NEWS OF WATERLOO 121 



parte and all his French army are destroyed ! The 

 Duke of Wellington, God bless him ! has fought 

 and beat him at a place called Waterloo.' My 

 father told me he was so overcome with joy, for he 

 had lived all his life in war, that he involuntarily 

 fell down on his knees in the hayfield and thanked 

 God for what he at once saw was the blessing of 

 peace. The coachman had hurried back, when he 

 found the horses had been changed, and fixing blue 

 ribbons on their heads and a big bow on his whip, 

 drove triumphantly through the town, telling every- 

 one the startling news, which had been spread that 

 morning in London, that the battle had been fought 

 on the 1 8th, and that the news had reached London 

 thirty hours afterwards, and that the whole city was 

 rejoicing. Like many other towns of the period, 

 there was a strong contingent of Bonapartists, 

 young men of 'advanced views,' like the Little 

 Englanders of the present day, who were fond of 

 asserting that although Wellington had beaten all 

 Napoleon's generals in the Peninsula, when he came 

 across the great Bonaparte he would not only find 

 his match, but would certainly be defeated. My 

 father, with his staunch Toryism, had always main- 

 tained the contrary, hurried up street to the parish 

 clerk, one John Dunce, who, I well remember, was 

 the head of the ringers, told him to call the ringers 

 together and give out as hearty a peal at the church 

 as they possibly could, to celebrate the glorious vic- 

 tory. The peal of eight bells was a very fine one, 

 and soon poured forth a volume of sound powerful 



