"You are thinking of your Duke of Marlborough. It is true: this poor land of mine has been often the battlefield of Europe, and may be so yet again - perhaps many times: who knows?"
"Oh, do not think of such a thing! There must be no more wars: we seem to have been fighting ever since I can remember! We shall defeat Bonaparte, and win a lasting peace. Can you doubt it?"
"Be sure I do not desire to doubt it, madame," he replied.
They were climbing a slight hill, and were soon rewarded by the sight of Barbara and Peregrine, resting on the top. Barbara had found shelter from the wind in the lee of a hedge, and was sitting on the bank. She waved, and called out: "It is all a hum! Nothing to be seen but a plain sprinkled with hillocks, and a great many fields of green corn."
Country-bred Peregrine corrected her. "No, no, you understate, Lady Bab! There are fields of rye as well, and at least two of clover. What a height the crops must grow to here! I never saw anything to equal it, so early in the year!"
"Oh, now you go beyond me! I find myself at one with Dr Johnson, who declared - did he not? - that one green field was just like another!"
"Horrid old man!" said Judith, who had come up to ahem by this time. She looked around her. "Why, how could you libel the view so perversely? How pretty the very stone walls look through the trees! Is that the Charleroi road?"
"Yes, madame," said Lavisse. "The little farm you are looking at is La Belle Alliance."
"Delightful!" said Judith. "So many of the villages -and the farms here have pretty names, I find. Can we see the place where you are quartered from here?"
"No, it is too far. I ride to it by the Nivelles road, until I am tired of that way, which is, in effect, quite straight and not very amusing. If you should ever honour Nivelles with a visit, I recommend you to come by the Charleroi road. It is a little longer, but you would be pleased, I think, with the village of Vieux-Genappe which one passes through. There is an old stone bridge, and many of the quaint cottages you admire."