“On one condition.”
“Name it.”
“That the dean is released.”
The young count went to his father.
“The maiden has one request to make.”
“She shall have her request.”
So the dean was released and went back to Strasburg. The maid became the wife of the young count, but what became of the hen the chroniclers do not tell.
But the trench remains,—the Henne-Graben,—and all that is wanting to make the evidence of the story sure is to connect the hen with the trench, after four hundred years. This may not be hard; geologists make connections in like cases after the lapse of a thousand years. Do they not?