Vanity Fair - Page 271/573

"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.