way was, however, speedily blocked by a number of rocks piled over the entrance. "this was evidently the original entrance to these caves," ralph said, "but it was covered up when the rocks came down from above. that would account for the place not being known to the coast-guards. i thought the passage we came in by looked as if it had been enlarged by the hand of man. no doubt it was originally a small hole, and when the entrance was blocked the men who made up their minds to establish a still here thought that it would be the best way to enlarge that and to leave the original entrance blocked. "well, it's evident we must take captain o'connor and the wounded out by the small entrance. it would be a tremendous business to clear those great rocks away." captain o'connor and the two wounded men were with great difficulty taken through the narrow passage. the soldier who was alive was the one who had received the charge of the blunderbuss in his legs; he was terribly injured below the knee, and ralph had little doubt that amputation would be necessary. the other man lived but a short time after being brought into the air. ralph now turned to the peasant who had saved his life by grappling with the red captain at the moment he was about to discharge his blunderbuss, and who had by his orders been left unbound. he was sitting a short distance from the other prisoners. "your name is denis moore?" he said. "it is, your honor," the man replied in surprise; "though how you came to know it beats me entirely." "i heard it from your wife last night," ralph said. "from bridget?" the man exclaimed. "why, i thought she was a hundred miles away!" "she came down here like a brave woman to try and save you," ralph said, "and gave us information that brought us to this hiding-place; but her name is not to appear, and no one will know how we heard of it. we promised her that no harm should come to you if we could help it, and, thanks to the act by which you saved my life, you have escaped, for being down on the ground you were out of the line of the fire of our bullets. of course at present we shall treat you as a prisoner, as you were captured with the others; but i think we shall manage to let you slip away. your wife is to remain at dunmanway till she hears the news of this affair and that you are safe, and she bade me tell you that you would find her at home, so no one will dream that either she or you had any hand in this affair. now, point me out which are the four men that belong to this gang that brought you down here." "the man who has just died was one of them," denis replied. "none of the other three are here, so i expect they fell in the cabin. they were in the front of the fight. i saw one go down just as i grappled with our captain." "so much the better," ralph said. "as to their leader, there will be no difficulty in getting evidence about him. the regiment he belonged to is in dublin, and they can prove the shooting of his officer; beside, they can get any amount of evidence from galway." "ay; they will be ready enough to speak out now the whole gang are down," denis moore said. "they would not have dared to open their lips otherwise. the other prisoners all belong about here. one of their party is the captain's brother. that's how it is they came to take us in. but i think they would have been glad to get rid of us, for the red captain's lot were too bad for anything; and it isn't because men are ready to cheat the king's revenue that they are fond of such villains and murderers as these." in a short time the doctor arrived. he had brought a case of instruments with him. "there's nothing for it but amputation here," he said when he examined the wounded soldier. "his legs are just splintered. the sooner i do it the better." sergeant morris and three of the men held the poor fellow while the operation was performed. as soon as it was over the doctor applied splints and bandages to captain o'connor's leg and lieutenant desmond's arm, and dressed the wounds of three of the other men, who had suffered more or less severely. chapter xiii. startling news. "what do you think is the best thing to be done now doctor?" ralph asked. "i don't know," he replied. "i don't see how on earth we are going to get them over these rocks and up to the top. a slip or a fall would cost either of your friends their limbs, and that poor fellow his life. i don't see how it is to be managed. it's hard work for a man to climb those rocks, and how a litter is to be carried i can't see. if it were anywhere else i should say build a hut for them; but it would be a tremendous business getting the materials down, and i don't think it could possibly be managed by night." "i am sure it couldn't," ralph said, shaking his head. "i think, though, if we got two long poles and slung a piece of canvas like a hammock between them we may possibly get them down to the shore. you see we have plenty of strength to get them over rough places." "we could manage that easy enough," lieutenant adcock, who had some time before joined the party, said. "there are some sixteen-feet oars in the boat and some sails. we could easily rig up the hammock. i suppose you mean to take them off in the boat, mr. conway?" "yes; that's what i meant," ralph said. "then you can land them in your cove, and they might stop in the village till they are fit to be moved." "that would be an excellent plan," the doctor said. "let us set about it at once." in half an hour the sailors brought up the hammock. "i will go first," captain o'connor said, "as i am the heaviest. you will see how you manage to get me down. if it's done pretty easily you can bring down the two others; if not, they had better stop in the cave for to-night, and we will get a hut for them to-morrow. by the way, conway, you had better get the dead carried out and taken down to the seashore. have them laid down out of reach of the tide. some of them belong about here, and their friends will wish to give them a decent burial. our own dead had better be put in the boat, if mr. adcock will allow it, and taken to the village with us. then they can be carried over to ballyporrit for burial. a corporal with four men must be left for to-night in charge of the caves." "i shall want my men to row the boat," lieutenant adcock said. "in the morning i will send over a warrant officer and four men to take charge of the cave till i can take its contents round to our stores." captain o'connor was now lifted into the hammock, and six sailors carried him down to the water. they managed it excellently, easing him down with the greatest care over the rocks, and succeeded in getting him down to the sea without a single jerk. lieutenant desmond and the wounded soldiers were then taken down in the same way, while the men carried down the dead bodies of their three comrades and of the peasants who had fallen. "i will take charge of the wounded," lieutenant adcock said, "and see them comfortably housed and cared for. i suppose dr. doran will go with us." "certainly," the doctor said, stepping into the boat. "i shall not give up charge of them until i see them all safely in bed." "i shall come over and see you o'connor," ralph said, "as soon as i get the company back to the village. shall i write a report of this business, or do you feel equal to doing so?" "i will manage it, conway. i can dictate it if i don't feel up to writing it. but you had better not come over to-day. there will be a good deal of excitement over this capture, and no doubt several of the killed and prisoners belong to ballyporrit; so it wouldn't do for you to leave the detachment without an officer. be sure you have a strict guard put over the prisoners, and keep an eye upon them yourself. you can send over to inquire about us, but till you have got them off your hands you had better not leave the village. if a party are wanted for still-hunting send sergeant morris with them. i shall dispatch my report to-night, and no doubt the colonel will send an officer out to help you as soon as he gets it." the boat now pushed off. a corporal and four men were told off to occupy the cave until relieved by the revenue men, and then, with the prisoners in their center, the party climbed the cliff, and again, having been joined at the top by the rest of the company, marched to ballyporrit. they found the village in a state of excitement. the soldier who had gone to fetch the doctor had brought the news that a fight had take place down on the face of the cliff, but he could not say whether any had been killed. as soon as the detachment returned with the prisoners in their midst many women flocked round with cries and lamentations, and exchanged greetings with the prisoners. ralph at once took possession of the stables at the inn, and saw that the prisoners were all handcuffed, the red ruffian's legs being also securely bound. then he placed two sentries inside and two out. the news that some of the men had been killed soon spread, and many of the villagers who did not see their relations among the prisoners hurried off toward the scene of action. ralph informed the landlord that the dead had all been placed together on the seashore, and that their friends were at liberty to remove and bury them without any questions being asked. he then sent a corporal over to bring back news how the wounded men had borne the journey, and how they were disposed. but before his return the doctor drove up in a trap that he had borrowed. "adcock has put up the two officers in his own house," he said, "and his wife will look after them, so you need not worry about them. the other poor fellows are in the cottage next door. it belongs to the coxswain of the boat, who is also a married man. so you need be under no uneasiness about any of them. as far as i can see, they are all likely to do well. i shall go over the first thing in the morning, and will bring you news of them as soon as i get back." ralph had given orders that denis moore was not to be treated as a prisoner; and he now told the sergeant to send him in to him. "i have been thinking it over, moore," he said; "and it seems to me the best plan will be to allow you to go quietly away. your conduct in the fight in the cave in itself showed that you were not voluntarily with the others; and i do not think, therefore, that it is necessary to report you among the prisoners. i suppose the red captain's gang have not done any unlawful act beyond taking part in the still business since they took you away from home?" "no, your honor. we just came straight down here, traveling at night and hiding away by day." "very well. in that case you can give no special evidence against them. it is probable that at the trial evidence may be required from galway as to the deeds that that red-bearded scoundrel committed there; and it is possible that you may be summoned with others, but i should think that the evidence of the constabulary will be sufficient. so, if you will give me your address there i will take it upon myself to let you go at once. in that case you can join your wife this evening and travel back with her." "thank you, sir," denis replied. "i have no objection at all to give evidence as to what i know, so that it does not come out it was bridget who tould you where they were hiding." "you need not be afraid of that, denis. captain o'connor gave her his word that her name should not be mentioned. at the same time i have no doubt he will claim for her the hundred pounds reward that was offered; and if he obtains it he will send it to you, so that nobody will be any the wiser." "i should not like to take informer's money," denis said. "not in ordinary cases," ralph replied. "but you see she spoke out, not for the sake of money, but to get you out of their hands. and considering how much mischief those fellows have done, and how much more they would have done had we not laid hands on them, it is a very different case from that of an ordinary informer. none of your neighbors will know that she has had anything to do with the capture of these men, therefore no one will be any the wiser, and no doubt a hundred pounds will be very useful to you. i am sure you deserve some sort of compensation for being dragged away from home, and for the risk you ran in that fight; for a bullet might just as well have struck you as any of the others. i know that if i were in your place i should accept it without the least hesitation. and now, as i don't suppose they have left any money on you, and as your wife is not likely to be very well provided, i will give you five pounds on account; and remember that i shall always feel your debtor for the manner in which you saved my life by springing upon that ruffian just at the critical moment." "you will deduct it from the other money, your honor?" denis said, hesitating. "certainly i will, denis. i should not think of offering you money for such a service as you rendered me. now, if you will just give me your address in galway i will make a note of it; though i don't think it at all likely you will be wanted at the trial. they will most likely proceed against him on the charge of shooting his officer and deserting; for they will have no difficulty in proving that, as the regiment he belonged to is in dublin." denis started at once to rejoin his wife, highly pleased to have got away so quickly. two days later captain morrison and mr. stapleton arrived from headquarters. "i congratulate you, conway," the latter said heartily. "we all pitied your being ordered away to this dreary place; and now you have been getting no end of honor and credit. o'connor's report speaks in the strongest terms of you, and says it was entirely owing to your promptness and courage that the band was captured, and his life and that of desmond saved. the cork papers are full of the affair; and the capture of that notorious scoundrel, the red captain, created quite an excitement, i can tell you. the only bad part of the affair is that we have had to come out here, for i am afraid there is no chance whatever of another adventure like yours." "oh, i fancy there are plenty more stills to be captured, stapleton; and that's good fun in its way, though it involves a good deal of marching and hard work." "and how are o'connor and desmond getting on?" captain morrison asked. "i had a very good report of them this morning from the doctor, and now that you have come i shall take a trap and drive over and see them at once. i had o'connor's orders not to leave here till you arrived." "you are to go back yourself to-morrow morning, conway," captain morrison said. "you are to take the prisoners in with an escort of a corporal and ten men, and to hand them over to the civil authorities; which means, i suppose, that you are to take them to the prison." "i suppose i shall come straight out again?" ralph asked. "i should think so; for with all this still-hunting business three officers are wanted here. but of course you will report yourself to the colonel and get orders. here are the orders he gave me to give you. you are to start early, make a twenty-mile march, halt for the night, and go on again the first thing in the morning. you are to hire a cart for the wounded prisoners, and to exercise the utmost vigilance on the way. the men are to carry loaded muskets. it is not likely there will be any attempt at a rescue; but such things have happened before now. if anything of the sort should take place, and you find that you are likely to get worsted, your orders are that you are not to let the red captain be carried off alive. put a man specially over him, with instructions to shoot him rather than let him be taken away from him. the colonel will hold you harmless. the scoundrel has committed too many murders to be allowed to go free." "i understand," ralph said, "and will carry out the orders; and now i will be off at once, for it will be dark in an hour." ralph was glad to find that the two officers were going on better than he had expected. lieutenant desmond was already up, with his arm in splints and a great patch of plaster across his forehead. o'connor was still in bed, and was likely to remain so for some time. the regimental surgeon was with him, having left the other two officers at the turn of the road leading to the village. "i am glad to see you, conway," captain o'connor said cheerfully. "i was expecting you. the doctor said morrison and stapleton had gone on to ballyporrit. none the worse for your brush, i hope?" "not a bit," ralph said. "the bump on my head caused by that musket blow hurt me a bit the first day or two, but it's going down now. i am glad to see you and desmond looking so well." "oh, we shall soon be all right; though i am afraid i shall be kept on my back for some little time. desmond is rather in despair, because he is afraid his beauty is spoiled; for the doctor says that cut on his forehead is likely to leave a nasty scar. he would not have minded it if it had been done by a french dragoon saber; but to have got it from tumbling down a chimney troubles him sorely. it will be very painful to him when a partner at a ball asks him sympathizingly in what battle he was wounded, to have to explain that he tumbled head foremost into a peat fire." desmond laughed. "well, it is rather a nuisance; and you see conway, the ashes have got so ground up in the place that the doctor is afraid it will be a black scar. o'connor chaffs me about it, but i am sure he wouldn't like it himself." "why, my dear fellow, it's a most honorable wound. you will be able to dilate upon the desperate capture of the noted ruffian the red captain, and how you and that noble officer captain o'connor dashed alone into the cavern, tenanted by thirteen notorious desperadoes. why, properly worked up, man, there is no end of capital to be made out of it. i foresee that i shall be quite a hero at tea-fights. a battle is nothing to such an affair as this. of course it will not be necessary to say that you shot down into the middle of them like a sack of wheat because you could not help it. you must speak of your reckless spring of twenty feet from that upper passage into the middle of them. why, properly told, the dangers of the breach at badajos would pale before it." "i am glad to see that you are in such high spirits," ralph said when the laugh had subsided. "there's no fear of your being lame after it, i hope?" "no, dr. doran says it is a clean snap of the bone, and it will, he thinks, mend all right; and as macpherson, who has been examining it, says the same, i hope it is all right. it is very good of the colonel sending the doctor over to us; but i think doran understands his business well, and has made a capital job of both of us." "how is rawlinson going on?" "oh, i think he will do very well," the surgeon said. "of course he's a little down in the mouth about himself. it is not a pleasant prospect for a man to have to go about on two wooden legs all his life. still it's been done in the service; and as the fight was a sharp one, and such an important capture was made, he will get his full pension, and i shall strongly recommend him for chelsea hospital if he likes to take it. but he tells me he was by trade a carpenter before he enlisted, and i expect he would rather go down to live among his own people. his wooden legs won't prevent him earning a living at his trade; and as he is rather a good-looking fellow i dare say he won't have much difficulty in getting a wife. maimed heroes are irresistible to the female mind." "that's a comfort for you, desmond, anyhow," o'connor laughed. "that black patch on your forehead ought to add a thousand a year to your marketable value." the next morning ralph marched with his detachment, and arrived at cork without adventure. here he handed his prisoners over to the civil authorities of the jail, and then marched up to the barracks. he at once reported himself to the colonel, who congratulated him warmly upon the success that had attended the capture, and upon his own conduct in the affair. "i will not keep you now," the colonel said, "for the mess-bugle sounded five minutes ago. i shall see you again in the morning." as ralph entered the messroom the officers had just taken their seats. he was greeted with a boisterous outburst of welcome. his comrades got up and shook his hand warmly, and he had to answer many inquiries as to how o'connor and desmond were going on. "sit down, gentlemen!" the major who was president of the mess shouted. "conway has had a twenty-mile march, and is, i have no doubt, as hungry as a hunter. let him eat his dinner in peace, and then when the wine is on the table he shall relate his adventures in detail. by the way, conway, i hope you have lodged that ruffian safely in jail?" "yes, sir, i have handed him over, and glad i was to get him off my hands; for though i had him handcuffed and his feet tied, and brought him along in a cart, i never felt comfortable all the way. the fellow is as strong as a bull, and as he knows what is before him he was capable of anything desperate to effect his escape." "i remember the man well," one of the officers said; "for, as you know, i was in his regiment before i exchanged into the twenty-eighth. he was a notorious character. he had the strength of two ordinary men, and once or twice when he was drunk it took eight men to bring him into barracks. i am heartily glad he is caught, for the poor fellow he killed was one of the most popular men in the regiment--with the soldiers as well as with us--and if they could have laid hands on this fellow i believe they would have hung him up without a trial. i shall have real pleasure in giving evidence against the scoundrel for i was present at the time he shot poor forrest. i wasn't five yards away, but it was all over and the villain was off before i had time to lift a hand." after dinner was over ralph gave the full history of the capture in the cavern, of which captain o'connor had sent but an outline. "it was a sharp fight indeed," the major said when he had finished; "for, for a time you were greatly outnumbered, and in the dark discipline is not of much avail. i think on the whole you got very well out of it, and o'connor and desmond were lucky in having got off with a broken limb each." ralph was detained some days in cork, as he had to be present at the courthouse when the prisoners were brought up before the magistrates. after giving his evidence as to the capture, his attendance was no further required. all with the exception of the red captain were committed at once upon the charges of working an illicit still, and of offering a forcible resistance with arms to the authority of the king's officers. the red captain was charged with several murders, and was remanded in order that evidence might be obtained from the regiment to which he belonged in dublin, and of the constabulary and other people in county galway. ralph then returned to ballyporrit. a fortnight later the detachment was recalled, the colonel having received the news that the regiment would be shortly under orders for america. lieutenant desmond was able to travel to cork at once, although still unfit for duty; and the surgeon reported that in another fortnight captain o'connor would be also fit to be removed. ten days later definite orders were received for the regiment to be ready for embarkation, as soon as the two transports which had been ordered round from plymouth arrived. soldiers are always fond of change; and although there were few more pleasant quarters than cork, there was a general feeling of animation and excitement at the thought of service at the other side of the atlantic. all officers and men on furlough were at once recalled. the friends of many of the officers came across from england, to be with them till they sailed upon what was then considered a long and perilous voyage. balls and dinners were given to and by the regiment. officers overhauled their kits and belongings, getting what new things were required, bargaining with brokers for their furniture, and making all preparations for a prolonged absence from england. "ah, stapleton," ralph said, as the young ensign came into his quarters one day in high spirits, "there will be a sad change come over you before long. you almost wished you might die on your way round here from london. what will be your feelings when you have to face the waves of the atlantic?" "don't talk about it, conway. the very thought makes me feel queer. however, i expect i shall get on better now than i did last time. what an ass i was, to be sure, on that voyage!" "well, i do think your four months with the regiment have done you a world of good, stapleton. you certainly were a stuck-up sort of personage when you came on board in the thames. i think it is an awful mistake for a fellow to be educated at home, instead of being sent to school; they are sure to have to suffer for it afterward." "well, i have suffered for it to some extent," stapleton said. "the lessons i got at first were sharp ones; but they certainly did me good." "there is no doubt about that," ralph agreed; "and i think there is a good deal of credit due to you, stapleton, for having taken things in the right way. i wonder where we shall be stationed in america, and whether we shall have any fighting? upon the whole we have no very great reason to be proud of our feats of arms in america; but i hope we shall do better next time. you see, in the last struggle we knew nothing of their tactics, and were at a great disadvantage; but after fighting its way through the peninsular, i don't think there is any fear of the regiment not giving a good account of itself, if it is called upon to do so, out there." the next day an orderly came into the room just after mess-dinner had commenced. he whispered to the adjutant, who at once rose. "mr. president," he said to the major who was at the head of the table, "i must ask you to excuse me leaving the table. the colonel wishes to see me immediately at his quarters." "what can be the matter now?" one of the officers said. "it must be something of importance or the colonel would never have called hallowes out in that way." "heard of some still away among the hills, i suppose. that means a night's tramp for some of us. too bad to be put to this sort of work within a week of sailing on foreign service," grumbled another. various guesses were made as to the nature of the business, and several wagers were laid on the subject. in ten minutes the adjutant returned. he was evidently excited, and all listened with great interest as, instead of resuming his seat, he remained standing. "gentlemen," he said, "i have great news for you. a vessel has just come in from plymouth with dispatches. napoleon has escaped from elba. he has landed in france, and been received with enthusiasm. the troops have joined him, and he is already close to paris, which he is expected to enter without opposition. the king of france has fled." for a moment there was silence, then the major leaped to his feet. "three cheers, gentlemen!" and all of those present joined in a hearty cheer. then a sudden silence fell upon them. the first idea that had struck each man was that the news meant their again taking the field for another stirring campaign. then the dismal thought occurred to them that the regiment was under orders for america. it soon found expression in words. "why, major, they surely won't be sending us across the atlantic now this news has arrived. the powers will never permit all their work to be undone, and napoleon to mount the throne of france again. why, in a short time all europe will be in a blaze, and how is england to take the field again? the greater portion of wellington's army are scattered over the world--in america, india, and the colonies. i don't believe there are half a dozen of the old fighting regiments available, and even their ranks are half-filled with raw recruits. almost all the regiments at home are mere skeletons. surely they will never be sending us away at such a moment?" "that i can say nothing about," the adjutant replied. "certainly no counter orders have reached the colonel this evening. i don't suppose anything will be decided upon for some time. the powers will all exchange notes and hold councils and spend weeks in talk before they make up their mind whether anything is to be done, and if so what; and long before they come to any decision on the subject we shall be on the other side of the atlantic, and then, possibly, after all the trials and monotony of perhaps a two months' voyage, we may land there only to be fetched back again. i quite agree with you that england can put nothing worth calling an army in the field, and that it would be madness to send a fine regiment out of the country at the present moment. but everyone knows the lack of wisdom with which we are governed, and the miserable slowness of our military authorities. it is not likely even to occur to any one to countermand our orders, but it will certainly be disgusting in the extreme to have to start just at the present moment." "beside," another officer said, "it will be maddening to be two months at sea without news, and to know that perhaps all europe is in arms and tremendous events going on and we out of it altogether." "i should think nothing will be done just at present," the major said. "every country in europe has been disbanding its armies just as we have since peace was proclaimed, and it will be a long time before any of them are ready to take the field in anything like force. even napoleon himself, great organizer as he is, will take some time to put all france under arms again. an army is a machine that cannot be created in a day. the soldiers have to clothed, arms to be manufactured, the cavalry to be mounted, the artillery to be organized, and a field train got together. no, i should say that at least four months must elapse before fighting begins in earnest. with anything like a favorable wind we should be across in america in a month. if orders are sent out a month after we start we may be back in time for the opening ball. judging from the past, it is likely to be a long business unseating napoleon again, and if we are not in for the first of it we may be in plenty of time for a fair share of the fighting, always supposing that the authorities are sufficiently awake to the merits of the regiment to recall us." "how is the wind this evening?" one of the officers asked. "it was westerly when we came in," lieutenant desmond said. "why do you ask?" "why, as long as it blows from the west there is not much chance of the transports getting in here." "that is so," the major agreed. "the question for us to consider is whether we ought to pray for a fair wind or a foul. a fair wind will take us quickly across the atlantic and will give us a chance of getting back in time. a foul wind may possibly give them time to make up their minds at the horse guards, and to stop us before we start. it is a nice question." "there is no hope whatever, major, that our government will make up their minds before the wind changes, not if it blew in one quarter longer than it has ever been known to do since the beginning of the world. especially, as not only they, but all the governments of europe have to come to a decision." "oh, if we had to wait for that it would be hopeless; but at the same time, as it must be evident to any individual of the meanest capacity that something or other for which troops will be required will have to be done, surely a month ought to be sufficient for the idea to occur to some one in authority that it would be as well not to be sending soldiers abroad until matters are finally settled." "i agree with you," the adjutant said. "therefore i think we had best decide that our hopes and wishes shall be unanimous in favor of a continuance of westerly winds." never were the weathercocks watched more anxiously than they were by the officers and men of the twenty-eighth for the next fortnight. the elements certainly appeared favorable to their wishes, and the wind blew steadily from the desired quarter, so that it was not until ten days after they were expected that the two transports which were to convey the twenty-eighth to america dropped anchor in cork harbor. captain o'connor rejoined the regiment on the evening before the transports arrived. he walked with two sticks, but this was a measure of precaution rather than of necessity. "i feel like an impostor," he said, laughing, as he replied to the welcome of his comrades. "i believe i could safely throw away these sticks and dance a jig; but the doctor has laid his commands on me, and my man, who has been ruling me with a rod of iron, will not permit the slightest infringement of them. he seems to consider that he is responsible for me in all respects, and if he had been master and i man he could not have behaved with grosser despotism." "i am glad to see you looking so well, o'connor," ralph said, shaking his captain warmly by the hand. "i don't know whether i do right in shaking hands with you, conway," o'connor said. "i have been thinking it over while i have been lying there, and i have come to the conclusion that it's you i have to thank for this affair altogether." there was a general laugh. "how do you make that out?" ralph asked. "it's clear enough, now my eyes are opened. it was you who discovered that passage, and when you did so you said at once to yourself, now, i will get o'connor and desmond to go down this place, they are safe to break their necks, and then i shall get all the honor and glory of the affair. and so it came about. there were desmond and i lying on the top of each other with the breath knocked clean out of our bodies, while you were doing all the fighting and getting the credit of the affair. i appeal to all friends here if it is not a most suspicious affair." there was a chorus of agreement. "we did not think it of you, conway;" "a most disgraceful trick;" "ought to be sent to coventry;" "ought to be drummed out of the regiment;" mingled with shouts of laughter. "by the way, the trial of those fellows comes on next week," one of the officers said when the laughter subsided; "so if the transports don't come in you will be able to see the last of them, o'connor." "i shall have no objection to see that red rascal hung; but as to the other poor devils, i should be glad enough for them to get off. an irish peasant sees no harm in making whisky, and it's only human nature to resist when you are attacked; beside it was the red captain's gang that set them to fighting, no doubt. if it hadn't been for them i don't suppose there would have been a shot fired. i hope that's the view the authorities will take of it." as it turned out this was the view taken by the prosecuting counsel at the trial. the red captain was tried for the murder of his officer and for the shooting of two constables in galway, was found guilty, and hung. the others were put on trial together for armed resistance to his majesty's forces, and for killing and slaying three soldiers. their counsel pleaded that they were acting under the compulsion of the gang of desperadoes with them, that it was these and these only who had fired upon the soldiers as they ascended the rocks, and that the peasants themselves had no firearms; indeed, it was proved that only five guns were found in the cave. he admitted that in their desperation at the last moment the men had defended themselves with pikes and bludgeons; but this he urged was but an effort of despair, and not with any premeditated idea of resisting the troops. he pointed out that as all the soldiers had fallen by gunshot wounds, none of the prisoners at the bar had any hand in their death. the counsel for the crown did not press for capital sentences. two of the men, who had before suffered terms of imprisonment for being concerned in running illicit stills, were sentenced to transportation. the others escaped with terms of imprisonment. chapter xiv. the new housemaid. "what do you think of the new housemaid, charlotte?" "as she has only been here twenty-four hours," miss penfold replied, "i don't think i can say anything about it, eleanor. all servants behave decently for the first week or two, then their faults begin to come out. however, she seems quiet in her way of going about, and that is something. my room was carefully dusted this morning. these are the only two points on which i can at present say anything." "i met her in the passage this morning," eleanor penfold said, "and it seemed to me that her face reminded me of some one. did that strike you?" "not at all," the elder sister replied decidedly. "i am not given to fancies about such things. i saw no likeness to any one, and if i had done so i should not have given it a second thought. the one point with us is whether the woman is clean, quiet, steady, and thoroughly up to her work. her reference said she was all these things, and i hope she will prove so. she is older than i like servants to be, that is, when they first come to us. a young girl is teachable, but when a servant has once got into certain ways there is never any altering them. however, if she knows her work it does not matter; and there's one comfort, at her age she is less likely to be coming to us one day or other soon and saying that she wants to leave us to get married." the new servant, anna, as she was called in the house soon settled down to her duty. miss penfold allowed that she knew her work and did it carefully. the servants did not quite understand the newcomer. she was pleasant and friendly, but somehow "she was not," as one of them said, "of their sort." this they put down partly to the fact that she had been in service in london, and was not accustomed to country ways. however, she was evidently obliging and quiet, and smoothed away any slight feeling of hostility with which the under housemaid was at first disposed to feel against her for coming in as a stranger over her head, by saying that as she had no acquaintances in the village she had no desire to go out, and that whenever her turn came to do so the other might take her place. as jane was keeping company with the blacksmith's son, this concession greatly pleased her; and although at first she had been disappointed that she had not on martha's leaving succeeded to her place, the fact that she was but twenty-one, while the newcomer was a good many years her senior, went far to reconcile her to being passed over. mrs. conway had not been twenty-four hours in the house before she discovered there was an obstacle in the way of her search that she had not foreseen. she had dusted the drawing-room and dining-room, and then went to the door of the room which she supposed to be the library. she found it locked. at dinner she asked the other housemaid what the room opposite the dining-room was, and where was the key. "that was master's library," the girl said. "miss penfold always keeps it locked, and no one is allowed to go in. it's just as he left it; at least martha said so, for i have never been inside since. on the first day of each month it is opened and dusted. miss penfold always used to go in with martha and stay there while she did the work. she said it was to see that nothing was moved, but martha used to think there was another reason." "what is that?" mrs. conway asked. jane shook her head and glanced at the butler, as much as to say she did not care about speaking before him; but presently when she had an opportunity of talking alone with the newcomer she said: "i didn't want to say anything before james, he holds with the miss penfolds. he only came a month or two before master's death and did not know much about him, and he will have it they have been ill treated, and that the lawyer and all of them ought to be punished for going on as if the miss penfolds had done something wrong about the will. cook, she doesn't give no opinion; but martha and me both thought they knew something about it, and were keeping miss withers and young conway out of their rights. but i forgot that you were a stranger, and didn't know nothing about the will." then she told mrs. conway all about the will being missing, and how mr. tallboys, who had made it for mr. penfold, said that all the property had been left to mabel withers, who was the daughter of the clergyman and a great pet of the master's, and to a boy who had been staying there some months before, and whose name was conway. "well, martha and me believed that they," and she nodded toward the drawing-room, "must know something about it; for mr. tallboys would have it that it was stowed away in some secret hiding place, and has been looking for it here and pulling down the wainscotting and all sorts. and, of course, if there was a secret hiding-place the miss penfolds would know of it as well as their brother. martha used to think that the reason why the miss penfolds had the room shut up, and would never let her go into it without one of them being there to look after her, was that the hiding-place was somewhere in the library, and that they were afraid that when she was dusting and doing up she might come upon the will." the same conclusion had flashed across mrs. conway's mind as soon as she heard that the room was kept locked. "if the will is really hidden away," she said, "it's likely enough to be as you say; but i shouldn't think two ladies would do such a thing as that." "oh, you don't know them," jane said sharply. "they are two regular old cats they are, and hunt one about all over the house as if they thought one was going to steal something. they was fond of their brother in their way, but, bless you, they treated him like a child, and he das'ent call his soul his own; and you may be sure they didn't like the thought that he had left his money away from them, and that some one else would become master and missis of the hall while they were living. martha and me was both of one mind that the old women were likely enough to do it if they had a chance. i would give a good deal if i could find the will myself just to see their faces; interfering old things. it was only two sundays ago they told me after i came out of church that they didn't approve of the ribbons in my bonnet; just as if a girl was to go about as if she was a convict." "but you say there were men searching here, jane. how was it they didn't find it if it's in the library, and how was it the miss penfolds allowed them to search?" "they couldn't help it," jane replied. "there was an order from the court in london, or a judge or some one, and they couldn't stop it. they went away when the men came and didn't come back till it was all over. i don't know how it was that they didn't find it in the library, for they searched it regular. i was in there two or three times while they were at work, and they took out all the books from the shelves and pulled down a lot of the wood-work and turned it all upside down, but they couldn't find anything. still, you see, it ain't a likely tale of theirs as they keeps the door locked because they want it to be just as he left it, when it's all been turned topsy-turvy and everything put out of its place. "that's what martha and me couldn't get over, though martha told me they done their best to have it put just as it was; and there's paper and pens on the table, just to pretend it is exactly as it used to be and that no one hadn't been in. as if they cared so much about him. i call it sickening, that's what i calls it. the withers don't come here now. they used to be often here in the master's time, but they are not friends with them now. last sunday the parson he made it hot for them, and preached a sermon about secrets being known and undiscovered things coming to light. of course he didn't say nothing special about wills, but they felt it, i could see. our pew's on the opposite side of the church, and i could see their faces. miss penfold she got white, and pinched up her lips, and if she could have given a piece of her mind to the parson she would have done so; and eleanor she got red and looked as if she was going to cry. "she is a lot better than her sister, she is; and if any wrong's been done it's the old one that's done it, i am sure, and martha always said so too. i could put up with the younger one very well, but i can't abide miss penfold." "i am quite anxious to see the room, jane, after what you have been telling me about it." "well, you will see it in about a week. it's always on the first of the month that it is done up; and you will see the old woman will go in with you, and watch you all the time like a cat watches a mouse. martha used to say so, but there--as you are not from this part of the country, and she won't think as you know nothing about the will or care nothing about it, she won't keep such a sharp lookout after you as she did with martha." upon the following sunday mrs. withers, on the way home from church, asked her husband with some anxiety whether he was not well. "i noticed you were quite pale in church, james, and you lost your place once or twice, and seemed as if you really weren't attending to what you were doing?" "then i am afraid, my dear, i seemed what i was, for i was tremendously surprised; and though i tried hard to keep my thoughts from wandering i am afraid i succeeded very badly." "surprised, james! what was it?" "i will tell you, my dear. you know that letter we had a fortnight ago from mrs. conway, and that we puzzled over it a good deal. after talking as usual about her being determined to find the will and set matters straight, she said that we might possibly see her before long, and begged us not to show any surprise or to seem to recognize her. well, you know, we talked it over, and could make nothing of it. now i know what she means." "what! did you see her in church to-day, james?" "i did, amy; and where do you think she was?" "i can't guess, james. why, where could she be, and where can she be staying if not with us? i didn't see her. are you sure you are not mistaken?" "she was sitting behind you, amy, which will account for your not seeing her. she was sitting in the penfolds servants' pew, in a plain straw bonnet and quiet clothes like the others." "among the penfolds' servants, james! are you dreaming?" "not at all, my dear; there she was, sure enough. i could not possibly be mistaken." mrs. withers was silent for some time with surprise. "but what can she be doing there, james? do you mean to say that you think that she has really gone to service at the hall?" "that is what i do think," the clergyman replied. "you know how she said over and over again that she was determined somehow to find the will. well, i believe that she has in some way in pursuance of that purpose gone as a servant to the penfolds. now, my dear, you will not be surprised that i found it somewhat difficult to keep my thoughts from wandering." "no, indeed, james. i am sure if i had been in your place i should have stopped altogether. well, if that is so, it explains what she said in her letter about our not recognizing her; but how could she do such a thing, and what will come of it?" "i have no idea how she managed to get there, amy; but certainly she must have managed very cleverly somehow. what she is there to do is clear enough. she is going to search herself for the will. whether she will ever find it or not is another matter; but i can hardly believe she can succeed after the thorough search tallboys said he made of the house. still that is what she means, i have not a shadow of doubt about it." "i should never have thought for a moment she was the sort of woman to undertake such a thing," mrs. withers said. "why, she will have to do servant's work, and to run all sorts of risks of being found out, and then i don't know what they mightn't do to her!" "i don't see that they could do much, my dear, unless perhaps they prosecuted her for obtaining the place with a false character, which i suppose she must have done. still it required no ordinary pluck for a woman to undertake such a scheme, and it will require patience and nerve to carry it through; but i don't know that i agree with you that she is not the sort of woman i should have thought capable of undertaking such a business. she was quiet enough when we met her in the town; but i believe from what i have heard that she was a high-spirited girl, and when we saw her, you know, she was on the eve of parting with her son. as she was evidently wrapped up in him, that would of course make her more quiet and silent than usual. i thought she bore up remarkably well, and admired the effort she made to prevent any display of her feeling marring the pleasant time we were having in london." "but how about mabel, james? had we better tell her about this? you see, if she happens to meet mrs. conway she might betray her secret--might run up and address her by her name." "that is certainly a difficulty, my dear; and i don't quite know what to do about it. what do you think yourself?" "i think we had better postpone the matter, james, by sending mabel away for a bit. you know my sister has asked her several times to go and stay with her on a visit at bath. we have never cared to let her go away from us; but i do think now that it will be a good thing for me to write to harriet, and tell her that if it will be convenient for her to take mabel, we shall be glad to send her to her for a few months in order that she may take lessons in french and music. there are, of course, plenty of good masters there. in that way we shall get rid of the necessity for speaking to mabel about it at all, and i should think it likely that mrs. conway would have left the hall long before she returns." "perhaps she will, my dear, though i would not count upon that too much. i imagine that as mrs. conway has had nerve and courage enough to propose and so far carry out this singular plan of hers, she will have resolution enough to continue to play her part till she either finds the will, or becomes thoroughly convinced that it is absolutely not to be found." and so mrs. withers wrote to her sister, and ten days later mr. withers started with mabel for bath. mrs. conway had some difficulty in restraining all show of excitement, and in assuming a passive and indifferent air as upon the first of the month miss penfold unlocked the door of the library and led the way into the room. "this was my brother's library. you will understand, anna, that i wish everything to remain exactly as it is. you will therefore be careful to place everything as you find it--each article of furniture, and the books and papers on the table. you will just sweep the floor and dust everything. beyond that we wish nothing done to the room." mrs. conway began her work quietly. miss penfold watched her for some little time, and then said: "you will leave the door open, anna; it is better to let the air circulate as much as possible. when the weather gets warmer you will also leave the windows open while you are at work; but the air is too damp at present." "would you like me to light a fire to air the room, miss penfold?" "certainly not," miss penfold said decidedly, "there is no occasion whatever for it. if i have not returned by the time you have finished the room, come and tell me when you have done. i always make a point of locking the door myself." so saying miss penfold went out, leaving the door wide open behind her. "have you left her alone there?" eleanor asked her sister as she entered the sitting-room. "certainly i have," miss penfold said coldly. "i do wish you would not be so nervous, eleanor. the woman can have no interest in this matter. she may have heard of it from the other servants, but it can be nothing to her. you know as well as i do that there is no chance of her stumbling upon it by accident. it was different with the last girl. of course they were always talking about the will, and she might have tried, as a matter of curiosity, to find it, or she might have been bribed by those withers or by that man tallboys; but it is different now. this woman can have no interest in it, and will only want to get her work done as soon as possible. my being always in the room with her as i was with martha might excite comment. i should never have done it in martha's case if you had not been so absurdly nervous; for you know very well there was no real danger of her ever finding the place however closely she looked for it. but now there's a change it is quite time to drop it, or a rumor will be getting about that we are afraid of any of our servants remaining for a moment alone in the library." "i wish we had never done it. i do wish we had never done it," eleanor murmured pitifully. "i am ashamed of you, eleanor," miss penfold said coldly. "you are worse than a child with your laments and complainings. what have we done? nothing. we have no certainty that there is a will in existence; and if we had, it's not our business to assist to carry out a monstrous wrong against ourselves, and to put that woman's son as master here. how many times have we talked this over, and it's always the same. you keep on trembling at shadows." "i should not care if it was not for the night, charlotte. i am always dreaming that herbert is coming to my bedside and looking so stern and angry, and saying, 'let justice be done.'" "bah!" miss penfold said contemptuously. "you must eat less supper, eleanor. if you were not such a coward you would not dream such things. i have no patience with your folly." "i know it is foolish, charlotte, but i can't help it; my nerves were never as strong as yours. i quite agreed with you from the first about it. i think it was infamous that herbert should have passed us over, and that it is not to be expected we should aid in the discovery of such a wicked will. still i can't help being unhappy about it, and lying awake at night and dreaming. no one can help their dreams." "your dreams are a mere repetition of your thoughts," miss penfold said scornfully. "if you worry while you are awake, you will worry while you are asleep. we have done nothing criminal. we have meddled with no will, nor hidden one. we simply refuse to aid in the discovery of an unjust document, and by so doing prevent a great wrong being done to ourselves. to my mind the thing is perfectly simple, and my conscience wholly acquits me of any wrong-doing." left to herself, mrs. conway took an earnest look round the room. somewhere no doubt within its limits lay the key of the secret that would give wealth to ralph. where was it? the walls were completely covered by bookshelves. these were handsomely carved, and dark with age. one of the penfolds had evidently been a bookworm, and had spared no pains and expense in carrying out his hobby. the housemaid had said that all the books had been removed, and that nothing had been found behind them. still there might well be some spring that had escaped their notice. at any rate the ground must be gone over again. then the spring might lie among the carved work of the bookcases themselves. this must be gone over inch by inch. that was evidently the first work to be done. the mantel and its supports were of richly carved woodwork. these, too, must be searched. in the first place, however, she had to carry out her work; and laying aside determinately all thought of the missing will, she began to dust and sweep. at the end of an hour, when she happened to turn round, she saw miss penfold standing in the doorway. she had not heard her footstep, and at once decided in her mind that it would be necessary to be extremely careful in her search, as at any moment miss penfold might look in upon her without warning. "have you nearly finished, anna?" miss penfold asked. "it will take me another hour at least to dust the woodwork properly, miss penfold. i have done the carpet and furniture." miss penfold made no remark but went away again. "she is not likely to come back for a few minutes," mrs. conway said to herself. "i think i can safely carry out one of my plans." she took from her pocket a ball of thin string, one end of which was attached to a tiny brad awl. going into one corner of the room she fixed the brad awl into the woodwork; then, unwinding the ball, proceeded to the other end of the room, straining the string tightly, and tied a knot to mark the length. then she went back and crossed the room, and again make a knot to mark the width. then she hastily gathered up the string, pulled the brad awl from the woodwork, and put them in her pocket. while she had been carrying this out she retained a duster in one hand, and dusted the wood work as she moved along, trusting that if miss penfold should look in, the string, which was of a dark color, would be unnoticed by her. however she gave a sigh of relief when the operation was complete, and the string and brad awl hidden away. she then continued her work until in about three-quarters of an hour miss penfold again appeared. "i think that will do very well, anna; it is quite impossible to get all the dust out of the carving. it would take you all day to go over it, and you would need steps for the upper part. that need only be done occasionally." she gave an approving glance round as she noticed that the new housemaid had carefully placed every article in the exact place in which she had found it. mrs. conway gathered up the brooms and dusters and left the room, miss penfold carefully locking the door after her. "that is something done," mrs. conway said to herself; "and will, i think, save me an immense deal of trouble. to-morrow i will measure the rooms next to it. the passage runs along the side and it is hardly possible that there can be any receptacle there; the wall is not thick enough for a place of any size. it must be at one end or the other, or else under the floor." the following morning she measured the dining-room, and what was now known as the housekeeper's room, but which in years gone by had been called the still room; and the following day slipped out of doors as soon as she came downstairs and took the outside measurement of the side of the house, marking on the string the position and width of each window. she had only now to make a plan and compare the figures. she found that between the back of the bookcase--for she had taken out a few books to ascertain its depth--and the panel of the dining-room there was a thickness of two feet; but between the library and the housekeeper's room there were fully five feet unaccounted for. in both were deep old-fashioned fireplaces back to back; and even allowing but six inches between these, the depth there would be accounted for, but on either side of the fireplaces there would be a wide space. there were certainly no cupboards visible in the library, for the bookcases extended from the fireplace to the wall on each side. in the housekeeper's room there were cupboards on each side of the chimney-piece, but these were shallow, not being above nine inches in depth; therefore behind these there was a considerable space unaccounted for. it was evident to mrs. conway that her first search must lie in this direction. here might lie two chambers each three feet wide by eight feet long. mrs. conway's spirits rose at this discovery, and she sighed impatiently at the thought that another month must elapse before she could even commence the search. brooding over the matter continually, there was one point that did not escape her. these old hiding-places were made either to conceal proscribed priests or hunted fugitives, and were constructed with the greatest care. as she had so easily discovered the spot where a hidden room might be situated, it would be discovered with the same ease by those who were on the search for fugitives, and who would naturally be well acquainted with the positions where hiding-places would be likely to be situated. the moment they looked into the cupboard, its shallowness would suggest to them that there must be a wide empty space behind it, and by setting to work with axes, picks, and crowbars, they would soon discover by force the secret she was trying to penetrate by stratagem. this reflection considerably damped her hopes; but she thought that possibly from this easily-discoverable hiding-place there might be some access, much more difficult to trace, to another lying below. at any rate she determined that if she did find the secret entrance to these little rooms, and found that they were empty she would not be disheartened, but would search further until she found either some secret closet where the will might be placed, or an entrance to some perhaps larger hiding-place below. her subsequent search outside showed her that there existed several small iron gratings about six inches long and three deep, close down to the soil of the border. no doubt these were intended to give ventilation underneath the floors, which were some two feet above the outside level, but one of them might also afford ventilation to an underground chamber. three months passed, and on the occasion of each of her visits to the room she devoted some time to the examination of the carved woodwork round the fireplace and that of the bookcases, but without making any discovery whatever; and it became evident to her that a far closer search would be needed than the short and hasty examination that was all she dared to make, with the possibility that at any moment miss penfold might appear at the door. accordingly she wrote to mr. tallboys, and told him that it would be necessary for her to obtain a cake of very soft wax, four inches long and two inches wide, and asked him to procure it for her, and to send it in a wooden box to her by the carrier's cart that once a week journeyed from weymouth to the villages in the neighborhood of the hall. ten days later she received the wax, and the next time the day for cleaning the library arrived she quietly withdrew the key from the door as soon as miss penfold had left her, laid it on the wax, and pressed it steadily until a deep impression was made upon its surface. then she carefully examined the key to see that no particle of wax had stuck between the wards, replaced it in the door, closed the lid of the little box in which the wax lay, and put it in her pocket, and then set to at her work of cleaning. upon this occasion she spent no time in trying to find the spring. there was danger now as always of miss penfold's coming, and as she would soon have the means of entering the room at her will she would run no risk. a few days later she asked for a day to go to weymouth to purchase some things of which she had need, and when there she called upon mr. tallboys. "how are you, mrs. conway?" the lawyer said when the door had closed behind her. "have you come to tell me that you give up the search as hopeless?" "not at all," she replied with decision. "i told you in my letter that i had discovered the probable position of the hiding-place, and told you of the difficulties there were in making a thorough search for it owing to the room being always kept locked. i have come now to ask you to get a key made from this," and she produced the wax. "it would be suspicious if i were to go to a locksmith here and ask for such a thing; he would think at once that i was a servant who wanted to rob my mistress. but of course it will be different with you. beside, i thought that if you did not like to get it done here, you might send the wax up to london and get the key made there." "this is becoming more and more serious, mrs. conway," mr. tallboys said gravely. "nothing very terrible could happen to you beyond being turned out of the house even were it discovered who you really are; but if you were found at night, and i suppose your intention is to work at night, in the library, with a false key in your possession, you might be arrested for an attempt at theft, and could only clear yourself by explaining before the magistrates who you were, and with what motive you were acting, which would give rise to much unpleasant talk, would render any pursuance of your plan impossible, and might not improbably induce these women to destroy the will, if they have not already done so." "i am quite convinced they have not done that, mr. tallboys. the anxiety they have about any one entering the room, and the manner in which miss penfold pops in occasionally to see what i am doing, is quite proof in my mind that the will is still in existence; for if they had destroyed it, they would have no further anxiety on the subject. no, i have thought it all over, and must run the risk. there is no other way of making a complete search; and in one night there by myself i could do far more than in a twelvemonths' visits as at present. there are two or three more things i wish you would procure for me. i want a man's coat and cap, rough ones, such as a burglar might wear. you see, if by any chance i am met by those women going downstairs, or returning to my room, i must give them a start. dressed up like that, and with a piece of crape over my face, i should be taken for a burglar. i don't think miss penfold is very easily frightened; but at the same time i fancy i might alarm her into returning to her room, and should be able to get back to mine before the house was roused. i shall always unfasten a window on the ground floor and lift it a little, so that it would be supposed that the intruder entered and escaped that way." mr. tallboys smiled a little, but said, "it is a very risky business, mrs. conway. miss penfold is just the sort of woman to keep pistols in her bedroom." "one must risk something when one is fighting for a fortune," mrs. conway said quietly. "i hope that i shall not be heard. there are always creakings and noises in an old house like that. the doors are thick and well fitting, and there is little chance of my footsteps being heard. it is only by an accident, such as one of them being unable to sleep and getting up and walking over the house, that they are likely to run against me, and it is not probable she would have a pistol in her hand then. no, i do not think there is the least fear of anything of that sort. the only fear i have is of being detected in some other way before i have done what i have to do, and the risk of that grows less and less every day. "i have been there over four months now, and am perfectly at home. i was at first afraid of a sudden meeting with mr. withers, or his wife, or mabel; but that has passed away now. i saw he recognized me the first sunday in church, and i wrote to him; of course sending the letter to dover to be sent back from there. he answered me praying me to give up what he called my mad-brained attempt, and saying it made him and his wife quite unhappy to think of my being at the hall. he told me that at present they had not told mabel that i was there, but had sent her away to school at bath. she is with an aunt, and will not be home again for some months; so i am safe from her. no, i am not in the least anxious about myself. i cannot say as much about ralph. his regiment has just gone out to belgium, and i suppose there will be fighting presently. i think of that more now than i do of this will, mr. tallboys. if i had known what was coming, i would not have begun this search until it was all over. what use would it be for me to find the will if anything happened to him." "it is clearly of no use my trying to dissuade you from carrying out your plans, mrs. conway; and although i cannot altogether approve of them, i will do my best to help you as far as lies in my power, and you shall have the key down very shortly. how shall i send it over?" "i have ordered a dress and some other things at wilson's in the high street. the dress has to be made up, and will not be ready for a week. i have told them there will be three or four other parcels, which they are to put in the box and send it on by the carrier. i have ordered a pair of boots to be made for me and one or two other things, and told them not to close the box until this day fortnight, by which time all the other things i have ordered will be sent in to them. i hope you will have got the key before that." "oh, yes, i should think it would be done in a week at latest. you certainly deserve success, mrs. conway, for you seem to provide for every contingency." chapter xv. in belgium. there was a general feeling of depression in the regiment when it was known that the transports had arrived in harbor. as a rule regiments embarking for service abroad start in high spirits, and whatever private regrets are felt at parting from friends, the troops march gayly down to the point of embarkation. but this was not the case as the twenty-eighth with the band at its head playing "the girl i left behind me," passed through the streets of cork on its march down to the spot ten miles away where the transports were lying. there was not one from the colonel down to the youngest drummer-boy but felt that he had been deprived of the chance of taking part in a stirring campaign, and that he was going into a sort of exile. the baggage had been sent on the previous day, and the regiment on arriving at the harbor was speedily transferred in large lighters to the two transports. "they are two fine ships, anyhow," captain o'connor said to ralph as the barge carrying his company approached the side of one of them. "rather different craft to that in which we made our last voyage together. we shall have comfortable quarters on board her, and ought to make a pleasant passage if we have but decent weather." "yes, if anything could make our voyage pleasant under the circumstances," ralph replied dismally. "oh, it's no use thinking any more about that," o'connor said cheerfully. "we must make the best of matters, and hope that we shall soon be on our way back again; if not, i dare say we shall have a pleasant time in canada. with your knowledge of french, conway, you will make a great hit among the fair canadians." "i didn't think of that," ralph laughed. "yes, the prospect is a cheering one. i promise you, o'connor, that i will do the best i can for you. well, here we are alongside." "good afternoon, captain. when are we going to sail?" o'connor asked the master of the vessel as he stepped on deck. "you must ask the clerk of the weather," the skipper replied. "at present there is not a breath of wind stirring, and from the look of the sky i see no chance of a change at present." day after day passed, and still the vessels remained at anchor. not a breath of wind stirred the water, and the troops had nothing to do but to lounge idly about the decks and whistle for a breeze. whenever a vessel came in from england boats were lowered and rowed alongside to get the latest news. this was little enough. it was, however, known that all the powers had determined to refuse to recognize napoleon as emperor of france, and that a great coalition against him was being arranged. there were rumors that belgium was likely to be the scene of operations. already, by the terms of the late treaty, several english regiments were stationed on the belgian frontier, and three or four more were already under orders to embark for that country. it was reported that russia, austria, and prussia were taking steps to arm. the militia had been called out at home, and high bounties were offered for volunteers from these regiments into the line. recruiting was going on vigorously all over the country. horses were being bought up, and efforts made to place the attenuated regiments on a war footing. all this was tantalizing news to the twenty-eighth. the colonel was known to have written to influential friends in london, begging them to urge upon the authorities the folly of allowing a fine regiment like his to leave the country at such a moment. but little was hoped from this, for at any moment a change in the weather might place them beyond the possibility of a recall. three weeks passed and then the barometer fell, and there were signs of a change. there was bustle and movement on board the ships, and even the soldiers were glad that the monotony of their imprisonment on board was about to come to an end, and their voyage to commence. the sails were loosed from their gaskets, and the sounds of the drum and fifes struck up as the capstans were manned, the soldiers lending a hand at the bars, and the chains came clanking in at the hawse-holes. "there is a vessel coming in round the point," o'connor said. "but we shall hardly get the last news; we shall be under way before she anchors." "she is signaling to the fort on the hill," ralph said, as he watched the flags run up on the signal-staff on the summit of spike island; "and they are answering down below there at the station in front of the commandant's house." a moment later a gun was fired. "that's to call our attention, i think," the skipper said, taking up his glass and directing it to the shore. "yes, there is our number flying. get the signal-book, boy. mr. smith, run up the answering pennant." as soon as this ascended the flags on shore were lowered, and a fresh set run up-- . . . . "give me the book. 