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.
On it was scratched--
Ci-Git
Lucille,
Jadis si Belle;
Dont dix-neuf Jeunes Hommes, Planteurs de
Saint Domingue.
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