colour-bearer and captured the eagle.  Equally brilliant was the charge of the Inniskillings, in the centre of the brigade.  They rode down Donzelot’s division, jostled its ranks into a helpless mass, and captured a great number of prisoners.  The Scots Greys, too, succouring the hard-pressed Gordons, fell fiercely on Marcognet’s division.  “Both regiments,” wrote Major Winchester of the 92nd, “charged together, calling out ’Scotland for ever’; the Scots Greys actually walked over this column, and in less than three minutes it was totally destroyed.  The grass field, which was only an instant before as green and smooth as Phoenix Park, was covered with killed and wounded, knapsacks, arms, and accoutrements."[513]

Meanwhile, on the left of the brigade, Vandeleur’s horse and some Dutch-Belgian dragoons drove back Durutte’s men past Papelotte.  On its right, the 2nd Life Guards cut up the cuirassiers while disordered by the sudden dip of the hollow cross-road; and further to the west, the 1st Dragoon Guards and 1st Life Guards met them at the edge of the plateau, clashed furiously, burst through them, and joined in the wild charge of Ponsonby’s brigade up the opposite slope, cutting the traces of forty French cannon and sabring the gunners.

But Napoleon was awaiting the moment for revenge, and now sent forward a solid force of lancers and dragoons, who fell on our disordered bands with resistless force, stabbing the men and overthrowing their wearied steeds.  Here fell the gallant Ponsonby with hundreds of his men, and, had not Vandeleur’s horse checked the pursuit, very few could have escaped.  Still, this brigade had saved the day.  Two of D’Erlon’s columns had gained a hold on the ridge, until the sudden charge of our horsemen turned victory into a disastrous rout that cost the French upwards of 5,000 men.

As if exhausted by this eager strife, both armies relaxed their efforts for a space and re-formed their lines.  Wellington ordered Lambert’s brigade of 2,200 Peninsular veterans, who had only arrived that morning, to fill the gaps on his left.  The Emperor, too, was uneasy, as he showed by taking copious pinches of snuff.  He mounted his horse and rode to the front, receiving there the cheers of his blood-stained lancers and battered infantry.  Having received another despatch from Grouchy which gave no hope of his speedy arrival, he ordered his cannon once more to waste the British lines and bombard Hougoumont, while Ney led two of D’Erlon’s brigades that were the least shaken to resume the attack on La Haye Sainte.  Once more they were foiled at the farm buildings by the hardy Germans, to whom Wellington had sent a timely reinforcement.[514] At Hougoumont also the Guards held firm, despite the fierce conflagration in the barn and part of the chapel.  But while his best troops everywhere stood their ground, the Duke saw with concern the gaps in his fighting line.  Many of the Dutch-Belgians had made off to the rear; and Jackson, when carrying an order to a reserve Dutch battery to advance—­an order that was disobeyed—­saw what had become of these malingerers.  “I peeped into the skirts of the forest and truly felt astonished:  entire companies seemed there with regularly piled arms, fires blazing under cooking kettles, while the men lay about smoking!"[515]