Their days were filled with offices of the Church, with a little recreation in the small garden. When an extra holiday hour was allowed them for the time we were there, the first thing they did was to go in procession to the garden and fall upon their knees before the crucified Christ. That was evidently their idea of a holiday hour. The Flemish roads themselves were always interesting, even here where the country was so level. We passed an endless succession of wonderfully tilled fields in which the peasants were working with their primitive implements, and little red-roofed stone farmhouses with innumerable tow-headed children playing about them. I shall never forget how lovely were the apple trees about the farmhouses and in the orchards. They all had white blossoms, and while we missed the more varied pinks and mauves which we see at home, the effect was charming. Every now and then we would catch a glimpse of a château in its park, usually just beyond a lagoon and with a moat about it. We traversed the streets of the little towns, so quiet in spite of the factories that sometimes girdled them, and wondered how the people lived behind the quaint façades of their ancient houses. We stopped at the little village of Herzèle, on the road to Courtrai, to see its ruined tower, once the property of Count Egmont, in which he sustained a siege for six months. It was quite picturesque, built of slabs of rough gray stone. Its history reminded us of the great Flemish primitives, for its first owner was Jean de Roubaix, the friend of Jan van Eyck. [Illustration: COUNT EGMONT'S TOWER, HERZÈLE.] On another occasion we made a circuit of the now historic places in the neighbourhood of the Yser River. To be sure, they were historic enough then, but so remote from the lines of tourist travel that few realized what treasures they contained. Now, when nearly everything has been swept away, hordes of people are waiting eagerly for a chance to see even the ruins. At that time Dixmude had a population of about a thousand, although it was built for thirty thousand. Its deserted Grande Place was large enough to hold every man, woman and child in the place--and if they kept quiet I doubt if you would have noticed them! In the church was one of the finest altar screens in Europe. Because of repeated bombardments Dixmude is now completely off the map--church and all. I wonder what is left of the ancient windmill on its grassy hillock overlooking the town; it had been there since the Middle Ages.