musketry. Two hours later, those damnable red-coats came back again saying that: No, all was not lost.' On they came, past this very door right on to Mont Saint Jean, marching with their cannon and their horses over their own dead. The little woman came to the window to see them pass, and she was paler than ever when they had gone she sat upon the window-sill and looked out as if she were looking for some one. But there was nothing to be seen but volley after volley and torrents of rain :-Mademoiselle, said I, you will get yourself killed if you stay there, savez-vous? But she said :-No, no, no! So I supposed she expected somebody in particular. Night came at last, and then the fight ceased; and then in came a fair little officer of the red-coats; and he and the poor lady kissed each other for a good quarter of an hour. The young man, who seemed so happy, said a great deal to her, but she said nothing, although she was very happy too, savez-vous? And what's more, during the two days they stayed at Mont Saint Jean she never spoke a word. A doctor of one of the red-coat regiments said, as I heard whilst I was digging a grave for some of them, that the agitation she had had during the battle was too much for her, and that she would never recover her speech until she had a child, sais-tu ?" Some of the incidents alluded to in the above extract are certainly somewhat at variance with the popular impressions concerning the course of the battle; but it is difficult to refuse them, on that account, credence. For, in addition to the altogether respectable authority of M. Gozlan and the honest old Belgian excavator (who, having lost an eye on that day, had the greatest cause to remember the concomitant circumstances, and who, having lost only one, had still the means of pursuing his observations) we have the strong incidental corroboration, to at least a part of the story, furnished by M. Léon Gozlan's lady-companion who should be, it would seem, unexceptionable testimony, being herself English and having lost no fewer than eight brothers on that fatal day. She informed our pilgrim that the poor dumb lady alluded to was Lady Pool, and that the young officer in the red-coat was her cousin, an officer in Picton's division, and that they were married after the battle, and had several children, but that the prescription unfortunately failed, and she remained to the end a silent woman. We can easily understand the agitation of the English lady, whose brothers had been so unlucky at Waterloo, as she furnished these details; and are not, therefore, surprised at learning from our pilgrim that, when she had done so, "she arose and, looking at her watch, declared her intention of going to bewail her brothers in locis." Let us leave her, as M. Gozlan appears to have done, alone with her sorrow, and pass on to express our obligations to that writer for the zeal and tact he has shewn in disinterring after this long interval the authentic testimony of one who had witnessed the affair in all its stages, who "Had watched by the living, and buried the dead !” For it must not be supposed that history' like this is to be found on every hedge-row, in every cottage. We can judge from what follows how often all M. Gozlan's pertinacity and adroitness were unavailing to elicit any interesting legends: "Story? God bless you, I have none to tell, sir," -and so shall best learn to appreciate the merit of his not unfrequent success :— "When I found my way into La Haye Sainte it was a farm of more than modest pretensions. There were ducks swimming blissfully in a puddle; a young child, stark naked, was teazing a dog with a switch of osier. A stable-boy was loitering near the horse-shed; a young woman issued at the noise of the dog barking, from the dairy; and a very old man, with a cotton night-cap on his head, and a pipe in his mouth, was whetting his scythe by the barn-door. I addressed first of all the ostler boy : My good friend, is this the farm of La Haye Sainte?" "This is the place where there was such terrible fighting?" "No, I meant to say at the time of Waterloo." "Oh, Waterloo! Waterloo is out yonder, down there." "At the battle of Waterloo." "There's Mont Saint Jean, and Waterloo is just beyond." Seeing that I did not understand him, and despairing to make himself understood by so dull a being, he directed me to the young woman in the dairy. I addressed her:-" Madame, although you could not have been born at the time of the battle of Waterloo yet you must have heard of the slaughter which took place in this farm ?" Why yes, sir; but my father, who is sharpening his scythe yonder, will be able to tell you, only he is very deaf.” "Thank you, madame.-Sir, sir," I accordingly cried, in a voice which shewed I had not forgotten the good dame's warning, "what do you remember of the bloody struggle which took place here?" 66 Here ?" "No, about La Haye Sainte, where we are now? Come, collect your thoughts." The old peasant stared at me with his clear grey eyes in stupid wonderment, and asked :-" what, have you learnt anything new about it?" This question check-mated our pilgrim; but we hasten to answer the old farmer's question :-Yes, M. Léon Gozlan has collected a great deal that is new concerning Waterloo-much that must poison (if it do not prevent) the festivities of the next "Waterloo Banquet." It is naturally a painful thing to wake and find our most glorious title-deeds waste paper, but we have no right on that account, to quarrel with the acute conveyancer who made the discovery. We ought to be, indeed, grateful that it is, by the nature of the case, impossible that we can be called upon for the mesne profits of national gratulation. The whole matter impresses this conclusion upon us-that there can be no sufficient security for this kind of national property until cannibalism or some equivalent practice be adopted as an international usage. If the French, at any of the many periods during which, as M. Gozlan remarks, they had won the battle of Waterloo, had seized the opportunity to devour our vanquished countrymen (but who can blame them for not having done so?) there could have been none of this prolonged misconception of the result of the engagement. It would not have remained for M. Gozlan to designate, A. D. 1819, the long defrauded victor. John Bull, however dishonest and vain-glorious, could not have hoped to impugn the strong simplicity of such an announcement in the Moniteur as :-" On the 18th June the Duke of Wellington was defeated and eaten with 30,000 of his troops." VI. THE PASSING-BELL The Passing-Bell!-the Passing-Bell! It speaks of joy; it speaks of sadness; Say, for whom it now hath called Yes! it bids me think of those Who, 'twere well, had ne'er been born; 'Tis for such, alas! it throws Notes that, wailing, far are borne. Such the deep, the long-drawn, sighing Of the hope-forsaken soul :- Oh, hence the thought of such ! And its shuddering, darkling, flight. Oh! The calmly lengthened sweetness, Of the soul blest by release! Released from battle, toil, and trial, Hark! There is no loud exulting, From the Faith which doth not fail! To a certain strain its voice, But, in conscious frailty faltering, "Tis too humble to rejoice. Now, 'tis gone !-That knell is sped! So, that soul from fear of Sin. Oh, ye mourners, be ye calm ! The Passing-Bell! The Passing-Bell, December 3rd, 1840. SPHYNX. ERRATUM. In "Blessed are the dead the rain rains on" second Stanza, after the line" Creation's throes and groaning" read " O'er the dead and for the dying." I VOL. III. |