ten o'clock in the morning
Men were set to work to build a great barricade across the road , and to run breastworks of stones right and left from the points where the walls ended along the brow . Other parties loopholed the houses and walls of the village , and formed another barricade across the road at the other end . With two thousand men at work these tasks were soon carried out ; and the count then led the men down the hill , whose face was covered with loose stones , and set them to work piling these in lines one above another . At ten o'clock in the morning the work was complete . The count told the men off by parties , each of which were to hold one of the lines of stones ; each party was , as the French charged , to retire up the hill and join that at the line above , so that their resistance would become more and more obstinate till the village itself was reached . Here a stand was to be made as long as possible . If the column advanced only by the road , every house was to be held ; if they spread out in line so as to overlap the village on both sides , a rapid retreat was to be made when the bugler by the count 's side gave the signal .