But now her violence was spent and she was a broken, weeping woman
as she sat all night by the bedside of her dead mother, holding the
cold hand, imprinting kisses on the dead face which was now that of
a saintly person with nothing of the reprobate in its lineaments.
* * * * *
The burial for various reasons had to take place in the Cemetery of
St. Josse-ten-Noode, near the shuddery National Shooting Range where
Edith Cavell and numerous Belgian patriots had recently been
executed. Minna von Stachelberg left her hospital, with some one
else in charge, and insisted on accompanying Vivie to the interment.
This might have been purely "laic"; not on account of any harsh
dislike to the religious ceremony on Vivie's part; only due to the
fact that she knew no priest or pastor. But there appeared at the
grave-side to make a very suitable and touching discourse and to
utter one or two heartfelt prayers, a Belgian Baptist minister, a
relation of Mme. Trouessart.
Waterloo left many curious things behind it. Not only a tea-shop or
two; but a Nonconformist nucleus, that intermarried, as Sergeant
Walker or Walcker had done, with Belgian women and left descendants
who in the third generation--and by inherent vigour, thrift,
matrimony and conversion--had built up quite a numerous
congregation, which even grew large enough and rich enough to
maintain a mission of its own in Congoland.
Pages:
400
401
402
403
404
405
406
407
408
409
410
411
412
413
414
415
416
417
418
419
420
421
422
423
424