It was that which attaches to the unlikely
and the queer. Once having plunged into a country road, away from
railways and hotels, he felt himself starting on a wild-goose chase. His
assurance waned in proportion as conditions grew stranger. In vain an
obliging chauffeur, accustomed to enlighten tourists as to the merits of
this highway, pointed out the fact that the dusty road along which they
sped had once--and not so many years ago--been the border of the bed of
the Seine, that the white cliffs towering above them on the left, and
edged along the top with verdure, marked the natural brink of the river,
and that the church so admirably placed on a hillside was the shrine of
a martyred maiden saint, whose body had come ashore here at Graville,
having been flung into the water at Harfleur. Davenant was deaf to these
interesting bits of information. He was blind, too. He was blind to the
noble sweep of the Seine between soft green hills. He was blind to the
craft on its bosom--steamers laden with the produce of orchard and the
farm for England; Norwegian brigantines, weird as _The Flying Dutchman_
in their black and white paint, carrying ice or lumber to Rouen;
fishing-boats with red or umber sails.
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