BOOK FIRST.--WATERLOO

 
  CHAPTER I WHAT IS MET WITH
       ON THE WAY FROM NIVELLES

    Last year
        (1861),
           on a beautiful May morning,
         a traveller,
           the person
             who is telling this story,
         was coming from Nivelles,
           and directing his course
               towards La Hulpe.

    He was on foot.

    He was
          pursuing a broad paved road,
           which undulated
               between two rows of trees,
         over the hills
              which succeed each other,
           raise the road and
              let it fall again,
         and produce something
               in the nature
                   of enormous waves.

    He had
          passed Lillois and Bois-Seigneur-Isaac.

    In the west
         he perceived the slate-roofed tower
               of Braine-l'Alleud,
           which has the form
               of a reversed vase.

    He had just
          left behind a wood
               upon an eminence;
        and at the angle
               of the cross-road,
           by the side
               of a sort
             of mouldy gibbet
           bearing the inscription
               Ancient Barrier 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 a little valley,
         where there is water
              which passes beneath an arch
                   made through the embankment
                       of the road.

    The clump of sparsely planted
         but very green trees,
           which fills the valley
               on one side
                   of the road,
         is dispersed
               over the meadows
                   on the other,
           and disappears gracefully 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 cart
               at the door,
         a large bundle of hop-poles,
           a plough,
         a heap of dried brushwood
               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 pool
             in which a flotilla
                   of ducks
                was navigating,
         a badly
              paved path
                  plunged into the bushes.

    The wayfarer struck into this.

    After traversing a hundred paces,
           skirting a wall
               of the fifteenth century,
         surmounted by a pointed gable,
           with bricks set in contrast,
         he found himself
             before a large door
                   of arched stone,
           with a rectilinear impost,
         in the sombre style
               of Louis XIV.,

    flanked by 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 meadow
         before the door
              lay three harrows,
           through which,
         in disorder,
           grew all
               the flowers of May.

    The door was closed.

    The two decrepit leaves
          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 distracted manner
             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 peasant woman 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:-
        -