The Spell of Belgium Part 15

Their days were filled with offices of the Church, with a little recreation in the small garden. When an extra holiday hour was allowed them for the time we were there, the first thing they did was to go in procession to the garden and fall upon their knees before the crucified Christ. That was evidently their idea of a holiday hour.

The Flemish roads themselves were always interesting, even here where the country was so level. We pa.s.sed an endless succession of wonderfully tilled fields in which the peasants were working with their primitive implements, and little red-roofed stone farmhouses with innumerable tow-headed children playing about them. I shall never forget how lovely were the apple trees about the farmhouses and in the orchards. They all had white blossoms, and while we missed the more varied pinks and mauves which we see at home, the effect was charming. Every now and then we would catch a glimpse of a chateau in its park, usually just beyond a lagoon and with a moat about it. We traversed the streets of the little towns, so quiet in spite of the factories that sometimes girdled them, and wondered how the people lived behind the quaint facades of their ancient houses. We stopped at the little village of Herzele, on the road to Courtrai, to see its ruined tower, once the property of Count Egmont, in which he sustained a siege for six months. It was quite picturesque, built of slabs of rough gray stone. Its history reminded us of the great Flemish primitives, for its first owner was Jean de Roubaix, the friend of Jan van Eyck.

[Ill.u.s.tration: COUNT EGMONT'S TOWER, HERZeLE.]

On another occasion we made a circuit of the now historic places in the neighbourhood of the Yser River. To be sure, they were historic enough then, but so remote from the lines of tourist travel that few realized what treasures they contained. Now, when nearly everything has been swept away, hordes of people are waiting eagerly for a chance to see even the ruins.

At that time Dixmude had a population of about a thousand, although it was built for thirty thousand. Its deserted Grande Place was large enough to hold every man, woman and child in the place--and if they kept quiet I doubt if you would have noticed them! In the church was one of the finest altar screens in Europe. Because of repeated bombardments Dixmude is now completely off the map--church and all. I wonder what is left of the ancient windmill on its gra.s.sy hillock overlooking the town; it had been there since the Middle Ages.

Nearer the mouth of the Yser was Nieuport, the "new port" made when the harbour of Lombaertzyde across the river filled with sand during a terrific storm in the twelfth century. Part of the way the road along the embankment ran just over the sea, and the rest of the time behind the dunes. It was a quaint old town with some really fine Gothic buildings, hidden by its sheltering mounds of sand from the hotels and villas of the beach, which is called Nieuport-Bains to distinguish the resort from its moribund neighbour.

This is far from being Nieuport's first experience of war. It was destroyed in 1383, after withstanding nine sieges. A hundred years later it was successfully defended against the French, the women and even the children fighting side by side with the men. It was destroyed again in the seventeen hundreds--three times, in fact. Whether it will rise again, the world will wait to see. A brave little town among its gray-green sand dunes, with its ancient lighthouse and its empty, echoing square.

A few miles west along the coast was Furnes, whose history begins in the Dark Ages and finishes--in 1914. It was quite of a piece with the other dead little towns of the Yser country, so far as one could see, but distinguished from them all by its strange celebration, the Procession of Penance.

[Ill.u.s.tration: _Sand Dunes, Nieuport_]

This was held every year on the last Sunday in July, and was one of the last remaining Christian mysteries. The procession represented the life of Jesus. It is supposed to have been inst.i.tuted by that Count of Flanders who was also King of Jerusalem, for the purpose of carrying about the streets of Furnes a splinter from the Cross, which he had brought back from the Holy Land.

For a while other mysteries were added, but it finally began to degenerate until by the seventeenth century it had become a sort of burlesque. A brotherhood was founded to restore it to its primitive form, but a new motive entered into it when two soldiers profaned some concentrated wafers and had to do penance in public. In this manner the modern penitential procession originated.

