At this period of the battle, the guards, after a march of seven-and-twenty miles, arrived from Enghein, from whence they had moved at three in the morning. Exhausted by heat and fatigue, they halted at Nivelles, lighted fires, and prepared to cook their dinners. But the increasing roar of cannon announced that the duke was seriously engaged, and a staff officer brought orders to hurry on. The bivouac was instantly broken up, the kettles packed, the rations abandoned, and the wearied troops cheerfully resumed their march. The path to the field of battle could not be mistaken; the roar of cannon was succeeded by the roll of musketry, which at every step became more clearly audible; and waggons, heaped with wounded British and Brunswickers interspersed, told that the work of death was going on. The Guards, indeed, came up at a fortunate crisis. The Bois de Bossu was won, and the tirailleurs of the enemy, debouching from its cover, were about to deploy upon the roads that it commanded, and would thus intercept the duke’s communication with the Prussians. The fifth division, sadly reduced, could hardly hold their ground, any offensive movement was impracticable, and the French tirailleurs were actually issuing from the wood, but on perceiving the advancing columns, they halted. The first brigade of Guards, having loaded and fixed bayonets, were ordered to advance, and, wearied as they were with a fifteen hours’ march, they cheered, and pushed forward. In vain the thick trees impeded them, and although every bush and coppice was held and disputed by the enemy, the tirailleurs were driven in on every side. Taking advantage of a rivulet which crossed the wood, the enemy attempted to form and arrest the progress of the Guards. That stand was momentary; they were forced from their position, and the wood once more was carried by the British. Their success was, however, limited to its occupation; the broken ground and close timber prevented the battalion from forming; and when it emerged, and of course in considerable disorder, from its cover, the masses of cavalry drawn up in the open ground charged and forced it back. At last, after many daring attempts to debouch and form, the first brigade fell back upon the third battalion, which, by flanking the wood, had been enabled to form square, and repulse the cavalry, and there the brigade halted. Evening was now closing in, the attacks of the enemy became fewer and feebler, a brigade of heavy cavalry with horse artillery came up, and, worn out by the sanguinary struggle of six long hours, the assailants ceased their attack, and the fifth and third divisions took a position for the night upon the ground their unbounded heroism had held through this long and bloody day.