They bought it of a cousin of my old woman, an ancient man who had
lurked in a cellar during the whole of the bombardment. He said that all
Arras knew, in September, 1914, how the Kaiser had vowed to march into
the town in triumph, and how, when he found the place as hard to take
"as quicksilver is to grasp," he revenged himself by destroying its
best-beloved treasures. He must have rejoiced that July day of 1915,
when Wolff's Agency was able to announce at last, that the Abbey of St.
Waast and its museum were in flames!
As the gray car bumped on to Bethune, Vimy Ridge floated blue in the far
distance, to the right of the road, and Father Beckett and Brian took
off their hats to it. Still farther away, and out of sight lay Lens, in
German possession, but practically encircled by the British. The Old
Contemptible had been there, and described the town as having scarcely a
roof left, but being an "ant heap" of Boches, who swarm in underground
shelters bristling with machine guns. Between Lens and the road stood
the celebrated Colonne de Conde, showing where the prince won his great
victory over Spain; and farther on, within gun-sound distance though out
of sight, lay Loos, on the Canal de l'Haute Deule. Who thinks nowadays
of its powerful Cistercian Abbey, that dominated the country round? Who
thinks twice, when travelling this Appian Way which Germany has given
France, of any history which began or ended before the year 1914?
Bethune they found still existing as a town.
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