three
centuries or more time had slept here, and no change of modern life
had altered the character of this place, where merchant princes had
dwelt around the market. If there had been peace here in that velvety
twilight which filled the square when I first passed through it, I should
have expected to see grave burghers in furred hoods pacing across
the cobble stones to the Hotel de Ville, and the florid-faced knights
whom Franz Hals loved to paint, quaffing wine inside the Hotel de la
Couronne, and perhaps a young king in exile known as the Merry
Monarch smiling with a roguish eye at some fair-haired Flemish
wench as he leaned on the arm of my lord of Rochester on his way to
his lodging on the other side of the way. But here was no peace. It
was a backyard of war, and there was the rumble of guns over the
stones, and a litter of war's munitions under the church wall.
Armoured cars were parked in the centre of the square, a corps of
military cyclists had propped their machines against gun wagons and
forage carts, out of the black shadows under high walls poked the
snouts of guns, wafts of scented hay came from carts with their
shafts down in the gutters, sentries with bayonets which caught the
light of old lanterns paced up and down below the Town Hall steps,
Belgian soldiers caked in the mud of the trenches slouched wearily in
the side streets, and staff officers in motor-cars with glaring headlights
and shrieking horns threaded their way between the wagons and the
guns. From beyond the town dull shocks of noise grumbled, like
distant thunder-claps, and through the tremulous dusk of the sky
there came an irregular repetition of faint flashes.

As the twilight deepened and the shadows merged into a general
darkness I could see candles being lit through the bull's-eye windows
of small shops, and the rank smell of paraffin lamps came from
vaulted cellars, into which one descended by steps from the roadway,
where soldiers were drinking cups of coffee or cheap wine in a
flickering light which etched Rembrandt pictures upon one's vision.

A number of staff officers came down the steps of the Town Hall and
stood at the foot of the steps as though waiting for some one. They
had not long to wait, for presently a very tall soldier came out to join
them. For a moment he stood under the portico lighting a cigarette,
and the flare of his match put a glamour upon his face. It was the
King of the Belgians, distinguished only by hi