was Master Lewis's plan to travel through the lower part of Belgium
and through Normandy by short journeys near the coast, but he made a
detour from Antwerp to Brussels that the boys might visit the
battlefield of Waterloo.

The landscape along the route to Brussels was dotted with quaint
windmills, reminding one of the old pictorial histories, in which
Holland is illustrated by cuts of these workshops of the air.

The boys entered the city in the morning and passed in view of the
great market square and its contiguous streets.

"This city," said Frank Gray, "was the scene of the grand military
ball before the Battle of Waterloo.

"'There was a sound of revelry by night,
And Belgium's capital had gathered then
Her beauty and her chivalry, and--'"

"And please don't quote the reading book," said Tommy Toby. "The city
is full of _dog-carts_. Dog-carts heaped full of vegetables and women
to lead about the dogs! What a comical sight!"

[Illustration: {A DUTCH WINDMILL.}]

"They are probably country people with produce to sell," said Wyllys.
"What curious head-dresses! What odd jackets! The scene does not much
remind one of Byron's poetry; but it is poetic, after all!"

"I understood that we came here to study the associations of
history," said Frank, "and not dog-carts."

"I came to see what I could see," said Tommy, "and not to imagine
battles in the air."

[Illustration: DOG-CARTS.]

The unexpected street scenes and the general interest of the Class in
them so offended Frank that he turned his eyes with a far-away look
towards the highest gables, and passed on the rest of the way to the
Hotel de l'Europe in silence.

The next morning the Class left the Place Royale, in a fine English
stage-coach, in company with an agent of the English mail coaches, for
Waterloo, which is about twelve miles from the city. It was a bright
day, and the airy road led through the forest of Soignies,--the
"Ardennes" of Byron's "Childe Harold's Pilgrimage."

"And Ardennes waves about them her green leaves,
Dewy with Nature's tear-drops, as they pass."

The battlefield of Waterloo is an open plain, graced here and there
with appropriate monuments, and dignified with an imposing earth mound
with the Belgian Lion on its top.

It did not seem that the plain could ever have been the scene of such
a contest, so great was its beauty and so quiet its midsummer
loveliness.

[Illustration: STREET SCENES IN BRUS