People are leaving the village in ones and twos. It is pathetic to watch them come out of their houses, gently turn the key in the lock and then, with slow, sad step, walk quietly away along the high road, turning their backs for ever on their little world. They carry their most cherished possessions in a square cotton sack-bag of enormous check design slung from their shoulders. In their hands are little parcels or perhaps a straw basket packed with a medley of quaint treasures. Small, sturdy, brown-faced children run at their heels. The peasants visualise mentally the awful atrocities at Visé and tremble at the knowledge that many men have been shot in the surrounding countryside. They say to themselves, “What happens there will happen here to-morrow.” They are afraid. They leave. If they stay it will be in a famine-stricken, Uhlan-haunted country. As they go ... well, I hope they have somewhere to go to! As refugees they will earn the sympathy of all. But charity, compensation, re-instatement, will never make them amends for the loss of lands and relatives and the dreadful agony of mind they have endured. The lady of the _rosier_ has fled. The watering-can is thrown carelessly in a corner and the _rosier_ is already beginning to fade. The curtains are drawn and the doors locked at the red house opposite. The old maids of Manhay are suspected of planning a similar flight or their pig is very out-of-hand. He has been caught executing weird manœuvres in the street village, including the charging of ten tired Uhlans who coldly rebuffed him at the point of the lance. Stragglers have come in from the frontier on their way from here to nowhere. They have the weary, listless air of people who have lost all interest in their lives. They carry their possessions in a small brown parcel and have the inevitable children dragging behind them. One can only offer them food and drink (we have not too much to spare) and speed them on their way. Refugeeing seems in the air. I am amazed to find the house of Job-Lepouse, at least the feminine portion, is now thinking of retreat. I come upon Madame Job, the two little girls and Messieurs Alfred and Floribert, all busy packing things in the backyard. A huge _malle-poste_ with two horses is drawn up near the stables, a large, wide-mouthed washing-basket on the roof, lashed to the sides by stout cords, is being filled with an extraordinary medley of food, clothes, linen, books and articles of all kinds. Madame Job, ever tearful, informs me that they are leaving for a retired little farm in the country, near Esneux, where they will be away from this dreadful high road and comparatively safe. “You will come too, Mademoiselle?” she implores.