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Furthermore, the approach to Quatre Bras was flanked by the extensive Bossu Wood, and by a spinney to the right of the highway. Reille therefore counselled caution, lest the affair should prove to be "a Spanish battle where the English show themselves only when it is time." When, however, Reille's corps pushed home the attack, the weakness of the defence was speedily revealed.
He removed the lid and saw within, resting on the cushioned bottom, the image, in myrtle-wax, moulded and painted with some rude skill, of a negro's bloody arm cut off near the shoulder a bras coupé with a dirk grasped in its hand. The old woman lifted her eyes to heaven; her teeth chattered; she gasped twice before she could recover utterance. "Oh, Miché Jean-Baptiste, I di' n' mek dat ah!
Stragglers had come in from the army bringing reports more and more favourable: at last an aide-de-camp actually reached Brussels with despatches for the Commandant of the place, who placarded presently through the town an official announcement of the success of the allies at Quatre Bras, and the entire repulse of the French under Ney after a six hours' battle.
The dogs subsided, and Ralph ran lightly up the steps. "Come in. Take a chair by the fire. What mought your name be these hard times?" "I'm Ralph Granger, from over about Hiawassee Gap." "Son of old Bras?" Ralph assented, when the shock headed man called to his wife, who was sifting meal for the supper: "Tildy this must be one of your kin folks."
A peaceful farming country this, but an unremunerative field, one would say, for the colporteur and the book-agent; and winter must inclose it in a lonesome seclusion. The only other thing of note the Bras d'Or offered us before we reached West Bay was the finest show of medusm or jelly-fish that could be produced.
I am not sure," he resumed, soliloquizing, after a pause, "I am not sure that there is not something more witty than manly and philosophical in that national proverb of mine which I quoted to the fanciullo, 'that there are no handsome prisons'! Did not the son of that celebrated Frenchman, surnamed Bras de Fer, write a book not only to prove that adversities are more necessary than prosperities, but that among all adversities a prison is the most pleasant and profitable?
It was a sight he could hardly endure an exhibition offensive to any soldier whose forbears had learnt to achieve the impossible as a matter of routine and had held firm for half a day at Quatre Bras with never so much as the flicker of an eye-lid. Gad! there could only be one end to this kow-towing to death, and that would be disaster and disgrace.
If the reader will take the map, he will see that two narrow estuaries, the Great and the Little Bras d'Or, enter the island of Cape Breton, on the ragged northeast coast, above the town of Sydney, and flow in, at length widening out and occupying the heart of the island.
"Soldier and chief and rampart's strength are nought; Behold the conquering Cross! 'T is God the triumph wrought." "Chrétien! ce ne fut point Montcalm et la prudence, Ces arbres renversés, ces héros, leurs exploits, Qui des Anglais confus ont brisé l'espérance; C'est le bras de ton Dieu, vainqueur sur cette croix."
He must have received Napoleon's order to occupy Quatre Bras, "if there was only a rearguard there," a little before 10 a.m.; but he took no steps beyond futile skirmishing, and apparently knew not that the British were slipping away. About 2 p.m., when the British cavalry was ready to turn rein, the Duke and Sir H. Vivian saw the glint of cuirasses along the Sombref road.
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