l thickly on the ranks of recumbent men, and solid shot tore
through them. The thunder of the artillery quickened; the French
tirailleurs, showing great daring, crept in swarms up the British slope
and shot down the British gunners at their pieces. Both Hougoumont and
La Haye Sainte were on fire at this stage of the battle. The smoke of
the conflict, in an atmosphere heavy with moisture, hung like a low
pall of blackest crape over the whole field; and every now and again,
on either ridge, columns of white smoke shot suddenly up and fell back
like gigantic and vaporous mushrooms--the effect of exploding
ammunition waggons. "Hard pounding this, gentlemen," said Wellington,
as he rode past his much-enduring battalions. "Let us see who will
pound longest."

At four o'clock came the great cavalry attack of the French. Through
the gap between, not merely the two farmhouses, but the two farmhouses
plus their zone of fire--through a gap, that is, of probably not more
than 1000 yards, the French, for two long hours, poured on the British
line the whole strength of their magnificent cavalry, led by Ney in
person. To meet the assault, Wellington drew up his first line in a
long chequer of squares, five in the first line, four, covering their
intervals, in the second. In advance of them were the British guns,
with their sadly reduced complement of gunners. Immediately behind the
squares were the British cavalry brigades; the Household Brigade,
reduced by this time to a couple of squadrons; and behind them, in
turn, the Dutch-Belgian infantry, who had fortitude enough not to run
away, but lacked daring sufficient to fill a place on the fire-scourged
edge of actual battle. When the British front was supposed to be
sufficiently macadamised by the dreadful fire of the French batteries,
Ney brought on his huge mass of cavalry, twenty-one squadrons of
cuirassiers, and nineteen squadrons of the Light Cavalry of the Guard.

At a slow trot they came down the French slope, crossed the valley,
and, closing their ranks and quickening their stride, swept up to the
British line, and broke, a swirling torrent of men and horses, over the
crest. Nothing could be more majestic, and apparently resistless, than
their onset--the gleam of so many thousand helmets and breastplates,
the acres of wind-blown horse-hair crests and many-coloured uniforms,
the thunder of so many galloping hoofs. Wellington had ordered his
gunners, when the French