A mile beyond the fishing village, as you follow the road that climbs
inland towards Tregarrick, the two tall hills to right and left of
the coombe diverge to make room for a third, set like a wedge in the
throat of the vale. Here the road branches into two, with a
sign-post at the angle; and between the sign-post and the grey scarp
of the hill there lies an acre of waste ground that the streams have
turned into a marsh. This is Loose-heels. Long before I learnt the
name's meaning, in the days when I trod the lower road with slate and
satchel, this spot was a favourite of mine--but chiefly in July, when
the monkey-flower was out, and the marsh aflame with it.
There was a spell in that yellow blossom with the wicked blood-red
spots, that held me its mere slave. Also the finest grew in
desperate places. So that, day after day, when July came round, my
mother would cry shame on my small-clothes, and my father take
exercise upon them; and all the month I went tingling. They were
pledged to "break me of it"; but they never did. Now they are dead,
and the flowers--the flowers last always, as Victor Hugo says.
When, after many years, I revisited the valley, the stream had
carried the seeds half a mile below Loose-heels, and painted its
banks with monkey-blossoms all the way. But the finest, I was glad
to see, still inhabited the marsh.
Now, it is rare to find this plant growing wild; for, in fact, it is
a garden flower. And its history here is connected with a bit of mud
wall, ruined and covered with mosses and ragwort, that still pushed
up from the swampy ground when I knew it, and had once been part of a
cottage. How a cottage came here, and how its inhabitants entered
and went out, are questions past guessing; for the marsh hemmed it in
on three sides, and the fourth is a slope of hill fit to break your
neck. But there was the wall, and here is the story.
One morning, near the close of the last century, a small child came
running down to the village with news that the cottage, which for ten
years had stood empty, was let; there was smoke coming out at the
chimney, and an outlandish lady walking in the garden. Being
catechised, he added that the lady wore bassomy bows in her cap, and
had accosted him in a heathen tongue that caused him to flee, fearing
worse things. This being told, two women, rulers of their homes,
sent their husbands up the valley to spy, who found the boy had
spoken truth.
Smoke was curling from the chimney, and in the garden the lady was
still moving about--a small yellow creature, with a wrinkled but
pleasant face, white curls, and piercing black eyes. She wore a
black gown, cut low in the neck, a white kerchief, and bassomy (or
purplish) bows in her cap as the child had stated. Just at present
she was busy with a spade, and showed an ankle passing neat for her
age, as she turned up the neglected mould. When the men plucked up
gallantry enough to offer their services, she smiled and thanked them
in broken English, but said that her small forces would serve.
So they went back to their wives; and their wives, recollecting that
the cottage formed part of the glebe, went off to inquire of Parson
Morth, "than whom," as the tablet to his memory relates, "none was
better to castigate the manners of the age." He was a burly,
hard-riding ruffian, and the tale of his great fight with Gipsy Ben
in Launceston streets is yet told on the countryside.
Parson Morth wanted to know if he couldn't let his cottage to an
invalid lady and her sister without consulting every wash-mouth in
the parish.
"Aw, so there's two!" said one of them, nodding her head. "But tell
us, Parson dear, ef 'tes fitty for two unmated women to come
trapesing down in a po'shay at dead o' night, when all modest flesh
be in their bed-gowns?"
Upon this the Parson's language became grossly indelicate, after the
fashion of those days. He closed his peroration by slamming the
front door on his visitors; and they went down the hill "blushing"
(as they said) "all over, at his intimate words."
So nothing more was known of the strangers. But it was noticed that
Parson Morth, when he passed the cottage on his way to meet or
market, would pull up his mare, and, if the outlandish lady were
working in the garden, would doff his hat respectfully.
"_Bon jour, Mamzelle Henriette_"--this was all the French the Parson
knew. And the lady would smile back and answer in English.
"Good-morning, Parson Morth."
"And Mamzelle Lucille?"
