Captain Brotherton of the fourteenth dragoons, fighting on the 18th at the Guarena, amongst the foremost, as he was always wont to do, had a sword thrust quite through his side, yet on the 22d he was again on horseback, and being denied leave to remain in that condition with his own regiment, secretly joined Pack’s Portuguese in an undress, and was again hurt in the unfortunate charge at the Arapiles. Such were the officers. A man of the forty-third, one by no means distinguished above his comrades, was shot through the middle of the thigh, and lost his shoes in passing the marshy stream; but refusing to quit the fight, he limped under fire in rear of his regiment, and with naked feet, and streaming of blood from his wound, he marched for several miles over a country covered with sharp stones. Such were the soldiers, and the devotion of a woman was not wanting to the illustration of this great day. The wife of colonel Dalbiac, an English lady of a gentle disposition and possessing a very delicate frame, had braved the dangers, and endured the privations of two campaigns, with the patient fortitude which belongs only to her sex; and in this battle, forgetful of every thing but that strong affection which had so long supported her, she rode deep amidst the enemy’s fire, trembling yet irresistibly impelled forwards by feelings more imperious than horror, more piercing than the fear of death. CHAPTER IV. [Sidenote: 1812. July.] During the few hours of darkness, which succeeded the cessation of the battle, Clauzel had with a wonderful diligence, passed the Tormes by the narrow bridge of Alba and the fords below it, and at day-light was in full retreat upon Peneranda, covered by an organized rear-guard. Wellington also, having brought up the German dragoons and Anson’s cavalry to the front, crossed the river with his left wing at day-light, and moving up the stream, came about ten o’clock upon the French rear which was winding without much order along the Almar, a small stream at the foot of a height near the village of La Serna. He launched his cavalry against them, and the French squadrons, flying from Anson’s troopers towards their own left, abandoned three battalions of infantry, who in separate columns were making up a hollow slope on their right, hoping to gain the crest of the heights before the cavalry could fall on. The two foremost did reach the higher ground and there formed squares, general Foy being in the one, and general Chemineau in the other; but the last regiment when half-way up, seeing Bock’s dragoons galloping hard on, faced about and being still in column commenced a disorderly fire. The two squares already formed above, also plied their muskets with far greater effect; and as the Germans, after crossing the Almar stream, had to pass a turn of narrow road, and then to clear some rough ground before they could range their squadrons on a charging front, the troopers dropt fast under the fire. By two’s, by three’s,