raised their heads for a moment to find that the enemy was near. It is
these isolated episodes among the homesteads of France, and in
quiet villages girdled by silent woods, which seemed to reveal the
spirit of war more even than the ceaseless fighting on the battle front
with its long lists of casualties.

On that Sunday I saw the trail of this great spirit of evil down many
roads.

I walked not only among the dead, but, what affected me with a more
curious emotion, through villages where a few living people wrung
their hands amidst the ruins of their homes.

Even in Crepy-en-Valois, which had suffered less than other towns
through which the enemy had passed, I saw a wilful, wanton, stupid
destruction of men--no worse I think than other men, but with their
passions let loose and unrestrained. They had entered all the
abandoned houses, and had found some evil pleasure in smashing
chairs and tables and lampshades and babies' perambulators, and
the cheap but precious ornaments of little homes. They had made a
pigsty of many a neat little cottage, and it seemed as though an
earthquake had heaped everything together into a shapeless,
senseless litter. They entered a musical instrument shop, and
diverted themselves, naturally enough, with gramophones and
mouth-organs and trumpets and violins. But, unnaturally, with just a
devilish mirth, they had then smashed all these things into twisted
metal and broken strings. In one cottage an old man and woman,
among the few inhabitants who remained, told me their story.

They are Alsatians, and speak German, and with the craftiness which
accompanies the simplicity of the French peasant, made the most of
this lucky chance. Nine German soldiers were quartered upon them,
and each man demanded and obtained nine eggs for the meal, which
he washed down with the peasant's wine. Afterwards, they stole
everything they could find, and with their comrades swept the shops
clean of shirts, boots, groceries, and everything they could lay their
hands on. They even took the hearses out of an undertaker's yard
and filled them with loot. Before they left Crepy-en-Valois, they fired
deliberately, I was told, upon Red Cross ambulances containing
French wounded.

Yet it was curious that the old Alsatian husband who told me some of
these things had amusement rather than hatred in his voice when he
described the German visit before their quick retreat from the
advancing British. He cackled with lau