ould retreat upon Namur; and in order to force him to do
so he had abstained from all attack upon the Prussian left, and
employed his whole strength against the right and center, so as to
swing him round, and force him to retire by way of Namur.

As soon as Wellington learned that Blucher had carried out the
arrangement agreed upon his mind was at ease. Orders were sent off at
once to the troops advancing from various directions that they should
move upon Mount St. Jean. All the baggage was sent back to Brussels,
while provisions for the troops were to be left at Mount St. Jean,
where also the whole of the ammunition wagons were to be concentrated.
Horsemen were sent along the road to keep the baggage train moving,
and they had orders that if the troops at Quatre Bras fell back upon
them they were at once to clear the road of all vehicles.

Having issued all these orders, and seen that everything was in train,
Wellington allowed the troops at Quatre Bras to rest themselves, and
ordered their dinners, to be cooked. No movement was yet to be seen on
the part of the French; there was, therefore, no occasion to hurry.
Those, therefore, of the men who were not out on patrol stretched
themselves on the ground and rested till noon. Dinner over the
infantry marched off in two columns, the cavalry remaining until four
o'clock in the afternoon, when upon the advance of Ney in front and
Napoleon on the left they fell back, and after some sharp skirmishes
with the enemy's light cavalry joined the infantry before nightfall in
their position near Mount St. Jean and Waterloo. Rain had fallen for a
time during the afternoon of the battle, and now at four o'clock it
again began to come down heavily, soaking the troops to the skin.

"This is miserable, Stapleton," Ralph said to his friend, after the
regiment had piled arms on the ground pointed out to them by the
officers of the quartermaster's department.

"I am rather glad to hear you say it is miserable, Ralph. I was
certainly thinking so myself; but you always accuse me of being a
grumbler, so I thought I would hold my tongue."

Ralph laughed. "I don't think any one could deny that it is miserable,
Stapleton; but some people keep up their spirits under miserable
circumstances and others don't. This is one of the occasions on which
it is really very hard to feel cheerful. There is not a dry thing in
the regiment; the rain is coming down steadily and looks as if it
meant to keep i