"Ah, just the same, my God! All the day stare--stare. If you had
known her before!--so be-eautiful, so gifted, _si bien elevee!_
It is an affliction: but I think she loves the flowers."
And the Parson rode on with a lump in his throat.
So two years passed, during which Mademoiselle Henriette tilled her
garden and turned it into a paradise. There were white roses on the
south wall, and in the beds mignonette and boy's-love, pansies,
carnations, gillyflowers, sweet-williams, and flaming great
hollyhocks; above all, the yellow monkey-blossoms that throve so well
in the marshy soil. And all that while no one had caught so much as
a glimpse of her sister, Lucille. Also how they lived was a marvel.
The outlandish lady bought neither fish, nor butcher's meat, nor
bread. To be sure, the Parson sent down a pint of milk every morning
from his dairy; the can was left at the garden-gate and fetched at
noon, when it was always found neatly scrubbed, with the price of the
milk inside. Besides, there was a plenty of vegetables in the
garden.
But this was not enough to avert the whisper of witchcraft. And one
day, when Parson Morth had ridden off to the wrestling matches at
Exeter, the blow fell.
Farmer Anthony of Carne--great-grandfather of the present farmer--had
been losing sheep. Now, not a man in the neighbourhood would own to
having stolen them; so what so easy to suspect as witchcraft? Who so
fatally open to suspicion as the two outlandish sisters? Men, wives,
and children formed a procession.
The month was July; and Mademoiselle Henriette was out in the garden,
a bunch of monkey-flowers in her hand, when they arrived. She turned
all white, and began to tremble like a leaf. But when the spokesman
stated the charge, there was another tale.
"It was an infamy. Steal! She would have them know that she and her
sister were of good West Indian family--_tres bien elevees._"
Then followed a torrent of epithets. They were _laches-poltrons_.
Why were they not fighting Bonaparte, instead of sending their wives
up to the cliffs, dressed in red cloaks, to scare him away, while
they bullied weak women?
They pushed past her. The cottage held two rooms on the ground
floor. In the kitchen, which they searched first, they found only
some garden-stuff and a few snails salted in a pan. There was a door
leading to the inner room, and the foremost had his hand on it, when
Mademoiselle Henriette rushed before him, and flung herself at his
feet. The yellow monkey-blossoms were scattered and trampled on the
floor.
"_Ah--non, non, messieurs! Je vous prie--Elle est si--si horrible!_"
They flung her down, and pushed on.
The invalid sister lay in an arm-chair with her back to the doorway,
a bunch of monkey-flowers beside her. As they burst in, she started,
laid both hands on the arms of her chair, and turned her face slowly
upon them.
She was a leper!
They gave one look at that featureless face, with the white scales
shining upon it, and ran back with their arms lifted before their
eyes. One woman screamed. Then a dead stillness fell on the place,
and the cottage was empty.
On the following Saturday Parson Morth walked down to the inn, just
ten minutes after stalling his mare. He strode into the tap-room in
his muddy boots, took two men by the neck, knocked their skulls
together, and then demanded to hear the truth.
"Very well," he said, on hearing the tale; "to-morrow I march every
man Jack of you up to the valley, if it's by the scruff of your
necks, and in the presence of both of those ladies--of _both_, mark
you--you shall kneel down and ask them to come to church. I don't
care if I empty the building. Your fathers (who were men, not curs)
built the south transept for those same poor souls, and cut a slice
in the chancel arch through which they might see the Host lifted.
That's where _you_ sit, Jim Trestrail, churchwarden; and by the Lord
Harry, they shall have your pew."
He marched them up the very next morning. He knocked, but no one
answered. After waiting a while, he put his shoulder against the
door, and forced it in.
There was no one in the kitchen. In the inner room one sister sat in
the arm-chair. It was Mademoiselle Henriette, cold and stiff.
Her dead hands were stained with earth.
At the back of the cottage they came on a freshly-formed mound, and
stuck on the top of it a piece of slate, such as children erect over
a thrush's grave.