All the afternoon there had been great doings at Hougoumont. About one o’clock Colonel Hepburn had relieved Saltoun in the large orchard with a battalion of the 3rd--now the Scots Guards--and the combat on that side became a long succession of advances with the bayonet to the front hedge and retirings into a green dry ditch, which is known to us as the “friendly hollow-way.” When our men fell back, a terrific fire from the short east wall would stagger the foe, and the Scots, having formed again, would scramble out of the hollow and clear the orchard of all but the dead. Along the terrible south wall a staff-officer, who had been through all the Peninsula battles, afterwards said that the slain lay thicker than he had ever seen them elsewhere. The château and barns were now burning furiously, fired by Haxo’s howitzers at Napoleon’s orders, and many of our wounded perished in the flames; some officers’ horses tore out of the barn, galloped madly round the yard, and rushed into the fire again to be destroyed. Twice the enemy got in: once by a little door in the west wall, through which they never got out alive; and the second time, when our Guardsmen had sallied out into the lane to drive off a body of infantry, about fifty French entered on their heels through the north gate. Then, by main strength of arm, Colonel Macdonell, Sergeant Graham, and three or four more, shut and barred the wooden gate in the faces of the others, and those inside were all shot down. A brave fellow climbed on to the beam that crossed the gateway; but Graham fired, and he dropped with a scream on to the heads of his comrades outside the wall. The fire stopped at the door of the château chapel, which was full of wounded, and a wooden figure of our Saviour had the feet nibbled by the flames, at which the superstitious marvel greatly to this day. Columns of smoke hung over everything. A gallant artillery driver rushed his horses to the wall, and flung a barrel of welcome cartridges over into the yard. At the corner, before the gardener’s house, Baron de Cubières lay wounded under his horse; afterwards, when Governor of Ancona, he expressed himself very grateful that we had not fired on him! Crawford of the 3rd Guards was killed in the kitchen garden, Blackman of the Coldstreams died in the orchard; but the attack and repulse grew gradually weaker, as both sides tired of the hideous slaughter. Meanwhile, a serious trouble which had been menacing the Emperor on his right flank for some time at last grew terribly imminent. The Prussians were coming in spite of Grouchy, who had been sent in their pursuit.