With such shameful wrongs eating into their souls, these people were expected again to dismantle their homes, and help Germany to hold territory won by craft, while seeking an advantageous peace. No step back would the invaders take to spare millions of poor citizens driven daily from hearth and home. On the contrary, they hunted them forth like cattle, at the evacuation of each town, in order to loot their houses and shops. The sister of our cook and her husband were driven from Menin without being allowed time to safeguard their possessions. Scarcely had they issued from their abode, where, after years of effort, they had established a small business in clocks and jewellery, when a German van appeared at their door, and, in their very sight, carried away over five thousand francs-worth of hard-earned stock. The couple, with hundreds of others, were herded into a cattle-car so closely that they were obliged to stand, pressed one against another. They were carried on to a town near Ghent, and thence made to walk for four hours, in the night, and without food; crowded into another cattle-car, and distributed, destitute, over the country to subsist, as best they could, on the charity of others. One Belgian told me the following story without a quiver of voice or other show of feeling, save that the pain of it drove the colour from his face. He possessed a château at Aerschot and, having married during the war, was allowed to return to it with his bride during the second summer. He found the place greatly altered, for it had been occupied by German troops, and much damage had been done, especially in the park, where trees planted by his grandfathers had been ruthlessly felled. But sadder than all, he said, was the fact that many familiar faces had disappeared from the adjacent village. On making inquiries, he learned that all those missing had been shot as innocent examples in order to impress others with terror of German “frightfulness.” Though told this by the remaining villagers he could hardly believe it; for among the absent were old men, a priest, and one young boy whose mother had since died of a broken heart. But during the heat of summer he had a ghastly proof that the accounts were true. At a certain point near his park he noticed an appalling odour. After tracing it to a low mound, he had the place opened, and there discovered sixty of the absent villagers, shot, and buried in a heap, scarcely more than a foot under ground.