'the vessels are not to sail until further orders,'" he read aloud. "hooray, lads!" captain o'connor shouted at the top of his voice. "we are stopped until further orders." a loud cheer broke from the troops, which was echoed by a roar from the other vessel; and for a few minutes the greatest excitement reigned. the men threw their caps into the air, and shouted until they were hoarse. the officers shook each other by the hand, and all were frantic with delight at the narrow escape they had had. as soon as the brig had dropped anchor boats rowed off to her, but nothing further was learned. just as she was leaving plymouth an officer had come on board with dispatches, and instructions to the captain to signal immediately he arrived at cork that if the twenty-eighth had not already sailed they were to be stopped. owing to the lightness of the wind the brig had been eight days on her passage from plymouth. for another fortnight the regiment remained on board ship. the imprisonment was borne more patiently, now they felt sure that they were not at any rate to be sent across the atlantic. then a vessel arrived with orders that the twenty-eighth were at once to proceed to ostend, and two hours afterward the transports set sail. belgium was hardly the spot which the troops in general would have approved of as the scene of operations, for the disastrous expedition to walcheren was still fresh in mens' minds. they would, moreover, have preferred a campaign in which they would have fought without being compelled to act with a foreign army, and would have had all the honor and glory to themselves. still belgium recalled the triumphs of marlborough, and although every mail brought news of the tremendous efforts napoleon was making to reorganize the fighting power of france, and of the manner in which the veterans of his former wars had responded to the call, there was not a doubt of success in the minds of the twenty-eighth, from the colonel down to the youngest drummer-boy. ralph was sorry that he had not been able to pay a flying visit to his mother before his departure on active and dangerous service. he had been somewhat puzzled by her letters ever since he had been away. they had been almost entirely devoted to his doings, and had said very little about herself beyond the fact that she was in excellent health. she had answered his questions as to his various friends and acquaintances in dover; but these references had been short, and she had said nothing about the details of her daily life, the visits she paid, and the coming in of old friends to see her. she had evidently been staying a good deal, he thought, with the withers, and she kept him fully informed about them, although she did not mention when she went there or when she had returned. she frequently spoke about the missing will, and of her hopes it would some day be recovered; and had mentioned that the search for it was still being maintained, and that she felt confident that sooner or later it would come to light. but even as to this she gave him no specific details; and he felt that, even apart from his desire to see his mother, he should greatly enjoy a long talk with her, to find out about everything that had been going on during his absence. mrs. conway had indeed abstained from giving her son the slightest inkling of the work upon which she was engaged; for she was sure he would be altogether opposed to her plan, and would be greatly disturbed and grieved at the thought of her being in any menial position. whether if, when he returned, and she had not attained the object of her search she would let him know what she was doing she had not decided; but she was determined that at any rate until he came home on leave he should know nothing about it. "so we are going to fight bony at last, mister conway," ralph's servant said to him. "we've never had that luck before. he has always sent his generals against us, but, by jabbers, he will find that he has not got roosians and proosians this time." "it will be hot work, denis; for we shall have the best troops of france against us, and napoleon himself in command." "it's little we care for the french, your honor. didn't we meet them in spain and bate them? sure, they are are hardly worth counting." "you will find them fight very much better now they have their emperor with them. you know, wellington had all his work to beat them." "yes, but he did bate them, your honor." "that's true enough, denis; but his troops now are old soldiers, most of whom have been fighting for years, while a great part of our force will be no better than militia." "they won't fight any the worse for that, your honor," denis said confidently. "we will bate them whenever we meet them. you see if we don't." "we will try anyhow, denis; and if all the regiments were as good as our own i should feel very sure about it. i wish, though, we were going to fight by ourselves; we know what we can do, but we do not know how the belgians and dutch and germans who will be with us can be depended upon." "if i were the duke i wouldn't dipend on them at all, at all, your honor. i would just put them all in the rare, and lave our fellows to do the work. they are miserable, half-starved cratures all them foreigners, they tells me; and if a man is not fed, sure you can't expect him to fight. i couldn't do it myself. and i hope the duke ain't going to put us on short rations, because it would be murther entirely on the boys to make them fight with impty stomachs." "i fancy we shall be all right as to that, denis. i expect that we shall wait quiet till the french attack us, and waiting quiet means getting plenty of food." "and dacent food, i hope, your honor; not the sort of thing they say them foreigners lives on. denis mulligan could live on frogs and snails as well as another, no doubt; but it would go sorely against me, your honor." "i don't think there's much chance of your having to live on that denis. you will get rations there just the same as you did in spain." "what! beef and mutton, your honor? i suppose they will bring them across from england?" "they may bring some across, denis; but i suppose they will be able to buy plenty for the supply of the army out there." "what! have they got cattle and sheep there, your honor?" denis asked incredulously. "of course they have, denis; just the same as we have." "the hathens!" denis exclaimed. "to think that men who can get beef and mutton should feed upon such craturs as snails and such like. it's downright flying in the face of providence, your honor." "nonsense, denis; they eat beef and mutton just the same as we do. as to the frogs and snails, these are expensive luxuries, just as game is with us. there is nothing more nasty about snails after all than there is about oysters; and as to frogs they were regarded as great dainties by the romans, who certainly knew what good eating was." "sure, i am a roman myself, your honor--so are most of the men of the regiment--but i never heard tell of sich a thing." "not that sort of roman, denis," ralph laughed. "the old romans--people who lived long before there were any popes--a people who could fight as well as any that ever lived, and who were as fond of good living as they were of fighting." "well, your honor, there is no accounting for tastes. there was bridget maloney, whom i courted before i entered the regiment. well, your honor, if you would believe it, she threw over a dacent boy like myself, and married a little omadoun of a man about five feet high, and with one shoulder higher than the other. that was why i took to soldiering, your honor. no, there is no accounting for tastes anyhow. there's the mess-bugle, your honor. next time we hear it, it will be at say, and maybe there won't be many ready to attind to it." denis' prediction was verified. the vessel sailed at two o'clock in the afternoon, and by six was rolling heavily, and a brisk wind was blowing. the twenty-eighth had not long before made the voyage from the south of france, but they had been favored by exceptionally fine weather, and had experienced nothing like the tossing they were now undergoing. the consequence was that only about half a dozen officers obeyed the bugle call to mess. there was a general feeling of satisfaction when the low coast round ostend was sighted, for the voyage throughout had been a rough one. under certain circumstances a sea voyage is delightful, but confinement in a crowded transport in rough weather is the reverse of a pleasant experience. the space below decks was too small to accommodate the whole of the troops, and a third of their number had to be constantly on deck; and this for a ten days' voyage in a heavy sea, with occasional rain-showers, is not, under ordinary circumstances, calculated to raise the spirits of troops. but men bound on active and dangerous service are always in the highest spirits, and make light of disagreeables and hardships of all kinds. they had expected to find ostend full of troops, for several regiments had landed before them; but they soon found they were to be marched inland. as soon as the regiment had landed they marched to a spot where a standing camp had been erected for the use of troops on their passage through. their baggage was at once sent forward, and the men had therefore nothing to do but to clean up their arms and accoutrements, and to wander as they pleased through the town. they started early next morning, and after two days' marching arrived at ghent, where several regiments were quartered, either in the town itself or in the villages round it. ralph's company had billets allotted to them in a village a mile from the town, a cottage being placed at the disposal of the captain and his two subalterns. the next morning, after the parade of the regiment was over, most of the officers and many of the men paid a visit to the town, where the fugitive king of france had now established his court. ralph, who years before had read the history of ghent, was greatly interested in the quaint old town; though it was difficult to imagine from the appearance of its quiet streets that its inhabitants had once been the most turbulent in europe. here von artevelde was killed, and the streets often ran with the blood of contending factions. was it possible that the fathers of these quiet workmen in blouses, armed with axes and pikes, had defeated the chivalry of france, and all but annihilated the force of the duke of anjou? what a number of convents there were! the monks seemed a full third of the population, and it was curious to hear everyone talking in french when the french were the enemy they were going to meet. the populace were quite as interested in their english visitors as the latter were with them. the english scarlet was altogether strange to them, and the dress of the men of the highland regiment, who were encamped next to the twenty-eighth, filled them with astonishment. for a fortnight the regiment remained at ghent, then they with some others of the same division marched to brussels, and took up their quarters in villages round the town. the twenty-eighth belonged to picton's division, which formed part of the reserve concentrated round brussels. the first army corps, consisting of the second and third divisions of dutch and belgians, and the first and third of the british, extended from enghien on the right to quatre bras on the left. the first british division were at the former town, the third between soignies and roeulx, while the belgians and dutch lay between nivelles and quatre bras. the second army corps held the ground on the right of the first, and extended to oudenarde on the scheldt. the cavalry, with the exception of the brunswick brigade, were posted at grammont, mons, and roeulx, their outposts being thrown forward as far as maubeuge and beaumont. the prussians were on the left of wellington's force, and extended from ligny through namur toward liege, their advanced posts being at charleroi, where zieten's division had their headquarters. but although the allied armies thus formed together the arc of a large circle covering brussels, they were entirely distinct. the british drew their supplies from ostend, on the right of their position, while liege on the extreme left was the base of the prussians. napoleon's movements were uncertain. he might either advance upon namur and cut off the prussians from their base, or between grammont and oudenarde, by which measure he would similarly cut the british off from ostend; or he might advance from charleroi direct upon brussels, breaking through at the point where wellington's left joined the prussian right. the duke of wellington believed that he would attempt the second of these alternatives, as in that case he would fall upon the british before the prussians could come up to their assistance, and if successful would not only cut them off from the base of supplies, but would be able to march straight upon brussels. it was to defeat this plan that the duke posted the largest proportion of his british troops along the frontier, holding, however, two british divisions and the brunswick and nassau troops in and round brussels, where they were nearly equidistant from any point that could be attacked, and could be moved forward as soon as the enemy's intentions became manifest. by the time that the whole of the forces were assembled wellington had ninety thousand men under his orders; blucher, the prussian general, had one hundred and sixteen thousand; while napoleon had one hundred and twenty-five thousand with which to encounter this vastly superior force. upon the other hand, napoleon's were all veteran troops, and the french had for a long time been accustomed to victory over the prussians. of wellington's force fully a half were of mixed nationalities: belgians, dutch, brunswickers, and hessians; while his british division consisted chiefly of young troops, so hastily raised that a great number of them absolutely fought at waterloo in the uniforms of the militia regiments from which they had been drafted. it seemed, however, a well-nigh desperate enterprise for napoleon to attack so greatly superior a force. but he had, in fact, no choice but to do so; for russia and austria were arming, and their forces would soon be advancing upon france, and it was therefore necessary if possible to defeat the british and prussians before they could arrive. could he succeed in doing this the enthusiasm that would be excited in france would enable him vastly to increase his army. in the meantime his confidence in his own military genius was unbounded, and the history of his past was contained many triumphs won under circumstances far less favorable than the present. during the weeks that elapsed while the three great armies were assembling and taking up their positions, the troops stationed round brussels had a pleasant time of it. the city itself was crowded with visitors. here were a number of the wives and friends of the officers of the various armies. here were many of the french nobility, who had abandoned france upon the landing of napoleon. here were numbers of people attracted by curiosity, or the desire of being present at the theater of great events, together with a crowd of simple pleasure-seekers; for europe had for many years been closed to englishmen, and as soon as peace had been proclaimed great numbers had crossed the channel to visit paris, and had traveled in germany, italy, and switzerland. the news of napoleon's return to france had occasioned a great scare among the tourists. a very few days sufficed for the desertion of paris and other french towns, and so great was the crowd that the packet-boats between calais and dover were insufficient to carry them. many of the visitors to paris instead of leaving for england made for belgium, and were joined there by travelers hurrying back from austria, germany, and other parts of europe; for none could say what course the events that would follow napoleon's return from elba might take. at brussels, however, they felt safe; the distance to england was short, and they could, if necessary, leave at any time. beside, between belgium and france twelve thousand british troops had been stationed in the strong places, in accordance with the terms of the treaty of fontainebleau and an agreement made with her allies after the fall of napoleon. the streets of brussels were ablaze with bright colors. staff-officers in the uniforms of a number of nationalities dashed through the streets, followed by their orderlies. now and then two or three general officers, riding at a slower pace and engaged in earnest talk, passed along, while the pavements were occupied by crowds of men and officers in all the varieties of british, dutch, belgian, brunswick, hanoverian, hessian, and prussian uniforms. although belgium had cast in her lot with the allies the people were by no means unanimous in their sympathies; and, indeed, the majority, from their similarity both in religion and tongue to the french, sympathized with them rather than with the allies, who were for the most part both protestant and foreigners. those who entertained these sentiments, however, kept them to themselves, while the rest fraternized to the best of their power with the troops, many of whom were quartered in the town. as for amusements, there were for the officers the theaters and an opera, while many of the ladies staying in brussels kept almost open houses; races and athletic sports were got up for the men. the weather at the latter end of may and during the early days of june was delightful; and although all knew that the storm might at any moment burst, it was difficult to believe while so enjoying themselves that to-morrow they might be called upon to meet the enemy in deadly conflict. even denis mulligan had nothing to complain about in his rations, and allowed to ralph that the belgians were much more decent people than he had expected to find them. the months of april and may had passed quietly on the frontier. the cavalry of the allied army on one side, and the french mounted gendarmerie on the other, maintained a vigilant watch over each others' movements, and each endeavored to prevent the passing out of persons who might carry news of the intentions and position of their armies. but the line was far too long to be strictly watched, and french loyalists on the one side and belgian sympathizers with france on the other, managed to pass with sufficient regularity to keep the generals informed of the movements of their opponents. wellington, then, was perfectly aware of the gathering of napoleon's forces upon the other side of the frontier; but they, like his own troops were scattered over a long front, and yet there was no indication whatever as to the point where napoleon was likely to break through. during the past three months large bodies of men had labored to restore the ruined fortifications of the frontier towns. the moats had been cleared out and deepened, the walls repaired, and the sluices restored, so that in case of necessity a wide tract of country could be laid under water. these precautions had been specially taken on the right of the british position where wellington expected napoleon's attack, and the general calculated that with the aid of the obstacles so interposed to napoleon's advance, the troops stationed there would be able to check the tide of invasion until the whole army arrived to their assistance. the country between brussels and the frontier was reconnoitered, and engineer officers were employed in making sketches of all the positions that appeared likely to offer special advantages as battlefields for an army standing on the defense. among others the fields lying in front of the village of waterloo were mapped, and the spot was specially marked by the duke as one to be occupied in case the enemy forced a way between the british and prussian armies. on the th of june the duke of wellington learned that napoleon and the guards had left paris for the north, and the next day the officer in command of the cavalry outposts reported that the pickets of french cavalry which had so long faced him had disappeared, and that he had learned from some french custom-house officers that hostilities were about to commence. on the th of june, ralph conway had gone with stapleton into brussels as usual. everything was going on with its accustomed regularity. a military band was playing in the park. numbers of well-appointed carriages, filled with well-dressed ladies, drove to and fro, and crowds of officers and civilians strolled under the trees, greeting their acquaintances and discussing the latest gossip of the town. as to the coming of the french, the topic was so threadbare that no one alluded to it; and no stranger could have imagined from the aspect of the scene that three great armies were lying thirty or forty miles away in readiness to engage at any moment in a desperate struggle. the great subject of talk was the ball that was to be given that evening by the duchess of richmond; this was expected altogether to outshine any of the other festivities that had taken place in brussels during that gay season. it was about half-past four in the afternoon that the young men saw captain o'connor approaching. "can you young fellows keep a secret?" he asked. "i think so," ralph laughed. "i suppose you are both going to the ball?" "of course we are. we are both off duty, and stapleton here is quite absorbed in the thought of the conquests he intends to make." "well, the secret is this. it is quite probable you will not go to the ball at all." "why! how it that?" the young officers exclaimed simultaneously. "is the regiment ordered away?" "not yet, lads; but it may be. i have just seen the colonel. he dined with the duke at three o'clock. there were a lot of officers there, and the prince of orange, who had just come in from the outposts for the ball, told him that the prussians at thuin were attacked this morning, and that a heavy cannonade was going on when he left. orders were issued half an hour ago for the whole of the troops to be in readiness to march at a moment's notice. there's no saying yet which way the french may come, and this attack upon the prussians may be only a feint; so not a soldier can be moved till more is known. the first division is ordered to collect at ath to-night, the third at braine-le-comte, and the fourth at grammont. the fifth--that is ours--with the eighty-first and the hanoverian brigade, and the sixth division, of course collect here. all are to be in readiness to march at a moment's notice. the prince of orange is to gather the second and third dutch divisions at nivelles. of course this first skirmish may only be intended to feel our force and positions; but at any rate, it is a sign that the game is going to begin." "but if the orders are issued, and the troops are to collect to-night, the secret cannot be kept long." "no; by this time the divisional orders will be published, and everyone will know it in an hour or two. there is really no secret about it, lads. if there had been the colonel wouldn't have told me, and i shouldn't have told you. see, the news is circulating already." a change was indeed taking place in the position of the scene. the loungers were gathering in little groups, talking eagerly and excitedly. the orders for the concentration of the divisions had become known, though as yet all were in ignorance as to the reason for their issue. the three officers joined some of the groups and listened to the talk. the general idea was that the duke had heard that the french were gathering for an attack, and these measures were merely precautionary. it might be days yet before the affair really began. still it was important news; and there were pale faces among the ladies at this sudden reminder that the assembly at brussels was not a mere holiday gathering, but that war, grim, earnest, and terrible, was impending. "we had better be getting back to our quarters," captain o'connor said. "everything will have to be packed up this evening." "but does this mean that the troops are to be under arms all night?" stapleton asked. "that it does, stapleton. of course they won't be kept standing in line; but when troops are ordered to be in readiness to march at a moment's notice, on such a business as this, it means that they will all be assembled. then probably they will be allowed to lie down, and perhaps will light bivouac fires. but it means business, i can tell you." "then i for one shan't go to the ball," ralph said. "no doubt it will be a pretty sight; but there have been lots of balls, and this bivouac will be a new experience altogether." "i don't know that you are wrong, conway," captain o'connor said. "beside, you will probably find the colonel will issue orders that only a certain number of officers may go. i shall look in for an hour or two just to see the scene. but i don't know many people, and with a room full of generals and colonels, and three or four men to each lady, there won't be much chance of getting partners." when they reached the village stapleton said good-by to them, as his company lay half a mile further on; and captain o'connor and ralph entered their quarters. they found their servants busy packing up the baggage. "what is this all about, o'connor?" lieutenant desmond asked. "it is in orders that the whole division is to assemble to-night in readiness to march at a moment's notice. news has come that the french have attacked the prussian outposts, and the duke is not to be caught napping. of course it may be nothing but an outpost skirmish; still it may be the beginning of operations on a grand scale." "and there is an order," desmond said dolefully, "that only one officer in each company is to go to the ball." "you want to go--eh, desmond?" "well, of course i should like to go, and so would everyone i suppose, however, it can't be helped; for of course you will go yourself." "well, i have made up my mind to look in for an hour or two. conway doesn't wish to go. i'll tell you how we will arrange, desmond. what the order means is that two officers must stop with their company. it doesn't matter in the least who they are; so that there are two out of the three with the men. dancing will begin about eight o'clock. i will look in there at nine. an hour will be enough for me; so i will come back to the company, and you can slip away and stop there till it's over." "thank you very much," desmond said gratefully. "and look here, desmond. you had better arrange with your man to leave your undress uniform out; so that when you get back from the ball you can slip into it and have the other packed up. that's what i am going to do. i can't afford to have my best uniform spoiled by having to sleep in it in the mud. a captain's pay doesn't run to such extravagance as that." "what will be done with the baggage if we have to march?" "oh, i don't suppose we shall march to-night. but if we do, the quartermaster will detail a party to collect all the baggage left behind and put it in store. we needn't bother about that; especially when, for aught we know, we may never come back to claim it." but although o'connor did not know it, the duke had by this time received news indicating that the attack upon the prussian outpost was the beginning of a great movement, and that the whole french army were pressing forward by the road where the prussian and british army joined hands. at daybreak the french had advanced in three columns--the right upon chatelet, five miles below charleroi, on the sambre; the center on charleroi itself; the left on marchienne. zieten, who was in command of the prussian corps d'armée, defended the bridges at these three points stoutly, and then contested every foot of the ground, his cavalry making frequent charges; so that at the end of the day the french had only advanced five miles. this stout resistance enabled blucher to bring up two out of his other three corps, bulow, whose corps was at liege, forty miles away, receiving his orders too late to march that day. the rest of the prussian army concentrated round the villages of fleurs and ligny. accordingly at ten o'clock in the evening orders were issued by wellington for the third division to march at once from braine-le-comte to nivelles, for the first to move from enghien to braine-le-comte, and for the second and fourth divisions to march from ath and grammont on enghien. no fresh orders were issued to the troops round brussels; and although it was known at the ball that the troops were in readiness to march at a moment's notice, there were none except the generals and a few members of the staff who had an idea that the moment was so near at hand. the regiments stationed at a distance from brussels were assembled in the park by ten o'clock in the evening; then arms were piled, and the men permitted to fall out. only a few lighted fires, for the night was warm. the artillery, however, who had all along been bivouacked in the park, had their fires going as usual, and round these many of the troops gathered, but the greater part wrapped themselves in their cloaks and went quietly to sleep. ralph strolled about for an hour or two, chatting with other officers and looking at the groups of sleepers, and listening to the talk of the soldiers gathered round the fires. among them were many old peninsular men, whose experience now rendered them authorities among the younger soldiers, who listened eagerly to the details of the desperate struggle at albuera, the terrible storming of the fortresses, and lighter tales of life and adventure in spain. many of the men whose quarters lay near the scene of assembly had been permitted to return to them, with strict orders to be ready to join the ranks should the bugle sound. chapter xvi. found at last. as soon as mrs. conway received the box she set to work in earnest. directly the house was still and a sufficient time had elapsed for the miss penfolds to have fallen asleep, she rose from the bed on which she had lain down without undressing, put on the coat and hat, and made her way noiselessly down to the library. as she kept the lock well oiled she entered noiselessly, and then locking the door behind her lighted a candle and commenced her search. on the fifth night she was rewarded by finding that the center of what looked like a solidly carved flower in the ornamentation of the mantelpiece gave way under the pressure of her finger, and at the same moment she heard a slight click. beyond this nothing was apparent; and after trying everything within reach she came to the conclusion that it needed a second spring to be touched to reveal the entrance. it took her another three weeks before she found this. it was a slight projection, about as large as a button, in the inside of the chimney behind the mantel. pressing this and the other spring simultaneously, the bookcase on the left of the fireplace suddenly swung open three or four inches. for a moment she stood breathless with excitement, hesitating before she entered; then she swung the bookcase open. there, as she had expected, was a little room seven feet long by four deep; but, to her bitter disappointment, it was bare and empty. a few scraps of paper lay on the ground, but there was no furniture, chest, or boxes in the room. the revulsion was so great that mrs. conway returned into the library, threw herself into a chair, and had a long cry. then she went back into the room and carefully examined the pieces of paper lying on the ground. one of them was a portion of a letter, and she recognized at once the handwriting of mr. tallboys. it contained only the words: "my dear mr. penfold--in accordance with your request i send you the--" but above was the date, which was ten days only anterior to mr. penfold's death. mrs. conway had no doubt that the word that should have followed the fragment was "will," and that this was the letter that mr. tallboys had sent over with that document. it was important evidence, as it showed that mr. penfold had been in the habit of using this place during his lifetime, and that he had entered it after he had received the will from his solicitor a few days before his death. why should he have entered it except to put the will in a place of security? where that place was she did not know, but she felt certain that it was somewhere within reach of her hand. "if it is here it must be found," she said resolutely; "but i won't begin to look for it to-night. it must be three o'clock already, and i will think the matter over thoroughly before i begin again. it is something to have found out as much as i have. i ought to be encouraged instead of being disappointed." that day she wrote to mr. tallboys, giving him a full account of the discovery which she had made, and inclosing the fragment of his letter. she did not renew her search for the next two nights; for her long watchfulness and excitement had told upon her, and she felt that she needed rest before she set about the second part of the search. she received a letter from mr. tallboys in reply to that she had sent him: "my dear mrs. conway: i congratulate you most heartily upon the great success you have met with. i own that i have never been very hopeful, for after the thorough search we made of the room i hardly thought it likely that you would succeed when we had failed; however, you have done so, and i cannot doubt that a similar success will attend your further efforts. in a small bare room such as you describe the difficulties in the way of finding the hidden receptacle cannot be so great as those you have already overcome. you are perfectly correct in your supposition that the fragment you sent me was part of the letter that i sent over with the will to mr. penfold by my clerk. i have compared it with the copy in my letter book, and find that it is the same. as you say, this letter proves conclusively that mr. penfold was in this secret room after he received the will, and one can assign no reason for his going there unless to put the will away in what he considered a secure hiding-place. that it is still somewhere there i have no doubt whatever, and i shall await with much anxiety news as to your further progress." thinking the matter over, mrs. conway had come to the conclusion that the hiding-place could only be under one of the stone flags of the floor or in the wall against the fireplace, or rather in that part of it above the fireplace. there would not be thickness enough in the walls separating the secret chamber from the passage or the rooms on either side of it; but the chimney would not be of the same width as the open fireplace below, and there might well be a space there sufficient for a good-sized closet. it was here, therefore, that she determined to begin her search. the next night, then, after touching the springs and entering the secret chamber, she began carefully to examine each stone in the wall next the fireplace at a distance about four feet above the ground. in five minutes she uttered an exclamation of satisfaction. one of the stones, above eighteen inches square, although like the rest fitting closely to those adjoining it, was not, like the others, bedded in cement. so close was the join that it needed a close inspection to see that it was different from those around it. still, upon close examination, it was evident that it was not cemented in. taking out a penknife from her pocket, she found that the joint was too close even to allow this to be inserted for any distance. there was no keyhole or any other visible means of opening it, and she searched the walls in vain for any hidden spring. for a whole week she continued the search, but without the slightest success, and at last began almost to despair; for at the end of that time she was convinced that she had passed her fingers again and again over every square inch of the floor and walls within her reach. completely worn out with her sleepless nights, she determined to take a little rest, and to abstain altogether for a few nights from the search. on the third night, however, an idea suddenly occurred to her. she rose at once, dressed herself, and was about to go downstairs, when she thought that she heard a noise below. she returned at once to her room, hid away her hat and coat, and again went to the top of the stairs and listened. yes, she had not been mistaken; she distinctly heard sounds below, and, she thought, the murmur of men's voices. after a moment's thought she returned again to her room, took off her dress and threw a shawl round her shoulders, and then stole quietly down the stairs to the next floor and knocked gently at miss penfold's door. she repeated the knock two or three times, and then heard miss penfold's voice asking who was there. she did not speak, but knocked again. this time the voice came from the other side of the door. "it is me, miss penfold--anna sibthorpe." the door was unlocked and opened. "what is it, anna?" "there is some one in the house, ma'am; i can hear them moving about down below, and i think i can hear men's voices." miss penfold came out and listened. "yes, there is some one there," she said. "go and call the butler and the others. i shall be ready by the time you come down." in two or three minutes the servants, headed by the butler, who had armed himself with a blunderbuss that always hung in his room ready for action, came downstairs. miss penfold came out to meet them half-dressed. she had a pistol in her hand. the maids had armed themselves with pokers and brooms. "have you looked to the priming of your blunderbuss?" miss penfold asked quietly. "no, ma'am." "well, then, look now," she said sharply. "what's the use of having a weapon if you don't see that it's in order?" "it's all right, ma'am," the butler said, examining the priming. "well, then, come along and don't make a noise." they went downstairs noiselessly, and paused when they reached the hall. the sounds came from the drawing-room. miss penfold led the way to the door, turned the handle, and flung it open. three men were seen in the act of packing up some of the valuables. they started up with an exclamation. miss penfold fired, and there was a cry of pain. a moment later there was a roar as the blunderbuss went off, the contents lodging in the ceiling. "without hesitating for a moment the three men made a rush to the open window, and were gone. "john wilton," miss penfold said sternly, "you are a fool! i give you a month's notice from to-day. fasten up the shutters again and all go off to bed." and without another word she turned and went upstairs. as she reached the landing her sister ran out of her room in great alarm. "what is the matter, charlotte? i heard two explosions." "it is nothing, eleanor. some men broke into the house, and we have gone down and frightened them away. i did not think it was worth while disturbing you, as you are so easily alarmed; but it is all over now, and the servants are shutting up the house again. i will tell you all about it in the morning. go to bed again at once, or you will catch cold. good-night." directly miss penfold had gone upstairs a hubbub of talk burst out from the female servants. "it's disgraceful, john! with that great gun you ought to have shot them all dead." "it went off by itself," john said, "just as i was going to level it." "went off by itself!" the cook said scornfully. "it never went off of itself when it was hanging above your bed. guns never go off by themselves, no more than girls do. i am surprised at you, john. why, i have heard you talk a score of times of what you would do if burglars came; and now here you have been and knocked a big hole in the ceiling. why missus has twenty times as much courage as you have. she shot straight, she did, for i heard one of the men give a squalk. oh, you men are pitiful creatures, after all!" "you wouldn't have been so mighty brave, cook, if miss penfold and me hadn't been in front of you." "a lot of use you were!" the cook retorted. "six feet one of flesh, and no heart in it! why, i would have knocked him down with a broom if i had been within reach of him." "yes, that we would, cook," the under-housemaid said. "i had got my poker ready, and i would have given it them nicely if i could have got within reach. miss penfold was just as cool as if she had been eating her breakfast, and so was we all except john." john had by this time fastened up the shutter again, and feeling that his persecutors were too many for him he slunk off at once to his room; and the others, beginning to feel that their garments were scarcely fitted for the cold night air postponed their discussion of the affair until the following morning. the next morning after breakfast the servants were called into the dining-room, and miss penfold interrogated them closely as to whether any of them had seen strange men about, or had been questioned by any one they knew as to valuables at the hall. "if it had not been for anna," she said, when she had finished without eliciting any information, "the house would have been robbed, and not any of us would have been any the wiser. it was most fortunate that, as she says, she happened to be awake and heard the sounds; and she acted very properly in coming quietly down to wake me. if the one man in the house," and she looked scornfully at the unfortunate butler, "had been possessed of the courage of a man the whole of them would have been shot; for they were standing close together, and he could hardly have missed them if he had tried. "if that weapon had been in the hands of anna, instead of those of john wilton, the results would have been very different. however, john wilton, you have been a good servant generally, and i suppose it is not your fault if you have not the courage of a mouse, therefore i shall withdraw my notice for you to leave. i shall make arrangements for the gardener to sleep in the house in future, and you will hand that blunderbuss over to him. i shall write to-day to the ironmonger at weymouth to come over and fix bells to all the shutters, and to arrange wires for a bell from my room to that which the gardener will occupy." at breakfast miss penfold informed her sister of what had taken place the night before. "i shall write, of course, to the head constable at weymouth to send over to inquire about it, but i have very little hope that he will discover anything, eleanor." "why do you think that, charlotte? you said that you were convinced you had wounded one of the men; so they ought to be able to trace him." "i dare say they would if this had been an ordinary theft; but i am convinced that it was not." "not an ordinary theft! what do you mean?" "i have no doubt in my mind, eleanor, that it was another attempt to discover the will." "do you think so?" eleanor said in an awed voice. "that is terrible. but you said the men were engaged in packing up the candlesticks and ornaments." "oh, i believe that was a mere blind. of course they would wish us to believe they were simply burglars, and therefore they acted as such to begin with. but there has never been any attempt on the house during the forty years we have lived here. why should there be so now? if anna had not fortunately heard those men i believe that when they had packed up a few things to give the idea that they were burglars, they would have gone to the library and set to to ransack it and find the will." "but they would never have found it, charlotte. it is too well hidden for that." "there is no knowing," miss penfold said gloomily. "so long as it is in existence we shall never feel comfortable. it will be much better to destroy it." "no, no!" eleanor exclaimed. "we agreed, charlotte, that there was no reason why we should assist them to find it; but that is altogether a different thing from destroying it. i should never feel happy again if we did." "as for that," miss penfold said somewhat scornfully, "you don't seem very happy now. you are always fretting and fidgeting over it." "it is not i who am fancying that these burglars came after the will," eleanor answered in an aggrieved voice. "no; that is the way with timid people," miss penfold said. "they are often afraid of shadows, and see no danger where danger really exists. at any rate, i am determined to see whether the will really is where we suppose it to be. if it is i shall take it out and hide it in the mattress of my bed. we know that it will be safe there at any rate as long as i live, though i think it wiser to destroy it." "no, no," eleanor exclaimed; "anything but that. i sleep badly enough now, and am always dreaming that herbert is standing by my bedside with a reproachful look upon his face. i should never dare sleep at all if we were to destroy it." "i have no patience with such childish fancies, as i told you over and over again," miss penfold said sharply. "if i am ready to take the risk of doing it, i do not see that you need fret about it. however, i am ready to give in to your prejudices, and indeed would rather not destroy it myself if it can be safely kept elsewhere. at any rate i shall move it from its hiding-place. we know that it is there and nowhere else that it will be searched for, and with it in my room we need have no more uneasiness. i can unsew the straw _pailliasse_ at the bottom of my bed, and when it is safely in there i shall have no fear whatever." "of course you can do as you like, charlotte," eleanor said feebly; "but for my part i would much rather go on as we are. we don't know now that the will really exists, and i would much rather go on thinking that there is a doubt about it." "very well, then; go on so, eleanor. you need ask no questions of me, and i shall tell you nothing. only remember, if i die before you don't part with the _pailliasse_ on my bed." mrs. conway thought a good deal during the day about the events of the night before, and determined to be more cautious than ever in her operations; for she thought it probable that miss penfold would be even more wakeful and suspicious than before. she would have left the search alone for a few days had it not been for the idea that had taken her from her bed the night before. it had struck her then as possible that the spring opening the secret closet might be in the chimney behind it, and that it was necessary to touch this from the outside before opening the door of the secret room. she was convinced that had there been a spring in the room itself she must have discovered it, but it never before struck her that it might be at the back of the closet. she felt that she must satisfy herself on this point whatever the risk of discovery. accordingly at the usual hour she made her way downstairs. she had put the key in the door, and was in the act of turning it when she heard a noise upstairs. she opened the door and stood looking up the stairs. in a moment she saw a light, and directly afterward miss penfold appeared at the top holding a candle in her hand. knowing she was as yet unseen, mrs. conway entered the library and closed the door behind her. then she hurried to the fireplace, touched the two springs, pulled the bookcase open and entered the secret chamber, and closed the bookcase behind her. she had often examined the lock, thinking that the secret spring of the closet might be concealed here. it was a large old-fashioned one, and moved two bolts, one at the top of the door and one at the bottom. these she had already discovered could be easily opened from the inside. she imagined that miss penfold was merely going round the house to see that all was secure, and she had, contrary to her practice, taken the key from the door of the library in order that miss penfold might enter it if she chose. but the thought now flashed across her that possibly she might intend to open the secret room; and to prevent this she now thrust the barrel of the pistol she carried in between the back of the bolt and the piece of iron against which it shot, so that the action of the springs could not throw it out of its place. breathlessly she listened. presently she heard a sharp click in the wall behind her. she had scarcely time to wonder what this meant when she heard a sound in the lock close to her. it was repeated again and again. then she felt a slight tremor of the door as if somebody was trying to shake it. her heart almost stood still. miss penfold was evidently trying to open the chamber; and, though she knew the lock could not open so long as she held the pistol in the place, she felt her breath coming fast and her heart beating. for five minutes the attempts to open the door continued. then all was still again. for half an hour she remained without moving; then, as all continued quiet, she guessed that miss penfold, finding the springs did not act, had returned to her room. she now rose to her feet, drew out her dark lantern, and turned to the wall by her side. she gave an exclamation of joy--the stone that she had so long vainly endeavored to move was swung open. miss penfold who of course had the secret, had touched the spring outside before attempting to open the chamber, and the stone, which was set in iron, had swung open on a hinge. in a moment mrs. conway explored the contents. the closet was about two feet square by nine inches in depth, and contained two shelves. there were several papers in it, and the very first upon which she placed her hand was marked "the last will and testament of herbert penfold." so overwhelmed was mrs. conway at this termination to her long search that she sank on the ground, and it was some time before she could collect herself sufficiently to consider what was her best course. it was evident that for some reason miss penfold had been about to visit the secret room to see that the will was still in safety. the failure of the springs to act had, of course, disconcerted her; but she might try again in the morning, and would then be able to enter the room, and would discover that the will was missing. it was clearly the best course to make off at once. she remembered now that she had noticed a tiny hole no bigger than a nail-hole in the door, and had found that upon the other side it was just above a row of books in the shelves somewhat lower in height than the rest, and was evidently intended to enable the occupant of the chamber to obtain a view of the library, and see whether that room was occupied. she applied her eye to it at once, and saw that all was dark. concealing the lantern again beneath her coat, she drew back the bolts gently and stepped out. then she went to one of the windows, took down the bell, carefully unbarred the shutters, threw up the window and stepped out. she sped cross the garden, down the drive, and through the gate, and then hurried at the top of her speed toward the village. she had gone about half the distance when she heard a horse's footsteps approaching. the road ran between two high hedges and there was no place for concealment. she therefore walked along by the edge of the road close to the hedge, hoping that the horseman would pass without noticing her. his eyes, however, were too much accustomed to the darkness. he reined in his horse when he came to her, and a moment later the light of a small lantern fell on her face. "who are you?" a voice asked, "and where are you going?" "i am going to the vicarage," she said, "to see mr. withers." "a likely story that," he said. "what is this? a woman with a man's hat and coat! there is something wrong here," and leaning down he caught her by the collar. she saw by the light of his lantern that he was a mounted patrol. "it is quite true, constable," she said. "i have put these things on in a hurry, but i am going to see mr. withers on a question of life and death. take me to the vicarage, and if when you get there you find my story is not true you can lock me up if you like." the constable was puzzled. the voice was apparently that of a lady, and yet her attire, and her presence abroad at two o'clock in the morning, was suspicious in the extreme. he paused irresolute. "i don't like to disturb the vicar at this time of night," he said. "i will take you to the village lockup and go up to him in the morning." "please don't do that," she said. "i am a lady, and have a very good reason for what i am doing. i can promise you that mr. withers will not be angry at being called up; indeed he will be greatly pleased. come, constable," she went on, seeing that he hesitated, "i will give you a couple of guineas to take me direct to the vicarage." "well, ma'am," the constable said, "if you are sure mr. withers will not be angry at being called up at such an hour i will take you; but you know he is a magistrate, and it would never do to play tricks upon him." "there are no tricks, constable. he knows me very well, and will be pleased to see me even at this hour." greatly puzzled over the whole proceeding the constable turned, and still keeping a firm hold of her collar walked his horse back toward the village. "you really need not hold me so tightly," mrs. conway said. "if i wanted to get away i could have done so in a moment; for i have a pistol in my pocket, and could have shot you the moment you turned your lantern away from me." somewhat startled at this information the constable released his hold, satisfied that his prisoner could not escape by speed. as a measure of precaution he made her walk a pace or two ahead, and kept the light of his lantern upon her while he held his pistol ready for action in his hand in case she should suddenly turn upon him. they went through the village, and five minutes afterward entered the gate of the vicarage. on reaching the door mrs. conway rang the bell. a moment later a window above opened. "what is it?" a man's voice asked. "am i wanted anywhere?" "i am the mounted patrol, sir," the constable said, "and i have met a suspicious sort of person in the road. she said she was coming to you, and you knew her; and though it didn't seem a likely sort of story, i thought it better to run the risk of disturbing you instead of taking her to the lockup." "it is i, mr. withers," mrs. conway said, taking off her hat and stepping out so that the light of the policeman's lantern fell upon her. "please let me in, i have got it." "good heavens!" mr. withers exclaimed, startled out of his usual tranquillity. "it is all right, constable, i will be down in a minute." "there, constable, you see i spoke truly," mrs. conway said, and taking her purse from her pocket she extracted by the light of the lantern two guineas and handed them to the man. "oh, i don't want to take your money, ma'am," he said apologetically. "you must excuse my not believing you, but it did seem a rum start." "you are quite right, constable," she replied. "the circumstances were suspicious, and you only did your duty. however, you might have made it very unpleasant for me if you had chosen to take me to the lockup instead of bringing me here, and i am very willing to give you what i promised you. i can afford it very well," she said cheerfully, as he still hesitated, "and i dare say it will be useful to you." the man took the money and touched his hat, and sat quiet until the door opened, and mr. withers in a dressing-gown and holding a candle appeared. "you have done quite right in bringing the lady up here," mr. withers said; "but you need not go talking about it in the village." "very well, sir; i will say nothing about it. good-night, sir. good-night ma'am." "my dear mrs. conway, what has happened to bring you here at this hour of the night?" mr. withers asked as he closed the door behind. "did i understand you to say that you have got it? is it possible that you have found the will?" "quite possible, mr. withers. here it is in its envelope, with the seals unbroken." "you astound me!" mr. withers exclaimed. at this moment mrs. withers made her appearance at the top of the stairs, her husband having briefly said as he hurried out of the room that it was mrs. conway. "amy," he said, "here is mrs. conway. and, what do you think? she has brought the missing will with her." with an exclamation mrs. withers ran downstairs and threw her arms round mrs. conway. "you dear brave creature," she said, "i have been longing to speak to you for the last six months. it seems so unnatural your being close to us, and my not being able to see you, and you have really found the will? i can hardly believe it. how has it all come about?" "don't bother her, amy," mr. withers said; for now that the excitement was past mrs. conway was trembling all over, and was scarcely able to keep her feet. "she is overtired and overexcited. take her straight up to the spare room and get her to bed. i will make her a tumbler of hot port wine and water. the water is sure to be warm in the kitchen, and a stick or two will make it boil by the time she is ready for it. we will hear all about it in the morning. we have got the will safe, and we have got her; that is quite enough for us for to-night, all the rest will keep very well until to-morrow." in a few minutes mrs. conway was in bed, and after drinking the tumbler of hot negus mr. withers had prepared for her she soon fell asleep. mrs. withers came into the room early in the morning. "my husband says you are not to think of getting up unless you feel quite equal to it, and i agree with him; so if you like i will bring breakfast up to you, and then you can go off to sleep again for a bit." "oh, no, thank you," mrs. conway replied. "now that i am fairly awake and realize where i am, i am perfectly ready to get up. i could not think the first moment i opened my eyes where i had got to, and fancied i had overslept myself and should get a nice scolding." "you must wear one of my dresses, my dear," the vicar's wife said. "you have done with that servant's gown for good. i will bring you one in a few minutes." in half an hour mrs. conway came down in a pretty morning dress of mrs. withers'. mabel had that moment made her appearance in the breakfast-room. she had returned only a week before from her stay at bath, having positively mutinied against the proposal that she should stay there for another six months. she started at the entry of a stranger. "don't you know me, mabel?" mrs. conway said, holding out her hand. "why--why--" mabel exclaimed, "it's mrs. conway. when did you come, and what have you been doing to yourself? why, your hair is quite a different color! what does it all mean, mamma?" she asked in bewilderment. "mrs. conway came last night, mabel, after you were in bed." "but you didn't tell me she was coming, mamma." "we didn't know ourselves, dear; she arrived quite unexpectedly." "and--" and mabel stopped. "and i have got on one of your mamma's dresses," mrs. conway laughed, interpreting mabel's look of surprise. "yes, dear, and as you say, i have dyed my hair." "but why, mrs. conway? it was such a pretty color before." "and it will be again some day, i hope, for i am not going to dye it any more." "i am glad of that," mabel said frankly; "for you look quite different somehow. but why did you do it? and why--is there anything the matter, mrs. conway," she broke off suddenly, "that you come here without being expected, and are wearing one of mamma's dresses, and have dyed your hair, and look so different altogether? have you heard anything about ralph?" "you will hear all about it presently, mabel," mr. withers, who had just come into the room, said. "you owe a great debt of gratitude to mrs. conway, as you will hear presently; for she has for six months been working in the interest of ralph and you. now, don't open your eyes so wide, but sit down to the table. after we have had breakfast mrs. conway will tell us all about it." "by the way, mrs. conway, have you heard the news?" "what news, mrs. withers?" "in the newspaper i got yesterday evening it was said that a despatch had just been received from the duke of wellington saying he had news that bonaparte was advancing, and that he had just issued orders for the troops to march forward to support the prussians, who were likely to be first attacked." "no, i had heard nothing about it," mrs. conway said, turning pale. "then there is going to be a battle, and ralph will be engaged." "you must not alarm yourself," the vicar said. "you know the troops are very widely scattered, and his regiment may not be up in time; beside, you see, the prussians are likely to be first attacked, and they may beat the french before the english get up to join in the battle." "now, mrs. conway," mr. withers said when they had finished breakfast, "please take pity on us and tell us all about it." "is mabel to go away, or is she to hear it all, james?" mrs. withers asked. "what do you think, mrs. conway?" "i see no reason whatever against her hearing. mabel is fast growing up. you are past fifteen now, are you not, mabel?" "yes, mrs. conway." "then i think she has a right to hear all about it. she is, after all, the party most interested." "thank you, mrs. conway," the girl said. "please let us go out into the garden and sit in the chairs under the shade of that tree. i can see it is going to be a long story, and it will be delightful out there; and then papa can smoke his after-breakfast cigar." "very well, mabel; if your mamma has no objection, i am quite willing." the chairs were taken out into the shade of the tree and the party sat down, mabel all excitement, for as yet she knew nothing whatever of what had happened, and was puzzling herself in vain as to how mrs. conway could have been working in her interest. "in the first place, mabel," mrs. conway began, "i suppose you have no idea why you were sent away to bath?" mabel opened her eyes in surprise. "i thought i went there to get lessons in music and french and dancing." "well, you did go for that purpose, but for something else also. you were sent away in order that you might not see me." "not see you, mrs. conway! why, you must be joking. why, papa, what reason could there possibly be why i should not see mrs. conway? and beside, you never told me in your letter that she had been here." "i have not been here--at least not in this house; but i was in the church every sunday. i was there before you went away, although you did not see me. i was sitting in the pew with the hall servants." "with the hall servants!" mabel repeated in astonishment. "what did you sit with them for? and where were you staying? and why did you come to the church every sunday and not come here?" "that's just the story you are going to hear, mabel. you heard of course, that it was mr. penfold's intention to leave you half his estates?" "yes, i heard that; and then there was no will found so of course i didn't get it." "no, my dear; but as we all believed that there was such a will, we were naturally unwilling to let the matter rest. still, the chance of finding it seemed very remote. you remember we spoke to you about it when they offered you that hundred a year." "yes, papa, you told me then that you thought they were keeping me out of my rights, and that was why i ought to refuse to take it. yes, you did say they were keeping ralph out too, and that was partly why you thought i ought not to agree to take the money; and of course i thought so too, because that would seem as if we had deserted ralph." "well, mabel, at that time the chance of our ever hearing anything of the will was so remote that i think both your mother and myself had entirely given up hope, and i am sure we should never have taken any more steps in the matter. fortunately mrs. conway possesses a great deal more energy and perseverance than we have, and when she found that we gave it up, and that mr. tallboys gave it up, she determined to take the matter in her own hands. now she will tell us how she has succeeded, and you must listen quietly and not ask more questions than you can help till she has finished." "well, my dear," mrs. conway went on, "mr. tallboys, mr. penfold's lawyer, did everything he possibly could to find the will, but he could not do so; and as my son was with you the person that had been robbed, i thought it was my duty to undertake the search myself." mrs. conway then related step by step the measures she had taken to obtain a situation as servant at the hall, and then went on to tell the manner in which she had carried on the search, and how success had finally crowned her efforts, her story being frequently interrupted by exclamations and questions from her hearers. "what do you mean to do next?" mr. withers asked when she concluded. "i will ask you to drive me over at once to weymouth. i shall not feel comfortable until i have placed the will in mr. tallboys' hands; and directly i have done that i shall go over to brussels. i may perhaps get there before any great battle is fought; and i should like to see ralph before that, if possible, and at any rate be there to nurse him if he was wounded. i shall ask mr. tallboys if he can spare time to go across with me to brussels. i should not want him to stop there, but only to take me over. i should think there would be no difficulty in hiring a small vessel at weymouth to take me to ostend, especially as money is no object now. if mr. tallboys cannot spare time himself, he can send a clerk with me or get somebody who will take me in charge; but at any rate i intend to go by myself if necessary. i do not suppose it will cause any delay about the will, mr. withers; for of course there must be some trouble in having it proved." "it can make no difference, mrs. conway. i do not give that the least thought. i will go round at once and tell william to put in the horses." "mabel and i will go over too, james," mrs. withers said; "we cannot sit quiet all day after this excitement. beside, i want to hear what mr. tallboys says." mr. withers returned in a few minutes, looking grave. "william has just come up from the village, and says that half an hour ago a man rode up from the hall with word that the doctor was to go over at once, for that eleanor penfold had just had a stroke or fit of some sort and was terribly bad. i am sorry this new trouble has befallen them; but they have brought it entirely upon themselves, poor ladies. however, justice must be done; but i am sure you will agree with me, mrs. conway, that if the matter can possibly be arranged without exposure and publicity it shall be done so." chapter xvii. quatre bras. at ten o'clock captain o'connor returned and lieutenant desmond hurried off. "were you sorry to leave, o'connor?" ralph asked that officer. "no; i was glad to get away," he replied. "knowing as i do that in another twenty-four hours we may be engaged, and that in forty-eight the greatest battle of the age may take place, it was horribly sad to look on at the scene and wonder how many of the men laughing and flirting and dancing so gayly there would be so soon lying stark and cold, how many broken hearts there would be among the women. i felt heartily glad that i had neither wife nor sweetheart there. it is not often i feel in low spirits, but for once one could not help thinking. here it is a different thing; we are all soldiers, and whatever comes we must do our duty and take our chance. but the gayety of that scene jarred upon me, and i could see there were many, especially the older men, who were thinking as i did. i dare say if i had found any partners and gone in for dancing i should have thought but little about it; but standing looking on the thoughts came. i think you were right, conway, not to go." "have you heard any news of what has taken place to-day?" "yes. i was standing by the colonel when picton came up to him and said: "'there's been sharp fighting on the frontier. zieten gave the french a deal of trouble, and only fell back about six miles. the other corps, except bulow's, will all join them to-night. "'it is a thousand pities that zieten did not send off a mounted messenger to us directly he became engaged. if he had done so we might have started at one o'clock to-day, and should have been in line with the prussians to-morrow. i suppose he thought blucher would send, and blucher thought he had sent; and so between them nothing was done, and we only got the news at seven o'clock this evening. nine precious hours thrown away. it is just a blunder of this sort that makes all the difference between failure and success in war. had the message been sent, we and the dutch divisions and the troops from braine le-comte might all have been up by the morning. as it is, blucher, with only three out of his four army corps, has the whole of the french army facing him, and must either fall back without fighting or fight against superior numbers--that is, if napoleon throws his whole force upon him, as i suppose he will. it is enough to provoke a saint." "'which will blucher do, do you think, general?" the colonel asked. "'he sends word that he shall fight where he is; and in that case, if napoleon throws his whole force on him, he is nearly certain to be beaten, and then we shall have napoleon on us the next day." "and now, conway, i think it better to get a few hours' sleep if we can; for to-morrow will be a heavy day for us, unless i am mistaken." it was some time before ralph slept, but when he did so he slept soundly, waking up with a start as the sound of a bugle rang out in the night air. it was taken up by the bugles of the whole division, and brussels, which had but an hour before echoed with the sound of the carriages returning from the ball, woke with a start. with the sound of the bugle was mingled that of the highland pipes, and in a few minutes the streets swarmed with the soldiers; for there was scarce a house but had either officers or men quartered in it. the upper windows were thrown up and the inhabitants inquired the cause of the uproar, and soon the whole population were in the streets. there was no delay. the soldiers had packed their knapsacks before lying down to sleep, and in a quarter of an hour from the sound of a bugle the regiments were forming up in the park. they were surrounded by an anxious crowd. weeping women were embracing their husbands and lovers; the inhabitants looked pale and scared, and the wildest rumors were already circulating among them; mounted officers dashed to and fro, bugles kept on sounding the assembly; and the heavy rumble of guns was heard as the artillery came up and took up their appointed position. in half an hour from the sound of the first warning bugle the head of the column began to move, just as daylight was breaking. comparatively few of the officers of ralph's regiment were married men, and there were therefore fewer of those agonizing partings that wrung the hearts of many belonging to regiments that had been quartered for some time at home; but ralph saw enough to convince him that the soldier should remain a single man at any rate during such times as he is likely to be called upon for serious service in the field. it was a relief when the bands of the regiment struck up, and with a light step the troops marched away from the city where they had spent so many pleasant weeks. as the troops marched on their spirits rose--and indeed the british soldier is always at his gayest when there is a prospect of fighting--the hum of voices rose along the column, jokes were exchanged, and there was laughter and merriment. the pace was not rapid, and there were frequent stoppages, for a long column cannot march at the same pace as a single regiment; and it was ten o'clock when they halted at mount st. jean, fourteen miles from brussels. here the men sat down by the roadside, opened their haversacks, and partook of a hasty meal. suddenly there was a cheer from the rear of the column. nearer and nearer it grew, and the regiment leaped to their feet and joined in the shout, as the duke of wellington, with a brilliant staff, rode forward on his way to the front. already a booming of guns in the distance told that the troops were engaged, and there was another cheer when the order ran along the line to fall in again. fighting had indeed begun soon after daylight. prince bernhard who commanded the division of dutch troops at quatre bras, had commenced hostilities as soon as it was light by attacking the french in front of him; and the prince of orange, who had ridden to nivelles, directly the ball was over, brought on the dutch troops from that town, and joining prince bernhard drove back the french to within a mile of frasnes. the duke of wellington reached quatre bras soon after eleven, and finding that there was no immediate danger there, galloped away to communicate with blucher. he found that the latter had gathered three of his corps, and occupied a chain of low hills extending from bry to tongres. the rivulet of ligny wound in front of it, and the villages of st. armand and ligny at the foot of the slope were occupied as outposts. these villages were some distance in front of the hills, and were too far off for the troops there to be readily reinforced from the army on the heights. the duke of wellington was of opinion that the position was not a good one, and he is said to have remarked to blucher: "everyman knows his own people best, but i can only say that with a british army i should not occupy this ground as you do." had the duke been able to concentrate his force round quatre bras in time, he intended to aid the prussians by taking the offensive; but the unfortunate delay that had taken place in sending the news of the french advance on the previous morning rendered it now impossible that he should do so, and he therefore rode back to quatre bras to arrange for its defence against the french corps that was evidently gathering to attack it. it was well for the allies that napoleon was not in a position to attack in force at daybreak. his troops, instead of being concentrated the night before at fleurus, were scattered over a considerable extent of country, and many of them were still beyond the sambre. marshal ney, who had been appointed to the command of the corps, intended to push through quatre bras and march straight on brussels, had only arrived the evening before, and was ignorant of the position of the various divisions under his command. therefore it was not until two o'clock in the afternoon that napoleon advanced with sixty thousand men to attack the prussians at ligny, while at about the same hour the column under ney advanced from frasnes against quatre bras. the delay was fatal to napoleon's plans. had the battles commenced at daybreak, ney could have brushed aside the defenders of quatre bras, and would have been at mount st. jean by the time the english came up. the prussians would have been beaten by noon instead of at dusk, and before nightfall their retreat would have been converted into a rout, and on the following day napoleon's whole army would have been in a position to have fallen upon the only british divisions that wellington could by that time have collected to oppose him, and would probably have been in possession of brussels before night. thus, while the delay in sending news to wellington prevented the allies combining against the french on the th of june, the delay of napoleon in attacking that morning more than counterbalanced the error. there was the less excuse for that delay, inasmuch as he had himself chosen his time for fighting, and should not have advanced until he had his whole force well up and ready for action; and as the advance during the first day's fighting had been so slow, the whole army might well have been gathered at nightfall round fleurus ready to give battle at the first dawn of day. fighting as he did against vastly superior forces, napoleon's one hope of success lay in crushing the prussians before the english--who, as he well knew, were scattered over a large extent of country--could come up, and his failure to do this cost him his empire. the artillery fire ceased in front before the column continued its march for mount st. jean. the prince of orange had paused in his advance when he saw how strong was the french force round frasnes, and ney was not yet ready to attack. therefore from eleven until two there was a cessation of operations, and the ardor of the troops flagged somewhat as they tramped along the dusty road between mount st. jean and genappe. the prince of orange was having an anxious time while the british column was pressing forward to his assistance. as the hours went by he saw the enemy's forces in front of him accumulating, while he knew that his own supports must be still some distance away. nevertheless, he prepared to defend quatre bras to the last. he had with him six thousand eight hundred and thirty-two infantry and sixteen cannon, while ney had gathered seventeen thousand men and thirty-eight guns to attack him. the latter should have had with him d'erlon's corps of twenty thousand men, and forty-six guns, but these were suddenly withdrawn by napoleon when the latter found that the prussian force was stronger than he had expected. they had just reached the field of ligny when an order from ney again caused them to retrace their steps to quatre bras, where they arrived just after the fighting there had come to an end. thus twenty thousand men with forty-six guns were absolutely thrown away, while their presence with either napoleon or ney would have been invaluable. soon after two o'clock picton's division, which headed the column, heard several cannon shots fired in rapid succession, and in another minute a perfect roar of artillery broke out. the battle had evidently begun; and the weary men, who had already marched over twenty miles, straightened themselves up, the pace quickened, and the division pressed eagerly forward. a few minutes later an even heavier and more continuous roar of cannon broke out away to the left. napoleon was attacking the prussians. the talking and laughing ceased now. even the oldest soldiers were awed by that roar of fire, and the younger ones glanced in each other's faces to see whether others felt the same vague feeling of discomfort they themselves experienced; and yet terrible as was evidently the conflict raging in front, each man longed to take his part in it. the officers' orders to the men to step out briskly were given in cheerful and confident voices, and the men themselves--with their fingers tightening on their muskets, and their eyes looking intently forward as if they could pierce the distance and realize the scene enacting there--pressed on doggedly and determinedly. messenger after messenger rode up to general picton, who was marching at the head of the column, begging him to hurry on, for that the prince of orange was step by step being driven back. but the troops were already doing their best. the dutch and belgian troops had fought with considerable bravery, and had held the village of piermont and a farm near it for some time before they fell back to the wood of bossu. here they make a stout stand again, but were at length driven out and were beginning to lose heart, and in a few minutes would have given way when they saw on the long straight road behind them the red line of picton's column. the glad news that help was at hand ran quickly through the wood, and the belgians met their foes with fresh courage. picton's force consisted of the eighth and ninth british brigades, the former under general sir james kempt, the latter under sir denis pack. with them were the fourth brigade of hanoverians, with two batteries of artillery--the one hanoverian, the other british. the excitement of the troops increased as they neared quatre bras, and a loud cheer ran along the line as they neared the wood, and took their place by the side of the hardly pressed dutch and belgians. pack's brigade consisted of the first battalion forty-second, second forty-fourth, first ninety-second, and first ninety-fifth, while kempt had under him the first twenty-eighth, first thirty-second, first seventy-ninth, and third royals. the aspect of the fight was speedily changed now. the french, who had been advancing with shouts of triumph, were at once hurled back, and the defenders a few minutes later were strengthened by the arrival of the greater part of the duke of brunswick's corps. in point of numbers the combatants were now nearly equal, as the allies had eighteen thousand infantry, two thousand cavalry, and twenty-eight guns on the field. of these, however, but eight thousand at most were british. picton at once sent forward the first battalion of the ninety-fifth, and these cleared a little wood in the front of piermont of the french light troops, and restored the communication between quatre bras and ligny. ney, however, was preparing to advance again in force. his front was covered with a double hedgerow, which afforded admirable shelter to his skirmishers, while his artillery were so placed on rising ground in the rear of his position as to sweep the whole country over which his column would advance to the attack. at this moment the duke returned from his conference with blucher. he at once saw that the enemy had gathered a heavy column behind the wood of bossu, and directed the prince of orange to withdraw the guns that were too far advanced, and to gather the dutch and belgian troops to oppose the advance, at the same time he sent forward the twenty-eighth to their assistance. they arrived, however, too late; for the french swept the belgians before them and advanced steadily, while their artillery from the high ground opened a furious cannonade upon picton's division. one of the brunswick regiments now joined the belgians, but in spite of this reinforcement the latter were driven from the wood of bossu, which they had occupied when the british first came up. the british troops were suffering heavily from the artillery fire to which their own guns could make no effectual reply. "pretty hot this, conway," captain o'connor said to ralph. "it's not pleasant standing here being made a target of." "that it's not," ralph said heartily. "i call it horribly unpleasant. i shouldn't mind it so much if we were doing something." it was indeed trying for young soldiers under fire for the first time. the french had got the range accurately, and every moment gaps were made in the line as the round shot plowed through them. the officers walked backward and forward in front of their men with exhortations to stand steady. "it will be our turn presently, lads," captain o'connor said assuringly. "we will turn the tables on them by and by, never fear." there was not long to wait. clouds of french skirmishers were seen advancing through the hedgerows, and stealing behind the thickets and woods that skirted the road, and a moment later the orders came for the light companies of all the regiments of picton's division to advance. "forward, lads!" captain o'connor said. "it's our turn now. keep cool and don't waste your ammunition." with a cheer his company followed him. every hedge, bank, and tree that could afford shelter was seized upon, and a sharp crackling fire at once replied to that of the french skirmishers. the light companies were then armed with far better weapons than those in use by the rest of the troops, and a soldier could have told at once by the sharp crackling sound along the front of the british line that it was the light companies that were engaged. but now a heavy column of troops was seen advancing from the village held by the french; and this, as it approached the part of the line held by the brunswickers, broke up into several columns. the germans were falling back, when the duke sent picton's two brigades to meet the enemy halfway. the ninety-second were left behind in reserve on the road, the light companies were called in, picton placed himself in front of the long line, and with a tremendous cheer this advanced to meet the heavy french columns. it was thus through the wars of the period that the english and french always fought: the french in massive column, the english in long line. once again, as at albuera and in many a stricken field, the line proved the conqueror. overlapping the columns opposed to it, pouring scathing volleys upon each flank, and then charging on the shaken mass with the bayonet, the british regiments drove the enemy back beyond the hedgerows, and were with difficulty restrained from following them up the face of the opposite hill. on the right, however, the brunswickers were suffering heavily from the cannonade of the french, and were only prevented from breaking by the coolness of their chief. the duke of brunswick rode backward and forward in front of them, smoking his pipe and chatting cheerfully with his officers, seemingly unconscious of the storm of fire: and even the most nervous of his young troops felt ashamed to show signs of faltering when their commander and chief set them such an example. four guns, which at his request wellington had sent to him, came up and opened fire; but so completely were they overmatched that in five minutes two were disabled and the other two silenced. as soon as this was done two french columns of infantry, preceded by a battalion in line, advanced along the edge of the wood, while a heavy mass of cavalry advanced along the ghent road, and threatened the brunswickers with destruction. the brunswick, dutch, and belgian skirmishers fell back before those of the french. the duke of brunswick placed himself before a regiment of lancers and charged the french infantry; but these stood steady, and received the lancers with so heavy a fire that they retreated in confusion on quatre bras. the duke now ordered the infantry to fall back in good order, but by this time they were too shaken to do so. the french artillery smote them with terrible effect; the infantry swept them with bullets; the cavalry were preparing to charge. no wonder then that the young troops lost their self-possession, broke, and fled in utter confusion, some through quatre bras others through the english regiments on the left of the village. at this moment the gallant duke of brunswick, while striving to rally one of his regiments, received a mortar wound. he died a few minutes later, as his father had died on the field of jena. the brunswick hussars were now ordered to advance and cover the retreat of the infantry; but as they moved toward the enemy they lost heart, turned, and fled from the field, the french lancers charging hotly among them. so closely were the two bodies mixed together that the forty-second and forty-fourth which were posted on the left of the road, could not distinguish friend from foe. before the former regiment had time to form square the french were upon them, and for two or three minutes a desperate hand-to-hand conflict took place between bayonet and lance. the forty-fourth did not attempt to form a square. its colonel faced the rear rank about, and these poured so tremendous a volley into the french cavalry that they reeled back in confusion. two companies of the forty-second which had been cut off from the rest were almost annihilated; but the rest of the square closed in around french cavalry who had pierced them and destroyed them to a man. the twenty-eighth also repulsed the enemy. "what do you think of it now, conway?" captain o'connor asked as the french retreated. "i feel all right now," ralph said; "though i thought just now that it was all over with me. a big frenchman was just dealing a sweeping cut at me when a musket shot struck him. still this is a thousand times better than standing still and being pounded by their artillery. i confess i felt horribly uncomfortable while that was going on." "i dare say you did, lad." the duke of wellington had, upon the fall of their commander, in vain endeavored to rally the flying brunswickers. as he was so engaged the cavalry column swept down upon him. he put spurs to his horse and galloped to the spot where the ninety-second were lying behind a ditch bordering the road. the french were close to his heels. he shouted to the men of the ninety-second in front of him to throw themselves down, and setting spurs to his horse leaped the ditch and the men behind it, and instantly the highlanders poured so terrible a volley into the french cavalry that a hundred saddles were emptied. the cavalry recoiled for a moment in confusion, but then reformed and retired in good order. some of the leading squadrons, however, had galloped on into the village, and cut down some stragglers there; but the highlanders closed round them, and, being pent up in a farmyard from which there was but one outlet, scarce a man who had entered escaped. the french had now received heavy reinforcement--kellermann's heavy horse having come upon the field--and as neither the dutch nor belgian cavalry would face the french troopers they were free to employ their whole cavalry force against the british infantry. again and again they charged down upon the twenty-eighth, forty-second, forty-fourth, and first royals. the twenty-eighth and the royals did not indeed wait to be attacked, but led by picton and kempt in person resolutely advanced to charge the french cavalry. this feat, seldom exampled in military history, was rendered necessary in order to cover the flank of the forty-second and forty-fourth, now, by the flight of the brunswickers, dutch, and belgians, open to the attacks of the french cavalry. the fields here were covered with a growth of tall rye, that concealed the approach of the french cavalry till they were within a few yards of the infantry, and it was only by the tramp of the horses as they rushed through the corn that the british square knew when their foes would be upon them. picton in the center of the twenty-eighth encouraged them by his presence, and they stood firm, although the cavalry again and again charged down until their horse's chests touched the close line of bayonets. they were every time repulsed with heavy loss. the thirty-second, seventy-ninth, and ninety-fifth were also exposed to similar attacks; but everywhere the british soldiers stood firmly shoulder to shoulder, and nowhere did the french succeed in breaking their ranks. at five o'clock fresh guns and cavalry reinforced ney, and his infantry again advanced in great force through the wood of bossu. the british squares were decimated by the fire of the artillery, and several batteries were advanced to comparatively short range, and opened with destructive effect. stoutly as the eight thousand british had fought--deserted though they were by their allies--against ney's overpowering numbers, they could not much longer have stood their ground, when at the critical moment general alten's division came up by the nivelles road to their aid. halket's british brigade advanced between the wood of bossu and the charleroi road; while the hanoverian brigade took up ground to the left, and gave their support to the hardly-pressed british. ney now pushed forward every man at his disposal. his masses of cavalry charged down, and falling upon the sixty-ninth, one of the regiments just arrived, cut it up terribly, and carried off one of its colors. the thirty-second, however, belonging to the same brigade, repulsed a similar attempt with terrible slaughter. the french infantry, supported by a column of cuirassiers, advanced against the hanoverians, and driving them back approached the spot where the ninety-second were lying. major-general barnes rode up to the highlanders taking off his hat, and shouted: "now, ninety-second, follow me!" the highlanders sprang from the ditch in which they were lying, the bagpipes struck up the slogan of the regiment, and with leveled bayonets they threw themselves upon the french column. in vain its leading companies attempted to make a stand. the highlanders drove them back in confusion, and they broke and fled to the shelter of the hedgerows, where they tried to resist the advance, but the highlanders burst through without a pause. their colonel, john cameron, fell dead; but his men, more furious than before, flung themselves on the french, and drove them back in confusion into the wood. ney still thought of renewing the attack; but d'erlon's corps had not yet arrived, while at this moment two light battalions of brunswickers, with two batteries of artillery, came up, and almost immediately afterward general cooke's division, comprising two brigades of