in and around the place, for its possession. Six
times the French are said to have forced their
way into the orchard, but were always driven
back by our troops. The walled garden and
the court–yard they never took. Once they
nearly succeeded, for they forced open the
north gate of the farm-yard and a desperate
struggle took place in the gateway. At this
crisis Serjeant Graham, with gigantic strength,
succeeded in forcing to the gate and fastening
it. In the act of completing this exploit, he
was interrupted by a French soldier, who had
climbed to the top of the gateway, and
endeavoured to despatch him; but Graham
taking his musket from his captain, Wyndham,
who was holding it while he tried to
close the gate, shot the Frenchman, and then
secured the bolts of the door. For this deed
and for fetching his brother, on his back, out
of the barn, when set on fire by the enemy's
shells, the Duke of Wellington adjudged to
him the thousand pounds left by a gentleman
to be given to the bravest man in the battle.

Here lay Hougoumont quietly basking in
the sun, in the midst of its trees, and its
surrounding corn-fields, as if no such scene of
sanguinary fury had ever raged around it, or
no dead lay in thousands in every hollow, and
under every turf that skirts it. Here we now
stood before this very gateway, and gazing
over it to the old buildings battered in every
direction by the leaden hailstorm of that fiery
day.

We proceeded along the back of the farm–
buildings to the southern side. Hougoumont
is built around the court in a square. The
south side, which we now reached, consisted
chiefly of the farm-house, having a gateway
through its centre. The chateau stood within
the enclosure, and thus as much as possible
defended from outside assailants. Yet that
was destroyed, and is now totally removed;
while this side, which was exposed to all the
fury of the onslaught, still remains, strong
though battered by numberless balls; and is
the part now inhabited. Opposite to this side,
divided from it only by a broad, grassy road,
stood at the time of the battle a wood, under
cover of which, and of their batteries above,
the French approached to within close
musket shot, and threw a constant and
terrific fire upon it. This fire was returned
by our troops inside with equal vigour from
window, loop–hole and roof; and the effects of
this desperate contest are still visible in the
smashed and splintered walls, in the well–
perforated top part of the south gate, the battered
front of the house, stables, and loop-holed
walls connecting the buildings on the south,
and again running along the front of the
garden. One cannon-ball hole is particularly
pointed out to you in the east gable of the
house, which entered at the west end, and cut
through the whole house, and no less than
four walls. The garden, or park, was walled
on the east and south sides, where our troops
made additional loop-holes, and erected
scaffolding to enable them to fire over the top
of the wall, or to bayonet intruders. At the
wall, an embankment with the loop-holes, and
scaffolds erected with some farming utensils,
enabled the Coldstream Guards from the
inside to throw such a fire upon the enemy's
left flank, when in the large orchard, that
Colonel Hepburn, who commanded from
about two o'clock, considered the east wall
as the strength of his position.

We walked along the front of the garden
wall in silent astonishment at the millions of
balls which have battered without destroying
it. It is supposed that this stout wall of red
brick was mistaken by the French, as they
reached the extremity of the wood opposite
to it, for the close front rank of our troops.
At all events, they discharged a tremendous
volley of shot against it, which was returned
with equal briskness by our men through the
loop–holes; so that the thick smoke, preventing
the detection of the error by the French,
the contest went on here most awfully, till it
rose to such a pitch of rage, that the French
soldiers rushed up to the very wall, and
discovering the real obstruction, seized the barrels
of the English muskets which protruded
through it, and endeavoured to wrest the
weapons from their possessors. At the end
of the battle, this space outside of the wall
was piled with thousands of slain, astonishing
the most veteran observers, familiar with
slaughter, at their numbers. The wood which
screened the French was so shattered by the
shot and shells which fell into it, that it is
wholly cut down.

The chateau itself, we have said, is gone.
Napoleon finding that he could not force the
place, determined to burn out the English
forces by shells. These were thrown in, in
showers, and soon set the buildings in flames.
About three o'clock, after more than three
hours of desperate conflict, the whole of the
chateau and part of the outbuildings were on
fire. The fire burnt on till it reached the
chapel, between the chateau and farm-house,
and here, as by a miracle, it stopped, having
consumed only part of one foot of the figure
on the cross, which remains perfect, except
that charred foot, to this day, and the chapel
entire. The old walls of the garden also
remain. For the rest, the farm-buildings
have resumed their usual work-a-day aspect,
and a farmer's family inhabits the house,
where we found the women quietly ironing up
a wash, heating their irons on the curious
horizontal Flemish stove, and gossipping gaily
in the midst of this region of the dead. Yet
what a place for ghosts, if the discontented
could return to haunt the spot of their fall;
if the fallen conqueror of almost all the
civilised world, and the annihilated invincible
Guard, could reappear on the scene of their
overthrow! What a spot, if the contending
armies, like the warrior spirits of Walhalla,
were still to pursue their airy combats round
the dark-red walls of Hougoumont!