All the communes lying close to the line, whose population had been decimated by general mobilization, were being re-peopled by English-speaking men and women, in billets and horselines, rest-camp and hospitals, aerodromes and manœuver grounds. Night after night she heard the winter darkness atremble with traffic on the road, and learned to know it as the sound of “caterpillars” (which she took to be the name of some new kind of road engine, and was not wrong) bringing up guns and yet more guns. This was interesting, comforting, profitable, there were no dull hours, no sense of danger, and plenty of money to be made. But it had an indirect effect which Madeleine saw clearly enough, if she did not trace the connection very closely. The more ships were torpedoed by German submarines, the fewer ships there were. The more English there were, the more ships were wanted. Therefore the still fewer ships to import foodstuffs. Therefore appeals from deputies, maires, publicists, parliamentarians of all sorts, praising, cajoling, inciting the “honest peasants” to grow more and more food. The greater waxed the importance of the question, the more the endless bargaining and speculating to which she and her father, instinctively prone, needed little encouragement. Jerome Vanderlynden and all his sort--all backed up by wives and daughters more or less like Madeleine--hung on to their produce for better and better prices. Subsidies had to be granted, taxes eased, bounties promised, facilities given. Then they would go on and grow some more--and then hang out again for greater and greater benefits. Beet, haricots, potatoes, wheat, barley, oats, all served their turn. Flax doubled in price, and doubled again. Hops were worth their weight in gold. Chicory had to be the object of special legislation. The farmers learned slowly, but surely. There was no brisk, open “business as usual” propaganda--and no need for it. The dour old men, and quiet, careful women and girls, were not likely to miss the opportunity. The atmosphere was right. If death and disaster come to-morrow--“gather ye rosebuds while ye may.” Gathering rosy thousand-franc notes is even better. And who would blame an old man with one son dead and one a prisoner, with his barn full of English soldiers who smoked pipes and set lighted candles among the straw as they wrote home, not to mention the ever-present possibility of shells--like all the farms Armentières way--or bombs--like all those toward St. Omer. * * * * *