the guards, reached the spot. the latter at once advanced against the french skirmishers, just as they were issuing afresh from the wood of bossu. the guards had undergone a tremendous march; but all thought of fatigue was lost in their excitement, and they swept the french before them and pressed forward. as they did so the whole british line advanced, halket's brigade on the one flank the guards on the other. in vain the french cavalry charged again and again. in vain the french infantry strove to stem the tide. one after another the positions they had so hardly won were wrested from them. picton's division retook the village; piermont was carried by the ninety-fifth and the german legion; while the guards drove the enemy entirely out of the wood of bossu. night was now falling, and ney fell back under cover of darkness to his original position in frasnes; while the british lighted their fires, and bivouacked on the ground they had so bravely held. as soon as the order came for the troops to bivouac where they were standing, arms were piled and the men set to work. parties chopped down hedges and broke up fences, and fires were soon blazing. owing to the late hour at which the fight terminated, and the confusion among the baggage wagons that were now beginning to arrive from the rear, no regular distribution of rations could be made. most of the men, however, had filled their haversacks before leaving their quarters on the previous evening, and a party sent down the road obtained a sufficient supply of bread for the rest from a commissariat wagon. while the fires were being lighted the light company were ordered to aid in the work of collecting the wounded. the other regiments had also sent out parties, and for hours the work went on. owing to the frequent movements of the troops, and the darkness of the night, it was difficult to discover the wounded, and there were no materials at hand from which torches could be made. no distinction was made between friend and foe. the bodies found to be cold and stiff were left where they lay; the rest were lifted and carried to one or other of the spots where the surgeons of the force were hard at work giving a first dressing to the wounds, or, where absolutely necessary, performing amputations. after an hour's work the light company was relieved by the grenadiers, and these in turn by the other companies, so that all might have a chance of obtaining as much sleep as possible. the troops were indeed terribly fatigued, for they had had a thirty miles' march, and nearly six hours continuous fighting; but they were in high spirits at their success, although suffering severely from want of water. they had started in the morning with full canteens, but the dusty march had produced such thirst that most of these were emptied long before they reached the field of battle; and no water was to be found near the spot where the twenty-eighth were bivouacked, and indeed with the exception of the regiments in the village, who obtained water from the wells, the whole army lay down without a drink. water had, however, been fetched for the wounded, whose first cry as their comrades reached them had always been for it; and even when the search had ceased for the night, there were numbers still lying in agony scattered over the field. ralph had before starting filled a canteen with brandy and water at the suggestion of captain o'connor. "the less you drink, lad, while on the march the better; but the chances are you will find by night that every drop is worth its weight in gold. if you have the bad luck to be wounded yourself, the contents of the canteen may save your life; and if you don't want it yourself, you may be sure that there will be scores of poor fellows to whom a mouthful will be a blessing indeed." so ralph had found it. he had drunk very sparingly on the way, scarcely permitting himself to do more than to wet his lips; but when he set about the work of collecting the wounded, he felt more than amply rewarded for his little self-sacrifice by the grateful thanks of the poor fellows to whom he was able to give a mouthful of his hoarded store. it was not until his return to the bivouac, after his hour's turn of duty, that he learned the extent of the loss of the regiment. he knew by the smallness of the number who mustered for the search how much his own company had suffered, and in the brief intervals in the struggle he had heard something of what was doing elsewhere. lieutenant desmond had fallen early in the fight, shot through the heart as the light companies went out to oppose the french skirmishers. captain o'connor had received a lance wound through his arm; but had made a sling of his sash, and had kept his place at the head of his company. the officers were all gathered round a fire when ralph returned to the bivouac. "i see you have your arm in a sling, o'connor," he said. "nothing serious, i hope?" "no, i think not; but it's confoundedly painful. it was a french lancer did it. fortunately one of the men bayoneted him at the very instant he struck me, and it was only the head of the lance that went through my arm. still, it made a hole big enough to be uncommonly painful; the more so because it gave it a frightful wrench as the man dropped the lance. however, there is nothing to grumble at; and i may consider myself lucky indeed to have got off with a flesh wound when so many good fellows have fallen." "yes, considering the number engaged, the losses have been terribly heavy," the major said. "it looked very bad for a time." "that it did," o'connor agreed. "that's what comes of fighting with little mongrels by the side of you. it's always been the case when we get mixed up with other nationalities. look at fontenoy, look at talavera. if i were a general i would simply fight my battles in my own way with my own men. if any allies i had liked to come up and fight on their own account, all the better; but i wouldn't rely upon them in the very slightest." "the belgians and dutch fought very fairly at the beginning, o'connor." "yes, i will admit that. but what's the good of fighting at the beginning if you are going to bolt in the middle of a battle? if we had had two or three regiments of our own cavalry, it would have made all the difference in the world; but when they went off, horse and foot and left our division alone to face the whole force of the enemy, i hardly even hoped we should hold our ground till alten came up." "yes, he was just in the nick of time; but even with him we should have had to fall back if cooke had not arrived with the guards. by the way, has any one heard what has taken place on our left?" "we have heard nothing; but i think there is no doubt the prussians must have been thrashed. one could hear the roar of fire over there occasionally, and i am sure it got farther off at the end of the day; beside, if blucher had beaten napoleon, our friends over there would be falling back, and you can see by their long lines of fire they have not done so. i dare say we shall hear all about it to-morrow. anyhow, i think we had better lie down and get as much sleep as we can, we may have another hard day's work before us." chapter xviii. waterloo. the prussians indeed had been beaten at ligny. their three corps, numbering eighty thousand men, with two hundred and twenty-four guns, had been attacked by napoleon with sixty thousand men, with two hundred and four guns. the battle was contested with extraordinary obstinacy on both sides. the villages of ligny and st. armand were taken and retaken over and over again, and for hours the desperate strife in and around them continued without cessation. both parties continued to send down reinforcements to these points, but neither could succeed in obtaining entire possession of them. the faults which wellington had perceived in the prussian position told against blucher. the villages were too far in advance of the heights on which the army was posted, and his reinforcements were therefore a long time in reaching the spot where they were required to act. they were, too, as they descended the hill, under the observation of napoleon, who was able to anticipate their arrival by moving up supports on his side, and who noted the time when blucher's last reserves behind ligny had come into action. at this critical moment general lobau arrived from charleroi with twelve thousand fresh men and thirty-eight guns, and at seven o'clock in the evening napoleon launched this force with his division of guards, twenty thousand strong, who had hitherto been kept in reserve, against the enemy. ligny was captured and the victory won. the prussians throughout the day had fought with great bravery. they had a long score to wipe out against the french, and were inspired as much by national hatred as by military ardor; and they owed their defeat rather to the disadvantages of the position they held than to the superior fighting qualities of the french. their cavalry had several times made desperate charges; sometimes against the french horse, at others upon columns of infantry. in one of these blucher himself was with them; and as they were in turn driven back by a charge of the french cuirassiers his horse was shot, bringing him to the ground. his aid-de-camp leaped off and threw his cloak over him as the cuirassiers came thundering past, intent upon overtaking the prussian cavalry. they paid no attention to the solitary dismounted man, and a few minutes later again passed the spot, this time in retreat, a fresh party of prussian cavalry having met them. again they passed by the fallen general, little dreaming that one of their most formidable and determined enemies lay there at their mercy. as soon as the prussians came up the dead horse was moved, and blucher, who was insensible, carried to the rear, when he soon recovered and resumed the command. but though beaten the prussians were by no means routed. they had lost the _key_ of their position; but night came on before the combat terminated, and under cover of the darkness they fell back quietly and in good order. general thielmann's corps on the extreme prussian left had taken but little part in the fighting; and as the center and right of the prussian army retreated he advanced, fell upon the french in the darkness, and for some time forced them back, thus giving time to the rest of the army to reform its ranks and recover its discipline. after having rendered great service by thus occupying the enemy thielmann took up a position on the heights, and remained facing the french, while the other _corps d'armé_ took post in his rear. the french were too weary to follow up the advantage they had gained; the night passed without any attack being made, and at daybreak the prussians started on their march to wavre, the cavalry remaining behind to cover the movement, check pursuit, and conceal if possible from the french the line by which the army was falling back. had the pursuit been taken up at daybreak by the french, they would soon have driven in the cavalry and ascertained the route taken by the infantry; but it was not until many hours had elapsed that the french got into motion, and by that time the prussian cavalry had disappeared from their front, and nothing remained to inform them of the line by which the enemy had retreated. there was a general feeling of disappointment among the gallant defenders of quatre bras when on the following morning orders were issued for them to abandon the ground they had so stoutly held. they had been astir at daylight, firearms were cleaned, fresh ammunition served out from the reserve wagons, and the men fell into the ranks, expecting that in a short time they would again be engaged; but no movement could be seen on the part of the enemy, and arms were again piled. the commissariat wagons had come up in the night, and rations were served out to the troops and breakfast prepared. as soon as this was over strong parties were again sent over the battlefield to collect any wounded who had escaped the search of the night before. as soon as these were collected the whole of the wounded were placed in ambulance wagons and country carts, and despatched to brussels. presently a general movement of the great baggage trains was observed by the troops to be taking place, and the long column moved along the road to the north. the duke had sent off a staff-officer at daybreak to ascertain the state of things at ligny; he returned with the report that the prussians had left the field. he then sent out a small party of cavalry under lieutenant-colonel sir alexander gordon. this officer pushed forward until he encountered general zieten, who was still at sombreuf, but a mile distant from the battlefield. the general informed him of the whole events of the preceding day, and gave him the important intelligence that blucher had retreated to wavre, and would join hands with wellington at mount st. jean, which the english general had previously fixed upon as the scene of the battle for the defense of brussels. the news relieved wellington of all anxiety. it had been before arranged that blucher if defeated, should if possible fall back to wavre; but it was by no means certain that he would be able to do this, and had he been compelled by the events of the conflict to retire upon his base at namur he would have been unable to effect a junction for some days with wellington, and the latter would have been obliged single-handed to bear the whole brunt of napoleon's attack. the latter's plans had indeed been entirely based on the supposition that blucher would retreat upon namur; and in order to force him to do so he had abstained from all attack upon the prussian left, and employed his whole strength against the right and center, so as to swing him round, and force him to retire by way of namur. as soon as wellington learned that blucher had carried out the arrangement agreed upon his mind was at ease. orders were sent off at once to the troops advancing from various directions that they should move upon mount st. jean. all the baggage was sent back to brussels, while provisions for the troops were to be left at mount st. jean, where also the whole of the ammunition wagons were to be concentrated. horsemen were sent along the road to keep the baggage train moving, and they had orders that if the troops at quatre bras fell back upon them they were at once to clear the road of all vehicles. having issued all these orders, and seen that everything was in train, wellington allowed the troops at quatre bras to rest themselves, and ordered their dinners, to be cooked. no movement was yet to be seen on the part of the french; there was, therefore, no occasion to hurry. those, therefore, of the men who were not out on patrol stretched themselves on the ground and rested till noon. dinner over the infantry marched off in two columns, the cavalry remaining until four o'clock in the afternoon, when upon the advance of ney in front and napoleon on the left they fell back, and after some sharp skirmishes with the enemy's light cavalry joined the infantry before nightfall in their position near mount st. jean and waterloo. rain had fallen for a time during the afternoon of the battle, and now at four o'clock it again began to come down heavily, soaking the troops to the skin. "this is miserable, stapleton," ralph said to his friend, after the regiment had piled arms on the ground pointed out to them by the officers of the quartermaster's department. "i am rather glad to hear you say it is miserable, ralph. i was certainly thinking so myself; but you always accuse me of being a grumbler, so i thought i would hold my tongue." ralph laughed. "i don't think any one could deny that it is miserable, stapleton; but some people keep up their spirits under miserable circumstances and others don't. this is one of the occasions on which it is really very hard to feel cheerful. there is not a dry thing in the regiment; the rain is coming down steadily and looks as if it meant to keep it up all night. the ground is fast turning into soft mud, and we have got to sleep upon it, or rather in it; for by the time we are ready to lie down it will be soft enough to let us sink right in. i think the best plan will be to try to get hold of a small bundle of rushes or straw, or something of that sort, to keep our heads above it, otherwise we shall risk suffocation." "it is beastly," stapleton said emphatically. "look at the men; what a change in them since we marched along this road yesterday. then they were full of fun and spirits, now they look washed out and miserable. were the french to attack us now you wouldn't see our men fight as you did yesterday." "but you must remember, stapleton, the french are just as wet as we are. this is not a little private rain of our own, you know, got up for our special annoyance; but it extends right over the country." "what nonsense you talk, conway; as if i didn't know that." "well, you spoke as if you didn't, stapleton; but you will see the fellows will fight when they are called upon. just at present they are not only wet but they are disgusted. and i own it is disgusting after fighting as hard as we did yesterday to find it's all been of no use, and that instead of marching against the enemy we are marching away from them. of course it can't be helped; and if we had waited another half-hour we should have had all the french army on us, and yesterday's work would have been mere child's play to it. still i can quite enter into the soldier's feelings. of course they do not understand the position, and regard it as simply a retreat instead of a mere shifting of ground to take up better position and fight again to-morrow. "still this is a nice position, isn't it? you see there's room enough along on the top of this slope for our whole army, and our guns will sweep the dip between us and the opposite rise, and if they attack they will have to experience the same sensations we did yesterday, of being pounded and pounded without the satisfaction of being able to return their fire. "they must cross that dip to get at us--at least if they attack, which i suppose they will, as they will be the strongest party--and our artillery will be able to play upon them splendidly from this road. then, too, there are two or three farmhouses nearer our side than theirs, and i suppose they will be held in force. "that looks rather a nice old place among the trees there on our right. it has a wall and inclosure, and they will have hard work to turn us out of it. yes, i call this a fine place for a battle; and we shall have the advantage here of being able to see all over the field and of knowing what is going on in other places, while yesterday one couldn't see three yards before one. during the whole time one was fighting, one felt that it might be of no use after all, for we might be getting smashed up in some other part of the field." "i never thought anything about it," stapleton said. "my only idea was that i must look as if i wasn't afraid, and must set a good example to the men, and that it was all very unpleasant, and that probably my turn might come next, and that i would give a good deal for something like a gallon of beer. as far as i can remember those were my leading ideas yesterday." "well, denis, what is it?" ralph asked his servant, who approached with a long face. "have you any dry tinder about you, your honor? i have been trying to strike a light for the last half-hour till the tinder box is full of water, and i have knocked all the skin off my knuckles." "that's bad, denis; but i don't think you will get a fire anyhow. the wood must be all too soaked to burn." "i think it will go, sor, if i can once get it to light. i have pulled up some pea-sticks from an old woman's garden; and the ould witch came out and began at me as if i was robbing her of her eldest daughter. it was lucky i had a shilling about me, or be jabbers she would have brought down the provost's guard upon me, and then maybe i would have had my back warmed the least taste in the world more than was pleasant. i hid the sticks under a wagon to keep them dry, and mike doolan is standing sentry over them. i promised him a stick or two for his own kindling. the weather is too bad entirely, your honor, and the boys are well-nigh broken-hearted at turning their backs to the frenchmen." "ah, well, they will turn their faces to-morrow, denis; and as for the weather, i guess you have got wet before now digging praties in the old country." "i have that, your honor, many and many a time; and it's little i cared for it. but then there was a place to go into, and dry clothes to put on, and a warm male to look forward to, with perhaps a drop of the crater afterward; and that makes all the difference in the world. what we are going to do to-night, sorra of me knows." "you will have to lie down in the mud, denis." "is it lie down, your honor? and when shall i get the mud off my uniform? and what will the duke say in the morning if he comes round and sees me look like a hog that has been rowling in his sty?" "you won't be worse than any one else, denis; you see we shall all be in the same boat. well, here's the tinder. i should recommend you to break up a cartridge, and sprinkle the powder in among the leaves that you light your fire with." "that's the difficulty, your honor; i have got some wood, but divil a dry leaf can i find." "look here, denis. open your knapsack under the wagon, and take out a shirt and tear it into strips. you will soon get a fire with that, and we can easily replace the shirt afterward." "that's a grand idea, your honor. that will do it, sure enough. faith, and when the boys see how i do it, there will be many a shirt burned this evening." "but how about wood, denis?" "there's plenty of wood, your honor. the commissaries have had two or three score of woodcutters at work on the edge of the forest all day, and there's timber felled and split enough for all of us and to spare. the pioneers of all the regiments have gone off with their axes to help, and i will warrant there will be a blaze all along the line presently. now i will be off, your honor; for the cooks are ready to boil the kettles as soon as we can get a fire." great masses of the enemy could now be seen arriving on the crest of the opposite rise. presently, these broke up into regiments, and then moved along the crest, halted, and fell out. it was evident that nothing would be done till next morning, for it was already beginning to get dusk. in a few minutes smoke rose in the rear of the regiment, and ere long half a dozen great fires were blazing. men came from the regiments near to borrow brands. the news soon spread along the line of the means by which the twenty-eighth had kindled their fires and, as denis had foretold, the number of shirts sacrificed for this purpose was large. strong parties from each regiment were told off to go to the woodpiles and bring up logs, and in spite of the continued downfall of rain the men's spirits rose, and merry laughs were heard among the groups gathered round the fires. the officers had one to themselves; and a kettle was soon boiling, and tin cups of strong grog handed round. of food, however, there was little beyond what scraps remained in the haversacks; for the commissariat wagons had retired from quatre bras to leave room for those carrying the ammunition, and were now so far in the rear that it was impossible to get at their contents, and distribute them among the troops. for an hour or two they chatted round the fire, and discussed the probabilities of the struggle that would begin in the morning. just as night fell there was a sharp artillery fight between two batteries of picton's division and the same number of the french. the latter commenced the fight by opening fire upon the infantry position, but were too far away to do much harm. picton's guns got the range of a column of infantry, and created great havoc among them. darkness put a stop to the fight, but until late at night skirmishes took place between the outposts. a troop of the seventh hussars charged and drove back a body of light cavalry, who kept on disturbing the videttes; and the second light dragoons of the king's german legion, posted in front of hougoumont, charged and drove back a column of the enemy's cavalry that approached too close. gradually the fires burned low--the incessant downpour of rain so drenching the logs that it was impossible to keep them alight--and the troops lay down, with their knapsacks under their heads, turned the capes of the greatcoats over their faces, and in spite of the deep soft mud below them, and the pouring rain above, soon sank to sleep. all night long a deep sound filled the air, telling of the heavy trains of artillery and ammunition wagons arriving from the rear to both armies. but nothing short of a heavy cannonade would have aroused the weary soldiers from their deep sleep. at twelve o'clock ralph was called up, as his company had to relieve that which furnished the posts in front of the position of the regiment. the orders were not to fire unless fired upon. a third of the men were thrown out as sentries; the others lay upon the ground, fifty yards in rear, ready to move forward to their support if necessary. captain o'connor left ralph with the reserve, and himself paced up and down along the line of sentries, who were relieved every hour until morning broke, when the company rejoined the regiment. the troops could now obtain a view of the ground upon which they were to fight. their line extended some two miles in length, along the brow of a gradually sloping rise, the two extremities of which projected somewhat beyond the center. the ground was open, without woods or hedgerows. about halfway down the slope lay four farms. on the right was hougoumont; a chateau with farm buildings attached to it and a chapel. in front of this lay a thick wood with a close hedge, and the house and farm buildings were surrounded by a strong wall. in front of the center of the line lay the farm and inclosures of la haye sainte, abutting on the main charleroi road, which, as it passed the farm, ran between two deep banks. in front of the left of the line were the hamlets of papelotte and la haye. at the top of the ridge the ground sloped backward, and the infantry were posted a little in rear of the crest, which hid them from the sight of the enemy, and protected them from artillery fire. the whole of the slope, and the valley beyond it was covered with waving corn or high grass, now ready for cutting. upon the opposite side of the valley there was a similar rise, and on this was the french position. nearly in the center of this stood the farm called la belle alliance, close to which napoleon took up his stand during the battle. behind the british position the ground fell away and then rose again gently to a crest, on which stood the villages of waterloo and mount st. jean. the great forest of soignies extended to this point, so that if obliged to fall back wellington had in his rear a position as defensible as that which he now occupied. the allies were arranged in the following order: on the extreme left were vandeleur's and vivian's light cavalry brigades. then came picton's division, the first line being composed of hanoverians, dutch, and belgians, with pack's british brigade, which had suffered so severely in quatre bras, in its rear, and kempt's brigade extending to the charleroi road. alten's division was on the right of picton's. its second brigade, close to the road, consisted of the first and second light battalions of the german legion, and the sixth and eighth battalions of the line. the second german battalion was stationed in the farm of la haye sainte. next to these came a hanoverian brigade, on the right of whom were halket's british brigade. on the extreme right was cooke's division, consisting of two brigades of the guards, having with them a nassau regiment, and two companies of hanoverian riflemen. behind the infantry line lay the cavalry. in reserve were a brigade of the fourth division, the whole of the second division, and the brunswickers, dutch, and belgians. the artillery were placed at intervals between the infantry, and on various commanding points along the ridge. the duke had expected to be attacked early, as it was of the utmost importance to napoleon to crush the british before the prussians could come up; but the rain, which began to hold up as daylight appeared, had so soddened the deep soil that napoleon thought that his cavalry, upon whom he greatly depended, would not be able to act, and he therefore lost many precious hours before he set his troops in motion. from the british position the heavy masses of french troops could be seen moving on the opposite heights to get into the position assigned to them; for it was scarcely a mile from the crest of one slope to that of the other. in point of numbers the armies were not ill-matched. wellington had forty-nine thousand six hundred and eight infantry twelve thousand four hundred and two cavalry, five thousand six hundred and forty-five artillerymen, and one hundred and fifty-six guns. napoleon, who had detached grouchy with his division in pursuit of the prussians, had with him forty-eight thousand nine hundred and fifty infantry, fifteen thousand seven hundred and sixty-five cavalry, seven thousand two hundred and thirty-two artillerymen, and two hundred and forty-six guns. he had, therefore, four thousand three hundred men and ninety guns more than wellington. but this does not represent the full disparity of strength, for wellington had but eighteen thousand five hundred british infantry including the german legion--who having fought through the peninsular were excellent troops--seven thousand eight hundred cavalry and three thousand five hundred artillery. the remainder of his force consisted of troops of hanover, brunswick, nassau, holland, and belgium, upon whom comparatively little reliance could be placed. the british infantry consisted almost entirely of young soldiers; while the whole of napoleon's force were veterans. as early as six o'clock in the morning both armies had taken up the positions in which they were intended to fight. the british infantry were lying down, the cavalry dismounted in their rear, and so completely were they hidden from the sight of the french that napoleon believed they had retreated, and was greatly enraged at their having, as he supposed, escaped him. while he was expressing his annoyance, general foy, who had served against the duke in the peninsula, rode up and said: "your majesty is distressing yourself without just reason, wellington never shows his troops until they are needed. a patrol of horse will soon find out whether he is before us or not, and if he be i warn your majesty that the british infantry are the very devil to fight." the emperor soon discovered that the british were still in front of him; for the english regiments were directed to clean their arms by firing them off, and the heavy fusillade reached napoleon's ears. at eight o'clock wellington, who was anxiously looking over in the direction from which he expected the prussians to appear, saw a body of mounted men in the distance, and soon afterward a prussian orderly rode in and informed him that they were on the march to his assistance, and would soon be on the field. grouchy had, in fact, altogether failed to intercept them. napoleon had made up his mind that after ligny the prussians would retreat toward namur, and sent grouchy in pursuit of them along that road. that officer had gone many miles before he discovered the route they had really taken, and only came up with the rear of their column at wavre on the morning of waterloo. blucher left one division to oppose him, and marched with the other three to join wellington. it was not until nearly ten o'clock that the french attack began; then a column moved down from the heights of la belle alliance against the wood of hougoumont, and as it approached the leading companies broke up into skirmishing order. as these arrived within musketry range a scattering fire broke out from the hedges in front of the wood, and the battle of waterloo had begun. soon from the high ground behind hougoumont the batteries of artillery opened fire on the french column. its skirmishers advanced bravely, and constantly reinforced, drove back the hanoverian and nassau riflemen in front of the wood. then bull's battery of howitzers opened with shell upon them; and so well were these served that the french skirmishers fell back, hotly pressed by the first and second brigade of guards issuing from the chateau. the roar of cannon speedily extended along both crests; the british aiming at the french columns, the french, who could see no foes with the exception of the lines of skirmishers, firing upon the british batteries. the french therefore suffered severely, while the allies, sheltered behind the crest, were only exposed to the fire of the shot which grazed the ground in front, and then came plunging in among them. prince jerome, who commanded on napoleon's left, sent strong columns of support to his skirmishers acting against the right of the wood of hougoumont, while foy's division moved to attack it in front. in spite of a terrific fire of artillery poured upon them these brave troops moved on, supported by the concentrated fire of their powerful artillery against the british position. the light companies of the guards, after an obstinate resistance, were forced back through the wood. the french pushed on through the trees until they reached the hedge, which seemed to them to be the only defense of the buildings. but thirty yards in the rear was the orchard wall, flanked on the right by the low brick terraces of the garden. the whole of these had been carefully loopholed, and so terrible a storm of fire opened upon the french that they recoiled and sought shelter among the trees and ditches in the rear. jerome, seeing that his skirmishers had won the wood, and knowing nothing of the formidable defenses that arrested their advance, poured fresh masses of men down to their assistance. although they suffered terribly from the british artillery fire, they gathered in the wood in such numbers that they gradually drove back the defenders into the buildings and yard, and completely surrounded the chateau. the defenders had not even time properly to barricade the gate. this was burst open and dense masses rushed in. the guards met them with the bayonet, and after fierce fighting drove thorn out and closed the gate again, and with their musketry fire compelled them to fall back from the buildings. some of the french, however, advanced higher up the slope, and opened fire upon one of the batteries with such effect that it had to withdraw. four fresh companies of the guards advanced against them, cleared them away, and reinforced the defenders of the chateau. a desperate fight raged round the buildings, and one of the enemy's shells falling upon the chateau set it on fire. but the defense still continued, until lord saltoun, repulsing a desperate attack, and reinforced by two companies which came down the hill to his assistance, drove the enemy back and recaptured the orchard. this desperate conflict had lasted for three hours. while it was going on ney led twenty thousand men against the center and left of the british position, advancing as usual in heavy column. just as they were setting out at one o'clock napoleon discovered the prussians advancing. he sent off a despatch to grouchy ordering him to move straight upon the field of battle; but that general did not receive it until seven in the evening, when the fight was nearly over. it was just two when the columns poured down the hill, their attack heralded by a terrific fire upon the british line opposed to them. the slaughter among picton's division was great; but although the dutch and hanoverians were shaken by the iron hail, they stood their ground. when the columns reached the dip of the valley and began to ascend the slopes toward the british division they threw out clouds of skirmishers and between these and the light troops of the allies firing at once began, and increased in volume as the french neared the advanced posts of la haye sainte, papelotte, and la haye. the division of durette drove out the nassau troops from papelotte; but reinforcements arrived from the british line, and the french in turn were expelled. the other three french columns advanced steadily, with thirty light guns in the intervals between them. donzelat's brigade attacked la haye sainte, and, in spite of a gallant resistance by the germans, made its way into the orchard and surrounded the inclosures. another brigade, pushing along on the other side of the charleroi road, were met by the fire of two companies of the rifle brigade who occupied a sandpit there, and by their heavy and accurate fire checked the french advance. the other two divisions moved straight against that part of the crest held by picton's division. the men of the dutch-belgian brigade, as soon as fire was opened upon them, lost all order and took to their heels, amid the yells and execrations of the brigades of kempt and pack behind them, and it was with difficulty that the british soldiers were kept from firing into the fugitives. the dutch artillery behind them tried to arrest the mob; but nothing could stop them--they fairly ran over guns, men, and horses, rushed down the valley and through the village of mount st. jean, and were not seen again in the field during the rest of the day. picton's division was now left alone to bear the brunt of the french attack. the battle at quatre bras had terribly thinned its ranks, and the two brigades together did not muster more than three thousand men. picton formed the whole in line, and prepared to resist the charge of thirteen thousand infantry, beside heavy masses of cavalry, who were pressing forward, having in spite of a stout resistance driven in the riflemen from the sandpit and the road above it. as the columns neared the british line the fire from the french batteries suddenly ceased, their own troops now serving as a screen to the british. the heads of the columns halted and began to deploy into line; picton seized the moment, and shouted "a volley, and then charge!" the french were but thirty yards away. a tremendous volley was poured into them, and then the british with a shout rushed forward, scrambled through a double hedgerow that separated them from the french, and fell upon them with the bayonet. the charge was irresistible. taken in the act of deploying, the very numbers of the french told against them, and they were borne down the slope in confusion. picton, struck by a musket ball in the head, fell dead, and kempt assumed the command, and his brigade followed up the attack and continued to drive the enemy down the hill. in the meantime the french cavalry were approaching. the cuirassiers had passed la haye sainte, and almost cut to pieces a hanoverian battalion which was advancing to reinforce the defenders. at this moment lord edward somerset led the house-hold brigade of cavalry against the cuirassiers, and the _élite_ of the cavalry of the two nations met with a tremendous shock; but the weight and impetus of the heavy british horsemen, aided by the fact that they were descending the hill, while their opponents had hardly recovered their formation after cutting up the hanoverians, proved irresistible, and the cuirassiers were driven down the hill. a desperate hand-to-hand conflict took place; and it was here that shaw, who had been a prize-fighter before he enlisted in the second life guards, killed no less than seven frenchmen with his own hand, receiving, however, so many wounds, that on the return of the regiment from its charge he could no longer sit his horse, and crawling behind a house died there from loss of blood. while the second life guards and first dragoon guards pursued the cuirassiers down the slope, the royals, scots greys, and inniskillens rode to the assistance of pack's brigade, which had been assailed by four strong brigades of the enemy. pack rode along at the front of his line calling upon his men to stand steady. the enemy crossed a hedge within forty yards of the ninety-second, and delivered their fire. the highlanders waited till they approached within half the distance, and then pouring in a volley, charged with leveled bayonets. the french stood firm, and the ninety-second, numbering less than two hundred and fifty men, burst in among them; a mere handful among their foes. but just at this moment ponsonby's heavy cavalry came up, and passing through the intervals of the companies and battalions, fell upon the french infantry. in vain the enemy endeavored to keep their formation; their front was burst in, their center penetrated, and their rear dispersed, and in five minutes the great column was a mass of fugitives. great numbers were killed, and two thousand prisoners taken. chapter xix. the rout. while pack's brigade secured the prisoners taken by the cavalry and sent them to the rear, the cavalry themselves continued their charge. in vain ponsonby ordered the trumpeters to sound the halt. carried away by the excitement of their success--an excitement in which the horses shared--the three regiments galloped on. the royals on the right fell upon two french regiments advancing in column, broke them, and cut them up terribly. the inniskillens also fell on two french line regiments, shattered them with their charge, and took great numbers of prisoners, whole companies running up the hill and surrendering to the infantry in order to escape from the terrible horsemen. the cavalry were now terribly scattered; the three regiments of ponsonby's brigade were far down in the valley, as were the second life guards and first dragoon guards. the first life guards and the blues were still engaged with the cuirassiers opposed to them; for these, although driven back, were fighting doggedly. the greys, who should have been in reserve, galloped ahead and joined ponsonby's squadrons, and the two brigades of heavy cavalry were far away from all support. when they reached the bottom of the hill a tremendous fire was poured from a compact corps of infantry and some pieces of cannon on the right into the royals, inniskillens, and second life guards, and a fresh column of cuirassiers advanced against them. they wheeled about and fell back in great confusion and with heavy loss, their horses being completely blown with their long gallop across the heavy ground. these regiments had fared, however, better than the greys, royals, and inniskillens on the left, for they, having encountered no infantry fire, had charged up the hill until level with the french guns, when, turning sharp to the left, they swept along the line cutting up the artillerymen, until suddenly they were charged by a brigade of lancers, while a large body of infantry threatened their line of retreat. fortunately at this moment the light cavalry came up to their assistance. riding right through the infantry column the light cavalry fell upon the french lancers and rolled them over with the fury of their charge, and then charged another regiment of lancers and checked their advance. light and heavy horse were now mixed up together, and a fresh body of french cavalry coming up, drove them down the hill with great loss--they being saved, indeed, from total destruction by the eleventh hussars, who, coming up last, had kept their formation. covered by these the remnants of the cavalry regained their own crest on the hill, and reformed under cover of the infantry. general ponsonby was killed, and his brother, the colonel of the twelfth, severely wounded and left on the field. while this desperate fight had been raging on the center and left, fresh columns had advanced from jerome's and foy's divisions against hougoumont, and had again, after obstinate fighting, captured the orchard and surrounded the chateau, but were once more repulsed by a fresh battalion of guards who moved down the slope to the assistance of their hardly-pressed comrades. then for a while the fighting slackened, but the artillery duel raged as fiercely as ever. the gunners on both sides had now got the exact range, and the carnage was terrible. the french shells again set hougoumont on fire, and all the badly wounded who had been carried inside perished in the flames. at the end of an hour fresh columns of attack moved against the chateau, while at the same moment forty squadrons of cavalry advanced across the valley toward the english position. the english batteries played upon them with round shot, and, as they came near, with grape and canister; but the horsemen rode on, and at a steady trot arrived within forty yards of the english squares, when with a shout they galloped forward, and in a moment the whole of the advanced batteries of the allies were in their possession; for wellington's orders had been that the artillerymen should stand to their guns till the last moment, and then run for shelter behind the squares. the french cavalry paused for a moment in astonishment at the sight that met their eyes. they had believed that the british were broken and disorganized, but no sooner had they passed over the slope than they saw the british and german squares bristling with bayonets and standing calm and immovable. the artillery on both sides had ceased their fire, and a dead silence had succeeded the terrible din that had raged but a moment before. then with a shout the cavalry again charged, but in no case did they dash against the hedges of bayonets, from which a storm of fire was now pouring. breaking into squadrons they rode through the intervals between the squares and completely enveloped them; but lord uxbridge gathered the remains of the british cavalry together, charged them, and drove them back through the squares and down the hill. receiving reinforcements the french again advanced, again enveloped the squares, and were again hurled back. while this was going on the battle was still raging round hougoumont and la haye sainte, against which a portion of reille's division had advanced; but the germans resisted as obstinately as did the guards, and as the french cavalry retired for the second time the infantry fell back, and for a time the slope of the english position was again clear of the enemy. for a time the battle languished, and then napoleon brought up thirty-seven fresh squadrons of cavalry, and these, with the remains of those who had before charged, rode up the slope. but although they swept on and passed the british squares, they could not succeed in shaking them. a body of horse, however, sweeping down toward the dutch and belgians at the end of the line, these at once marched off the field without firing a musket, and the brigade of cavalry with them galloped away at full speed. the position was a singular one; and had napoleon ordered his infantry to advance in the rear of the cavalry, the issue of the day might have been changed. in appearance the french were masters of the position. their masses of cavalry hid the british squares from sight. the british cavalry were too weak to charge, and most of the guns were in the possession of the french; but the latter's infantry were far away, and after sustaining the fire of the squares for a long time, the cavalry began to draw off. lord uxbridge now endeavored to persuade the cumberland hanoverian hussars, who had not so far been engaged, to charge; but instead of obeying orders they turned and rode off, and never drew bridle until they reached brussels, where they reported that the british army had been destroyed. adams' brigade were now brought up from the reserve, and drove back the french infantry and cavalry who had come up to the top of the crest beyond hougoumont. on the other side ney sent a column against la haye sainte. the germans made a gallant stand; but they were cut off from all assistance, outnumbered, and were altogether without ammunition; and although they defended themselves with their bayonets to the end, they were slain almost to a man, and la haye sainte was captured at last. but beyond this the french could not advance; and though column after column moved forward to the attack on the crest, they were each and all beaten back. it was now nearly seven o'clock in the evening, and the prussians were engaged at st. lambert, napoleon having detached lobau's corps to arrest their progress. their march had been a terrible one. they had to traverse country roads softened by the rain; the men were up to their ankles in mud, guns and carriages stuck fast, and it was not until after tremendous efforts that the leading squadron of their cavalry passed through the wood of wavre and came in view of the battle that was raging. it was then past four o'clock, and another hour passed before any considerable number of infantry arrived. it was at this time napoleon sent lobau against them. he was able for a time to resist their advance; but as fresh troops came up from the rear the prussians began to win their way forward, and napoleon was obliged to send two more divisions of the young guard to check them. he now saw that all was lost unless he could, before the whole of the prussian army arrived, break down the resistance of the british. he therefore prepared for a final effort. ney was to collect all his infantry, and, advancing past la haye sainte, to fall upon the center of the british line. the guard, who had hitherto been held in reserve, was to pass hougoumont and attack the left center. the cavalry were to follow in support. a cannonade even more heavy and terrible than before, for the guns of the reserve had been brought up, opened upon the british, and the squares were now melting away fast. but no reinforcements could be sent to them, for the whole of the british troops were now in action, and their allies had for the most part long before left the field. every gun was brought to the front, the remains of the cavalry gathered together as a reserve; and some of the prussians now approaching the left, the cavalry there were brought to the center to aid in the defense of the threatened point. just as these arrangements were completed the enemy advanced in tremendous force from the inclosure of la haye sainte, and with their fire so completely mastered that of the remnants of the infantry, that their light guns were brought up to within a hundred yards of the british line and opened with grape upon the squares. two hanoverian battalions were almost annihilated, the brigade of the german legion almost ceased to exist. a brunswick cavalry regiment that had hitherto fought gallantly lost heart and would have fled had not the british cavalry behind them prevented them from doing so. in the meantime the imperial guard in two heavy columns, led by ney himself, were advancing, the guards being followed by every available man of the infantry and cavalry. one of these columns skirted the inclosure of the hougoumont, the other moved against the center. they pressed forward until they reached the top of the slope, and a hundred cannon were brought up and unlimbered, while the artillery on the opposite slope rained round shot and shell upon the british squares and artillery. the english guns tried in vain to answer them: they were wholly overmatched. gun after gun was dismounted, horses and men destroyed; but as soon as the leading column of the guards reached the point when their own guns had to cease fire, the english artillery opened again, and terrible was the havoc they made in the dense columns. still the guard pressed on until they reached the top of the crest; and then the british guards leaped to their feet and poured in a tremendous volley at close quarters, fell on the flank of the column, broke it, and hurled it down the hill. the guards were recalled and prepared to oppose the second column, but their aid was not needed; the fifty-second threw themselves upon its flank, the seventy-first and ninety-fifth swept its head with their volleys, and as the column broke and retired the duke of wellington gave the orders the men had been longing for since the fight began. the squares broke into lines, and the british, cheering wildly, descended the crest. the french retreat became a rout, cavalry and infantry fell upon them, the artillery plied them with their fire, the prussians poured down upon their flank. by eight o'clock the splendid army of napoleon was a mass of disorganized fugitives. for ten hours the battle had raged. to the men in the squares it seemed a lifetime. "when shall we get at them? when shall we get at them?" was their constant cry as the round shot swept their ranks, although from their position behind the crest they could see nothing of their enemies. nothing is harder than to suffer in inactivity, and the efforts of the officers were principally directed to appeasing the impatience of their men, "our turn will come presently, lads." "yes, but who will be alive when it does come?" a query which was very hard to answer, as hour by hour the ranks melted away. although they kept a cheerful countenance and spoke hopefully to the men, it seemed to the officers themselves that the prospect was well-nigh hopeless. picton's brigade mustered scarce half their strength when the battle began. they were to have fought in the second line this day; but the defection of their allies in front of them had placed them in the front, and upon them and upon the defenders of hougoumont the brunt of the battle had fallen, and as the squares grew smaller and smaller it seemed even to the officers that the end must come before long. "this cannot last," captain o'connor said to ralph when the day was but half over. "they will never beat us, but by the time they get here there will be nobody left to beat. i don't think we are more than two hundred strong now, and every minute the force is diminishing. i don't wonder the men are impatient. we bargained for fighting, but i never reckoned on standing for hours to be shot at without even a chance to reply." it was just after this that the french cavalry burst upon the squares; but this cheered rather than depressed the spirits of the men. for a time they were free from the artillery fire, and now had a chance of active work. thus as the fire flashed from the faces of the square the men laughed and joked, and it was with regret that they saw the cuirassiers fall back before the charge of lord uxbridge's cavalry, for they knew that the moment this screen was removed the french artillery would open again. ralph's chief sensation was that of wonder that he was alive; so overwhelming was the din, so incessant the rain of shot, it seemed to him a marvel how any one could remain alive within its range. almost mechanically he repeated the orders, "close up, close up!" as the square dwindled and dwindled. he longed as impatiently as the men for the advance, and would have gladly charged against impossible odds rather than remain immovable under fire. when the order at length came he did not hear it. just after the storm of fire that heralded the advance of the guards broke out, a round shot struck him high up on the left arm. he was conscious only of a dull, numbing sensation, and after that knew no more of what was taking place. it was pitch dark before he became conscious. fires were burning at various points along the ridge; for when the victory was complete the british retired to the position they had held so long, and the prussian cavalry took up the pursuit. fires had been lighted with broken gun carriages and shattered artillery wagons, and parties with torches were collecting the wounded. ralph found that his head was being supported, and that a hand was pouring spirits and water down his throat. the hand was a shaky one, and its owner was crying loudly. as he opened his eyes the man broke into a torrent of thankful exclamations. "the lord be praised, mr. conway. sure, i thought you were dead and kilt entirely." "is that you, denis?" "sure and it's no one else, your honor." "is the battle over?" "it is that. the french are miles away, and the proosians at their heels." "what has happened to me, denis?" "well, your honor's hurt a bit in the arm, but it will all come right presently." it was well for ralph that he had been struck before the order came for the advance, for as he fell the one surviving surgeon of the regiment had at once attended to him, had fixed a tourniquet on the stump of his arm, tied the arteries, and roughly bandaged it. had he not been instantly seen to he would have bled to death in a few minutes. denis now called to one of the parties who were moving about with stretchers. ralph was lifted on to it and carried to the village of waterloo where he was placed in an ambulance wagon which, as soon as it was full, started for brussels. the fighting was now over, and denis asked leave to accompany his master. the rout of the enemy had been so thorough and complete that it was not thought probable any serious resistance could be offered to the advance of the allied armies to paris, and he therefore obtained leave without difficulty to remain with his master. ralph suffered from exhaustion rather than pain on the journey to brussels, and several times became almost unconscious. at four o'clock in the morning the ambulance stopped at a handsome house that its owner had placed at the disposal of the authorities for the use of wounded officers. he was carried upstairs and placed in bed in a room on the second story. denis at once proceeded to install himself there. he brought down a mattress from a room above, laid it in the corner, throwing his greatcoat over it, then as soon as he thought the shops were open he hurried out and bought a kettle and saucepan, two cups and tumblers, a small basin, and several other articles. "there, your honor," he said as he returned. "now we have got iverything we need, and i can make soups and drinks for your honor, and boil myself a tater widout having to go hunting all over the house for the things to do it with." a few minutes later two surgeons entered the room and examined ralph's arm. they agreed at once that it was necessary to amputate it three inches higher up, ralph winced when he heard the news. "it won't hurt you very much," one of the surgeons said. "the nerves are all numbed with the shock they have had, but it is absolutely necessary in order that a neat stump may be made of it. the bone is all projecting now; and even if the wound healed over, which i don't think it would, you would have trouble with it all your life." "of course if it must be done, it must," ralph said. "there isn't much left of it now." "there is not enough to be of much use," the surgeon agreed; "but even a shorter stump that you can fit appliances on to will be a great deal more handy than one with which nothing can be done." the operation was performed at once, and although ralph had to press his lips hard together to prevent himself from crying out, he did find it less painful than he had expected. "there, you will do now," the surgeon said. "here, my man, take that basin and a tumbler and run downstairs to the kitchen. they will give you some broth there and some weak spirits and water. bring them up at once." ralph took a spoonful or two of the broth, and a sip of the spirits, and then lay back and presently dozed off to sleep. denis had followed the surgeons out of the room. "what instructions is there, your honor?" "your master is just to be kept quiet. if he is thirsty give him some lemonade. you can obtain that or anything else you require below." "and about myself, sir. i wouldn't speak about it but i have had nothing to eat since yesterday morning, and i don't like leaving mr. conway alone even to buy myself a mouthful." "you will not have regular rations, but all officers' servants and orderlies will obtain food below. meals will be served out at eight in the morning, one, and six. you take down your pannikin, and can either eat your food there or bring it up here as you choose. breakfast will not be ready for two hours yet; but there are several others in the same plight as yourself, and you will find plenty to eat below." denis took his place by his master's bedside until he saw that he was sound asleep, then taking the pannikin from the top of the knapsack he stole noiselessly out, and in two or three minutes later he returned with the pannikin full of soup, a small loaf, and a ration of wine. "by jabers," he said to himself as he sat down to eat them, "these are good quarters entirely. i should wish for nothing better if it wasn't for the master lying there. lashings to eat and drink, and a room fit for a king. nothing to do but to wait upon his honor. i suppose after to-day i shall be able to stale out for a few minutes sometimes for a draw of me pipe. it would never do to be smoking here. the master wouldn't mind it; but i expect them doctors would be for sending me back to my regiment if they were to come in and smell it." after he had finished his meal, denis took his seat by ralph's bedside; but he was thoroughly exhausted. he had not slept a wink since the night before the battle, and after the fatigue of the day had been tramping all night by the side of the ambulance, which was constantly stopped by the numerous vehicles that had broken down or been overturned by the way. after waking up suddenly with a jerk once or twice, he muttered to himself, "i will just take five minutes on the bed, then i shall be all right again," and threw himself down on his mattress with his greatcoat for a pillow, and slept for several hours. so heavy was his slumber that he was not even roused when the surgeons came round at ten o'clock to see how ralph was. he had just woke. "how do you feel, mr. conway?" "i feel quite comfortable," ralph said, "but shall be glad of a drink. where is my man?" "he is asleep there in the corner," the surgeon said. "i will give you a drink of lemonade. the poor fellow is worn out, no doubt." "oh, yes; please don't wake him," ralph said. "i am glad he is asleep; for he had all that terrible day yesterday, and was on his feet all night. i shan't want anything but this lemonade; and i have no doubt i shall go straight off to sleep again as soon as you have gone." it was not until just one o'clock that denis woke. he at once got up and went to ralph's side. the latter opened his eyes. "how do you feel now, your honor?" "oh, i am getting on very well, denis. my arm hardly hurts me at all at present. i expect it will ache worse presently." "i have been having a few minutes' sleep your honor. and now, if you don't want me for a minute, i will run down and see about breakfast. i should think it must be nearly ready." "see about dinner, you mean, denis. why, it's just one o'clock." "one o'clock! your honor must be dreaming." "i don't think so, denis. there is my watch on the table." "why, your honor does not mean to say," denis said in great astonishment, "that i have been sleeping for five hours? the watch must have gone wrong." "the watch is right enough, denis. i heard it strike twelve by the church clocks before i dozed off last time. why, the surgeons came in at ten o'clock and gave me some lemonade." "and me to know nothing about it! denis mulligan, you ought to be ashamed of yourself--slaping like a pig in a stye, with your master laying wounded there beside you, and no one to look after him. i just laid down for five minutes' nap, your honor, seeing that you had gone off into a beautiful sleep, and never dreamed of more than that." "it was the best thing you could do, denis. you had been twenty-four hours on your feet, and you would have been fit for nothing if you hadn't had a good rest. now go downstairs and get your dinner, and when you come back again you can bring me up a basin of broth and a piece of bread. i begin to feel hungry; and that's a capital sign, i believe." when ralph had finished his broth he said to denis, "i shan't want anything now for some time, denis. you can put a glass of lemonade within reach of my hand, and then i shall do very well for an hour or two. i am quite sure you must be dying for a pipe; so go out and take a turn. it will freshen you up; and you can bring me back what news you can gather as to the losses yesterday, and whether the army started in pursuit of the french." it was some time before denis would consent to leave the room; but at last, seeing that ralph really wished it, he went out for an hour, and returned full of the rumors he had picked up of the terrible losses of the british, and the utter rout of the french army. the next morning ralph had a great surprise; for just as he had finished his breakfast there was a tap at the door, and a lady entered. ralph could hardly believe his eyes as his mother ran forward to the bed. but the pressure of her arms and her kisses soon showed him that it was a reality. "why, mother darling!" he exclaimed, "how on earth did you get here?" "i came across in a smack to ostend, ralph, and then came on by carriage. i got here last night, and learned at the quartermaster-general's office that you were wounded and were somewhere in brussels, at least they believed you were here somewhere, but they could not say where. they let me have a copy of the list of the houses that had been allotted for the use of wounded officers. it was too late to begin the search last night, but i have been three hours going round this morning. i saw the surgeon downstairs and he told me--" and her lips quivered and her eyes filled with tears. "that i had lost my left arm, mother. well, that is nothing to fret about when thousands have been killed. one can do very well without a left arm; and i think, on the whole, that i have been wonderfully lucky. denis!" but denis was not in the room, having, as soon as he had discovered who ralph's visitor was, gone out to leave them alone. "and have you made this journey all by yourself, mother?" "no, my dear. mr. tallboys was good enough to come over to take care of me by the way." "mr. tallboys, mother! how did he know that you were coming?" "well, i told him, ralph. but that is a long story, and you shall hear it another day. the doctor said you had better not do much talking now. mr. tallboys will stay here a day or two and then go home. i intend to take a room somewhere close by and install myself here as your head nurse." "i shan't want much nursing, mother; but i shall be delighted to have you with me. i have a capital servant. the man i told you about in my letters. he is a most amusing fellow and very much attached to me. do you know, he got leave directly the battle was over, and was all night walking by the side of the ambulance wagon. he is a capital fellow. by the way, mother, i suppose the will has not turned up yet? you said in your last letter you had great hopes of its being found." "it has been found, ralph; and it is all just as we supposed. but how it was found, or anything about it, you mustn't ask at present. it is a long story, and i must insist now that you lie quiet and go to sleep." "well, i will try, mother. will you just look outside the door and see if denis is there? denis, this is my mother," he said as the soldier came in. "she has come over to help nurse me; and as she will be principally with me in the daytime, you will be at liberty to be out whenever you like." "sure, and i am glad the lady has come, mr. conway; though i would have done the best i could for you. still, a man is but a poor crater in a sick-room. can i get you anything ma'am?" "well, i have had nothing this morning, denis; and if you could get me a cup of tea and some bread and butter, if it is not against the rules, i should be very glad." "sure, i will do that, ma'am, with the greatest pleasure in life," denis said; and presently returned bringing up a tray with tea, bread and butter, and a plate of cold meat. "is there anything else, ma'am?" "well, denis, i should be very much obliged if you will take a note from me to a gentleman named tallboys, whom you will find at the hotel de l'europe. give it to him yourself if you can. he will be glad to hear from you about my son, how he is going on and so on." for the next few days ralph's arm was exceedingly painful, attended by a certain amount of fever. at the end of that time he began to improve, and his wound made steady progress toward recovery. after staying for four days at brussels, mr. tallboys had returned home. mrs. conway and denis divided the nursing between them, sitting up on alternate nights. a fortnight after mrs. conway's arrival ralph said, "now, mother, i shall be up to-morrow and can therefore be considered as fairly convalescent, so there can be no reason now why you should not tell the story about the finding of the will. you told me in one of your letters before christmas that mr. tallboys had failed altogether. so how did it come to be found?" mrs. conway thereupon told the story. when she came to the point where she had gone as a servant to the hall, ralph interrupted her with a loud protest. "i don't like that, mother; i don't like the idea of your having gone as a servant, whatever the stake was. if i had been at home and had known it, i certainly would not have let you go, not if there had been ten fortunes to be gained by it. the idea of your having to go and live as a servant, and work for people like that is horrid!" "there was nothing very unpleasant about it, ralph. i had plenty to do and to think about, and the time passed a great deal more rapidly than it would have done if i had been staying at home all by myself. it would have been very lonely and dull then; and i can assure you that i considered it no hardship at all being at the hall. but you must not interrupt me in my story. if you do i shall tell you nothing more about it until you get home to england." this threat effectually sealed ralph's lips, and beyond occasional exclamations he said nothing until the story was ended. "well, it's all very wonderful, mother," he said; "and i should never have thought for a moment that you were so brave, and could have put things together like that, and could have carried out such a scheme. but i am awfully glad you have succeeded; because you had set your mind on it, and the money will i hope make you quite comfortable. how much was it after all mother? you never told me that." "it is half of mr. penfold's estates, and of the money he had invested, which is a very large sum, ralph; although i do not know how much." "half the estate! why, it will make me quite a rich man. i never dreamed it was anything like that. i thought most likely it was enough to continue the allowance that he said he should make me. why, mother, it is tremendous! and what becomes of the other half?" "that is left to mabel withers, ralph. you two divide everything that he left." "well, that certainly is rather hard upon his sisters," ralph said; "and i don't blame them for being against it. though, of course, it was not right to keep the will hidden." "mr. penfold did not leave anything to them, because they are both very well provided for. their father left them a handsome sum at his death; and as they have been living at the hall ever since, and can have spent nothing, they must be very amply provided for. their brother, therefore, naturally considered he was perfectly at liberty to leave his property as he chose. i do not think the miss penfolds have the slightest reason to grumble, after living as they have done for the last twenty years at their brother's expense." "of course that makes a difference," ralph agreed; "it certainly didn't seem nice that mabel and i, who are no relation by blood to mr. penfold, should come into the property that his sisters expected would be theirs. but, of course, now you explain it, it is different." "i do not think in any case, ralph, mr. penfold would have left his fortune to his sisters. he was a man very averse to exerting his own will, and i am sure that he submitted to, rather than liked, his sisters' residence at the hall. i know that he considered, and justly, that they had once committed a cruel wrong upon him, and had in a way spoiled his life. i question whether he really ever forgave them." "i see, mother," ralph said. "well, now, about myself; i should think there can be no occasion for me to continue in the army unless i like?" "i hope you won't like, ralph. in the first place i want to have you with me; and in the second, you will be a large landowner, and property has its duties." "well, there is no necessity to decide about that at present. the doctor said yesterday i should certainly get three months' sick leave before i rejoined. by all we hear the fighting is at an end, and there is no fear whatever that napoleon will have it in his power to cause trouble in the future. they will take care of that, whatever they do with him. if there is going to be peace everywhere, i do not know that i should care very much about staying in the army; but, as i said, we need not decide at present." ten days later, ralph was so far recovered that he was able to return home with his mother. as soon as she informed him of her arrival at dover, mr. tallboys wrote to tell her that he had had an interview in london with the miss penfolds' lawyer, who informed him that he had instructions from his clients to examine the will, and if satisfied of its genuineness, to offer no opposition whatever to its being proved. mr. tallboys had thereupon shown him the will, and had no difficulty in convincing him that it was the document he himself had drawn up, and mr. penfold had signed in his presence. "the lawyer has placed all the deeds and documents relating to mr. penfold's property in my hands, and, as i was of course before well aware, my late client died worth a very considerable property in addition to his large estates in this country. for the last twenty years his income has exceeded his expenditure by an average of three thousand a year, and as the surpluses have been judiciously invested, and as the prices of all funds and stocks now stand vastly higher than they did during the course of the long war, their total value now amounts to something over a hundred and thirty thousand pounds. "the property in this country was valued, at the time mr. penfold drew up his will, at eighty thousand pounds; these estates he left to your son, and the sum of eighty-thousand pounds, in various investments, to miss withers, and directed that the residue, whatever it might be at his death, should be equally divided between them. your son's share, therefore, will amount to about twenty-five thousand pounds. i may say that the outlying farms, which were settled by deed as a security for the four hundred pounds annually paid to you, are not included in the above valuation, but are ordered to revert to the main estate upon your decease. "the formalities will all be completed in the course of a short time. i may say that from the totals to be divided must be deducted the legacy duties, which, as your son and miss withers are strangers by blood to the testator, will be heavy." mr. tallboys added that he heard the younger miss penfold was now recovering from her serious illness, but it was not probable she would ever be again herself. he had received, he said, a letter that morning from their solicitor, saying that as soon as miss eleanor penfold could be moved, which it was hoped would be in the course of another week, the ladies would vacate possession of the hall. a fortnight later mrs. conway and ralph left dover for london, leaving orders with an agent to sell the furniture of their house. all ralph's old friends on the shore had been made happy with handsome presents. after a short stay in london they went down, and ralph took possession of the hall. he soon found there was abundance of occupation for his time on the estate, and that this would be increased when, as would doubtless be the case, he was placed on the commission of peace for the county, as herbert penfold had been before him. as soon as ralph had completely recovered his health and strength he told his mother that she must spare him for a week, as he had promised that he would on the first opportunity go over to dunkirk to see his friend jacques. he crossed by the packet from dover to calais, and thence by coach to dunkirk. here he inquired among the fishermen for jacques, and found that he had returned before napoleon broke out from elba, and that he was owner of a fishing smack which was now at sea. the next day jacques returned, and his delight at meeting ralph was unbounded. he took him home to his neat cottage where his pretty young wife was already installed. ralph remained two days with him, and obtained a promise from him that he would once a year sail over to weymouth and pay him a visit. "i am a rich man, jacques, now. at present i see you want nothing, but should any accident befall your fishing boat, or you have need for money for any other cause, write to me, and the money for a new boat or for any other purpose shall be yours at once. i could afford to give you a hundred boats without hurting myself, so do not hesitate for a moment in letting me know if i can help you. it will be a real pleasure to me to do so." jacques kept his promise, and never missed coming over once year to pay ralph a visit, and as his five sons one after another grew up to be able to manage boats for themselves, they were each presented one by ralph. jacques himself prospered as a fisherman, and never required the assistance ralph would have been glad to give him. neither ralph nor mabel withers was informed of the expression of mr. penfold's hopes in his will that they would some day be married, the two mothers agreeing cordially that nothing was so likely to defeat the carrying out of mr. penfold's wishes as for the young people to have any suspicions of them. they were still but boy and girl, and were now perfectly happy in their unrestrained intercourse, for not a day passed that the two families did not see something of each other; but had they had a suspicion of the truth it would have rendered them shy and awkward with each other, and have thrown them much more widely apart. "we both hope that it will come about, mrs. conway," mrs. withers said one day; "and i certainly think there is every prospect of it. let us leave well alone, and allow it to come about naturally and without interference." as soon as ralph left the army he purchased denis mulligan's discharge, and the irishman was installed as butler and ralph's special servant at the hall, and remained in his service to the end of his life. in due time the natural change in the relations between the two young people came about, and their youthful friendship ripened into love. when ralph was twenty-three, and mabel had just come of age, she changed her name and took up her place at the hall, mrs. conway gladly handing over the reins of government to her. she herself lived with her children, for she was almost as fond of mabel as of ralph, to the end of a long life; and deep was the regret among her children and grandchildren when she was at last laid in bilston church, close to the resting-place of herbert penfold. [frontispiece: the emperor had left for paris.] historical romances of france waterloo a sequel to the conscript of translated from the french of erckmann-chatrian illustrated charles scribner's sons new york :::::::::::::::::::::: illustrations _the emperor had left for paris_ . . . . . . . . . . _frontispiece_ _people were heard shouting, "there it is! there it is!"