The Valley of Vision | Page 5

other, and making no more speed than a creeping snail's pace of
unutterable fatigue. I saw many separate things in the tide, and
remembered them without noting.
A boy straining to push a wheelbarrow with his pale mother in it, and
his two little sisters trudging at his side. A peasant with his two girls
driving their lean, dejected cows back to some unknown pasture. A
bony horse tugging at a wagon heaped high with bedding and
household gear, on top of which sat the wrinkled grandmother with the
tiniest baby in her arms, while the rest of the family stumbled
alongside--and the cat was curled up on the softest coverlet in the
wagon. Two panting dogs, with red tongues hanging out, and splayed
feet clawing the road, tugging a heavy-laden cart while the master
pushed behind and the woman pulled in the shafts. Strange, antique
vehicles crammed with passengers. Couples and groups and sometimes
larger companies of foot-travellers. Now and then a solitary man or
woman, old and shabby, bundle on back, eyes on the road, plodding
through the mud and the mist, under the high archway of yellowing
leaves.
[Illustration: All were fugitives, anxious to be gone, ... and making no
more speed than a creeping snail's pace of unutterable fatigue.]
All these distinct pictures I saw, yet it was all one vision--a vision of
humanity with its dumb companions in flight--infinitely slow, painful,
pitiful flight!
I saw no tears, I heard no cries of complaint. But beneath the numb and
patient haste on all those dazed faces I saw a question.
_"What have we done? Why has this thing come upon us and our
children?"_
Somewhere I heard a trumpet blown. The brazen spikes on the helmets
of a little troop of German soldiers flashed for an instant, far down the

sloppy road. Through the humid dusk came the dull, distant booming of
the unseen guns of conquest in Flanders.
That was the only answer.

A CITY OF REFUGE

In the dark autumn of 1914 the City sprang up almost in a night, as if
by enchantment.
It was white magic that called it into being--the deep, quiet, strong
impulse of compassion and protection that moved the motherly heart of
Holland when she saw the hundreds of thousands of Belgian fugitives
pouring out of their bleeding, ravaged land, and running, stumbling,
creeping on hands and knees, blindly, instinctively turning to her for
safety and help.
"Come to me," she said, like a good woman who holds out her arms
and spreads her knees to make a lap for tired and frightened children,
"come to me. I will take care of you. You shall be safe with me."
All doors were open. The little brick farmhouses and cottages with their
gayly painted window-shutters; the long rows of city houses with their
steep gables; the prim and placid country mansions set among their
high trees and formal flower-gardens--all kinds of dwellings, from the
poorest to the richest, welcomed these guests of sorrow and distress.
Many a humble family drained its savings-bank reservoir to keep the
stream of its hospitality flowing. Unused factories were turned into
barracks. Deserted summer hotels were filled up. Even empty
greenhouses were adapted to the need of human horticulture. All
Holland was enrolled, formally or informally, in a big _Comite voor
Belgische Slachtoffers._
But soon it was evident that the impromptu methods of generosity
could not meet the demands of the case. Private resources were
exhausted. Poor people could no longer feed and clothe their poorer
guests. Families were unhappily divided. In the huge flock of exiles
driven out by the cruel German Terror there were goats as well as sheep,
and some of them bewildered and shocked the orderly Dutch homes
where they were sheltered, by their nocturnal habits and negligible
morals. Something had to be done to bring order and system into the
chaos of brotherly love. Otherwise the neat Dutch mind which is so

close to the Dutch heart could not rest in its bed. This vast trouble
which the evil of German militarism had thrust upon a helpless folk
must be helped out by a wise touch of military organization, which is a
good thing even for the most peaceful people.
So it was that the City of Refuge (and others like it) grew up swiftly in
the wilderness.
It stands in the heathland that slopes and rolls from the wooded hills of
Gelderland to the southern shore of the Zuider Zee--a sandy country
overgrown with scrub-oaks and pines and heather--yet very healthy and
well drained, and not unfertile under cultivation. You may see that in
the little neighbor-village, where the trees arch over the streets, and the
kitchen-gardens prosper, and the shrubs and flowers bloom abundantly.
The small houses and