Who has not heard the
howling of Tregeagle? When the storms come with all their strength from
the Atlantic, and hurl themselves upon the rocks about the Land's End,
the howls of this spirit are louder than the roaring of the wind."
In this land of legends, therefore, it is not surprising that the
raising of that extraordinary bank which blocks the end of the River
Cober, at what should be its outlet into the sea, should be ascribed to
Tregeagle. It appeared that he was an extremely wicked steward, who by
robbery and other worse crimes became very wealthy. In the first place
he was said to have murdered his sister, and to have been so cruel to
his wife and children that one by one they perished. But at length his
end came, and as he lay on his death-bed the thoughts of the people he
had murdered, starved, and plundered, and his remorseful conscience, so
haunted him, that he sent for the monks from a neighbouring monastery
and offered them all his wealth if they would save his soul from the
fiends. They accepted his offer, and both then and after he had been
buried in St. Breock's Church they sang chants and recited prayers
perpetually over his grave, by which means they kept back the demons
from his departing soul.
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