_ _a mounted hussar was looking out into the night_ _the emperor, his hands behind his back and his head bent forward_ _he had had the courage to pull up the bucket_ _combat of hougoumont farm_ introductory note often as the campaign of waterloo has been described by historians and frequently as it has been celebrated in fiction it has rarely been narrated from the stand-point of a private soldier participating in it and telling only what he saw. that this limitation, however, does not exclude events of the greatest importance and incidents of the most intensely dramatic interest is abundantly proved by the narrative of the conscript who makes another campaign in this volume and describes it with his customary painstaking fulness and fidelity. but what renders "waterloo" still more interesting is the picture it presents of the state of affairs after the first bourbon restoration, and its description of how gradually but surely the way was prepared by the stupidity of the new _régime_ for that return to power of napoleon which seems so dramatically sudden and unexpected to a superficial view of the events of the time. in this respect "waterloo" deserves to rank very high as a chapter of familiar history, or at least of historical commentary. waterloo: a sequel to the conscript of i the joy of the people on the return of louis xviii., in , was unbounded. it was in the spring, and the hedges, gardens, and orchards were in full bloom. the people had for years suffered so much misery, and had so many times feared being carried off by the conscription never to return, they were so weary of battles, of the captured cannon, of all the glory and the te deums, that they wished for nothing but to live in peace and quiet and to rear their families by honest labor. indeed, everybody was content except the old soldiers and the fencing-masters. i well remember how, when on the d of may the order came to raise the white flag on the church, the whole town trembled for fear of the soldiers of the garrison, and nicholas passauf, the slater, demanded six louis for the bold feat. he was plainly to be seen from every street with the white silk flag with its "fleur-de-lis," and the soldiers were shooting at him from every window of the two barracks, but passauf raised his flag in spite of them and came down and hid himself in the barn of the "trois maisons," while the marines were searching the town for him to kill him. that was their feeling, but the laborers and the peasants and the tradespeople with one voice hailed the return of peace and cried, "down with the conscription and the right of union." everybody was tired of living like a bird on branch and of risking their lives for matters which did not concern them. in the midst of all this joy nobody was so happy as i; the others had not had the good luck to escape unharmed from the terrible battles of weissenfels and lutzen and leipzig, and from the horrible typhus. i had made the acquaintance of glory and that gave me a still greater love for peace and horror of conscription. i had come back to father goulden's, and i shall never in my life forget his hearty welcome, or his exclamation as he took me in his arms: "it is joseph! ah! my dear child, i thought you were lost!" and we mingled our tears and our embraces together. and then we lived together again like two friends. he would make me go over our battles again and again, and laughingly call me "the old soldier." then he would tell me of the siege of pfalzbourg, how the enemy arrived before the town, in january, and how the old republicans with a few hundred gunners were sent to mount our cannon on the ramparts, how they were obliged to eat horseflesh on account of the famine, and to break up the iron utensils of the citizens to make case-shot and canister. father goulden, in spite of his threescore years, had aimed the pieces on the magazine bastion on the bichelberg side, and i often imagined i could see him with his black silk cap and spectacles on, in the act of aiming a twenty-four pounder. then this would make us both laugh and helped to pass away the time. we had resumed all our old habits. i laid the table and made the soup. i was occupying my little chamber again and dreamed of catherine day and night. but now, instead of being afraid of the conscription as i was in , i had something else to trouble me. man is never quite happy, some petty misery or other assails him. how often do we see this in life? my peace was disturbed by this. you know i was to marry catherine; we were agreed, and aunt grédel desired nothing better. unhappily, however, the conscripts of were disbanded, while those of still remained soldiers. it was no longer so dangerous to be a soldier as it was under the empire, and many of these had returned to their homes and were living quietly, but that did not prevent the necessity of my having a permit in order to be married. mr. jourdan, the new mayor, would never allow me to register without this permission, and this made me anxious. father goulden, as soon as the city gates were opened, had written to the minister of war, dupont, that i was at pfalzbourg and still unwell, that i had limped from my birth, and that i had in spite of this been pressed into the service, that i was a poor soldier, but that i could make a good father of a family, that it would be a real crime to prevent me from marrying, that i was ill-formed and weak and should be obliged to go into the hospital, etc. it was a beautiful letter, and it told the truth too. the very idea of going away again made me ill. so we waited from day to day--aunt grédel, father goulden, catherine, and i, for the answer from the minister. i cannot describe the impatience i felt when the postman brainstein, the son of the bell-ringer, came into the street. i could hear him half a mile away, and then i could not go on with my work, but must lean out of the window and watch him as he went from house to house. when he would stay a little too long, i would say to myself, "what can he have to talk about so long? why don't he leave his letters and come away? he is a regular tattler, that brainstein!" i was ready to pounce upon him. sometimes i ran down to meet him, and would ask, "have you nothing for me?" "no, mr. joseph," he would reply as he looked over his letters. then i would go sadly back, and father goulden, who had been looking on, would say: "have a little patience, child! have patience, it will come. it is not war time now." "but he has had time to answer a dozen times, mr. goulden." "do you think he has nobody's affairs to attend to but yours? he receives hundreds of such letters every day--and each one receives his answer in his turn. and then everything is in confusion from top to bottom. come, come! we are not alone in the world--many other brave fellows are waiting for their permits to be married." i knew he was right, but i said to myself, "if that minister only knew how happy he would make us by just writing ten words, i am sure he would do it at once. how we would bless him, catherine and i, aunt grédel and all of us." but wait we must. of course i had resumed my old habit of going to quatre vents on sundays. on these mornings i was always awake early--i do not know what roused me. at first i thought i was a soldier again; this made me shiver. then i would open my eyes, look at the ceiling, and think, "why you are at home with father goulden, at pfalzbourg, in your own little room. to-day is sunday, and you are going to see catherine." by this time i was wide awake, and could see catherine with her blooming cheeks and blue eyes. i wanted to get up at once and dress myself and set off. but the clocks had just struck four, and the city gates were still shut. i was obliged to wait, and this annoyed me very much. in order to keep patience i began to recall our courtship, remembering the first days, how we feared the conscription and the drawing of the unlucky number, with its "fit for service;" the old guard werner, at the mayor's, the leave-taking, the journey to mayence, and the broad capougnerstrasse where the good woman gave me a foot-bath, frankfort and erfurth farther on, where i received my first letter, two days before the battle, the russians, the prussians--everything in fact--and then i would weep, but the thought of catherine was always uppermost. when the clock struck five i jumped from my bed, washed and shaved and dressed myself, then father goulden, still behind his big curtains, would put out his nose and say: "i hear you! i hear you! you have been rolling and tumbling for the last half hour. ha! ha! it is sunday to-day." he would laugh at his own wit, and i laughed with him, and would then bid him good-morning and be down the stairs at a bound. very few people were stirring, but sepel the butcher would always call out: "come here, joseph, i have something to tell you." but i only just turned my head, and ten minutes after was on the high-road to quatre vents, outside the city walls. oh! how fine the weather was that beautiful year! how green and flourishing everything looked, and how busy the people were, trying to make up for lost time, planting and watering their cabbages and turnips, and digging over the ground trodden down by the cavalry; how confident everybody was too of the goodness of god, who, they hoped, would send the sun and the rain which they so much needed. all along the road, in the little gardens, women and old men, everybody, were at work, digging, planting, and watering. "work away, father thiébeau, and you too, mother furst. courage!" cried i. "yes, yes, mr. joseph, there is need enough for that; this blockade has put everything back, there is no time to lose." the roads were filled with carts and wagons, laden with brick and lumber and materials for repairing the houses and roofs which had been destroyed by the howitzers. how the whips cracked and the hammers rang in all the country round! on every side carpenters and masons were seen busily at work on the summer houses. father ulrich and his three boys were already on the roof of the "flower basket," which had been broken to pieces by the balls, strengthening the new timbers, whistling and hammering in concert. what a busy time it was, indeed, when peace returned! they wanted no more war then. they knew the worth of tranquillity, and only asked to repair their losses as far as possible. they knew that a stroke of a saw or a plane was of more value than a cannon-shot, and how many tears and how much fatigue it would cost to rebuild even in ten years, that which the bombs had destroyed in ten minutes. oh! how happy i was as i went along. no more marches and counter-marches; i did not need the countersign from sergeant pinto where i was going! and how sweetly the lark sang as it soared tremblingly upward, and the quails whistled and linnets twittered. the sweet freshness of the morning, the fragrant eglantine in the hedges, urged me on till i caught sight of the gable of the old roof of quatre vents, and the little chimney with its wreath of smoke. "'tis catherine who made the fire," i thought, "and she is preparing our coffee." then i would moderate my steps in order to get my breath a little, while i scanned the little windows and laughed with anticipated pleasure. the door opens, and mother grédel, with her woollen petticoat and a big broom in her hand, turns round and exclaims: "here he is! here he is!" then catherine runs up, always more and more beautiful, with her little blue cap, and says: "ah! that is good; i was expecting thee!" how happy she is, and how i embrace her! ah! to be young! i see it all again! i go into the old room with catherine, and aunt grédel flourishes her broom and exclaims energetically: "no more conscription--that is done with!" we laugh heartily and sit down, and while catherine looks at me, aunt commences again: "that beggar of a minister, has he not written yet? will he never write, i wonder? does he take us for brutes? it is very disagreeable always to be ordered about. thou art no longer a soldier, since they left thee for dead. we saved thy life, and thou art nothing to them now." "certainly, you are right, aunt grédel," i would say; "but for all that we cannot be married without going to the mayor--without a permit--and if we do not go to the mayor, the priest will not dare to marry us at the church." then aunt would be very grave, and always ended by saying: "you see, joseph, that all those people from first to last have fixed everything to suit themselves. who pays the guards, and the judges, and the priests, and who is it that pays everybody? it is we! and yet they dare not marry us. it is shameful; and if it goes on, we will go to switzerland and be married." this would calm us, and we would spend the rest of the day in singing and laughing. ii in spite of my great impatience every day brought something new, and it comes back to me now like the comedies that are played at the fairs. the mayors and their assistants, the municipal counsellors, the grain and wood merchants, the foresters and field-guards, and all those people who had been for ten years regarded as the best friends of the emperor, and had been very severe if any one said a word against his majesty, turned round and denounced him as a tyrant and usurper, and called him "the ogre of corsica." you would have thought that napoleon had done them some great injury, when the fact was that they and their families had always had the best offices. i have often thought since, that this is the way the good places are obtained under all governments, and still i should be ashamed to abuse those who could not defend themselves, and whom i had a thousand times flattered. i should prefer to remain poor and work for a living rather than to gain riches and consideration by such means. but such are men! and i ought to remember too, that our old mayor and three or four of the counsellors did not follow this example, and mr. goulden said that at least they respected themselves, and that the brawlers had no honor. i remember how, one day, the mayor of hacmatt had come to have his watch put in order at our shop, when he commenced to talk against the emperor in such a way that father goulden, rising suddenly, said to him: "here, take your watch, mr. michael, i will not work for you. what! only last year you called him constantly 'the great man.' and you never could call him emperor simply, but must add, emperor and king, protector of the helvetic confederation, etc., while your mouth was full of beef; now you say he is an ogre, and you call louis xviii., 'louis the well-beloved!' you ought to be ashamed of yourself! do you take people for brutes? and do you think they have no memories?" then the mayor replied, "it is plain to be seen that you are an old jacobin." "what i am is nobody's business," replied father goulden, "but in any case i am not a slanderer." he was pale as death, and ended by saying, "go, mr. michael, go! beggars are beggars under all governments." he was so indignant that day he could hardly work, and would jump up every minute and exclaim: "joseph, i did like those bourbons, but this crowd of beggars has disgusted me with them already. they are the kind of people who spoil everything, for they declare everything perfect, beautiful, and magnificent; they see no defect in anything, they raise their hands to heaven in admiration if the king but coughs. they want their part of the cake. and then, seeing their delight, kings and emperors end by believing themselves gods, and when revolutions come, these rascals abandon them, and begin to play the same rôle under some one else. in this way they are always at the top, while honest people are always in trouble." this was about the beginning of may, and it had been announced that the king had just made his solemn entry into paris, attended by the marshals of the empire, that nearly all the population had come out to meet him, and that old men and women and little children had climbed upon the balconies to catch a glimpse of him, and that he had at first entered the church of notre dame to give thanks to god, and immediately after retired to the tuileries. it was announced also that the senate had pronounced a high-sounding address, assuring him there need be no alarm on account of all the disturbances, urging him to take courage and promising the support of the senators in case of any difficulties. everybody approved this address. but we were soon to have a new sight, we were to witness the return of the _émigrés_ from the heart of germany and from russia. some returned by the government vessels, and some in simple "salad baskets," a kind of wicker carriage, on two and four wheels. the ladies wore dresses with immense flower patterns, and the men wore the old french coats and short breeches, and waistcoats hanging down to the thighs, as they are represented in the fashions of the time of the republic. all these people were apparently proud and happy to see their country once more. in spite of the miserable beasts which dragged their wretched wagons filled with straw, and the peasants who served as postilions--in spite of all this, i was moved with compassion as i recalled the joy i felt five months before on seeing france again, and i said to myself: "poor people! they will weep on beholding paris again, they are going to be happy!" they all stopped at the "red ox," the hotel of the old ambassadors and marshals and princes and dukes and rich people, who no longer patronized it, and we could see them in the rooms brushing their own hair, dressing and shaving themselves. about noon they all came down, shouting and calling "john!" "claude!" "germain!" with great impatience, and ordering them about like important personages, and seating themselves around the great tables, with their old servants all patched up and standing behind them with their napkins under their arms. these people with their old-fashioned clothes, and their fine manners and happy air, made a very good appearance, and we said to ourselves: "there are the frenchmen returning from exile; they did wrong to go, and to excite all europe against us, but there is mercy for every sin; may they be well and happy! that is the worst we wish them." some of these _émigrés_ returned by post, and then our new mayor, mr. jourdan, chevalier de st. louis, the vicar, mr. loth, and the new commandant, mr. robert de la faisanderie, in his embroidered uniform, would wait for them at the gate, and when they heard the postilion's whip crack they would go forward, smiling as if some great good fortune had arrived, and the moment the coach stopped, the commandant would run and open it, shouting most enthusiastically. at other times they would stand quite still to show their respect; i have seen these people salute each other three times in succession, slowly and gravely, each time approaching a little nearer to each other. father goulden would laugh and say: "do you see, joseph, that is the grand style--the style of the nobles of the _ancien régime_; by just looking out of the window we can learn fine manners which may serve us when we get to be dukes and princes." again it would be: "those old fellows, there, joseph, fired away at us from the lines at wissembourg, they were good riders and they fought well, as all frenchmen do, but we routed them after all." then he would wink and go back laughing to his work. but the rumor spread among the servants of the "red ox," that these people did not hesitate to say that they had conquered _us_, and that they were our masters; that king louis xviii. had always reigned since louis xvii., son of louis xvi.; that we were rebels, and that they had come to restore us to order. father goulden did not relish this, and said to me in an ill-humored way: "do you know, joseph, what these people are going to do in paris? they are going to demand the restoration of their ponds and their forests, their parks and their chateaux, and their pensions, not to speak of the fat offices and honors and favors of every kind. you think their coats and perukes very old-fashioned, but their notions are still older than their coats and perukes. they are more dangerous for us than the russians or the austrians, because they are going away, but these people are going to remain. they would like to destroy all we have done for the last twenty-five years. you see how proud they are; though many of them lived in the greatest misery on the other side of the rhine, yet they think they are of a different race from ours--a superior race; they believe the people are always ready to let themselves be fleeced as they were before ' . they say louis xviii. has good sense; so much the better for him, for if he is unfortunate enough to listen to these people, if they imagine even that he can act upon their advice, all is lost. there will be civil war. the people have _thought_, during the last twenty-five years. they know their rights, and they know that one man is as good as another, and that all their 'noble races' are nonsense. each one will keep his property, each one will have equal rights and will defend himself to the death." that is what father goulden said to me, and as my permit never came, i thought the minister had no time to answer our demands with all these counts and viscounts, these dukes and marquises at his back, who were clamoring for their woods and their ponds and their fat offices. i was indignant. "great god," i cried, "what misery! as soon as one misfortune is over another begins! and it is always the innocent who suffer for the faults of the others! o god! deliver us from the _nobles_, old and new! crown them with blessings, but let them leave us in peace!" one morning aunt grédel came in to see us; it was on friday and market-day. she brought her basket on her arm and seemed very happy. i looked toward the door, thinking that catherine was coming too, and i said: "good-morning, aunt grédel; catherine is in town, she is coming too?" "no! joseph, no; she is at quatre vents. we are over our ears in work on account of the planting." i was disappointed and vexed too, for i had anticipated seeing her. but aunt grédel put her basket on the table, and said as she lifted up the cover: "look! here is something for you, joseph, something from catherine." there was a great bouquet of may roses, violets, and three beautiful lilacs with their green leaves around the edge. the sight of this made me happy, and i laughed and said: "how sweetly it smells." and father goulden turned round and laughed too, saying: "you see, joseph, they are always thinking of you!" and we all laughed together. my good-humor had returned, and i kissed aunt grédel and told her to take it to catherine from me. then i put my bouquet in a vase on the window-sill by my bedside, and thought of catherine going out in the early morning to gather the violets and the fresh roses and adding one after the other in the dew, putting in the lilacs last, and the odor seemed still more delightful. i could not look at them enough. i left them on the window-sill, thinking: "i shall enjoy them through the night, and shall give them fresh water in the morning, and the next day after will be sunday and i shall see catherine and thank her with a kiss." i went back into the room, where aunt grédel was talking to father goulden about the markets and the price of grain, etc., both in the best of humor. aunt put her basket on the ground and said: "well, joseph, your permit has not come yet?" "no! not yet, and it is terrible!" "yes," she replied, "the ministers are all alike, one is no better than another; they take the worst and laziest to fill that place." then she went on: "make yourself easy, i have a plan which will change all that." she laughed, and as father goulden and i listened to hear her plan, she continued: "just now while i was at the town-hall, sergeant harmantier announced that we were to have a grand mass for the repose of the souls of louis xvi., pichegru, moreau, and--another one." "yes," interrupted father goulden, "for george cadoudal,--i read it last evening in the gazette." "that is it, of cadoudal," said aunt grédel. "you see, joseph, hearing that, i thought at once, 'now we will have the permit.' we are going to have processions and atonements, and we will all go together, joseph, catherine, and i. we shall be the first, and everybody will say, 'they are good royalists, they are well disposed.' the priest will hear of it. now the priests have long arms, as in the time of the generals and colonels,--we will go and see him, he will receive us favorably, and will even make a petition for us. and i tell you this will succeed, we shall not fail this time." she spoke quite low as she explained all this, and seemed well satisfied with her ingenuity. i felt happy too, and thought, "that is what we must do, aunt grédel is right." but on looking at father goulden, i saw he was very grave, and that he had turned away and was looking at a watch through his glass, and knitting his big white eyebrows. so, knowing he was not pleased, i said: "i think myself, that would succeed, but before we do anything i would like to have father goulden's opinion." then he turned round and said: "every one is free, joseph, to follow his own conscience. to make an expiation for the death of louis xvi. is all very well; honest people of all parties will have nothing to say, if they are royalists, of course; but if you kneel from self-interest, you had better stay at home. as for louis xvi., i will let him pass, but for pichegru, moreau, and cadoudal,--that is altogether another thing. pichegru surrendered his troops to the enemy, moreau fought against france, and george cadoudal was an assassin,--three kinds of ambitious men, who asked for nothing but to oppress us, and all three deserved their fate. _that_ is what i think." "but what has all that to do with us, pray?" exclaimed aunt grédel. "we will not go for them, we will go to get our permit. i despise all the rest, and so does joseph, do you not?" i was greatly embarrassed, for what father goulden said seemed to me to be right, and he, seeing this, said: "i understand the love of young people, mother grédel, but we must not use such means to induce a young man to sacrifice what he thinks is right. if joseph does not hold the same opinion as i do of pichegru and moreau and cadoudal, very well, let him go to the procession. i shall not reproach him for it, but as for me, i shall not go." "i shall not go either. mr. goulden is right," i replied. i saw aunt grédel was displeased, she turned quite red, but was calm again in a moment, and added: "very well! catherine and i will go, because we mock at all those old notions." father goulden could not help smiling as he saw her anger. "yes, everybody is free," said he, "to do as he pleases, so do as you like." aunt grédel took up her basket and went away, and he laughed and made a sign to me to go with her. i very quickly had my coat on and overtook her at the corner of the street. "listen, joseph," said she, as she went toward the square, "father goulden is an excellent man, but he is an old fool! he has never since i knew him been satisfied with anything. he does not say so, but the republic is always in his head. he thinks of nothing but his old republic, when everybody was a sovereign--beggars, tinkers, soap-boilers, jews, and christians. there is no sense in it. but what are we to do? if he were not such an excellent man i would not care for him, but we must remember he has taught you a good trade, and done us all many favors, and we owe him great respect, that is why i hurried away, for i was inclined to be angry." "you did right," i said, "i love father goulden like my father, and you like my mother, and nothing could give me so much pain as to see you angry with one another." "i quarrel with a man like him!" said aunt grédel. "i would rather jump out of the window. no, no, but we need not listen to all he says, for i insist that this procession is a good thing for us, that the priest will get the permit for us, and that is the principal thing. catherine and i will go, and as mr. goulden will stay at home, you had best stay too. but i am certain that three-fourths of the town and country round will go, and whether it be for moreau or pichegru or cadoudal it is of no consequence. it will be very fine. you will see!" "i believe you," i answered. we had reached the german gate; i kissed her again, and went back quite happy to my work. iii i recollect this visit of aunt grédel because eight days after the processions and atonements and sermons commenced, and did not end till the return of the emperor in , and then they commenced again and continued till the fall of charles x. in . everybody who was then alive knows there was no end to them. so when i think of napoleon, i hear the cannon of the arsenal thunder and the panes of our windows rattle, and father goulden cries out from his bed: "another victory, joseph! ha! ha! ha! always victories." and when i think of louis xviii., i hear the bells ring and i imagine father brainstein and his two big boys hanging to the ropes, and i hear father goulden laugh and say: "that, joseph, is for saint magloire or saint polycarp." i cannot think of those days in any other way. under the empire i see too at nightfall, father coiffé, nicholas rolfo, and five or six other veterans, loading their cannon for the evening salute of twenty-one guns, while half of pfalzbourg stand on the opposite bastion looking at the red light, and smoke, and watching the wads as they fall into the moat; then the illuminations at night and the crackers and rockets, i hear the children cry _vive l'empereur_, and then some days after, the death notices and the conscription. under louis xviii. i see the altars and the peasants with their carts full of moss and broom and young pines; the ladies coming out of their houses with great vases of flowers; people carrying their chandeliers and crucifixes, and then the processions--the priest and his vicars, the choir boys and jacob cloutier, purrhus, and tribou, the singers; the beadle koekli, with his red robe and his banner which swept the skies, the bells ringing their full peals; mr. jourdan, the new mayor, with his great red face, his beautiful uniform with his cross of st. louis, and the commandant with his three-cornered hat under his arm, his great peruke frosted with powder, and his uniform glittering in the sunshine, and behind them the town council, and the innumerable torches, which they lighted for each other as the wind blew them out; the swiss, jean-peter siroti, with his blue beard closely shaven and his splendid hat pointing across his shoulders, his broad white silk shoulder-belt sprinkled with fleur-de-lis across his breast, his halberd erect, glistening like a plate of silver; the young girls, ladies, and thousands of country people in their sunday clothes, praying in concert with the old people at their head, from each village, who kept repeating incessantly, "pray for us, pray for us." with the streets full of leaves and garlands and the white flags in the windows, the jews and the lutherans looking out from their closed blinds and the sun lighting up the grand sight below. this continued from to , except during the hundred days, not to speak of the missions, the bishop's visits, and other extraordinary ceremonies. i like best to tell you all this at once, for if i should undertake to describe one procession after another the story would be too long. well! this commenced the th of may, and the same day that harmentier announced the grand atonement, there arrived five preachers from nancy, young men, who preached during the whole week, from morning until midnight. this was to prepare for the atonement; nothing else was talked about in the town, the people were converted, and all the women and girls went to confession. it was rumored also that the national property was to be restored, and that the poor men would be separated from the respectable people by the procession, because the beggars would not dare to show themselves. you may imagine my chagrin at being obliged, in spite of myself, to remain among the poor people; but, thank god! i had nothing to reproach myself with in regard to the death of louis xvi., and i had none of the national property, and all i wanted was permission to marry catherine. i thought with aunt grédel that father goulden was very obstinate, but i never dared to say a word to him about that. i was very unhappy, the more so, because the people who came to us to have their watches repaired, respectable citizens, mayors, foresters, etc., approved of all these sermons, and said that the like had never been heard. mr. goulden always kept on his work while listening to them, and when it was done he would turn to them and say, "here is your watch, mr. christopher or mr. nicholas; it is so and so much." he did not seem to be interested in these matters, and it was only when one and another would speak of the national property, of the rebellion of twenty-five years, and of expiating past crimes, that he would take off his spectacles and raise his head to listen, and would say with an air of surprise, "pshaw! well! well! that is fine! that is, mr. claude! indeed you astonish me. these young men preach so well then? well, if the work were not so pressing, i would go and hear them. i need instruction also." i always kept thinking that he would change his mind, and the next evening as we were finishing our supper i was happy enough to hear him say good-humoredly: "joseph, are you not curious to hear these preachers? they tell so many fine things of them, that i want to hear how it is for myself." "oh! mr. goulden, i should like nothing better! but we must lose no time, for the church is always full by the second stroke of the bell." "very well! let us go," said he, rising and taking down his hat. "i am curious to see how it is. those people astonish me. come!" we went out; the moon was shining so brightly that we could recognize people as easily as in broad daylight. at the corner of the rue fouquet we saw that even the steps of the church were already covered with people. two or three old women, annette petit, mother balaie, and jeannette baltzer, with their big shawls wrapped closely round them, and the long fringes of their bonnets over their eyes, hurried past us, when father goulden exclaimed, "here are the old women! ha! ha! ha! always the same!" he laughed, and as he went on said, that since father colin's time there had never been so many people seen at the evening service. i could not believe that he was speaking of the old landlord of the "three roses," opposite the infantry barracks, so i said: "he was a priest, mr. goulden?" "no, no," he answered smiling, "i mean old colin. in , when we had a club in the church, everybody could preach; but colin spoke best of all. he had a magnificent voice, and said many forcible and true things, and the people came from far and near, from saverne and saarburg, and even still farther away to hear him; women and girls, 'citoyennes' as they called them then, filled the choir galleries and the pews. they wore little cockades in their bonnets, and sang the 'marseillaise' to arouse the young men. you never saw anything like it! annette petit, mother baltzer, and all those whom you see running before us, with their prayer-books under their arms, were among the foremost. but they had white teeth and beautiful hair then, and loved 'liberty, equality, and fraternity.' ha! ha! poor bevel! poor annette! now they are going to repent, though they were good patriots then; i believe god will pardon them." he laughed as he recalled these old stories, but when we had reached the steps of the church he grew sober, and said: "yes--yes--everything changes, everything! i remember the day in ' , when old colin spoke of the country being in danger, when three hundred young men left the country to join the army of hoche; colin followed them, and became their commander. he was a terrible fellow among his grenadiers. he would not sign the proposition to make napoleon emperor,--now he sells over the counter by the glass!" then looking at me as if he were astonished at his own thoughts, he said, "let us go in, joseph." we entered under the great pillars of the organ; the crowd was very great, and he did not say a word more. there were lights burning in the choir over the heads of the people. the only sound which broke the silence was the opening and shutting of the doors of the pews. at last we heard sirou's halberd on the floor, and mr. goulden said, "there he is!" a light near the vessel for the holy water enabled us to see a little. a shadow mounted to the pulpit at the left, while koekli lighted two or three candles with his stick. the preacher might have been twenty-five or thirty years old, he had a pleasant, rosy face and heavy blonde hair below his tonsure, that fell in curls over his neck. they commenced by singing a psalm, the young girls of the village sang in the choir "what joy to be a christian." after that the preacher from the desk said, that he had come to defend the faith, the law, and the "right divine" of louis xviii., and demanded if any one had the audacity to take the other side. as nobody wished to be stoned, there was a dead silence. then a brown, thin man, six feet high with a black cloak on, rose in one of the pews opposite, and exclaimed: "i have! i maintain that faith, religion, and the right of kings, and all the rest, are nothing but superstitions. i maintain that the republic is just, and that the worship of reason is worth them all!" and so on. the people were indignant. there never was anything like it! when he had finished speaking, i looked at mr. goulden, who laughed softly, and said: "listen! listen!" of course i listened; the young preacher prayed to god for this infidel, and then he spoke so beautifully that the crowd was entranced. the big thin man replied, saying, "they had done right to guillotine louis xvi., marie antoinette, and all the family." the indignation increased, and the men from bois-de-chênes, and especially their wives, wanted to get into the pew to knock him down, but just then sirou came up, crying "room! room!" and old koekli in his red gown threw himself before the man, who escaped into the sacristy, raising his hands to heaven and declaring that he was converted, and that he renounced the devil and all his works. then the preacher made a prayer for the soul of the sinner. it was a real triumph for religion. everybody left about eleven o'clock, and it was announced that there would be a procession the next day, which was sunday. in consequence of the great crowd, which had pushed us into the corner, mr. goulden and i were among the last to get out, and by the time we reached the street, the people from quatre vents and the other villages were already beyond the german gate, and nothing was heard in the streets but the closing of the shutters by the townspeople, and a few old women talking about the wonderful things they had heard, as they went home by the rue de l'arsenal. father goulden and i walked along in the silence, he with his head bent down and smiling, though without speaking a word. when we reached home i lighted the candle, and while he was undressing asked: "well! father goulden, did they preach well?" "yes," he replied smiling, "yes, for young men who have seen nothing, it was not bad." then he laughed aloud and said, "but if old colin had been in the jacobin's place, he would have puzzled the young man terribly." i was greatly surprised at that, and as i still waited to hear what more he had to say, he slowly pulled his black silk cap over his ears and added thoughtfully, "but it's all the same; all the same. these people go too fast, much too fast. they will never make me believe that louis xviii. knows about all this. no, he has seen too much in his life not to know men better than that. but, good-night, joseph, good-night. let us hope that an order will soon arrive from paris sending these young men back to their seminary." i went to bed and dreamed of catherine, the jacobin, and of the procession we were going to see. iv next morning the bells began to ring as soon as it was light. i rose and opened my shutters and saw the red sun rising from behind the magazine, and over the forest of bonne-fontaine. it might have been five o'clock, and you could feel beforehand how hot it was going to be, and the air was laden with the odor of the oak and beech and holly leaves which were strewn in the streets. the peasants began to arrive in companies, talking in the still morning. you could recognize the villagers from wechem, from metting, from the graufthal and dasenheim, by their three-cornered hats turned down in front and their square coats, and the women with their long black dresses and big bonnets quilted like a mattress hanging on their necks; and those from dagsberg, hildehouse, harberg, and houpe with their large round felt hats, and the women without bonnets and with short skirts, small, brown, dry, and quick as powder, with the children behind with their shoes in their hands, but when they reached luterspech they sat down in a row and put them on to be ready for the procession. some priests from the different villages, also came by twos and threes, laughing and talking among themselves in the best of humor. and i thought, as i rested my elbows on the window-sill, that these people must have risen before midnight to reach here so early in the morning, and that they must have come over the mountains walking for hours under the trees, crossing the little bridges in the moonlight; as i thought this i reflected that religion is a beautiful thing, that the people in towns do not know what it is, and that for thousands upon thousands of field laborers and wood-choppers, uncultivated and rude beings, who at the same time were good and loved their wives and children and honored their aged parents, supporting them and closing their eyes in the hope of a better world; this was the only consolation. and in looking at the crowd, i imagined that aunt grédel and catherine had the same thoughts, and i was happy to know that they prayed for me. it grew lighter and lighter, and the bells rang while i continued to look on. i heard father goulden rise and dress himself, and a few minutes after he came into my chamber in his shirt-sleeves, and seeing me so thoughtful, he exclaimed: "joseph, the most beautiful thing in the world is the religion of the people." i was quite astonished to hear him express precisely my own thoughts. "yes," he added, "the love of god, the love of country and of family, are one and the same thing; but it is sad to see the love of country perverted to satisfy the ambition of a man, and the love of god to exalt the pride and the desire to rule in a few." these words impressed me deeply, and i have often thought since that they expressed the sad truth. well! to return to those days, you know that after the siege we were obliged to work on sundays, because mr. goulden while serving as a gunner on the ramparts had neglected his work and we were behindhand. so that on that morning as on the others i lighted the fire in our little stove and prepared the breakfast; the windows were open and we could hear the noise from the streets. mr. goulden leaned out of the window and said: "look! all the shops except the inns and the beer-houses are closed!" he laughed, and i asked, "shall we open our shutters, mr. goulden?" he turned round as if surprised: "look here, joseph, i never knew a better boy than you, but you lack sense. why should we close our shutters? because god created the world in six days and rested the seventh? but we did not create it ourselves, and we need to work to live. if we shut our shop from interest and pretend to be saints and so gain new customers, that will be hypocrisy. you speak sometimes without thinking." i saw at once that i was wrong, and i replied: "mr. goulden, we will leave our windows open and it will be seen that we have watches to sell, and that will do no harm to any one." we were no sooner at table than aunt grédel and catherine came. catherine was dressed entirely in black, on account of the service for louis xvi. she had a pretty little bonnet of black tulle, and her dress was very nicely made, and this set off her delicate red and white complexion and made her look so beautiful that i could hardly believe that she was joseph bertha's beloved; her neck was white as snow, and had it not been for her lips and her rosy little chin, her blue eyes and golden hair, i should have thought that it was some one who resembled her, but who was more beautiful. she laughed when she saw how much i admired her, and at last i said: "catherine, you are _too_ beautiful now; i dare not kiss you." "oh! you need not trouble yourself," said she. as she leaned upon my shoulder i gave her a long kiss, so that aunt grédel and mr. goulden looked on and laughed, and i wished them far enough away, that i might tell catherine that i loved her more and more, and that i would give my life a thousand times for her; but as i could not do that before them, i only thought of these things and was sad. aunt had a black dress on also, and her prayer-book was under her arm. "come, kiss me too, joseph; you see i too have a black dress, like catherine's." i embraced her, and mr. goulden said, "you will come and dine with us--that is understood; but, meanwhile you will take something, will you not?" "we have breakfasted," replied aunt grédel. "that is nothing; god knows when this procession will end, you will be all the time on your feet, and will need something to sustain you." then they sat down, aunt grédel on my right, and catherine on my left, and father goulden opposite. they drank a good glass of wine, and aunt said the procession would be very fine, and that there were at least twenty-five priests from the neighborhood round; that mr. hubert, the pastor of quatre vents, had come, and that the grand altar in the cavalry quarter was higher than the houses; that the pine-trees and poplars around had crape on them, and that the altar was covered with a black cloth. she talked of everything under the sun, while i looked at catherine, and we thought, without saying anything, "oh! when will that beggarly minister write and say, 'get married and leave me alone?'" at last, toward nine o'clock, and when the second bell had rung, aunt grédel said, "that is the second ringing; we will come to dinner as soon as possible." "yes, yes, mother grédel," replied mr. goulden, "we will wait for you." they rose, and i went down to the foot of the stairs with catherine in order to embrace her once again, when aunt grédel cried, "let us hurry, let us hurry!" they went away, and i went back to my work; but from that moment till about eleven o'clock i could do nothing at all. the crowd was so very great that you could hear nothing outside but a ceaseless murmur; the leaves rustled under foot, and when the procession left the church the effect was so impressive that even mr. goulden himself stopped his work to listen to the prayers and hymns. i thought of catherine in the crowd more beautiful than any of the others, with aunt grédel near her, repeating "pray for us, pray for us," in their clear voices. i thought they must be very much fatigued, and all these voices and chants made me dream, and though i held a watch in my hand and tried to work, my mind was not on it. the higher the sun rose the more uneasy i became, till at last mr. goulden said, laughing, "ah! joseph, it does not go to-day!" and as i blushed rosy red, he continued, "yes, when i was dreaming of louisa bénédum i looked in vain for springs and wheels. i could see nothing but her blue eyes." he sighed, and i too, thinking, "you are quite right, mr. goulden." "that is enough," he added a moment after, taking the watch from my hands. "go, child, and find catherine. you cannot conquer your love, it is stronger than you." on hearing this, i wanted to exclaim "oh, good, excellent man! you can never know how much i love you," but he rose to wipe his hands on a towel behind the door, and i said, "if you _really_ wish it, mr. goulden." "yes, yes; certainly!" i did not wait for another word. my heart bounded with joy, i put on my hat and went down the stairs at a leap, exclaiming, "i will be back in an hour, mr. goulden." i was out of doors in a moment, but what a crowd, what a crowd! they swarmed! military hats, felt hats, bonnets, and over all the noise and confusion, the church bell tolled slowly. for a minute i stood on our own steps, not knowing which way to turn, and seeing at last that it was impossible to take a step in that crowd i turned into the little lane called the lanche, in order to reach the ramparts and run and wait for the procession at the slope by the german gate, as then it would turn up the rue de collége. it might have been eleven o'clock. i saw many things that day which have suggested many reflections since; they were the signs of great trouble but nobody noticed them, nobody had the good sense to comprehend their significance. it was only later, when everybody was up to their necks in trouble, when we were obliged to take our knapsacks and guns, again to be cut in pieces; then they said, "if we had only had good sense and justice and prudence we should have been so much better off, we should have been quiet at home instead of this breaking up, which is coming; we can do nothing but be quiet and submit; what a misfortune!" i went along the lanche, where they shot the deserters under the empire. the noise grew fainter in the distance, and the chanting and prayers and the sound of the bells as well. all the doors and windows were closed, everybody had followed the procession. i stopped in the silent street to take breath, a slight breeze came from the fields beyond the ramparts, and i listened to the tumult in the distance and wiped the sweat from my face and thought, "how am i to find catherine?" i was climbing the steps at the postern gate when i heard some one say: "mark the points, margarot." i then saw that father colin's windows on the first floor were open, and that some men in their shirt-sleeves were playing billiards. they were old soldiers with short hair, and mustaches like a brush. they went back and forth, without troubling themselves about the mayor, or the commandant, or louis xvi., or the bourgeoisie. one of them, short, thick, with his whiskers cut as was the fashion of the hussars in those days, and his cravat untied, leaned out of the window, resting his cue on the sill, and, looking toward the square, said: "we will put the game at fifty." i thought at once that they were half-pay officers, who were spending their last sous, and who would soon be troubled to live. i continued on my way, and hurried along under the vault of the powder magazine behind the college, thinking of all these things, but when i reached the german gate i forgot everything. the procession was just turning the corner at bockholtz, the chants broke forth opposite the altar like trumpets, and the young priests from nancy were running among the crowd with their crucifixes raised to keep order, and the swiss sirou carried himself majestically under his banner; at the head of the procession were the priests and the choir singing, while the prayers rose to heaven, and behind, the crowd responded: and all this took form, in a low fearful murmur. i stood on my tiptoes, half hidden by the shed, trying to discover catherine in all that multitude and thinking only of her, but what a crowd of hats and bonnets and flags i saw defiling down the rue ulrich. you would never have imagined that there were so many people in the country; there could not have been a soul left in the villages, except a few little children and old people who stayed to take care of them. i waited about twenty minutes, and gave up hoping to find catherine, when suddenly i saw her with aunt grédel. aunt was praying in such a loud clear voice, that you could hear her above all the others. catherine said nothing, but walked slowly along with her eyes cast down. if i could only have called to her she might perhaps have heard me, but it was bad enough not to join the procession without causing further scandal. all i can say is,--and there is not an old man in pfalzbourg who will assert the contrary,--that catherine was not the least beautiful girl in the country, and that joseph bertha was not to be pitied. she had passed, and the procession halted on the "place d'armes," before the high altar at the right of the church. the priest officiated, and silence spread all over the city. in the little streets at the right and the left, it was as quiet as if they could have seen the priest at the altar, great numbers kneeled, and others sat down on the steps of the houses, for the heat was excessive, and many of them had come to town before daylight. this grand sight impressed me very much, and i prayed for my country and for peace, for i felt it all in my heart, and i remember that just then i heard under the shed at the german gate, voices which said very good-humoredly, "come, come, give us a little room, my friends." the procession blocked the way, everybody was stopped, and these voices disturbed the kneeling multitude. several persons near the door made way. the swiss and the beadle looked on from a distance, and my curiosity induced me to get a little nearer the steps, when i saw five or six old soldiers white with dust, bent down and apparently exhausted with fatigue, making their way along the slope in order to gain the little rue d'arsenal, through which they no doubt thought to find the way clear, it seems as if i could see them now, with their worn-out shoes and their white gaiters, and their old patched uniforms and shakos battered by the sun and rain and the hardships of the campaign. they advanced in file, a little on the grass of the slope in order to disturb the people who were below as little as possible. one old fellow with three chevrons, who marched ahead and resembled poor sergeant pinto who was killed near the hinterthor at leipzig, made me feel very sad. he had the same long, gray mustaches, the same wrinkled cheeks, and the same contented air in spite of all his misfortunes and sufferings. he had his little bundle on the end of his stick, and smiling and speaking quite low he said, "excuse us, gentlemen and ladies, excuse us," while the others followed step by step. they were the first prisoners released by the convention of the d of april, and we saw these men pass afterward every day until july. they had no doubt avoided the magazines, in order the sooner to reach france. on reaching the little street they found the crowd extended beyond the arsenal; and then in order not to disturb the people, they went under the postern and sat down on the damp steps, with their little bundles on the ground beside them, and waited for the procession to pass. they had come from a great distance, and hardly knew what was going on with us. unhappily the wretches from bois-de-chênes, the big horni, zaphéri roller, nicholas cochart, the carder, pinacle, whom they had made mayor to pay him for having shown the way to falberg and graufthal to the allies during the siege, all these rascals and others who were with them, who wanted the fleur-de-lis--as if the fleur-de-lis could make them any better--unhappily, i say, all that bad set who lived by stealing fagots from the forest, had discovered the old tri-colored cockade in the tops of their shakos, and "now," they thought, "is the time to prove ourselves the real supporters of the throne and the altar." they came on disturbing everybody, pinacle had a big black cravat on his neck and a crape, an ell wide, on his hat, with his shirt collar above his ears, and as grave as a bandit who wants to make himself look like an honest man; he came up the first one. the old soldier with the three chevrons had discovered that these men were threatening them at a distance and had risen to see what it meant. "come, come! don't crowd so!" said he. "we are not much in the habit of running, what do you want?" but pinacle, who was afraid of losing so good an occasion to show his zeal for louis xviii., instead of replying to him, smashed his shako at a blow, shouting, "down with the cockade!" naturally the old veteran was indignant and was about to defend himself, when these wretches, both men and women, fell upon the soldiers, knocking them down, pulling off their cockades and epaulets, and trampling them under foot without shame or pity. the poor old fellow got up several times, exclaiming, in a voice which went to one's heart, "pack of cowards, are you frenchmen, assassins, etc., etc." every time he rose they beat him down again, and at last left him with his clothes torn, and covered with blood in a corner, and the commandant, de la faisanderie, having arrived, ordered them to be escorted to the "violin." if i had been able to get down, i should have run to the rescue, without thinking of catherine or aunt grédel or mr. goulden, and they might have killed me too. when i think of it now even, i tremble, but fortunately the wall of the postern was twenty feet thick, and when i saw them carried away covered with blood, and comprehended the whole horrible affair, i ran home by way of the arsenal, where i arrived so pale that father goulden exclaimed: "why, joseph! have you been hurt?" "no, no," i replied, "but i have seen a frightful thing." and i commenced to cry as i told him of the affair. he walked up and down with his hands behind his back, stopping from time to time to listen to me, while his lips contracted and his eyes sparkled. "joseph," said he, "these men provoked them?" "no, mr. goulden." "it is impossible, they must have invited it. the devil! we are not savages! the rascals must have had some other reason than the cockades for attacking them!" he could not believe me, and it was only after telling him all the details twice over that he said at last: "well! since you saw it with your own eyes i must believe you. but it is a greater misfortune than you think, joseph. if this goes on, if they do not put a strong check on these good-for-nothings, if the pinacles are to have the upper hand, honest people will open their eyes." he said no more, for the procession was finished and aunt grédel and catherine had come. we dined together, aunt was happy and catherine too, but even the pleasure it gave me to see them, could not make me forget what i had witnessed, and mr. goulden was very grave too. at night, i went with them to the "roulette," and then i embraced them and bade them good-night. it might have been eight o'clock, and i went home immediately. mr. goulden had gone to the "homme sauvage" brewery, as was his habit on sunday, to read the gazette, and i went to bed. he came in about ten, and seeing my candle burning on the table, he pushed open the door and said: "it seems that they are having processions everywhere. you see nothing else in the gazette." and he added that twenty thousand prisoners had returned, and that it was a happy thing for the country. v the next morning all the clocks in the village were to be wound up, and as mr. goulden was growing old he had intrusted that to me, and i went out very early. the wind had blown the leaves in heaps against the walls during the night, and the people were coming to take their torches and vases of flowers from the altars. all this made me sad, and i thought, "now that they have performed their service for the dead, i hope they are satisfied. if the permit would come, it would be all very well, but if these people think they are going to amuse us with psalms they are mistaken. in the time of the emperor we had to go to russia and spain it is true, but the ministers did not leave the young people to pine away. i would like to know what peace is for if it is not to get married!" i denounced louis xviii., the comte d'artois, the _émigrés_, and everybody else, and declared that the nobles mocked the people. on going home i found that mr. goulden had set the table, and while we were eating breakfast, i told him what i thought. he listened to my complaint and laughed, saying, "take care, joseph, take care; you seem to me as if you were becoming a jacobin." he got up and opened the closet, and i thought he was going to take out a bottle, but, instead, he handed me a thick square envelope with a big red seal. "here, joseph," said he, "is something that brigadier werner charged me to give you." i felt my heart jump and i could not see clearly. "why don't you open it?" said father goulden. i opened it and tried to read, but had to take a little time. at last i cried out, "it is the permit." "do you believe it?" said he. "yes, it is the permit," i said, holding it at arm's length. "ah! that rascal of a minister, he has sent no others," said father goulden. "but," i said, "i know nothing of politics, since the permit has come, the rest does not concern me." he laughed aloud, saying, "good, joseph, good!" i saw that he was laughing at me, but i did not care. "we must let catherine and aunt grédel know immediately," i cried in the joy of my heart; "we must send chaudron's boy right away." "ha! go yourself, that will be better," said the good man. "but the work, mr. goulden?" "pshaw! pshaw! at a time like this one forgets work! go! child, stir yourself, how could you work now? you cannot see clearly." it was true i could do nothing. i was so happy that i cried, i embraced mr. goulden, and then without taking time to change my coat i set off, and was so absorbed by my happiness, that i had gone far beyond the german gate, the bridge and the outworks and the post station, and it was only when i was within a hundred yards of the village and saw the chimney and the little windows that i recalled it all like a dream, and commenced to read the permit again, repeating, "it is true, yes, it is true; what happiness! what will they say!" i reached the house and pushed open the door exclaiming, "the permit!" aunt grédel in her sabots was just sweeping the kitchen, and catherine was coming downstairs with her arms bare, and her blue kerchief crossed over her breast; she had been to the garret for chips, and both of them on seeing me and hearing me cry, "the permit!" stood stock still. but i repeated, "the permit!" and aunt grédel threw up her hands as i had done, exclaiming, "long live the king!" catherine, quite pale, was leaning against the side of the staircase; i was at her side in an instant and embraced her so heartily that she leaned on my shoulder and cried, and i carried her down, so to speak, while aunt danced round us, exclaiming, "long live the king! long live the minister!" there was never anything like it. the old blacksmith, ruppert, with his leather apron on and his shirt open at the throat, came in to ask what had happened. "what is it, neighbor?" said he, as he held his big tongs in his hands and opened his little eyes as wide as possible. this calmed us a little, and i answered, "we have received our permit to marry." "ah, that is it? is it? now i understand, i understand." he had left the door open and five or six other neighbors came in--anna schmoutz, the spinner, christopher wagner, the field-guard, zaphéri gross, and several others, till the room was full. i read the permit aloud; everybody listened, and when it was finished catherine began to cry again, and aunt grédel said: "joseph, that minister is the best of men. if he were here, i would embrace him and invite him to the wedding; he should have the place of honor next mr. goulden." then the women went off to spread the news, and i commenced my declarations anew to catherine, as if the old ones went for nothing; and i made her repeat a thousand times that she had never loved any one but me, till we cried and laughed, and laughed and cried, one after the other, till night. we heard aunt grédel, as she attended to the cooking, talking to herself and saying, "that is what i call a good king;" or, "if my good franz could come back to the earth he would be happy to-day, but one cannot have everything." she said, also, that the procession had done us good; but catherine and i were too happy to answer a word. we dined, and lunched, and took supper without seeing or hearing anything, and it was nine o'clock when i suddenly perceived it was time to go home. catherine and aunt grédel and i went out together, the moon was shining brightly, and they went with me to the "roulette," and while on the way we agreed that the marriage should take place in fifteen days. at the farm-house, under the poplars, aunt kissed me, and i kissed catherine, and then watched them as they went back to the village. when they reached home they turned and kissed their hands to me, and then i came back to town, crossed the great square, and got home about ten o'clock. mr. goulden was awake though in bed, and he heard me open the door softly. i had lighted my lamp and was going to my chamber, when he called, "joseph!" i went to him, and he took me in his arms and we kissed each other, and he said: "it is well, my child; you are happy, and you deserve to be. now go to bed, and to-morrow we will talk about it." i went to bed, but it was long before i could sleep soundly. i wakened every moment, thinking, "is it really true that the permit has come?" then i would say to myself, "yes; it is true." but toward morning i slept. when i wakened it was broad day, and i jumped out of bed to dress myself, when father goulden called out, as happy as possible, "come, joseph, come to breakfast." "forgive me, mr. goulden," i replied; "i was so happy i could hardly sleep." "yes, yes, i heard you," he answered and we went into the workshop, where the table was already laid. vi after the joy of marrying catherine, my greatest delight was in thinking i should be a tradesman, for there was a great difference between fighting for the king of prussia and doing business on one's own account. mr. goulden had told me he would take me into partnership with him, and i imagined myself taking my little wife to mass and then going for a walk to the roche-plate or to bonne-fontaine. this gave me great pleasure. in the meantime i went every day to see catherine; she would wait for me in the orchard, while aunt grédel prepared the little cakes and the bride's loaf for the wedding. we did nothing but look at each other for hours together; she was so fresh and joyous and grew prettier every day. mr. goulden would say on seeing me come home happier every night, "well! joseph, matters seem to be better than when we were at leipzig!" sometimes i wanted to go to work again, but he always stopped me by saying, "oh! pshaw! happy days in life are so few. go and see catherine, go! if i should take a fancy to be married by and by, you can work for us both." and then he would laugh. such men as he ought to live a hundred years, such a good heart! so true and honest! he was a real father to us. and even now, after so many years, when i think of him with his black silk cap drawn over his ears, and his gray beard eight days old, and the little wrinkles about his eyes showing so much good-humor, it seems to me that i still hear his voice and the tears will come in spite of me. but i must tell you here of something which happened before the wedding and which i shall never forget. it was the th of july and we were to be married on the th. i had dreamed of it all night. i rose between six and seven. father goulden was already at work, with the windows open. i was washing my face and thinking i would run over to quatre vents, when all at once a bugle and two taps of a drum were heard at the gate of france, just as when a regiment arrives, they try their mouthpieces, and tap their drums just to get the sticks well in hand. when i heard that my hair stood on end, and i exclaimed, "mr. goulden, it is the sixth!" "yes, indeed, for eight days everybody has been talking about it, but you hear nothing in these days. it is the wedding bouquet, joseph, and i wanted to surprise you." i listened no longer, but went downstairs at a jump. our old drummer padoue had already lifted his stick under the dark arch, and the drummers came up behind balancing their drums on their hips; in the distance was gémeau, the commandant, on horseback, the red plumes of the grenadiers and the bayonets came up slowly; it was the third battalion. the march commenced, and my blood bounded. i recognized at the first glance the long gray cloaks which we had received on the d of october, on the glacis at erfurth; they had become quite green from the snow and wind and rain. it was worse than after the battle of leipzig. the old shakos were full of ball holes, only the flag was new, in its beautiful case of oil-cloth, with the fleur-de-lis at the end. ah! only those who have made a campaign can realize what it is to see your regiment and to hear the same roll of the drum as when it is in front of the enemy, and to say to yourself, "there are your comrades, who return beaten, humiliated, and crushed, bowing their heads under another cockade." no! i never felt anything like it. later many of the men of the sixth came and settled down at pfalzbourg, they were my old officers, old sergeants, and were always welcome, there was laflèche, carabin, lavergne, monyot, padoue, chazi, and many others. those who commanded me during the war sawed wood for me, put on tiles, were my carpenters and masons. after giving me orders they obeyed me, for i was independent, and had business, while they were simply laborers. but that was nothing, and i always treated my old chiefs with respect, i always thought, "at weissenfels, at lutzen, and at leipzig, these men who now are forced to labor so hard to support themselves and their families, represented at the front the honor and the courage of france." these changes came after waterloo! and our old ensign faizart, swept the bridge at the gate of france for fifteen years! that is not right, the country ought to be more grateful. it was the third battalion that returned, in so wretched a state that it made the hearts of good men bleed. zébédé told me that they left versailles on the st of march, after the capitulation of paris, and marched to chartres, to chateaudun, to blois, orleans and so on like real bohemians, for six weeks without pay or equipments, until at last at rouen, they received orders to cross france and return to pfalzbourg, and everywhere the processions and funeral services for the king, louis xvi., had excited the people against them. they were obliged to bear it all, and even were compelled to bivouac in the fields while the russians, austrians, and prussians, and other beggars, lived quietly in our towns. zébédé wept with rage as he recounted their sufferings afterward. "is france no longer france?" he asked. "have we not fought for her honor?" but it gives me pleasure now in my old age, to remember how we received the sixth at pfalzbourg. you know that the first battalion had already arrived from spain, and that the remnant of this regiment and of the th infantry of the line formed the th regiment of berry, so that all the village was rejoicing that instead of the few old veterans, we were to have two thousand men in garrison. there was great rejoicing, and everybody shouted, "long live the sixth;" the children ran out to st. jean to meet them, and the battalion had nowhere been better received than here. several old fellows wept and shouted, "long live france." but in spite of all that, the officers were dejected and only made signs with their hands as if to thank the people for their kind reception. i stood on our door-steps while three or four hundred men filed past, so ragged that i could not distinguish our number, but suddenly i saw zébédé, who was marching in the rear, so thin that his long crooked nose stood out from his face like a beak, his old cloak hanging like fringe down his back, but he had his sergeant's stripes, and his large bony shoulders gave him the appearance of strength. on seeing him, i cried out so loud that it could be heard above the drums, "zébédé!" he turned round and i sprang into his arms and he put down his gun at the corner of the rue fouquet. i cried like a child and he said, "ah! it is you, joseph! there are two of us left then, at least." "yes, it is i," said i, "and i am going to marry catherine, and you shall be my best man." we marched along together to the corner of the rue houte, where old furst was waiting with tears in his eyes. the poor old man thought, "perhaps my son will come too." seeing zébédé coming with me, he turned suddenly into the little dark entrance to his house. on the square, father klipfel and five or six others were looking at the battalion in line. it is true they had received the notices of the deaths, but still they thought there might be mistakes, and that their sons did not like to write. they looked amongst them, and then went away while the drums were beating. they called the roll, and just at that moment the old grave-digger came up with his little yellow velvet vest and his gray cotton cap. he looked behind the ranks where i was talking with zébédé, who turned round and saw him and grew quite pale, they looked at each other for an instant, then i took his gun and the old man embraced his son. they did not say a word, but remained in each other's arms for a long while. then when the battalion filed off to the right to go to the barracks, zébédé asked permission of captain vidal to go home with his father, and gave his gun to his nearest comrade. we went together to the rue de capucins. the old man said: "you know that grandmother is so old that she can no longer get out of bed, or she would have come to meet you too." i went to the door, and then said to them, "you will come and dine with us, both of you." "i will with pleasure," said the father. "yes, joseph, we will come." i went home to tell father goulden of my invitation, and he was all the more pleased as catherine and her aunt were to be there also. i never had been more happy than when thinking of having my beloved, my best friend, and all those whom i loved the most, together at our house. that day at eleven o'clock our large room on the first floor was a pretty sight to see. the floor had been well scrubbed, the round table in the middle of the room was covered with a beautiful cloth with red stripes and six large silver covers upon it, the napkins folded like a boat in the shining plates, the salt-cellar and the sealed bottles, and the large cut glasses sparkling in the sun which came over the groups of lilac ranged along the windows. mr. goulden wished to have everything in abundance, grand and magnificent, as he would for princes and embassadors, and he had taken his silver from the basket, a most unusual thing; i had made the soup myself. in it there were three pounds of good meat, a head of cabbage, carrots in abundance, indeed everything necessary; except that,--which you can never have so good at an hotel,--everything had been ordered by mr. goulden himself from the "ville de metz." about noon we looked at each other, smiling and rubbing our hands, he in his beautiful nut-brown coat, well shaved, and with his great peruke a little rusty, in place of his old black silk cap, his maroon breeches neatly turned over his thick woollen stockings, and shoes with great buckles on his feet; while i had on my sky-blue coat of the latest fashion, my shirt finely plaited in front, and happiness in my heart. all that was lacking now was our guests--catherine, aunt grédel, the grave-digger, and zébédé. we walked up and down laughing and saying, "everything is in its place and we had best get out the soup-tureen." and i looked out now and then to see if they were coming. at last aunt grédel and catherine turned the corner of the rue foquet; they came from mass and had their prayer-books under their arms, and farther on i saw the old grave-digger in his fine coat with wide sleeves, and his old three-cornered hat, and zébédé, who had put on a clean shirt and shaved himself. they came from the side next the ramparts arm in arm, gravely, like men who are sober because they are perfectly happy. "here they are," i said to father goulden. we just had time to pour out the soup and put the big tureen, smoking hot in the middle of the table. this was happily accomplished just as aunt grédel and catherine came in. you can judge of their surprise on seeing the beautiful table. we had hardly kissed each other when aunt exclaimed: "it is the wedding-day then, mr. goulden." "yes, madame grédel," the good man answered smiling,--on days of ceremony he always called her madame instead of mother grédel, "yes, the wedding of good friends. you know that zébédé has just returned, and he will dine with us to-day with the old grave-digger." "ah!" said aunt, "that will give me great pleasure." catherine blushed deeply, and said to me in a low voice: "now everything is as it should be, that was what we wanted to make us perfectly happy." she looked tenderly at me as she held my hand. just then some one opened the door, and old laurent from the "ville de metz," with two high baskets in which dishes were ranged in beautiful order one above the other, cried out, "mr. goulden, here is the dinner!" "very well!" said mr. goulden, "now arrange it on the table yourself." and laurent put on the radishes first, the fricasseed chicken and beautiful fat goose at the right, and on the left the beef which we had ourselves arranged with parsley in the plate. he put on also a nice plate of sauerkraut with little sausages, near the soup. such a dinner had never been seen in our house before. just at that moment we heard zébédé and his father coming up the stairs, and father goulden and i ran to meet them. mr. goulden embraced zébédé and said: "how happy i am to see you, i know you showed yourself a good comrade for joseph in the midst of the greatest danger." then he shook the old grave-digger's hand, saying, "i am proud of you for having such a son." then catherine, who had come behind us, said to zébédé: "i could not please joseph more than to embrace you, you would have carried him to hanau only your strength failed. i look upon you as a brother." then zébédé, who was very pale, kissed her without saying a word, and we all went into the room in silence, catherine, zébédé, and i first, mr. goulden and the old grave-digger came afterward. aunt grédel arranged the dishes a little and then said: "you are welcome, you are welcome! you who met in sorrow, have rejoined each other in joy. may god send his grace on us all." zébédé kissed aunt grédel and said, "always fresh and in good health, it is a pleasure to see you." "come, father zébédé, sit at the head of the table, and you there, zébédé, that i may have you on my right and my left, joseph will sit farther down, opposite catherine, and madame grédel at the other end to watch over all." each one was satisfied with his place, and zébédé smiled and looked at me as if he would say: "if we had had the quarter of such a dinner as this at hanau, we should never have fallen by the roadside." joy and a good appetite shone on every face. father goulden dipped the great silver ladle into the soup as we all looked on, and served first the old grave-digger, who said nothing and seemed touched by this honor, then his son, and then catherine, aunt grédel, himself, and me. and the dinner was begun quietly. zébédé winked and looked at me from time to time with great satisfaction. we uncorked the first bottle and filled the glasses. this was very good wine, but there was better coming, so we did not drink each other's health yet, we each ate a good slice of beef, and father goulden said: "here is something _good_, this beef is excellent." he found the fricassee very good also, and then i saw that catherine was a woman of spirit, for she said: "you know, mr. zébédé, that we should have invited your grandmother margaret, whom i go to see from time to time, only she is too old to go out, but if you wish, she shall at least eat a morsel with us, and drink her grandson's health in a glass of wine. what do you say, father zébédé?" "i was just thinking of that," said the old man. father goulden looked at catherine with tears in his eyes, and as she rose to select a suitable piece for the old woman, he kissed her, and i heard him call her his daughter. she went out with a bottle and a plate; and while she was gone zébédé said to me: "joseph, she who is soon to be your wife deserves to be perfectly happy, for she is not only a good girl, not only a woman who ought to be loved, but she deserves respect also, for she has a good and feeling heart. she saw what my father and i thought of this excellent dinner, and she knew it would give us a thousand times more pleasure if grandmother could share it. i shall love her for it, as if she were my sister." then he added in a low voice: "it is when we are happy that we feel the bitterness of poverty. it is not enough to give our blood to our country, but there is suffering at home in consequence, and when we return we must have misery before our eyes." i saw that he was growing sad, so i filled his glass and we drank, and his melancholy vanished. catherine came back and said, "the grandmother was very happy, and that she thanked mr. goulden, and said it had been a beautiful day for her." and this roused everybody. as the dinner continued, aunt grédel heard the bells for vespers, and she went out to church, but catherine remained, and the animation which good wine inspires had come, and we began to speak of the last campaign; of the retreat from the rhine to paris, of the fighting of the battalion at bibelskirchen and at saarbruck, where lieutenant baubin swam the saar when it was freezing as hard as stone, to destroy some boats which were still in the hands of the enemy; of the passage at narbefontaine, at courcelles, at metz, at enzelvin, and at champion and verdun, and, still retreating, the battle of brienne. the men were nearly all destroyed, but on the th of february the battalion was re-formed from the remnant of the th light infantry, and from that moment they were every day under fire; on the th, th, and th at méry-sur-seine; on the th at sézanne, where the soldiers died in the mud, not having strength enough to get out; the th and th at mürs, where zébédé was buried at night in the dung-heap of a farmhouse in order to get warm, and the terrible battle of marché on the th, in which the commandant philippe was wounded by a bayonet-thrust; the encounter on the th and th at montmirail, the battle of beauchamp on the th, the retreat on montmirail on the th and th, when the prussians returned: the combats at the ferté-gauché, at jouarre, at gué-à-train, at neufchettes, and so on. when the prussians were beaten, then came the russians, after them the austrians, the bavarians, the wurtemburgers, the hessians, the saxons, and the badois. i have often heard that campaign described, but never as it was done by zébédé. as he talked his great thin face quivered and his long nose turned down over the four hairs of his yellow mustache, and his eyes would flash and he would stretch out his hand from his old sleeve and you could see what he was describing. the great plains of champagne with the smoking villages to the right and to the left, where the women, children, and old men were wandering about in groups, half naked, one carrying a miserable old mattress, another with a few pieces of furniture on his cart, while the snow was falling from the sky, and the cannon roared in the distance, and the cossacks were flying about like the wind with kitchen utensils and even old clocks hanging to their saddles, shouting hurrah! furious battles were raging, singly, or one against ten, in which the desperate peasants joined also with their scythes. at night the emperor might be seen sitting astride his chair, with his chin resting in his folded hands on the back, before a little fire with his generals around him. this was the way he slept and dreamed. he must have had terrible reflections after the days of marengo, austerlitz, and wagram. to fight the enemy, to suffer hunger and cold and fatigue, to march and countermarch, zébédé said, were nothing, but to hear the women and children weeping and groaning in french in the midst of their ruined homes, to know you could not help them, and that the more enemies you killed, the more would you have; that you must retreat, always retreat, in spite of victories, in spite of courage, in spite of everything! "that is what breaks your heart, mr. goulden." in listening and looking at him we had lost all inclination to drink, and father goulden, with his great head bent down as if thinking, said in a low voice: "yes, that is what glory costs, it is not enough to lose our liberty, not enough to lose the rights gained at such a cost, we must be pillaged, sacked, burned, cut to pieces by cossacks, we must see what has not been seen for centuries, a horde of brigands making law for us--but go on, we are listening, tell us all." catherine, seeing how sad we were, filled the glasses. "come," said she, "to the health of mr. goulden and father zébédé. all these misfortunes are past and will never return." we drank, and zébédé related how it had been necessary to fill up the battalion again, on the route to soissons, with the soldiers of the th light infantry, and how they arrived at meaux where the plague was raging, although it was winter, in the hospital of piété, in consequence of the great numbers of wounded who