spoke again, this time in Flemish:

"_Van waar komt gy? Waar gaat gy heen?_"

The man pointed with his hand vaguely in the direction of the Menin
ridge.

There followed a conversation of which I could make but little. But I
noticed that they answered my companion in a dull, trance-like way, as
though our questions concerned no one so little as themselves.

"They're fugitives," he repeated to me. "Been burnt out of their farm by
the Bosches near the Menin ridge."

"Are they all alone?" I asked.

He put some further questions. "Yes, their only son was shot by the
Germans when they billeted there."

"Why?"

"They don't know. The Bosches took all they had and drove the live-stock
away. These few sticks are all they have left. Curious, isn't it," he
added meditatively, "that you never see any Flemish fugitives without
their feather-beds?" I had often noticed it. Also I had noticed the
curious purposelessness of their salvage, as though in trying to save
everything they succeeded in saving nothing that was of any consequence.
Perhaps it is that, as some one has remarked, all things suddenly become
equally dear when you have to leave them.

"But where are they going?"

The man stared at my companion as he put my question; the woman gazed
vacantly at the lowering horizon, but neither uttered a word. The
canary in its little prison of wire-work piped joyfully, as a gleam of
sunshine lit up the watery landscape. Somewhere the guns spoke in a dull
thunder. The woman was pleating a fold of her skirt between thumb and
forefinger, plucking and unplucking with immense care and concentration.
The man was suddenly shaken with a fit of asthma, and clutched at the
cart as though seeking support.

We waited for some reply, and at length the man answered between the
spasms of his malady.

"He says he doesn't know," my companion translated. "He's never been
outside his parish before. But he thinks he'll go to Brussels and see
the King of the Belgians. He doesn't know the Germans are in Brussels.
And anyhow he's on the wrong road."

"But surely," I hazarded, "the _maire_ or the _cure_ could have told him
better."

"He says the Germans shot the _cure_ and carried off the _maire_. It's a
way they've got, you know."

It was now clear to us that this tragic couple were out on an uncharted
sea. Their little world was in ruins. The bells that had called them to
the divine offices were silent; the little church in which they had