e Muffling, with a flash of exultation rare
in a man so self-controlled, he shouted, "Well, you see Macdonnell held
Hougoumont after all!" Towards evening, at the close of the fight,
Lord Saltoun, with the wreck of the light companies of the Guards,
joined the main body of their division on the ridge. As they came up
to the lines, a scanty group with torn uniforms and smoke-blackened
faces, the sole survivors of the gallant hundreds who had fought
continuously for seven hours, General Maitland rode out to meet them
and cried, "Your defence has saved the army! Every man of you deserves
promotion." Long afterwards a patriotic Briton bequeathed 500 pounds
to the bravest soldier at Waterloo, the Duke of Wellington to be the
judge. The Duke named Macdonnell, who handed the money to the sergeant
who was his comrade in the struggle at the gate of Hougoumont.

III. PICTON AND D'ERLON

"But on the British heart were lost
The terrors of the charging host;
For not an eye the storm that view'd
Changed its proud glance of fortitude.
Nor was one forward footstep staid,
As dropp'd the dying and the dead."
--SCOTT.

Meantime a furious artillery duel raged between the opposing ridges.
Wellington had ordered his gunners not to fire at the French batteries,
but only at the French columns, while the French, in the main,
concentrated their fire on the British guns. French practice under
these conditions was naturally very beautiful, for no hostile bullets
disturbed their aim, and the British gunners fell fast; yet their fire
on the French masses was most deadly. At two o'clock Napoleon launched
his great infantry attack, led by D'Erlon, against La Haye Sainte and
the British left. It was an attack of terrific strength. Four
divisions, numbering 16,000 men, moved forward in echelon, with
intervals between them of 400 paces; seventy-two guns swept as with a
besom of fire the path along which these huge masses advanced with
shouts to the attack, while thirty light guns moved in the intervals
between them; and a cavalry division, consisting of lancers and
cuirassiers, rode on their flank ready to charge the broken masses of
the British infantry. The British line at this point consisted of
Picton's division, formed of the shattered remains of Kempt's and
Pack's brigades, who had suffered heavily at Quatre Bras. They formed
a mere thread of scarlet, a slender two-deep line of about 3000 men.
As the