“Oh!” cried the damsels all, with peals of laughter, “See you not what the little cheat was after? A pretty basket she would fain receive, And made this poor boy in her love believe! The fairest maiden the whole country over Has chosen the barefoot Vincen for her lover!” So mocked they, till o’er each young countenance In turn there fell a dark and sidelong glance,-- Taven’s,--who cried, “A thousand curses fall Upon you, and the vampire seize you all! If the good Lord from heaven this way came, You girls, I think, would giggle all the same. “’Tis brave to laugh at this poor lad of osiers; But mark! the future may make strange disclosures, Poor though he be. Now hear the oracle! God in his house once wrought a miracle; And I can show the truth of what I say, For, lasses, it all happened in my day. “Once, in the wild woods of the Luberon, A shepherd kept his flock. His days were long; But when at last the same were well-nigh spent, And toward the grave his iron frame was bent, He sought the hermit of Saint Ouquèri, To make his last confession piously. “Alone, in the Vaumasco valley lost, His foot had never sacred threshold crost, Since he partook his first communion. Even his prayers were from his memory gone; But now he rose and left his cottage lowly, And came and bowed before the hermit holy. “‘With what sin chargest thou thyself, my brother?’ The solitary said. Replied the other, The aged man, ‘Once, long ago, I slew A little bird about my flock that flew,-- A cruel stone I flung its life to end: It was a wagtail, and the shepherds’ friend.’ “‘Is this a simple soul,’ the hermit thought, ‘Or is it an impostor?’ And he sought Right curiously to read the old man’s face Until, to solve the riddle, ‘Go,’ he says, ‘And hang thy shepherd’s cloak yon beam upon, And afterward I will absolve my son.’ “A single sunbeam through the chapel strayed; And there it was the priest the suppliant bade To hang his cloak! But the good soul arose, And drew it off with mien of all repose, And threw it upward. And it hung in sight Suspended on the slender shaft of light! “Then fell the hermit prostrate on the floor, ‘Oh, man of God!’ he cried, and he wept sore, ‘Let but the blessed hand these tears bedew, Fulfil the sacred office for us two! No sins of thine can I absolve, ’tis clear: Thou art the saint, and I the sinner here!’” Her story ended, the crone said no more; But all the laughter of the maids was o’er. Only Laureto dared one little joke: “This tells us ne’er to laugh at any cloak! Good may the beast be, although rough the hide; But, girls, methought young mistress I espied