could not be cared for. that was horrible, but the worst of all was when he described their arrival at paris, at the barrière de charenton: the empress, king joseph, the king of rome, the ministers, the new princes and dukes, and all the great world, were running away toward blois, and abandoning the capital to the enemy, while the workingmen in blouses, who gained nothing from the empire, but to be forced to give their children to defend it, were gathered around the town-house by thousands, begging for arms to defend the honor of france; and the old guard repulsed them with the bayonet! at this father goulden exclaimed: "that is enough, zébédé, hold! stop there, and let us talk of something else." he had suddenly grown very pale; at this moment mother grédel returned from vespers, and seeing us all so quiet, and mr. goulden so disturbed, asked: "what has happened?" "we were speaking of the empress and of the ministers of the emperor," replied father goulden, forcing a laugh. said she, "i am not astonished that the wine turns against you. every time i think of them, if by accident i look in the glass, i see that it turns me quite livid. the beggars! fortunately, they are gone." zébédé did not like this. mr. goulden observed it and said, "well! france is a great and glorious country all the same. if the new nobles are worth no more than the old ones, the people are firm. they work in vain against them. the bourgeois, the artisan, and the peasant are united, they have the same interests and will not give up what they have gained, nor let them again put their feet on their necks. now, friends, let us go and take the air, it is late, and madame grédel and catherine have a long way to go to quatre vents. joseph will go with them." "no," said catherine, "joseph must stay with his friend to-day, and we will go home alone." "very well! so be it! on a day like this friends should be together," said mr. goulden. we went out arm in arm, it was dark, and after embracing catherine again at the place d'armes she and her aunt took their way home, and after having taken a few turns under the great lindens we went to the "wild man" and refreshed ourselves with some glasses of foaming beer. mr. goulden described the siege, the attack at pernette, the sorties at bigelberg, at the barracks above, and the bombardment. it was then that i learned for the first time that he had been captain of a gun, and that it was he who had first thought of breaking up the melting-pots in the foundry to make shot. these stories occupied us till after ten o'clock. at last zébédé left us to go to the barracks, the old grave-digger went to the rue capucin, and we to our beds, where we slept till eight o'clock the next morning. vii two days afterward i was married to catherine at aunt grédel's at quatre vents. mr. goulden represented my father. zébédé was my best man, and some old comrades remaining from the battalion were also at the wedding. the next day we were installed in our two little rooms over the workshop at father goulden's, catherine and i. many years have rolled away since then! mr. goulden, aunt grédel, and the old comrades have all passed away, and catherine's hair is as white as snow! yet often, even now, when i look at her, those times come back again, and i see her as she was at twenty, fresh and rosy, i see her arrange the flower-pots in the chamber-window, i hear her singing to herself, i see the sun opposite, and then we descend the steep little staircase and say together, as we go into the workshop: "good-morning, mr. goulden;" he turns, smiles, and answers, "good-morning, my children, good-morning!" then he kisses catherine and she commences to sweep and rub the furniture and prepare the soup, while we examine the work we have to do during the day. ah, those beautiful days, that charming life. what joy in being young and in having a simple, good, and industrious wife! how our hearts rejoice, and the future spreads out so far--so far--before us! we shall never be old; we shall always love each other, and always keep those we love! we shall always be of good heart; we shall always take our sunday walk arm in arm to bonne-fontaine; we shall always sit on the moss in the woods, and hear the bees and may bugs buzzing in the great trees filled with light; we shall always smile! what a life! what a life! and at night we shall go softly home to the nest, as we silently look at the golden trains which spread over the sky from wecham to the forests of mittelbronn, we shall press each other's hand when we hear the little clock at pfalzbourg ring out the "angelus," and those of all the villages will respond through the twilight. oh, youth! oh, life! all is before me just as it was fifty years ago; but other sparrows and larks sing and build in the spring, other blossoms whiten the great apple-trees. and have we changed too, and grown old like the old people of those days? that alone makes me believe that we shall become young again, that we shall renew our loves and rejoin father goulden and aunt grédel and all our dear friends. otherwise we should be too unhappy in growing old. god would not send us pain without hope. and catherine believes it too. well! at that time we were perfectly happy, everything was beautiful to us, nothing troubled our joy. it was when the allies were passing through our city by hundreds of thousands on their way home. cavalry, artillery, infantry, foot and horse, with oak leaves in their shakos, on their caps, and on the ends of their muskets and lances. they shouted so that you could hear them a league away. just as you hear the chaffinches, thrushes, and blackbirds, and thousands of other birds in the autumn. at any other time this would have made me sad, because it was the sign of our defeat, but i consoled myself by thinking that they were going away, never to return. and when zébédé came to tell me that every day the russian, austrian, prussian, and bavarian officers crossed the city to visit our new commandant, mons. de la faisanderie, who was an old émigré, and who covered them with honors--that such an officer of the battalion had provoked one of these strangers, and that such another half-pay officer had killed two or three in duels at the "roulette," or the "green tree," or the "flower basket," for they were everywhere--our soldiers could not bear the sight of the foreigners, there were fights everywhere, and the litters of the hospital were constantly going and coming--when zébédé told me all these things, and when he said that so many officers had been put upon half-pay in order to replace them by officers from coblentz, and that the soldiers were to be compelled to go to mass in full uniform, that the priests were everything and epaulettes nothing any more; instead of being vexed, i only said, "bah! all these things will get settled by and by. so long as we can have quiet, and can live and labor in peace, we will be satisfied." i did not think that it is not enough that one is satisfied; to preserve peace and tranquillity, all must be so likewise. i was like aunt grédel, who found everything right now that we were married. she came very often to see us, with her basket full of fresh eggs, fruits, vegetables, and cakes for our housekeeping, and she would say: "oh! mr. goulden, there is no need to ask if the children are well, you have only to look at their faces." and to me she would say: "there is some difference, joseph, between being married, and trudging along under a knapsack and musket at lutzen!" "i believe you, mamma grédel," i would answer. then she would sit down, with her hands on her knees, and say: "all this comes from peace; peace makes everybody happy, and to think of that mob of barefoot beggars who shout against the king!" at first mr. goulden, who was at work, would say nothing, but when she kept on he would say, "come, mother grédel, a little moderation, you know that opinion is free now, we have two chambers and constitution, and each one has a voice." "but it is also true," said aunt looking at me maliciously, "that one must hold his tongue from time to time, and that shows a difference too." mr. goulden never went farther than this, for he looked upon aunt as a good woman, but who was not worth the trouble of converting. he would only laugh when she went too far, and matters went on without jarring until something new happened. at first there was an order from nancy to compel the people to close all their shutters during service on sunday--jews, lutherans, and all. there was no more noise in the inns and wine-shops, it was still as death in the city during mass and vespers. the people said nothing, but looked at each other as if they were afraid. the first sunday that our shutters were closed, mr. goulden seemed very sad, and said, as we were dining in the dark, "i had hoped, my children, that all this was over, and that people would have common-sense, and that we should be tranquil for years, but unhappily i see that these bourbons are of the same race as dagobert. affairs are growing serious." he did not say anything else on this sunday, and went out in the afternoon to read the papers. everybody who could read went, while the peasants were at mass, to read the papers after shutting their shops. the citizens and master-workmen then got in the habit of reading the papers, and a little later they wanted a casino. i remember that everybody talked of benjamin constant and placed great confidence in him. mr. goulden liked him very much, and as he was accustomed to go every evening to father colin's, to read of what had taken place, we also heard the news. he told us that the duke d'angoulême was at bordeaux, the count d'artois at marseilles, they had promised this, and they had said that. catherine was more curious than i, she liked to hear all the news there was in the country, and when mr. goulden said anything, i could see in her eyes that she thought he was right. one evening he said, "the duke de berry is coming here." we were greatly astonished. "what is he going to do here, mr. goulden?" asked catherine. "he is coming to review the regiment," he answered, "i have a great curiosity to see him. the papers say that he looks like bonaparte, but that he has a great deal more mind. it is not astonishing for if a legitimate prince had no more sense than the son of a peasant it would be a great pity. but you have seen bonaparte, joseph, and you can judge of the matter." you can imagine how this news excited the country. from that day nothing was thought of but erecting triumphal arches, and making white flags, and the people from all the villages kept coming with their carts covered with garlands. they raised a triumphal arch at pfalzbourg and another near saverne. every evening after supper catherine and i went out to see how the work progressed. it was between the hotel "de la ville de metz" and the shop of the confectioner dürr, right across the street. the old carpenter ulrich and his boys built it. it was like a great gate covered with garlands of oak leaves, and over the front were displayed magnificent white flags. while they were doing this, zébédé came to see us several times. the prince was to come from metz, the regiment had received letters, which represented him as being as severe as if he had gained fifty battles. but what vexed zébédé most was, that the prince called our old officers, "soldiers of fortune." he arrived the st of october, at six in the evening, we heard the cannon when he was at gerberhoff. he alighted at the "ville de metz," without going under the arch. the square was crowded with officers in full uniform, and from all the windows the people shouted, "long live the king, long live the duke de berry," just as they cried in the time of napoleon, "long live the emperor." mr. goulden and catherine and i could not get near because of the crowd, and we only saw the carriages and the hussars file past. a picket near our house cut off all communication. that same evening he received the corps of officers and condescended to accept a dinner offered to him by the sixth, but he only invited colonel zaepfel. after the dinner, from which they did not rise till ten o'clock, the principal citizens gave a ball at the college. all the officers and all the friends of the bourbons were present in black coats, and breeches and stockings of white silk, to meet the prince, and the young girls of good families were there in crowds, dressed in white. i still seem to hear the horses of the escort as they passed in the middle of the night amid the thousands shouting "vive le roi! vive le duc de berry!" all the windows were illuminated, and before those of the commandant there was a great shield of sky blue, and the crown and the three fleur-de-lis in gold, sparkled in the centre. the great hall of the college echoed with the music of the regimental band. mademoiselle bremer, who had a very fine voice, was to sing the air of "vive henri iv." before the prince. but all the village knew the next day, that she had been so confused by the sight of the prince, that she could not utter a word, and everybody said, "poor mademoiselle félicité, poor mademoiselle félicité." the ball lasted all night. we--mr. goulden, catherine, and i--were asleep, when about three in the morning we were wakened by the hussars going by and the shouts of "vive le duc de berry." these princes must have excellent health to be able to go to all the balls and dinners which are offered to them on their journeys. and it must become very tiresome at last to be called "your majesty," "your excellence," "your goodness," and "your justice," and everything else that can be thought of, that is new and extraordinary, in order to make them believe that the people adore them and look upon them as gods. if they do despise the men at last it is not astonishing. if the same thing were done to us we might think ourselves eagles too. what i have told you is exactly the truth. i have exaggerated nothing. the next day they began again with new enthusiasm. the weather was very fine, but as the prince had slept badly, and the children who wished to imitate the court without succeeding, annoyed him, and he thought perhaps, that they had not done him sufficient honor and had not shouted "vive le roi, vive le duc de berry" loud and long enough--for all the _soldiers_ kept silent--he was in a very bad humor. i saw him very well that day, while the review was taking place--the soldiers occupied the sides of the square, we were at wittman's, the leather merchant, on the first floor--and also during the consecration of the flag and the te deum at the church, for we had the fourth pew in front of the choir. they said he looked like napoleon, but it was not true; he was a good-looking fat fellow, short and thick, and pale with fatigue, and not at all lively, quite the contrary. during the service he did nothing but yawn and rock back and forth like a pendulum. i am telling you what i saw myself, and that shows how blind people are, they want to find resemblances everywhere. during the review, too, i remembered that the emperor always came on horseback, and so would discover at a glance if everything was in order; instead of this, the duke came along the ranks on foot, and two or three times he found fault with old soldiers, examining them from head to foot. that was the worst. zébédé was one of these men, and he never could forgive him. that was well enough for the review, but a more serious thing was the distribution of the crosses and the fleur-de-lis. when i tell you that all the mayors and their assistants, the councillors from the baraques-d'en-haut and the baraques-du-bois-de-chênes, from holderloch and hirschland, received the fleur-de-lis because they headed their village deputations with a white flag, and that pinacle received the cross of honor, for having arrived first with the band of the bohemian, waldteufel, who played "vive henri iv.," and had five or six white flags larger than the others; when i tell you that, you will understand what reasonable people thought. it was a real scandal! in the afternoon about four o'clock, the prince left for strasbourg, accompanied by all the royalists in the country on horseback, some on good mounts, and others, like pinacle, on old hacks. one event the pfalzbourgers of that day remember until this, and that is, that after the prince was seated in his carriage and was driving slowly away, one of the émigré officers with his head uncovered and in uniform, ran after him, crying in a pitiful voice, "bread, my prince, bread for my children!" that made the people blush, and they ran away for shame. we went home in silence, father goulden was lost in thought, when aunt grédel arrived. "well! mother grédel, you ought to be satisfied," said he. "and why?" "because pinacle has been decorated." she turned quite livid, and said after a minute: "that is the greatest trumpery that ever was seen. if the prince had known what he is, he would have hung him rather than decorate him with the cross of honor." "that is just the trouble," said mr. goulden, "those people do many such things without knowing it, and when they do know, it is too late." viii so it was that monseigneur the duke de berry, visited the departments of the east. every word he uttered was taken up and repeated again and again. some praised his exceeding graciousness, and others kept silence. from that time i suspected that all these émigrés and officers on half-pay, these preachers with their processions and their expiations, would overturn everything again, and about the beginning of winter we heard that not only with us, but all over alsace affairs were growing worse and worse in just the same way. one morning between eleven and twelve father goulden and i were both at work, each one thinking after his own fashion, and catherine was laying the cloth. i started to go out to wash my hands at the pump, as i always did before dinner, when i saw an old woman wiping her feet on the straw mat at the foot of the stairs and shaking her skirts which were covered with mud. she had a stout staff, and a large rosary hung from her neck. as i looked at her from the top of the stairs, she began to come up and i recognized her immediately by the folds about her eyes and the innumerable wrinkles round her little mouth, as anna-marie, the pilgrim of st. witt. the poor old woman often brought us watches to mend, from pious people who had confidence in her, and mr. goulden was always delighted to see her. "ah!" he exclaimed, "it is anne-marie! now we shall have the news. and how is mr. such-an-one, the priest? how is the vicar so-and-so? does he still look as well as ever? and mr. jacob, of such a place. and the old sexton, niclausse, does he still ring the bells at dann, and at hirschland, and saint jean? he must begin to look old?" "ah! mr. goulden, thanks for mr. jacob, you know that he lost mademoiselle christine last week." "what! mademoiselle christine?" "yes, indeed?" "what a misfortune! but we must remember that we are all mortal!" "yes, mr. goulden, and when one is so fortunate as to receive the holy consolations of the church." "certainly--certainly, that is the principal thing." so they talked on, father goulden laughing in his sleeve. she knew everything that happened within six leagues round the city. he looked mischievously at me from time to time. this same thing had happened a hundred times during my apprenticeship, but you will understand how much more curious he was now to learn all that was going on in the country. "ah! it is really anna-marie!" said he rising, "it is a long time since we have seen you." "three months, mr. goulden, three long months. i have made pilgrimages to saint witt, to saint odille, to marienthal, to hazlach, and i have vows for all the saints in alsace, in lorraine, and in the vosges. but now i have nearly finished, only saint quirin remains." "ah! so much the better, your affairs go on well, and that gives me pleasure. sit down, anna-marie, sit down and rest yourself." i saw in his eyes how happy he was to have her unroll her budget of news. but it appeared she had other matters to attend to. "oh! mr. goulden," said she. "i cannot today. others are before me, mother evig, gaspard rosenkranz, and jacob heilig. i must go to saint quirin, to-night. i only just came in to tell you that the clock at dosenheim is out of order, and that they are expecting you to repair it." "pshaw! pshaw! stay a moment." "no, i cannot, i am very sorry, mr. goulden, but i must finish my round." she had already taken up her bundle, and mr. goulden seemed greatly disappointed; when catherine put a great dish of cabbage on the table, and said, "what! are you going, anna-marie? you cannot think of it! here is your plate!" she turned her head and saw the smoking soup and the cabbage, which exhaled a most delicious odor. "i am in a great hurry," said she. "oh! pshaw! you have very good legs," said catherine, glancing at mr. goulden. "yes, thank god, they are very good still." "well, sit down then and refresh yourself. it is hard work to be always walking." "yes, indeed, madame bertha, one earns the thirty sous that one gets." i placed the chairs. "sit down, anna-marie, and give me your stick." "well, i must listen to you, i suppose, but i cannot stay long, i will only take a mouthful and then go." "yes, yes, that is settled, anna-marie," said mr. goulden; "we will not hinder you long." we sat down, and mr. goulden served us at once. catherine looked at me and smiled, and i said to myself, "women are more ingenious than we," and i was very happy. what more could a man wish for than to have a wife with sense and spirit? it is a real treasure, and i have often seen that men are happy when they allow themselves to be guided by such a woman. you can easily believe that when once seated at the table near the fire, instead of being out in the mud, with the sharp november wind whistling in her thin skirts, she no longer thought of her journey. she was a good creature sixty years old, who still supported two children of her son who died some years before. to travel round the country at that age, with the sun and rain and snow on your back, to sleep in barns and stables on straw, and three-quarters of the time have only potatoes to eat and not enough of them, does not make one despise a plate of good hot soup, a piece of smoked bacon and cabbage, with two or three glasses of wine to warm the heart. no, you must look at things as they are, the life of these poor people is very hard, every one would do well to try a pilgrimage on his own account. anna-marie understood the difference between being at table and on the road, she ate with a good appetite, and she took real pleasure in telling us what she had seen during her last round. "yes," said she, "everything is going on well now. all the processions and expiations which you have seen are nothing, they will grow larger and more imposing from day to day. and you know there are missionaries coming among us, as they used to do among the savages, to convert us. they are coming from mr. de forbin-janson and mr. de ranzan, because the corruption of the times is so great. and the convents are to be rebuilt, and the gates along the roads restored, as they were before the twenty-five years' rebellion. and when the pilgrims arrive at the convents, they will only have to ring and they will be admitted at once, when the brothers who serve, will bring them porringers of rich soup with meat on ordinary days, and vegetable soup with fish on fridays and saturdays and during lent. in that way piety will increase, and everybody will make pilgrimages. but the pious women of bischoffsheim say, that only those who have been pilgrims from father to son, like us, ought to go; that each one ought to attend to his work, that the peasants should belong to the soil, and that the lords should have their chateaux again, and govern them. i heard this with my own ears from these pious women, who are to have their properties again because they have returned from exile, and that they must have their estates in order to build their chapels is very certain. oh! if that were only done now, so i could profit by it in my old age! i have fasted long enough, and my little grandchildren also. i would take them with me, and the priests would teach them, and when i die i should have the consolation of seeing them in a good way." on hearing her recount all these things so contrary to reason we were much moved, for she wept as she imagined her little girls begging at the door of the convent and the brother bringing them soup. "and you know, too, that mr. de ranzan and the reverend father tarin want the chateaux rebuilt, and the woods and meadows and fields given up to the nobles, and in the meantime that the ponds are to be put in good condition, because they belong to the reverend fathers, who have no time to plough or sow or reap. everything must come to them of itself." "but tell us, anna-marie, is all this quite certain? i can hardly believe that such great happiness is in store for us." "it is quite certain, mr. goulden. the count d'artois wishes to secure his salvation, and in order to do that everything must be set in order. mons. le vicar antoine of marienthal said the same things last week. they come from above,--these things,--and the hearts of the people must be accustomed to them by the sermons and expiations. those who will not submit, like the jews and lutherans, will be forced to do so, and the jacobins"--in speaking of the jacobins anna-marie looked suddenly at mr. goulden and blushed up to her ears, for he was smiling. but she recovered herself, and went on: "among the jacobins there are some very good people, but the poor must live. the jacobins have taken the property of the poor and that is not right." "when and where have they taken the property of the poor?" "listen, mr. goulden, the monks and the capuchins had the estates of the poor, and the jacobins have divided them amongst themselves." "ah! i understand, i understand, the monks and capuchins had your property, anna-marie; i never should have guessed that." mr. goulden was all the time in good-humor, and anna-marie said: "we shall be in accord at last." "oh! yes, we are, we are," said he pleasantly. i listened without saying anything, as i was naturally curious to hear what was coming. it was easy to see that this was what she had heard on her last journey. she said also that miracles were coming again and that saint quirin, saint odille, and the others would not work miracles under the usurper, but that they had commenced already; that the little black st. john at kortzeroth, on seeing the ancient prior return had shed tears. "yes, yes, i understand," said mr. goulden, "that does not astonish me in the least, after all these processions and atonements the saints must work miracles; and it is natural, anna-marie, quite natural." "without doubt, mr. goulden, and when we see miracles, faith will return. that is clear, that is certain." the dinner was finished, and anna-marie seeing that nothing more was coming, remembered that she was late, and exclaimed: "oh! lord, that is one o'clock striking. the others must be near ercheviller; now i must leave you." she rose and took her stick with a very important air. "well! _bon voyage_, anna-marie, don't make us wait so long next time." "ah! mr. goulden, if i do not sit every day at your table it is not my fault." she laughed, and as she took up her bundle she said: "well, good-by, and for the kindness you have shown me i will pray the blessed saint quirin to send you a fine fat boy as fresh and rosy as a lady-apple. that is the best thing, madame bertha, that an old woman like me can do for you." on hearing these good wishes, i said, "that old woman is a good soul. there is nothing i so much wish for in the world. may god hear her prayer!" i was touched by that good wish. she went downstairs, and as she shut the door, catherine began to laugh, and said: "she emptied her budget this time." "yes, my children," replied mr. goulden, who was quite grave, "that is what we may call human ignorance. you would believe that poor creature had invented all that, but she has picked it up right and left, it is word for word what those émigrés think, and what they repeat every day in their journals, and what the preachers say every day openly in all the churches. louis xviii. troubles them, he has too much good sense for them, but the real king is monseigneur the duke d'artois, who wants to secure his salvation, and in order that this may be done everything must be put back where it was before the 'rebellion of twenty-five years,' and all the national property must be given up to its ancient owners, and the nobles must have their rights and privileges as in ; they must occupy all the grades of the army, and the catholic religion must be the only religion in the state. the sabbath and fête days must be observed, and heretics driven from all the offices, and the priests alone have the right to instruct the children of the people, and this great and terrible country, which carried its ideas of liberty, equality, and fraternity everywhere by means of its good sense and its victories, and which never would have been vanquished if the emperor had not made an alliance with the kings at tilsit, this nation, which in a few years produced so many more great captains and orators, learned men and geniuses of all kinds, than the noble races produced in a thousand years, must surrender everything and go back to tilling the earth, while the others, who are not one in a thousand, will go on from father to son, taking everything and gladdening their hearts at the expense of the people! oh! no doubt the fields and meadows and ponds will be given up as anna-marie said, and that the convents will be rebuilt in order to please mons. le comte d'artois and help him to gain his salvation--that is the least the country could do for so great a prince!" then father goulden, joining his hands, looked upward saying: "lord god, lord god, who hast wrought so many miracles by the little black st. john of kortzeroth, if thou wouldst permit even a single ray of reason to enter the heads of monseigneur and his friends, i believe it would be more beautiful than the tears of the little saint! and that other one on his island, with his clear eyes like the sparrow-hawk who pretends to sleep as he watches the unconscious geese in a pool,--o lord, a few strokes of his wing and he is upon them, the birds may escape, while we shall have all europe at our heels again!" he said all this very gravely, and i looked at catherine to know whether i should laugh or cry. suddenly he sat down, saying: "come! joseph, this is not at all cheerful, but what can we do? it is time to be at work. look, and see what is the matter with mr. jacob's watch." catherine took off the cloth, and each one went to his work. ix it was winter. rain fell constantly, mingled with snow. there were no gutters, and the wind blew the rain as it fell from the tiles quite into the middle of the street. we could hear it pattering all day while catherine was running about, watching the fire, and lifting the covers of the saucepans, and sometimes singing quietly to herself as she sat down to her spinning. father goulden and i were so accustomed to this kind of life that we worked on without thinking. we troubled ourselves about nothing, the table was laid and the dinner served exactly on the stroke of noon. at night mr. goulden went out after supper to read the gazette at hoffman's, with his old cloak wrapped closely round his shoulders and his big fox-skin cap pulled down over his neck. but in spite of that, often when he came in at ten o'clock, after we had gone to bed, we heard him cough; he had dampened his feet. then catherine would say, "he is coughing again, he thinks he is as young as he was at twenty," and in the morning she did not hesitate to reproach him. "monsieur goulden," she would say, "you are not reasonable; you have an ugly cold, and yet you go out every evening." "ah! my child, what would you have? i have got the habit of reading the gazette, and it is stronger than i. i want to know what benjamin constant and the rest of them say, it is like a second life to me and i often think 'they ought to have spoken further of such or such a thing. if melchior goulden had been there he would have opposed this or that, and it would not have failed to produce a great effect.'" then he would laugh and shake his head and say: "every one thinks he has more wit and good sense than the others, but benjamin constant always pleases me." we could say nothing more, his desire to read the gazette was so great. one day catherine said to him: "if you wish to hear the news, that is no reason why you should make yourself sick, you have only to do as the old carpenter carabin does, he arranged last week with father hoffman, and he sends him the journal every night at seven o'clock, after the others have read it, for which he pays him three francs a month. in this way, without any trouble to himself, carabin knows everything that goes on, and his wife, old bevel, also; they sit by the fire and talk about all these things and discuss them together, and that is what you should do." "ah! catherine, that is an excellent idea, but--the three francs?" "the three francs are nothing," said i, "the principal thing is not to be sick, you cough very badly and that cannot go on." these words, far from offending, pleased him, as they proved our affection for him and that he ought to listen to us. "very well! we will try to arrange it as you wish, and the rather as the café is filled with half-pay officers from morning till night, and they pass the journals from one to the other so that sometimes we must wait two hours before we can catch one. yes, catherine is right." he went that very day to see father hoffman, so that after that, michel, one of the waiters at the café brought us the gazette every night at seven o'clock, just as we rose from the table. we were happy always when we heard him coming up the stairs, and we would say, "there comes the gazette." catherine would hurry off the cloth and i would put a big bullet of wood in the stove, and mr. goulden would draw his spectacles from their case, and while catherine spun and i smoked my pipe like an old soldier, and watched the blaze as it danced in the stove, he would read us the news from paris. you cannot imagine the happiness and satisfaction we had in hearing benjamin constant and two or three others maintain the same opinions which we held ourselves. sometimes mr. goulden was forced to stop to wipe his spectacles, and then catherine would exclaim: "how well these people talk. they are men of good sense. yes, what they say is right--it is the simple truth." and we all approved it. sometimes father goulden thought that they ought to have spoken of this or that a little more, but that the rest was all very well. then he would go on with his reading, which lasted till ten o'clock, and then we all went to bed, reflecting on what we had just heard. outside the wind blew, as it only can blow at pfalzbourg, and vanes creaked as they turned, and the rain beat against the walls, while we enjoyed the warmth and comfort, and thanked god till sleep came, and we forgot everything. ah! how happily we sleep with peace in our souls, and when we have strength and health, and the love and respect of those whom we love. days, weeks, and months went by, and we became, after a manner, politicians, and when the ministers were going to speak, we thought: "now the beggars want to deceive us! the miserable race! they ought to be driven out, every one of them!" catherine above all could not endure them, and when mother grédel came and talked as before about our good king, louis xviii., we allowed her to talk out of respect, but we pitied her for being so blind to the real interests of the country. it must be remembered, too, that these émigrés, ministers, and princes, conducted themselves in the most insolent manner possible toward us. if the count d'artois and his sons had put themselves at the head of the vendéeans and bretons, and marched on paris and had been victorious, they would have had reason to say, "we are masters, and will make laws for you." but to be driven out at first, and to be brought back by the prussians and the russians, and then to come and humiliate us, that was contemptible, and the older i grow the more i am confirmed in that idea--it was shameful! zébédé came to see us from time to time, and he knew all that was in the gazette. it was from us that he first learned that the young émigrés had driven general vandamme from the presence of the king. this old soldier, who had just returned from a russian prison, and whom all the army respected in spite of his misfortune at kulm, they conducted from the royal presence, and told him that was not his place. vandamme had been colonel of a regiment at pfalzbourg, and you cannot imagine the indignation of the people at this news. and it was zébédé who told us, that processes had been made out against the generals on half-pay, and that their letters were opened at the post, that they might appear like traitors. he told us a little afterward that they were going to send away the daughters of the old officers who were at the school of st. denis and give them a pension of two hundred francs; and later still, that the émigrés alone would have the right to put their sons in the schools at "st. cyr" and "la flèche" to be educated as officers, while the people's sons would remain soldiers at five centimes (one cent) a day for centuries to come. the gazettes told the same stories, but zébédé knew a great many other details--the soldiers knew everything. i could not describe zébédé's face to you as he sat behind the stove, with the end of his black pipe between his teeth, recounting all these misfortunes. his great nose would turn pale, and the muscles would twitch around the corners of his light gray eyes, and he would pretend to laugh from time to time, and murmur, "it moves, it moves." "and what do the other soldiers think of all this?" said father goulden. "ha! they think it is pretty well when they have given their blood to france for twenty years, when they have made ten, fifteen, and twenty campaigns, and wear three chevrons, and are riddled with wounds, to hear that their old chiefs are driven from their posts, their daughters turned out of the schools, and that the sons of those people are to be their officers forever--that delights them, father goulden!" and his face quivered even to his ears as he said this. "that is terrible, certainly," said father goulden, "but discipline is always discipline there. the marshals obey the ministers, and the officers the marshals, and the soldiers the officers." "you are right," said zébédé, "but there, they are beating the assembly." and he shook hands and hurried off to the barracks. the winter passed in this way, while the indignation increased every day. the city was full of officers on half-pay, who dared not remain in paris,--lieutenants, captains, commandants, and colonels of infantry and cavalry,--men who lived on a crust of bread and a glass of wine a day, and who were the more miserable because they were forced to keep up an appearance--think of such men with their hollow cheeks and their hair closely cropped, with sparkling eyes and their big mustaches and their old uniform cloaks, of which they had been forced to change the buttons, see them promenading by threes and sixes and tens on the square, with their sword-canes at their button-holes, and their three-cornered hats so old and worn, though still well brushed; you could not help thinking that they had not one quarter enough to eat. and yet we were compelled to say to ourselves, these are the victors of jemmapes, of fleurus, of zurich, of hohenlinden, of marengo, of austerlitz, and of friedland and wagram. if we are proud of being frenchmen, neither the comte d'artois nor the duke de berry can boast of being the cause; on the contrary, it is these men, and now they leave them to perish, they even refuse them bread and put the émigrés in their place. it does not need any extraordinary amount of common-sense, or heart, or of justice to discover that this is contrary to nature. i never could look at these unhappy men; it made me miserable. if you have been a soldier for only six months, your respect for your old chiefs, for those whom you have seen in the very front under fire, always remains. i was ashamed of my country for permitting such indignities. one circumstance i shall never forget: it was the last of january, , when two of these half-pay officers--one was a large, austere, gray-haired man, known as colonel falconette, who appeared to have served in the infantry, the other was short and thick and they called him commandant margarot, and he still wore his hussar whiskers--came to us and proposed to sell a splendid watch. it might have been ten o'clock in the morning. i can see them now as they came gravely in, the colonel with his high collar, and the other one with his head down between his shoulders. the watch was a gold one, with double case; a repeater which marked the seconds, and was wound up only once in eight days. i had never seen such a fine one. while mr. goulden examined it i turned round on my chair and looked at the men, who seemed to be in great need of money, especially the hussar. his brown, bony face, his big red mustaches, and his little brown eyes, his broad shoulders and long arms, which hung down to his knees, inspired me with great respect. i thought that when he took his sabre his long arm would reach a good way, that his eyes would burn under his heavy brows, and that the parry and thrust would come like lightning. i imagined him in a charge, half hidden behind his horse's head, with the point advanced, and my admiration was greater still. i suddenly remembered that colonel falconette and commandant margarot had killed some russian and austrian officers in a duel in the rear of the "green tree," when the allies were passing through the town six months ago. the large man too, without any shirt-collar, although he was thin, wrinkled, and pale, and his temples were gray and his manner cold, seemed respectable too. i waited to hear what father goulden would say about the watch. he did not raise his eyes, but looked at it with profound admiration, while the men waited quietly like those who suffer from not being able to conceal their pain. at last he said: "this, gentlemen, is a beautiful watch, fit for a prince?" "indeed it is," said the hussar, "and it was from a prince i received it after the battle of rabbe," and he glanced at his companion, who said nothing. mr. goulden saw that they were in great need. he took off his black silk bonnet, and said, as he rose slowly from his seat: "gentlemen, do not take offence at what i am going to say. i am like you an old soldier, i served france under the republic, and i am sure it must be heart-breaking to be forced to sell such a thing as that, an object which recalls some noble action, the souvenir of a chief whom we revere." i had never heard father goulden speak with such emotion, his bald head was bowed sadly, and his eyes were on the ground, so that he might not see the pain of those to whom he was speaking. the commandant grew quite red, his eyes were dim, his great fingers worked, and the colonel was pale as death. i wished myself away. mr. goulden went on, "this watch is worth more than a thousand francs, i have not so much money in hand, and besides you would doubtless regret to part with such a souvenir. i will make you this offer, leave the watch with me, i will hang it in my window--it shall always be yours--and i will advance you two hundred francs, which you shall repay me when you take it away." on hearing this, the hussar extended his two great hairy hands, as if to embrace father goulden. "you are a good patriot," he exclaimed, "colin told us so. ah! sir, i shall never forget the service you have rendered me. this watch i received from prince eugène for bravery in action, it is dear to me as my own blood, but poverty----" "commandant!" exclaimed the other, turning pale. "colonel, permit me! we are old comrades together. they are starving us, they treat us like cossacks. they are too cowardly to shoot us outright." he could be heard all over the house. catherine and i ran into the kitchen in order not to see the sad spectacle. mr. goulden soothed him, and we heard him say: "yes, yes, gentlemen, i know all that, and i put myself in your place." "come! margarot, be quiet," said the colonel. and this went on for a quarter of an hour. at last we heard mr. goulden count out the money, and the hussar said: "thank you, sir, thank you! if ever you have occasion, remember the commandant margarot." we were glad to hear the door open, and to hear them go downstairs, for catherine and i were much pained by what we had heard and seen. we went back to the room, and mr. goulden, who had been to show the officers out, came back with his head bare. he was very much disturbed. "these unhappy men are right," said he, "the conduct of the government toward them is horrible, but it will have to pay for it sooner or later." we were sad all day, but mr. goulden showed me the watch and explained its beauties, and told me, we ought always to have such models before us, and then we hung it in our window. from that moment the idea never left me that matters would end badly, and that even if the émigrés stopped here, they had done too much mischief already. i could still hear the commandant exclaiming, that they treated the army like cossacks. all those processions and expiations and sermons about the rebellion of twenty-five years, seemed to me to be a terrible confusion, and i felt that the restoration of the national property and the rebuilding of the convents would be productive of no good. x it was about the beginning of march, when a rumor began to circulate that the emperor had just landed at cannes. this rumor was like the wind, nobody ever could tell where it came from. pfalzbourg is two hundred leagues from the sea, and many a mountain and valley lies between them. an extraordinary circumstance, i remember, happened on the th of march. when i rose in the morning, i pushed open the window of our little chamber which was just under the eaves, and looked across the street at the old black chimneys of spitz the baker, and saw that a little snow still remained behind them. the cold was sharp, though the sun was shining, and i thought, "what fine weather for a march!" then i remembered how happy we used to be in germany, as we put out our campfires and set off on such fine mornings as this, with our guns on our shoulders, listening to the footfalls of the battalion echoing from the hard frozen ground. i do not know how it was, but suddenly the emperor came into my mind, and i saw him with his gray coat and round shoulders, with his hat drawn over his eyes, marching along with the old guard behind him. catherine was sweeping our little room, and i was almost dreaming as i leaned out into the dry, clear air, when we heard some one coming up the stairs. catherine stopped her sweeping and said: "it is mr. goulden." i also recognized his step, and was surprised, as he seldom came into our chamber. he opened the door and said in a low voice: "my children, the emperor landed on the st of march at cannes, near toulon, and is marching upon paris." he said no more, but sat down to take breath. we looked at each other in astonishment, but a moment after catherine asked: "is it in the gazette, mr. goulden?" "no," he replied, "either they know nothing of it over there, or else they conceal it from us. but, in heaven's name, not a word of all this, or we shall be arrested. this morning, about five o'clock, zébédé, who mounted guard at the french gate, came to let me know of it; he knocked downstairs, did you hear him?" "no! we were asleep, mr. goulden." "well! i opened the window to see what was the matter, and then i went down and unlocked the door. zébédé told it to me as a fact, and says the soldiers are to be confined to the barracks till further orders. it seems they are afraid of the soldiers, but how can they stop bonaparte without them? they cannot send the peasants, whom they have stripped of everything, against him, nor the bourgeoisie, whom they have treated like jacobins. now is a good time for the émigrés to show themselves. but silence, above all things, the most profound silence!" he rose, and we all went down to the workshop. catherine made a good fire, and everyone went about his work as usual. that day everything was quiet, and the next day also. some neighbors, father riboc and offran, came in to see us, under pretence of having their watches cleaned. "anything new, neighbor?" they inquired. "no, indeed!" replied mr. goulden. "everything is quiet. do you hear anything?" "no." but you could see by their eyes, that they had heard the news. zébédé stayed at the barracks. the half-pay officers filled the café from morning till night, but not a word transpired, the affair was too serious. on the third day these officers, who were boiling over with impatience, were seen running back and forth, their very faces showing their terrible anxiety. if they had had horses or even arms, i am sure they would have attempted something. but the guards went and came also, with old chancel at their head, and a courier was sent off hourly to saarbourg. the excitement increased, nobody felt any interest in his work. we soon learned through the commercial travellers, who arrived at the "city of basle," that the upper rhine provinces and the jura had risen, and that regiments of cavalry and infantry were following each other from besançon, and that heavy forces had been sent against the usurper. one of these travellers having spoken rather too freely, was ordered to quit the town at once, the brigadier in command having examined his passport and, fortunately for him, found it properly made out. i have seen other revolutions since then, but never such excitement as reigned on the th of march between four and five in the evening, when the order arrived for the departure of the first and second battalions fully equipped for service for lons-le-saulnier. it was only then that the danger was fully realized, and every one thought, "it is not the duke d'angoulême nor the duke de berry that we need to arrest the progress of bonaparte, but the whole of europe." the faces of the officers on half-pay lighted up as with a burst of sunshine, and they breathed freely again. about five o'clock the first roll of the drum was heard on the square, when suddenly zébédé rushed in. "well!" said father goulden to him. "the first two battalions are going away," he replied. he was very pale. "they are sent to stop him," said mr. goulden. "yes," said zébédé, winking, "they are going to stop him." the drums still rolled. he went downstairs, four at a time. i followed him. at the foot of the stairs, and while he was on the first step, he seized me by the arm, and raising his shako, whispered in my ear: "look, joseph, do you recognize that?" i saw the old tri-colored cockade in the lining. "that is ours," he said, "all the soldiers have it." i hardly had time to glance at it when he shook my hand and, turning away, hurried to fouquet's corner. i went upstairs, saying to myself, "now for another breaking up, in which europe will be involved; now for the conscription, joseph, the abolition of all permits and all the other things that we read of in the gazettes. in the place of quiet, we must be plunged in confusion; instead of listening to the ticking of clocks, we must hear the thunder of cannon; instead of talking of convents, we must talk of arsenals; instead of smelling flowers and incense, we must smell powder. great god! will this never come to an end? everything would go prosperously without missionaries and émigrés. what a calamity! what a calamity! we who work and ask for nothing are always the ones who have to pay. all these crimes are committed for our happiness, while they mock us and treat us like brutes." a great many other ideas passed through my head, but what good did they do me? i was not the comte d'artois, nor was i the duke de berry; and one must be a prince in order that his ideas may be of consequence, and that every word he speaks may pass for a miracle. father goulden could not keep still a moment that afternoon. he was just as impatient as i was when i was expecting my permit to marry. he would look out of the window every moment and say, "there will be great news to-day; the orders have been given, and there is no need of hiding anything from us any longer." and from time to time he would exclaim, "hush! here is the mail coach!" we would listen, but it was lanche's cart with his old horses, or baptiste's boat at the bridge. it was quite dark and catherine had laid the cloth, when for the twentieth time mr. goulden exclaimed, "listen!" this time we heard a distant rumbling, which came nearer every moment. without waiting an instant, he ran to the alcove and slipped on his big waistcoat, crying: "joseph, it has come." he rolled down the stairs, as it were, and from seeing him in such a hurry the desire to hear the news seized me, and i followed him. we had hardly reached the street when the coach came through the dark gateway, with its two red lanterns, and rushed past us like a thunder-bolt. we ran after it, but we were not alone; from all sides we heard the people running and shouting, "there it is, there it is!" the post-office was in the rue des foins, near the german gate, and the coach went straight down to the college and turned there to the right. the farther we went the greater was the crowd; it poured from every door. [illustration: people were heard shouting, "there it is, there it is!"] the old mayor, mr. parmentier, his secretary, eschbach, and cauchois, the tax-gatherer, and many other notables were in the crowd, talking together and saying: "the decisive moment has come." when we turned into the place d'armes, we saw the crowd already gathered in front of the postoffice; innumerable faces were leaning over the iron balustrade, one trying to get before the other, and interrogating the courier, who did not answer a word. the postmaster, mr. pernette, opened the window, which was lighted up from the inside, and the package of letters and papers flew from the coach through this window into the room; the window closed, and the crack of the postilion's whip warned the crowd to get out of the way. "the papers, the papers!" shouted the crowd from every side. the coach set off again and disappeared through the german gate. "let us go to hoffman's café," said mr. goulden. "hurry! the papers will go there, and if we wait we shall not be able to get in." as we crossed the square we heard some one running behind us, and the clear, strong voice of margarot, saying: "they have come, i have them." all the half-pay officers were following him, and as the moon was shining we could see they were coming at a great pace. we rushed into the café and were hardly seated near the great stove of delft ware, when the crowd at once poured in through both doors. you should have seen the faces of the half-pay officers at that moment. their great three-cornered hats, defiling under the lamps, their thin faces with their long mustaches hanging down, their sparkling eyes peering into the darkness, made them look like savages in pursuit of something. some of them squinted in their impatience and anxiety, and i think that they did not see anything at all, and that their thoughts were elsewhere with bonaparte;--that was fearful. the people kept coming and coming, till we were suffocating, and were obliged to open the windows. outside in the street, where the cavalry barracks were, and on the fountain square, there was a great tumult. "we did well to come at once," said mr. goulden, springing on a chair and steadying himself with his hand on the stove. others were doing the same thing, and i followed his example. nothing could be seen but the eager faces and the big hats of the officers, and the great crowd on the square outside in the moonlight. the tumult increased and a voice cried, "silence." it was the commandant margarot, who had mounted upon a table. behind him the gendarmes keltz and werner looked on, and at all the open windows people were leaning in to hear. on the square at the same instant somebody repeated, "silence, silence." and it was at once so still that you would have said, there was not a soul there. the commandant read the gazette, his clear voice pronouncing every word with a sort of quaver in it, resembling the tic-tac of our clock in the middle of the night, and it could be distinctly heard in the square. the reading lasted a long time, for the commandant omitted nothing. i remember it commenced by declaring that the one called bonaparte, a public enemy, who for fifteen years had held france in despotic slavery, had escaped from his island, and had had the audacity to set his foot on the soil deluged with blood through his own crimes, but that the troops--faithful to the king and to the nation--were on the march to stop him, and that in view of the general horror, bonaparte, with the handful of beggars that accompanied him, had fled into the mountains, but that he was surrounded on all sides and could not escape. i remember too, according to that gazette all the marshals had hastened to place their glorious swords at the service of the king, the father of the people and of the nation, and that the illustrious marshal ney, prince of moscowa, had kissed the king's hand and promised to bring bonaparte to paris dead or alive. after that there were some latin words which no doubt had been put there for the priests. from time to time i heard some one behind me laughing and jeering at the journal. on turning round, i saw that it was professor burguet and two or three other noted men who had been taken after the "hundred days," and had been forced to remain at bourges because, as father goulden said, they had too much spirit. that shows plainly that it is better to keep still at such times, if one does not wish to fight on either side; for words are of no use, but to get us into difficulty. but there was something worse still toward the end, when the commandant commenced to read the decrees. the first indicated the movement of the troops, and the second, commanded all frenchmen to fall upon bonaparte, to arrest and deliver him dead or alive, because he had put himself out of the pale of law. at that moment the commandant, who had until then only laughed when he read the name of bonaparte, and whose bony face had only trembled a little as it was lighted up by the lamp--at that moment his aspect changed completely, i never saw anything more terrible; his face contracted, fold upon fold, his little eyes blazed like those of a cat, and his mustaches and whiskers stood on end; he seized the gazette and tore it into a thousand pieces, and then pale as death he raised himself to his full height, extended his long arms, and shouted in a voice so loud that it made our flesh creep, _vive l'empereur!_ immediately all the half-pay officers raised their three-cornered hats, some in their hands and some on the end of their sword-canes, and repeated with one voice, _vive l'empereur!_ you would have thought the roof was coming down. i felt just as if some one had thrown cold water down my back. i said to myself, "it is all over now. what is the use in preaching peace to such people?" outside among the groups of citizens, the soldiers of the post repeated the cry, _vive l'empereur_. and as i looked in great anxiety to see what the gendarmes would do, they retired without saying a word, being old soldiers also. but it was not yet over. as the commandant was getting down from the table, an officer suggested that they should carry him in triumph. they seized him by the legs, and forcing the crowd aside, carried him around the room, screaming like madmen, _vive l'empereur_. he was so affected by the honor shown him by his comrades and by hearing them shout what he so much loved to hear, that he sat there with his long hairy hands on their shoulders, and his head above their great hats, and wept. no one would have believed that such a face could weep; that alone was sufficient to upset you and make you tremble. he said not a word; his eyes were closed and the tears ran down his nose and his long mustaches. i was looking on with all my eyes, as you can imagine, when father goulden got down from his chair and pulled me by the arm, saying: "joseph, let us go, it is time." behind us the hall was already empty. everybody had hurried out by the brewer klein's alley for fear of being mixed up in a disagreeable affair, and we went that way also. as we crossed the square, father goulden said, "there is danger that matters will take a bad turn. to-morrow the gendarmerie may commence to act, the commandant margarot and the others have not the air of men who will allow themselves to be arrested. the soldiers of the third battalion will take their part, if they have not already. the city is in their power." he was talking to himself, and i thought as he did. when we reached home, catherine was waiting anxiously for us in the workshop. we told her all that had happened. the table was set, but nobody was inclined to eat. mr. goulden drank a glass of wine, and then as he took off his shoes he said to us: "my children, after what we have just heard we may be sure that the emperor will reach paris; the soldiers wish it, and the peasants desire it, and if he has considered well since he has been on his island and will give up his ideas about war, and will respect the treaties, the bourgeoise will ask nothing better, especially if we have a good constitution that will guarantee to everyone his liberty, which is the best of all good things. let us wish it for ourselves and for him. good-night." xi the next day was friday and market day, and there was nothing talked of in the whole town but the great news. great numbers of peasants from alsace and lorraine came filing into town on their carts, some in blouses, some in their waistcoats, some in three-cornered hats, and some in their cotton caps, under pretence of selling their grain, their barley and oats, but in reality to find out what was going on. you could hear nothing but "get up, fox! gee ho, gray!" and the rolling of the wheels and the cracking of the whips. and the women were not behindhand, they arrived from the houpe, from dagsberg, ercheviller, and baraques, with their scanty skirts and with great baskets on their heads, striding and hurrying along. everybody passed under our windows, and mr. goulden said, "what an excitement there is, what a rush! it is easy to see that there is another spirit in the land. nobody is marching now with candles in his hand and a surplice on his back." he seemed to be satisfied, and that proved how much all these ceremonies had annoyed him. at last about eight o'clock it was necessary to set about our work again, and catherine went out as usual to buy our butter and eggs and vegetables for the week. at ten o'clock she came back again. "oh! heavens!" said she, "everything is topsy-turvy." and then she related how the half-pay officers were promenading with their sword-canes, with the commandant margarot in their midst, that on the square, in the market, in the church, and around the stands, everywhere the peasants and citizens were shaking hands and taking snuff together, and saying, "ah! now trade is brisk again." and she told us also that during the night proclamations had been posted up at the town-house and on the three doors of the church, and even against the pillars of the market, but that the gendarmes had torn them down early in the morning, in fact, that everything was in commotion. father goulden had risen from the counter in order to listen to her, and i turned round on my chair and thought: "all that is good, very good, but at this rate your leave of absence will soon be recalled. everything is moving and you must also move, joseph! instead of remaining here quietly with your wife, you will have to take your cartridge-box and knapsack and musket and two packages of cartridges on your back." as i looked at catherine, who did not think of the bad side of affairs, weissenfels, lutzen, and leipzig passed through my mind, and i was quite melancholy. while we were all so sober, the door opened and aunt grédel walked in. at first you would have thought she was quite composed. "good-morning, mr. goulden; good-morning, my children," said she, putting down her basket behind the stove. "are you well too, mother grédel?" asked mr. goulden. "ah! well! well!" said she. i saw that she had set her teeth, and that two red spots burned on her cheeks. she crammed her hair which was hanging down over her ears, with a single thrust into her cap, and looked at us one after the other with her gray eyes to see what we thought, and then she commenced. "it seems that the rascal has escaped from his island." "of what rascal do you speak?" asked mr. goulden calmly. "oh! you know very well of whom i speak, i speak of your bonaparte." mr. goulden, seeing her anger, turned round to his counter to avoid a dispute. he seemed to be examining a watch, and i followed his example. "yes," said she, speaking still louder, "his evil deeds are commencing again; just as we thought all was finished! and he comes back again worse than ever! what a pest!" i could hear her voice tremble. mr. goulden kept on with his work, and asked, without turning round, "whose fault is it, mother grédel? do you think that those processions, atonements, and the sermons in regard to the national domains and the 'rebellion of twenty-five years,' these continual menaces of establishing the old order of things, the order to close the shops during the service, do you think all that could continue? did any one, let me ask, ever see since the world began, anything more calculated to rouse a nation against those who attempt to degrade it! you would have said that bonaparte himself had whispered in the ears of those bourbons, all the stupidities which would be likely to disgust the people. tell me, might we not expect just what has come to pass?" he kept on looking at the watch through his glass in order to keep calm. while he was speaking i had looked at aunt grédel out of the corner of my eye. she had changed color two or three times, and catherine, who was behind us near the stove, made signs to her not to make trouble in our house, but the wilful woman disregarded all signs. "you, too, are satisfied then, are you? you change from one day to another like the rest of them, you always bring out your republic when it suits you." on hearing this, mr. goulden coughed softly, as if he had something in his throat, and for half a minute he seemed to be considering, while aunt looked on. he recovered himself at last and said slowly: "you are wrong, madame grédel, to reproach me, for if i had wished to change i should have begun sooner. instead of being a clock-maker in pfalzbourg i should have been a colonel or a general, like the others, but i always have been, i am now, and shall remain till i die, for the republic and the rights of man." then he turned suddenly round, and looking at aunt from head to foot, and raising his voice; he went on: "and that is the reason why i like bonaparte better than the comte d'artois, the émigrés, the missionaries, and the workers of miracles; at least he is forced to keep something of the revolution, he is forced to respect the national domain, to guarantee to every one his property, his rank, and everything he has acquired under the new laws. without that, what right would he have to be emperor? if he had not maintained equality why should the nation wish to have him? the others, on the contrary, have attacked everything; they want to destroy everything that we have done. now you understand why i like him better than the others. "ah!" said mother grédel, "that is new!" and she laughed contemptuously. i would have given anything if she had been at quatre vents. "there was a time when you talked otherwise, when he re-established the bishops and the archbishops and the cardinals, when he had himself crowned by the pope, and consecrated with oil from the holy ampoule,[ ] when he recalled the émigrés, when he gave up the chateaux and forests to the great families, when he made princes and dukes and barons by the dozen; how many times have i heard you say that all that was atrocious, that he had betrayed the revolution, that you would have preferred the bourbons, because they did not know any other way, that they were like blackbirds, who only whistle one tune because they know no other, and because they think it the most beautiful air in the world. while he, the result of the revolution, whose father had only a few dozens of goats on the mountains of corsica, should have known that all men are equal, that courage and genius alone elevate them above their fellows,--that he should have despised all those old notions, and that he should have made war only to defend the new rights, the new ideas, which are just and which nothing can arrest: did you not say that, when you were talking with old colin in the rear of our garden, for fear of being arrested--did you not say that between yourselves and before me?" [ ] vial which contains the oil for anointing the kings of france. father goulden had grown quite pale. he looked down at his feet and turned his snuff-box round and round in his fingers as if he were thinking, and i saw his emotion in his face. "yes, i said it," he replied, "and i think so still--you have a good memory, mother grédel. it is true that for ten years colin and i have been obliged to hide ourselves if we spoke of events that will certainly be accomplished, and it is the despotism of one man born among us, whom we have sustained with our own blood, which compelled us to do that. but to-day everything is changed. the man, to whom you cannot deny genius, has seen his sycophants abandon and betray him; he has seen that his strength lies in the people, and that those alliances of which he had the weakness to be so proud, were the cause of his ruin. he has come now to rid us of the others, and i am glad." "then you have no faith in yourself, eh? have you any need of him?" exclaimed aunt grédel. "if the processions annoyed you, and if you were, as you say, 'the people,' why do you need him?" father goulden smiled, and said, "if everybody had the courage to follow his own conscience, and if so many persons who joined the processions had not done so from vanity or to show their fine clothes, and if others had not joined from interest, from the hope of getting a good office, or to obtain permits, then madame grédel you would be right, and we should not have needed bonaparte to overturn all that, and you would have seen that three-quarters of the people had common-sense, and perhaps even the comte d'artois himself would have cried, hold! but as hypocrisy and interest hide and obscure everything and make night out of the broad day, unhappily we must have thunder-bolts to make us see clearly. it is you, and those who are like you, who have caused those who have never changed their opinions, to rejoice when fever takes the place of colic." father goulden rose and walked up and down in great agitation, and as aunt grédel was going on again, he took his cap and went out, saying: "i have given you my opinions. now talk to joseph; he thinks you are always right." as soon as he had gone, mother grédel cried out: "he is an old fool, and he has been, always! now, as for you, if you do not go to switzerland, i warn you, you will be obliged to go, god knows where. but we will talk about that another time, the principal thing is to warn you. we will wait and see what happens; perhaps bonaparte will be arrested, but if he reaches paris, we will go somewhere else." she embraced us and took her basket and went away. a few minutes afterward, father goulden came in and we sat down to our work and said no more about these things. we were very sober, and at night i was more than ever surprised, when catherine said: "we will always listen to mr. goulden, he is right and will give us good counsel." on hearing that, i thought that she agreed with father goulden because they read the gazette together. that gazette always says what just pleases them, but that does not prevent it being very terrible if we are obliged to take our guns and knapsacks again, and it would be better to be in switzerland, either at geneva, or at father rulle's manufactory or at chaux-de-fonds, than at leipzig, and those other places. i did not wish to contradict catherine, but her remarks annoyed me greatly. xii from that moment there was confusion everywhere, the half-pay officers shouted, "_vive l'empereur_." the commandant gave orders to arrest them, but the battalion did the same thing, and the gendarmes seemed to be deaf. nobody was at work; the tax-gatherers and overseers, the mayor and his counsellors, grew gray with uncertainty, not knowing on which foot they should dance. nobody dared to come out for bonaparte, or for louis xviii., except the slaters and masons and knife-grinders, who could not lose their offices and who wished for nothing better than to see others in their places. with their hatchets stuck in their leather belts and a bag of chips on their shoulders, they did not hesitate to shout, "down with the émigrés," they laughed at the troubles, which increased visibly. one day the gazette said, the usurper is at grenoble, the next he is at lyons, the next at mâcon, and the next at auxerre, and so on. father goulden was in good-humor as he read the news at night, and he would say: "they can see now that the frenchmen are for the revolution, and that the others cannot hold out. everybody says, 'down with the _émigrés_.' what a lesson for those who can see clearly! those bourbons wanted to make us all vendéeans, they ought to rejoice that they have succeeded so well." but one thing troubled him still, that was the great battle which was announced between ney and napoleon. "although ney has kissed the hand of the king, yet he is an old soldier, and i will never believe that he will fight against the will of the people. no, it is not possible, he will remember the old cooper of saar-louis, who would break his head with his hammer, if he were still living, on learning that michel had betrayed the country in order to please the king." that was what mr. goulden said, but that did not prevent people from being uneasy, when suddenly the news arrived that he had followed the example of the army and the bourgeoisie and all those who wished to be rid of the atonements, and that he had rallied with them. then there was greater confidence, but still prudent men were silent in view of what might happen. on the st of march, between five and six in the evening, mr. goulden and i were at work; it had begun to grow dark, and catherine was lighting the lamp, a gentle rain was falling on the panes, when theodore roeber, who had charge of the telegraph, passed under our windows, riding a big dapple-gray horse at the top of his speed, his blouse filled out by the air, he went so fast, and he was holding his great felt hat on with one hand, while he kept striking his horse with a whip which he held in the other, though he was galloping like the wind. father goulden wiped the glass and leaned over to see better, and said: "that is roeber, who is coming from the telegraph, some great news has arrived." his pale cheeks reddened, and i felt my heart beat violently. catherine came and placed the lamp near us, and i opened the window to close the shutter. that took me some moments, as i was obliged to disarrange the glasses on the work-table, and take down the watches before i could do it. mr. goulden seemed lost in thought. just as i had fastened the window, we heard the assembly beat from both sides of the city at once, from the bastion of the mittelbronn and from bigelberg, the echoes from the ramparts and from the target valley responded, and a dull rumbling filled the air, mr. goulden rose, saying: "the matter is decided at last," in a tone which made me shudder. "either they are fighting near paris, or the emperor is in his old palace as he was in ." catherine ran for his cloak, for she saw plainly he was going out in spite of the rain. he was speaking with his great gray eyes wide open, and took no notice as she slipped on the sleeves, and as he went out catherine touched me on the shoulder--i was still sitting--and said: "go, joseph, follow him." we reached the square just as the battalion filed out of the broad street at the corner by the mayor's, behind the drummers, who had their drums over their shoulders. a great crowd followed them. when they reached the great lindens, the drums recommenced, and the soldiers hurriedly got into their ranks, and almost immediately the commandant gémeau, who was suffering from his wounds and had not been out for two months appeared on the steps of the "minque." a sapper held his horse by the bridle, and gave him his shoulder to mount. everybody was looking on, and the roll commenced. the commandant crossed the square, and the captains went quickly up to meet him; he said a few words to them, and then passed in front of the battalion, followed by a sergeant with three chevrons, who carried a flag in its oil-cloth case. the crowd increased every moment. mr. goulden had mounted on the stone posts in front of the arch of the guard-house. after the roll was called, the commandant waited a moment and then drew his sword and gave the order to form a square. i tell you these things in a simple way, because they were simple and terrible. the commandant was very pale, and we could see, though it was almost night, that he had fever. the gray lines of soldiers in the square, the commandant on horseback, the officers around him in the rain, the listening citizens, the profound silence, the opening of the windows in the vicinity, all are present to my mind though fifty years have passed since then. not a word was said, for we all felt that we were going to learn the fate of france. "carry arms! shoulder arms!" after this nothing was heard but the voice of the commandant, that voice which i had heard on the other side of the rhine at lutzen and leipzig, saying: "close the ranks." the words went through my very marrow. "soldiers!" said he, "louis xviii. left paris on the th of march, and the emperor napoleon made his entry into the capital the same day." a sort of shiver went through the crowd, but it lasted for a moment only, and the commandant continued: "soldiers, the flag of france is the flag of arcola, of rivoli, of alexandria, of chébreisse, of the pyramids, of aboukir, of marengo, of austerlitz, and of jena, of eylau, of friedland, of sommo-sierra, of madrid, of abensberg, of eckmül, of essling, of wagram, of smolensk, of moscowa, of weissenfels, of lutzen, of bautzen, of wurtschen, of dresden, of bischofswarda, of hanau, of brienne, of saint dizier, of champaubert, of chateau-thierry, of joinvilliers, of méry-sur-seine, of montereau, and of montmirail. it is the flag which we have dyed with our blood, and it is that which makes it our glory." the old sergeant had drawn the torn flag from its case, and the commandant continued: "here is the flag! you recognize it; it is the flag of the nation, it is that flag which the russians and austrians and prussians took from us on the day of their first victory, because they feared it." a great number of the old soldiers, on hearing these words, turned away their heads to hide their tears; while others, deathly pale, looked and listened with flashing eyes. "i," said the commandant, raising his sword, "know no other. _vive la france! vive l'empereur!_" the words had hardly left his mouth when from every window, from the square, from the streets, rose the shouts, "_vive la france! vive l'empereur!_" like the blast of a trumpet. the people and the soldiers embraced each other, you would have thought that everything was safe, that we had found all that france lost in . it was almost dark, and the people went away in companies of threes, sixes, and twenties, shouting, "_vive l'empereur!_" when near the hospital a red flash lighted up the sky, the cannon thundered, another responded from the rear of the arsenal, and so they continued to roar from second to second. mr. goulden and i left the square arm in arm, crying, "_vive l'empereur!