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A Sanctuary of Trees
by
“You will be sorry for this, dumbhead,” growled the prince, scowling fiercely. “Yes,” added Ludra, with a hateful grin, “we shall meet again, dear landlord, and you will be sorry.”
Their host bowed and said nothing.
Some weeks later the princely automobile came to the door of the chateau. The forester brought up word that the Prince Barenberg and the Count Ludra were below with a message from headquarters; the commandant wished the baron to come there immediately; the automobile was sent to bring him. He made ready to go. His wife and his servant tried hard to dissuade him: it was late, almost dark, and very cold–not likely the commandant had sent for him–it might be all a trick of those officers–they were hateful men–they would play some cruel prank for revenge. But the old man was obstinate in his resolve; he must do what was required of him, he must not even run the risk of slighting the commandant’s wishes; after all, no great harm could come to him.
When he reached the steps he saw the count in the front seat, beside the chauffeur, grinning; and the prince’s harsh voice, made soft as possible, called from the shadowy interior of the car:
“Come in, baron. The general has sent for you in a hurry. We will take you like lightning. How fine your beeches look against the sky. What?”
The old man stepped into the dusky car. It rolled down the long aisle, between the smooth gray columns, beneath the fan-tracery of the low arches, out on to the stony highway. Thus the tree-lover was taken from his sanctuary.
He did not return the next day, nor the day after. His wife, tortured by anxiety, went to the district headquarters. The commandant was away. The aide could not enlighten her. There had been no message sent to the baron–that was certain. Major Barenberg and Captain Ludra had been transferred to another command. Unfortunately, nothing could be done except to report the case.
The brave woman was not broken by her anguish, but raised to the height of heroic devotion. She dedicated herself to the search for her husband. The faithful forester, convinced that his master had been killed, was like a slow, sure bloodhound on the track of the murderers. He got a trace of them in a neighboring village, where their car had been seen to pass at dusk on the fatal day. The officers were in it, but not the baron. The forester got a stronger scent of them in a wine-house, where their chauffeur had babbled mysteriously on the following day. The old woodsman followed the trail with inexhaustible patience.
“I shall bring the master’s body home,” he said to his mistress, “and God will use me to avenge his murder.”
A few weeks later he found his master’s corpse hidden in a hollow on the edge of the forest, half-covered with broken branches, rotting leaves, and melting snow. There were three bullets in the body. They had been fired at close range.
The widow’s heart, passing from the torture of uncertainty to the calm of settled grief, had still a sacred duty to live for. She had 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.