of that morning of the Sunday, announcing that he meant to
mass his troops at Wavre by nightfall, and asking for orders for the next
day.

What the Prussians were doing during that Sunday morning when Grouchy was
so quietly and soberly taking for granted that they could not or would not
rejoin Wellington, and was so quietly shielding his own responsibility
behind the Emperor's orders, we shall see when we come to talk of the
action itself--the battle of Waterloo.

Meanwhile we must return to the second half of the great strategic move,
and watch the retreat of the Duke of Wellington during that same Saturday,
and the stand which he made on the ridge called "the Mont St Jean" by the
nightfall of that day, in order to accept battle on the Sunday morning.

An observer watching the whole business of that Saturday from some height
in the air above the valley of the Sambre, and looking northwards, would
have seen on the landscape below, to his right, the Prussians streaming in
great parallel columns upon Wavre from the battlefield of Ligny. He would
have seen, scattered upon the roads, small groups of mounted men, here in
touch with the last files of a Prussian column, there lost and wandering
forward into empty spaces where no soldiers were. These were the cavalry
scouts of Grouchy. South of these, and far behind the Prussian rear,
separated from them by a gap of ten miles, a dense body of infantry, drawn
up in heavy columns of route, was the corps commanded by Grouchy.

What would such an observer have seen upon the landscape below and before
him to his left? He would have seen an interminable line of men streaming
northward also, all afternoon, up the Brussels road from Quatre Bras; and
behind them, treading upon their heels, another column, miles in length,
pressing the pursuit. The retreating column, as it hurried off, he would
see screened on its rear by a mass of cavalry, that from time to time
charged and checked the pursuers, and sometimes put guns in line to hold
them back. The pursuers, after each such check, would still press on. The
first, the thousands in retreat, were Wellington's command retiring from
Quatre Bras; the second, the pursuers, were a body some 74,000 strong
formed by the junction of Ney and Napoleon, and pressing forward to bring
Wellington to battle.

* * * * *

At Quatre Bras, Wellington had not been able, as he had hoped, to join the
Prussians and save them