n as enabled me to strike into that village about its centre.
There I found sad confusion prevailing; country waggons with stores,
ammunition tumbrils, provision waggons, and wounded men, choked up the
street, so that it was impossible for any one to pass. Aware of the
great importance of freeing the passage at a time when the retiring
troops might be pressed by the enemy, I at once set to work to remedy
the disorder that prevailed. Let the reader picture to himself Police
Constable 61 C posted at the pastry-cook's corner where Gracechurch
Street enters Cheapside, at a moment when those passages, together
with Bishopsgate and Leadenhall Streets are blocked up by 'buses,
drays, waggons, carts, advertising locomotives, private carriages, and
dodging cabs, when that unhappy functionary is vainly striving to
restore order and clear the ways, and he will have some idea of the
difficulty I experienced in executing my self-imposed task. Happily, I
was acquainted with some pithy expressions in two or three languages,
which were familiar to the ears of those I had to deal with; and
these, together with the flat of my sword, proved very efficacious in
the end. While in the thick of this scene of tumult and confusion, I
felt some one clap me on the shoulder, and on looking round saw Sir W.
De Lancey. 'You are very well employed here,' said he; 'remain, and
keep the way clear for the troops; I shall not want you at Waterloo.'
Encouraged by my chief's commendation I redoubled my efforts, and had
soon the satisfaction of seeing the defile free."[25]

[Footnote 25: "Recollections of Waterloo," by a Staff Officer, in
_United Service Journal_ for 1847, Part III., p. 11.]

"A week after the battle"--to quote again from the article by H.
Manners Chichester in the _Dictionary of National Biography_--"De
Lancey succumbed to his injuries, in a peasant's cottage in the
village of Waterloo, where he was tenderly nursed by his young wife,
who had joined him in Brussels a few days before the battle.
According to another account, De Lancey was laid down at his own
request when being conveyed to the rear, and so was left out untended
all night and part of the next day. Rogers, in a note, states that he
was killed by 'the wind of the shot,' his skin not being broken; and
also that Lady De Lancey left a manuscript account of his last days."

[Illustration: Lady de Lancey

From a miniature after J.D. Engleheart]

This manuscript account was writ