As we returned in the exquisite summer night we kept passing the shadows of moving troops in the thin darkness. Three times we heard the sound of sabots and singing, where the peasants and children were gathered round the priests, under the trees, in supplicatory services to the Virgin. As a contrast, twice again during the rush home through the night there was a flash and report from a nervous sentry, and one bullet struck our car. The Belgian army lay along the line Diest, Tirlemont, Jodoigne, stretching towards Namur. The Headquarters were at Louvain. It covered Brussels, and at the same time anticipated a flanking movement on the north, by Hasselt. The main body occupied field trenches and forts protected by wire entanglements. It was continually harried by the countless bodies of roving Uhlans, and suffered considerably from the heat, as it lay unoccupied in the trenches. It had done magnificently in the forts; how would it do in the field? It was a time of waiting, of small distracting engagements. None of us knew where the real stroke would fall. I spent the next few days at Louvain and in various villages on the lines, visiting the wounded in the cottages and shelters. Thursday. Barricades and guards on every road. The country absolutely at peace. The peasants working at the crops. But "the Prussians"--for we do not speak of "Germans"--are pressing us on the north; they are threatening and breaking in on the south. The first menaces, but the second may compel our retreat on Antwerp. As we run out of Brussels down the shady avenues we are blocked by little mazes of tram-cars, dragged across the road. Further on, at every corner, crossing and hamlet, there are barriers of waggons, of driven logs or piled trees. From these the Civil Guard threaten with levelled guns. Dangerous citizens, in mediæval hats; they loose off on suspicion, and are as zealous as most amateurs. They will run on to a roof to shoot at an aeroplane 2,000 feet above them, regardless of damage that may be done by their falling bullets. Further from the town the uniforms get more patchy; a bowler hat with the colours of Belgium round it is one of the smartest insignia. In the hamlets we have the peasants in blouses; but with business-like rifles, readily handled. Good fellows; stern on their job; but, once satisfied, ready to laugh back and exchange news. And everywhere ubiquitous jolly children, scrambling about, even on the barriers behind the bayonets. A little blue monster, with a large bottle, hopped and chuckled with glee as a surly guard all but fired on us from mere boredom. We are racing down the line to Namur. Small engagements with Uhlans are of hourly occurrence to-day in the domestic-looking fields. The châteaux are deserted. Everyone has an anxious eye on the horizon.