The sight of the white-thorn trees
awakened painful recollections in his mind,--no doubt, perhaps, even a
pang of remorse; and he spurred his courser in order to get clear of the
place. But the animal trembled, snorted, and refused to move a step. He
spurred his courser: the animal began to neigh violently.
"Is it some serpent that he sees?" said the fine young lord.
It was a little old man, who stepped out from among the bushes. He was
dressed in a black mantle. Out he came, right into the middle of the
road, closed his arms on his breast, and said in a dull voice, "Baron
Durer, can you tell me what is the distance from a shepherd's hovel to a
king's palace?"
"That which there is betwixt the earth and the sun," was the reply of the
haughty upstart.
At this, the old man threw his cloak open, and showed himself to the
Minister, as he had shown himself twenty years before, on that very spot,
to the scholar John Durer. The Counsellor was little changed in
appearance, except in his hair, which had been black, and was now white
as the snow of winter.
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