"No, my dear fellow," said she, going up and kissing the boy. "No harm
shall come to you while I stand by. I don't budge till I get the word
from Mick. A pretty figure I'd be, wouldn't I, stuck behind that chap
on a pillion?"
This image caused the young patient to burst out laughing in his bed,
and even made Amelia smile. "I don't ask her," Jos shouted out--"I
don't ask that--that Irishwoman, but you Amelia; once for all, will you
come?"
"Without my husband, Joseph?" Amelia said, with a look of wonder, and
gave her hand to the Major's wife. Jos's patience was exhausted.
"Good-bye, then," he said, shaking his fist in a rage, and slamming the
door by which he retreated. And this time he really gave his order for
march: and mounted in the court-yard. Mrs. O'Dowd heard the
clattering hoofs of the horses as they issued from the gate; and
looking on, made many scornful remarks on poor Joseph as he rode down
the street with Isidor after him in the laced cap. The horses, which
had not been exercised for some days, were lively, and sprang about the
street. Jos, a clumsy and timid horseman, did not look to advantage in
the saddle. "Look at him, Amelia dear, driving into the parlour
window. Such a bull in a china-shop I never saw." And presently the
pair of riders disappeared at a canter down the street leading in the
direction of the Ghent road, Mrs. O'Dowd pursuing them with a fire of
sarcasm so long as they were in sight.
All that day from morning until past sunset, the cannon never ceased to
roar. It was dark when the cannonading stopped all of a sudden.
All of us have read of what occurred during that interval. The tale is
in every Englishman's mouth; and you and I, who were children when the
great battle was won and lost, are never tired of hearing and
recounting the history of that famous action. Its remembrance rankles
still in the bosoms of millions of the countrymen of those brave men
who lost the day. They pant for an opportunity of revenging that
humiliation; and if a contest, ending in a victory on their part,
should ensue, elating them in their turn, and leaving its cursed legacy
of hatred and rage behind to us, there is no end to the so-called glory
and shame, and to the alternations of successful and unsuccessful
murder, in which two high-spirited nations might engage. Centuries
hence, we Frenchmen and Englishmen might be boasting and killing each
other still, carrying out bravely the Devil's code of honour.
All our friends took their share and fought like men in the great
field. All day long, whilst the women were praying ten miles away, the
lines of the dauntless English infantry were receiving and repelling
the furious charges of the French horsemen. Guns which were heard at
Brussels were ploughing up their ranks, and comrades falling, and the
resolute survivors closing in. Towards evening, the attack of the
French, repeated and resisted so bravely, slackened in its fury. They
had other foes besides the British to engage, or were preparing for a
final onset. It came at last: the columns of the Imperial Guard
marched up the hill of Saint Jean, at length and at once to sweep the
English from the height which they had maintained all day, and spite of
all: unscared by the thunder of the artillery, which hurled death from
the English line--the dark rolling column pressed on and up the hill.
It seemed almost to crest the eminence, when it began to wave and
falter. Then it stopped, still facing the shot. Then at last the
English troops rushed from the post from which no enemy had been able
to dislodge them, and the Guard turned and fled.