The firing began to grow slacker, and even intermitting, as we entered on the field of Quatre Bras--our horses stumbling from time to time over corpses of the slain, which they were too tired to step over. The shot and shells which flew over our line of march from time to time (some of the latter bursting beyond us) were sufficient to enable us to say we had been _in_ the battle of Quatre Bras, for such was the name of the place where we now arrived, just too late to be useful. In all directions the busy hum of human voices was heard; the wood along the skirts of which we marched re-echoed clearly and loudly the tones of the bugle, which ever and anon were overpowered by the sullen roar of cannon, or the sharper rattle of musketry; dark crowds of men moved in the increasing obscurity of evening, and the whole scene seemed alive with them. What a moment of excitement and anxiety as we proceeded amongst all this tumult, and amidst the dead and dying, ignorant as yet how the affair had terminated! Arrived at a mass of buildings, where four roads met (_les quatre bras_), Major M‘Donald again came up with orders for us to bivouac on an adjoining field, where, accordingly, we established ourselves amongst the remains of a wheat crop. Our men dismounted, and the horses tied up to the wheels of the carriages, every one was despatched with canteens and water-buckets to a well at the farm, to procure water for themselves and horses. This being the only water in the immediate neighbourhood, the crowd of all arms was so great about it that our people were employed fully two hours after halting ere they had completed watering their horses. They were then fed with corn, whilst eating which, a patch of wheat still standing was discovered near our bivouac. This we immediately cut or pulled up, and thus saved our hay, for there was sufficient to employ the poor brutes all night, if they preferred eating to sleeping.