The little village of Willebroek lay peaceful beneath the early sun; the white houses with green shutters, painted fronts, and tiled roofs, the limes in the market-place just clouded with green, the church with the lead spire, the canal with the arched wooden bridge, up which the flat barges were slowly making way against the stream, all combined to make an image of plenty, ease, and prosperity.
William drew rein before the inn, where he was to meet the other seigneurs. He felt light-hearted; he looked up into the blue air; he smiled at a group of children who were going by with their hands full of the pearly blossoms of hawthorn.
The inn was an old building with a red tiled roof, rising, step by step, into a point under which was an alcove where a white figure of the Madonna stood against a blue and gold glory.
The green shutters were all laid back to disclose the clean shining windows; the door stood open, showing a long dark brick passage, and through another open door at the end a glimpse of a sunny garden with pigeons.
This garden spread either side the house and was filled with young fruit trees, the dark pink bloom of the peach mingling with the warm white of plum and pear.
In the windows of the inn stood glazed pots of a shining green and yellow, filled with gilliflowers and striped pink; a girl in a blue dress was hanging out linen on a box hedge beyond the fruit trees.
William noticed all these things with a great keenness; everything he saw, everything he did or said now was memorable, for all belonged to a portion of his life that would so soon be over.
He entered the modest house, and the awed innkeeper showed him into the parlour.
It was a low, spacious, cool room, full of the fragrance and sounds of the garden and shaded by a little beech tree, the fresh clear green leaves of which swept the leaded panes of the window.
The floor was smooth brick, the walls dark and polished, the ceiling beamed; on shelves and on the large bureau stood silver tankards, coloured pottery, and painted glasses shaped like bells and flowers.