The Belgian Twins | Page 7

said to-night as we were talking in the road?"
"No," said his wife, "I was hurrying home to get supper."
"Maes said there are rumors of a German army on our frontier," said Father Van Hove.
His wife paused in front of him with her hands on her hips. "Who brought that story to town?" she demanded.
"Jules Verhulst," answered her husband.
"Jules Verhulst!" sniffed Mother Van Hove with disdain. "He knows more things that aren't so than any man in this village. I wouldn't believe anything on his say-so! Besides, the whole world knows that all the Powers have agreed that Belgium shall be neutral ground, and have bound themselves solemnly to protect that neutrality. I learned that in school, and so did you."
"Yes," sighed Father Van Hove. "I learned it too, and surely no nation can have anything against us! We have given no one cause for complaint that I know of."
"It's nonsense," said his wife with decision. "Belgium is safe enough so far as that goes, but one certainly has to work hard here just to make ends meet and get food for all the hungry mouths! They say it is different in America; there you work less and get more, and are farther away from meddlesome neighboring countries besides. I sometimes wish we had gone there with my sister. She and her husband started with no more than we have, and now they are rich--at least they were when I last heard from them; but that was a long time ago," she finished.
"Well," said Father Van Hove, as he stood up and knocked the ashes from his pipe, "it may be that they have more money and less work, but I've lived here in this spot ever since I was born, and my father before me. Somehow I feel I could never take root in any other soil. I'm content with things as they are."
"So am I, for the matter of that," said Mother Van Hove cheerfully, as she put Fidel outside and shut the door for the night. Then, taking the candle from the chimney-piece once more, she led the way to the inner room, where the twins were already soundly sleeping.
III
THE ALARM
THE ALARM
For some time the little village of Meer slept quietly in the moonlight. There was not a sound to break the stillness, except once when Mother Van Hove's old rooster caught a glimpse of the waning moon through the window of the chicken-house, and crowed lustily, thinking it was the sun. The other roosters of the village, wiser than he, made no response to his call, and in a moment he, too, returned to his interrupted slumbers. But though there was as yet no sound to tell of their approach, the moon looked down upon three horsemen galloping over the yellow ribbon of road from Malines toward the little village. Soon the sound of the horses' hoofs beating upon the hardened earth throbbed through the village itself, and Fidel sat up on the kitchen doorstep, pricked up his ears, and listened. He heard the hoof- beats and awakened the echoes with a sharp bark.
Mother Van Hove sat up in bed and listened; another dog barked, and another, and now she, too, heard the hoof-beats. Nearer they came, and nearer, and now she could hear a voice shouting. She shook her husband. "Wake up!" she whispered in his ear, "something is wrong! Fidel barks, and I hear strange noises about. Wake up!"
"Fidel is crazy," said Father Van Hove sleepily. "He thinks some weasel is after the chickens very likely. Fidel will attend to it. Go to sleep."
He sank back again upon his pillows, but his wife seized his arm and pulled him up.
"Listen!" she said. "Oh, listen! Weasels do not ride on horseback! There are hoof-beats on the road!"
"Some neighbor returning late from Malines," said Father Van Hove, yawning. "It does not concern us."
But his wife was already out of bed, and at the window. The horsemen were now plainly visible, riding like the wind, and as they whirled by the houses their shout thrilled through the quiet streets of the village: "Burghers, awake! Awake! Awake!"
Wide awake at last, Father Van Hove sprang out of bed and hastily began putting down his clothes. His wife was already nearly dressed, and had lighted a candle. Other lights sparkled from the windows of other houses. Suddenly the bell in the church-steeple began to ring wildly, as though it, too, were shaken with a sudden terror. "It must be a fire," said Father Van Hove.
Still fastening her clothing, his wife ran out of the door and looked about in every direction. "I see no fire," she said, "but the village street is full of people running to the square! Hurry! Hurry! We must take the children with us; they must not