Nevertheless, the altar has been left there—an altar of unpolished wood, placed against a background of roughhewn stone.
Four whitewashed walls, a door opposite the altar, two small arched windows; over the door a large wooden crucifix, below the crucifix a square air-hole stopped up with a bundle of hay; on the ground, in one corner, an old window-frame with the glass all broken to pieces—such is the chapel.
Near the altar there is nailed up a wooden statue of Saint Anne, of the fifteenth century; the head of the infant Jesus has been carried off by a large ball.
The French, who were masters of the chapel for a moment, and were then dislodged, set fire to it.
The flames filled this building; it was a perfect furnace; the door was burned, the floor was burned, the wooden Christ was not burned.
The fire preyed upon his feet, of which only the blackened stumps are now to be seen; then it stopped,—a miracle, according to the assertion of the people of the neighborhood.
The infant Jesus, decapitated, was less fortunate than the Christ.
The walls are covered with inscriptions.
Near the feet of Christ this name is to be read: Henquinez. Then these others: Conde de Rio Maior Marques y Marquesa de Almagro (Habana).
There are French names with exclamation points,—a sign of wrath.
The wall was freshly whitewashed in 1849. The nations insulted each other there.
It was at the door of this chapel that the corpse was picked up which held an axe in its hand; this corpse was Sub-Lieutenant Legros.
On emerging from the chapel, a well is visible on the left.
There are two in this courtyard.
One inquires, Why is there no bucket and pulley to this?
It is because water is no longer drawn there.
Why is water not drawn there?
Because it is full of skeletons.
The last person who drew water from the well was named Guillaume van Kylsom.
He was a peasant who lived at Hougomont, and was gardener there.
On the 18th of June, 1815, his family fled and concealed themselves in the woods.
The forest surrounding the Abbey of Villiers sheltered these unfortunate people who had been scattered abroad, for many days and nights.
There are at this day certain traces recognizable, such as old boles of burned trees, which mark the site of these poor bivouacs trembling in the depths of the thickets.
Guillaume van Kylsom remained at Hougomont, “to guard the chateau,” and concealed himself in the cellar.
The English discovered him there. They tore him from his hiding-place, and the combatants forced this frightened man to serve them, by administering blows with the flats of their swords.
They were thirsty; this Guillaume brought them water. It was from this well that he drew it.
Many drank there their last draught.
This well where drank so many of the dead was destined to die itself.
After the engagement, they were in haste to bury the dead bodies.
Death has a fashion of harassing victory, and she causes the pest to follow glory.
The typhus is a concomitant of triumph.
This well was deep, and it was turned into a sepulchre.
Three hundred dead bodies were cast into it.
With too much haste perhaps.
Were they all dead?
Legend says they were not.
It seems that on the night succeeding the interment, feeble voices were heard calling from the well.
This well is isolated in the middle of the courtyard.
Three walls, part stone, part brick, and simulating a small, square tower, and folded like the leaves of a screen, surround it on all sides.
The fourth side is open. It is there that the water was drawn.
The wall at the bottom has a sort of shapeless loophole, possibly the hole made by a shell.
This little tower had a platform, of which only the beams remain.
The iron supports of the well on the right form a cross.
On leaning over, the eye is lost in a deep cylinder of brick which is filled with a heaped-up mass of shadows.
The base of the walls all about the well is concealed in a growth of nettles.
This well has not in front of it that large blue slab which forms the table for all wells in Belgium. The slab has here been replaced by a cross-beam, against which lean five or six shapeless fragments of knotty and petrified wood which resemble huge bones.
There is no longer either pail, chain, or pulley; but there is still the stone basin which served the overflow.
The rain-water collects there, and from time to time a bird of the neighboring forests comes thither to drink, and then flies away.
One house in this ruin, the farmhouse, is still inhabited.
The door of this house opens on the courtyard.