_" also, and as at each discharge of cannon the flash lighted up the square, in one of them we saw catherine, who was coming to meet us with old madelon schouler. she had put on her little cloak and hood, protecting her rosy little nose from the mist, and she exclaimed, on seeing us: "there they are, madelon! the emperor is master, is he not, mr. goulden?" "yes, my child," he replied, "it is decided." catherine took my arm, and i kissed her two or three times as we were going home. perhaps i felt that we should soon be forced to part, and that then, it would be long before i should kiss her again. father goulden and madelon were before us, and he said: "come up, madelon; i want to drink a good glass of wine with you." but she declined, and left us at the door. i can only say that the joy of the people was as great as on the return of louis xviii., and perhaps still greater. father goulden took off his cloak and sat down in his place at table, as supper was waiting. catherine ran down to the cellar and brought up a bottle of good wine, we laughed and drank while the cannon made our windows rattle. sometimes people's heads are turned, even those who love nothing but peace. so the sound of the cannon made us happy, and we went back in a measure to our old habits. "the commandant," said mr. goulden, "spoke well, but he might have kept on till to-morrow with his victories, commencing with valmy, hundschott, wattignies, fleurus, neuwied, ukerath, fröeschwiller, geisberg, to zurich and hohenlinden. these were also great victories, and even the most splendid of all, for they preserved liberty. he only spoke of the last ones, that was enough for the moment. let those people come! let them dare to move! the nation wants peace, but if the allies commence war woe be unto them. now we shall again talk of liberty, equality, and fraternity. all france will be roused by it, i warn you beforehand. there will be a national guard, and the old men like me and the married men will defend the towns, while the younger ones will march, but no one will cross the frontiers. the emperor, taught by experience, will arm the artisans, the peasants, and the bourgeoisie, and when we are attacked, even if they are a million, not one shall escape. the day for soldiers is past, regular armies are for conquest, but a people who can defend themselves do not fear the best armies in the world. we proved that to the prussians and austrians, to the english and the russians from to , and since then the spaniards have shown us the same thing, and even before that, the americans demonstrated it to the english. the emperor will speak to us of liberty, be sure of that; and if he will send his proclamations into germany, many germans will be with us; they were promised liberty in order to make them rise against france, and now the sovereigns in conference at vienna mock at their own promises. their plan is fixed. they divide the people among themselves as they would a flock of sheep. those who have good sense will unite, and in that way peace will be established by force. the kings alone have any interest in war, the people do not need to conquer themselves, provided that they arrange for the freedom of commerce, that is the principal thing." in his excitement everything looked bright to him. and all that he said seemed to me so natural, that i was sure that the emperor would direct matters as we had supposed. catherine believed it too. we thanked god for what had come, and about eleven o'clock, after having laughed and drank and shouted, we went to bed with the brightest hopes. all the city was illuminated, and we had put lamps in our windows also. every moment we heard the crackers in the street and the children were shouting, "vive l'empereur!" and the soldiers were coming out of the inns, singing, "down with the émigrés." this lasted till very late, and it was one o'clock before we slept. xiii this general satisfaction continued for five or six days. the old mayors and their assistants were replaced as well as the field-guards, and all those who had been displaced a few months before. the whole city, even the women, wore little tri-colored cockades, and all the seamstresses were busily at work making them, of red, white, and blue ribbon; and those who railed so bitterly against the "ogre of corsica," never spoke of louis xviii. except as the "panada king." on the th of march a te deum was sung, the garrison and all the civil authorities joining in the service with great ceremony. after the te deum, the authorities gave a grand dinner to the officers of the garrison at the "ville de metz." the weather was fine and the windows were open, and the hall was lighted by clusters of lamps hanging from the ceiling. catherine and i went out in the evening to enjoy the spectacle. we could see the uniforms and the black coats sitting side by side around the long tables, and first the mayor would rise, and then his assistants, or the new commandant of the post, mr. brandon, to drink to the health of the emperor or of his ministers, of france, to peace or to victory, etc., etc., and this they kept up till midnight. inside the glasses jingled, and outside the children fired crackers. they had erected a climbing pole before the church, and wooden horses and organ-grinders had come from saverne, and there was a holiday at the college. in klein's court, at the "ox," there was a fight between dogs and donkeys; in short, it was just as it was in and in , and afterward. the people never invent anything new to glorify those who rise, or to express their contempt for those who fall. but they soon found out that the emperor had no time to lose in rejoicings. the gazette said that "his majesty wished for peace, that he made no demands, that he was on good terms with his father-in-law the emperor francis, that marie louise and the king of rome were to return, they were daily expected," etc. but meanwhile the order arrived to arm the place. two years before pfalzbourg was a hundred leagues from the frontier. the ramparts were in ruins, the ditches filled up, and there was nothing in the arsenal but miserable old muskets of the time of louis xiv., which were discharged with matches; and the guns were so unwieldy on their heavy carriages, that horses were required to move them. the arsenals were really at dresden and hamburg and erfurt; but though we had not stirred, we were ten leagues from rhenish bavaria, and it was upon us that the first shower of bombs and bullets would fall. so, day after day, we received orders to restore the earthworks and to clear out the ditches and to put the old ordnance in good condition. at the beginning of april a great workshop was established at the arsenal for repairing the arms, and skilful engineers and artillerists arrived from metz to repair the earthworks of the bastions and make terraces around the embrasures. the activity was very great--greater than in and in , and i thought more than once that these extensive frontiers had their good side, because we might in the interior live in peace, while they took the blows and bombardments. but we had great anxiety, for naturally when the palisades were newly planted on the glacis, and the half-moons filled with fascines, when cannon were placed in every nook and corner, we knew that there must be soldiers to guard and serve them. often as we heard these decrees read at night, catherine and i looked at each other in mute apprehension. i felt beforehand that instead of remaining quietly at home, cleaning and mending clocks, i would be obliged to be again on the march, and that always made me sad; and this melancholy increased from day to day. sometimes father goulden, seeing this, would say cheerfully: "come! joseph, courage! all will come right at last." he wished to raise my spirits, but i thought: "yes, he says that to encourage me, but any one who is not blind can see what turn affairs will take." events followed each other so rapidly, that the decrees came like hail, always with sounding phrases and grand words to embellish them. and we learned too that the regiments were to take their old numbers, "illustrious in so many glorious campaigns." without being very malicious, we could understand that the old numbers which had no regiments would soon find them again. and not only that, but we learned that the skeletons of the third, fourth, and fifth battalions of infantry, the fourth and fifth squadrons of cavalry, and thirty battalions of artillery trains were to be filled up, and twenty regiments of the young guard, ten battalions of military equipages, and twenty regiments of marines were to be formed, ostensibly to give employment to all the half-pay officers of both arms of the service, land and naval. that was very well to say; but when they are created they are to be filled up, and when they are full the soldiers must go. when i saw that, my confidence vanished, but yet everybody cried, "peace, peace, peace! we accept the treaty of paris. the kings and emperors convened at vienna are our friends. marie louise and the king of rome are coming." the more i heard of these things, the more my distrust increased. in vain mr. goulden would say, "he has taken carnot into his counsels. carnot is a good patriot; carnot will prevent him from going to war, or if we are forced to go to war, he will show him that the enemy must come here to find us, the nation must be roused, declare the country in danger, etc." in vain did he tell me these things, i always said to myself, "all these new regiments are to be filled; that is certain." we heard also that ten thousand picked men were to be added to the old guard, and that the light artillery was to be reorganized. everybody knows that light artillery follows the army. to remain behind the ramparts or for defence at home, it is useless. i came to this conclusion at once, and though i was generally careful to conceal my anxiety from catherine, yet this night i could not help telling her so. she said nothing, which shows plainly that she had good sense and that she thought so too. all these things diminished my enthusiasm for the emperor very much indeed, and i sometimes said to myself as i was at work, "i would rather see processions going past my windows, than to go and fight against people whom i never saw." at least the sight would cost me neither leg nor arm, and if it annoyed me too much i could make an excursion to quatre vents. my vexation increased the more, as since the dispute with mr. goulden, aunt grédel did not come to see us. she was a very wilful woman and would not listen to reason, and would hold resentment against a person for years and years. but she was our mother, and it was our duty to yield something to her as she wished us only good. but how could we be reconciled to her ideas and those of mr. goulden? this was what embarrassed us, for if we were bound to love aunt grédel, we owed also the most profound respect to him, who looked upon us as his own children, and who loaded us every day with his benefits. these thoughts made us sad, and i had resolved to tell mr. goulden, that catherine and i were jacobins like himself, but without doing injustice to jacobin ideas, or abandoning them, we ought to honor our mother, and go and inquire after her health. i did not know how he would receive this declaration, when one sunday morning, as we went down about eight o'clock, we found him dressed, and in excellent humor. he said to us, "children, here it is more than a month since aunt grédel has been to see us. she is obstinate. i wish to show her that i can yield. between friends like us, there should not be even a shadow of difference. after breakfast we will go to quatre vents, and tell her that she is prejudiced, and that we love her in spite of her faults. you will see how ashamed she will be." he laughed, but we were quite touched by his generosity. "ah! mr. goulden, how good and kind you are," said catherine, "they who do not love you, must have very bad hearts." "ha!" he exclaimed, "is not what i have done quite natural? must we let a few words separate us? thank god! age teaches us to be more reasonable and to be willing to take the first step,--that you know is one of the principles of the rights of man,--in order to maintain concord between reasonable persons." everything was summed up, when he had quoted the "rights of man." you can hardly imagine our satisfaction. catherine could hardly wait till breakfast was over, she was here and there and everywhere, to bring his hat and cane and his shoes and the box which held his beautiful peruke. she helped him on with his brown coat, while he laughed as he watched her, and at last he kissed her saying, "i knew this would make you happy, so do not let us lose a minute, let us go." we all set off together, father goulden gravely giving his arm to catherine, as he always did in the street, and i marched on behind as happy as possible. those i loved best in the world were here before my eyes, and as i went on i thought of what i should say to aunt grédel. the weather was splendid, and on we went beyond the wall and the glacis, and in twenty minutes, without hurrying, we stood before aunt grédel's door. it might have been ten o'clock, and as i had gained a little on them at the "roulette" i went in by the alley of elders that ran along the side of the house, and looked into the little window to see what aunt was doing. she was seated right opposite me near the fireplace, in which a little fire was smouldering, she had on her short skirt, striped with blue, with great pockets on the outside, and her linen corsage with shoulder-straps, and her old shoes. she was spinning away, with her eyes cast down, looking very sober, her great thin arms naked to the elbow, and her gray hair twisted up in her neck without any cap. "poor aunt grédel," thought i, "she is thinking of us no doubt--and she is so obstinate in her vexation. it is sad though, all the same, to live alone and never see her children." it made me sad to see her. at that moment the door opened on the side next the street, and father goulden walked in with catherine, as happy as possible, exclaiming: "ha! mother grédel, you do not come to see us any more, therefore i have brought your children to see you, and have come myself to embrace you. you will have to get us a good dinner, do you hear? and that will teach you a lesson." he seemed a little grave with all his joy. on seeing them, aunt sprang up and embraced catherine, and then she fell into mr. goulden's arms and hung on his neck: "ah! mr. goulden, how happy i am to see you. you are a good man; you are worth a thousand of me." seeing that matters had taken a pleasant turn, i ran round to the door and found them both with their eyes full of tears. father goulden said: "we will talk no more politics!" "no! but whether one is jacobin or anything else you will, the principal thing is to keep in good temper." she then came and embraced me, and said: "my poor joseph! i have been thinking of you from morning till night. but all is well now and i am satisfied." she ran into the kitchen and commenced bustling among the kettles to prepare something to regale us with, while mr. goulden placed his cane in a corner and hung his great hat upon it, and sat down with an air of contentment near the hearth. "what fine weather!" he exclaimed, "how green and flourishing everything is! how happy i should be to live in the fields, to see the hedges and apple-trees and plum-trees from my windows, covered with their red and white blossoms!" he was gay as a lark, and we all should have been except for the thoughts of the war which were constantly coming into our heads. "leave all that, mother," said catherine, "i will get the dinner to-day as i used to do; go and sit down quietly with mr. goulden." "but you do not know where anything is, i have disarranged everything," said aunt. "sit down, i beg you," said catherine, "i shall find the butter and the eggs and the flour and everything that is necessary." "well, well! i am going to obey you," said she, as she went down to the cellar. catherine took off her pretty shawl and hung it on the back of my chair, then she put some wood on the fire and some butter in a saucepan and looked into the kettles to see that everything was in order. aunt came in at that moment with a bottle of white wine. "you will first refresh yourselves a little before dinner, and while catherine looks after the kitchen i will go and put on my sacque and give my hair a touch with the comb, for certainly it needs it, and you--go into the orchard;--here, joseph, take these glasses and the bottle and go and sit in the bee-house, the weather is fine, in an hour all will be in order and i will come and drink with you." father goulden and i went out through the tall grass and the yellow dandelions which came up to our knees. it was very warm and the air was full of soft murmurs. we sat down in the shade and looked at the glorious sunshine. mr. goulden took off his peruke in order to be more at his ease and hung it up behind him, and i opened the bottle and we drank some of the good white wine. "well! all goes on even though man does commit follies; the lord god watches over all his works. look at the grain, joseph, how it grows! what a harvest there will be in three or four months. and those turnips and cabbages, and the shrubs, and the bees, how busy everything is, how they live and grow! what a pity it is that men do not follow so good an example! what a pity that some must labor to support the others in idleness. what a pity that there must be always idlers of every kind, who treat us like jacobins because we wish for order and peace and justice!" there was nothing he liked so much to see as industry, not only that of man but even of the smallest insect that runs about in the grass, as in an endless forest, which builds and pairs and covers its eggs, heaps them up in its places of deposit, exposes them to the sunshine, protects them from the chills of night, and defends them from its enemies; in short, all that great universe of life where everything sings, everything is in its place; from the lark which fills the air with his joyous music to the ant which goes and comes and runs and mows and saws and pulls and is master of all trades. this was what pleased mr. goulden, but he never spoke of it except in the fields, when this grand spectacle was right under his eyes, and naturally he then spoke of god, whom he called the "supreme being," as in the time of the republic, and he said, he was reason and wisdom and goodness and love; justice, order, and life. the ideas of the almanac-makers came back to him also, and it was splendid to hear him talk of the "pluviose" the season of rains, of "nivose" the season of snows, of "ventose" season of winds, and "floreal, prairial, and fructidor." he said the ideas of men in those times were more closely allied to god's, while july, september, and october meant nothing, and were only invented to confuse and obscure everything. once on this subject it was plain that he could not exhaust it. unfortunately i have not the learning that that good man had, otherwise it would give me real pleasure to recount his sayings to you. we were just here when mother grédel, well washed and combed and in her sunday dress, came round the corner of the house toward us. he stopped instantly that she might not be disturbed. "here i am," she said, "all in order." "sit down," said father goulden, making a place for her beside him on the bench. "do you know what time it is?" said she. "does it not seem long to you? listen!" and we heard the city clock slowly strike twelve. "what! is it noon already! i would not have believed that we had been here more than ten minutes." "yes, it is noon, and dinner is waiting." "so much the better," said mr. goulden, offering his arm to her, "since you have told me the hour i find i have a good appetite." they went along the alley arm in arm, and when we were at the door a most charming sight met our eyes, the great tureen with its red flowers was smoking on the table, a breast of stuffed veal filled the room with a delicious odor. a great plate of cinnamon cakes stood on the edge of the old oak buffet, two bottles of wine, and glasses clear as crystal, shone on the white cloth beside the plates. the very sight of it made you feel that it is the joy of the lord to shower blessings on his children. catherine, with her rosy cheeks and white teeth, laughed to see our satisfaction, and during the whole dinner our anxiety for the future was forgotten. we laughed and were as happy as if the world were in the best condition possible. but as we were taking coffee our sadness returned, and without knowing why, we were all very grave. nobody wished to speak of politics, when suddenly aunt grédel herself asked if there was anything new. mr. goulden then said that the emperor desired peace, and that he wished to put himself in a condition of defence, in order to warn our enemies that we were not afraid. he said that in any case, in spite of the ill-feeling of the allies they would not dare to attack us, that the emperor francis, though he had not much heart, would not wish to overthrow his son-in-law and his own daughter and grandson a second time, that it would be contrary to nature, and besides that, the nation would rise _en masse_, that they would declare the country to be in danger, and that it would not be a war of soldiers alone, but of all frenchmen against those who wished to oppress them, that this would make the allied sovereigns reflect, etc., etc. he said many other things which i do not recall. aunt grédel listened without saying a word. she rose at last, and went to a closet and took a piece of paper from a porringer, and, giving it to mr. goulden, said, "read this; such papers are all around the country; this came to me from the vicar diemer. you will see whether peace is so certain." as mr. goulden had left his spectacles at home, i read the paper. i put all those old papers aside years and years ago, they have grown yellow and no one thinks of them or speaks of them, and still it is well to read them. how do we know what will happen? those old kings and emperors died after doing us all the harm possible, but their sons and grandsons still live, and do not wish us overmuch good, and that which they said then they may say again now, and those who lent their aid to the fathers might incline to help their sons. here is the paper. "the allied powers which signed the treaty of paris, assembled in congress at vienna, having been informed of the escape of napoleon bonaparte, and of his entrance into france with arms in his hands, owe it to their dignity and to the interest of social order to make a solemn declaration of the sentiments which this event has excited. in violating the terms of the convention which placed him at elba, bonaparte destroyed his only legal title to life; and in reappearing in france with projects for disturbing the public peace, he has deprived himself of the protection of the laws, and made it manifest to the universe that there can be neither truce nor peace with him." and so they continued through two long pages, and those people who had nothing in common with us, who had no concern with our affairs, and who gave themselves the title of defenders of the peace, finished by declaring that they united themselves to maintain the treaty of paris and replace louis xviii. on the throne. when i had finished, aunt turned to mr. goulden and asked: "what do you think of all that?" "i think," said he, "that those sovereigns despise the people, and that they would exterminate the human race without shame or pity in order to maintain fifteen or twenty families in luxury. they look upon themselves as gods, and upon us as brutes." "doubtless," replied aunt grédel. "i do not deny it, but all that will not prevent joseph from being compelled to go away." i turned quite pale, for i saw that she was right. "yes," said mr. goulden, "i knew that some days ago, and this is what i have done. you have heard, no doubt, mother grédel, that great workshops have been built for repairing arms. there is an arsenal at pfalzbourg, but they are in want of skilful workmen. of course the good laborers render as much service to the state in repairing arms as those who go to battle; they have more to do, but they do not risk their lives, and they remain at home. well! i went at once to the commandant of artillery, and asked him to accept joseph as a workman. it is nothing for a good clock-maker to repair a gun-lock, and mr. montravel accepted him at once. here is his order," said he, showing us a paper which he took from his pocket. i felt as if i had returned to life, and i exclaimed, "oh! mr. goulden, you are more than a father; you have saved my life." catherine, who had been overwhelmed with anxiety, got up and went out, and aunt grédel kissed mr. goulden twice over, and said, "yes, you are the best of men, a man of sense and of a great spirit. if all jacobins were like you, women would wish only for jacobins." "but it was the most simple thing in the world to do!" "no, no; it is your good heart which gives you good thoughts." words failed me in my joy and astonishment, and while aunt was speaking i went out into the orchard to take the air. catherine was there in a corner of the bake-house, weeping hot tears. "ah! now i can breathe again," she said, "now i can live." i embraced her with deep emotion. i saw what she had suffered during the last month, but she was a brave woman, and had concealed her anxiety from me, knowing that i had enough on my own account. we stayed for ten minutes in the orchard to wipe away our tears, and then went in. mr. goulden said: "well, joseph! you go to-morrow; you must set off early, and you will not lack work." oh! what joy to think i should not be compelled to go away, and then too i had other reasons for wishing to remain at home, for catherine and i already had our hopes. ah! those who have not suffered cannot realize our feelings, nor understand what a weight this good news lifted from our hearts. we stayed an hour longer at quatre vents, and as the people were coming from vespers, at nightfall, we set off for the town. aunt grédel went with us to where the post changes horses, and at seven o'clock we were at home again. it was thus that peace was established between aunt grédel and mr. goulden, and now she came to see us as often as before. i went every day to the arsenal and worked at repairing the guns. when the clock struck twelve i went home to dinner, and at one returned to my work and stayed until seven o'clock. i was at once soldier and workman, excused from roll-call but overwhelmed with work. we hoped that i could remain in that position till the war was over, if unfortunately it commenced again, but we were sure of nothing. xiv our confidence returned a little after i worked at the arsenal, but still we were anxious, for hundreds of men on furloughs for six months, conscripts, and old soldiers enlisted for one campaign, passed through the town in citizens' clothes but with knapsacks on their backs. they all shouted "_vive l'empereur!_" and seemed to be furious. in the great hall of the town-house they received one a cloak, another a shako, and others epaulettes and gaiters and shoes, at the expense of the department, and off they went, and i wished them a pleasant journey. all the tailors in town were making uniforms by contract, the gendarmes gave up their horses to mount the cavalry, and the mayor, baron parmentier, urged the young men of sixteen and seventeen to join the partisans of colonel bruce, who defended the defiles of the zorne, the zinselle, and the saar. the baron was going to the "champ de mai," and his enthusiasm redoubled. "go!" cried he, "courage!" as he spoke to them of the romans who fought for their country. i thought to myself as i listened to him, "if you think all that so beautiful why do you not go yourself." you can imagine with what courage i worked at the arsenal; nothing was too much for me. i would have passed night and day in mending the guns and adjusting the bayonets and tightening the screws. when the commandant, mr. montravel, came to see us, he praised me. "excellent!" said he, "that is good! i am pleased with you, bertha." these words filled me with satisfaction, and i did not fail to report them to catherine, in order to raise her spirits. we were almost certain that mr. montravel would keep me at pfalzbourg. the gazettes were full of the new constitution, which they called the "additional act," and the act of the "champ de mai." mr. goulden always had something to say, sometimes about one article and sometimes another, but i mixed no more in these affairs, and repented of having complained of the processions and expiations; i had had enough of politics. this lasted till the d of may. that morning about ten o'clock i was in the great hall of the arsenal, filling the boxes with guns. the great door was wide open, and the men were waiting with their wagons before the bullet park, to load up the boxes. i had nailed the last one, when robert, the guard, touched me on the shoulder and said in my ear: "bertha, the commandant montravel wishes to see you. he is in the pavilion." "what does he want of me?" "i do not know." i was afraid directly, but i went at once. i crossed the grand court, near the sheds for the gun-carriages, mounted the stairs, and knocked softly at the door. "come in," said the commandant. i opened the door all in a tremble, and stood with my cap in my hand. mr. montravel was a tall, brown, thin man, with a little stoop in his shoulders. he was walking hastily up and down his room, in the midst of his books and maps, and arms hung on the wall. "ah! bertha, it is you, is it? i have disagreeable news to tell you, the third battalion to which you belong leaves for metz." on hearing this my heart sank, and i could not say a word. he looked at me, and after a moment he added: "do not be troubled, you have been married for several months, and you are a good workman, and that deserves consideration. you will give this letter to colonel desmichels at the arsenal at metz; he is one of my friends, and will find employment in some of his workshops for you, you may be certain." i took the letter which he handed me, thanked him, and went home filled with alarm. zébédé, mr. goulden, and catherine were talking together in the shop, distress was written on every face. they knew everything. "the third battalion is going," i said as i entered, "but mr. montravel has just given me a letter to the director of the arsenal at metz. do not be anxious, i shall not make the campaign." i was almost choking. mr. goulden took the letter and said, "it is open; we can read it." then he read the letter, in which mr. montravel recommended me to his friend, saying that i was married, a good workman, industrious, and that i could render real service at the arsenal. he could have said nothing better. "now the matter is certain," said zébédé. "yes, you will be retained in the arsenal at metz," said father goulden. catherine was very pale, she kissed me and said, "what happiness, joseph!" they all pretended to believe that i should remain at metz, and i tried to hide my fears from them. but the effort almost suffocated me, and i could hardly avoid sobbing, when happily i thought i would go and announce the news to aunt grédel. so i said, "although it will not be very long, and i shall stay in metz, yet i must go and tell the good news to aunt grédel. i will be back between five and six, and catherine will have time to prepare my haversack, and we will have supper." "yes, joseph, go!" said father goulden. catherine said not a word, for she could hardly restrain her tears. i set off like a madman. zébédé, who was returning to the barracks, told me at the door, that the officer in charge at the town-house would give me my uniform, and that i must be there about five o'clock. i listened, as if in a dream, to his words, and ran till i was outside of the city. once on the glacis i ran on without knowing where, in the trenches, and by the trois-châteaux and the baraques-à-en-haut, and along the forest to quatre vents. i cannot describe to you the thoughts that ran through my brain. i was bewildered, and wanted to run away to switzerland. but the worst of all was when i approached quatre vents by the path along the daun. it was about three o'clock. aunt grédel was putting up some poles for her beans, in the rear of the garden, and she saw me in the distance, and said to herself: "why it is joseph! what is he doing in the grain?" but when i got into the road, which was full of ruts and sand and which the sun made as hot as a furnace, i went on more slowly with my head bent down, thinking i should never dare to go in, when, suddenly aunt exclaimed from behind the hedge, "is it you, joseph?" then i shivered. "yes, it is i." she ran out into the little elder alley, and seeing me so pale she said, "i know why you have come, you are going away!" "yes," i replied, "the others are going, but i am to stay in metz; it is very fortunate." she said nothing, and we went into the kitchen, which was very cool compared with the heat outside. she sat down, and i read her the commandant's letter. she listened to it, and repeated, "yes, it is very fortunate." and we sat and looked at each other without speaking a word, and then she took my head between her hands and kissed me, and embraced me for a long time, and i could see she was crying, though she did not say a word. "you weep," said i, "but since i am to stay in metz!" still she did not speak, but went and brought some wine. i took a glass, and she asked, "what does catherine say?" "she is glad that i am to remain at the arsenal; and mr. goulden also." "that is well; and are they preparing what you need?" "yes, aunt grédel, and i must be at the city hall before five o'clock to receive my uniform." "well! then you must go; kiss me, joseph. i will not go with you. i do not wish to see the battalion leave--i will stay here. i must live a long while yet--catherine has need of me--" here her restraint gave way. suddenly she checked herself, and said, "at what time do you leave?" "to-morrow, at seven o'clock, mamma grédel." "well! at eight o'clock i will be there. you will be far away, but you will know that the mother of your wife is there, that she will take care of her daughter, that she loves you, that she has only you in the whole world." the courageous woman sobbed aloud; she accompanied me to the door, and i left her. it seemed as if i had not a drop of blood left in my veins. just as the clock struck five i reached the town-house. i went up and saw that hall again where i had lost, that cursed hall where everybody drew unlucky numbers. i received a cloak and coat, pantaloons, gaiters, and shoes. zébédé, who was waiting for me, told one of the musketeers to take them to the mess-room. "you will come early and put them on," said he; "your musket and knapsack have been in the rack since morning." "come with me," said i. "no, i cannot, the sight of catherine breaks my heart; and besides i must stay with my father. who knows whether i shall find the old man alive at the end of a year? i promised to take supper with you, but i shall not go." i was obliged to go home alone. my haversack was all ready; my old haversack, the only thing i had saved from hanau, as my head rested on it in the wagon. mr. goulden was at work. he turned round without speaking, and i asked, "where is catherine?" "she is upstairs." i knew she was crying, and i wanted to go up, but my legs and my courage both failed me. i told mr. goulden of my visit to quatre-vents, and then we sat and waited, thinking, without daring to look each other in the face. it was already dark when catherine came down. she laid the table in the twilight, and then i took her hand, and made her sit down on my knee, and we remained so for half an hour. then mr. goulden asked: "is not zébédé coming?" "no, he cannot come." "well! let us take our supper then." but no one was hungry. catherine removed the table about nine o'clock, and we all retired. it was the most terrible night i ever passed in my life. catherine was in a deathly swoon. i called her, but she did not answer. at midnight i wakened mr. goulden, and he dressed himself and came up to our chamber. we gave her some sugar-water, when she revived and got up. i cannot tell you everything; i only know that she sank at my feet and begged me not to abandon her, as if i did it voluntarily! but she was crazed. mr. goulden wanted to call a doctor, but i prevented him. toward morning she recovered entirely, and after a long fit of weeping, she fell asleep in my arms. i did not even dare to embrace her, and we went out softly and left her. when we feel all the miseries of life, we exclaim: "why are we in the world? why did we not sleep through the eternal ages? what have we done, that we must see those we love suffer, when we are not in fault? it is not god, but man, who breaks our hearts." after we went downstairs mr. goulden said to me, "she is asleep, she knows nothing of it all, and that is a blessing; you will go before she wakes." i thanked god for his goodness, and we sat waiting for the least sound, till at last the drums beat the assembly. then mr. goulden looked at me very gravely, we rose, and he buckled my knapsack on my shoulders in silence. at last he said: "joseph, go and see the commandant in metz, but count upon nothing; the danger is so great that france has need of all her children for her defence, and this time it is not a question of acquiring from others, but of saving our own country. remember that it is yourself and your wife and all that is dearest to you in the world that is at stake." we went down to the street in silence, embraced each other, and then i went to the barracks. zébédé took me to the mess-room and i put on my uniform. all that i remember after so many years is, that zébédé's father, who was there, took my clothes and made them into a bundle and said he would take them home after our departure; and the battalion filed out by the little rue de lanche through the french gate. a few children ran after us, and the soldiers on guard presented arms; we were _en route_ for _waterloo_. xv at sarrebourg we received tickets for lodgings. mine was for the old printer jârcisse, who knew mr. goulden and aunt grédel, and who made me dine at his table with my new comrade and bedfellow, jean buche, the son of a wood-cutter of harberg, who had never eaten anything but potatoes before he was conscripted. he devoured everything, even to the bones that they set before us. but i was so melancholy, that to hear him crunch the bones made me nervous. father jârcisse tried to console me, but every word he said only increased my pain. we passed the remainder of that day and the following night at sarrebourg. the next day we kept on our route to the village of mézières, the next to the vic, and on to soigne, till on the fifth day we came to metz. i do not need to tell you of our march, of the soldiers white with dust, how we passed one magazine after another, with our knapsacks on our backs, and our guns carried at will, talking, laughing, looking at the young girls as we passed through the villages, at the carts, the manure heaps, the sheds, the hills, and the valleys, without troubling ourselves about anything. and when one is sad and has left his wife at home, and dear friends too, whom he may never see again, all these pass before his eyes like shadows, and a hundred steps more and they too are unthought of. but yet the view of metz, with its tall cathedral and its ancient dwellings, and its frowning ramparts awakened me. two hours before we arrived, we kept thinking we should soon reach the earthworks, and hastened our steps in order the sooner to get into the shade. i thought of colonel desmichels, and had a little--very little, hope. "if fate wills!" i thought, and i felt for my letter. zébédé did not talk to me now, but from time to time he turned his head and looked back at me. it was not exactly as it was in the old campaign, he was sergeant, and i only a common soldier; we loved each other always, but that made a difference of course. jean buche marched along beside me, with his round shoulders and his feet turned in like a wolf. the only thing he said from time to time was, that his shoes hurt him on the march, and that they should only be worn on parade. during two months the drill-sergeant had not been able to make him turn out his toes, or to raise his shoulders, but for all that he could march terribly well in his own fashion, and without being fatigued. at last about five in the afternoon, we reached the outposts. they soon recognized us, and the captain of the guard himself exclaimed, "pass!" the drums rolled, and we entered the oldest town i had ever seen. metz is at the confluence of the seille and the moselle. the houses are four or five stories high; their old walls are full of beams as at saverne and bouxviller, the windows round and square, great and small, on the same line, with shutters and without, some with glass and some without any. it is as old as the mountains and rivers. the roofs project about six feet, spreading their shadows over the black water, in which old shoes, rags, and dead dogs are floating. if you look upward you will be sure to see the face of some old jew at the windows in the roof, with his gray beard and crooked nose, or a child who is risking his neck. properly speaking, it is a city of jews and soldiers. poor people are not wanting either. it is much worse in this respect than at mayence, or at strasbourg, or even at frankfort. if they have not changed since then, they love their ease now. in spite of my sadness i could not help looking at these lanes and alleys. the town swarmed with national guards; they were arriving from longwy, from sarrelouis and other places; the soldiers left and were replaced by these guards. we came upon a square encumbered with beds and mattresses, bedding, etc., which the citizens had furnished for the troops. we stacked arms in front of the barracks, every window of which was open from top to bottom. we waited, thinking we should be lodged there, but at the end of twenty minutes the distribution commenced, and each man received twenty-five sous and a ticket for lodging. we broke rank, each one going his own way. jean buche, who had never seen any other town than pfalzbourg, did not leave me for a moment. our ticket was for elias meyer, butcher, in the rue st. valery. when we reached the house the butcher was cutting meat in the arched and grated window, and was anything but pleased to see us, and received us very ungraciously. he was a fat, red, round-faced jew, with silver rings on his fingers and in his ears. his thin, yellow-skinned wife came down exclaiming that they had "had lodgers for two nights before, that the mayor's secretary did it on purpose, that he sent soldiers every day, and that the neighbors did not have them," and so on. but they allowed us to enter after all. the daughter came and stared at us, and behind her was a fat servant-woman, frizzled and very dirty. i seem to see those people before me still, in that old room with its oak wainscoting, and the great copper lamp hanging from the ceiling, and the grated window looking into the little court. the daughter, who was very pale and had very black eyes, said something to her mother and then the servant was ordered to show us to the garret, to the beggars' chamber, for all the jews feed and shelter beggars on friday. my comrade from harberg did not complain, but i was indignant. we followed the servant up a winding stair slippery with filth, to the room. it was separated from the rest of the garret by slats, through which we could see the dirty linen. it was lighted by a little window like a lozenge in the roof. even if i had not been so miserable i should have thought it abominable. there was only one chair and a straw mattress on the floor and one single coverlet for us both. the servant stood staring at us at the door, as if she expected thanks or compliments. i took off my knapsack, sad enough as you can imagine, and jean buche did the same. the servant turned to go downstairs when i cried out: "wait a minute, we will go down too, we do not want to break our necks on those stairs." we changed our shoes and stockings and fastened the door and went down to the shop to buy some meat. jean went to the baker opposite for some bread, and as our ticket gave us a place at the fire we went to the kitchen to make our soup. the butcher came to see us just as we were finishing our supper. he was smoking a big ulm pipe. he asked where we were from. i was so indignant i would not answer him, but jean buche told him that i was a watch-maker from pfalzbourg, upon which he treated me with more consideration. he said that his brother travelled in alsace and lorraine, with watches, rings, watch-chains, and other articles of silver and gold, and jewelry, and that his name was samuel meyer, and perhaps we had had business with him. i replied that i had seen his brother two or three times at mr. goulden's, which was true. thereupon he ordered the servant to bring us a pillow, but he did nothing more for us and we went to bed. we were very weary and were soon sound asleep. i thought to get up very early and go to the arsenal, but i was still asleep when my comrade shook me and said: "the assembly!" i listened--it was the assembly! we only had time to dress, buckle on our knapsacks, take our guns, and run down. when we reached the barracks the roll-call had begun. when it was finished two wagons came up, and we received fifty ball-cartridges each. the commandant gémeau, the captains, and all the officers were there. i saw that all was over, that i had nothing to count on longer, and that my letter to colonel desmichels might be good after the campaign was over, if i escaped and should be obliged to serve out my seven years. zébédé looked at me from a distance--i turned away my head. the order came: "carry arms! arms at will! by file! left! forward! march!" the drums rolled, we marked step, and the roofs, the houses, the windows, the lanes, and the people seemed to glide past us. we crossed over the first bridge and the drawbridge. the drums ceased to beat and we went on toward thionville. the other troops followed the same route, cavalry and infantry. that night we reached the village of beauregard, the next night we were at vitry, near thionville, where we were stationed till the th of june. buche and i were lodged with a fat landlord named pochon. he was a very good man and gave us excellent white wine to drink, and liked to talk politics like mr. goulden. during our stay in this village general schoeffer came from thionville, and we went to be reviewed with our arms at a large farm called "silvange." it is a woody country, and we often went, several of us together, to make excursions in the vicinity. one day zébédé came and took me to see the great foundry at moyeuvre where we saw then run bullets and bombs. we talked about catherine and mr. goulden, and he told me to write to them, but somehow i was afraid to hear from home, and i turned my thoughts away from pfalzbourg. on the th of june we left this village very early in the morning, returning near to metz but without entering the city. the city gates were shut and the cannon frowned on the walls as in time of war. we slept at chatel, and the next day we were at etain, the day following at dannevoux, where i was lodged with a good patriot named sebastian perrin. he was a rich man, and wanted to know the details of everything. as a great number of battalions had followed the same route before us, he said, "in a month perhaps we shall see great things, all the troops are marching into belgium. the emperor is going to fall upon the english and prussians." this was the last place where we had good supplies. the next day we arrived at yong, which is in a miserable country. we slept on the th of june at vivier, and the th at cul-de-sard. the farther we advanced the more troops we encountered, and as i had seen these things in germany, i said to jean buche: "now we shall have hot work." on all sides and in every direction, files of infantry, cavalry, and artillery, were seen as far as the eye could reach. the weather was as delightful as possible, and nothing could be more promising than the ripening grain. but it was very hot. what astonished me was, that neither before nor behind, on the right hand nor on the left could we discover any enemies. nobody knew anything about them. the rumor circulated amongst us that we were to attack the english. i had seen the russians, prussians, austrians, bavarians and wurtemburgers and the swedes. i knew the people of all the countries in the world, and now i was going to make the acquaintance of the english also. if we must be exterminated, i thought, it might as well be done by them as by the germans. we could not avoid our fate--if i was to escape, i should escape, but if i were doomed to leave my bones here, all i could do would avail nothing--but the more we destroyed of them the greater would be the chances for us. this was the way i reasoned with myself, and if it did me no good it caused me at least no harm. xvi we passed the meuse on the th, and during the th and th we marched along the wretched roads, bordered with grain fields, barley, oats, and hemp, without end. the heat was extraordinary, the sweat ran down to our hips from under our knapsacks and cartridge-boxes. what a misfortune to be poor, and unable to buy a man to march and take the musket-shots in our place! after having gone through the rain, wind, and snow, and mud, in germany, the turn of the sun and dust had come. and i saw too, that the destruction was approaching, you could hear the sound of the drum and the bugle in every direction, and whenever the battalion passed over an elevation long lines of helmets and lances and bayonets were seen as far as the eye could reach. zébédé, with his musket on his shoulder, would exclaim cheerfully, "well, joseph! we are going to see the whites of the prussians' eyes again;" and i would force myself to reply, "oh! yes, the weddings will soon begin again." as if i wanted to risk my life and leave catherine a young widow for the sake of something which did not in the least concern me. that same day at seven o'clock we reached roly. the hussars occupied the town already, and we were obliged to bivouac in a deep road along the side of the hill. we had hardly stacked our arms when several general officers arrived. the commandant gémeau, who had just dismounted, sprang upon his horse and hurried to meet them. they conversed a moment together and came down into our road. everybody looked on and said, "something has happened." one of the officers, general pechaux, whom we knew afterward, ordered the drums to beat, and shouted, "form a circle." the road was too narrow, and some of the soldiers went up on the slope each side of the road, while the others remained on the road. all the battalion looked on while the general unrolled a paper, and said, "proclamation from the emperor." when he had said that, the silence was so profound that you would have thought yourself alone in the midst of these great fields. every one, from the last conscript to the commandant gémeau, listened, and, even to-day, when i think of it, after fifty years, it moves my heart; it was grand and terrible. this is what the general read: "soldiers! to-day is the anniversary of marengo and of friedland, which twice decided the fate of europe! then, as after austerlitz and after wagram, we were too generous, we believed the protestations and the oaths of princes, whom we left on their thrones. they have combined to attack the independence and even the most sacred rights of france. they have commenced the most unjust aggressions, let us meet them! they and we,--are we no longer of the same race?" the whole battalion shouted, "_vive l'empereur_." the general raised his hand, and all were silent. "soldiers! at jena, we were as one to three against these prussians who are so arrogant to-day; at montmirail we were as one against six! let those among you who have been prisoners of the english tell the tale of their frightful sufferings in their prison ships. the saxons, the belgians, the hanoverians, the soldiers of the confederation of the rhine, complain that they are compelled to lend their arms to princes who are enemies of justice and of the rights of all nations. they know that this coalition is insatiable. after having devoured twelve millions of poles, twelve millions of italians, one million of saxons, six millions of belgians, it will devour all the states of the second order in germany. madmen! a moment of prosperity has blinded them; the oppression and humiliation of the french people is beyond their power. if they enter france they will find their graves there. soldiers, we have forced marches to make, battles to wage, and perils to encounter, but, if we are constant, victory will be ours. the rights of man and the happiness of our country will be reconquered. for all frenchmen, who have hearts, the time has come to conquer or to perish.--napoleon." the shouts which arose were like thunder, it was as if the emperor had breathed his war spirit into our hearts, and moved us as one man to destroy our enemies. the shouts continued long after the general had gone, and even i was satisfied. i saw that it was the truth, that the prussians, austrians, and russians, who had talked so much of the deliverance of the people, had profited by the first opportunity to grasp everything, that those grand words about liberty, which had served to excite their young men against us in , and all the promises of constitutions which they had made, had been set aside and broken. i looked upon them as beggars, as men who had not kept their word, who despised the people, and whose ideas were very narrow and limited, and consisted in always keeping the best place for themselves and their children and descendants whether they were good or bad, just or unjust, without any reference to god's law. that was the way i looked at it; the proclamation seemed to me very beautiful. i thought too, that father goulden would be pleased with it, because the emperor had not forgotten the rights of man, which are liberty, equality, and justice, and all those grand ideas which distinguish men from brutes, causing them to respect themselves and the rights of their neighbors also. our courage was greatly strengthened by these strong and just words. the old soldiers laughed and said, "we shall not be kept waiting this time. on the first march we shall fall upon the prussians." but the conscripts, who had never yet heard the bullets whistle, were the most excited of all. buche's eyes sparkled like those of a cat, as he sat on the road-side, with his knapsack opened on the slope, slowly sharpening his sabre, and trying the edge on the toe of his shoe. others were setting their bayonets and adjusting their flints, as they always do when on the eve of a battle. at those times their heads are full of thought, which makes them knit their brows, and compress their lips; giving them anything but pleasant faces. the sun sank lower and lower behind the grain fields, several detachments of men went to the village for wood, and they brought back onions and leeks and salt, and even several quarters of beef were hung on long sticks over their shoulders. but it was when the men were around the fires, watching their kettles as they commenced to boil, and the smoke went curling up into the air, that their faces were happiest, one would talk of lutzen, another of wagram, of austerlitz, of jena, of friedland, of spain, of portugal, and of all the countries in the world. they all talked at once, but only the old soldiers whose arms were covered with chevrons, were listened to. they were most interesting, as they marked the positions on the ground with their fingers, and explained them by a line on the right, and a line on the left. you seemed to see it all while listening to them. each one had his pewter spoon at his button-hole, and kept thinking, "the soup will be capital, the meat is good and fat." when we were stationed for the night, the order was given to extinguish the fires and not to beat the retreat, which indicated that the enemy was near, and that they feared to alarm them. the moon was shining, and buche and i were eating at the same mess; when we had finished, he talked to me more than two hours about his life at harberg, how they were obliged to drag two or three cords of wood on great sleds at the risk of being run over and crushed, especially when the snow was melting. compared with that, the life of a soldier, with his pleasant mess and good bread, regular rations, the neat warm uniform, the stout linen shirts, seemed to him delightful. he had never dreamed that he could be so comfortable, and his strongest desire was to let his two younger brothers, gaspard and jacob, know how delighted he was, in order that they might enlist as soon as they were old enough. "yes," said i, "that is all very well,--but the english and prussians,--you do not think of that." "i despise them," said he, "my sabre cuts like a butcher's knife, and my bayonet is sharp as a needle. it is they who should be afraid to encounter me." we were the best friends in the world, and i liked him almost as well as my old comrades klipfel, furst, and zébédé. and he liked me too. i believe he would have let himself be cut to pieces to save me from danger. old comrades and bed-fellows never forget each other. in my time, old harwig whom i knew in pfalzbourg, always received a pension from his old comrade bernadotte, king of sweden. if i had been a king, jean buche should have had a pension, for if he had not a great mind he had a good heart, which is better still. while we were talking, zébédé came and tapped me on the shoulder. "you do not smoke, joseph?" "i have no tobacco." then he gave me half of a package which he had and i saw that he loved me still, in spite of the difference in our rank, and that touched me. he was beside himself with delight at the thought of attacking the prussians. "we'll be revenged!" he cried. "no quarter! they shall pay for all, from katzbach even to soissons." you would have thought that those english and prussians were not going to defend themselves, and that we ran no risk of catching bullets and canister as at lutzen and at gross-beren, at leipzig and everywhere else. but what could you say to a man who remembered nothing and who always looked on the bright side? i smoked my pipe quietly and replied, "yes! yes! we'll settle the rascals, we'll push them! they'll see enough of us!" i left jean buche with his pipe, and as we were on guard, zébédé went about nine o'clock to relieve the sentinels at the head of the picket. i stepped a little out of the circle and stretched myself in a furrow a few steps in the rear with my knapsack under my head. the weather was warm, and we heard the crickets long after the sun went down. a few stars shone in the heavens. there was not a breath of air stirring over the plain, the ears of grain stood erect and motionless, and in the distance the village clocks struck nine, ten, and eleven, but at last i dropped asleep. this was the night of the th and th of june, . between two and three in the morning zébédé came and shook me. "up!" said he, "come!" buche had stretched himself beside me also, and we rose at once. it was our turn to relieve the guard. it was still dark, but there was a line of light along the horizon at the edge of the grain fields. thirty paces farther on, lieutenant bretonville was waiting for us, surrounded by the picket. it is hard to get up out of a sound sleep after a march of ten hours. but we buckled on our knapsacks as we went, and i relieved the sentinel behind the hedge opposite roly. the countersign was "jemmapes and fleurus," this struck me at once, i had not heard this countersign since . how memory sleeps sometimes for years! i seem to see the picket now as they turn into the road, while i renew the priming of my gun by the light of the stars, and i hear the other sentinels marching slowly back and forth, while the footsteps of the picket grew faint and fainter in the distance. i marched up and down the hedge with my gun on my arm. there was nothing to be seen but the village with its thatched roofs and the slated church spire a little farther on; and a mounted sentinel stationed in the road with his blunderbuss resting on his thigh looking out into the night. i walked up and down thinking and listening. everything slept. the white line along the horizon grew broader. another half hour and the distant country began to appear in the gray light of morning. two or three quails called and answered each other across the plain. as i heard these sounds i stopped and thought sadly of quatre vents, danne, the baraques-du-bois-de-chênes, and of our grain fields, where the quails were calling from the edge of the forest of bonne fontaine. "is catherine asleep? and aunt grédel and father goulden and all the town? the national guard from nancy has taken our place." i saw the sentinels of the two magazines and the guard at the two gates; in short, thoughts without number came and went, when i heard a horse galloping in the distance, but i could see nothing. [illustration: a mounted hussar was looking out into the night.] in a few minutes he entered the village, and all was still except a sort of confused tumult. in an instant after, the horseman came from roly into our road at full gallop. i advanced to the edge of the hedge and presented my musket, and cried, "who goes there?" "france!" "what regiment?" "twelfth chasseurs! staff." "pass on!" he went on his way faster than before. i heard him stop in the midst of our encampment, and call "commandant." i advanced to the top of the hill to see what was going on. there was a great excitement; the officers came running up, and the soldiers gathered round. the chasseur was speaking to gémeau, i listened, but was too far away to hear. the courier went on again up the hill, and everything was in an uproar. they shouted and gesticulated. suddenly the drums beat to mount guard, and the relief turned a corner in the road. i saw zébédé in the distance looking pale as death; as he passed me he said, "come!" the two other sentinels were in their places a little to the left. talking is not allowed when under arms, but, notwithstanding, zébédé said, "joseph, we are betrayed. bourmont, general of the division in advance, and five other brigands of the same sort, have just gone over to the enemy." his voice trembled. my blood boiled, and looking at the other men on the picket, two old soldiers with chevrons, i saw their lips quiver under their gray mustaches, their eyes rolled fiercely as if they were meditating vengeance, but they said nothing. we hurried on to relieve the other two sentinels. some minutes afterward, on returning to our bivouac, we found the battalion already under arms and ready to move. fury and indignation were stamped on every face, the drums beat and we formed ranks, the commandant and the adjutant waited on horseback at the head of the battalion, pale as ashes. i remember that the commandant suddenly drew his sword as a signal to stop the drums, and tried to speak, but the words would not come, and he began to shout like a madman: "ah! the wretches! miserable villains! _vive l'empereur_! no quarter!" he stammered and did not know what he said, but the battalion thought he was eloquent, and began to shout as one man, "forward! forward! to the enemy! no quarter!" we went through the village at quick step, and the meanest soldier was furious at not finding the prussians. it was an hour after, when having reflected a little, the men commenced swearing and threatening, secretly at first, but soon openly, and at last the battalion was almost in revolt. some said that all the officers under louis xviii. must be exterminated, and others, that we were given up _en masse_, and several declared that the marshals were traitors, and ought to be court-martialed and shot. at last the commandant ordered a halt, and riding down the line he told the men, that the traitors had left too late to do mischief, that we would make the attack that very day, and that the enemy would not have time to profit by the treason, and that he would be surprised and overwhelmed. this calmed the fury of a great proportion of the men, and we resumed our march, and all along the route, we heard repeatedly that the exposure of our plans had been made too late. but our anger gave place to joy, when about ten o'clock we heard the thunder of cannon five or six leagues to the left, on the other side of the sambre. the men raised their shakos on their bayonets and shouted: "forward! vive l'empereur!" many of the old soldiers wept, and over all that great plain there was one immense shout; when one regiment had ceased another took it up. the cannon thundered incessantly. we quickened our steps. we had been marching on charleroi since seven o'clock, when an order reached us by an orderly to support the right. i remember that in all the villages through which we passed, the doors and windows were full of eager friendly faces, waving their hands and shouting, "the french, the french!" we could see that they were friendly to us, and that they were of the same blood as ourselves; and in the two halts that we made, they came out with their loaves of excellent home-made bread, with a knife stuck in the crust, and great jugs of black beer, and offered them to us without asking any return. we had come to deliver them without knowing it, and nobody in their country knew it either, which shows the sagacity of the emperor, for there were already in that corner of the sambre et meuse, more than one hundred thousand men, and not the slightest hint of it had reached the enemy. the treason of bourmont had prevented our surprising them as they were scattered about in their separate camps. we could then have annihilated them at a blow, but now it would be much more difficult. we continued our march till after noon, in the intense heat and choking dust. the farther we advanced the greater the number of troops we saw, infantry and cavalry. they massed themselves more and more, so to speak, and behind us there were still other regiments. toward five o'clock we reached a village where the battalions and squadrons filed over a bridge built of brick. this village had been taken by our vanguard, and in going through it, we saw some of the prussians stretched out in the little streets on the right and left, and i said to jean buche: "those are prussians, i saw them at lutzen and leipzig, and you are going to see them too, jean." "so much the better," he replied, "that is what i want." this village was called chatelet. it is on the river sambre, the water is very deep, yellow, and clayey, and those who are so unfortunate as to fall into it, find it very difficult to get out of, for the banks are perpendicular, as we found out afterward. on the other side of the bridge we bivouacked along the river; we were not in the advance, as the hussars had passed over before us, but we were the first infantry of the corps of gérard. all the rest of that day the fourth corps were filing over the bridge, and we learned at night, that the whole army had passed the sambre, and that there had been fighting near charleroi, at marchiennes, and jumet. xvii on reaching the other bank of the river, we stacked our arms in an orchard, and lighted our pipes and took breath as we watched the hussars, the chasseurs, the artillery, and the infantry, file over the bridge hour after hour, and take their positions on the plain. in our front was a beech forest, about three leagues in length, which extended toward fleurus. we could see great yellow spots, here and there in this wood; these were stubble, and great patches of grain, instead of being covered with bramble or heath and furze as in our country. about twenty old decrepit houses were on that side the bridge. chatelet is a very large village, larger than the city of saverne. between the battalions and squadrons, which were constantly moving onward, the men, women, and children would come out with jugs of sour beer, bread, and strong white brandy which they sold to the soldiers for a few sous. buche and i broke a crust as we looked on and laughed with the girls, who are blonde and very pretty in that country. very near us was the little village catelineau, and in the distance on our left, between the wood and the river, lay the village of gilly. the sound of musketry, cannon, and platoon firing, was heard constantly in that direction. the news soon came that the emperor had driven the prussians out of charleroi, and that they had re-formed in squares at the corner of the wood. we expected every moment to be ordered to cut off their retreat, but between seven and eight o'clock, the sound of musketry ceased, the prussians retired to fleurus, after having lost one of their squares; and the others escaped into the wood. we saw two regiments of dragoons arrive and take up their position at our right, along the bank of the sambre. there was a rumor a few minutes afterward that general le tort had been killed by a ball in the abdomen, very near the place where in his youth he had watched and tended the cattle of a farmer. what strange things happen in life! the general had fought all over europe, since he was twenty years old, but death waited for him here! it was about eight o'clock in the evening, and we were expecting to remain at chatelet until our three divisions had crossed. an old bald peasant, in a blue blouse and a cotton cap and as lean as a goat, came into camp and told captain grégoire that on the side of the beech wood in a hollow, lay the village of fleurus, and to the right of this, the little village of lambusart; that the prussians had been stationed in these towns more than three weeks, and that more of them had arrived the night before, and the night before that. he told us also that there was a broad road, bordered with trees, running two good leagues along our left; that the belgians and hanoverians had posts at gosselies and at quatre-bras; that it was the high-road to brussels, where the english and hanoverians and belgians had all their forces; while the prussians, four or five leagues at our right, occupied the route to namur, and that between them and the english, there was a good road running from the plateau of quatre-bras to the plateau of ligny in the rear of fleurus, over which their couriers went and came from morning till night, so that the prussians and english were in perfect communication, and could support each other with men, guns, and supplies when necessary. naturally enough i thought at once, that the first thing to be done was to get possession of this road and so cut off their communication; and i was not the only one who thought so; but we said nothing for fear of interrupting the old man. in five minutes half the battalion had gathered round him in a circle. he was smoking a clay pipe and pointing out all the positions with the stem. he was a sort of commissioner between chatelet, fleurus, and namur and knew every foot of the country and all that happened every day. he complained greatly of the prussians, said they were proud and insolent, that they corrupted the women and were never satisfied, and that the officers boasted of having driven us from dresden to paris, that they had made us run like hares. i was indignant at that, for i knew they were two to one at leipzig, and that the russians, austrians, saxons, bavarians, wurtemburgers, swedes, in fact all europe had overwhelmed us, while three-quarters of our army were sick with typhus, cold, and famine, marching and countermarching; but that even all this had not prevented us from beating them at hanau, and fifty other times when they were three to one, in champagne, alsace, in the vosges, and everywhere. their boasting disgusted me, i had a horror of the whole race, and i thought, "those are the rascals who sour your blood." the old man said too, that the prussians constantly declared that they would soon be enjoying themselves in paris, drinking good french wines; and that the french army was only a band of brigands. when i heard that, i said to myself, "joseph, that is too much! now you will show no more mercy, there is nothing but extermination." the clocks of chatelet struck nine and a half, and the hussars sounded the retreat, and each one was about to dispose himself behind a hedge or a bee-house or in a furrow for the night, when the general of the brigade, schoeffer, ordered the battalion to take up their position on the other side of the wood, as the vanguard. i saw at once that our unlucky battalion was always to be in the van, just as it was in . it is a sad thing for a regiment to have a reputation; the men change, but the number remains the same. the sixth light infantry had always been a distinguished number, and i knew what it cost. those of us who were inclined to sleep, were wide awake now, for when you know that the enemy is at hand, and you say to yourself, "the prussians are in ambush, perhaps in that wood, waiting for you," it makes you open your eyes. several hussars deployed as scouts on our right and left, in front of the column. we marched at the route step, with the captains between the companies, and the commandant gémeau, on his little gray mare, in the middle of the battalion. before starting each man had received three pounds of bread and two pounds of rice, and this was the way in which the campaign opened for us. the sky was without a cloud, and all the country and even the forest, which lay three-quarters of a league before us, shone in the moonlight like silver. i thought involuntarily of the wood at leipzig, where i had slipped into a clay-pit with two prussian hussars, when poor klipfel was cut into a thousand pieces at a little distance from me. all this made me very watchful. no one spoke, even buche raised his head and shut his teeth, and zébédé, who was at the left of the company, did not look toward me, but right ahead into the shadow of the trees, like everybody else. it took us nearly an hour to reach the forest, and when within two hundred paces the order came to "halt." the hussars fell back on the flanks of the battalion, and one company deployed as scouts. we waited about five minutes, and as not the slightest noise or sound of any kind reached our ears, we resumed our march. the road which we followed through the wood was quite a wide cart-path. the column marked step in the shadows. at every moment great openings in the forest gave us light and air, and we could see the white piles of newly cut wood between their stakes, shining in the distance from time to time. besides this, nothing could be heard or seen. buche said to me in a low voice, "i like the smell of the wood, it is like harberg." "i despise the smell of the wood," i thought; "and if we do not get a musket-shot, i shall be satisfied." at the end of two hours the light appeared again through the underwood, and we reached the other side, fortunately without encountering either enemy or obstacle. the hussars who had accompanied us returned immediately, and the battalion stacked arms. we were in a grain country, the like of which i had never seen. some of the grain was in flower, a little green still, though the barley was almost ripe. the fields extended as far as the eye could reach. we looked around in perfect silence, and i saw that the old man had not deceived us. two thousand paces in front of us, in a hollow, we saw the top of an old church spire and some slated gables, lighted up by the moon. that was fleurus. nearer to us on our right were some thatched cottages, and a few houses; this was without doubt lambusart. at the end of the plain, more than a league distant and in the rear of fleurus, the surface of the country was broken into little hills, and on these hills innumerable fires were burning. three large villages were easily recognized extending over the heights from left to right. the one nearest to us, we afterward found, was st. amand, ligny in the middle, and two leagues beyond, was sombref. we could see them more distinctly, even, than in the day-time, on account of the fires of the enemy. the prussians were in the houses and the orchards and the fields; and beyond these three villages in a line, was another, lying still higher and farther away, where fires were burning also. this was bry, where the rascals had their reserves. as we looked at this grand spectacle, i understood the disposition and the plan, and saw too that it would be very difficult to take the position. on the plain at our left there were fires also, but it was the camp of the third corps, which had turned the corner of the forest after having repulsed the prussians, and had halted in some village this side of fleurus. there were a few fires along the edge of the forest, on a line with us; these were the fires of our own soldiers. i believe there were some on both sides of us, but the great mass were at the left. we posted our sentinels immediately, and without lighting our fires laid down at the border of the wood to wait for further orders. general schoeffer came again during the night with several hussar officers, and talked a long time with our commandant, gémeau, who was watching under arms. their conversation was quite distinct at twenty paces from us. the general said that our army corps continued to arrive, but that they were very late, and would not all reach here the next day. i saw at once that he was right; for our fourth battalion, which should have joined us at chatelet, did not come till the day after the battle, when we were almost exterminated by those rascals at ligny, having only four hundred men left. if they had been there they would have had their share of the combat and of the glory. as i had been on guard the night before, i quietly stretched myself at the foot of a tree by the side of buche, with my comrades. it was about one o'clock in the morning of the day of the terrible battle of ligny. nearly half of those men who were sleeping around me left their bodies on the plain and in the villages which we saw, to be food for the grain, such as was growing so beautifully around us, for the oats and the barley for ages to come. if they had known that, there was more than one of them who would not have slept so well, for men cling to life, and it is a sad thing to think, "to-day i draw my last breath!" xviii during the night the air was heavy, and i wakened every hour in spite of my great fatigue, but my comrades slept on, some talking in their sleep. buche did not stir. close at hand, on the edge of the forest, our stacked muskets sparkled in the moonlight. in the distance on the left i could hear the "qui vive,"[ ] and on our front the "wer da."[ ] nearer to us, our sentinels stood motionless, up to their waists in the standing grain. [ ] who goes there!--french. [ ] who goes there!