Told in gallant deeds

by Marie Belloc Lowndes

Or strip the bough whose mellow fruit bestrews

The ripening corn beneath it. As mine eyes

Turn from the fortified and threatening hill,

How sweet the prospect of yon watery glade,

With its grey rocks clustering in pensive shade,

That, shaped like old monastic turrets, rise

From the smooth meadow-ground serene and still!”

Terrible fighting took place over that “smooth meadow-ground,” and at last the fortress surrendered.

Now let me tell you something of a happy and inspiriting nature.

While Namur was falling, the gallant little French fortress of Longwy was holding out against the Germans, and that though it was what is now called a fortress of the second class.