The panic over, I partook of a little bread and wine, and lay down for the night on some straw in the square; and in spite of the confusion and uproar, occasioned by the continual arrival of waggons loaded with wounded men, I slept soundly. In the morning the scene surpassed all imagination, and baffles description: thousands of wounded French, Belgians, Prussians and English; carts, waggons, and every other attainable vehicle, were continually arriving heaped with sufferers. The wounded were laid, friends and foes indiscriminately, on straw, with avenues between them, in every part of the city, and nearly destitute of surgical attendance. The humane and indefatigable exertions of the fair ladies of Brussels, however, greatly made up for this deficiency; numbers were busily employed—some strapping and bandaging wounds, others serving out tea, coffee, soups, and other soothing nourishments; while many occupied themselves stripping the sufferers of their gory and saturated garments, and dressing them in clean shirts, and other habiliments; indeed, altogether careless of fashionable scruples, many of the fairest and wealthiest of the ladies of that city, now ventured to assert their pre-eminence on the occasion. It was enough that their ordained companions were in need, to call forth the sympathies that ever must bind the sexes to mutual dependance. One lady I noticed particularly, she was attended by a servant bearing on his shoulder a kind of pannier, containing warm and cold refreshments: her age I guessed about eighteen, and the peculiarity of the moment made her appear beyond the common order of humanity. She moved along with an eye of lightning, glancing about for those whom she thought most in need of her assistance. A tall Highlander lay near her as she hurried along, and drew her attention with a deep groan, arising from the anguish of a severe wound in the thick part of the thigh. The soldier fixed his eye with surprise on her, as in a twinkling she knelt at his side, and gently moving aside his blood-stained kilt, commenced washing the wounded part; the Scotchman seemed uneasy at her importunity. But with the sweetest voice imaginable, she addressed him in English, with, “Me no ashamed of you—indeed, I will not hurt you!” and the wounded man, ere he could recover his rough serenity, found his wound bandaged, and at ease, under the operations of his fair attendant. Such acts as these must ever draw forth our admiration. CHAPTER XXIV.