There is a story told of a gay Madam Trezillian, of Raftra, who outdid
all other ladies in the west country in the breadth of her hoops and
the height of her tete, as the tower of cushions, ribbons, lace, and
hair was called with which the heads of the dames were surmounted.
Against one St. Levan feast a barber was had out from Penzance to dress
the lady’s head-piece in the most approved mode of the town. It must be
understood that when the heads of these ancient belles were put en
grande toilette they were not taken down at night, often for weeks
together.
That these monstrous head-pieces might not be deranged, the bedsteads
were made a foot or two longer than the ordinary affair of the present
day. During the feasten week, having company to entertain all the time,
madam’s tete of course was not disturbed, nor for a week or two after,
when she was engaged in visiting, until she felt such a head-ache that
she was obliged to send for Dr. Maddron, from St. Just, that he might
see what ailed her noddle. Still the precious mass of wool, pomatum,
&c., remained undisturbed on the outside, when the doctor arrived, and
insisted on having it taken down and opened. Then they say that he
found a nest of mice had been littered in the greasy pads which raised
the lady’s hair, besides any quantity of fly-blows in their different
stages of growth. No doubt, the old mother mouse came every night to
nurse her interesting tender brood of young ones. Madam’s head was in
such a state that she was obliged to have it shaved. The hair was
carefully saved and made up into a false head-dress (one could hardly
call it a wig) against Madron-tide, when she came to pass the feast
with Squire Daniel at Alverton. The feasten eve, in walking through the
market house with Madam Daniel, the bows of her towering tete caught on
the crooks. Still, on she walked the whole length of the market, when
she discovered her loss by the uproar of laughter with which the lady’s
bald pate and her suspended head-dress were greeted by the butchers and
their boys, and by their wives as well.