--german. i rose up softly and looked about me. in the vicinity of sombref, two leagues to our right, i could hear a great tumult from time to time, which would increase and then cease entirely. it might have been little gusts of wind among the leaves, but there was not a breath of air and not a drop of dew fell, and i thought, "those are the cannon and wagons of the prussians, galloping over the namur road; their battalions and squadrons, which are coming continually. what a position we shall be in to-morrow with that mass of men already before us, and re-enforcements arriving every moment." they had extinguished their fires at st. amand and at ligny, but they burned brighter than ever at sombref. the prussians who had just arrived after forced marches were no doubt making their soup. a thousand thoughts ran through my brain, and i said to myself from time to time, "you escaped from lutzen and leipzig and hanau, why not escape this time also?" but the hopes which i cherished did not prevent me from realizing that the battle would be a terrible one. i lay down, however, and slept soundly for half an hour, when the drum-major, padoue himself, commenced to beat the reveille. he promenaded up and down the edge of the wood and turned off his rolls and double rolls with great satisfaction. the officers were standing in the grain on the hill-side in a group, looking toward fleurus, and talking among themselves. our reveille always commenced before that of the austrians or prussians or any of our enemies. it is like the song of the lark at dawn. they commence theirs on their big drums with a dismal roll which gives you the idea of a funeral. but, on the contrary, their buglers have pretty airs for sounding the reveille, while ours only give two or three blasts, as much as to say: "come, let us be going! there is no time to lose." everybody rose and the sun came up splendidly over the grain fields, and we could feel beforehand how hot it would be at noon. buche and all the detailed men set off with their canteens for water, while others were lighting handfuls of straw with tinder for their fires. there was no lack of wood, as each one took an armful from the piles that were already cut. corporal duhem and sergeant rabot and zébédé came to have a talk with me. we were together in , and they had been at my wedding, and in spite of the difference in our rank they had always continued their friendship for me. "well! joseph," said zébédé, "the dance is going to commence." "yes," i replied, and recalling the words of poor sergeant pinto the morning before lutzen, i added with a wink, "this, zébédé, will be a battle, as sergeant pinto said, where you will gain the cross between the thrusts of ramrod and bayonet, and if you do not have a chance now you need never expect it." they all began to laugh, and zébédé said: "yes, indeed, the poor old fellow richly deserved it, but it is harder to catch than the bouquet at the top of a climbing pole." we all laughed, and as they had a flask of brandy, we took a crust of bread together as we watched the movements of the enemy which began to be perceptible. buche had returned among the first with his canteen and now stood behind us with his ears wide open like a fox on the alert. files of cavalry came out of the woods and crossed the grain fields in the direction of st. amand, the large village at the left of fleurus. "those," said zébédé, "are the light horse of pajol who will deploy as scouts. these are exelman's dragoons. when the others have ascertained the positions they will advance in line, that is the way they always do, and the cannon will come with the infantry. the cavalry will form on the right or the left and support the flanks, and the infantry will take the front rank. they will form their attacking columns on the good roads and in the fields, and the affair will begin with a cannonade for twenty minutes or half an hour, more or less, and when half the batteries are disabled, the emperor will choose a favorable moment to put us in, but it is we who will catch the bullets and canister because we are nearest. we advance, carry arms, in readiness for a charge, at a quick step and in good order, but it always ends in a double quick, because the shot makes you impatient. i warn you, conscripts, beforehand, so that you may not be surprised." more than twenty conscripts had ranged themselves behind us to listen. the cavalry continued to pour out of the wood. "i will bet," said corporal duhem, "that the fourth cavalry has been on the march in our rear since daybreak." and rabot said they would have to take time to get into line, as it was so bad traversing the wood. we were discussing the matter like generals, and we scanned the position of the prussians around the villages, in the orchards, and behind the hedges, which are six feet high in that country. a great number of their guns were grouped in batteries between ligny and st. amand, and we could plainly see the bronze shining in the sun, which inspired all sorts of reflections. "i am sure," said zébédé, "that they are all barricaded, and they have dug ditches and pierced the walls; we should have done well to push on yesterday, when their squares retreated to the first village on the heights. if we were on a level with them it would be very well, but to climb up across those hedges under the enemy's fire will cost a trifle, unless something should happen in the rear as is sometimes the case with the emperor." the old soldiers were talking in this fashion on all sides, and the conscripts were listening with open ears. meanwhile the camp-kettles were suspended over the fire, but they were expressly forbidden to use their bayonets for this purpose as it destroyed their temper. it was about seven o'clock, and we all thought that the battle would be at st. amand. the village was surrounded by hedges and shrubbery, with a great tower in the centre, and higher up in the rear there were more houses and a winding road bordered with a stone wail. all the officers said: "that is where the struggle will be." as our troops came from charleroi they spread over the plain below us, infantry and cavalry side by side; all the corps of vandamme and gérard's division. thousands and thousands of helmets glittered in the sun, and buche who stood beside me, exclaimed: "oh! oh! oh! look, joseph, look! they come continually!" and we could see innumerable bayonets in the same direction as far as the eye could reach. the prussians were spreading more and more over the hill-side near the windmills. this movement continued till eight o'clock. nobody was hungry, but we ate all the same, so as not to reproach ourselves; for the battle, once begun, might last two days without giving us a chance to eat again. between eight and nine o'clock the first battalions of our division left the wood. the officers came to shake hands with their comrades, but the staff remained in the rear. suddenly the hussars and chasseurs passed us, extending our line of battle toward the right. they were morin's cavalry. our idea was that when the prussians should have become engaged in the attack on st. amand, we would fall on their flank at ligny. but the prussians were on their guard, and from that moment they stopped at ligny, instead of going on to st. amand. they even came lower down, and we could see the officers posting the men among the hedges and in the gardens and behind the low walls and barracks. we thought their position very strong. they continued to come lower down in a sort of fold of the hill-side between ligny and fleurus, and that astonished us, for we did not yet know that a little brook divided the village into two parts, and that they were filling the houses on our side, and we did not know that if they were repulsed they could retreat up the hill and still hold us always under their fire. if we knew everything about such affairs beforehand, we should never dare to commence such a dangerous enterprise, but the difficulties are discovered step by step. we were destined that day to find a great many things which we did not expect. about half-past eight several of our regiments had left the wood, and very soon the drums beat the assembly and all the battalions took their arms. the general, count gérard, arrived with his staff, and passing us at a gallop, without any notice, went on to the hill below fleurus. almost immediately the firing commenced; the scouts of vandamme approached the village on the left, and two pieces of cannon were sent off, with the artillerymen on horseback. after five or six discharges of cannon from the top of the hill the musketry ceased and our scouts were in fleurus, and we saw three or four hundred prussians mounting the hill in the distance, toward ligny. general gérard, after looking at this little engagement, came back with his staff and passed slowly down our front, inspecting us carefully, as if he wished to ascertain what sort of humor we were in. he was about forty-five years old, brown, with a large head, a round face, the lower part heavy, with a pointed chin. a great many peasants in our country resemble him, and they are not the most stupid. he said not a word to us, and when he had passed the whole length of our line, all the generals and colonels were grouped together. the command was given to order arms. the orderlies then set off like the wind; this engrossed the attention of all, but not a man stirred. the rumor spread that grouchy was to be commander-in-chief, and that the emperor had attacked the english four leagues away, on the route to brussels. this news put us in anything but a pleasant humor, and more than one said, "it is no wonder that we are here doing nothing since morning; if the emperor was with us, we should have given battle long ago, and the prussians would not have had time to know where they were." this was the talk we indulged in, and it shows the injustice of men; for three hours afterward, in the midst of shouts of "_vive l'empereur_," napoleon arrived. these shouts swept along the line like a tempest, and were continued even opposite sombref. now everything was right. that for which we had reproached marshal grouchy, was perfectly proper when done by the emperor, since it was he. very soon the order reached us to advance our line five hundred paces to the right, and off we started through the rye, oats, and barley, which were swept down before us, but the principal line of battle on the left was not changed. as we reached a broad road which we had not before seen and came in sight of fleurus, with its little brook bordered with willows, the order was given to halt! a murmur ran through the whole division--"there he is!" he was on horseback, and only accompanied by a few of the officers of his staff. we could only recognize him in the distance by has gray coat and his hat; his carriage with its escort of lancers was in the rear. he entered fleurus by the high road, and remained in the village more than an hour, while we were roasting in the grain fields. at the end of this hour, which we thought interminable, files of staff officers set off, at a gallop, bent over their saddle-bows till their noses were between their horse's ears. two of them stopped near general gérard, one remained with him, and the other went on again. still we waited, until suddenly the bands of all the regiments began to play; drums and trumpets all together; and that immense line which extended from the rear of st. amand to the forest, swung round, with the right wing in the advance. as it reached beyond our division in the rear, we advanced our line still more obliquely, and again the order came, halt! the road running out of fleurus was opposite us, a blank wall on the left; behind which were trees and a large house, and in front a windmill of red brick, like a tower. we had hardly halted, when the emperor came out of this mill with three or four generals and two old peasants in blouses, holding their cotton caps in their hands. the whole division commenced to shout, "vive l'empereur!" i saw him plainly as he came along a path in front of the battalion, with his head bent down and his hands behind his back listening to the old bald peasant. he took no notice of the shouts, but turned round twice and pointed toward ligny. i saw him as plainly as i could see father goulden when we sat opposite each other at table. he had grown much stouter than when he was at leipzig, and looked yellow. if it had not been for his gray coat and his hat, i should hardly have recognized him. his cheeks were sunken and he looked much older. all this came, i presume, from his troubles at elba, and in thinking of the mistakes he had made; for he was a wise man, and could see his own faults. he had destroyed the revolution which had sustained him, he had recalled the émigrés who despised him, he had married an archduchess who preferred vienna to paris, and he had chosen his bitterest enemies for his counsellors. [illustration: the emperor, his hands behind his back, and his head bent forward.] in short he had put everything back where it was before the revolution, nothing was wanting but louis xviii., and then the kings had put louis xviii. on his throne again. now he had come to overthrow the legitimate sovereign, and some called him a despot, and some a jacobin. it was unfortunate for him that he had done everything possible to facilitate the return of the bourbons. nothing remained to him but his army, if he lost that, he lost everything, for many of the people wanted liberty like father goulden, others wanted tranquillity and peace like mother grédel, and like me and all those who were forced into the war. these things made him terribly anxious, he had lost the confidence of the whole world. the old soldiers alone preserved their attachment to him, and asked only to conquer or die. with such notions you cannot fail of one or the other, all is plain and clear; but a great many people do not have these ideas, and for my part i loved catherine a thousand times more than the emperor. on reaching a turn in the wall, where the hussars were waiting for him, he mounted his horse, and general gérard who had recognized him came up at a gallop. he turned round for two seconds to listen to him, and then both went into fleurus. still we waited! about two o'clock general gérard returned, and our line was obliqued a third time more to the right, and then the whole division broke into columns, and we followed the road to fleurus with the cannon and caissons at intervals between the brigades. the dust enveloped us completely. buche said to me: "cost what it may, i must drink at the first puddle we come to." but we did not find any water. the music did not cease, and masses of cavalry kept coming up behind us, principally dragoons. we were still on the march when suddenly the roar of musketry and cannon broke on our ears as when water breaking over its barriers sweeps all before it. i knew what it was, but buche turned pale and looked at me in mute astonishment. "yes, indeed, jean," said i, "those over there are attacking st. amand, but our turn will come presently." the music had ceased but the thunder of the guns had redoubled, and we heard the order on all sides, "halt!" the division stopped on the road and the gunners ran out at intervals and put their pieces in line fifty paces in front, with their caissons in the rear. we were opposite ligny. we could only see a white line of houses half hidden in the orchards, with a church spire above them--slopes of yellow earth, trees, hedges, and palisades. there we were, twelve or fifteen thousand men without the cavalry, waiting the order to attack. the battle raged fiercely about st. amand, and great masses of smoke rose over the combatants toward the sky. while waiting for our turn, my thoughts turned to catherine with more tenderness than ever, the idea that she would soon be a mother crossed my mind, and then i besought god to spare my life, but with this, came the comfort of feeling that our child would be there if i should die to console them all, catherine, aunt grédel, and father goulden. if it should be a boy they would call it joseph, and caress it, and father goulden would dandle it on his knee, aunt grédel would love it, and catherine would think of me as she embraced it, and i should not be altogether dead to them. but i clung to life while i saw how terrible was the conflict before us. buche said to me, "joseph, will you promise me something?--i have a cross--if i am killed." he shook my hand, and i said: "i promise." "well!" he added, "it is here on my breast. you must carry it to harberg and hang it up in the chapel in remembrance of jean buche, dead in the faith of the father, the son, and the holy spirit." he spoke very earnestly, and i thought his wish very natural. some die for the rights of humanity; with some, the last thought is for their mother, others are influenced by the example of just men who have sacrificed themselves for the race, but the feeling is the same in every case, though each one expresses it according to his own manner of thinking. i gave him the desired promise and we waited for nearly half an hour longer. all the troops as they left the wood came and formed near us, and the cavalry were mustering on our right as if to attack sombref. up to half-past two o'clock not a gun had been fired, when an aid-de-camp of the emperor arrived on the road to fleurus, at full speed, and i thought immediately, "our turn has come now. may god watch over us, for, miserable wretches that we are, we cannot save ourselves in such a slaughter as is threatening." i had scarcely made these reflections when two battalions on the right set off on the road, with the artillery, toward sombref, where the uhlans and prussian cavalry were deploying in front of our dragoons. it was the fortune of these two battalions to remain in position on the route all that day to observe the cavalry of the enemy, while we went to take the village where the prussians were in force. the attacking columns were formed just as the clock struck three; i was in the one on the left which moved first at a quick step along a winding road. on the hill where ligny was situated, was an immense ruin. it had been built of brick and was pierced with holes and overlooked us as we mounted the hill. we watched it sharply too, through the grain as we went. the second column left immediately after us and passed by a shorter route directly up the hill, we were to meet them at the entrance to the village. i do not know when the third column left, as we did not meet again till later. all went smoothly until we reached a point where the road was cut through a little elevation and then ran down to the village. as we passed through between these little hills covered with grain, and caught sight of the nearest house, a veritable hail of balls fell on the head of the column with a frightful noise. from every hole in the old ruin, from all the windows and loop-holes in the houses, from the hedges and orchards and from above the stone walls the muskets showered their deadly fire upon us like lightning. at the same time a battery of fifteen pieces which had been for that very purpose placed in a field in the rear of the great tower at the left of, and higher tip than ligny, near the windmill, opened upon us with a roar, compared with which that of the musketry was nothing. those who had unfortunately passed the cut in the road fell over each other in heaps in the smoke. at that moment we heard the fire of the other column which had engaged the enemy at our right, and the roar of other cannon, though we could not tell whether they were ours or those of the prussians. fortunately the whole battalion had not passed the little knoll, and the balls whistled through the grain above us, and tore up the ground without doing us the least injury. every time this whizzing was heard, i observed that the conscripts near me ducked their heads, and jean buche, i remember, was staring at me with open eyes. the old soldiers marched with tightly compressed lips. the column stopped. for an instant each man thought whether it would not be better to turn back, but it was only for a second, the enemy's fire seemed to slacken, the officers all drew their sabres and shouted, "forward!" the column set off again at a run and threw itself into the road that led down the hill across the hedges. from the palisades and the walls behind which the prussians were in ambush, they continued to pour their musketry fire upon us. but woe to every one we encountered! they defended themselves with the desperation of wolves, but a few blows from a musket, or a bayonet thrust, soon stretched them out in some corner. a great number of old soldiers with gray mustaches had secured their retreat, and retired in good order, turning to fire a last shot, and then slipped through a breach or shut a door. we followed them without hesitation, we had neither prudence nor mercy. at last, quite scattered and in the greatest confusion, we reached the first houses, when the fusillade commenced again from the windows, the corners of the streets, and from everywhere. there were the orchards and the gardens and the stone walls which ran along the hill-side, but they were thrown down and demolished, the palisades torn up, and could no longer serve as a shelter or a defence. from the well-barricaded cottages, they still poured their fire upon us. in ten minutes more, we should have been exterminated to the last man; seeing this, the column turned down the hill again, drummers and sappers, officers and soldiers pell-mell, all went without once turning their heads to look back. i jumped over the palisades where i never should have thought it possible at any other time, with my knapsack and cartridge-box at my back; the others followed my example, and we all tumbled in a heap like a falling wall. once in the road again between the hills, we stopped to breathe. some stretched themselves on the ground, and others sat down with their backs against the slope. the officers were furious; as if they too had not followed the movement to retreat, and some shouted to bring up the cannon, and others wanted to re-form the troops, though they could scarcely make themselves heard in the midst of the thunder of the artillery which shook the air like a tempest. i saw jean buche hurrying back with his bayonet red with blood. he took his place beside me without saying a word, and commenced to reload. captain grégoire, lieutenant certain, and several sergeants and corporals, and more than a hundred men were left behind in the orchards; and the first two battalions of the column had suffered as much as we. zébédé, with his great crooked nose, white as snow, seeing me at some distance, shouted, "joseph--no quarter!" great masses of white smoke rose over the sides of the road. the whole hill-side from ligny to st. amand was on fire behind the willows and aspens and poplars. as i crept up on my hands and knees, and looked over the surface of the grain and saw this terrible spectacle, and saw the long black lines of infantry on the top of the hill and near the windmills, and the innumerable cavalry on their flanks ready to fall upon us, i went back thinking: "we shall never rout that army. it fills the villages, and guards the roads, and covers the hill as far as the eye can reach, there are guns everywhere, and it is contrary to reason to persist in such an enterprise." i was indignant and even disgusted with the generals. all this did not take ten minutes. god only knew what had become of our other two columns. the terrible musketry fire on the left, and the volleys of grape and canister which we heard rushing through the air, were no doubt intended for them. i thought we had had our full share of troubles, when generals gérard, vichery, and schoeffer came riding up at full speed on the road below us, shouting like madmen, "forward! forward!" they drew their swords, and there was nothing to do but go. at this moment our batteries on the road below opened their fire on ligny, the roofs in the village tumbled, and the walls sank, and we rushed forward with the generals at our head with their swords drawn, the drums beating the charge. we shouted, "_vive l'empereur_." the prussian bullets swept us away by dozens, and shot fell like hail, and the drums kept up their "pan-pan-pan." we saw nothing, heard nothing, as we crossed the orchards, nobody paid any attention to those who fell, and in two minutes after, we entered the village, broke in the doors with the butts of our muskets, while the prussians fired upon us from the windows. it was a thousand times worse in-doors, because yells of rage mingled in the uproar; we rushed into the houses with fixed bayonets and massacred each other without mercy. on every side the cry rose, "no quarter!" the prussians who were surprised in the first houses we entered, were old soldiers and asked for nothing better. they perfectly understood what "no quarter" meant, and made a most desperate defence. as we reached the third or fourth house on a tolerably wide street on which was a church, and a little bridge farther on, the air was full of smoke from the fires caused by our bombs; great broken tiles and slate were raining down upon us, and everything roared and whistled and cracked, when zébédé, with a terrible look in his eyes, seized me by the arm, shouting, "come!" we rushed into a large room already filled with soldiers, on the first floor of a house; it was dark, as they had covered the windows with sacks of earth, but we could see a steep wooden stairway at one end, down which the blood was running. we heard musket-shots from above and the flashes each moment showed us five or six of our men sunk in a heap against the balustrade with their arms hanging down, and the others running over their bodies with their bayonets fixed, trying to force their way into the loft. it was horrible to see those men with their bristling mustaches, and brown cheeks, every wrinkle expressing the fury which possessed them, determined to force a passage at any cost. the sight made me furious, and i shouted, "forward! no quarter!" if i had been near the stairway, i might have been cut to pieces in mounting, but fortunately for me, others were ahead and not one would give up his place. an old fellow, covered with wounds, succeeded in reaching the top of the stairs under the bayonets. as he gained the loft he let go his musket, and seized the balustrade with both hands. two balls from muskets touching his breast did not make him let go his hold. three or four others rushed up behind him striving each to be first, and leaped over the top stairs into the loft above. then followed such an uproar as is impossible to describe, shots followed each other in quick succession, and the shouts and trampling of feet made us think the house was coming down over our heads. others followed, and when i reached the scene behind zébédé, the room was full of dead and wounded men, the windows were blown out, the walls splashed with blood, and not a prussian was left on his feet. five or six of our men were supporting themselves against the different pieces of furniture, smiling ferociously. nearly all of them had balls or bayonet thrusts in their bodies, but the pleasure of revenge was greater than the pain of their wounds. my hair stands on end when i recall that scene. as soon as zébédé saw that the prussians were all dead, he went down again, saying to me, "come, there is nothing more to do here." we went out and found that our column had already passed the church, and thousands of musket-shots crackled against the bridge like the fire breaking out from a coal-pit. the second column had come down the broad street on our right and joined ours, and in the meantime, one of those prussian columns which we had seen on the hill in the rear of ligny, came down to drive us out of the village. here it was that we had the first encounter in force. two staff officers rode down the street by which we had come. "those men," said zébédé, "are going to order up the guns. when they arrive, joseph, you will see whether they can rout us." he ran and i followed him. the fight at the bridge continued. the old church clock struck five. we had destroyed all the prussians on this side the stream except those who were in ambush in the great old ruin at the left, which was full of holes. it had been set on fire at the top by our howitzers, but the fire continued from the lower stories, and we were obliged to avoid it. in front of the church we were in force. we found the little square filled with troops ready to march, and others were coming by the broad street, which traversed the whole length of ligny. only the head of the column was engaged at the little bridge. the prussians tried hard to repulse them. the discharges in file followed each other like running water. the square was so filled with smoke that we could see nothing but the bayonets, the front of the church, and the officers on the steps giving their orders. now and then a staff officer would set off at a gallop, and the air round the old slated spire was full of rooks whirling about affrighted with the noise. the cannon at st. amand roared incessantly. between the gables on the left, we could see on the hill, the long blue lines of infantry and masses of cavalry coming from sombref to turn our columns. it was there in our rear that the desperate combats took place between the uhlans and our hussars. how many of these uhlans we saw next morning stretched dead on the plain! our battalion having suffered the most, we fell back to the second rank. we soon found our own company commanded by captain florentin. the guns were arriving by the same street on which we were; the horses at full gallop foaming and shaking their heads furiously, while the wheels crushed everything before them. all this produced a tremendous uproar, but the thunder of cannon and the crash of musketry was all that could be distinguished. the soldiers were all shouting and singing, with their guns on their shoulders, but we knew this only by seeing their open mouths. i had just taken my place by the side of buche and had begun to breathe, when a forward movement began. this time the plan was to cross the little stream, push the prussians out of ligny, mount the hill behind and cut their line in two, and the battle would be gained. each one of us understood that, but with such masses of troops as they held in reserve, it was no small affair. everything moved toward the bridge, but we could see nothing but the five or six men before us, and i was well satisfied to know that the head of the column was far in front. but i was most delighted when captain florentin halted our company in front of an old barn with the door broken down, and posted the remnant of the battalion behind the ruins in order to sustain the attacking columns by firing from the windows. there were fifteen of us in that barn and i can see it now, with the door hanging by one hinge, and battered with the balls, and the ladder running up through a square hole, three or four dead prussians leaning against the walls, and a window at the other end looking into the street in the rear. zébédé commanded our post, lieutenant bretonville occupied the house opposite with another squad, and captain florentin went somewhere else. the street was filled with troops quite up to the two corners near the brook. the first thing we tried to do was to put up the door and fasten it, but we had hardly commenced when we heard a terrible crash in the street, and walls, shutters, tiles, and everything were swept away at a stroke. two of our men who were outside holding up the door, fell as if cut down with a scythe. at the same moment we could hear the steps of the retreating column rolling over the bridge, while a dozen more such explosions made us draw back in spite of ourselves. it was a battery of six pieces charged with canister which blücher had masked at the end of the street, and which now opened upon us. the whole column--drummers, soldiers, officers, mounted and foot, were in retreat, pushing and jostling each other, swept along as by a hurricane. nobody looked back, those who fell were lost. the last ones had hardly passed our door when zébédé, who looked out to see what had happened, shouted in a voice of thunder, "the prussians!" he fired, and several of us rushed for the ladder, but before we could think of climbing they were upon us. zébédé, buche, and all who had not had time to get up the ladder drove them back with their bayonets. it seems to me as if i could see those prussians still, with their big mustaches, their red faces and flat shakos, furious at being checked. i never had such a shock as that. zébédé shouted, "no quarter," just as if we had been the stronger. but immediately he received a blow on the head from the butt of a musket and fell. i saw that he was going to be murdered and i burned for revenge. i shouted, "to the bayonet," and we all fell upon the rascals, while our comrades fired at them from above, and a fusillade commenced from the houses opposite. the prussians fell back, but a little distance away there was a whole battalion. buche took zébédé on his shoulders and started up the ladder. we followed him, shouting "hurry!" while we aided him with all our strength to climb the ladder with his burden. i was next to the last, and i thought we should never get up. we heard the shots already in the barn, but we were up at last, and all inspired with the same idea, we tried to draw the ladder up after us. to our horror we found, as we endeavored to pull it through the opening between the shots, one of which took off the head of a comrade, that it was so large we could not get it into the loft. we hesitated for a moment, when zébédé, recovering himself, exclaimed, "shoot through the rounds!" this seemed to us an inspiration from heaven. below us the uproar was terrible. the whole street, as well as our barn, was full of prussians. they were mad with rage, and worse than we; repeating incessantly, "no prisoners!" they were enraged by the musket-shots from the houses; they broke down the doors, and then we could hear the struggles, the falls, curses in french and german, the orders of lieutenant bretonville opposite, and the prussian officers commanding their men to go and bring straw to fire the houses. fortunately the harvest was not yet secured, or we should all have been burned. they fired into the floor under our feet, but it was made of thick oak plank and the balls tapped on it like the strokes of a hammer. we stood one behind the other and continued our fire into the street, and every shot told. it appeared as if they had retaken the church square, for we only heard our fire very far away. we were alone, two or three hundred men in the midst of three or four thousand. then i said to myself, "joseph! you will never escape from this danger. it is impossible! your end has come!" i dared not think of catherine, my heart quaked. our retreat was cut off, the prussians held both ends of the street and the lanes in the rear, and they had already retaken several houses. suddenly the hubbub ceased; they were making some preparation we thought; they have gone for straw or fagots or they are going to bring up their guns to demolish us. our gunners looked out of the window, but they saw nothing, the barn was empty. this dead silence was more terrible than the tumult had been a few minutes before. zébédé had just raised himself up, and the blood was running from his mouth and nose. "attention! we are going to have another attack. the rascals are getting ready. charge!" he hardly finished speaking when the whole building, from the gables to the foundation, swayed as if the earth had opened beneath it, and beams and lath and slate came down with the shock, while a red flame burst out under our feet and mounted above the roof. we all fell in a heap. a lighted bomb which the prussians had rolled into the barn had just exploded. on getting up i heard a whizzing in my ears, but that did not prevent me from seeing a ladder placed at the window of the barn. buche was using his bayonet with great effect on the invaders. the prussians thought to profit by our surprise to mount the ladder and butcher us; this made me shudder, but i ran to the assistance of my comrade. two others who had escaped, ran up shouting, "_vive l'empereur!_" i heard nothing more, the noise was frightful. the flashes of the muskets below and from the windows lighted up the street like a moving flame. we had thrown down the ladder, and there were six of us still remaining, two in front who fired the muskets, and four behind who loaded and passed the guns to them. in this extremity i had become calm. i resigned myself to my fate, thinking i would try to sell my own life as dearly as possible. the others no doubt had the same thoughts, and we made great havoc. this lasted about a quarter of an hour, when the cannon began to thunder again, and some seconds after our comrades in front looked out the window and ceased firing. my cartridge-box was nearly empty, and i went to replenish it from those of my dead comrades. the cries of "_vive l'empereur!_" came nearer and nearer, when suddenly the head of our column with its flag all blackened and torn, filed into the little square through our street. the prussians beat a retreat. we all wanted to go down, but two or three times the column recoiled before the grape and canister. the shouts and the thunder of the cannon mingled afresh. zébédé, who was looking out, ran to the ladder. our column had passed the barn and we all went down in file without regarding our comrades who were wounded by the bursting of the bomb, some of whom begged us piteously not to leave them behind. such are men! the fear of being taken prisoners, made us barbarians. when we recalled these terrible scenes afterward, we would have given anything if we had had the least heart, but then it was too late. xix an hour before, fifteen of us had entered that old barn, now there were but six to come out. buche and zébédé were among the living; the pfalzbourgers had been fortunate. once outside it was necessary to follow the attacking column. we advanced over the heaps of dead. our feet encountered this yielding mass, but we did not look to see if we stepped on the face of a wounded man, on his breast, or on his limbs; we marched straight on. we found out next morning, that this mass of men had been cut down by the battery in front of the church; their obstinacy had proved their ruin. blücher was only waiting to serve us in the same manner, but instead of going over the bridge we turned off to the right and occupied the houses along the brook. the prussians fired at us from every window opposite, but as soon as we were ambushed we opened our fire on their guns and they were obliged to fall back. they had already begun to talk of attacking the other part of the village, when the rumor was heard that a column of prussians forty thousand strong had come up behind us from charleroi. we could not understand it, as we had swept everything before us to the banks of the sambre. this column which had fallen on our rear, must have been hidden in the forest. it was about half-past six and the combat at st. amand seemed to grow fiercer than ever. blücher had moved his forces to that side, and it was a favorable moment to carry the other part of the village, but this column forced us to wait. the houses on either side of the brook were filled with troops, the french on the right and the prussians on the left. the firing had ceased, a few shots were still heard from time to time, but they were evidently by design. we looked at each other as if to say, "let us breathe awhile now, and we will commence again presently." the prussians in the house opposite us, in their blue coats and leather shakos, with their mustaches turned up, were all strongly built men, old soldiers with square chins and their ears standing out from their heads. they looked as if they might overthrow us at a blow. the officers, too, were looking on. along the two streets which were parallel with the brook and in the brook itself, the dead were lying in long rows. many of them were seated with their backs against the walls. they had been dangerously wounded in the battle but had had sufficient strength to retire from the strife, and had sunk down against the wall and died from loss of blood. some were still standing upright in the brook, their hands clutching the bank as if to climb out, rigid in death. and in obscure corners of the ruined houses, when they were lighted up with the sun's rays, we could see the miserable wretches crushed under the rubbish, with stones and beams lying across their bodies. the struggle at st. amand became still more terrible, the discharges of cannon seemed to rise one above the other, and if we had not all been looking death in the face, nothing could have prevented us from admiring this grand music. at every discharge hundreds of men perished, but there was no interruption, the solid earth trembled under our feet. we could breathe again now, and very soon we began to feel a most intolerable thirst. during the fight nobody had thought of it, but now everybody wanted to drink. our house formed the corner at the left of the bridge, but the little water that was running over the muddy bottom of the brook was red with blood. between our house and the next there was a little garden, where there was a well from which to water it. we all looked at this well with its curb and its wooden posts; the bucket was still hanging to the chain in spite of the showers of shot, but three men were already lying face downward in the path leading to it. the prussians had shot them as they were trying to reach it. as we stood there with our loaded muskets, one said, "i would give half my blood for one glass of that water;" another, "yes, but the prussians are on the watch." this was true, there they were, a hundred paces from us, perhaps they were as thirsty as we, and were guessing our thoughts. the shots that were still fired came from these houses, and no one could go along the street, they would shoot him at once, so we were all suffering horribly. this lasted for another half hour, when the cannonade extended from st. amand to ligny, and we could see that our batteries had opened with grape and canister on the prussians by the great gaps made in their columns at every discharge. this new attack produced a great excitement. buche, who had not stirred till that moment, ran down through the path leading to the well in the garden and sheltered himself behind the curb. from the two houses opposite a volley was fired, and the stones and the posts were soon riddled with balls. but we opened our fire on their windows and in an instant it began again from one end of the village to the other, and everything was enveloped in smoke. at that moment i heard some one shout from below, "joseph, joseph!" it was buche; he had had the courage after he had drank himself, to fill the bucket, unfasten it, and bring it back with him. [illustration: he had had the courage to pull up the bucket.] several old soldiers wanted to take it from him, but he shouted, "my comrade first! let go, or i'll pour it all out!" they were compelled to wait till i had drank, then they took their turn, and afterward the others who were upstairs drained the rest. we all went up together greatly refreshed. it was about seven o'clock and near sunset, the shadows of the houses on our side reached quite to the brook--while those occupied by the prussians were still in the sunlight, as well as the hill-side of bry, down which we could see the fresh troops coming on the run. the cannonade had never been so fierce as at this moment from our side. every one now knows, that at nightfall between seven and eight o'clock the emperor, having discovered that the column which had been signalled in our rear was the corps of general d'erlon, which had missed its route between the battle of ney with the english at quatre-bras and ours here at ligny, had ordered the old guard to support us at once. the lieutenant who was with us said, "this is the grand attack. attention!" the whole of the prussian cavalry was swarming between the two villages. we felt that there was a grand movement behind us, though we did not see it. the lieutenant repeated, "attention to orders! let no one stay behind after the order to march! here is the attack!" we all opened our eyes. the farther the night advanced the redder the sky grew over st. amand. we were so absorbed in listening to the cannonade that, we no longer thought of anything else. at each discharge you would have said the heavens were on fire. the tumult behind us was increasing. suddenly the broad street running along the brook was full of troops, from the bridge quite to the end of ligny. on the left in the distance the prussians were shooting from the windows again, while we did not reply. the shout rose--"the guard! the guard!" i do not know how that mass of men passed the muddy ditch, probably by means of plank thrown across, but in a moment they were on the left bank in force. the batteries of the prussians at the top of the ravine between the two villages, cut gaps through our columns, but they closed up immediately, and moved steadily up the hill. what remained of our division ran across the bridge, followed by the artillerymen and their pieces with the horses at a gallop. then we went down to the street, but we had not reached the bridge when the cuirassiers began to file over it, followed by the dragoons and the mounted grenadiers of the guard. they were passing everywhere, across and around the village. it was like a new and innumerable army. the slaughter began again on the hill, this time the battle was in the open fields, and we could trace the outlines of the prussian squares on the hill-side at every discharge of musketry. we rushed on over the dead and wounded, and when we were clear of the village we could see that there was an engagement between the cavalry, though we could only distinguish the white cuirasses as they pierced the lines of the uhlans; then they would be indiscriminately mingled and the cuirassiers would re-form and set off again like a solid wall. it was dark already, and the dense masses of smoke made it impossible to see fifty paces ahead. everything was moving toward the windmills, the clatter of the cavalry, the shouts, the orders of the officers and the file-firing in the distance, all were confounded. several of the squares were broken. from time to time a flash would reveal a lancer bent to his horse's neck, or a cuirassier, with his broad white back and his helmet with its floating plume, shooting off like a bullet, two or three foot soldiers running about in the midst of the fray,--all would come and go like lightning. the trampled grain, the rain streaking the heavens, the wounded under the feet of the horses, all came out of the black night--through the storm which had just broken out--for a quarter of a second. every flash of musket or pistol showed us inexplicable things by thousands. but everything moved up the hill and away from ligny; we were masters. we had pierced the enemy's centre, the prussians no longer made any defence, except at the top of the hill near the mills and in the direction of sombref, at our right. st. amand and ligny were both in our hands. as for us, a dozen or so of our company there alone among the ruins of the cottages, with our cartridge-boxes almost empty;--we did not know which way to turn. zébédé, lieutenant bretonville, and captain florentin had disappeared, and sergeant rabot was in command. he was a little old fellow, thin and deformed, but as tough as steel; he squinted and seemed to have had red hair when young. now, as i speak of him, i seem to hear him say quietly to us, "the battle is won! by file right! forward, march!" several wanted to stop and make some soup, for we had eaten nothing since noon and began to be hungry. the sergeant marched down the lane with his musket on his shoulder, laughing quietly, and saying in an ironical tone: "oh! soup, soup! wait a little, the commissary is coming!" we followed him down the dark lane; about midway we saw a cuirassier on horseback with his back toward us. he had a sabre cut in the abdomen and had retired into this lane, the horse leaned against the wall to prevent him from falling off. as we filed past he called out, "comrades!" but nobody even turned his head. twenty paces farther on we found the ruins of a cottage completely riddled with balls, but half the thatched roof was still there, and this was why sergeant rabot had selected it; and we filed into it for shelter. we could see no more than if we had been in an oven; the sergeant exploded the priming of his musket, and we saw that it was the kitchen, that the fireplace was at the right, and the stairway on the left. five or six prussians and frenchmen were stretched on the floor, white as wax, and with their eyes wide open. "here is the mess-room," said the sergeant, "let every one make himself comfortable. our bedfellows will not kick us." as we saw plainly that there were to be no rations, each one took off his knapsack and placed it by the wall on the floor for a pillow. we could still hear the firing, but it was far in the distance on the hill. the rain fell in torrents. the sergeant shut the door, which creaked on its hinges, and then quietly lighted his pipe. some of the men were already snoring when i looked up, and he was standing at the little window, in which not a pane of glass remained, smoking. he was a firm, just man, he could read and write, had been wounded and had his three chevrons, and ought to have been an officer, only he was not well formed. he soon laid his head on his knapsack, and shortly after all were asleep. it was long after this when i was suddenly awakened by footsteps and fumbling about the house outside. i raised up on my elbow to listen, when somebody tried to open the door. i could not help screaming out. "what's the matter?" said the sergeant. we could hear them running away, and rabot turned on his knapsack saying: "night birds,--rascals,--clear out, or i'll send a ball after you!" he said no more and i got up and looked out of the window, and saw the wretches in the act of robbing the dead and wounded. they were going softly from one to another, while the rain was falling in torrents. it was something horrible. i lay down again and fell asleep overcome by fatigue. at daybreak the sergeant was up and crying, "en route!" we left the cottage and went back through the lane. the cuirassier was on the ground, but his horse still stood beside him. the sergeant took him by the bridle and led him out into the orchard, pulled the bits from his mouth and said: "go, and eat, they will find you again by and by." and the poor beast walked quietly away. we hurried along the path which runs by ligny. the furrows stopped here and some plats of garden ground lay along by the road. the sergeant looked about him as he went, and stooped down to dig up some carrots and turnips which were left. i quickly followed his example, while our comrades hastened on without looking round. i saw that it was a good thing to know the fruits of the earth. i found two beautiful turnips and some carrots, which are very good raw, but i followed the example of the sergeant and put them in my shako. i ran on to overtake the squad, which was directing its steps toward the fires at sombref. as for the rest, i will not attempt to describe to you the appearance of the plateau in the rear of ligny where our cuirassiers and dragoons had slaughtered all before them. the men and horses were lying in heaps. the horses with their long necks stretched out on the ground and the dead and wounded lying under them. sometimes the wounded men would raise their hands to make signs when the horses would attempt to get up and fall back, crushing them still more fearfully. blood! blood! everywhere. the directions of the balls and shot was marked on the slope by the red lines, just as we see in our country the lines in the sand formed by the water from the melting snow. but will you believe it? these horrors scarcely made any impression upon me. before i went to lutzen such a sight would have knocked me down. i should have thought then, "do our masters look upon us as brutes? will the good god give us up to be eaten by wolves? have we mothers and sisters and friends, beings who are dear to us, and will they not cry out for vengeance?" i should have thought of a thousand other things, but now i did not think at all. from having seen such a mass of slaughter and wrong every day and in every fashion, i began to say to myself: "the strongest are always right. the emperor is the strongest, and he has called us, and we must come in spite of everything, from pfalzbourg, from saverne, or other cities, and take our places in the ranks and march. the one who would show the least sign of resistance ought to be shot at once. the marshals, the generals, the officers, down to the last man, follow their instructions, they dare not make a move without orders, and everybody obeys the army. it is the emperor who wills, who has the power and who does everything. and would not joseph bertha be a fool to believe that the emperor ever committed a single fault in his life? would it not be contrary to reason?" that was what we all thought, and if the emperor had remained here, all france would have had the same opinion. my only satisfaction was in thinking that i had some carrots and turnips, for in passing in the rear of the pickets to find our place in the battalion, we learned that no rations had been distributed except brandy and cartridges. the veterans were filling their kettles; but the conscripts, who had not yet learned the art of living while on a campaign, and who had unfortunately already eaten all their bread, as will happen when one is twenty years old, and is on the march with a good appetite, they had not a spoonful of anything. at last about seven o'clock we reached the camp. zébédé came to meet me and was delighted to see me, and said, "what have you brought, joseph? we have found a fat kid and we have some salt, but not a mouthful of bread." i showed him the rice which i had left, and my turnips and carrots. "that's good," said he, "we shall have the best soup in the battalion." i wanted buche to eat with us too, and the six men belonging to our mess, who had all escaped with only bruises and scratches, consented. padoue, the drum-major, said, laughing, "veterans are always veterans, they never come empty-handed." we looked into the kettles of the five conscripts, and winked, for they had nothing but rice and water in them, while we had a good rich soup, the odor of which filled the air around us. at eight we took our breakfast with an appetite, as you can imagine. not even on my wedding-day did i eat a better meal, and it is a pleasure even now to think of it. when we are old we are not so enthusiastic about such things as when we are young, but still we always recall them with satisfaction. this breakfast sustained us a long time, but the poor conscripts with only a few crumbs as it were soaked in rain water, had a hard time next day--the th. we were to have a short but terrible campaign. though all is over now, yet i cannot think of those terrible sufferings without emotion, or without thanking god that we escaped them. the sun shone again and the weather was fine,--we had hardly finished our breakfast when the drums began to beat the assembly along the whole line. the prussian rear-guard had just left sombref, and it was a question whether we should pursue them. some said we ought to send out the light-horse, to pick up the prisoners. but no one paid any attention to them,--the emperor knew what he was doing. but i remember that everybody was astonished notwithstanding, because it is the custom to profit by victories. the veterans had never seen anything like it. they thought that the emperor was preparing some grand stroke; that ney had turned the enemy's line, and so forth. meanwhile the roll commenced and general gérard reviewed the fourth corps. our battalion had suffered most, because in the three attacks we had always been in the front. the commandant gémeau and captain vidal were wounded, and captains grégoire and vignot killed, seven lieutenants and second lieutenants, and three hundred and sixty men _hors de combat_. zébédé said that it was worse than at montmirail, and that they would finish us up completely before we got through. fortunately the fourth battalion arrived from metz under commandant délong and took our place in the line. captain florentin ordered us to file off to the left, and we went back to the village near the church, where a quantity of carts were stationed. we were then distributed in squads to superintend the removal of the wounded. several detachments of chasseurs were ordered to escort the convoys to fleurus as there was no room for them at ligny; the church was already filled with the poor fellows. we did not select those to be removed, the surgeons did that, as we could hardly distinguish in numbers of cases, between the living and the dead. we only laid them on the straw in the carts. i knew how all this was, for i was at lutzen, and i understand what a man suffers in recovering from a ball, or a musket-shot, or such a cut as our cuirassiers made. every time i saw one of these men taken up, i thanked god that i was not reduced to that condition, and, thinking that the same thing might befall me, i said to myself: "you do not know how many balls and slugs have been near you, or you would be horrified." i was astonished that so many of us had escaped in the carnage, which had been far greater than at lutzen or even at leipzig. the battle had only lasted five hours, and the dead in many places were piled two or three feet deep. the blood flowed from under them in streams. through the principal street where the artillery went, the mud was red with blood, and the mud itself was crushed flesh and bones. it is necessary to tell you this, in order that the young men may understand. i shall fight no more, thank god, i am too old, but all these young men who think of nothing but war, instead of being industrious and helping their aged parents, should know how the soldiers are treated. let them imagine what the poor fellows who have done their duty think, as they lie in the street, wanting an arm or a leg, and hear the cannon, weighing twelve or fifteen thousand pounds, coming with their big well-shod horses, plunging and neighing. then it is that they will recall their old parents who embraced them in their own village, while they went off saying: "i am going, but i shall return with the cross of honor, and with my epaulettes." yes, indeed! if they could weep and ask god's pardon, we should hear their cries and complaints, but there is no time for that; the cannon and the caissons with their freight of bombs and bullets arrive--and they can hear their own bones crack beforehand--and all pass right over their bodies, just as they do through the mud. when we are old, and think that such horrible things may happen to the children we love, we feel as if we would part with the last sou before we would allow them to go. but all this does no good, bad men cannot be changed, while good ones must do their duty, and if misfortune comes, their confidence in the justice of god remains. such men do not destroy their fellows from the love of glory, they are forced to do so, they have nothing with which to reproach themselves, they defend their own lives and the blood which is shed is not on their hands. but i must finish my story of the battle and the removal of the wounded. i saw sights there which are incredible; men killed in a moment of fury, whose faces had not lost their horrible expression, still held their muskets in their hands and stood upright against the walls, and you could almost hear them cry, as they stared with glazed eyes, "to the bayonet! no quarter!" it was with this thought and this cry that they appeared before god. he was awaiting them, and he may have said to them, "here am i. thou killest thy brethren--thou givest no quarter? none shall be given thee!" i have seen others mortally wounded strangling each other. at fleurus we were obliged to separate the french and the prussians, because they would rise from their beds, or their bundles of straw, to tear each other to pieces. ah! war! those who wish for it, and those who make men like ferocious beasts, will have a terrible account to settle above. xx the removal of the wounded continued until night. about noon shouts of _vive l'empereur_ extended along the whole line of our bivouac from the village of bry to sombref. napoleon had left fleurus with his staff and had passed in review the whole army on the plateau. these shouts continued for an hour, and then all was quiet and the army took up its march. we waited a long time for the orders to follow, but as they did not come, captain florentin went to see what was the matter, and came back at full speed shouting, "beat the assembly!" the detachments of the battalion joined each other and we passed through the village at a quick step. all had left, many other squads had received no orders, and in the vicinity of st. amand the streets were full of soldiers. several companies remained behind, and reached the road by crossing the fields on the left, where we could see the rear of the column as far as the eye could reach--caissons, wagons, and baggage of every sort. i have often thought that we might have been left behind, as gérard's division was at st. amand, and nobody could have blamed us, as we followed our orders to pick up the wounded, but captain florentin would have thought himself dishonored. we hurried forward as fast as possible. it had commenced to rain again and we slipped in the mud and darkness. i never saw worse weather, not even at the retreat from leipzig when we were in germany. the rain came down as if from a watering pot, and we tramped on with our guns under our arms with the cape of our cloaks over the locks, so wet that if we had been through a river it could not have been worse; and such mud! with all this we began to feel the want of food. buche kept saying: "well! a dozen big potatoes roasted in the ashes as we do at harberg would rejoice my eyes. we don't eat meat every day at home, but we always have potatoes." i thought of our warm little room at pfalzbourg, the table with its white cloth, father goulden with his plate before him, while catherine served the rich hot soup and the smoked cutlets on the gridiron. my present sufferings and troubles overwhelmed me, and if wishing for death only had been necessary to rid me of them, i should have long ago been out of this world. the night was dark, and if it had not been for the ruts, into which we plunged to our knees at every step, we should have found it difficult to keep the road; as it was, we had only to march in the mud to be sure we were right. between seven and eight o'clock we heard in the distance something like thunder. some said: "it is a thunder-storm!" others, "it is cannon!" great numbers of disbanded soldiers were following us. at eight o'clock we reached quatre-bras. there are two houses opposite each other at the intersection of the road from nivelles to namur with that from brussels to charleroi. they were both full of wounded men. it was here that marshal ney had given battle to the english, to prevent them from going to the support of the prussians along the road by which we had just come. he had but twenty thousand men against forty thousand, and yet nicholas cloutier, the tanner, maintains to-day even, that he ought to have sent half his troops to attack the prussian rear, as if it were not enough to stop the english. to such people everything is easy, but if they were in command, it would be easy to rout them with four men and a corporal. below us the barley and oat fields were full of dead men. it was then that i saw the first red-coats stretched out in the road. the captain ordered us to halt, and he went into the house at the right. we waited for some time in the rain, when he came out with dauzelot, general of the division, who was laughing, because we had not followed grouchy toward namur; the want of orders had compelled us to turn off to quatre-bras. notwithstanding, we received orders to continue our march without stopping. i thought i should drop every moment from weakness, but it was worse still when we overtook the baggage, for then we were obliged to march on the sides of the road, and the farther from it we went the more deeply we sank in the soft soil. about eleven o'clock we reached a large village called genappe, which lies on both sides of the route. the crowd of wagons, cannon, and baggage was so great that we were forced to turn to the right and cross the thy by a bridge, and from this point we continued to march through the fields of grain and hemp, like savages who respect nothing. the night was so dark that the mounted dragoons, who were placed at intervals of two hundred paces like guide-posts, kept shouting, "this way, this way!" about midnight we reached a sort of farm-house thatched with straw, which was filled with superior officers. it was not far from the main road, as we could hear the cavalry and artillery and baggage wagons rushing by like a torrent. the captain had hardly got into the house, when we jumped over the hedge into the garden. i did like the rest, and snatched what i could. nearly the whole battalion followed this example in spite of the shouts of the officers, and each one began digging up what he could find with his bayonet. in two minutes there was nothing left. the sergeants and corporals were with us, but when the captain returned we had all regained our ranks. those who pillage and steal on a campaign ought to be shot; but what could you do? there was not a quarter enough food in the towns through which we passed to supply such numbers. the english had already taken nearly everything. we had a little rice left, but rice without meat is not very strengthening. the english troops received sheep and beeves from brussels, they were well fed and glowing with health. we had come too late, the convoys of supplies were belated, and the next day when the terrible battle of waterloo was fought the only ration we received was brandy. we left the village, and on mounting a little elevation we perceived the english pickets through the rain. we were ordered to take a position in the grain fields with several regiments which we could not see, and not to light our fires for fear of alarming the english, if they should discover us in line, and so induce them to continue their retreat. now just imagine us lying in the grain under a pouring rain like regular gypsies, shivering with cold and bent on destroying our fellows, and happy in having a turnip or a radish to keep up our strength and tell me if that is the kind of life for honest people. is it for that, that god has created us and put us in the world? is it not abominable that a king or an emperor, instead of watching over the affairs of the state, encouraging commerce, and instructing the people in the principles of liberty and giving good examples, should reduce us to such a condition as that by hundreds of thousands. i know very well that this is called glory, but the people are very stupid to glorify such men as those. yes, indeed, they must have first lost all sense of right, all heart, and all religion! but all this did not prevent my teeth from chattering, or from seeing the english in our front warming and enjoying themselves around their good fires, after receiving their rations of beef, brandy, and tobacco. and i thought, "it is we poor devils, drenched to our very marrow, who are to be compelled to attack these fellows who are full of confidence, and want neither cannon nor supplies, who sleep with their feet to the fire, with their stomachs well lined, while we must lie here in the mud." i was indignant the whole night. buche would say: "i do not care for the rain, i have been through many a worse one when on the watch; but then i had at least a crust of bread and some onions and salt." i was quite absorbed with my own troubles and said nothing, but he was angry. the rain ceased between two and three in the morning. buche and i were lying back to back in a furrow, in order to keep warm, and at last overcome by fatigue i fell asleep. when i woke about five in the morning, the church bells were ringing matins over all that vast plain. i shall never forget the scene; and as i looked at the gray sky, the trampled grain, and my sleeping comrades on the right and left, my heart sunk under the sense of desolation. the sound of the bells as they responded to each other from planchenois to genappe, from frichemont to waterloo, reminded me of pfalzbourg, and i thought: "to-day is sunday, the day of rest and peace. mr. goulden has hung his best coat, with a white shirt, on the back of his chair. he is getting up now and he is thinking of me; catherine has risen too and is sitting crying on the bed, and aunt grédel at quatre vents is pushing open the shutters and she has taken her prayer-book from the shelf and is going to mass." i could hear the bells of dann and mittelbronn and bigelberg ring out in the silence. i thought of that peaceful quiet life and was ready to burst into tears. the roll of the drums was heard through the damp air, and there was something inauspicious and portentous in the sound. near the main road, on the left, they were beating the assembly, and the bugles of the cavalry sounded the reveille. the men rose and looked over the grain. those three days of marching and fighting in the bad weather without rations made them sober; there was no talking as at ligny, every one looked in silence and kept his thoughts to himself. we could see too, that the battle was to be a much more important affair, for instead of having villages already occupied, which caused so many separate battles, on our front, there was an immense elevated naked plain on which the english were encamped. behind their lines at the top of the hill was the village of mont-st.-jean, and a league and a half still farther away, was a forest which bounded the horizon. between us and the english, the ground descended gently and rose again nearest us, forming a little valley, but one must have been accustomed to the country to perceive this; it was deepest on the right and contracted like a ravine. on the slope of this ravine on our side, behind the hedges and poplars and other trees, some thatched roofs indicated a hamlet; this was planchenois. in the same direction but much higher, and in the rear of the enemy's left, the plain extended as far as the eye could reach, and was scattered over with little villages. the clear atmosphere after the storm enabled us to distinguish all this very plainly. we could even see the little village of saint-lambert three leagues distant on our right. at our left in the rear of the english right, there were other little villages to be seen, of which i never knew the names. we took in all this grand region covered with a magnificent crop just in flower, at a glance; and we asked ourselves why the english were there, and what advantage they had in guarding that position. but when we observed their line a little more closely--it was from fifteen hundred to two thousand yards from us--we could see the broad, well-paved road, which we had followed from quatre-bras and which led to brussels, dividing their position nearly in the centre. it was straight, and we could follow it with the eye to the village of mont-st.-jean and beyond quite to the entrance of the forest of soignes. this we saw the english intended to hold to prevent us from going to brussels. on looking carefully we could see that their line of battle was curved a little toward us at the wings, and that it followed a road which cut the route to brussels like a cross. on the left it was a deep cut, and on the right of the road it was bordered with thick hedges of holly and dwarf beech which are common in that country. behind these were posted mass of red-coats who watched us from their trenches. in the front, the slope was like a glacis. this was very dangerous. immense bodies of cavalry were stationed on the flanks, which extended nearly three-quarters of a league. we saw that the cavalry on the plateau in the vicinity of the main road after having passed the hill, descended before going to mont-st.-jean, and we understood that there was a hollow between the position of the english and that village; not very deep, as we could see the plumes of the soldiers as they passed through, but still deep enough to shelter heavy reserves from our bullets. i had already seen weissenfels, lutzen, leipzig, and ligny, and i began to understand what these things meant, and why they arranged themselves in one way rather than another, and i thought that the manner in which these english had laid their plans and stationed their forces on this cross-road to defend the road to brussels, and to shelter their reserves, showed a vast deal of good sense. but in spite of all that, three things seemed to me to be in our favor. the position of the enemy with its covered ways and hidden reserves was like a great fort. every one knows that in time of war everything is demolished that can furnish a shelter to the enemy. well! just in their centre, on the high-road and on the slope of their glacis, was a farm-house like the "roulette" at quatre vents, but five or six times larger. i could see it plainly from where we stood. it was a great square, the offices, the house, the stables and barns formed a triangle on the side toward the english, and on our side the other half was formed by a wall and sheds, with a court in the centre. the wall running along the field side, had a small door, the other on the road had an entrance for carriages and wagons. it was built of brick and was very solid. of course the english had filled it with troops like a sort of demilune, but if we could take it we should be close to their centre and could throw our attacking columns upon them, without remaining long under their fire. nothing could be better for us. this place was called haie-sainte, as we found out afterward. a little farther on, in front of their right wing was another little farmstead and grove, which we could also try to take. i could not see it from where i stood, but it was a stronger position than haie-sainte as it was covered by an orchard, surrounded with walls, and farther on was the wood. the fire from the windows swept the garden, and that from the garden covered the wood, and that from the wood the side-hill, and the enemy could beat a retreat from one to the other. i did not see this with my own eyes, but some veterans gave me an account of the attack on this farm; it was called hougoumont. one must be exact in speaking of such a battle, the things seen with one's own eyes are the principal, and we can say: "i saw them, but the other accounts i had from men incapable of falsehood or deception." and lastly in front of their left wing on the road leading to wavre, about a hundred paces from the hill on our side, were the farms of papelotte and la haye, occupied by the germans, and the little hamlets of smohain, cheval-de-bois, and jean-loo, which i informed myself about afterward in order to understand all that took place. i could see these hamlets plainly enough then, but i did not pay much attention to them as they were beyond our line of battle on the right, and we did not see any troops there. now you can all see the position of the english on our front, the road to brussels which traversed it, the cross-road which covered it, the plateau in the rear where the reserves were, and the three farms, hougoumont, haie-sainte, and papelotte in front, well garrisoned. you can all see that it would be very difficult to force. i looked at it about six o'clock that morning very attentively, as a man will do who is to run the risk of breaking his bones and losing his life in some enterprise, and who at least likes to know if he has any chance of escape. zébédé, sergeant rabot, and captain florentin, buche, and indeed every one as he rose cast a glance at that hill-side without saying a word. then they looked around them at the great squares of infantry, the squadrons of cuirassiers, of dragoons, chasseurs, lancers, etc., encamped amid the growing grain. nobody had any fears now that the english would beat a retreat, we lighted as many fires as we pleased, and the smoke from the damp straw filled the air. those who had a little rice left, put on their camp-kettles, while those who had none looked on thinking: "each has his turn; yesterday we had meat, and we despised the rice, now we should be very grateful for even that." about eight o'clock the wagons arrived with cartridges and hogsheads of brandy; each soldier received a double ration: with a crust of bread we might have done very well, but the bread was not there. you can imagine what sort of humor we were in. this was all we had that day: immediately after, the grand movements commenced. regiments joined their brigades, brigades their divisions, and the divisions re-formed their corps. officers on horseback carried orders back and forth, everything was in motion. our battalion joined donzelot's division; the others had only eight battalions, but his had nine. i have often heard the veterans repeat the order of battle given by napoleon. the corps of reille was on the left of the road opposite hougoumont, that of d'erlon, at the right, opposite haie-sainte; ney on horseback on the highway, and napoleon in the rear with the old guard, the special detachments, the lancers and chasseurs, etc. that was all that i understood, for when they began to talk of the movements of eleven columns, of the distance which they deployed, and when they named the generals one after another, it seemed to me as if they were talking of something which i had never seen. i like better therefore to tell you simply what i saw and remember myself. the first movement was at half-past eight, when our four divisions received the order to take the advance to the right of the highway. there were about fifteen or twenty thousand men marching in two columns, with arms at will, sinking to our knees at every step in the soft ground. nobody spoke a word. several persons have related that we were jubilant and were all singing; but it is false. marching all night without rations, sleeping in the water, forbidden to light a fire, when preparing for showers of grape and canister, all this took away any inclination to sing, we were glad to pull our shoes out of the holes in which they were buried at every step, and chilled and drenched to our waists by the wet grain, the hardiest and most courageous among us wore a discontented air. it is true that the bands played marches for their regiments, that the trumpets of the cavalry, the drums of the infantry, and the trombones mingled their tones and produced a terrible effect, as they do always. it is also true that these thousands of men marched briskly and in good order, with their knapsacks at their backs, and their muskets on their shoulders, the white lines of the cuirassiers followed the red, brown, and green of the dragoons, hussars, and lancers, with their little swallow-tailed pennons filling the air; the artillerymen in the intervals between the brigades, on horseback around their guns, which cut through the ground to their axles,--all these moved straight through the grain, not a head of which remained standing behind them, and truly there could not be a sight more dreadful. the english drawn up in perfect order in front, their gunners ready with their lighted matches in their hands, made us think, but did not delight us quite so much as some have pretended, and men who like to receive cannon-balls are still rather rare. father goulden told me that the soldiers sang in his time, but then they went voluntarily and not from force. they fought in defence of their homes and for human rights, which they loved better than their own eyes, and it was not at all like risking our lives to find out whether we were to have an old or a new nobility. as for me, i never heard any one sing either at leipzig or waterloo. on we went, the bands still playing by order from head-quarters. the music ceased, and the silence which followed was profound. then we were at the edge of the little valley, and about twelve hundred paces from the english left. we were in the centre of our army, with the chasseurs and lancers on our right flank. we took our distances and closed up the intervals. the first brigade of the first division turned to the left and formed on the highway. our battalion formed a part of the second division, and we were in the first line, with a single brigade of the first division before us. the artillery was passed up to the front, and that of the english was directly opposite and on the same level. and for a long time the other divisions were moving up to support us. it seemed as if the earth itself was in motion. the veterans would say: "there are milhaud's cuirassiers! here are the chasseurs of lefebvre-desnoëttes! yonder is lobau's corps!" on every side, as far as the eye could reach, there was nothing to be seen but cuirasses, helmets, colbacks,[ ] sabres, lances, and files of bayonets. [ ] military caps of bear-skin. "what a battle," exclaimed buche. "woe to the english!" i had the same thought; i did not believe a single englishman would escape. but it was we who were unfortunate that day, though had it not been for the prussians i still believe we should have exterminated them. during the two hours we stood there, we did not see the half of our regiments and squadrons, and new ones were continually coming. about an hour after we took our position we heard suddenly on the left, shouts of "vive l'empereur," they increased as they approached us like a tempest; we all stood on our tiptoes and stretched our necks to see; they spread through all the ranks, and even the horses in the rear neighed as if they would shout too. at that moment a troop of general officers whirled along our front like the wind. napoleon was among them, and i thought i saw him, though i was not certain, he went so swiftly, and so many men raised their shakos on the points of their bayonets that i hardly had time to distinguish his round shoulders and gray coat in the midst of the laced uniforms. when the captain had shouted, "carry arms! present arms!" it was over. we saw him in this way every day, at least when we were on guard. after he had passed, the shouts continued along our right farther and farther away, and we all thought the battle would begin in twenty minutes. but we were obliged to wait a long time and we grew impatient. the conscripts in d'erlon's corps, who were not in battle the day before, began to shout "forward!" at last, about noon, the cannon thundered on the left and were followed by the fire from the battalion and then the file. we could see nothing, for it was on the other side of the road. the attack had commenced on hougoumont. immediately shouts of "vive l'empereur!" broke out. the cannoneers of our four divisions were standing the whole length of the hill-side, at twenty paces from each other. at the discharge of the first gun, they all commenced to load at once. i see them still, as they put in the charge, ram it home, raise up, and shake out their matches as by a single movement. this made us shiver. the captains of the guns, nearly all old officers, stood behind their pieces and gave orders as if on parade; and when the whole twenty-four guns went off together, the report was deafening, and the whole valley was covered with smoke. at the end of a second, we heard the calm voices of these veterans above the whistling in our ears saying "load! take aim! fire!" and that continued without interruption for half an hour. we could see nothing at all, but the english had opened their fire, and we heard their bullets scream in the air and strike with a dull sound in the mud; and then we could hear another sound too, that of the muskets striking against each other, and the sound of the bodies of wounded men as they were thrown like boneless sacks twenty paces in the rear, or sank in a heap with a leg or an arm wanting. all this mingled with the dull rumbling; the destruction had commenced. the groans of the wounded mingled also with these sounds, and with the fierce terrible neighing of the horses, which are naturally ferocious, and delight in slaughter. we could hear this tumult half a league in the rear; and it was with great difficulty the animals could be restrained from setting off to join in the battle. for a long time we had been able to see nothing but the shadows of the gunners as they manoeuvred in the smoke, on the border of the ravine, when we heard the order, "cease firing!" at the same moment we heard the piercing voices of the colonels of our four divisions shout, "close up the ranks for battle!" all the lines approached each other. "now it is our turn," said i to buche. "yes," he replied, "let us keep together." the smoke from our guns rose up into the air, and then we could see the batteries of the english, who still continued their fire all along the hedges which bordered the road. the first brigade of alix's division advanced at a quick step along the road leading to haie-sainte. in the rear i recognized marshal ney with several of the officers of his staff. from every window of the farm-house, and from the garden, and walls which had been pierced with holes, came fiery showers, and at every step men were left stretched on the road. general ney on horseback with the corners of his great hat pointing over his shoulders, watched the action from the middle of the road. i said to buche: "that is marshal ney, the second brigade will go to support the first, and we shall come next." but i mistook; at that very moment the first battalion of the second brigade received orders to march in line on the right of the highway, the second in the rear of the first, the third behind the second, and the fourth following in file. we had not time to form in column, but we were solidly arrayed after all, one behind the other, from one hundred and fifty to two hundred men in line in front, the captains between the companies, and the commandants between the battalions. but the balls instead of carrying off two men at a time would now take eight. those in the rear could not fire because those in front were in the way and we found too that we could not form in squares. that should have been thought of beforehand, but was overlooked in the desire to break the enemy's line and gain all at a blow. our division marched in the same order: as the first battalion advanced, the second followed immediately in their steps, and so on with all the rest. i was pleased to see, that, commencing on the left, we should be in the twenty-fifth rank, and that there must be terrible slaughter before we should be reached. the two divisions on our right were also formed in close column, at three hundred paces from each other. thus we descended into the little valley, in the face of the english fire. we were somewhat delayed by the soft ground, but we all shouted, "to the bayonet!" as we mounted on the other side, we were met by a hail of balls from above the road at the left. if we had not been so crowded together, this terrible volley would have checked us. the charge sounded and the officers shouted, "steady on the left!" but this terrible fire made us lengthen our right step more than our left, in spite of