ay in the street.

One of them opened a stable-door; and a litter of pigs escaped and
scattered over the village. The inn-keeper and the barber came out and
humbly asked the soldiers what they wanted; but the men knew no
Flemish and went in to look for the children.

The inn-keeper had one, which sat crying in its little shirt on the
table where they had just had dinner. A man took the child in his arms
and carried it away under the apple-tree, while the father and mother
followed him with cries of lamentation.

The soldiers also threw open the cooper's shed and the blacksmith's
and the cobbler's; and the calves, cows, asses, pigs, goats and sheep
strayed about the market-place. When the men broke the glass of the
carpenter's windows, several of the peasants, including the oldest and
richest farmers in the parish, assembled in the street and went
towards the Spaniards. They doffed their hats and caps respectfully to
the leader in his velvet cloak and asked him what he was going to do;
but even he did not understand their language; and some one went to
fetch the priest.

He was making ready for benediction and putting on a gold cope in the
sacristy. The peasant called out:

"The Spaniards are in the orchard!"

Horrified, the priest ran to the church-door, accompanied by the
serving-boys carrying tapers and censer.

Then he saw the animals released from their sheds roaming on the snow
and the grass, the horsemen in the village, the soldiers outside the
doors, the horses tied to the trees along the street and the men and
women entreating him who was holding the child in its shirt.

He rushed to the churchyard; and the peasants turned anxiously to
their priest, coming through the pear-trees like a god robed in gold,
and stood around him and the man with the white beard.

He spoke in Flemish and Latin; but the commander shrugged his
shoulders slowly up and down to show that he did not understand.

His parishioners asked him under their breath:

"What does he say? What is he going to do?"

Others, on seeing the priest in the orchard, came timidly from their
farms; the women hurried up and stood whispering among the groups;
while some soldiers who were besieging an inn ran back at the sight of
the great crowd that was forming in the market-place.

Then the man who was holding by one leg the child of the landlord of
the Green Cabbage cut off its head with his sword.

The head fell before their eyes and the body