On February 3, 1874, a platoon of volunteers from the 16th Infantry Battalion of the Carlist Catalan army en route from Hostalric to join the siege of Santa Coloma de Farners was held off by a hailstorm at the Mas Garbí. The masovers (farm tenants), though loyal to the republic, knew better than to deny them shelter. The troops ransacked the pantries and terrorized the women and children, except for an old woman by the hearth, clad in tattered robes and a cowl, whom they assumed to be deaf after she failed to shout viva el rey at gunpoint. The lieutenant soon lost interest on her and turned his attention to the farmer’s daughters, busying around to arrange the soldiers’ lodgings. As he watched the youngest flapping the linens it occurred to him, and so he expressed, that they might need a guide in the morrow should the storm smear the roads during the night. At that point the old woman, in fact a pilgrimess en route to the Eleven Shrines who also happened to be abusing the farmers’ hospitality, quickened up and whipped off her cowl. She was younger than her hands had hinted. In the most polite terms she informed the officer that she would gladly show them the way, but only if they departed at once, for she was under an oath and it was imperative that she reached the first shrine before midnight. When the lieutenant jeeringly directed her attention to the weather outside the window, he found himself pointing at rainbows and sterling skies. Some soldiers at that point might have grown uneasy and would have preferred not to tempt fate any further, but the woman, now a maiden to all appearances, flouncing about with much zip and zest, was already pepping them off their cots, tossing them their cloaks and berets, warning them that they would need to keep up, for she was a brisk walker. The lieutenant then famously said, “Perhaps you could serve as mule then, as well as our guide,” to which she replied, “I certainly can, if you are too weak to walk yourself.” That bit of snark right there was what sealed the outcome of the story. In high dudgeon, the lieutenant rallied to break camp at once and demanded a bullwhip and a harness to bridle the mouthy pilgrimess. Two baffled soldiers buckled the straps around the woman’s chest, gave the reins to their commander, and in this guise they marched outside. Birds basked in the syrupy sunlight, chirping in merry disbelief. In the middle of the threshing floor a black, twisted fig tree cried tears of icy dew. While the soldiers scrambled to formation, the bridled pilgrimess stopped by the fig tree, and pointing northwest toward the Vulpine Ridge where the Eleven Shrines are scattered she said, to nobody in particular, “I shall be there.” The lieutenant clutched the reins and flicked the bullwhip uncoiled. At that moment, the masover shoved his family back indoors to spare his children the sight. Inside, he noticed the lieutenant’s sable on the windowsill. He ran back to return it, and before he reached the door a thunder clapped and a blast of wind whacked him off his feet. The whole family scrammed outside: it was hailing again. On the threshing floor, three footprints led away from the center, yards apart, and the last one was several inches deep, and the stone was cracked around it like ripples on a pond. The soldiers at sixes and sevens pointed northwest at the solid stormcloud into which the woman had vanished, and their fingers followed the speck that was their lieutenant, loose reins whipping in the wind, plummeting into the roiling woods. After that the platoon disbanded in terror. The besiegers in Santa Coloma never received the reinforcements.
[Fragment from Heaven Park, chapter 3: "The Mas Garbí" (uncorrected)]
