masses of cavalry, who were
pressing forward, having in spite of a stout resistance driven in the
riflemen from the sandpit and the road above it. As the columns neared
the British line the fire from the French batteries suddenly ceased,
their own troops now serving as a screen to the British. The heads of
the columns halted and began to deploy into line; Picton seized the
moment, and shouted "A volley, and then charge!"

The French were but thirty yards away. A tremendous volley was poured
into them, and then the British with a shout rushed forward, scrambled
through a double hedgerow that separated them from the French, and
fell upon them with the bayonet. The charge was irresistible. Taken in
the act of deploying, the very numbers of the French told against
them, and they were borne down the slope in confusion. Picton, struck
by a musket ball in the head, fell dead, and Kempt assumed the
command, and his brigade followed up the attack and continued to drive
the enemy down the hill. In the meantime the French cavalry were
approaching. The cuirassiers had passed La Haye Sainte, and almost cut
to pieces a Hanoverian battalion which was advancing to reinforce the
defenders.

At this moment Lord Edward Somerset led the house-hold brigade of
cavalry against the cuirassiers, and the _elite_ of the cavalry of the
two nations met with a tremendous shock; but the weight and impetus of
the heavy British horsemen, aided by the fact that they were
descending the hill, while their opponents had hardly recovered their
formation after cutting up the Hanoverians, proved irresistible, and
the cuirassiers were driven down the hill. A desperate hand-to-hand
conflict took place; and it was here that Shaw, who had been a
prize-fighter before he enlisted in the Second Life Guards, killed no
less than seven Frenchmen with his own hand, receiving, however, so
many wounds, that on the return of the regiment from its charge he
could no longer sit his horse, and crawling behind a house died there
from loss of blood.

While the Second Life Guards and First Dragoon Guards pursued the
cuirassiers down the slope, the Royals, Scots Greys, and Inniskillens
rode to the assistance of Pack's brigade, which had been assailed by
four strong brigades of the enemy. Pack rode along at the front of his
line calling upon his men to stand steady The enemy crossed a hedge
within forty yards of the Ninety-second, and delivered their fire. The
Highlanders wait