The farmer's wife had actually remained in this farm-house during the whole of this tremendous battle, quite alone, shut up in her own room, or rather garret. There she sat the whole day, listening to the roar of the cannon, in solitude and silence, unable to see anything, or to hear any account of what was passing. It seemed to me that the utmost ingenuity of man could not have devised a more terrible punishment than this woman voluntarily inflicted upon herself. When I asked her what could have been her motives for remaining in such a dreadful situation, she said that she stayed to take care of her property--that all she had in the world consisted in cows and calves, in poultry and pigs--and she thought if she went away and left them, she should lose them all--and perhaps have her house and furniture burnt. She seemed to applaud herself not a little for her foresight. If the French, however, had been victorious instead of the English, the woman, as well as her hens and chickens, would have been in rather an awkward predicament. Her husband first told me this story, which I could scarcely credit till she herself confirmed it. But he, honest man! had wisely run away before the battle had begun, leaving his wife, his pigs, and poultry to take care of themselves. She said she stayed in her room all that night, and never came down till the following morning, when all the surviving wounded officers had been removed, but the bodies of those who had expired during the night still remained, and the floors of all the rooms were stained with blood. She seemed very callous to their fate, and to the sufferings of the wounded; and very indifferent about everything except her hens and chickens. She led me to a little miserable dark cow-house, where General Cooke (or Cock, as she called him) had remained a considerable time when wounded, and it seemed to be a sort of gratification to her, that a British general had been in her cow-house. Leaving this farm-house, we walked through the village of Mont St. Jean, and stopped at the little inn, where we found the rest of the party busily employed upon every kind of eatable the house afforded, which consisted of brown bread, and butter and cheese--small beer, and still smaller wine. Although I had rejected with abhorrence at Château Hougoumont a proposal of eating, which some one had ventured unadvisedly to make; and though it did seem to me upon the field of battle that I should never think of eating again, yet no sooner did I cast my eyes upon these viands than I pounced upon them, as a falcon does upon its prey, and devoured them with nearly as much voracity. They seemed to me to be delicious; and the brown bread and butter, especially, were incomparable.