160 A DOG OF FLANDERS.

over the Flemish dikes from the
northern seas were like waves of ice,
which froze every living thing they
touched. The interior of the im-
mense vault of stone in which they
were was even more bitterly chill
than the snow-covered plains with-
out. Now and then a bat moved
in the shadows; now and then a
gleam of light came on the ranks of
carven figures. Under the Rubens
they lay together quite still, and
soothed almost into a dreaming slum-
ber. by the numbing narcotic of the
cold.. Together they dreamed of the
old glad days when they had chased
each other through the flowering
grasses of the summer meadows, or
sat hidden in the tall bulrushes by