off the temples, and mouths at once hard, meek, and humorous,
exactly reproduced the late mediaeval faces in Memling and Van Eyck.

But one afternoon, as it happened, my friend rose from under his little
tree, and pointing to a sort of toy train that was puffing smoke in one
corner of the clear square, suggested that we should go by it. We got
into the little train, which was meant really to take the peasants and
their vegetables to and fro from their fields beyond the town, and
the official came round to give us tickets. We asked him what place
we should get to if we paid fivepence. The Belgians are not a romantic
people, and he asked us (with a lamentable mixture of Flemish coarseness
and French rationalism) where we wanted to go.

We explained that we wanted to go to fairyland, and the only question
was whether we could get there for fivepence. At last, after a great
deal of international misunderstanding (for he spoke French in the
Flemish and we in the English manner), he told us that fivepence would
take us to a place which I have never seen written down, but which when
spoken sounded like the word "Waterloo" pronounced by an intoxicated
patriot; I think it was Waerlowe.

We clasped our hands and said it was the place we had been seeking from
boyhood, and when we had got there we descended with promptitude.

For a moment I had a horrible fear that it really was the field of
Waterloo; but I was comforted by remembering that it was in quite a
different part of Belgium. It was a cross-roads, with one cottage at the
corner, a perspective of tall trees like Hobbema's "Avenue," and beyond
only the infinite flat chess-board of the little fields. It was the
scene of peace and prosperity; but I must confess that my friend's first
action was to ask the man when there would be another train back to
Mechlin. The man stated that there would be a train back in exactly one
hour. We walked up the avenue, and when we were nearly half an hour's
walk away it began to rain.

.....

We arrived back at the cross-roads sodden and dripping, and, finding
the train waiting, climbed into it with some relief. The officer on
this train could speak nothing but Flemish, but he understood the name
Mechlin, and indicated that when we came to Mechlin Station he would put
us down, which, after the right interval of time, he did.

We got down, under a steady downpour, evidently on the edge of Mechlin,
though the features could not easily be r