"There!" he said with a sigh of relief as he delivered the last of his cargo to a purchaser late in the afternoon; "that load is safe from the Germans, anyway."
"How did you find things up the Dyle?" asked the merchant who had bought the potatoes.
Father De Smet shook his head.
"Couldn't well be worse," he said. "I'm not going to risk another trip. The Germans are taking everything they can lay their hands on, and are destroying what they can't seize. I nearly lost this load, and my life into the bargain. If it hadn't been that, without knowing it, we stopped so near the Belgian line of trenches that they could fire on the German foragers who tried to take our cargo, I shouldn't have been here to tell this tale."
"God only knows what will become of Belgium if this state of things continues," groaned the merchant. "Food must come from somewhere or the people will starve."
"True enough," answered Father De Smet. "I believe I'll try a trip north through the back channels of the Scheldt and see what I can pick up."
"Don't give up, anyway," urged the merchant. "If you fellows go back on us, I don't know what we shall do. We depend on you to bring supplies from somewhere, and if you can't get them in Belgium, you'll have to go up into Holland."
Mother De Smet leaned over the boatrail and spoke to the two men who were standing on the dock.
"You'd better believe we'll not give up," she said. "We don't know the meaning of the word."
"Well," said the merchant sadly, "maybe you don't, but there are others who do. It takes a stout heart to have faith that God hasn't forgotten Belgium these days."