ench hussars. This was the first
occasion of my responsibility as a soldier; and I learned, from this
time forth, to give commanders-in-chief some credit for their
responsibilities. The agonies of that half hour I have never forgotten.
Military failure was nothing compared to the universal shame and
blighting which must fall on the officer who suffered such a disgrace to
be inflicted on him in the presence of the whole army; and such a
calamity to arrest the progress of that army, if not the hopes of
Europe. My resolution was desperately but decidedly taken, if the post
fell into the enemy's hands, on that night to throw away my sword and
abandon my profession, unless some French bayonet or bullet relieved me
from all the anxieties of this feverish world. To offer the command of
the post to any of the superior officers present was, as I well knew,
contrary to rule; and on me and the dragoon devolved the whole duty.

But this state of almost nervous torture was as brief as it was painful,
and my faculties became suddenly clear. The service of outposts was a
branch of soldiership, at that period, wholly unpractised by the British
troops; but I had seen it already on its most perfect scale in the
Prussian retreat, which I and my hussars had our share in covering. My
first step was to warn my soldiers and the dragoons of the probability
of attack, and my second to call for a favourite quadrille, in which I
saw all our guests busily engaged before I left the chateau. My next was
to repeat my Prussian lesson in reconnoitring all the avenues to the
house. This, which ought to have been our first act on taking
possession, had been neglected, in the common belief that the enemy were
in full retreat. The gallant captain of dragoons prepared to take a
gallop at the head of a party along the _chaussee_, and ascertain
whether there were any symptoms of movement along the road. He mounted
and was gone. Posting the dragoons in the farm-yard, I went to the front
to make such preparations as the time might allow for the enemy. Like
the greater number of the Flemish chateaux, it was approached by a long
avenue lined with stately trees; but it wanted the customary canal, or
the fosse, which, however detestable as an accompaniment to the grounds
in peace, makes a tolerable protection in times of war, at least from
marauding parties. All was firm, grand, and open, except where the
garden walls and hedges of the lawn shut it in. As the avenue