"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