| WHAT IS MET WITH ON THE WAY FROM NIVELLES
Last year (1861), on a beautiful May morning, a traveller,
the personwho is telling this story, was coming from Nivelles,
and directinghis course towards La Hulpe. He was on foot. He was
pursuinga broad paved road, which undulated between two rows of
trees,over the hills which succeed each other, raise the road
and let itfall again, and produce something in the nature of enormous
waves.
He had passed Lillois and Bois-Seigneur-Isaac. In the west
heperceived the slate-roofed tower of Braine-l'Alleud, which hasthe
form of a reversed vase. He had just left behind a wood uponan
eminence; and at the angle of the cross-road, by the sideof a
sort of mouldy gibbet bearing the inscription AncientBarrier No.
4, a public house, bearing on its front this sign: At the Four
Winds (Aux Quatre Vents). Echabeau, Private Cafe.
A quarter of a league further on, he arrived at the bottom
of alittle valley, where there is water which passes beneath an
archmade through the embankment of the road. The clump of sparselyplanted
but very green trees, which fills the valley on one side ofthe
road, is dispersed over the meadows on the other, and disappearsgracefully
and as in order in the direction of Braine-l'Alleud.
On the right, close to the road, was an inn, with a four-wheeled
cartat the door, a large bundle of hop-poles, a plough, a heap
of driedbrushwood near a flourishing hedge, lime smoking in a
square hole,and a ladder suspended along an old penthouse with
straw partitions. A young girl was weeding in a field, where a
huge yellow poster,probably of some outside spectacle, such as
a parish festival,was fluttering in the wind. At one corner of
the inn, beside a poolin which a flotilla of ducks was navigating,
a badly paved path plungedinto the bushes. The wayfarer struck
into this.
After traversing a hundred paces, skirting a wall of thefifteenth
century, surmounted by a pointed gable, with bricks setin contrast,
he found himself before a large door of arched stone,with a rectilinear
impost, in the sombre style of Louis XIV., flankedby two flat
medallions. A severe facade rose above this door;a wall, perpendicular
to the facade, almost touched the door,and flanked it with an
abrupt right angle. In the meadowbefore the door lay three harrows,
through which, in disorder,grew all the flowers of May. The door
was closed. The two decrepitleaves which barred it were ornamented
with an old rusty knocker.
The sun was charming; the branches had that soft shivering
of May,which seems to proceed rather from the nests than from
the wind. A brave little bird, probably a lover, was carolling
in a distractedmanner in a large tree.
The wayfarer bent over and examined a rather large circular
excavation,resembling the hollow of a sphere, in the stone on
the left,at the foot of the pier of the door.
At this moment the leaves of the door parted, and a peasantwoman
emerged.
She saw the wayfarer, and perceived what he was looking at.
"It was a French cannon-ball which made that," she
said to him. And she added:--
"That which you see there, higher up in the door, near
a nail,is the hole of a big iron bullet as large as an egg. The
bullet didnot pierce the wood."
"What is the name of this place?" inquired the wayfarer.
"Hougomont," said the peasant woman.
The traveller straightened himself up. He walked on a few paces,and
went off to look over the tops of the hedges. On the horizonthrough
the trees, he perceived a sort of little elevation,and on this
elevation something which at that distance resembleda lion.
He was on the battle-field of Waterloo.
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