The procession formed within the church of Sainte Walburge. Outside, the horses of the Roman soldiers pranced about while Mary sat on an a.s.s waiting for the flight to Egypt. Then slowly forth from the church came the penitents, robed and cowled in brown, their faces masked, dragging after them the carts bearing the stable of Bethlehem, the Holy Sepulcher, the Resurrection, and the Ascension. Following them came many rosy-cheeked girls veiled in white.

As the long lines of the procession unfolded themselves before the spectator there was a general impression of a variegated river of gold, purple and blue. First came chariots representing Old Testament scenes, followed by the scourges--War, Pestilence and Famine, a prophetic trio.

Then appeared St. John, the Hermits and the Shepherds, and the Stable, which was preceded by an angel and bore Mary and Joseph seated inside.

When, after various scenes from the story of the Pa.s.sion, Jesus pa.s.sed by, dragging the cross, with the soldiers and executioners following behind, a tense silence fell upon the crowd of onlookers. Not a sound was heard, save here and there the low muttering of the men, women and children kneeling on the pavement, praying over their rosaries. At every window along the route were lighted candles. It was no uncommon sight to see some poor old woman, carried away by her religious fervour, throw coins in front of the cross. This was indeed one of the characteristic incidents of the Furnes festival.

Following this came the penitents, marching in close ranks, torches in hand and weighed down by the heavy crosses that they dragged along. The men's faces were hidden by their masks and hoods, the women's by their veils. All were barefooted.

Every position in the procession was sought for as eagerly as if it had been a public office. Some of the princ.i.p.al parts were hereditary in certain families. They say that the festival as given the last time was unchanged from its original form, centuries ago, thanks to the care of "La Sodalite," the brotherhood having it in charge.

Ypres we saved for the last. Poor Ypres! Remains of its ancient ramparts still were to be seen, and moats with lilies floating on their dark waters, and the vast Grande Place, with the glorious Cloth Hall occupying one side of the huge square, rivaled only by that of Brussels.

Through the crooked streets of the town, with their sagging, gabled houses whose upper stories often projected over the tiny sidewalks, one caught now and then a glimpse of a quiet courtyard beyond a vaulted gateway.

In the quotation which follows, Pierre Loti refers to the "little children" in Ypres. Until recently their presence there in what eventually became a deserted city was not explained, nor indeed specially noticed. But it has been discovered that when the last train left the interior of Belgium, supposedly for France, just in front of the advancing Germans, frantic mothers pushed their children into the already crowded cars, hoping that some one would care for them at their destination. This proved to be Ypres, where for months the motherless little ones wandered about the deserted streets, living in cellars and abandoned houses, the older ones caring for the younger, all living on what they could pick up in the streets. At last accounts they were being brought together by the French Government and cared for in a convent until the war is over, when every effort will be made to find their parents.

Pierre Loti has written of Ypres as he saw it not long ago, and it gives us a vivid glimpse of the city in war times. "The squares around these tall ruins are filled with soldiers who stand still, or who move slowly about in silent little groups a trifle solemnly, as though awaiting something of which every one knows, but about which no one speaks. There are also poorly dressed women with haggard faces, and little children; but the lowly civil population is completely swallowed up in the ma.s.s of rough uniforms, almost all soiled and earthy, having evidently witnessed many a long battle. The graceful khaki yellow uniform of the English and the slender black regimentals of the Belgians mingle with the sky blue military cloaks of our French soldiers, who make up the majority. All this taken together results in an almost neutral shade, and two or three red cloaks of Arab chieftains form a sharp and unexpected contrast to this universal monotony of a gloomy winter evening. The thousands of soldiers glance instinctively at these ruins, as they take their melancholy evening strolls, but usually they remain at a distance, leaving both hall and church in their majestic isolation.... And now the night is almost here, the true night which will put an end to every trace of life. The crowd of soldiers retires gradually into the streets, already dark, but which surely will not be lighted. Far away a bugle is calling them to their evening meal, in the houses or the barracks where they sleep insecurely.... Now the silhouettes of the cathedral and the great belfry are all that are pictured against the sky--like the gesture of a shattered arm now turned into stone. As the night gradually closes in on you under the weight of its clouds, you recall with increasing vividness the mournful surroundings in the midst of which Ypres is now lost, the vast, tenantless plain, now almost black, the mutilated roads, over which none would know how to flee, the fields flooded with water or blanketed with snow, the lines of trenches, where, alas! our soldiers are cold and suffering."

