ns of fallen brickwork, through shattered walls, past
unlovely stumps of mason-work that had been stately tower or belfry
once, beneath splintered arches that led but from one scene of ruin
to another, and ever our gloom deepened, for it seemed that Ypres,
the old Ypres, with all its monuments of mediaeval splendour, its
noble traditions of hard-won freedom, its beauty and glory, was
passed away and gone for ever.

"I don't know how all this affects you," said N., his big chin jutted
grimly, "but I hate it worse than a battlefield. Let's get on over to
the Major's office."

We went by silent streets, empty except for a few soldierly figures
in hard-worn khaki, desolate thoroughfares that led between piles and
huge unsightly mounds of fallen masonry and shattered brickwork,
fallen beams, broken rafters and twisted ironwork, across a desolate
square shut in by the ruin of the great Cloth Hall and other once
stately buildings, and so to a grim, battle-scarred edifice, its roof
half blown away, its walls cracked and agape with ugly holes, its
doorway reinforced by many sandbags cunningly disposed, through which
we passed into the dingy office of the Town Major.

As we stood in that gloomy chamber, dim-lighted by a solitary oil
lamp, floor and walls shook and quivered to the concussion of a
shell--not very near, it is true, but quite near enough.

The Major was a big man, with a dreamy eye, a gentle voice and a
passion for archaeology. In his company I climbed to the top of a high
building, whence he pointed out, through a convenient shell hole,
where the old walls had stood long ago, where Vauban's star-shaped
bastions were, and the general conformation of what had been
present-day Ypres; but I saw only a dusty chaos of shattered arch and
tower and walls, with huge, unsightly mounds of rubble and brick--a
rubbish dump in very truth. Therefore I turned to the quiet-voiced
Major and asked him of his experiences, whereupon he talked to me
most interestingly and very learnedly of Roman tile, of mediaeval
rubble-work, of herringbone and Flemish bond. He assured me also that
(_Deo volente_) he proposed to write a monograph on the various
epochs of this wonderful old town's history as depicted by its
various styles of mason-work and construction.

"I could show you a nearly perfect aqueduct if you have time," said
he.

"I'm afraid we ought to be starting now," said the Intelligence
Officer; "over eighty miles to do yet, yo