They formed part of the heavy brigade of the gallant Sir William Ponsonby, who, sabre in hand, led them on, with the First Royal English dragoons, and the Sixth, who came roaring tremendously, and shouting strange things in the deep brogue of merry "ould Ireland."
From the weight of the men, the mettle of their horses, and their fine equipment, a charge of British cavalry is a splendid sight; I say British, for our own are the finest-looking as well as the best troops in the world,—an assertion which few can dispute when we speak of Waterloo. Those who witnessed the charge of Ponsonby's brigade will never forget it. The Highlanders halted, and the dragoons swept on past their flank, towards the confused masses of the enemy. The Greys, on passing the little band of their countrymen, sent up the well-known cry of "Scotland for ever!"
"Scotland for ever!" At such a moment this was indeed a cry that roused "the stirring memory of a thousand years." It touched a chord in every Scottish heart. It seemed like a voice from their home, from the tongues of those they had left behind, and served to stimulate them to fresh exertions in honour of the land of the rock and the eagle.
"Cheer, my blue bonnets!" cried Campbell, leaping in his saddle in perfect ecstasy. "Oh! the gallant fellows! how bravely they ride. God and victory be with them this day!"
"Scotland for ever!" echoed the Highlanders, as they waved their black plumage on the gale. The Royals, the 42nd, the Cameron Highlanders, and every Scots regiment within hearing took up the battle-cry and tossed it to the wind; and even the feeble voices of the wounded were added to the general shout while the chivalrous Greys plunged into the column of the enemy, sabring them in scores, and riding them down like a field of corn. The cries of the panic-stricken French were appalling; they were like the last despairing shrieks of drowning men, rather than the clamour of men-at-arms upon a battle-field. Colours, drums, arms, and every thing were abandoned in their eagerness to escape, and even while retreating double quick, some failed not to shout Vive l'Empereur! Vive la Gloire! as vociferously as if they had been the victors instead of the vanquished.
An unlucky random shot struck Lisle's left arm, and fractured the bone just above the elbow. He uttered a sudden cry of anguish, and reeled backward several paces, but propped himself upon his sword. Ronald Stuart rushed towards him, but almost at the same moment a half-spent cannon shot (one of the last fired by the train sent to dislodge the ninth brigade) struck him on the left side, doubled him up like a cloak, and dashed him to the earth, where he lay totally deprived of sense and motion. When struck, a consciousness flashed upon his mind that his ribs were broken to pieces, and that he was dying; then the darkness of night seemed to descend on his eyes, and he felt as if his soul was passing away from his body. That feeling, which seemed the reverse of a terrible one, existed for a space of time scarcely divisible. There was a rushing sound in his ears, flashes of red fire seemed to go out from his eyes, and then every sensation of life left him for a time. The regiment thought him dead, as few escape a knock from a cannon-shot, and no one considered it worth while to go towards him, save Louis Lisle. All were too intently watching the flashing weapons of the cavalry as they charged again and again, each squadron wheeling to the right and left to allow the others to come up, and the work of slaying and capturing proceeded in glorious style. Poor Ronald's loss was never thought of by his comrades.
"Stuart's knocked on the head, poor fellow!" was his only elegy. One life is valued less than a straw, when thousands are breathing their last on the awful arena of a battle-field.
Louis, whose left arm hung bleeding and motionless by his side, turned Ronald on his back with the right, and saw that he was pale and breathless. He placed his hand on the heart, but it was still. He felt no vibration.
"Great Heaven! what a blow this will be for my poor sister! Farewell, Ronald! I look upon your face for the last time!" He groaned deeply with mental and bodily agony as he bent his steps to the rear,—a long and perilous way, for shot of every size and sort were falling like hail around, whizzing and whistling through the air, or tearing the turf to pieces when they alighted. Hundreds of riderless horses, many of them greys, snorting and crying with pain or terror, were galloping madly about in every direction, trampling upon the bodies of the dead and the wounded, and finishing with their ponderous hoofs the work which many a bullet had begun.
The slaughter among the French at that part of the field was immense, but their case might have been very different had they stood firm and shown front, as British infantry would have done.