the moment the Benediction has been said, the whole congregation
rushes out to the meadow. The pilgrims stand in a circle near the
fountain, where they sing a quaint old country hymn.

In the meantime Hacco and his band gallop about outside the meadow;
but when the pilgrims have done singing, they enter it, and ride round
and round several times. Then the pilgrims go near the chapel, and a
short conversation is sung between them and Hacco, they imploring
mercy, and he abusing them for trespassing on his lands. At last Hacco
becomes impatient, draws his sword, and advances upon the pilgrims,
declaring in a voice of thunder that he is about to kill them.

At this point the spectators are expected to weep; but all of a
sudden the youngest pilgrim takes to his heels, and scampers away as
fast as ever he can. Hacco and the robbers run after him, scrambling
about among bushes and trees, as if they were playing at
hide-and-seek. The spectators laugh and clap their hands, and the
village children scream with delight. Hacco fires a pistol at the
runaway, but misses, on which everybody cheers. Then he fires again,
and the pilgrim tumbles down, and is killed with an arrow by one of
the robbers, who picks him up, throws him across the back of a horse
and brings him back to the meadow.

During this chase the other pilgrims have thrown themselves, as if in
despair, on the grass, where presently Hacco and his followers proceed
to kill them. But by this time all the actors are tired and thirsty;
so St. Evermaire and his friends rise up, and the whole company of
robbers and pilgrims walk off, and swill beer together for the rest of
the day. So ends the rustic pageant of Russon.

CHAPTER X

THE CARNIVAL

The week before Lent begins is called in Flanders _Duivelsweek_, which
means "The Devil's Week"; and on the Sunday, Monday, and Tuesday
before Ash Wednesday there is the Carnival, so called from the Latin
words _carni vale_ (which mean, as every school-boy knows, "farewell
to the flesh"), because during Lent good Catholics should abjure "the
world, the flesh, and the devil," and refrain from eating meat. In
Ghent the Monday of that week is called _Zotten-Maanday_, or Fools'
Monday, and all over Belgium the next day (Shrove Tuesday in England)
is called _Mardi Gras_--that is, Fat Tuesday--the day on which people
can eat and drink as much as they like before beginning to fast.

During the Carnival people go about the stree