Page:The Green Bag (1889–1914), Volume 15.pdf/276

 Trials of the Dead. investment, he did not need money and did not desire to sell. Bernheisel said he would make it to his interest to sell. The sale was finally consummated, Anderson receiving $15,000 for that which had cost him $1500 a few weeks before. He signed the following receipt: Received of Frederick Bernheisel fifteen thousand dollars in consideration of which I hereby bargain and sell to the said Bernheisel all my stock in the Central Banking an.' Trust Company, and all stock therein which I may hereafter acquire. For the same con

239

sideration I agree in the future to accept np retainer from anyone hostile or adverse in interest to said corporation and to pay the sum of $5000 to said corporation as liquidated damages in the event of my violation of this agreement. . HAMILTON ANDERSON. The trust company's officials were, of course, careful to keep this history quiet, and Anderson did not therefore suffer materially in reputation as the result of this first effort to retrieve his fortunes.

TRIALS OF THE DEAD. By R. VASHON ROGERS. «AYEZ! Oyez! Oyez! Thomas Becket, vr some time Archbishop of Canterbury, you are hereby summoned to appear before our Sovereign Lord, the King; at his Palace of Westminster, on the eleventh day of June now next ensuing, there to answer to the charges laid against you of treason, con tumacy and rebellion: and herein fail not at your peril. God save the King." With some such words as these did his rough voice ring through the lofty arches of Canterbury's grand cathedral and roll echoingly from aisles to choir, as the pursuivant from the King's Court stood before the shrine of St. Thomas still resplendent with precious jewels and refined gold,—the offer ings (in part) of sovereign princes who had knelt tremblingly and humble before the altar of that famous queller of tyrants,—his foot resting in the hollows worn in the stones by the knees of the millions who had prayed there "To the holy, blissful martyr That them hath holpen, when that they were seke."

The messenger, clad in the bizarre costume of his class, begrimed by the mud and dust of country roads, angered by the roughness of the journey, anxious to curry favor with a king whose frown was death, whose smile might be promotion, had come post haste from London, and making his way straight to the grand portal of the cathedral, loudly and defiantly knocking, demanded admission within the sacred precincts. The monks knew wherefore he had come, for already the determination of Henry VIII. to avenge his ancestor, the Second Henry, and to overawe any churchman who might think of opposing his ecclesiastical innovations was noised abroad: the aged Bishop Fisher and the good Sir Thomas More had been sent to that high court of justice where no traitors give false witness and no fawning sycophants sit on the bench. In solemn silence was the door thrown open; with the insolence of an official arriving from the capital, casting looks of contempt at the awed and cowering monks of the provincial city, with the irreverence of one whose religion veered and changed with that of the king, the haughty pursuivant