A man, who had been long suffering from a lingering illness, was at last lying on his death-bed. His wife was unremitting in her attentions, and profuse in her expressions of sorrow at the thoughts of losing him. He did not doubt her affection for him, but ventured to hint at the probability of her looking out for a second husband before the first year of her widowhood should be expired. She warmly repudiated the bare possibility of such a thought entering her mind, and was ready to make a vow that she would never again enter into the married state.
“Well,” said the man mildly, “I ask no more than that you should promise me not to wed again while any blossom can be found on the furze.”
“Harbour, showing entrance to Cow Lane.”
She gladly made promise. The man died, but it is affirmed that the disconsolate widow, at the end of twelve months, had discovered by close observation, and to her great disappointment, that she had made a rash promise, and that there was not a day in the whole year when flowers might not be found on the prickly gorse.
Editor’s Note.
Other Editor’s notes on this subject will be found in [Appendix A].
In the Castel parish they tell another story based on the same proverb. Here is a house called Les Mourains, in that parish, belonging to the Ozannes. In the middle of the last century, a Mr. Ozanne married a young wife, who died after having given birth to two sons. On her death-bed she made her husband promise that he would never marry, “lorsqu’il y avait des fllieurs sur l’ jan.” He promised, but after her death he married again.
But the poor spirit had not found rest. The nurse, while she dressed and undressed the children, frequently saw her late mistress watching her. The other servants, when in the evenings they stood at the back door talking to their friends and acquaintances, heard the rustling of her silk dress along the passages.