I have met her, o'er and o'er,
As I strolled alone apart,
By a lonely carrefour
In the forest's tangled heart,
Safe as any stag that bore
Imprint of the Emperor;
In the copse that round her grew
Tiptoe the straight saplings stood,
Peeped the wild boar's satyr brood,
Like an arrow clove the wood
The glad note of the cuckoo.
How I wished myself her friend!
(So she wished that I were more)
Jogging toward her journey's end
At Saint Jean au Bois before,
Where her father's acres fall
Just without the abbey wall;
By the cool well loiteringly
The shaggy Norman horses stray,
In the thatch the pigeons play,
And the forest round alway
Folds the hamlet, like a sea.
Far forgotten all the feud
In my New World's childhood haunts,
If my childhood she renewed
In this pleasant nook of France;
Might she make the blouse I wear,
Welcome then her homely fare
And her sensuous religion!
To the market we should ride,
In the Mass kneel side by side,
Might I warm, each eventide,
In my nest, my pretty pigeon.
THE DEAF MAN OF KENSINGTON.
A TALE OF AN OLD SUBURB.
* * * * *
CHAPTER I.
THE MURDER.
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