ourselves, so that when we neared the road bordered by the hedges, we had lost our distances and our division formed a square, so to speak, with the third. two batteries now swept our ranks, and the shot from the hedges a hundred feet distant pierced us through and through; a cry of horror burst forth and we rushed on the batteries, overpowering the redcoats who vainly endeavored to stop us. it was then that i first saw the english close at hand. they were strong, fair, and closely shaved, like well-to-do bourgeois. they defended themselves bravely, but we were as good as they. it was not our fault--the common soldiers--if they did defeat us at last, all the world knows that we showed as much and more courage than they did. it has been said that we were not the soldiers of austerlitz and jena, of friedland and of moskowa. it was because they were so good, perhaps, that they were spared. we would have asked nothing better, than to have seen them in our place. every shot of the english told, and we were forced to break our ranks. men are not palisades, and must defend themselves when attacked. great numbers were detached from their companies, when thousands of englishmen rose up from among the barley and fired, their muskets almost touching our men, which caused a terrible slaughter. the other ranks rushed to the support of their comrades, and we should all have been dispersed over the hill-side like a swarm of ants, if we had not heard the shout, "attention, the cavalry!" almost at the same instant, a crowd of red dragoons mounted on gray horses, swept down upon us like the wind, and those who had straggled were cut to pieces without mercy. they did not fall upon our columns in order to break them, they were too deep and massive for that; but they came down between the divisions, slashing right and left with their sabres, and spurring their horses into the flanks of the columns to cut them in two, and though they could not succeed in this, they killed great numbers and threw us into confusion. it was one of the most terrible moments of my life. as an old soldier i was at the right of the battalion, and saw what they were intending to do. they leaned over as far as possible when they passed, in order to cut into our ranks; their strokes followed each other like lightning, and more than twenty times i thought my head was off my shoulders, but sergeant rabot closed the file fortunately for me; it was he who received this terrible shower of blows, and he defended himself to the last breath. at every stroke he shouted, "cowards, cowards!" his blood sprinkled me like rain, and at last he fell. my musket was still loaded, and seeing one of the dragoons coming with his eye fixed on me and bending over to give me a thrust, i let him have it full in the breast. this was the only man i ever saw fall under my fire. the worst was, that at that moment their foot-soldiers rallied and recommenced their fire, and they even were so bold as to attack us with the bayonet. only the first two ranks made a stand. it was shameful to form our men in that manner. then the red dragoons and our columns rushed pell-mell down the hill together. and still our division made the best defence, for we brought off our colors, while the two others had lost two eagles. we rushed down in this fashion through the mud and over the cannon, which had been brought down to support us, and had been cut loose from the horses by the sabres of the dragoons. we scattered in every direction, buche and i always keeping together, and it was ten minutes before we could be rallied again near the road in squads from all the regiments. those who have the direction of affairs in war should keep such examples as these before their eyes, and reflect that new plans cost those dear who are forced to try them. we looked over our shoulders as we took breath, and saw the red dragoons rushing up the hill to capture our principal battery of twenty-four guns, when, thank god! their turn came to be massacred. the emperor had observed our retreat from a distance, and as the dragoons mounted the hill, two regiments of cuirassiers on the right, and a regiment of lancers on the left fell on their flanks like lightning, and before they had time to look, they were upon them. we could hear the blows slide over their cuirasses, hear their horses puff, and a hundred paces away we could see the lances rise and fall, the long sabres stretch out, and the men bend down to thrust under; the furious horses, rearing, biting, and neighing frightfully, and then men under the horses' feet were trying to get up, and sheltering themselves with their hands. what horrible things are battles! buche shouted, "strike hard!" i felt the sweat run down my forehead, and others with great gashes, and their eyes full of blood, were wiping their faces and laughing ferociously. in ten minutes, seven hundred dragoons were _hors-de-combat_; their gray horses were running wildly about on all sides, with their bits in their teeth. some hundreds of them had retired behind their batteries, but more than one was reeling in his saddle and clutching at his horse's mane. they had found out that to attack was not all the battle, and that very often circumstances arise which are quite unexpected. in all that frightful spectacle, what impressed me most deeply, was seeing our cuirassiers returning with their sabres red to the hilt, laughing among themselves; and a fat captain with immense brown mustaches, winked good-humoredly as he passed by us, as much as to say, "you see we sent them back in a hurry, eh!" yes, but three thousand of our men were left in that little hollow. and it was not yet finished: the companies and battalions and brigades were being re-formed, the musketry rattled in the vicinity of haie-sainte, and the cannon thundered near hougoumont. "it was only just a beginning," the officers said. you would have thought that men's lives were of no value! but it was necessary to get possession of haie-sainte, and to force a passage from the highway to the enemy's centre just as an entrance must be effected into a fortification through the fire of the outworks and the demilunes. we had been repulsed the first time, but the battle was begun, and we could not go back. after the charge of the cuirassiers, it took a little time for us to re-form: the battle continued at hougoumont, and the cannonade re-opened on our right, and two batteries had been brought up to sweep the highway in the rear of haie-sainte, where the road begins to mount the hill. we all saw that that was to be the point of attack. we stood waiting with shouldered arms, when about three o'clock buche looked behind him on the road and said, "the emperor is coming!" and others in the ranks repeated, "here is the emperor." the smoke was so thick that we could barely see the bear-skin caps of the old guard on the little hill of rossomme. i turned round also to see the emperor, and immediately recognized marshal ney, with five or six of his staff officers. he was coming from head-quarters and pushed straight down upon us across the fields. we stood with our backs to him; our officers hurried to meet him, and they conversed together, but we could not hear a word in consequence of the noise which filled our ears. the marshal then rode along the front of our two battalions, with his sword drawn. i had never seen him so near since the grand review at aschaffenbourg; he seemed older, thinner, and more bony, but still the same man; he looked at us with his sharp gray eyes, as if he took us all in at a glance, and each one felt, as if he were looking directly at him. at the end of a second he pointed toward haie-sainte with his sword, and exclaimed: "we are going to take _that_, you will have the whole at once, it is the turning-point of the battle. i am going to lead you myself. battalions by file to the left!" we started at a quick step on the road, marching by companies in three ranks. i was in the second. marshal ney was in front, on horseback, with the two colonels and captain florentin: he had returned his sword to the scabbard. the balls whistled round our ears by hundreds, and the roar of cannon from hougoumont and on our left and right in the rear was so incessant, that it was like the ringing of an immense bell, when you no longer hear the strokes, but only the booming. one and another sank down from among us, but we passed right on over them. two or three times the marshal turned round to see if we were marching in good order; he looked so calm, that it seemed to me quite natural not to be afraid, his face inspired us all with confidence, and each one thought, "ney is with us, the others are lost!" which only shows the stupidity of the human race, since so many others besides us escaped. as we approached the buildings the report of the musketry became more distinct from the roar of cannon, and we could better see the flash of the guns from the windows, and the great black roof above in the smoke, and the road blocked up with stones. we went along by a hedge, behind which crackled the fire of our skirmishers, for the first brigade of alix's division had not quitted the orchards; and on seeing us filing along the road, they commenced to shout, "vive l'empereur." the whole fire of the german musketry was then turned on us, when marshal ney drew his sword and shouted in a voice which reached every ear, "forward!" he disappeared in the smoke with two or three officers, and we all started on a run, our cartridge-boxes dangling about our hips, and our muskets at the "ready." far to the rear they were beating the charge; we did not see the marshal again till we reached a shed which separated the garden from the road, when we discovered him on horseback before the main entrance. it appeared that they had already tried to force the door, as there was a heap of dead men, timbers, paving stones, and rubbish piled up before it, reaching to the middle of the road. the shot poured from every opening in the building, and the air was heavy with the smell of the powder. "break that in," shouted the marshal. fifteen or twenty of us dropped our muskets, and seizing beams we drove them against the door with such force, that it cracked and echoed back the blows like thunder. you would have thought it would drop at every stroke; we could see through the planks the paving stones heaped as high as the top inside. it was full of holes, and when it fell it might have crushed us, but fury had rendered us blind to danger. we no longer had any resemblance to men, some had lost their shakos, others had their clothes nearly torn off; the blood ran from their fingers and down their sides, and at every discharge of musketry the shot from the hill struck the paving stones, pounding them to dust around us. i looked about me, but i could not see either buche or zébédé or any others of our company, the marshal had disappeared also. our rage redoubled; and as the timbers went back and forth, we grew furious to find that the door would not come down, when suddenly we heard shouts of "vive l'empereur" from the court, accompanied with a most horrible uproar. every one knew that our troops had gained an entrance into the enclosure. we dropped the timbers, and seizing our guns we sprang through the breaches into the garden to find where the others had entered. it was in the rear of the house through a door opening into the barn. we rushed through one after the other like a pack of wolves. the interior of this old structure, with its lofts full of hay and straw, and its stables covered with thatch, looked like a bloody nest which had been attacked by a sparrow-hawk. on a great dung-heap in the middle of the court, our men were bayoneting the germans who were yelling and swearing savagely. i was running hap-hazard through this butchery, when i heard some one call, "joseph, joseph!" i looked round, thinking, "that is buche calling me." in a moment i saw him at the door of a woodshed, crossing bayonets with five or six of our men. i caught sight of zébédé at that same instant, as our company was in that corner, and rushing to buche's assistance, i shouted, "zébédé!" parting the combatants, i asked buche what was the matter. "they want to murder my prisoners!" said he. i joined him, and the others began to load their muskets to shoot us. they were voltigeurs from another battalion. at that moment zébédé came up with several men from our company, and without knowing how the matter stood, he seized the most brutal one by the throat and exclaimed, "my name is zébédé, sergeant of the sixth light infantry. when this affair is settled, we will have a mutual explanation." then they went away, and zébédé asked: "what is all this, joseph?" i told him we had some prisoners. he turned pale with anger against us, but when he went into the wood-shed he saw an old major, who presented him the guard of his sabre in silence, and another soldier, who said in german, "spare my life, frenchman; don't take my life." the cries of the dying still filled the court, and his heart relenting, zébédé said, "very well, i take you prisoners." he went out and shut the door. we did not quit the place again until the assembly began to beat. then, when the men were in their ranks, zébédé notified captain florentin that we had taken a major and a soldier prisoners. they were brought out and marched across the court without arms, and put in a room with three or four others. these were all that remained of the two battalions of nassau troops which were intrusted with the defence of haie-sainte. while this had been going on, two other battalions from nassau, who were coming to the assistance of their comrades, had been massacred outside by our cuirassiers, so that for the moment we were victorious: we were masters of the principal outpost of the english and could begin our attack on their centre, cut their communication by the highway with brussels, and throw them into the miserable roads of the forest of soignes. we had had a hard struggle, but the principal part of the battle had been fought. we were two hundred paces from the english lines, well sheltered from their fire; and i believe, without boasting, that with the bayonet and well supported by the cavalry, we could have fallen upon them, and pierced their line. an hour of good work would have finished the affair. but while we were all rejoicing over our success, and the officers, soldiers, drummers, and trumpeters were all in confusion, amongst the ruins, thinking of nothing but stretching our legs and getting breath, the rumor suddenly reached us that the prussians were coming, that they were going to fall on our flank, and that we were about to have two battles, one in front and the other on our right, and that we ran the risk of being surrounded by a force double our own. this was terrible news, but several hot-headed fellows exclaimed: "so much the better, let the prussians come! we will crush them all at once." those who were cool saw at once what a mistake we had made by not making the most of our victory at ligny, and in allowing the prussians quietly to leave in the night without being pursued by our cavalry, as is always done. we may boldly say that this great fault was the cause of our defeat at waterloo. it is true, the emperor sent marshal grouchy the next day at noon, with thirty-two thousand men to look after the enemy, but then it was quite too late. in those fifteen hours they had time to re-form, to communicate with the english, and to act on the defensive. the next day after ligny, the prussians still had ninety thousand men, of whom thirty thousand were fresh troops, and two hundred and seventy-five cannon. with such an army they could do what they pleased; they could have even fought a second battle with the emperor, but they preferred falling on our flank, while we were engaged with the english in front. that is so plain and clear, that i cannot imagine how any one can think the movement of the prussians surprising. blücher had already played us the same trick at leipzig--and he repeated it now in drawing grouchy on to pursue him so far. grouchy could not force him to return, and he could not prevent him from leaving thirty or forty thousand men to stop his pursuers, while he pushed on to the relief of wellington. our only hope was that grouchy had been ordered to return and join us, and that he would come up in the rear of the prussians; but the emperor sent no such order. it was not we, the common soldiers, as you may well think, who had these ideas; it was the officers and generals; we knew nothing of it; we were like children, utterly unconscious that their hour is near. but now having told you what i think, i will give you the history of the rest of the battle just as i saw it myself, so that each one of you will know as much about it as i do. xxi almost immediately after the news of the arrival of the prussians, the assembly began to beat, the soldiers of the different battalions formed their ranks, and ours, with another from quiot's brigade, was left to guard haie-sainte, and all the others went on to join general d'erlon's corps, which had advanced again into the valley, and was endeavoring to flank the enemy on the left. the two battalions went to work at once to barricade the doors and the breaches in the walls with timbers and paving stones, and men were stationed in ambush at all the holes which the enemy had made in the wall on the side toward the orchard and on that next the highway. buche and i, with the remainder of our company, were posted over a stable in a corner of the barn, about ten or twelve hundred paces from hougoumont. i can still see the row of holes which the germans had knocked in the wall, about as high as a man's head, in order to defend the orchard. as we went up into this stable, we looked through these holes, and we could see our line of battle, the high-road to brussels and charleroi, the little farms of belle-alliance, rossomme, and gros-caillou, which lie along this road at little distances from each other; the old guard which was stationed across it, with their shouldered arms, and the staff on a little eminence at the left, and farther away in the same direction, in the rear of the ravine of planchenois, we could see the white smoke rising continually above the trees. this was the attack of the first prussian corps. we heard afterward that the emperor had sent lobau with ten thousand men to turn them back. the battle had begun, but the old and the young guard, the cuirassiers of milhaud and of kellerman, and the chasseurs of lefebvre-desnoëttes; in fact the whole of our magnificent cavalry remained in position. the great, the real battle was with the english. what a crowd of thoughts must have been suggested, by that grand spectacle and that immense plain, to the emperor, who could see it all mentally better than we could with our own eyes. we might have stayed there for hours, if captain florentin had not come up suddenly, and exclaimed, "what are you doing here? are we going to dispute the passage with the guard? come! hurry! knock a hole in that wall on the side toward the enemy!" we picked up the sledges and pickaxes which the germans had dropped on the floor, and made holes through the wall of the gable. this did not take fifteen minutes, and then we could see the fight at hougoumont; the blazing buildings, the bursting of the bombs from second to second among the ruins, and the scotch chasseurs in ambuscade in the road in the rear of the place, and on our right about two gunshots distant, the first line of the english artillery, falling back on their centre, and stationing their cannon, which our gunners had begun to dismount, higher up the hill. but the remainder of their line did not change; they had squares of red and squares of black touching each other at the corners like the squares of a chess-board, in the rear of the deep road; and in attacking them we would come under their crossfire. their artillery was in position on the brow of the hill, and in the hollow on the hill-side toward mont-st.-jean their cavalry was waiting. the position of the english seemed to me still stronger than it was in the morning; and as we had already failed in our attack on their left wing, and the prussians had fallen on our flank, the idea occurred to me, for the first time, that we were not sure of gaining the battle. i imagined the horrible rout that would follow in case we lost the battle--shut in between two armies, one in front and the other on our flank, and then the invasion which would follow; the forced contributions, the towns besieged, the return of the émigrés, and the reign of vengeance. i felt that my apprehension had made me grow pale. at that moment the shouts of "_vive l'empereur_" broke from thousands of throats behind us. buche, who stood near me in a corner of the loft, shouted with all the rest of his comrades, "_vive l'empereur!_" i leaned over his shoulder and saw all the cavalry of our right wing; the cuirassiers of milhaud, the lancers and the chasseurs of the guard, more than five thousand men--advancing at a trot. they crossed the road obliquely and went down into the valley between hougoumont and haie-sainte. i saw that they were going to attack the squares of the english, and that our fate was to be decided. we could hear the voices of the english artillery officers, giving their orders, above the tumult and the innumerable shouts of "_vive l'empereur_." it was a terrible moment when our cuirassiers crossed the valley; it made me think of a torrent formed by the melting snows, when millions of flakes of snow and ice sparkle in the sunshine. the horses, with the great blue portmanteaux fastened to their croups, stretched their haunches like deer and tore up the earth with their feet, the trumpets blew their savage blasts amidst the dull roar as they passed into the valley, and the first discharge of grape and canister made even our old shed tremble. the wind blew from the direction of hougoumont, and drove the smoke through all the openings; we leaned out to breathe, and the second and third discharges followed each other instantly. i could see through the smoke that the english, gunners had abandoned their cannon and were running away with their horses, and that our cuirassiers had immediately fallen upon the squares, which were marked out on the hill-side by the zig-zag line of their fire. nothing could be heard but a grand uproar of cries, incessant clashing of arms and neighing of horses, varied with the discharge from time to time, and then new shouts, new tumult and fresh groans. a score of horses with their manes erect, rushed through the thick smoke which settled around us, like shadows; some of them dragging their riders with one foot caught in the stirrup. and this lasted more than an hour. after milhaud's cuirassiers, came the lancers of lefebvre-desnoëttes, after them the cuirassiers of kellerman, followed by the grenadiers of the guard, and after the grenadiers came the dragoons. they all mounted the hill at a trot, and rushed upon the squares with drawn sabres, shouting, "_vive l'empereur!_" in tones which reached the clouds. at each new charge it seemed as if the squares must be overthrown; but when the trumpets sounded the signal for rallying and the squadrons rushed pell-mell back to the edge of the plateau to re-form, pursued by the showers of shot, there were the great red lines, steadfast as walls, in the smoke. those englishmen are good soldiers, but then they knew that blücher was coming to their assistance with sixty thousand men, and no doubt this inspired them with great courage. in spite of everything, at six o'clock we had destroyed half their squares, but the horses of our cuirassiers were exhausted by twenty charges over the ground soaked with rain. they could no longer advance over the heaps of dead. as night approached, the great battle-field in our rear began to be deserted; at last the great plain where we had encamped the night before was tenantless, only the old guard remained across the road with shouldered arms, all had gone--on the right against the prussians, on the left against the english. we looked at each other in terror. it was already growing dark, when captain florentin appeared at the top of the ladder, and placing both hands on the floor, he said in a grave voice, "men, the time has come to conquer or die!" i remembered that these words were in the proclamation of the emperor, and we all filed down the ladder. it was still twilight, but all was gray in the devastated court; the dead were lying stiff on the dung-heap and along the walls. the captain formed our men on the right side of the court, and the commandant of the other battalion ranged his on the left; our drums resounded through the old building for the last time, and we filed out of the little rear door into the garden, stooping one after the other as we went through. the walls of the garden outside had been knocked down, and all along the rubbish, men were binding up their wounds--one his head, another his arm or his leg. a cantinière with her donkey and cart, and with a great straw hat flattened on her back--was there too in a corner. i do not know what had brought the wretched creature there. several sorry-looking horses were standing there, exhausted with fatigue, with their heads hanging down, and covered with blood and mud. what a difference between them now, and in the morning. then the companies were half destroyed, but still they were companies. confusion was coming. it had taken only three hours to reduce us to the same condition we were in at leipzig at the end of a year. the remains of the two battalions still formed only one line, in good order, and i must admit that we began to be anxious. when men have tasted nothing for twenty-four hours, and have exhausted all their strength by fighting all day, the pangs of hunger seize them at night, fear comes also, and the most courageous lose hope. all our great retreats, with their horrors, are traceable to the want of food. for in spite of everything we were not conquered; the cuirassiers still held their position on the plateau, and from all sides over the thunder of cannon, over all the tumult, the cry was heard, "the guard is coming!" yes, the guard was coming at last! we could see them in the distance on the highway, with their high bear-skin caps, advancing in good order. those who have never witnessed the arrival of the guard on the battle-field, can never know the confidence which is inspired by a body of tried soldiers; the kind of respect paid to courage and force. the soldiers of the old guard were nearly all old peasants, born before the republic; men five feet and six inches in height, thin and well built, who had held the plough for convent and chateau; afterward they were levied with all the rest of the people, and went to germany, holland, italy, egypt, poland, spain, and russia, under kleber, hoche, and marceau first, and under napoleon afterward. he took special care of them and paid them liberally. they regarded themselves as the proprietors of an immense farm, which they must defend and enlarge more and more. this gained them consideration; they were defending their own property. they no longer knew parents, relatives, or compatriots; they only knew the emperor; he was their god. and lastly they had adopted the king of rome, who was to inherit all with them, and to support and honor them in their old age. nothing like them was ever seen, they were so accustomed to march, to dress their lines, to load, and fire, and cross bayonets, that it was done mechanically in a measure, whenever there was a necessity. when they advanced, carrying arms, with their great caps, their white waistcoats and gaiters, they all looked just alike; you could plainly see that it was the right arm of the emperor which was coming. when it was said in the ranks, "the guard is going to move," it was as if they had said, "the battle is gained." but now, after this terrible massacre, after the repulse of these furious attacks, on seeing the prussians fall on our flank, we said, "this is the decisive blow." and we thought, "if it fails, all is lost." this was why we all looked at the guard as they marched steadily up on the road. it was ney who commanded them, as he had commanded the cuirassiers. the emperor knew that nobody could lead them like ney, only he should have ordered them up an hour sooner, when our cuirassiers were in the squares; then we should have gained all. but the emperor looked upon his guard as upon his own flesh and blood; if he had had them at paris five days later, lafayette and the rest of them would not have remained long in their chamber to depose him, but he had them no longer. this was why he waited so long before sending them; he hoped that ney would succeed in overwhelming the enemy with the cavalry, or that the thirty-two thousand men under grouchy would return, attracted by the sound of the cannon, and then he could send them in place of his guard; because he could always replace thirty or forty thousand by conscription; but to have another such guard, he must commence at twenty-five, and gain fifty victories, and what remained of the best, most solid, and the toughest would be _the guard_. it came, and we could see it. ney, old friant, and several other generals, marched in front. we could see nothing but _the guard_--the roaring cannon, the musketry, the cries of the wounded, all were forgotten. but the lull did not last long; the english perceived as well as we, that this was to be the decisive blow, and hastened to rally all their forces to receive it. that part of our field at our left was nearly deserted; there was no more firing, either because their ammunition was exhausted, or the enemy were forming in a new order. on the right, on the contrary, the cannonade was redoubled; the struggle seemed to have been transferred to that side, but nobody dared to say, "the prussians are attacking us; another army has come to crush us." no! the very idea was too horrible; when suddenly a staff officer rushed past like lightning, shouting: "grouchy, marshal grouchy is coming!" this was just at the moment when the four battalions of the guard took the left of the highway in order to go up in the rear of the orchard, and commence the attack. how many times during the last fifty years i have seen it over again at night, and how many times i have heard the story related by others. in listening to these accounts you would think that only the guard took part in the attack, that it moved forward like ranks of palisades; and that it was the guard alone which received the showers of shot. but in truth this terrible attack took place in the greatest confusion; our whole army joined in it; all the remnant of the left wing and centre, all that was left of the cavalry exhausted by six hours of fighting; every one who could stand or lift an arm. the infantry of reille which concentrated on the left, we who remained at haie-sainte, _all_ who were alive and did not wish to be massacred. and when they say we were in a panic of terror and tried to run away like cowards, it is not true. when the news arrived that grouchy was coming, even the wounded rose up and took their places in the ranks; it seemed as if a breath had raised the dead; and all those poor fellows in the rear of haie-sainte with their bandaged heads and arms and legs, with their clothes in tatters and soaked with blood, every one who could put one foot before the other, joined the guard when it passed before the breaches in the wall of the garden, and every one tore open his last cartridge. the attack sounded, and our cannon began again to thunder. all was quiet on the hill-side, the rows of english cannon were deserted, and we might have thought they were all gone, only as the bear-skin caps of the guard rose above the plateau, five or six volleys of shot warned us that they were waiting for us. then we knew that all those englishmen, germans, belgians, and hanoverians, whom we had been sabring and shooting since morning, had reformed in the rear, and that we must encounter them. many of the wounded retired at this moment, and the guard, upon which the heaviest part of the enemy's fire had fallen, advanced through the showers of shot almost alone, sweeping everything before it, but it closed up more and more, and diminished every moment. in twenty minutes every officer was dismounted, and the guard halted before such a terrible fire of musketry, that even we, two hundred paces in the rear, could not hear our own guns; we seemed to be only exploding our priming. at last the whole army, in front, on the right and on the left, with the cavalry on the flanks, fell upon us. the four battalions of the guard, reduced from three thousand to twelve hundred men, could not withstand the charge, they fell back slowly, and we fell back also, defending ourselves with musket and bayonet. we had seen other battles more terrible, but this was the last. when we reached the edge of the plateau, all the plain below was enveloped in darkness and in the confusion of the defeat. the disbanded troops were flying, some on foot and some on horseback. a single battalion of the guard in a square near the farm-house, and three other battalions farther on, with another square of the guard at the junction of the route at planchenois, stood motionless as some firm structure in the midst of an inundation which sweeps away everything else. they all went--hussars, chasseurs, cuirassiers, artillery, and infantry--pell-mell along the road, across the fields, like an army of savages. along the ravine of planchenois the dark sky was lighted up by the discharges of musketry; the one square of the guard still held out against bulow, and prevented him from cutting off our retreat, but nearer us the prussian cavalry poured down into the valley like a flood breaking over its barriers. old blücher had just arrived with forty thousand men: he doubled our right wing and dispersed it. what can i say more! it was dissolution--we were surrounded. the english pushed us into the valley, and it was through this valley that blücher was coming. the generals and officers and even the emperor himself were compelled to take refuge in a square, and they say that we poor wretches were panic-stricken! such an injustice was never seen. [illustration: combat of hougoumont farm.] buche and i with five or six of our comrades ran toward the farm-house--the bombs were bursting all around us, we reached the road in our wild flight just as the english cavalry passed at full gallop, shouting, "no quarter! no quarter!" at this moment the square of the guard began to retreat, firing from all sides in order to keep off the wretches who sought safety within it. only the officers and generals might save themselves. i shall never forget, even if i should live a thousand years, the immeasurable, unceasing cries which filled the valley for more than a league; and in the distance the _grenadière_ was sounding like an alarm-bell in the midst of a conflagration. but this was much more terrible; it was the last appeal of france, of a proud and courageous nation; it was the voice of the country saying, "help, my children! i perish!" this rolling of the drums of the old guard in the midst of disaster, had in it something touching and horrible. i sobbed like a child;--buche hurried me along, but i cried, "jean, leave me--we are lost, everything is lost!" the thought of catherine, and mr. goulden, and pfalzbourg, did not enter my mind. what astonishes me to-day is, that we were not massacred a hundred times on the road, where files of english and prussians were passing. but perhaps they mistook us for germans, or they were running after the emperor, for they were all hoping to see him. opposite the little farm of rossomme, we were obliged to turn off the road to the right, into the field; it was here that the last square of the guard still held out against the attack of the prussians; they soon gave way, for twenty minutes afterward the enemy poured over the road, and the prussian chasseurs separated into bands to arrest all those who straggled or remained behind. this road was like a bridge; all who did not keep on it fell into the abyss. at the slope of the ravine in the rear of the inn "passe-avant," some prussian hussars rushed upon us: there were not more than five or six of them, and they called out to us to surrender; but if we had raised the butts of our muskets, they would have sabred us. we aimed at them, and seeing that we were not wounded, they passed on. this forced us to return to the road, where the uproar could be heard for at least two leagues; cavalry, infantry, artillery, ambulances, and baggage-wagons, were creeping along the road pell-mell, howling, beating, neighing, and weeping. the retreat at leipzig furnished no such spectacle as this. the moon rose above the wood behind planchenois, and lighted up this crowd of shapskas,[ ] bear-skin caps, helmets, sabres, bayonets, broken caissons, and abandoned cannon; the crowd and confusion increased every moment, plaintive howls were heard from one end of the line to the other, rolling up and down the hill-side and dying away in the distance like a sigh. [ ] polish military cap. but the saddest of all, were the cries of the women, those unhappy creatures who follow armies. when they were knocked down or crowded out on to the slope with their carts, their screams could be heard above all the uproar, but no one turned his head, not a man stretched out a hand to help them: "every one for himself!--i shall crush you,--so much the worse for you,--i am the stronger--you scream, but it is all the same to me!--take care,--take care--i am on horseback--i shall hit you!--room--let me get away--the others do just the same--room for the emperor! room for the marshal!" the strong crush the weak--the only thing in the world is strength! on! on! let the cannons crush everything, if we can only save them! but the cannon can move no farther,--unhitch them, cut the traces, and the horses will carry us off. make them go as fast as possible, and if they break down--then let them go? if we were not the stronger our turn would come to be crushed--we should cry out and everybody would mock at our complaints. save himself who can--and "_vive l'empereur!_" "but the emperor is dead!" everybody thought the emperor had died with, the old guard; that seemed perfectly natural. the prussian cavalry passed us in files with drawn sabres, shouting, "hurrah!" they seemed to be escorting us, but they sabred every one who straggled from the road, and took no prisoners, neither did they attack the column; a few musket-shots passed over us from the right and left. far in the rear we could see a red light: this was the farm-house at caillou. we hastened onward, borne down with fatigue, hunger, and despair; we were ready to die, but still the hope of escape sustained us. buche said to me as we went along, "joseph, let us help each other." "i will never abandon you," i replied. "we will die together. i can hold out no longer, it is too terrible,--we might better lie down at once." "no, let us keep on," said he. "the prussians make no prisoners. look! they kill without mercy, just as we did at ligny." we kept on in the same direction with thousands of others, sullen and discouraged, and yet we would turn round all at once and close our ranks and fire, when a squadron of prussians came too near. we were still firm, still the stronger from time to time; we found abandoned gun-carriages, caissons, and cannons, and the ditches on either side were full of knapsacks, cartridge-boxes, guns, and sabres, which had been thrown away by the men to facilitate their flight. but the most terrible thing of all was the great ambulances in the middle of the road filled with the wounded. the drivers had cut the traces and fled with the horses for fear of being taken prisoners. the poor half-dead wretches, with their arms hanging down, looked at us as we passed with despairing eyes. when i think of all this now, it reminds me of the tufts of straw and hay which lodge among the bushes after an inundation. we say "that is our harvest, this is our crop, that is what the tempest has left us." ah! i have had many such reflections during fifty years! what grieved me most and made my heart bleed in the midst of this rout was that i could not discover a single man of our battalion besides ourselves. i said to myself, "they cannot all be dead;" and i said to buche: "if i could only find zébédé it would give me back my courage." but he replied: "let us try to save ourselves, joseph. as for me, if i ever see harberg again, i will not complain because i have to eat potatoes. no, no. god has punished me. i shall be contented to work and go into the woods with my axe on my shoulder. if only i do not go home maimed, and if i am not compelled to hold out my hand at the roadside in order to live, like so many others. let us try to get home safe and sound." i thought he showed great good sense. at about half-past ten, as we reached the environs of genappe, terrible cries were heard in the distance. fires of straw had been lighted in the middle of the principal street to give light to the multitude, and we could see from where we were, that the houses were full of people and the streets so full of horses and baggage that they could not move a step. we knew that the prussians might come at any moment, and that they would have cannon; and that it would be better for us if we went round the village than to be taken prisoners altogether. this was why we turned to the left across the grain fields with a great many others. we crossed the thy in water up to our waists, and toward midnight we reached quatre-bras. we had done well not to stop at genappe, for we already heard the roar of the prussian cannon and musketry near the village. great numbers of fugitives came along the road, cuirassiers, lancers, and chasseurs. not one of them stopped. we began to be terribly hungry. we knew very well that everything in these houses must have been eaten long ago, but still we went into the one on the left. the floor was covered with straw, on which the wounded were lying. we had hardly opened the door when they all began to cry out at once; to tell the truth, the stench was so horrible that we left immediately and took the road to charleroi. the moon shone beautifully, and we could see on the right amongst the grain a quantity of dead men, who had not yet been buried. buche followed a furrow about twenty-five paces, to where three or four englishmen were lying one on the top of the other. i asked him what he was going to do amongst the dead. he came back with a tin bottle, and shaking it at his ear, he said, "joseph, it is full." he dipped it in the water of the ditch before opening it, and then took out the cork and drank, saying, "it is brandy!" he passed it to me, and i drank also. i felt my life returning, and i gave him back the bottle half full, thanking god for the good idea that he had given us. we looked on all sides to see if we could not find some bread in the haversacks of the dead, but the uproar increased, and as we could not resist the prussians if they should surround us, we set off again full of strength and courage. the brandy made us look at everything on the bright side already, and i said to buche: "jean, now the worst is over and we shall see pfalzbourg and harberg again. we are on a good road which will take us back to france. if we had gained the battle, we should have been forced to go still farther into germany, and we should have been obliged to fight the austrians and the russians, and if we had had the good fortune to escape with our lives, we should have returned old gray-haired veterans, and should have been compelled to keep garrison at 'petite pierre,' or somewhere else." these miserable thoughts ran through my head, but i marched on with more courage, and buche said: "the english are right in having their bottles made of tin, for if i had not seen this shining in the moonlight, i should never have thought of going to look for it." every moment while we were talking in this way men were riding by, their horses almost ready to drop, but by beating and spurring, they kept them trotting just the same. the noise of the retreating army began to reach our ears again in the distance, but fortunately we had the advance. it might have been about one o'clock in the morning, and we thought ourselves safe, when suddenly buche said to me: "joseph, here are the prussians!" and looking behind us, i saw in the moonlight five bronzed hussars from the same regiment as those who, the year before, had cut poor klipfel to pieces. i thought this was a bad sign. "is your gun loaded?" i asked buche. "yes." "well! let us wait, we must defend ourselves, i will not surrender." "nor i either," said he, "i had rather die than to be taken prisoner." at the same moment the prussian officer shouted arrogantly, "lay down your arms." instead of waiting, as i did, buche discharged the contents of his musket full in the officer's breast. then the other four fell upon us. buche received a blow from a sabre which cut his shako down to the visor, but with one thrust with his bayonet he killed his antagonist. three of them still remained. my musket was loaded. buche planted himself with his back against a nut-tree, and every time the prussians, who had fallen back, approached us, i took aim. neither of them wanted to be the first to die! as we waited, buche with his bayonet fixed and i with my musket at my shoulder, we heard a galloping on the road. this frightened us, for we thought more prussians were coming, but they were our lancers. the hussars then turned off into the grain, and buche hastened to re-load his gun. our lancers passed and we followed them on the run. an officer who joined us, said that the emperor had set out for paris, and that king jerome had just taken command of the army. buche's scalp was laid completely open, but the bone was not injured, and the blood ran down his cheeks. he bound up his head with his handkerchief. after that we saw no more prussians. about two o'clock in the morning, we were so weary we could hardly take another step. about two hundred paces to the left of the road there was a little beech grove. buche said: "look, joseph, let us go in there and lie down and sleep." it was just what i wanted. we went down across the oat-field to the wood, and entered a close thicket of young trees. we had both kept our guns and knapsacks and cartridge-boxes. we laid our knapsacks on the ground for a pillow, and it had long been broad daylight, and the retreating crowd had been passing for hours, when we awoke and quietly pursued our journey. xxii numbers of our comrades and of the wounded remained behind at gosselies, but the larger part of the army kept on their way, and about nine o'clock we began to see the spires of charleroi in the distance, when suddenly we heard shouts, cries, complaints, and shots intermingled, half a league before us. the whole immense column of miserable wretches halted, shouting: "the city closes its doors against us! we are stopped here!" consternation and despair were stamped on every face. but a moment after, the news came that the convoys of provisions were coming and that they would not distribute them. "let us fall upon them! kill the rascals who are starving us! we are betrayed!" the most fearful and the most exhausted quickened their pace, and drew their sabres or loaded their muskets. it was plain that there would be a veritable butchery if the guards did not give way. buche himself shouted: "they ought all to be murdered, we are betrayed. come, joseph, let us be revenged." but i held him back by the collar and exclaimed: "no, jean, no! we have had murders enough already, and we have escaped all, and we do not want to be killed here by frenchmen. come!" he struggled still, but at last i showed him a village on the left of the road and said: "look! there is the road to harberg, and there are houses like those at quatre vents; let us go there and ask for bread; i have money, and we shall certainly find some. that will be better than to attack the convoys like a pack of wolves." he allowed himself to be persuaded at last, and we set off once more through the grain. if hunger had not urged us on, we should have sat down on the side of the path at every step. but at the end of half an hour, thanks to god, we reached a sort of farm-house; it was abandoned, with the windows broken out, and the door wide open, and great heaps of black earth lying about. we went in and shouted, "is there no one here?" we knocked against the furniture with the butts of our muskets, but not a soul answered. our fury increased, because we saw several wretches, following the route by which we had come, and we thought, "they are coming to eat up our bread." ah! those who have never suffered these privations cannot comprehend the fury which possessed us. it was horrible--horrible! we had already broken open the door of a cupboard filled with linen, and were turning over everything with our bayonets, when an old woman came out from behind a table, which hid the passage to the cellar. she sobbed and exclaimed: "my god, my god! have mercy upon us." the house had been pillaged early in the morning; they had taken away the horses, the master had disappeared and the servants had fled. in spite of our fury the sight of the poor old woman made us ashamed of ourselves, and i said to her: "do not be afraid, we are not monsters, only give us some bread, we are starving." she was sitting on an old chair with her withered hands crossed over her knee, and she said: "i no longer have any, they have taken all. my god! all! all!" her gray hair was hanging down over her face, and i felt like weeping for her and for ourselves. "well!" i said, "we must look for ourselves, buche." we went into all the rooms and the stables, there was nothing to be seen, everything had been stolen and broken. i was going out, when in the shadow behind the old door, i saw something whitish against the wall. i stopped, and stretched out my hand. it was a linen bag with a strap, i took it down, trembling in my hurry. buche looked at me--the bag was heavy--i opened it, there were two great black radishes, half of a small loaf of bread, dry and hard as stone, a large pair of shears for trimming hedges, and quite in the bottom some onions and some gray salt in a paper. on seeing these we made an exclamation of joy, but the fear of seeing the others come in, made us run out in the rear, far into the rye-field, skulking and hiding like thieves. we had regained all our strength, and we went and sat down on the edge of a little brook. buche said: "look here! i must have my part." "yes,--half of all," i replied. "you let me drink from your bottle, i will divide with you." then he was calm again. i cut the bread in two with my sabre and said: "choose, jean; that is your radish, and there are half the onions, and we will share the salt between us." we ate the bread without soaking it in the water, we ate our radishes, our onions and the salt. we should have kept on eating still, if we had had more to eat, but yet we were satisfied. we knelt down with our hands in the water and we drank. "now let us go," said buche, "and leave the bag." in spite of our weary legs, which were ready to give out, we went on again toward the left; while on the right behind us, toward charleroi, the shouts and shots redoubled, and all along the road we could see nothing but the men fighting, but they were already far away. we looked back from time to time, and buche said: "joseph, you did well to bring me away, had it not been for you, i might have been stretched out over there by the road-side, killed by a frenchman. i was too hungry. but where shall we go now?" i answered, "follow me!" we passed through a large and beautiful village, pillaged and abandoned also. farther on we met some peasants, who scowled at us from the road-side. we must have had ill-looking faces, especially buche with his head bound up, and his beard eight days old, thick and hard as the bristles of a boar. about one o'clock in the afternoon we re-crossed the sambre, by the bridge of chatelet, but as the prussians were still in pursuit we did not halt there. i was quite at ease, thinking: "if they are still pursuing us, they will follow the bulk of the army, in order to take more prisoners and pick up the cannon, caissons, and baggage." this was the manner in which we were compelled to reason, we, who three days before had made the world tremble. i recollect that when we reached a small village about three o'clock in the afternoon, we stopped at a blacksmith's shop to ask for water. the country people immediately began to gather round, and the smith, a large, dark man, asked us to go to the little inn, opposite, saying he would join us and take a glass of beer with us. naturally enough this pleased us, for we were afraid of being arrested, and we saw that these people were on our side. i remembered that i had some money in my knapsack, and that now it would be useful. we went into the inn, which was only a little shop, with two small windows on the street, and a round door opening in the middle, as is common in our country villages. when we were seated the room was so full of men and women, who had come to hear the news, that we could hardly breathe. the smith came. he had taken off his leather apron and put on a little blue blouse, and we saw at once that he had five or six men with him. they were the mayor and his assistant, and the municipal councillors of the place. they sat down on the benches opposite, and ordered the favorite sour beer of the country for us to drink. buche asked for some bread; the innkeeper's wife brought us a whole loaf and a large piece of beef in a porringer. all urged us to "eat, eat!" when one or another would ask us a question about the battle, the smith or the mayor would say: "let the men finish, you can see plainly that they have come a long way." and it was only when we had finished eating, that they questioned us, asking if it was true that the french had lost a great battle. the first report was that we were the victors, but afterward they heard a rumor that we were defeated. we understood that they were speaking of ligny, and that their ideas were confused. i was ashamed to tell that we were overthrown; i looked at buche, and he said: "we have been betrayed. the traitors revealed our plans. the army was full of traitors, who cried, 'sauve qui peut!' how was it possible for us not to lose, under such circumstances?" it was the first time i had heard treason spoken of; some of the wounded, it is true, had said, "we are betrayed," but i had paid no attention to their words, and when buche relieved us from our embarrassment by this means, i was glad of it, though i was astonished. the people sympathized with us in our indignation against the traitors. then we were obliged to explain the battle and the treason. buche said the prussians had fallen upon us through the treason of marshal grouchy. this seemed to me to be going too far, but the peasants in their pity for us had made us drink again and again, and had given us pipes and tobacco, and at last i said the same as buche. it was not till after we had left the place that the recollection of our shameful falsehoods made me ashamed of myself, and i said to buche: "do you know, jean, that our lies about the traitors were not right? if every one tells as many, we shall all be traitors, and the emperor will be the only true man amongst us. it is a disgrace to the country to say that we have so many traitors; it is not true." "bah! bah!" said he. "we have been betrayed; if we had not, the english and prussians could never have forced us to retreat." we did nothing but dispute this point till eight o'clock in the evening. by this time we had reached a village called bouvigny. we were so tired that our legs were as stiff as stakes, and for a long while we had needed a great deal of courage to take a single step. we were certain that the prussians were no longer near, and as i had money we went into an inn and asked for a bed. i took out a six-franc piece in order to let them see that we could pay. i had resolved to change my uniform the next day, to leave my gun and knapsack and cartridge-box here and to go home, for i believed that the war was over, and i rejoiced in the midst of my misfortunes that i had escaped with my arms and legs. buche and i slept that night in a little room, with a holy virgin and infant jesus in a niche between the curtains over our heads, and we rested like the blessed in heaven. the next morning, instead of keeping on our way, we were so glad to sit on a comfortable chair in the kitchen, to stretch our legs and smoke our pipes as we watched the kettles boiling, that we said, "let us stay quietly here. to-morrow we shall be well rested, and we will buy two pairs of linen pantaloons, and two blouses, we will cut two good sticks from a hedge, and go home by easy stages." the thought of these pleasant plans touched us. and it was from this inn that i wrote to catherine and aunt grédel and mr. goulden. i wrote only a word: "i have escaped, let us thank god, i am coming, i embrace you a thousand times with all my heart. "joseph bertha." i thanked god as i wrote, but a great many things were to happen before i should mount our staircase at the corner of the rue fouquet opposite the "red ox." when one has been taken by conscription he must not be in a hurry to write that he is released. that happiness does not depend upon us, and the best will in the world helps nothing. i sent off my letter by the post, and we stayed all that day at the inn of the "golden sheep." after we had eaten a good supper, we went up to our beds, and i said to buche, "ha! jean, to do what you please is quite a different thing from being forced to respond to the roll-call." we both laughed in spite of the misfortunes of the country, of course without thinking, otherwise we should have been veritable rascals. for the second time we went to sleep in our good bed, when about one o'clock in the morning we were wakened in a most extraordinary manner: the drums were beating and we heard men marching all over the village. i pushed jean, and he said, "i hear it, the prussians are outside." you cannot imagine our terror, but it was much worse a moment after; some one knocked at the door of the inn, and it opened; in a moment the great hall was full of people. some one came up the stairs. we had both got up, and buche said, "i shall defend myself if they try to take me." i dared not think what i was going to do. we were almost dressed, and i was hoping to escape in the darkness without being recognized, when suddenly there was a knock at the door and a shout, "open." we were obliged to open it. an infantry officer, wet through by the rain, with his great blue cloak thrown over his epaulettes, followed by an old sergeant with a lantern, came in. we recognized them as frenchmen, and the officer asked brusquely, "where do you come from?" "from mont-st.-jean, lieutenant," i replied. "from what regiment are you?" "from the sixth light infantry," i answered. he looked at the number on my shako, which was lying on the table, and at the same time i saw that his number was also the sixth. "from which battalion are you?" said he, knitting his brows. "the third." buche, pale as ashes, did not say a word. the officer looked at our guns and knapsacks and cartridge-boxes behind the bed in the corner. "you have deserted," said he. "no, lieutenant, we left, the last ones, at eight o'clock, from mont-st.-jean." "go downstairs, we will see if that is true." we went downstairs. the officer followed us, and the sergeant went before with his lantern. the great hall below was full of officers of the th mounted chasseurs, and of the th light infantry. the commandant of the th battalion of the th was promenading up and down, smoking a little wooden pipe. they were all of them wet through and covered with mud. the officers said a few words to the commandant, who stopped, and fixed his black eyes upon us, while his crooked nose turned down into his gray mustache. his manner was not very gentle as he asked us half a dozen questions about our departure from ligny, the road to quatre-bras, and the battle. he winked and compressed his lips. the others walked up and down dragging their sabres without listening to us. at last the commandant said, "sergeant, these men will join the second company; go!" he took his pipe again from the edge of the mantel, and we went out with the sergeant, happy enough to get off so easily, for they might have shot us as deserters before the enemy. we followed the sergeant for two hundred paces to the other end of the village to a shed. fires had been lighted farther on in the fields; men were sleeping under the shed, leaning against the doors of the stables, and the posts. a fine rain was falling and the puddles quivered in the gray uncertain moonlight. we stood up under a part of the roof at the corner of the old house thinking of our troubles. at the end of an hour, the drums began to beat with a dull sound; the men shook the straw from their clothes and we resumed our march. it was still dark--but we could hear the chasseurs sounding their signal to mount, behind us. between three and four in the morning, at dawn, we saw a great many other regiments, cavalry, infantry, and artillery, on the march like ourselves by different roads, all the corps of marshal grouchy in retreat! the wet weather, the leaden sky, the long files of weary men, the disappointment of being retaken, and the thought that so many efforts and so much bloodshed had only terminated a second time in an invasion, all this made us hang down our heads. nothing was heard but the sound of our own footsteps in the mud. i could not shake off my sadness for a long time, when a voice near me said: "good-morning, joseph." i was awakened, and looking at the man who spoke to me, i recognized the son of martin the tanner, our neighbor at pfalzbourg; he was corporal of the sixth, and the file-closer, marching with arms at will. we shook hands. it was a real consolation for me to see some one from our own place. in spite of the rain which continued to fall and our great fatigue, we could talk of nothing but this terrible campaign. i related the story of the battle of waterloo, and he told me that the th battalion on leaving fleurus had taken the route toward wavre with the whole of grouchy's corps, and that in the afternoon of the next day, the th, they heard the cannon on their left and that they all wanted to go in that direction, even the generals, but the marshal having received positive orders, had continued on the route to wavre. it was between six and seven o'clock, before they were convinced that the prussians had escaped; then they changed their course to the left in order to rejoin the emperor, but unfortunately, it was too late, and toward midnight they were obliged to take a position in the fields. each battalion formed in a square. at three o'clock in the morning the cannon of the prussians had awakened the bivouacs, and they had skirmished until two o'clock in the afternoon, when the order to retreat reached them. again, martin said they were too late, for a part of the enemy's force which had been engaged with that of the emperor, was in their rear, and they were obliged to march all the rest of that day and the night following in order to escape from their pursuers. at six o'clock the battalion had taken a position near the village of temploux, and at ten the prussians came up in superior force. they opposed them in the most vigorous manner in order to give the baggage and artillery time to get over the bridge at namur. fortunately the whole army corps had escaped from the village except the th battalion which, through a mistake of the commandant, had turned off the road at the left, and was obliged to throw itself into the sambre in order to escape being cut off. some of the men were taken prisoners and some were drowned in trying to swim across the river. this was all that martin told me; he had no news from home. that same day we passed through givet; the battalion bivouacked near the village of hierches half a league farther on. the next day we passed through fumay and rocroy, and slept at bourg-fidèles, the d of june at blombay, the th at saulsse-lenoy--where we heard of the abdication of the emperor--and the days following at vitry, near rheims, at jonchery, and at soissons. from there the battalion took the route toward ville-cotterets, but the enemy was already before us, and we changed our course to ferté-milon, and bivouacked at neuchelles, a village destroyed by the invasion of , and which had not yet been rebuilt. we left that place on the th, about one o'clock in the morning, passing through meaux. here we were obliged to take the road to laguy, because the prussians occupied that which led to claye. we marched all that day and the night following. on the th, at five in the morning, we were at the bridge of saint-maur. the same day we passed outside of paris and bivouacked in a place rich in everything, called vaugirard. the st of july we reached meudon, a superb place. we could see by the walled gardens and orchards, and by the size and good condition of the houses, that we were in the suburbs of the most beautiful city in the world, and yet we were in the midst of the greatest danger and suffering, and our hearts bled in consequence. the people were kind and friendly to the soldiers, and called us the defenders of the country, and even the poorest were willing to go to battle with us. we left our position at eleven o'clock in the evening of the st of july, and went to st. cloud, which is nothing but palace upon palace, and garden upon garden, with great trees, and magnificent alleys, and everything that is beautiful. at six o'clock we quitted st. cloud to go back to our position at vaugirard. the most startling rumors filled the city. the emperor had gone to rochefort--they said; the king was coming back--louis the xviii. was _en route_--and so forth. they knew nothing certain in the city, where they should soonest know everything. the enemy attacked us in the suburbs of issy about one o'clock in the afternoon, and we fought till midnight for our capital. the people aided as much as possible; they carried off the wounded from under the enemy's fire; even the women took pity on us. what we suffered from being driven to this, i cannot describe. i have seen buche himself cry because we were in one sense dishonored. i wished i had never seen that time. twelve days before i did not know that france was so beautiful. but on seeing paris with its towers and its innumerable palaces extending as far as the horizon, i thought, "this is france, these are the treasures that our fathers have amassed during century after century. what a misfortune that the english and prussians should ever come here." at four in the morning we attacked the prussians with new fury, and retook the positions we had lost the day before. then it was that some generals came and announced a suspension of hostilities. this took place on the d of july, . we thought that this suspension was to give notice to the enemy, that if he did not quit our country, france would rise as one man, and crush them all as she did in ' . these were our opinions, and seeing that the people were on our side, i remembered the general levies which mr. goulden was always talking about. but unhappily a great many were so tired of napoleon and his soldiers, that they sacrificed the country itself, in order to be rid of him. they laid all the blame on the emperor, and said, if it had not been for him, our enemies would never have had the force or the courage to attack us, that he had exhausted our resources, and that the prussians themselves would give us more liberty than he had done. the people talked like mr. goulden, but they had neither guns nor cartridges, their only weapons were pikes. on the th, while we were thinking of these things, they announced to us the armistice, by which the prussians and english were to occupy the barriers of paris, and the french army was to retire beyond the loire. when we heard this, our indignation was so great that we were furious. some of the soldiers broke their guns, and others tore off their uniforms, and everybody exclaimed, "we are betrayed, we are given up." the old officers were quiet, but they were pale as death, and the tears ran down their cheeks. nobody could pacify us, we had fallen below contempt, we were a conquered people. for thousands of years it would be said, that paris had been taken by the prussians and the english. it was an everlasting disgrace, but the shame did not rest on us. the battalion left vaugirard at five o'clock in the afternoon to go to montrouge. when we saw that the movement toward the loire had commenced, each one said, "what are we then? are we subjects to the prussians? because they want to see us on the other side of the loire, are we forced to gratify them? no, no! that cannot be. since they have betrayed us, let us go! all this is none of our concern any longer. we have done our duty, but we will not obey blücher!" the desertion commenced that very night; all the soldiers went, some to the right and some to the left; men in blouses and poor old women tried to take us with them through the wilderness of streets, and endeavored to console us, but we did not need consolation. i said to buche: "let us leave the whole thing, and return to pfalzbourg and harberg, let us go back to our trades and live like honest people. if the austrians and russians come there, the mountaineers and villagers will know how to defend themselves. we shall need no great battles to destroy thousands of them, let us go!" there were fifteen of us from lorraine in the battalion, and we all left montrouge, where the headquarters were, together; we passed through ivry and bercy, both places of great beauty, but our trouble prevented us from seeing a quarter of what we should have done. some kept their uniforms, while others had only their cloaks, and the rest had bought blouses. we found the road to strasbourg at last, in the rear of st. mandé, near a wood to the left of which we could see some high towers, which they told us was the fortress of vincennes. from this place, we regularly made our twelve leagues a day. on the th of july we learned that louis xviii. was to be restored, and that monseigneur le comte d'artois would secure his salvation. all the wagons and boats and diligences already carried the white flag, and they were singing "te deums" in all the villages through which we passed; the mayors and their assistants and the councillors all praised and glorified god for the return of "louis the well-beloved." the scoundrels called us "bonapartists," as they saw us pass, and even set their dogs on us. but i do not like to speak of them; such people are the disgrace of the human race. we replied only by contemptuous glances, which made them still more insolent and furious. some of them flourished their sticks, as much as to say,--"if we had you in a corner, you would be as meek as lambs." the gendarmes upheld these _pinacles_ and we were arrested in three or four places. they demanded our papers and took us before the mayor, and the rascals forced us to shout "_vive le roi!_" it was shameful, and the old soldiers rather than do it allowed themselves to be taken to prison. buche wanted to follow their example, but i said to him, "what harm will it do us to shout vive jean claude, or vive jean nicholas? all these kings and emperors, old and new, would not give a hair of their heads to save our lives, and shall we go and break our necks in order to shout one thing rather than another? no, it does not concern us, and if people will be so stupid, as long as we are not the strongest, we must satisfy them. by and by, they will shout something else, and afterward still something else. everything changes--nothing but good sense and good will remain." buche did not want to understand this reasoning, but when the gendarmes came, he submitted notwithstanding. as we went along, one after another of our little party would drop off in his own village, till at last no one was left but toul, buche, and i. we saw the saddest sight of all, and this was the crowds of germans and russians in lorraine and alsace. they were drilling at luneville, at blamont, and at sarrebourg, with oak branches in their wretched shakos. what vexation to see such savages living in luxury at the expense of our peasants. father goulden was right when he said that military glory costs very dear. i only hope the lord will save us from it for ages to come! at last, on the th july, , about eleven o'clock in the morning, we reached mittelbronn, the last village on that side, before reaching pfalzbourg. the siege was raised after the armistice, and the whole country was full of cossacks, landwehr,[ ] and kaiserlichs.[ ] their batteries were still in position around the town, though they no longer discharged them; the gates were open, and the people went out and in to secure their crops. [ ] german militiamen. [ ] german imperial troops. there was great need of the wheat and rye, and you can imagine the suffering it caused us, to feed so many thousands of useless beings, who denied themselves nothing, and who wanted bacon and schnapps every day. before every door and at every window there was nothing to be seen but their flat noses, their long filthy yellow beards, their white coats filled with vermin, and their low shakos, looking out at you, as they smoked their pipes in idleness and drunkenness. we were obliged to work for them, and at last honest people were compelled to give them two thousand millions of francs more to induce them to go away. how many things i might say against these lazybones from russia and germany, if we had not done ten times worse in their country. you can each one make reflections for yourself, and imagine the rest. at heitz's inn i said to buche, "let's stop here. my legs are giving out." mother heitz, who was then still a young woman, threw up her hands and exclaimed, "my god! there is joseph bertha! god in heaven! what a surprise for the town!" i went in, sat down and leaned my head on a table and wept without restraint. mother heitz ran down to the cellar to bring a bottle of wine, and i heard buche sobbing in the corner. neither of us could speak for thinking of the joy of our friends. the sight of our own country had upset us, and we rejoiced to think that our bones would one day rest peacefully in the village cemetery. meanwhile we were going to embrace those we loved best in the world. when we had recovered a little, i said to buche: "jean, you must go on before me, so that my wife and mr. goulden may not be too much surprised. you will tell them that you saw me the day after the battle, and that i was not wounded, and then you must say, you met me again in the suburbs of paris, and even on the way home, and at last, that you think i am not far behind, that i am coming--you understand." "yes, i understand," said he, getting up after having emptied his glass, "and i will do the same thing for grandmother, who loves me more than she does the other boys; i will send some one on before me." he went out at once, and i waited a few minutes; mother heitz talked to me but i did not listen; i was thinking how far buche had gone; i saw him near the ford, at the outworks, and at the gate. suddenly i went out, saying to mother heitz, "i will pay you another time." i began to run; i partly remember having met three or four persons, who said, "ah! that is joseph bertha!" but i am not sure of that. all at once, without knowing how, i sprang up the stairs, and then i heard a great cry--catherine was in my arms. my head swam--in a minute after i seemed to come out of a dream; i saw the room, mr. goulden, jean buche, and catherine; and i began to sob so violently, that you would have thought some great misfortune had happened. i held catherine on my knee and kissed her, and she cried too. after a long while i exclaimed: "ah! mr. goulden, pardon me! i ought to have embraced you, my father! whom i love as i do myself!" "i know it, joseph," said he with emotion, "i know it, i am not jealous." and he wiped his eyes. "yes--yes--love--and family and then friends. it is quite natural, my child, do not trouble yourself about that." i got up and pressed him to my heart. the first word catherine said to me was, "joseph, i knew you would come back, i had put my trust in god! now our worst troubles are over, and we shall always remain together." she was still sitting on my knee with her arm on my shoulder, i looked at her, she dropped her eyes and was very pale. that which we had hoped for before my departure had come. we were happy. mr. goulden smiled as he sat at his workbench--jean stood up near the door and said: "now i am going, joseph, to harberg. father and grandmother are waiting for me." "stay, jean, you will dine with us." mr. goulden and catherine urged him also, but he would not wait. i embraced him on the stairs and felt that i loved him like a brother. he came often after that, but never once for thirty years without stopping with me. now he lies behind the church at hommert. he was a brave man and had a good heart. but what am i thinking of? i must finish my story, and i have not said a word of aunt grédel, who came an hour afterward. ah! she threw up her hands, and she embraced me, exclaiming: "joseph! joseph! you have then escaped everything! let them come now to take you again! let them come! oh! how i repented of letting you go away! how i cursed the conscription and all the rest! but here you are! how good it is! the lord has had mercy upon us!" yes, all these old stories bring the tears to my eyes, when i think of them; it is like a long forgotten dream, and yet it is real. these joys and sorrows that we recall, attach us to earth, and though we are old and our strength is gone and our sight is dim, and we are only the shadows of ourselves; yet we are never ready to go, we never say, "it is enough!" these old memories are always fresh; when we speak of past dangers we seem to be in the midst of them again; when we recall our old friends, we again press their hands in imagination, and our beloved is again seated on our knee, and we look in her face, thinking, "she is beautiful!" and that which seemed to us just and wise and right in those old days, seems right and wise and just still. i remember--and i must here finish my long story--that for many months and even years there was great sorrow in many families, and nobody dared to speak openly, or wish for the glory of the country. zébédé came back with those who had been disbanded on the other side of the loire, but even he had lost his courage. this came from the vengeance and the condemnations and shootings, massacres and revenge of every kind which followed our humiliation; from the hundred and fifty thousand germans, english, and russians, who garrisoned our fortresses, from the indemnities of war, from the thousands of émigrés, from the forced contributions, and especially from the laws against suspects, and against sacrilege, and the rights of primogeniture which they wished to be re-established. all these things so contrary to reason and to the honor of the nation, together with the denunciations of the pinacles and the outrages that the old revolutionists were made to suffer--altogether these things have made us melancholy, so that often when we were alone with catherine and the little joseph, whom god had sent to console us for so many misfortunes, mr. goulden would say, pensively: "joseph, our unhappy country has fallen very low. when napoleon took france she was the greatest, the freest, and most powerful of nations, all the world admired and envied us, but to-day we are conquered, ruined, our fortresses are filled with our enemies, who have their feet on our necks; and what was never before seen since france existed, strangers are masters of our capital--twice we have seen this in two years. see what it costs to put liberty, fortune, and honor in the hands of an ambitious man. we are in a very sad condition, the great revolution is believed to be dead, and the rights of man are annihilated. but we must not be discouraged, all this will pass away, those who oppose liberty and justice will be driven away, and those who wish to re-establish privileges and titles will be regarded as fools. the great nation is reposing, is reflecting upon her faults, is observing those who are leading her contrary to her own interests: she reads their hearts, and in spite of the swiss, in spite of the royal guard, in spite of the holy alliance, when once she is weary of her sufferings she will cast them out some day or other. then it will be finished, for france wants liberty, equality, and justice. "the one thing which we lack is instruction, though the people are instructing themselves every day, they profit by our experiences, by our misfortunes. "i shall not have the happiness, perhaps, of seeing the awakening of the country, i am too old to hope for it, but you will see it, and the sight will console you for all your sufferings; you will be proud to belong to that generous nation which has outstripped all others since ' ; these slight checks are only moments of repose on a long journey." this excellent man preserved to his last hour his calm confidence. i have lived to see the accomplishment of his predictions, i have seen the return of the banner of liberty, i have seen the nation grow in wealth, in prosperity, and in education. i have seen those who obstructed justice and who wished to establish the old regime, compelled to leave. i have seen that mind always progresses, and that even the peasants are willing to part with their last sou for the good of their children. unfortunately we have not enough schoolmasters. if we had fewer soldiers and more teachers the work would go on much faster. but--patience--that will come. the people begin to understand their rights, they know that war brings them nothing but increased contributions, and when _they_ shall say, "instead of sending our sons to perish by thousands under the sabre and cannon, we prefer that they should be taught to be men;" who will dare to oppose them? to-day the people are sovereign! in this hope, my friends, i embrace you with my whole heart, and bid you, adieu!