Much of this spectacle is grotesque, and even ludicrous; but there is also a great deal that is terribly real, for the penitents are not actors playing a part, but are all persons who have come to Furnes for the purpose of doing penance. They are disguised by the dark brown robes which cover them from head to foot, so that they can see their way only through the eyeholes in the hoods which hide their faces; but as they pass silently along, bending under the heavy crosses, or holding out before them scrolls bearing such words as, 'All they that see Me laugh Me to scorn,' 'They pierced My hands and My feet,' or, 'See if there be any sorrow like unto My sorrow,' there are glimpses of delicate white hands grasping the hard wood of the crosses, and of small, shapely feet bare in the mud. What sighs, what tears and vain regrets, what secret tragedies of passion, guilt, remorse, may not be concealed amongst the doleful company who tread their own Via Dolorosa on that pilgrimage of sorrow through the streets of Furnes! [Illustration: FURNES In St. Walburge's Church.] FOOTNOTES. [Footnote 20: 'Furnes était devenue un _oppidium_, aux termes d'une charte de 1183, qui avait à se défendre à la fois contre les incursions des étrangers et les attaques d'une population "indocile et cruelle," comme l'appelle l'Abbé de Saint Riquier Hariulf, toujours déchirée par les factions et toujours prête à la révolte.'--GILLIODTS VAN SEVEREN: _Recueil des Anciennes Coutumes de la Belgique_; _Quartier de Furnes_, vol. i., p. 28.] CHAPTER IX NIEUPORT--THE BATTLE OF THE DUNES On the morning of July 2, in the year 1600, two armies--Spaniards, under the Archduke Albert, and Dutchmen, under Prince Maurice of Nassau--stood face to face amongst the dunes near Nieuport, where the river Yser falls into the sea about ten miles west from Ostend.