The mother followed, and, finding her husband dead,
plunged the knife in her own breast. The daughter, wondering why they
were away so long, went upstairs, and was so overcome with horror at
seeing the awful sight that she fell down on the floor in a fit from
which she never recovered!
The first difficulty we had to contend with on continuing our journey
was the inlet of the River Helford, but after a rough walk through a
rather lonely country we found a crossing-place at a place named Gweek,
at the head of the river, which we afterwards learned was the scene of
Hereward's Cornish adventures, described by Charles Kingsley in
_Hereward the last of the English_, published in 1866.
Here we again turned towards the sea, and presently arrived at Helston,
an ancient and decaying town supposed to have received its name from a
huge boulder which once formed the gate to the infernal regions, and was
dropped by Lucifer after a terrible conflict with the Archangel St.
Michael, in which the fiend was worsted by the saint. This stone was
still supposed to be seen by credulous visitors at the "Angel Inn," but
as we were not particularly interested in that angel, who, we inferred,
might have been an angel of darkness, or in a stone of such a doubtful
character, we did not go to the inn.
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