[Ill.u.s.tration: CLOTH HALL, YPRES, AFTER BOMBARDMENT.]

CHAPTER XIII

LEGENDS OF ANTWERP

I

ANTIGON; OR, THE GIANT OF ANTWERP

It was a fine night in the year 54 B.C., the sky clear, the air calm, when a boat--a sort of raft of basket work covered with ox hides--was slowly following the ebb of the Scheldt. A voice was heard from the boat, a woman's voice, soft and gentle.

"Yes, Atuix, for thee have I pa.s.sed the threshold of my father's dwelling. I have quitted the deep forests of Gaul, my native country; for thee have I left all, because of my love for thee, Atuix, and thy beautiful harp which sleeps silently by thy side."

Another voice was heard: "Oh, Frega, since the day that thine eyes looked into mine, my harp has forgotten its sounds and my soul no longer knows any of the songs whispered by Ogmius, whom I worshiped in the forests--the G.o.d of the bards, he who is always surrounded by men bound by their ears to chains of gold and amber which issue from his mouth."

The boat continued to descend with the tide. Suddenly the waves were troubled and foaming as if some water monster was rising to their surface. A breathing, a stifled murmuring, was heard, like unto the autumn wind rushing through the branches of an old, decayed forest; the bubbling of the waters came nearer, and the breathing grew stronger.

Then by the pale rays of the moon's light, rising above the silvery clouds, Atuix and Frega beheld with terror, approaching them and swelling the waves in his rapid course, a colossal Giant.

The waters of the river reached up to his broad chest, and formed around him a white and sparkling belt of foam. From his formidable face flowed a thick beard, and his head was covered with hair like that of a horse, rough and black. He looked like those isolated peaks which are sometimes seen on the borders of the ocean, with their frowning crests from which the long, trailing gra.s.s hangs dripping in the waves. The boat suddenly stopped, and cracked under the hand of the giant. A terrible roaring burst from his hollow chest, and these words were uttered in a voice of thunder:--

"Ah! ah! my pa.s.sengers of the night!--you think that the eyes of Antigon are closed to allow you to pa.s.s in the dark! Where are my three oxen to satisfy my hunger this evening?"

Frega clung trembling to Atuix who silently drew forth his long blade.

The giant continued, "If you wish to speak to me, then swell out your feeble voices, my dwarfs."

"Mercy upon us, if thou art the G.o.d of this river," replied Atuix, "and if thou art not a G.o.d, then let a poor bard of Ogmius pa.s.s unmolested."

"O terrible giant, let us pa.s.s in the name of the great Hesus of Teutates, and of all the G.o.ds."

"Oh, thou dost jest, I think," said the giant in a ferocious tone. "I laugh at Hesus, seest thou? and at all thy G.o.ds!--and if thou hast seen them, is their stature no higher than yours, fine race of weaklings, of whom I could trample a whole army under my feet? Ah! thy G.o.ds, I should long ere this have taken them from their heaven for my evening's amus.e.m.e.nt on the lonely sh.o.r.e, or to make a repast of, if they were anything more than vain smoke!"

"Who, then, art thou," said Atuix, "thou who laughest at the G.o.ds?"

"Who am I?--Where is Antigon? Ah! thou wouldst dissemble with Antigon!--Yes, thou forgettest the tribute of oxen thou owest me for pa.s.sing on my river--thou didst think, favoured by the darkness, to deceive me, and now thou wouldst use thy childish tricks! Ah! Ah!" And the giant covered Atuix with his powerful hand before he could move a limb.

