The Valley of Vision : a Book of Romance an Some Half Told Tales by Henry Van Dyke
page 46 of 207 (22%)
page 46 of 207 (22%)
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not forgotten her husband's dream. She went to the cardinal-archbishop
to beg the consecration of a little burial-plot at the foot of the greatest of the beeches of Azan. That wise and brave prince of the church consented with words of tender consolation, and promised his aid in the pursuit of the criminals. "Eminence," she said, weeping, "you are very good to me. God will reward you. He is just. He will repay. But my heart's desire is to follow my husband's dream." So the body of the old botanist was brought back to the shadow of the great beech-trees, and was buried there, like the bones of a martyr, within the sanctuary. Is this the end of the story? Who can say? It is written also, among the records of Belgium, that the faithful forester disappeared mysteriously a few weeks later. His body was found in the forest and laid near his master. Another record tells of the trial of Prince Barenberg and Count Ludra before a court martial, The count was sentenced to ten years of labor _on his own estate._ The death-sentence of the prince was commuted to imprisonment _in some unnamed place._ So far the story of German justice. But of the other kind of justice--the poetic, the Divine--the record is not yet complete. |
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