The Tax-collector is resting here for a few hours on his way home. He
has brought with him his son, who looks dead tired with his twenty-mile
walk. The lad’s luggage has all been left behind. But Aywaille was too
near Liège to be safe. The Tax-collector will be glad to reach his
journey’s end.
“All day long yesterday I watched the German troops march through the
town,” he tells me. “It was pitiable to see those columns of splendidly
equipped men, simply dropping from fatigue. Some could scarcely put one
foot before the other.”
“They are our enemies.”
“My sister stood in the street for hours, refilling buckets of water
from which the exhausted men swilled their necks and arms. She cut them
tartine after tartine until all our bread was gone and she could hardly
stand herself.”
“They are probably going down to shoot the peasants’ fathers, sons and
brothers in Liège,” I remark coldly.
“From my sister’s point of view, they are suffering and they are men.
That is enough....”
Compassion is evidently a Belgian vice!
Even Madame Job is breaking out in an unexpected quarter. She is
satisfied for the moment as to Albert’s safety, so I am surprised to
find her this evening occupying her favourite position on the lowest
step of the kitchen stairs with her blue check apron over her head.
Spasmodic snuffles under the cotton screen warn me what to expect. I
gently pull down the covering and stroke her face.
“We shall win,” I say consolingly.
At this Madame breaks down completely.
“Win? The poor, poor Prussians will be killed, all killed. There was
one so young to-night, with eyes so sad.” (Snort and snuffle.) “Have
they not also wives and mothers who will mourn their loss?”