Page:Georges Eekhoud - Escal Vigor, a novel.djvu/61

Rh with their breeches held up by rope in place of braces, and ending at the knees in a band adorned with thorns and dead leaves, filled the office of torch-bearers, for a tip of a few coppers. And under pretence of reviving the brightness of their light, but in reality for amusement, they would, every now and then, turn their lanterns upside down, and bespatter the ground with burning tongues of resin, to extinguish which they would then trample under foot, without fear of burning their bare soles that had become as hard as iron.

In honour of the Dykgrave, the St. Cecile guild played very old native tunes, which harmonised in an indescribable manner with the perfumed warmth of the evening. One of them especially, saddened Henry and astonished him in a delightful manner by a melody, plaintive as the ebb-tide, as the gust of wind on the heather, and the imitative sing-saws that the dikemen chaunt when driving piles in the river bed. These workingmen, or rather the heads of gangs, sing these monotonous refrains to put heart into their men as they toil. Each man harnessed to a rope, they simultaneously raise in the air the heavy ram, and then let