William Watson - Trevethlan - A Cornish Story. Volume 2

To her mother their presence was not equally agreeable. She was far from anxious for any such rencontre. She too well remembered the emotion displayed by Mildred at Mrs. Winston's. She learnt, with regret, that the orphans did not lead so absolutely sequestered a life as before their father's death; but availed themselves of the removal of the restriction which then confined their walks to the precincts of the castle and the sea coast, and made themselves in some measure acquainted with the wild scenery surrounding their native bay. She did not like the idea of being so near them, just at the time when Sinson's machinations were about to explode. And with a different interest she heard of the state of feeling manifested pretty openly by the tenantry of Trevethlan, and desired her protégé to come to Pendarrel as soon as he should be released from attendance on Mr. Truby. She wished to have more precise information of what passed in the castle and its dependent hamlet, and summoned her retainer to resume his original occupation.

Madron church-town, the mother of the thriving port of Penzance, is a small irregular hamlet, situated on an eminence overlooking its well-grown offspring, and the salt marshes which skirt the coast in the direction of Marazion. It is approached by a steep and winding road, but the prospect from the churchyard will well repay the labour of the way. And many a pilgrim, when he turns from the landscape spread beneath to the memorials at his feet, and feels the breeze from the sea breathe lightly over his cheek, will be mournfully reminded how many have sought a refuge on that genial shore from our English destroyer, beguiling themselves and those dear to them, with the hope of eluding his pursuit, but sinking, nevertheless, under his ruthless embrace; for on the tombstones round him the stranger will read of other strangers, from far distant places, with names unknown to Cornwall, once graced, he may imagine, with youth and beauty, of whose history it is there written that they "came to Penzance for the benefit of their health." Those simple words, repeated on every side, tell the melancholy end of many a romance.

Up the hill, on an early day in February, a trim country girl was climbing with a step that betokened some indecision of purpose. She was dressed in a dark blue frock, short and full in the skirt, and a red cloak of scanty dimensions, which hung over one shoulder and under the other arm. She was hot, and carried her bonnet, decked with some of the first primroses of the year, in her hand, while her black hair hung round a pair of bright eyes of the same colour, and cheeks always red, and now redder than usual. A very pretty rustic was Mercy Page.

It is some four miles from Marazion to Madron, and further still from Trevethlan; but that is not much for a Cornish maiden. Mercy had walked all the way. But she had not walked with the free quick step usual to her, nor did their wonted open smile play round her provoking lips. Her look was anxious, and her pace uncertain. And now that she was toiling up the hill, and perhaps approaching her destination, she not unfrequently stopped, and with her finger in the corner of her mouth, tried to scrutinize herself, while she seemed to be regarding the prospect. For Mercy had a kind of idea that she was on her way to do what was at least foolish, if not wrong, and she had always been a very good girl.

But with all this hesitation, she still advanced. She crossed Madron churchyard, and went out of her way to drop a flower on the grave of a cousin who lay there, making a longer pause on the occasion than any which had previously interrupted her walk. However, she proceeded at last, and soon turned aside from the main road by a tiny streamlet. She followed the rivulet's course, as it wound along beneath a bank covered in the summer with broom, gorse, and heather, from amidst which, here and there, a graceful silver birch flung its long tresses on the breeze, until she arrived at a sort of bay or inlet, where the trees grew more thickly, and in the very depth of which lay, still, silent, and dark, encircled by rude stone-work, a well of water, the source of the streamlet which had guided the maiden's steps—St. Madron's Well.

Mercy cast a sharp glance before her, and was glad to see that there was no person near the fountain. She went up to it herself, and bent over the mirror-like surface, and might see her image rising dimly to meet the salute. Could that limpid water tell a maiden's fortune? Was it conscious of the reflection of her features? Could it read their gentle lines, and foreshow by any ripple of its own, the destiny of her who looked upon it? And was such inquiry sanctioned by the saint who had blessed the fountain? Was it not profane so to forestall futurity? Such questions flitted vaguely through Mercy's bosom while she gazed into the tranquil well. An expression of awe stole over her face; and when, as she changed her position, a straggling briar which had caught her cloak twitched it, she started like a guilty thing, and turned suddenly with a flush on her cheeks and forehead, deeper even than that called forth by exercise. She did not smile on discovering the source of her alarm, but began to search among the pebbles of the brook for some smoother and rounder than common. Having collected two or three of this description, she returned to the fountain, and from trembling fingers, and with eyes half afraid to watch the result, dropped one of the stones into the water. There was a little splash, and then the circling wavelets grew larger and larger, and broke against the sides of the well, and a new ripple arose from each point of contact, and the undulations crossed one another in every direction, and became fainter and fainter, until the surface once more motionless, again presented the maiden with the semblance of her own pretty features, just as she saw them before the disturbance.

Was Mercy any the wiser? She drew a long breath, and murmured to herself, "he is not–" She had heard that if the well were unruffled, the oracle pronounced the person inquired of to be dead. The oracle, it may be presumed, was generally favourable to hope. But Mercy wished to learn much more than this; and those changing and intermingling ripples had to her been as hieroglyphics to the eyes of the profane. She dropped another of her pebbles into the well. Again the same sight, and the same disappointment. Vainly did Mercy try to shape the little waves into words, or letters, or symbols. She could not make out even a "yes" or a "no." Once more she tried the experiment, and becoming more enthusiastic, pressed the pebble to her lips before she let it fall.

Still it was all the same. The oracle was dumb. Mercy was inclined to revile St. Madron. She had grown excited; felt reconciled to the practice of the black art, and ventured on a step, which, when she started from home, she vowed to herself nothing should induce her to take.

There was a cottage, or rather a hovel, which the maiden had passed on her way to the well, and which she had shunned. The bank formed one of its sides, and it was hard to say where the ground ended and the dwelling began. The walls were built of rough stones, the interstices between them being filled with moss, which had accepted the employment willingly, and grown and flourished. The roof also was of turf, and thus the abode had a vegetable aspect, and looked like an unusually large clump of green, such as one sees often on a moist common, tempting one's foot to press it, or suggesting the idea of an unpleasantly soft pillow. This was the nest of Dame Gudhan, the self-constituted priestess of St. Madron's Well. She was a toothless, deformed, ugly old woman, who lived with her cat, which she had succeeded in training to poach, and bring the game it killed home to be cooked, instead of wasting it raw in the open field. Friend she had none but pussy, but she enjoyed a high reputation as a witch; and many a girl travelled many a mile to ascertain from Dame Gudhan the colour of her future's hair and eyes, and all his other good qualities.