Not a cab was to be seen, nor a gendarme; the wind was keen, the snow falling heavily, and, like 'Policeman X' and other guardians of the night, the gendarmes had betaken themselves to some cosy estaminet, or sought the hospitality of friendly kitchens and confiding cookmaids. Which way was she to turn? where seek aid or shelter? She closed her little hands in terror and dismay, and, while shuddering with cold, suddenly a chorus burst upon her ear, and, before she could think which way to turn, a dozen of great fellows in kepis, blouses, and sabots, fresh from some estaminet, surrounded her, with shouts and mockery. One put an arm round her and tried to kiss her, tearing away her veil; but endued with strength beyond herself, by the extremity of her terror, she dashed him back with both her hands. 'God help me!' she exclaimed. And hemming her in by a ring, they danced round her hand in hand, singing a song, which, as it was in Flemish and unknown to her, she supposed was something very ribald and horrible, yet it was only thus:-- 'Hark to the sound Of the fiddle and horn, The dance and the song-- 'Tis a festal morn. Oh! little they reck of dull care Or of sorrow; They laugh for the day Though they weep on the morrow.' 'Ouf!' shouted one, 'that would make a grand pendant to the _Zeike Jongeling_,' referring to Jan Van Beers, the greatest lyric poet of the day. 'Une blonde English mees--une nymphe--_parbleu_!' cried one fellow. '_Sommes-nous fantastiques! N'est-elle pas jolie_! ('Isn't she pretty!') cried another. '_Sur mon honneur, ma belle coquette!_' cried a third, making a clutch at her. Others shouted strange things in Flemish, showing that they were boors or artizans, redolent of garlic, beer, and tobacco; but with a gasping sob of terror she broke away from them and fled again. She heard the clatter of sabots behind her, as some started in pursuit; but she was too swift for them, and the sound soon died away in the distance. Along the dark and now silent streets she ran, close past the great doors of innumerable houses, as there are no areas or front garden plots in Antwerp, where the entrances open directly off the footpaths. Many a bell-handle and many a large knocker--lion's heads and bull's heads as large as life--were within her reach; but, fearing to be roughly or coarsely repulsed, she dared touch neither. She passed a church of vast height and colossal proportions--St. Jacques, though she knew it not--where Rubens lies under a slab of spotless white marble. There were few lamps in the streets in this quarter, and the oil lanterns before the Madonnas perched on stone brackets at the street corners, swung dimly and mournfully to and fro in the sleety and snowy wind. She felt an apparently mortal chill in her heart; her whole clothes were now soaked with sleet by her falling once or twice as she slipped.