hedges enclosing the wood, but pressed on, returning the fire. At the same time Piré, on the left, directed the guns of his horse-batteries against the Anglo-Allied right. Captain Diggle, "a cool old officer of the Peninsula, took out his watch, turned to his subaltern officer, Gawler, who was of the same Peninsular mould, and (on hearing the "" The first cannon shot) quietly remarked, 'There it goes.' hands of the watch marked twenty minutes past eleven. From this moment the cannonade continued to increase in intensity. The guns on the French left were answered by the batteries in front of Alten's and Cooke's divisions, which in the first instance were aimed at the columns supporting Bauduin's attack. Gradually battery after battery on both sides came into action, and soon the wide uproar swallowed up the ring of the musket and the rifle. The tall dense wood, garnished with a thick undergrowth, intercepted the French cannon shots, while the British batteries fired across the south-eastern angle of the open pastures, and down the valley on the west of Hougoumont, into the dark masses moving towards the wood. Shaken by the fire, deprived of their General, Bauduin, who was slain, of Jerome, who was wounded, the assailants made little progress; and the skirmishers were left to sustain the conflict. Again supported, they dashed forward, driving the Nassauers and Hanoverians before them through the underwood, across the open fields, and up the avenue on the west of the enclosures. The wood, and field, and lane were now full of Frenchmen. A large part of Guilleminot's thirteen battalions were forcing themselves through the thickets. They believed they had carried the position, and they shouted loudly as their spirits rose. Suddenly they were stopped. A thick hedge, forming the northern boundary of the wood, interposed, and between the stems of the hedge timber, and through the interlacing bushes, they

saw the bright red bricks of the southern wall of the garden. All at once the wall appeared aflame, and a hail of bullets crashed into the crowd behind the hedge, and madly trying to break through. The Guards in the garden, as a Frenchman writes, thus revealed their presence, and showed that the post was scarcely touched. The Duke of Wellington, at that moment on the right of the line, directed Colonel Frazer, commanding the horse artillery, to open a fire of shells upon the troops in the wood and field from Bull's howitzer horse-battery. This was a "delicate thing," as the Duke said, but it was done. "The troop commenced its fire, and in ten minutes the enemy was driven out of the wood." Startled by the bursting shells, shaken by the fire from the garden, the French gave ground, and the light companies of the Guards, dashing out of the orchard and down the avenue, and fighting their enemies as they fought them in the wood of Bossu, drove them back to the southern boundary. But again the French came on, now in greater numbers, for while Guilleminot attacked the south-western, Foy assailed the southern part of the position; and in spite of the sturdy resistance of the Guards, their numerous foes recovered the wood. The Guards fell back, one portion taking the western, the other the eastern, flank of the château and garden.

The cannonade had deepened along the line. Piré was engaged in a fierce duel with the British batteries on the right. The skirmishers were busy in the low grounds towards Papelotte, and under cover of their fire Ney was urging a mass of guns from the right wing forward through the stiff and watery soil to form a battery of nearly eighty pieces on the ridge which stretches from the Charleroi road, between La Belle Alliance and La Haye Sainte, to Papelotte.

Beyond this the action was still confined to the combat

for Hougoumont, which Napoleon hoped would induce Wellington to draw troops, or at least divert his attention wholly to that side. But in this he was mistaken. Wellington knew the mettle of the soldiers in charge of Hougoumont, and he could watch the ebb and flow of battle below him, and at the same time survey with cool glances the whole of the French line.

The renewed onslaught of two divisions upon Hougoumont carried part of the assailants once more up to the thick hedge, where they were again smitten by the fire of the Guards, delivered at short range, from the summit and the loopholes in the garden wall. But this time the French stood fast, some even creeping through, and vainly striving to mount the wall. Maddened by the obstacle, they next tried to enter the orchard by a gap in the hedge on their right; but here they were met by the bayonets of the companies under Lord Saltoun, and once more repulsed. During the time occupied in this encounter, another mass of Frenchmen had pushed forward on their left, outflanking the British companies on that side, and compelling them to hurry into the farm-yard by the northern entrance. The lane, the kitchen-garden, the ravine on the west of the walled enclosures, were now crowded with the enemy. One body fell upon the hastily barricaded gate—a trivial obstacle, which one looks at now with wonder, amazed how that weak gate and low wall could have resisted the splendid light troops of France. The sappers smashed in the timber, and the infantry followed; but crushed by a close volley, and charged with the bayonet, they were expelled, and the gate was closed by the strong arms of four officers and a sergeant of the Coldstream Guards.' A second body had pushed up the

1 They were Lieutenant-Colonel Macdonnell, Captain Wyndham,

face of the steep hill, and, concealed by the corn, had half crippled a British battery. The Duke sent Colonel Woodford, with four companies of the Coldstream Guards, into the valley to counter-check this daring attack; and while Woodford drove the skirmishers before him, a third body of French had once more assailed the farm-yard gate. One, who had mounted on the cross-beam, was shot by Graham, and at this moment Woodford's men, scattering the skirmishers, dashed on with unhesitating steps, and swept away the whole mass who had congregated about the gate and in the avenue. Colonel Woodford led part of his soldiers into the château by a side door, and the rest lined the thick hedges in the avenue leading to the Nivelles road. On the left flank the combat had been also keen. The French, foiled in their attempt to carry the large orchard by passing the hedge, pushed a force up the outer side of the eastern enclosure, and thus outflanking Saltoun's Guards in the orchard, compelled them to give way, and dart backward from tree to tree until they gained the ditch which runs along the outside of the northern hedge. Here Saltoun's men could fire, resting their muskets on a level with the orchard. As the French broke into that enclosure they were struck by shots fired from the garden wall on their left flank, and from Saltoun's men in front. At the same time the Duke sent two companies of the Guards against the audacious fellows who had turned Saltoun, and these combined attacks once more forced the French out of the orchard. The British posts now extended along the orchard hedge and across the western avenue, leading to the Nivelles road. Thus Reille's diversion had led to considerable slaughter, but

Ensign Gooch, Ensign Hervey, and Sergeant Graham of the Coldstream Guards.

had not succeeded in deceiving the British commander, or in drawing a single man from the centre, the left, or the reserves. The Nassauers and Hanoverians were withdrawn, and the Guards were reinforced by six companies detached from the ridge, That was all; a small result, when we remember that Guilleminot and Foy had employed in these repeated onsets the greater part of twentytwo battalions, supported by Piré's batteries, which, firing from the Nivelles road, had done great execution on the British right.

Wellington had remained above Hougoumont during this fierce and prolonged combat, a mark for the enemy's shot. He had watched, directed, sustained the fight; but he had not neglected to observe the movements of his foe on the farther side of La Belle Alliance. He had seen Ney's great battery arrayed, gun after gun, on the commanding ridge in front of the British left, and he had noted the formation of columns of attack in rear of the battery. Hougoumont was safe, and the Duke now rode over to his left, and halted near a solitary tree which grew where the Wavre road intersects the road from Charleroi to Brussels, just above La Haye Sainte, a post of observation whence he could distinguish every movement of the French on that side. Ney's batteries had opened fire to shake the allied left, but the infantry did not come on. The reason of the delay will be speedily seen.

§ 3. Approach of the Prussians.

While he sat on the hill of Rossomme Napoleon had observed an irregular appearance in the north-east which aroused his suspicions. Something like troops in motion was visible on the heights of St. Lambert. Soult and the staff around him were consulted. Their answers showed