Frega, who had remained motionless with terror, threw herself on her knees in the boat. "Mercy, mercy upon Atuix," she exclaimed. "Oh! mercy!

what harm can our pa.s.sing this river do to thee, we feeble and without any evil intention, he loving me and I loving him? Mercy! Ah, heavens!

is there, then, no pity in thy soul?"

The giant interrupted with a terrible sneer: "Oh! my soul, sayst thou!

My soul! Where hast thou learnt that I have a soul? Who has ever seen a soul? Oh, I tell thee truly that there are neither souls nor G.o.ds, neither mind, nor anything but the body, and hunger!"

As he ended the giant pressed the hand of Atuix between his two iron fingers, the hand fell into the boat with the glaive it grasped. A terrible cry was heard accompanied by a ferocious laugh. The giant picked up the b.l.o.o.d.y hand and threw it into the river. Then, just as he was about to seize Frega, who had dropped senseless, Atuix freed from the frightful claws which pressed him, with the hand which was left him, picked up the fallen sword and plunged it to the hilt in the giant's arm. A howl of pain was repeated by the surrounding echoes.

The moon was just rising brilliant and pure from her bed of clouds, and her rays played on the waves, which were scarcely ruffled by the light breeze. The boat no longer detained floated adrift. A violent shock aroused Frega! She rose painfully on her knees and saw at some distance from her a horrible sight. The furious giant was crushing the body of Atuix between his hands. Frega dragged herself to the edge of the boat, her eyes fixed, her face ashy pale, she with difficulty stretched out her neck, tried to advance farther, as if under some invisible attraction; an instant she gazed, leaned forward, her eyes tearless, not a sigh from her bosom; then she loosened her hold and rolled over into the river.

A year after this night Caesar had put an end to Gaulish liberty. The strength, the courage and the heroic resistance of this great people whose ancestors had in one of their daring wanderings over Europe encamped on the ruins of Rome, was now crushed under the fortune and genius of the conqueror. By the glare of vast conflagrations, Belgium, the perpetual focus of revolt against oppression, was traversed by three Roman armies, and bridges thrown over the Scheldt opened the pa.s.sage to the country of the Menapians. One day a detached company of the legion of the vanguard followed the banks of the river, guided, it is said, by a mysterious being. Twice the sun had sunk to rest without their returning. German hors.e.m.e.n sent on their track towards the middle of the night were stopped at the sight of a strange spectacle. Raging flames agitated by the wind were devouring the foundations of a tower which had protected a castle of colossal proportions. The ground was lit by the glare of the fire and strewn with the dead bodies of the Roman soldiers.

In the midst of them, on a mound of the dead, was stretched motionless, covered with wounds, pierced all over by darts, the enormous body of a giant. From one of his huge arms, from which the hand was severed, ran on the ground a rivulet of black blood. Over his head bent a warrior.

After some moments of suspense the eyes of the giant opened. The warrior instantly raised himself, parting his long, flowing hair from off his pale and beautiful face. Then his eyes suddenly flashed with extraordinary brightness--he approached near to the monster's ear, shouting out these words:--

"Antigon! Antigon! I must call loudly, is it not true?--so that thine ear may catch the sound? Well, now listen to me, Antigon! Oh! thou art not quite dead, thou canst yet understand and remember! A year has elapsed since--truly, truly, thy wounds are ghastly and bleeding and sweet to look upon!--Yes, it was on a summer night, two lovers floated together on the river. Oh! thy den was not as bright as this night--Two lovers thou knowest!--two lovers who only spoke of love, their hearts filled with gentle thoughts. Look, look, how well one sees one's shadow here in thy blood.--One of the two lovers was a bard. Oh! oh! thy dying eyes flash! Thou didst kill him, and the other--But where are thy terrible hands, Antigon? The other, that feeble woman--Thou hearest me?

She lives to avenge him!"